It was a quiet night, one of those rare, undisturbed nights where the world seemed to pause in its spinning.
The moon hung high in the sky, pale and flawless, suspended like a lantern lit by the heavens themselves.
Stars sparkled faintly around it, scattered like frost over deep velvet.
Clouds drifted beneath, slow and steady, gliding across the open sky under the soft pull of the wind.
Everything above seemed perfect.
Nothing amiss either.
Then the scene pulled downward.
Beneath the lofty night, nestled in the outermost perimeter of the castle, was a wide water canal, an exit system, almost too mediocre in its plain design.
Metal bars lined the mouth of the channel, thick rods spaced just far enough apart to let debris, twigs, and the occasional stubborn shrub slide through.
It was a practical structure, never meant to be seen or admired.
Just something that worked.
The canal itself was built with a single purpose, designed to draw from a dormant spring beneath the castle's central chamber.
That spring fed everything: the castle's own needs, the paddy fields, and the entire town beyond.
Water flowed constantly, fed from a smooth crystalline bead in the chamber, trickling into the canal, then out through a network of pipes.
What remained flushed outward, cascading down the slope toward the land below.
Now, the perspective shifted again, deeper.
The entrance of the canal lay open in the dark, its width spanning several meters across and nearly two meters in depth.
The construction was solid and oddly simple.
Poured concrete curved cleanly along the edges, no cracks, no fault lines.
Moss crept over the stone. Mildew clung in the crevices.
A green fuzz had started growing along the bottom like a carpet. Life found a way, even here.
And tonight, something else did too.
A fish.
Medium-sized.
Strange, oddly too sentient for comfort.
Its scales shimmered with soft pink streaks traced between elegant white lines, its fins flared outward like feathered fans.
Almost like a lionfish. Or a salmon that had gone through a makeover.
And that peculiar fish… was Mize.
Of course it was Mize.
A being trapped in the body of what appeared to be an angry, sparkling koi.
"Alright," Mize muttered, his voice somehow echoing through the water despite the obvious lack of air, "Here we go."
His fish-lips never moved, but the words carried just the same.
Unnatural, unexplained, and entirely accepted without argument.
That's just how it was now.
With a flick of his tail, he darted forward, silent and smooth, body gliding effortlessly through the gloom like a streak of moonlight trapped beneath the surface.
The water wasn't disgusting, to his relief. It was clean. At least, clean enough. This wasn't sewage, at least, he really hoped it wasn't.
After all, the canal ran from the castle. It was a drinking water supply, a field irrigation source... surely not used to flush Liam's bathwater and piss into the paddy fields.
Right?
"…I don't know," Mize muttered to himself, grimacing.
Just thinking about it sent an uncomfortable chill crawling down his spine.
The once cool and pleasant flow of water suddenly felt like needles poking into his skin.
It was better not to think about it.
Just water.
Totally normal water.
He powered forward, tail sweeping in strong strokes, the occasional twitch of his dorsal fin keeping him perfectly level as he moved.
His eyes, one on each side of his fishy head, somehow still managed to focus forward.
Another mystery of this transformation he didn't care to unpack.
If it works, it works.
Miracles happened too often here ey?
Everything passed by in silence.
Weeds grew in hanging drapes from the ceiling of the canal, dancing lazily in the current.
Tiny fish no larger than a thumb darted between them in schools, bright eyes glimmering in the dark.
Their presence surprised Mize.
"…Is this canal connected to the pond out back?" he murmured.
That would explain the fish.
And if it was true, that would work perfectly for his plan.
If he could reach the pond behind the castle, then sneak close enough to his room… he might be able to teleport into his room.
Short distance teleportation might be doable.
That was the hope, anyway.
He pressed forward with a bit more energy now, tail swiping the water.
Minutes passed.
Five.
Ten.
Still nothing.
No sign of a bend. No change in structure. Just the endless dark tunnel ahead.
"How long is this stupid thing?" Mize grumbled, eyes narrowing. "Feels like I've been swimming for ten minutes already. Is this canal a hundred kilometers long?!"
Then suddenly, the environment changed.
Ahead of him, the smooth, uniform channel came to an abrupt end.
Mize squinted, what little light there had been before seemed to vanish entirely now.
He reached the edge… and his heart dropped.
The floor disappeared.
The walls opened.
The clean lines of the canal abruptly broke off into a void.
And what came next was a chamber.
A massive one.
The canal emptied into what looked like a giant, underwater abyss, silent and eternal darkness filled everywhere.
There was no floor.
No ceiling. Just a black, open expanse of water that stretched in all directions.
Mize froze.
His gills (which somehow he now possessed) felt tight.
"…Oh no."
A slow, frustrated hiss left his tiny fish mouth.
"It's a damn space formation, isn't it?"
That explained everything. Why it took so long.
Why he hadn't hit a wall or a bend yet. The canal wasn't just a canal, it was a huge space formation from the start.
He floated in place, tail fanning gently, staring into the dark abyss.
The silence pressed in.
He didn't like it.
Not one bit.
One thing that he hated the most is big space, especially those spaces that were too big for comfort.
"...Maybe camping out in the canal tonight isn't such a bad idea after all," he whispered nervously.
He slowly tilted upward, hoping to catch sight of a ceiling.
