“Of course!”
Ophelia blurted out.
She glanced at the sailors busy washing the deck not far away.
Then, she lowered her voice and said:
“Need you even ask?”
“Have you thought of a way?”
Elias looked at her excited face and didn't answer immediately.
He fumbled around in his coat pocket.
With a casual toss, he threw a stone toward her.
Startled, Ophelia scrambled to catch it in the air.
She looked down, staring at the plain gray stone in her palm.
It was slightly rounder than a pebble on a beach, with a few barely noticeable, faint lines carved on its surface.
“What is this?”
Elias calmly uttered three words:
“A camera.”
“A camera?!”
Ophelia was completely bewildered, staring in confusion at the gray stone in her hand.
“That’s right.”
“It’s a camera.”
“To be precise, a three-dimensional camera.”
Even more astonished, Ophelia turned the gray stone over and over in her hand, examining it.
Although she didn’t understand the concept of “three-dimensional,”
when she thought of the various bizarre things she had experienced over the past few days,
the existence of a stone that could take pictures seemed to align perfectly with the base logic of mysticism.
Ophelia forced herself to accept it.
“So how do I use it?”
“You don’t need to do anything.”
Elias shrugged.
“Place this stone on the ground in the area you want to capture.”
“When the time comes, I’ll activate it.”
“It will record the images within a dozen meters or so.”
“Once you safely return to Hastings Port, you can choose to recreate the previous scene in a completely sealed room.”
“It will project and reconstruct everything that happened in that place right in the air.”
Elias paused for a moment here.
“Of course, I hope that by then, you will have already found a normal camera in the mortal world.”
Ophelia immediately understood what Elias was getting at.
“In other words, you want me to use this so-called ‘holographic recreation’ to generate negative press for the Wayland Shipping Company?”
“Exactly.”
Elias gave her an appreciative look.
“And you need to do it as soon as possible.”
“You need to find a camera in Hastings Port and take a second photograph of the reconstructed scene.”
“The photos developed from that will be solid, physical evidence.”
“Wouldn’t that be the perfect, irrefutable proof of a black-hearted enterprise exploiting its workers?”
Solving a supernatural conspiracy with a labor dispute.
Using public opinion in the press to combat monopoly capital.
Fighting magic with magic.
Ophelia lowered her head, falling into deep thought.
Once this report hit the press, the entire working class of the Kingdom of Velen would completely erupt.
“That wouldn’t be too difficult,”
she said in a low voice.
“I can get the equipment at any time.”
“However...”
She cast a worried glance at Elias.
“Once this report is published, Wayland’s covert privateers and assassins will definitely turn every printing press in Landon upside down.”
“I might need a pen name by then.”
“Uh-huh.”
Elias responded nonchalantly.
“Suit yourself. You can call yourself ‘Irene Adler’ for all I care.”
“Combine that with the internal dirt you already have on Wayland’s illegal labor practices,”
“and a massive scandal about Wayland will surely hit the newspapers in Landon in no time.”
It was easy to imagine that Thomas Wayland’s plan to petition the council for firing clearance would not go smoothly.
Suck it, Wayland.
However,
just as they were speaking, Elias suddenly felt a bizarre disruption in the surrounding light.
It was as if someone had forcibly pulled a heavy black curtain across the sky.
The originally sunny waters of Moon Bay were instantly blanketed by a deathly shroud of gloom.
Elias wiped the expression from his face and frowned.
“What’s going on?”
He called out to the old ghost in his mind.
“Old Ed, what’s happening?!”
“There... trans...”
The old man’s voice glitched bizarrely at that moment.
It carried a strange, distorted quality.
“What?!”
This time, what he heard was a series of static noises that didn’t form a coherent sentence.
“Dis... con... con... nect...”
Soon,
a deathly silence drifted from the other end of the mental channel.
【Mental Message】 was unilaterally cut off.
Was it a spirit world storm?
Or was it because of this bizarre anomaly?
“Creeeak—!!”
Before Elias could recover from his shock,
the deck of the Nightgull beneath his feet tilted violently.
Elias felt the ship turning.
It was a forced, sharp turn.
“Hard to starboard! Damn it, drop the mainsail completely!”
“Move it! If you want to die, just keep lying on the deck!”
On the deck, the sailors shrieked hysterically.
They scrambled toward the rigging on all fours, their faces filled with the exact same despair and panic.
Elias gripped the slick bulwark, turning his head to peer toward the direction where the dark clouds were rolling in.
The black clouds were as dark as ink. Deep within the churning layers,
streaks of pale white lightning, like venomous serpents, danced frantically.
Thunder rumbled low.
“Mr. Wayne!”
“Look over there, quick!”
Hearing the thunder, Ophelia, her face turning pale, suddenly cried out.
Her fair hands clawed desperately at Elias’s sleeve, her fingers trembling violently.
“On the horizon... is there something there?”
【Moon Vision】 activated.
A cold, clear glimmer flashed in Elias’s eyes.
He saw it.
At the very edge of his vision.
A pale, skeletal sailing warship was gliding slowly over the dead, silent water, heading straight toward them.
Its masts were draped with tattered white sails, and its hull radiated a deathly aura like bleached bones.
Wherever it passed, the sea showed not a single ripple, remaining as flat and still as a mercury mirror.
Even across several nautical miles, Elias could smell the massive malice emanating from it.
This thing.
Its level of existence was far too high.
A ghost ship?
Just like what this foolish journalist had told him that night?
Without a second thought, he grabbed Ophelia’s slender wrist.
“Go back to the captain’s cabin right now.”
His voice was cold and urgent.
“Okay.”
Ophelia’s face turned from pale to ashen as she nodded mechanically.
Without any delay, the two quickly turned and ran toward the upper deck.
The howling wind shattered the waves in midair, splashing saltwater all over their faces.
They reached the upper deck.
There, they saw Crowley at the helm.
The old man’s hands, veins bulging, gripped the ship’s wheel tightly as his massive white beard whipped wildly in the storm.
His face was as dark as iron.
The two ran up to him. Elias stared directly into Crowley’s triangular eyes and asked.
“What’s the situation?”
He then pointed toward the captain’s cabin.
“I’m sending her to the captain’s cabin first.”
In the midst of his frantic steering, Crowley spared a glance at Elias, then looked at Ophelia, who had been brought along.
He then nodded.
“Good.”
“Go inside and lock the door.”
“Don’t look, don’t listen.”
Ophelia didn’t hesitate.
She gritted her teeth, nodded, jogged over, and shut the heavy door of the captain’s cabin.
“What on earth is that?”
Once he was sure the only ordinary person on board was out of earshot, Elias lowered his voice and asked.
Crowley clenched the pipe between his teeth, a grave light flashing in his eyes.
“That is a curse sailing in the deepest reaches of this vast ocean.”
“The most notorious pirate in the waters of Moon Bay.”
“A ghost pirate ship.”
“The Queen Adelaide’s Revenge.”
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