Alien Knights

"The route is wrong."

The leader of the shark men, Yeager, followed Rita and swam eastward along the ocean current while asking strangely: "Where are we going?"

Rita turned around and said: "Most mermaids choose to locate their residences on the north shore of Waiheke Island. Now, the place I will take you to is our residence on the coast."

Jaeger was confused: "You, live on the coast? Give up on the ocean? The sea area, guarding, grazing, and food, what should you do?"

Rita replied: "Except for a few mermaid warriors who stay at the border and are responsible for reconnaissance work, there are very few people who are willing to live and graze in the mermaid waters."

Yeager said with contempt: "Mermaid, lazy."

Rita said nonchalantly: "You are right to say that we are lazy. Instead of grazing and planting, we have focused on trade and seafood."

"Trade? Seafood? I don't understand."

Rita swam her fish tail, looked at the distant coast, and said softly: "When you get to the gathering place of mermaids, you will naturally understand everything I said."

Yege glanced at the mermaid's back, closed his mouth, and stopped talking.

Half an hour later, Rita took Yeager to swim to the north shore of Waiheke Island, where the mermaid lives.

Coming out of the water and looking at the hundreds of exquisite stone buildings built on the shore, Yege opened his eyes wide and said in an incredible tone: "You guys live on land?!"

Rita did not answer Yeager's question, but raised her arm and waved towards the mermaid village.

"It's the patriarch, the patriarch is back!"

Amidst a burst of cheers, dozens of heavily armed mermaid warriors swam to the shore and pushed open the wooden gate similar to a sluice.

Passing through the strong and huge gate, Yege swam into a large waterway three meters deep and five meters wide, made of cement.

This long waterway leads all the way to the hinterland of the mermaid village, and branches out into countless small waterways leading to each house.

Just when Yege looked at everything in front of him in surprise, the mermaids in the village also discovered this uninvited guest.

The ugly and ferocious appearance of the shark man immediately caused commotion and panic among the mermaids.

The mermaid children were immediately taken home by their parents and locked in the door; the mermaid warriors picked up their weapons and shouted at Jaeger and his people.

Rita raised the trident in her hand high and hit the water hard. The splashing waves and loud noise made the mermaids in the village immediately calm down.

"Quiet!" Rita shouted. "I invite these neighbors to be my guests! No one is rude!"

Seeing the mermaids facing a formidable enemy, Jaeger shook his fins, bared his teeth, and said to Rita in a mocking tone: "Mermaids, cowardly."

Ignoring Jaeger's provocation, Rita continued to swim along the waterway in the village until she reached the largest building in the center of the village, and then she stopped.

Yege looked at the building built on the water and opened his mouth unconsciously.

This elegant and beautiful building is entirely white, with windows made of transparent crystal and door curtains made of pearl tassels.

In Jagana's limited memory, this building was comparable to the legendary temple of the ancient ocean god.

Two mermaid maids swam out of the room, opened the tassel curtain, and bent down to respectfully welcome Rita's arrival.

Rita handed the trident to the attendant behind her and said to Jaeger: "My neighbor, we are here, and this is my home."

"Your home, here?" Yeager's words were full of surprise. When he followed Rita into the building, the surprise completely turned into shock.

A wide round pond, similar to a swimming pool, is located in the center of the room. There are handrails and shallow pools around the round pond, allowing the mermaids in the water to climb to the floor of the room.

On the surrounding shores, there were specially customized sink sofas, blazing flame fireplaces, and beautiful exquisite harps. Looking around, Yeager began to feel that his eyes were not enough.

Rita swam to the marble sofa that was half submerged in the water and half built on the shore. She grabbed the armrests with both hands and turned over and lay down on it.

The smooth touch and cool temperature made Rita let out a sigh of contentment.

"Yager, do you remember those days in the past?"

Rita's question made Jaeger turn around and said doubtfully: "In the past?"

"I still clearly remember that eleven years ago, the volcanic eruption under the sea destroyed nearly 60% of the pastures of our two races. In the month after that, the mermaids and sharks experienced the worst experience since I was born. A severe famine."

"In the mermaid tribe, in order to save food rations for children and young adults, large numbers of old people spontaneously formed groups and left the tribe. From then on, they never came back." Rita took a glass of freshly squeezed juice from the maid and said While drinking, he said with emotion: "Among those people, there is my grandmother."

Turning her attention to Yeager, Rita continued: "I have even heard of such a tragic incident among the shark people. Due to lack of food, the parents of a family had to let their children draw lots, and the young shark who was chosen was Take them to the dark seabed far away from the group. In order to prevent these children from swimming back, the parents will even tie their tail fins to the rocks with seaweed, and leave cruelly regardless of their cries. I heard that you also used to..."

