The rest of the patrol was uneventful, but the ascent in the diving bell was cheerful. Aidan popped open bottles of fresh fruit juice from the overhead compartments, Helena gawked and peppered Marisol with questions about the exact workings of her glaives, and Bruno smiled softly as he turned the small crank to pull them back up. If the Imperator siblings had any doubt Marisol was going to be of any use underwater, they didn't seem to doubt her a single bit now.

For her part, Marisol was still a bit light-headed. It wasn't Aidan chugging two bottles of juice at once or Helena poking the holes in her glaives that made her dizzy. Simply having spent two hours in Depth Two sapped all the strength from her, and the lingering pressure on her shoulders still made her body tremble slightly; this wasn't something she could get used to quickly.

[On the bright side, nobody was seriously hurt.]

Yeah.

[All of the commercial divers were safe and sound, the siblings got off with light injuries, you'll receive a share of the rewards equally distributed between the four of you, and you found a new use for your new tier four mutation.]

Did you already know 'Basic Discharge' could be used that way?

I was only planning on using it for speed. Never in a million years would I've thought about using the discharge as a ranged attack.

None of the siblings could see the Archive floating in front of her, pulling its front legs apart as though trying to shrug. [It is not exactly uncommon for aquatic bugs to have some form of active propulsion mutation. Furthermore, the last Water Strider Class user before you had managed to unlock the 'Basic Discharge' mutation, so the records of its potential applications were already in my database.]

But… a while back, I thought you said there were only a few Hasharana before me who were also offered the Water Strider Class.

[Correct.]

And even though some of them managed to survive long enough to unlock 'Basic Discharge', none of them ever figured out Charge Glaives was their Art?

[As far as I know—though certain information may be redacted for me—no. You are the first person to have reached one hundred percent biological compatibility with the Water Strider Class.]

She didn't know if she should feel proud or disappointed by that fact. On one hand, she'd blazed a new path for all future Water Strider Class users, but on the other hand, it meant nobody could help her figure out how to use her Art underwater without electrocuting herself.

… Oh, well.

Ain't like there ain't no charm in being the 'first ever' for something as grand as the Water Strider Class.

[Certainly. Being a daredevil has its advantages.]

Quick question, though: you said the only way to get an Altered Symbiotic System is by passing the super tough Hasharana Entrance Exam, right?

[The only normal way, yes.]

And the people who participate in this super tough exam typically already have normal systems and classes, right?

[Correct. Even though ninety-nine percent of participants already have classes by the time they enter the first stage of the exam, the fatality rate of the entire exam is still ninety-eight percent.]

How do they... uh... like, they already underwent the surgery to implant their normal systems into their necks, right? And they've probably already been using their class for a while, right? Then what happens if they—

[If they pass the exam and consume the Altered Symbiotic System, the altered system will devour the implant that is already in their necks, taking its place and allowing them to retain their mutations, attribute levels, points, and Art, while also giving them their own personal Archive. A less-specific class can be upgraded to an equivalent or more specific class of the same species—meaning, someone with a normal Ant Class or a more specific Fire Ant Class could be given a Bullet Ant Class if the Archive determines they are best fit for its mutations—but drastic class changes have never happened before. This is because the more mutations you unlock with a certain class, the more difficult it is for the Archive to remove those mutations and give you a completely new mutation tree without harming you during the mutation removal process. The Ant Class and Fire Ant Class mutation trees are not vastly different from the Bullet Ant Class mutation tree, but if you already have two moth wings, eyes, and antennae... removing those so we can give you a Beetle Class' mutation tree is not going to happen.]

So if you were always destined for the Water Strider Class since you were a child in all aspects—physically, biologically, bioarcanically, personally—but you were forced to receive a Moth Class because you had strict parents and unlocked all the way to your tier five mutations to undergo the Second Class Mutation Selection—

[Well, if you are able to pass the super tough ninety-eight-percent-fatality-rate exam with your Moth Class that you supposedly hate so much, can you really say the Moth Class is not destined for you as well?]

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

... Sucks for those people, though.

What if they just really, really, really wanted to skate on water?

[You are the only one who has ever thought that.]

Can't be true.

[Is.]

Isn't.

[Speed masochist.]

Not—

The diving bell rattled as they broke the surface, and the colour of sunlight streaming in through the latch window turned from pale blue to a harsh, warm orange. Marisol nearly lurched off her bench as her head immediately throbbed.

While Helena and Aidan hurried to swipe all the empty bottles in a bag under the small table, Bruno continued frowning out the window, muttering something under his breath as he turned the wheel to pop open the latch.

Marisol didn't hear much of anything afterwards, because the moment Bruno shoved the latch open to let in a wave of fresh, brine-scented air, she was assaulted with the blaring sirens of half a dozen armoured ships approaching them from afar.

Reina was waiting for them on the platform right outside the bell, and her face was ghostly white as she frantically rushed towards them.

… Victor's hands tightened on his walking cane as he stared down at the whirlpool from the top of Lighthouse Seven, watching the medics struggle to pull bloody Imperator initiates out of their diving bells.

