The teapot-shaped building had three floors. The first thing that met the eye was the ground-floor hall.
A strange fragrance lingered in the hall, seemingly the scent of some plant. Even though Green was intimately familiar with the more than ten thousand Odor Atlas entries catalogued in the Wizard World, he could not accurately identify it. This was a scent beyond the Odor Atlas.
Splash, splash...
At the center of the hall was a pool, with an artificial rockery rising from its middle. Upon the rockery stood a two-meter-tall statue of a humanoid boy, a clear stream of water flowing endlessly from its lower body and splashing into the pool.
Croak, croak, croak!
A frog at the pool's edge puffed out its throat. The instant Green's eyes fell upon it, it plunged into the pool with a splash.
Simba strode over first, while Green's Face of Truth was filled with gravity. He had clearly detected no life here, so what was with that frog?
"Roar, Annihilation Wizard, look at these fish!"
Fish?
Within the black-and-white dots-and-lines structure of the Face of Truth, the pool was utterly empty. There was nothing there. Yet Simba obviously would not deceive him. Cautiously, Green stepped closer and looked into the pool. At once, his tricolored eyes widened and his body stiffened slightly.
There really were fish—more than twenty of them!
Each was roughly two meters long. Apart from that, they were no different from ordinary carp of the Wizard World. The bizarre part was that these fish possessed human mouths: red lips, incisors, canine teeth, molars, and pale pink gums. They blew bubbles across the surface.
"I wonder how these fish taste."
As Simba spoke, a lion paw scooped downward. Slap, slap—the bizarre fish struggled across the stone-brick floor, its tail flailing wildly and