"Enough!" Yege slid his fin angrily and shouted loudly: "If you don't want to, listen! If you don't want to, say it!"

Rita looked at Jaeger's furious look and smiled.

She drank all the juice in her glass and whispered: "We are all idiots."

"What?"

"I say, we are all idiots!" Rita raised her voice: "Our tribe has believed in the ancient sea god Krakosh for generations, obeyed his orders, and avoided everything on the land. In the end, we are just like hair and blood. Like a wild beast, struggling to survive!"

Yeager opened his eyes wide, hit the water surface hard, and roared: "blasphemy, ancient god, guilty!"

Rita looked at Yeager with a look that was almost pity and said slowly: "Okay, let's not talk about gods, let's talk about the present. Look around, this is the life of mermaids now, what do you think? "

Yege looked around and said angrily: "Weird!"

Rita put down her cup and clapped her hands.

Soon, dozens of mermaid warriors carried heavy wooden boxes and slowly swam into the room along the waterway.

The wooden boxes were placed on the bank of the room one by one. Under Jaeger's puzzled gaze, Rita ordered the boxes to be opened.

Seafood sausages, each large wooden box is filled with large seafood sausages.

Looking at all this, Yege took a deep breath. Even though he was not good at arithmetic, he knew that the food here was enough to feed his people for a long time.

"25 wooden boxes and 7,500 seafood sausages. If you eat sparingly, it will be enough for two weeks of food rations."

Yege slowly climbed ashore, put his hand into the box, turned over the food excitedly, and said, "Food! Precious!"

Rita smiled and said: "Do you know what I got in exchange for so much rations?"

Yege raised his head with a confused look on his face: "What?"

Rita took out a small leather bag from her arms, opened the seal, and unfolded it flat. It was filled with pearls one or two centimeters wide.

"Creatures on land seem to be particularly interested in this kind of thing in the sea. They are willing to exchange their food rations for these pearls."

Yege glanced at the pearl and said disdainfully: "Bah! Trash! I have it, bigger and brighter!"

Rita poured the pearls into the palm of her hand and said with a smile: "A hundred of these pearls can be exchanged for the rations in front of you."

Yege froze there and did not move for a long time.

After a long time, he asked in an uncertain tone: "Trash? In exchange for rations?"

"It's absolutely true. 100 of these pearls can be exchanged for 25 boxes of rations."

After making sure that the other party was not joking, Yeager shook his fins and laughed happily: "Land, creatures, stupid!"

Rita laughed along with him: "Jege, let's cooperate. You and your people are responsible for collecting garbage in the sea. It doesn't have to be pearls, but coral, chalcedony, ore, gold, gems... these cannot be eaten. Anything you can get can be exchanged for food with those land people. And we mermaids are responsible for helping you sell garbage and transport food. What do you think?"

Yege lowered his head and thought for a while, then suddenly asked: "Why don't you go collect garbage?"

Rita shrugged: "You also know that the mermaid race is not a good fighting race. When facing predators and other threats on the seabed, there is no way for us to be as brave as the shark people. Therefore, compared to collecting, Merfolk are better suited to bargaining with land people.”

Yege nodded, agreeing with this statement.

Rita clapped her hands and smiled: "Since you agreed to my proposal, we should swear in the name of the ancient gods to formally conclude a cooperation agreement. As a sign of the mermaid clan's sincerity, we are willing to reluctantly give these 25 boxes of food to the sharks people."

Yege grabbed the wooden box with both hands, as if he was afraid that Rita would regret it, and said quickly: "Conclude, oath! Now! Immediately!"

Half an hour later, the mermaids who had concluded the oath of cooperation watched the shark man dragging the wooden box swim further and further away.

A mermaid maid swam to Rita's side and said with a smile: "This is great. We were all worried that no one would eat the sausages. Now someone finally helped us move them away."

Another maid then said, "It tasted pretty good at first, but then the more I ate, the more I ate it. Finally, no one wanted to touch it at all. I could only watch helplessly as the food passed its expiration date."

"Besides, the value of those 25 boxes of food is only 10 pearls. If those idiot shark people really exchange it for 100 pearls, we will make a lot of money!"

Listening to the discussions of the people around her, Rita said expressionlessly: "You idiots who only think about eating, drinking and having fun! Do you really think that your cooperation with the Shark People is just to make money?"

"Master Patriarch, is it possible there are other reasons?"

Rita turned her head, looked to the west through the window, and said slowly: "In a while, as the black plague spreads, more and more marine races will come to seek refuge with the Dragon God. Before that, , we need to find a reliable ally to deal with the next dispute."