Chapter 1764 - 244 - Battle of the Great Ocean, Part 1 (8)

The Queen looked at me for a moment before turning her attention toward her daughter.

Serune seemed to have softened her attitude toward me considerably, especially considering that if I had come here without her, I had a feeling I would have been thrown out before I even got the chance to explain myself.

Actually, I was fairly certain I would have been lucky if I had even reached this far.

It was definitely a good thing that I came here together with Serune.

"Follow me," the Queen said.

The mermaids surrounding her immediately lowered their weapons, although they did not lower their guard in the slightest.

Their tridents were no longer pointed directly at me, but they remained close enough to their bodies that they could raise them again almost instantly.

It seemed that, as far as they were concerned, I was still a potential threat.

They were simply choosing not to attack me yet.

That was perfectly understandable.

I was technically a foreign monarch entering their kingdom during a period of growing tension, and I had arrived wearing a strange mechanical suit while accompanied by their missing princess.

From their perspective, that probably raised more questions than it answered.

Serune looked at me for a moment before giving me a small nod, silently telling me that everything was going to be fine and that I did not need to keep my guard raised so high.

I returned the nod before following the Queen.

As we moved farther into the underwater kingdom, I got a much closer look at the world beneath the ocean, and honestly, what a beautiful sight it was.

The deeper we went into the kingdom, the more impressive everything became.

At first glance, the entire place looked somewhat similar to a massive sunken city, but the longer I looked at it, the more I realized that it was not really like that at all.

Instead, it looked more like some kind of enormous coral-based civilization, except the corals were so massive that comparing them to ordinary coral almost felt ridiculous.

Some of them were larger than houses.

Others were so enormous that they could probably accommodate entire families inside them.

The structures twisted and branched outward in strange but beautiful patterns, creating pathways and chambers throughout the underwater kingdom.

There were not really any traditional buildings around us either.

Rather than constructing houses and other structures the way humans did on land, it seemed that the citizens of this kingdom actually lived inside and around those enormous corals.

The corals themselves were so gigantic that they practically served the same purpose as buildings.

It was somewhat similar to how fish lived among coral reefs, except in this case, the creatures living there happened to be mermaids instead.

I found that thought strangely amusing.

Humans built houses.

Mermaids apparently just found giant coral and decided that it was good enough.

Honestly, considering how massive some of these things were, I could not even argue with the logic.

The kingdom also seemed much more alive than a normal city.

Fish swam between the coral structures, small groups of mermaids moved through the different areas, and various aquatic creatures seemed to have made the entire place their home.

Everything was moving around us, yet somehow the kingdom did not feel chaotic.

It had its own rhythm.

After traveling for a while longer, we eventually entered some kind of enormous area that looked completely different from the surrounding coral structures.

It appeared to be an important establishment, judging by how much larger and more elaborate it was compared to everything else nearby.

The area was surrounded by enormous pillar-like corals that stretched upward and curved around the central structure, creating something that almost resembled the interior of a massive palace.

Toward the center was a huge seat that seemed to have been reserved specifically for someone important.

That person, I assumed, was the woman in front of me.

She was the Queen.

After a moment, she swam toward the throne and settled herself into it, looking down at me from her elevated position.

"Now then, I suppose this is a good enough place for us to discuss whatever it is you want to discuss, isn't that right?" she said, looking down at me with an intimidating expression.

She certainly had an intimidating aura around her.

Out of all the monarchs I had met so far, she was easily one of the most menacing.

There was something about the way she carried herself that made it obvious she was accustomed to being obeyed.

I suppose that was only natural considering that she was the monarch of a kingdom that controlled an enormous portion of the underwater world, practically occupying an area comparable to one-eighth of the planet.

That was still an enormous amount of territory and influence when I actually stopped to think about it.

A kingdom that large was not something I could casually ignore.

It was also the reason why I had come here personally instead of simply sending someone else to speak on my behalf.

"Let me introduce myself to you again, Your Highness," I said as I knelt down in front of her before properly introducing myself. "My name is Christopher Faust, and I am essentially the leader of the Three Kingdoms bordering the Great Ocean. It is good to finally make your acquaintance."

"You seem much less menacing than I expected," she said.

She tilted her head slightly while continuing to look down at me.

"As a monarch myself, I have always wondered what sort of person could possibly hold three kingdoms together at once. Seeing you now, however, I suppose I am a little disappointed that you did not turn out quite as impressive as I had heard."

"M-Mother..." Serune said, looking at her mother as if she had just said something rather rude.

I had to admit that the Queen was certainly straightforward.

There was not much room for misunderstanding when she spoke her mind like that.

Well, I could not exactly argue with what she had said.

I was not exactly trying to intimidate her, after all.

Besides, if I had walked in here and immediately started acting like some terrifying overlord, I probably would have made negotiations much harder than they needed to be.

"Anyway, what do you wish to discuss?" she asked.

Although she seemed to already have a pretty good idea of what I wanted to talk about, she still decided to ask me directly.

That was probably for the best.

This was not the kind of conversation where either of us could afford to make assumptions about what the other person wanted.

"Well, I would like the both of us to establish some form of cooperation and create an alliance," I told her.