It was sharp at noon, but he'd barely even touched his brunch an hour ago when the first incident report surfaced: an unnatural cluster of copepods appeared in Depth One and attacked a team of four initiates patrolling the area at the time, forcing them to end their patrol early. Soon after, three, four, five more diving bells surfaced earlier than usual. By noon, all in total, the diving logistic officers reported sixty-four initiates and commercial divers gravely wounded, all of them having barely escaped their attacks by the breadth of their hairs.

Chaos reigned below. The Imperators always had half a dozen medical ships on standby during the morning, afternoon, and nighttime patrol sessions in case any team needed to surface early due to injuries, but they didn't have enough ships to attend to sixteen diving bells at once. The result was apparent. Shouts and screams for volunteer medical aid from the upper city resounded across the whirlpool below, and for Victor's part, he could do nothing but watch as bloody initiates were yanked out of their diving bells and placed on stretchers, being ferried to shore as quickly as possible.

He wasn't alone atop Lighthouse Seven, of course. He had an old friend to commiserate with.

"Only the Imperator teams patrolling Depths One to Three were attacked," he murmured, glancing at the Imperatrix standing next to him as he did. "What do you see with that eye of yours, Andres? Think it ain't nothing but a coincidence?"

Andres scoffed, face hardening as one of the medical ships below waved a red flag up at them: the signal that someone had perished inside a diving bell. "As if this could've been anything but a coordinated attack. Corpsetaker is behind this. First, the Harbour Guards outside the city report Mutant-Classes are heading towards the city from all over, and now a third of our initiates are benched for at least a month?"

"What's our move?"

"No commercial diving company is to be allowed in the whirlpool for the next three days, and all morning, afternoon, and nighttime patrols in Depths One to Three are to be reinforced by at least one S-Rank Giant-Class Imperator for the next two months," he said firmly, glaring at the officer who just barged into the room behind them with more miserable reports to offer. "We're splitting our Depth Four to Six patrol forces in half. Tell the standby teams on afternoon and nighttime patrols to figure their allocations out by themselves."

The officer paused, saluted, and raced out of the room before he could even deliver his report. Victor sighed, pulling the brim of his feathered hat down.

"You don't want any of the initiates diving by themselves for the next two months?"

"It's the rational move to prevent bleeding out our young buds."

"And if half of the teams who are supposed to be patrolling Depths Four to Six aren't there, you could stand to lose the other half from another coordinated attack," Victor said plainly. "If anything jumps the weakened Depth Four to Six patrol teams, there won't ever be enough high-rank Imperators nearby to immediately reinforce them. You'll prioritise Depths One to Three over them?"

"The city cannot sustain itself if the commercial divers aren't allowed to harvest," Andres replied steadily, a small scowl on his iron face. "We protect the livelihood of our citizens first and foremost. Does a Flower Cape prioritise slaughtering bugs before safeguarding human lives?"

Victor threw the man a sardonic smile, though it was largely hidden behind his bandages. "We're the wandering bug-slayers. Nothing else. Nothing more. I'd leave you dead in a ditch if it means I can get a clean hit on Corpsetaker or any of his Leviathans."

Andres' expression didn't change. "Asshole."

"Bitch."

"This is why you never get invited to any of the annual Arcana Hasharana meetups. Enki and Zora still find you irritating."

"It's a compliment to have annoyed the great Worm God and the Thousand Tongue for over four decades." Victor shook his head, a smaller, genuine grin rising onto his face as he spotted a particular medical ship being pulled back to the bottom of Lighthouse Seven. "In any case, there are only three initiates and an acting Flower Cape who seem to have gotten out of their copepod attack relatively unharmed. Who do you think you have to thank for that, hm?"

The Imperatrix clicked his tongue, waving Victor away dismissively as he turned to leave the room.

"The reports claim the unnatural copepod hordes originated from somewhere within Depth Three," he said. "We'll have a few scouts investigate, and once we know where they're coming from, the three uninjured initiates plus your water strider girl will enter Depth Three to deal with the source of the copepods. Have Reina go with them to err on the side of caution. Reina alone can take down a low-rank Mutant-Class no problem, but I'd like to see what those initiates and your girl can do in Depth Three as well."

Victor looked over his shoulder, squinting at the Imperatrix. "It's too early for her to be down in Depth Three. She doesn't even have her sonar mutation unlocked yet, so she can't even speak underwater—"

"It'll be a while before the investigations wrap-up," Andres interrupted. "At the very least, she'll have enough time to join a few extermination missions and get enough points to unlock the sonar mutation."

Once the Imperatrix made up his mind, there wasn't going to be any arguing back—so Victor simply let the man leave as he continued surveilling the whirlpool, lips tightened in a thin line.

The day we let the girl dive on an actual mission, the copepods attack.

Was it fortunate we put her with a team of initiates so she could protect them, or was the 'plan' to injure all the other initiates so Andres will definitely send her down to Depth Three as part of an extermination force?

But the whirlpool, like the great blue, had a mind of its own, and no doubt the hermit king lurking in the abyss had something to do with the attacks.

… Which one of the four is it, Corpsetaker?

And how did you even know that weakling of a lass has an Altered Symbiotic System?

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