Death Game: Starting as a Trickster, Pretending to Be a God

Lin Yu and April boarded the mermaids’ vessel.

Mermaids could breathe both underwater and in the air. Since they also got along well with humans and the Sea People, although their vessels were filled with seawater most of the time, they had partitioned cabins where the water could be drained and replaced with air. These served as temporary accommodations for guests who could not breathe underwater.

The vessels of the “Emergency Rescue Team” needed such spaces even more.

At that moment, Lin Yu and April had been settled in one of those cabins.

The vessel continued to descend, soon reaching a depth of several hundred meters, close to the seabed. Through the glass porthole, the two looked out at the magnificent deep-sea scenery: glowing coral, schools of fish, and many aquatic plants that looked like trees. It was strange and breathtaking.

Compared with Earth’s pitch-black ocean floor, the waters of the Pure Abyss had remarkably high visibility thanks to the abundance of glowing marine plants, and they looked beautiful too, with a lavish, extravagant kind of splendor.

“How is it, you two? The scenery in our Mermaid Kingdom is quite nice, isn’t it?”

Seeing the two of them gaze out the window, the mermaid who had specially accompanied them smiled and spoke.

Lin Yu nodded. “It certainly is.”

“How does it compare with the Central Sea?”

The mermaid asked again.

Lin Yu had never been to the Central Sea, so he could only bluff casually. “It’s every bit as good.”

“Haha, now you’re joking. How could we compare with the Central Sea?” The mermaid spoke with some wistfulness. “Still, aside from the Central Sea, we really are among the very best. Give me your honest opinion, how much of the Central Sea’s splendor do we have?”

“Maybe thirty percent?”

After consulting Hannah, Lin Yu gave a conservative estimate.

The mermaid was delighted. “It’s really that much? That’s wonderful!”

After all, the Central Sea was a sacred place blessed by the gods, located at the very heart of the Pure Abyss.

But, like the ruins of the Lost Kingdom, the Central Sea was one of the most famous and coveted places in the entire Pure Abyss.

Though it was not as mysterious as the Lost Kingdom, it was still somewhere not just anyone could visit. The most violent storm currents surrounded it, and the “Eternal Wall,” capable of shredding any ship or sea-dweller’s body, barred the way. Only races blessed by the gods and a tiny number of lucky people on good terms with the Central Sea’s powerful figures were allowed to enter by way of the closely guarded sea route.

That was also why the mermaids had treated Lin Yu with such solemn respect when they heard he came from the Central Sea, and had shown considerably more respect to April for being able to hire him as a “bodyguard.” Even having visited just once made him an extraordinary person.

Legend had it that the Central Sea’s water was crystal clear and sweet to drink, its seabed carpeted with fine glassy golden sand, and its sea-dwellers all grew to more than ten meters long. What was more, supposedly at the very center of the Central Sea stood a path reaching up to the banquet hall where the Supreme God of the Pure Abyss held feasts.

That was why the mermaid had not suspected that Lin Yu was just making things up.

In the Pure Abyss, no one dared joke about the Central Sea. Doing so would invite divine punishment!

Lin Yu had never been there, of course, but Hannah had.

Although this mermaid was the captain of the Emergency Rescue Team and could be considered an official of sorts, his bloodline did not seem particularly noble.

Shen Bingmiao’s files contained a little tutorial on how to tell mermaids apart.

The mermaids had a very strict bloodline hierarchy. The simplest way to distinguish their rank was by the color of the tail on their lower half.

The purer the color, the purer the bloodline. Among mermaids with solid-colored tails, the closer the color was to gold, the nobler their lineage.

The mermaid captain before them had a mottled tail, so he was probably the lowest of the low among the Commoners.

Of course...

Not many mermaid Nobles were willing to take on a thankless job like working for the Emergency Rescue Team.

After all, it meant sailing all over the place.

“Since you’re going to the Tide Summoning Festival, are you planning to take the Lucky Golden Dragon to our ‘Baobol’ and use the teleportation node?”

The mermaid asked. Lin Yu nodded.

“That’s right. That’s what we plan to do.”

Although Lin Yu had only just learned that this place was the Mermaid Kingdom’s second-largest city, “Baobol,” he calmly agreed, as if that really had been his plan all along.

After all... this dungeon had probably been designed to go that way in the first place.

This year’s Tide Summoning Festival would hold its main celebration in the territory of the Sea Demon Kingdom.

As humans, they would surely face many dangers on the way if they headed straight for the Sea Demon Kingdom. They had already been attacked by Sea Demons within the Mermaid Kingdom. Going straight there would be unthinkable.

Although the various races were not openly at war, if Sea Demons and humans met in an uninhabited stretch of open sea, there was practically no possible outcome other than one side dying.

But...

The importance of the Tide Summoning Festival far outweighed the grudges and friction between the races.

It was a festival shared by the eight major races of the Pure Abyss. Held only once a year, it rotated its main celebration among the capital cities of the kingdoms of the Sirens, Naga, Sea Demons, mermaids, and Fish People. The eight races gathered for peaceful trade and exchange, and held a week-long, nonstop feast. Each race had to offer its finest food and wine to welcome guests from the others.

It was something like a Pure Abyss version of the World Expo, with food at its heart.

So during the festival, the other kingdoms would each select and open one of the two-way teleportation arrays left behind from the past, making it easier for everyone to reach the main celebration.

This time, the Mermaid Kingdom had naturally chosen Baobol. Cities like Baobol could also be called branch venues.

That was probably why the Sea Demons had risked attacking the Lucky Golden Dragon near Baobol, within the territory of the Mermaid Kingdom.

After all, once the human merchant ship reached Baobol in the Mermaid Kingdom, completed the necessary procedures, and legally entered the Sea Demon capital, if they attacked then... the entire Sea Demon Kingdom and its people would be spurned by the gods and the sea. They might even be reduced to mindless sea-dwellers and become food for the other races.

Although the Sea Demons in power were mostly moderates, and hostile toward humans and the Sea People, they were not so utterly ruthless.

But in the eyes of many hardline Sea Demons, the fewer humans who could enter their capital to profit and trade during the Tide Summoning Festival, the better!

Now that Lin Yu and April had joined up with the mermaids, they were “absolutely safe.”

Hearing the mermaid captain take the initiative to ask, April thought for a moment and replied, “Then, are you planning to go to the Sea Demon capital?”

At her question, the mermaid captain gave a slight shake of his head. “How could I? During the Tide Summoning Festival, the Emergency Rescue Team will definitely be working overtime and on duty the whole time!”