"How could you see my room? Is there a projection or something?"
"No—there's a pane of glass between our two rooms. I could see yours through it."
"Glass?"
Yu Xinglan frowned. He couldn't sense any glass at all; his room had been pitch dark the whole time. "Is the glass on the side near the crate?"
"Hm? ...Yeah, that's right."
Watching him bend down by the glass-side wall, [GonnaGetRich] suddenly understood.
The glass partition between the two rooms didn't extend all the way to the floor—it was set into the wall like a window. From across the way, the stone wall beneath the glass was a blind spot, while the rest of the room was fully visible. Which meant the last stone's location was obvious.
Sure enough, the final stone lay on the ground near the crate. Once all three were placed in their corresponding statues, a white light teleported them out.
They were no longer indoors—they'd been moved to a wasteland outside the castle. Yu Xinglan looked around: no buildings within a hundred meters, nothing but sea grass swaying gently.
His night vision still hadn't recovered, but luckily a row of street lamps stood where they'd landed, easing his discomfort considerably.
What was odd was that the lamps weren't planted upright in the seabed but tilted at a forty-five-degree angle, their bases—reef rock—overgrown with moss-like plants of indeterminate age.
Yu Xinglan frowned. He'd always been sensitive to his surroundings. The bulbs were enormous, yet the light they gave off was feeble, barely illuminating a small patch around each lamp.
Was that lamp behind us there just now? he wondered. It wasn't bright—but it wasn't the kind of thing you'd overlook, either.
While he was thinking, [GonnaGetRich] had already swum up under one of the lamps. Apparently fascinated by the moss on the reef, he reached out to touch it.
Behind him, one of the "street lamps" was quietly creeping toward him.
"Look out!"
At the shout, [GonnaGetRich] ducked on pure reflex—bent down and plopped onto the ground, just barely dodging the pincer attack of the two "lamps" in front and behind.
At last the "street lamps" showed their true forms. Silt washed from their bodies by the seawater revealed them: rock-skinned, black from head to tail, moss-like growths writhing like insects across their hides, a lure glowing an eerie blue above their heads. A line of text floated in the air.
[Lanternfish, Lv. ??]
They were the little fish, lured by the glowing bait straight into a carefully laid trap.
Whether it was the Queen's twisted sense of humor or not, at that very moment a trial notice popped up before their eyes, with a helpful announcement ringing in their heads.
[Welcome to the trial's final stage. Good luck staying alive!]
Yu Xinglan had no attention to spare for anything else. He dodged a charging lanternfish, spun, and released his skill.
Chanting the hypnotic melody of a merfolk song, he hefted the trident once more.
Even with the skill's boost to his speed, he could barely keep up in the melee. A lanternfish grazed his arm, and his health bar ticked down ten points.
Then, abruptly, every lanternfish stopped moving, deliberately forming an encirclement to trap him.
Not good, Yu Xinglan thought, and thrust with everything he had at the nearest one.
The fish's belly was armored in rock too; the trident's tip left nothing but a white scratch on its hide. The blow accomplished absolutely nothing.
He didn't stop. Wheeling around, he gripped the shaft in both hands and raised the trident before him like a shield.
A lanternfish slammed headlong into it, and the impact knocked him back several meters.
No time to breathe—another one was wriggling in, a thin crack splitting open between its rock skin beneath the lure, a mouth crammed with row upon row of teeth.
The attack came fast and fierce. There was no dodging it; at the last instant, just as the jaws were closing, Yu Xinglan jammed the trident upright into the fish's mouth.
The tines punched through its upper jaw. Trying to bite down only wedged the shaft tighter, and the lanternfish could only thrash wildly.
The skill's duration ended and Yu Xinglan's chant stopped. The thrashing flung him bodily through the water. Weapon gone, health bar nearly empty, he lay limp on the sand.
He watched the lanternfish open its enormous mouth over him, and closed his eyes.
He wasn't afraid of death—least of all in a game.
The death he expected never came. He opened his eyes to find that every lanternfish that had surrounded him was now converging on [GonnaGetRich] instead.
Seeing Yu Xinglan overwhelmed, [GonnaGetRich] had hurled a rock at the school in desperation—and the fish really had taken the bait.
He hadn't expected aggro to come that easily, though; he'd frozen in place, too stunned to move.
And the school that had just swarmed over came drifting right back toward Yu Xinglan as he scrambled up.
Even [GonnaGetRich] could figure out something was off now. "Boss, these fish—"
"Mm. Don't move," Yu Xinglan replied.
These lanternfish had no hearing and no sight; they tracked prey purely by sensing the movement of water around them. [GonnaGetRich] hadn't moved a muscle since being told to look out—which was why the fish had attacked only Yu Xinglan at first, then turned toward the rock-thrower once Yu Xinglan lay still.
And they'd been misled from the very start: the trial had never asked them to kill a single fish!
From beginning to end, the announcement had said only one thing:
[Welcome to the trial's final stage. Good luck staying alive!]
It popped up precisely when they were panicking—to bury the real objective.
Survive.
Once both of them went still, the lanternfish lost their target, drifting aimlessly until they sank back into their pits.
The seabed returned to what it had been, as if it had all been an illusion.
[Trial Cleared!]
The system announcement popped up right on cue. Weak with relief, they were teleported back inside the castle.
From her throne, the Queen looked down at them and clapped her hands, satisfied. "My children have returned. Congratulations on completing the trial."
With a wave of her small hand, the rewards settled.
[System user knsjo and GonnaGetRich are the first to clear the dungeon 'The Merfolk Queen's Trial'!]
Ding-ding-ding—notifications rang nonstop across Yu Xinglan's view. Quest experience, hitting his account.
With the first-clear bonus on top, he shot up eight levels in a row—level eighteen now—and unlocked his second skill.
And in his inventory sat a new set of equipment: the Queen's Shadow Garment.
The moment he equipped it, his beginner's cloth shirt returned to his pack, replaced by a long black cloak edged in delicate embroidery, a musical-note brooch pinned at the breast—apparently the merfolk race's last proud stand on the matter of fashion.
"..."
Yu Xinglan was speechless. The cloak's stealth credentials were debatable, but the rest of its stats were nothing to sneeze at.
[Defense +10
Intelligence +10
Charisma +10]
Defense was a new stat, granting him a 100-point shield—effectively 100 extra HP.
His health now sat at 320, Intelligence 33, Charisma 44.
But why on earth did a black cloak add Charisma? Did putting it on make him better-looking or something?