Something.
Anything.
But above? Just more darkness.
Pitch-black nothing.
His gut twisted.
He swallowed hard.
"Please let there be no scary things in here…"
His fins twitched.
He glanced left.
Then right.
No movement.
Just… void.
"Liam wouldn't have a weird hobby of raising a huge fish monster right?"
And now, the real question gnawed at his mind.
"Should I make myself bigger… or smaller?"
Larger size might give him power, but it would also make him a bigger target.
Smaller would be stealthier… but more fragile.
He didn't like either answer.
Especially in this body of water.
"…I hate this," Mize muttered, floating just at the edge of the abyss, the water still and silent around him.
For now, he stayed exactly where he was.
Half a fish.
Half a god.
All regret.
It took him several long, miserable minutes of whispering self-encouragement before he managed to even twitch forward.
His fins barely fluttered, his tail stiff as a board.
The moment he passed over the edge of the canal's stone lip and felt the abyss beneath his belly, the chill shot through his body like a spear.
If he'd been in human form, he would've bolted backward by now without a second thought.
Huff.
Huff.
"What the hell are you scared of, Mize?!"
His voice echoed in his mind, desperate, frustrated.
"You're a tier-three existence, goddamn it!"
"You are a goddess!"
And yet… every inch forward sent panic crawling across his scaled skin like a swarm of insects.
His whole body screamed with unease. It was like swimming through syrup made of dread.
With teeth clenched and tail dragging, he pushed onward, slow, agonizing strokes into the black.
There was nothing around him.
No landmarks. No walls. No reference points.
Only that endless void, and behind him, the fading circle of blue where the canal ended, like a cracked halo barely clinging to its glow.
That light shrank behind him with each cautious flick of his tail.
Until finally… he passed it.
And now there was nothing.
Just full, oppressive darkness pressing in from every direction.
"…Oooh good lord, why do you test me," Mize whispered hoarsely, gulping down his nerves.
He blinked.
Then, just to be safe, he mentally created a simple vision enhancement skill, crude night vision, something basic to help him see at least something.
The mental strength cost was low.
Easy.
The result… was disappointing.
"Ah! That's much... ugh. Nope. Not better," he grumbled as the darkness peeled back only slightly.
His vision stretched no more than a hundred meters out.
Beyond that, it was a curtain of pure black, untouched and unmoved by his presence.
Still, it was better than total blindness.
Liam. Seriously. What is this giant-ass space even for?
Mize wanted to scream.
He nearly did when the sheer scope of the space registered in his head.
It felt endless. A small underwater world that stretched like a drowned void beneath the castle.
His swimming slowed.
Not by choice, but by instinct.
He didn't want to draw attention to himself.
From what? He didn't know. He didn't want to know.
His mental strength reserves were running low, and any more flashy antics would only cut into his remaining buffer.
So he moved slowly, conservatively.
Each tail swipe was arduously slow.
Like an assassin sneaking through an enemy mansion but doing it as a fish.
And the worst part? It was quiet.
Deathly quiet.
No current.
No bubbles.
Just the distant beat of his own pulse thudding in his ears like war drums.
He didn't want to know what this space was for.
Truly.
His brain whispered things.
Maybe a storage vault?
A hidden reservoir?
A secret passage?
A giant underwater monster prison?
"Nope," Mize mumbled. "Not thinking about it. Not gonna think about it."
He swam.
One flick at a time.
Seconds passed. Minutes.
He lost track.
He refused to summon the time panel.
Yes, it was personalized. Only visible to him. But still, what if that tiny flash of light triggered something?
What if something saw it?
Nope. Nope. Nope.
Then, finally, salvation appeared.
Far ahead in the dark… a soft glow appeared like the gate of hope.
A round halo of gentle light shimmered ahead, like a door cracked open.
His heart leapt.
His gills nearly burst.
Mize practically exploded forward through the water, tail flailing behind him in pure desperation.
It was the most aggressive swimming he'd done all day.
Ten meters…
Five…
The water grew clearer.
Warmer.
The glow enveloped him.
His breath caught.
"F-Finally! An end to this?!"
He bolted straight into the canal exit without hesitation.
"Later, sucker!!" he yelled, because courage came easier after you'd already escaped.
He didn't look back.
Which was probably for the best.
Because if he had, he would've seen it.
In the dead of that submerged abyss… something stirred.
A ripple.
The kind of movement that didn't disturb the water so much as command it.
At the deepest, most buried point of the chamber… something opened its eyes.
Not glowing.
Not blinking.
Just… watching.
A single pair of golden eyes flared into existence.
They didn't narrow.
They didn't shift.
They simply locked onto the canal Mize had just darted through.
And just one eye alone… was massive.
Too massive.
Big enough to dwarf the castle. Too big to belong to anything natural.
Yet even that eye was only a speck within the full size of whatever was hidden in that vast chamber.
The rest of its body remained submerged in black. The scope of it, impossible to imagine.
'What is she doing here?'
'sighhh'
'troublesome girl'
....
Then, after a long moment… those eyes closed.
No sound.
No splash.
Just… gone.
Like it had never been awake to begin with.
And Mize?
He was already halfway down the new canal, blissfully unaware that he had just swum over something that should not exist.