Chapter 194 — The Great Adventure of Tyr the Sea Siren

"No, I mean it in good faith," Gao Yang said with great earnestness. "You know I had dealings with sirens seven hundred years ago—so you could say I'm an old acquaintance of your race, more or less. Your people helped me at sea back then, and now that a siren has come ashore, of course I ought to return the favor. I don't know how siren society works, but the human world is very complicated. There are a great many nations here with wildly different customs and cultures, and countless powers and races with utterly different ways of thinking. I can't be sure how humans in other lands would treat a siren—especially when you're not yet used to human society. It would be easy for you to draw their hostility."

Tyr considered this. "Hmm... you do have a point."

"I am the lord of this land. At least within the bounds of Cecil Territory, I can guarantee your safety—and I can keep your race and your origins a secret," Gao Yang said. "Of course, this is only an invitation. If you truly don't want to, you're free to leave at any time. Just remember to try not to sleep in wells from now on."

"Ah, walking on land is such a hassle," Tyr said, taking a couple of small steps on her legs. She seemed not to have heard Gao Yang's last few sentences at all, waving her hand lazily. "Anyway, I'm not leaving. I'll stay at your place. Say, do you have somewhere to sleep here?"

Though communicating with this fish was a bit of a trial, the goal seemed to have been achieved?

This siren possessed entirely new knowledge that Gao Yang did not have, and he wanted to keep her in the territory no matter what. As long as she was willing to stay, providing a comfortable place to live was no problem at all. Gao Yang broke into a smile at once. "Somewhere to sleep? Of course. If you have any requests, just say the word."

"Not many requests. Just sprinkle in some salt," Tyr said, waving her hand. "And you don't need to help change the water. I can purify it myself."

It took Gao Yang a good while to realize that what she wanted was a saltwater pit... A fish tank or a water basin would probably do as well, so long as it was big enough.

Gao Yang trusted that his authority would ensure his words were carried out thoroughly throughout the territory, but it was hard to say how much his authority would mean to this saltwater fish. To keep Tyr from doing anything astonishing that offended human sensibilities when no one was watching (such as suddenly sprouting her fish tail and picking a fight with a fisherman), he decided to put her up in the newly completed lord's residence.

He had not built a giant castle like those extravagant traditional nobles, but the new lord's residence was still a large building, full of empty rooms that had not yet been put to use. Setting aside one of them to house this siren was no trouble at all.

It so happened that Hedy and Rebecca had recently moved into a new home as well, so they simply had Tyr take up residence right next door to the two of them.