To some extent, things like mermaids, sirens, and sea monsters are far less terrifying to Liam White than the sea itself. As long as he falls into the ocean, nothing else is needed—the deep, dark water will choke his throat within minutes, steal his oxygen, and eventually suffocate him in the pitch-black, icy water. This kind of powerless death makes Liam White deeply averse; he has no right to struggle at all.

Unless absolutely necessary, Liam White will not approach the sea. His expression betrayed his aversion to this so-called gambling event. Andrew Carter laughed mockingly and brazenly: “Look, look, this is our young master. Besides money, what do you have that’s better than me? You don’t even dare to go out to sea.”

Liam White nodded with genuine pleasure: “I’m good for nothing except being rich.” But being rich was enough to make him feel satisfied—even if it was just virtual currency, he was still happy.

Andrew Carter: “……”

Why does this guy look like he’s just been praised?

Andrew Carter sneered, “So, are you saying you’re giving up on Lucy Carter by not going?”

Liam White was just about to come clean with Andrew Carter and say he didn’t want to join this suicidal event, when the coin on his chest vibrated and a mission prompt popped up:

[Side quest triggered: [True Love’s Ship]. Player Liam White, please complete the bet before leaving Siren Town. Win against Andrew Carter in the bet. Points reward: 100]

Liam White: “…..”

A hundred points as a reward?!

His desire for money instantly overcame his fear of water. Liam White answered calmly, “No, I’ll go. And I’m definitely going to beat you.”

Lucy Carter hugged Liam White emotionally: “Oh, darling, when you come back, we must live together and spend a wonderful night.” Her words were full of blatant innuendo, her hand sliding up between Liam White’s legs, and she even threw him a seductive wink.

Liam White quietly removed Lucy Carter’s hand, suddenly thinking of something.

…Wait, [True Love’s Ship] can’t possibly mean what he thinks it means, right? After he’s done making waves on the sea, does he have to come back and make waves in bed with Lucy Carter too…?

This kind of Western-style horror game often includes such scenarios—letting the male lead sleep with the female lead before the final terrifying ending arrives, as a kind of fan service. But as a game designer, Liam White always felt this kind of “benefit” was completely unappealing. The final rewards he gave were usually large sums of money or the like. Maybe that’s one reason his games always flopped.

Right now, he just wanted to politely refuse this kind of “benefit.”

…Not only did he have to risk falling into the sea, he also had to face the risk of being taken advantage of by Lucy Carter when he got back. This double loss made Liam White feel a stifling sense of being shortchanged. But Liam White didn’t dare to break character and say, Lucy Carter, let’s break up, I might never be able to satisfy you. That would probably lower the character’s trust in him.

He’d already learned his lesson—the driver’s trust in him had dropped before.

It was obvious these characters had a lot of hidden information. If he did anything to break character or made a mistake, Liam White could easily be rejected by these people and miss out on key information.

But does he really have to “set sail on the [True Love’s Ship]” with Lucy Carter?

Liam White fell into deep thought—forget it, he’d deal with it when the time came. After all, he didn’t succeed the first time, so failing the second time would be normal. Even if he could succeed, he could just pretend he couldn’t…

After cheerfully accepting his own impotence setting, Liam White looked at Lucy Carter with the gaze of a sister (not really), and found this girl much more pleasing to the eye.

The driver turned around: “You all should visit our museum during the day. The mermaid fishing event only happens at night.”

Everyone agreed, and the driver twisted and turned the car around the back of a beach. On that beach, Liam White saw many dried-up remains. The driver said this was where they fished for mermaids, and those remains were the broken mermaid corpses they’d hauled up. Some were so shattered they were just discarded on the sand, while the less broken ones were made into sculptures and wax figures and put in the museum.

Liam White did indeed see many huge fish tail bones and some eerily white human skulls scattered messily across the beach. Nearby, a few nets were drying. Some fishermen came out to tidy up the bones and nets, and looked up to meet Liam White and the others’ gaze. Liam White hadn’t noticed the townspeople’s appearance at night, but now in daylight…

These townspeople looked extremely strange, bearing an uncanny resemblance to the driver, but even more bizarre and inhuman.

Their sclera were unnaturally white—an opaque white—and their pupils were only the size of a soybean, wandering aimlessly in their sockets. The distance between their eyes was very wide, as if their eyes were growing on the sides of their faces near their ears, much like the catfish in Liam White’s memory.

There were also gray-black marble-like patterns around their eyes, spreading down to their necks. Their movements in the sunlight were extremely sluggish, and the tops of their feet rubbed repeatedly against the sand as if they were itching. If Liam White wasn’t mistaken, there seemed to be some green scales on their feet, half-shed and half-clinging.