Chapter 678: The Sirens and the Shipgirls – Those Things

"Antikesi, warship?" These two new terms left the shipgirls a bit puzzled.

Hai Lun Na smiled and said, "This is our term; in your terms, it's Sirens and shipgirls."

"Why do you call the Sirens Antikesi and refer to us as warships? There must be a story behind this," said Prince of Wales, intrigued.

"That's naturally our original term; Antikesi is their collective designation, and we were originally called warships," Hai Lun Na explained.

"If we're warships, does that mean we were actually transformed from warships?" Mikasa said doubtfully.

"Not you, but us." Hai Lun Na said, "This world was originally a numbered world, and you were all transformed from the Wisdom Cube."

"We come from the main world, having evolved from warships. So, in our world, we are the only ones—this is the fundamental difference between us and you."

"The only ones?" Enterprise and the others exclaimed in surprise.

"Yes, because we are the only ones, we belong to each faction, and following historical evolution, Iron Blood, Sakura Empire, and the Vichy Tribunal broke away from Azure Lane to become the Red Axis," Hai Lun Na said.

Qin Ge had a sudden realization, and Guanghui on the other side said, "So the Red Axis is what the commander meant by the Axis powers, right?"

"Exactly." Hai Lun Na nodded affirmatively.

"You also know about the Axis powers?" George V, standing nearby, realized the oversight and hurriedly asked.

Hai Lun Na glanced at Qin Ge beside her and said, "Actually, the history of your commander and that of the original world aren't that different; the most important dividing point lies in the research of the Tunguska explosion."

"The original world discovered the energy of the Cube at the site of the Tunguska explosion, which led to the subsequent events."

"Is this the same as what we found in those files?" Enterprise exclaimed in surprise.

"Exactly, the files you collected are about the original world, and surely those files were placed there by Antikesi for you to find," Hai Lun Na said.

"Why? Normally those files should be kept secret, so we wouldn't so easily obtain the true information," Mikasa asked from the side.

"So this is about Antikesi's purpose in establishing the test field." Hai Lun Na smiled and said, "Do you really think Antikesi's goal is to conquer the whole world and dominate its oceans?"

Qin Ge shook his head. "I don't think so; after all, given the power the Sirens have shown, wiping us out would be a breeze for them."

"Take this battle as an example; even without an Executor, the Sirens could inflict heavy losses on us using their most advanced Siren Fleet. If they kept doing this a few more times, wiping out all the shipgirls wouldn't be difficult."

"Hehe, Commander Qin Ge is indeed very clever. Indeed, Antikesi's goal is certainly not to destroy you, after all you were summoned by Antikesi from the Wisdom Cube." Hai Lun Na said in a tone that was anything but surprising.

"You mean the Sirens summoned us to destroy them?" All the shipgirls froze.

However, upon hearing this, Qin Ge seemed to suddenly understand, as if he had figured something out.

"It seems Commander Qin Ge has already figured out the connection, hasn't he?" Hai Lun Na smiled.

Qin Ge nodded. "I actually sensed something off earlier, but I couldn't pinpoint the root cause; however, after your explanation, I've thought of a few things."

"You've thought of some things, Qin Ge—spit it out," Prince of Wales urged urgently.

Qin Ge nodded. "First, this world did not first have shipgirls and then Sirens appear.

"Rather, the Sirens came first, then the shipgirls. In terms of chronological order, that's quite interesting. I originally thought it was like a story where shipgirls embody justice and appear to defeat the Sirens, but when I previously encountered the Observer, I realized I was wrong."

"Because the Observer said this is one of their experimental fields, and the whole world is such. So what are they experimenting on? She answered that question for me: collecting experimental data."

"I once pondered a question: if this world were a game, then its administrators would correspond to the Testers, and what would the shipgirls correspond to?"

"I thought about it for a long time and finally came up with a term: a bug, or an unstable factor."

"The Observers are there to test these unstable factors, or rather, they expect to cultivate these unstable factors."

"Although I still don't know why they want to cultivate these unstable factors, there is surely a larger scheme behind it."

"So the interesting part comes: in a game that's already running normally, how would a bug appear?"

"The only reason is that this bug might have been manually added. So who would add these bugs? Naturally, the game administrators."

"So I believe the appearance of shipgirls and the Sirens are necessarily related, including those warship design schematics the Sirens previously gave us, which makes the reason clearer."

"Moreover, as I understand it, many factions' current technology is obtained from the Sirens, including the original shipbuilding technology as well."

"Having said that, Qin Ge paused and said, 'This is my view; there might be omissions or logical gaps—what do you think?'"

"Unbelievable." A Furore looked at Qin Ge and said, "I never expected that after leaving the Academy for two years, you'd have grown to this extent."

"You actually met a Siren-type commander face to face before?" Prince of Wales said in astonishment.

"It seems even Elder Yixian underestimated you," Anshan also remarked.

"Hehe, what Commander Qin Ge said is basically correct, with some omissions—namely, you simply haven't learned the true situation yet."

"Do you remember what I told you earlier? Your so-called awakening and our awakening share the same name and some common points, but fundamentally they are two different things." Hai Lun Na smiled.

"Then may I know what your awakening means to us?" Prince of Wales asked eagerly.

"The awakening meme makes one truly become a warship, rather than a counterfeit object manufactured by the Sirens." Hai Lun Na explained.

"A counterfeit? You mean, in your eyes, those fallen shipgirls in the Siren Fleet are no different from us?" Mikasa questioned doubtfully.

"Essentially they are the same, but the difference is that you possess certain mental records, whereas they do not." Hai Lun Na explained.

"What a harsh answer." Prince of Wales said, somewhat shocked.