The Captain of the Guard was a rather handsome young man. His attire bore some resemblance to the soldiers of the Old Empire Era, with a bucket helmet sitting atop what looked like a worn-out mop of hair. He inspected every crate of supplies they passed—prying them open with a dagger. If it was tea, he’d let it pass. If it was sugar, he’d grab a handful, either popping it into his mouth or stuffing it into his pocket.

The poet once again presented the Count’s order, shaking the paper so it crackled. The Captain of the Guard hesitated for a moment. "Alright, but everything you take out of here is subject to my inspection."

As they entered, Rorschach lowered his voice and said to the poet, "You pulled a fast one. That captain is greedy. He wouldn’t have been so agreeable otherwise."

There had been a flare of Magic Power when the poet shook the paper. It seemed he had used the Count’s special permit as a hypnotic tool.

"You’ve got to have a few tricks up your sleeve. How else can you get by in two different worlds?"

Once inside, Rorschach immediately felt that something was off. The ship was quite large, pushed to the size limit for navigating the Tams River. They had entered through a hole in the stern, where overturned cargo crammed the interior. The Guard, acting as temporary movers, were clearing a path as they carried out the goods. Not only was there cargo, but the Steam Engine had also been dismantled into pieces for its valuable metal.

The source of the incongruity was this: if the cargo ship had truly been fully loaded with sugar and tea, the ruined building it was resting on could never have supported the weight. The midsection and bow of the ship either had to be holding different cargo or were empty.

It was extremely rare for an entire ship to fall into the Shadow City in such a state. Rorschach asked a Guard, "When did this ship appear?"

The Guard, seeing Rorschach’s neat attire and noticing he was allowed inside the hold, assumed he was an important figure and answered respectfully. "This morning... no, no, it must have been last night? The residents on the street were the first to spot it. The Living Water Bodies are acting up right now, so no one dared to get close. We only came in this morning after confirming there was no movement."

It was difficult to distinguish day from night in the Shadow Land; they could only tell the time by the chiming of the bells. In any case, the Guards hadn’t been inside the ship for very long. They had been focused solely on moving the cargo and hadn’t cleared out or explored the entire vessel.

"Have you checked the cabins in the midship and bow sections?"

"No, milord. Look, these crates have all collapsed. We have to move them out of the way to clear a path."

Rorschach wasted no words. He waved his hand, and all the cargo blocking the path floated into the air, moving to either side of its own accord. The Guards stood stunned, staring at the small party with a mixture of curiosity and awe.

As the crates of sugar and tea were moved aside, a twisted, deformed bulkhead door was revealed. But when he opened it, there was no path forward—only a solid wall of red brick.

"A wall? They built a brick wall inside a ship?" Singrev’s hands immediately started to itch. He pulled out his great hammer, eager to give it a swing.

To prevent anyone from jumping out and shouting, ’What do you think you’re doing?!’ after they smashed through, Rorschach cast another spell to move the rest of the cargo out of the ship. He then issued a direct command to the Count’s Guard: "All of you, get out."

The Guards sensed something was off, and since their work was done anyway, they all shouted, "Thank you, milord," and promptly made themselves scarce.

Singrev’s expression turned serious. "There’s a big problem in there." He gripped his hammer again, this time assuming a combat stance. The poet stepped back, positioning himself behind the other two, and began to play a rousing battle theme.

"Stop playing, it’s messing with my concentration." Rorschach "turned off the BGM." He used Repulsive Force to compress the air, but this time shaping it into a sharp cone. He plunged the cone into a crack in the brickwork and detonated it, successfully blasting open the solid wall.

"GACK..."

A wave of the stench of rotting protein gushed out. Rorschach quickly put a Filtering Bubble on himself and the other two, blocking the indescribable odor. The midship cabin had no light source; it seemed that not only the door but also the portholes had been sealed tight, turning it into a black hole that spewed a foul stench.

Once all the bricks were cleared away, a cloudy, reddish-yellow liquid began to ooze out.

"We’re not going in, are we?" Freddy asked. Although he could no longer smell it, the sickening scent still lingered in his sinuses.

"It’s bodies." Singrev, with his rich... adventuring experience, quickly made the assessment. He glanced at Rorschach, asking with his eyes if they should go in.

"We have to see what happened." Rorschach released a ball of light and sent it probing into the cabin. Its pale glow illuminated the sealed space, revealing several bloated bodies piled haphazardly together. They must have been dislodged from their original positions during the crash. The wooden floor was covered in filth, and etched with numerous lines and marks.

Rorschach noticed the patterns and decided to investigate further. He extended the Filtering Bubble to cover as much of his body as possible and did the same for the other two. "Let’s go inside."

"How about this? You guys look around here, and I’ll... I’ll go report to the Count."

"Suit yourself." Rorschach stepped inside without a backward glance. The Dwarf followed him without a word. Freddy hesitated, looking back and forth. He first ran to the opening to explain the situation to the peering Guards, then turned and went in after them.

One, two... twelve bodies in total. Rorschach moved carefully among them and discovered a common trait: all the deceased had pointed ears.

"They’re all Elves?" That was quite a discovery. Rorschach saw that a large section of the floor in front of the portholes was soaked with fluid that had seeped from the bodies, leaving a huge stain. Some of the bodies still held broken oars, with more fragments scattered nearby. In other words, they had originally been positioned by the portholes, "rowing."

However, this was a paddle-wheel ship, and the portholes in the midship cabin were sealed shut. This meant that even if these Elves had been alive before the ship fell into this world, they couldn’t have been sailors rowing it. A mere twelve people, even if they had superhuman strength, couldn’t propel a small-to-medium-sized cargo ship.

The Dwarf felt a deep sympathy for the dead Elves. Their faces were now nothing but bloated, horrifying messes of rotten flesh. Their expressions were long gone, but they surely hadn’t been happy. Even though the season was late autumn, bordering on early winter, their clothes were thin, and their exposed, ashen skin was covered in wounds.

Although the ambient temperature wasn’t high, the heat that had built up in the sealed environment had still caused the remains to bloat.

"Is this a mobile tomb?" Freddy still couldn’t understand why the ship would be modified in such a way. Rorschach, however, was beginning to form a theory. "This ship’s fall into the Shadow City wasn’t an accident," he said. "It was deliberate."

He recognized a system within the floor markings that resembled an Elf Totem, identical to the patterns he’d seen in the museum. Although Rorschach didn’t know this Shadow Land as well as Freddy did, he knew his symbology and occultism.

"Traverse... shadow... invert..." He deciphered the patterns on the floor piece by piece. The bloodstains made them difficult to read, but he was already getting an idea of the cabin’s purpose.

"Freddy, you said the well that connects the two worlds only works because a child drowned in it, right?"

Freddy shrugged. "The accident was a long time ago. The trash heap did indeed appear much later."

"You also mentioned another method: lying in a coffin with a skeleton for a while. That means there’s a keyword for entering the Shadow Land."

"Death."

"Correct. I don’t know the specific method yet, but ’death’ is an obvious factor. Judging by this cabin, the vessel was converted into a ’ship of the dead.’ Its destination was always the Shadow City."

They continued forward, breaking through a second wall into the bow of the ship. Besides the anchor, anchor chain, and other necessary equipment, several boxes were stacked there. They contained clocks and clothes. Prying open the final, locked chest, they found it was full of various metal vessels, with jewels scattered in the gaps between them.

"It’s gold!" The Dwarf was an expert on such things. He picked up another piece, and its soft silver luster shocked him even more. "Mithril!"