Chapter 972 (1/2)

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation  Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

“Your collection?” Hao Ren was taken aback by Katreina’s words. “You mean the flotsam and random things you found in the ocean?”

“It’s not just that.” The Queen blinked. “There are quite a few surprises in them — what do you say, care to have a look?”

Before Hao Ren could say anything, Lily was already leaping excitedly towards them. “Yes, yes! Landlord, let’s go let’s go let’s go…”

Hao Ren had to push Lily’s head down to stop the werehusky’s shoving. He nodded at Katreina with interest. “If you don’t mind showing them to us outsiders — yes, we’d be delighted to see them.”

“It’s not a national secret or something.” Katreina smiled and turned around. “These items were thrown away by the humans of this world. We merely collect them. Come with me, the gallery is just around the corner.”

Hao Ren, Vivian and Lily followed behind the Queen of Sirens, walking past the lively square outside the palace and the city’s old defensive walls, which were still under construction. There were fewer and fewer sirens around them where they were heading, but more and more guards and siren soldiers in mantis shrimp form patrolling the area, all armed with tridents. Finally, they reached the entrance to what seemed like an entrance to an underground subway. The structure in front of them looked like a tunnel that emerged from underground at an angle. There was a heavy blackiron gate at the entrance, framed by sparkling water gems. A few heavily armed sentries patrolled about the gate. The festive atmosphere in the city did not reach this corner of Nasaton.

Hao Ren blinked. “Didn’t you say this isn’t some national secret…”

“It’s not, but the guards are still necessary.” The Queen waved at the sentries, who bowed respectfully at her and then proceeded to open the gate. “The humans on land may have forgotten about these things, but we still think of them as treasure.”

A string of bubbles blew out from the sides of the gate. Hidden gears creaked as the heavy door opened to the sides, revealing a dimly illuminated hallway. It seemed to lead to the deeper parts of Nasaton.

Katreina led the trio into the highly cherished “treasure room” of the sirens. When Hao Ren stepped inside the hallway, he immediately noticed the pipes crisscrossing along walls and ceiling. There was also some light coming through the gaps between the pipes. Katreina introduced the place. “This was a machinery room. We never knew what it was for. The machines were all broken, probably because the ship crash-landed here. After we cleared away all the machinery in here and patched a few holes, we repurposed it as a storage room.”

The hallway in front widened into a massive underground expansive.

“Ten thousand years ago, various odd trinkets and things fell into the ocean. The earliest things were left behind by Otherworldlings, but when the humans conquered the ocean, their things became the majority. There were so many things left behind in the ocean, and sirens are very curious in nature. When we went traveling, we like to bring back some of the more interesting things back with us. That’s how the ship anchors, torpedoes and propellers you saw in Nasaton came to be. As we gathered more and more things over time, we decided to throw away the less amusing things into the oceanic trenches, and keep the most interesting things here in the collection gallery.”

The huge underground space still had traces of its ancient days as a machinery room. The metal walls that extended from both sides still had pipes and holding clamps, but the machines were all removed, leaving behind a spacious room that was now littered with all kinds of weird things. Rows and rows of item racks filled the room, leaving three-meter spaces between them. Each rack had a striking label. Hao Ren stared. He was slowly realizing that this place probably had the richest collection of items in the planet — ten thousand years of worth of history, gathered from every corner of the ocean, including things from humans and Otherworldlings, all neatly stored and categorized!

Any historian or collector would have died from happiness if they saw this!

“This…” Hao Ren started, but the first thing he did was ask, “Err, why did you suddenly think of showing us this place?”

As Katreina had explained, this room of treasures was not exactly a national secret, but it did not look like it was open to public. Hao Ren had a good relationship with the sirens, but the Queen’s sudden invitation must have been spurred on by some reason.