"Rorschach, want some?" The Dwarf came down holding some fluffy white bread, with a strange, deep-red item in his other hand.

"Offal pudding"—a strange concoction of minced organs and blood stuffed into a casing and boiled.

Although the Rorschach of his past life would have welcomed any glorious combination of cholesterol, fat, and protein, he simply couldn’t stomach the sight of this chaotic-looking dish.

"I’ll pass." Rorschach took two small wooden chests from his Storage Ring, both from the captain’s cabin. One contained biscuits; Rorschach pried it open and began munching on a few, washing them down with water from his Water Creation Skill. The contents of the second chest made Singrev’s eyes light up—it was Pirate’s Rum.

The juice of a crop called "sweet stalk" was the raw material for white sugar. The remaining pulp, which still contained sugar, was then used to brew alcohol—the very same Pirate’s Rum that was all the rage at sea.

"These are from the captain’s cabin. The Sect’s members are experts with herbs, so we can’t be sure if the maid poisoned the food. At least one of the three of us needs to avoid eating anything from here. However..." Rorschach glanced at the flour. "We can take this. We can just fry it up to eat."

Having settled the matter of food, Rorschach had Singrev tie Klaup up securely.

He then summarized the intelligence they had gathered for his companion. "The shipwreck was a supply vessel for the Sect that could travel between the Upper Realm and the Shadow Land. Based on its route, the bodies on board were likely Gray Elves. The Sect leader in charge of the Semi-submerged Area is just a supply-scamming slacker. He only uses some powder to stimulate the ’Living Water Body’ and hasn’t made any other moves."

"So what exactly is this so-called Living Water Body?"

"I have a theory..." Rorschach took out a nautical Telescope. "I wonder if we can modify its lenses to make a Microscope."

"A Microscope?"

"It’s an upgraded version of a magnifying glass. By combining lenses, you can see very small things." Rorschach dredged up his middle-school physics knowledge to give a brief explanation of the principle, even drawing a rough diagram for the Dwarf.

"Lemme give it a try." The Dwarf took the nautical Telescope. The nameplate indicated the two lenses had a 7x50 magnification. He looked toward Klaup’s workstation. "I’ll need a magnifying glass."

And there actually was a magnifying glass in the drawer, one that Klaup used for reading letters and newspapers. The man in charge wasn’t all bluster, it seemed. Just being literate and able to do arithmetic made him stand head and shoulders above the rest in the Semi-submerged Area.

With this new lens in hand, Singrev got to work. He asked Rorschach what magnification he needed. Rorschach thought for a moment. "At least forty times. Higher, if possible."

"With this Telescope, we can definitely get more than forty times magnification." The Dwarf began his modifications, pulling a toolkit from his backpack and starting to work like a master machinist right then and there.

’I’d almost forgotten Singrev was an Innovative Warrior...’ The Dwarf was now completely focused, his short, thick fingers performing work as delicate as embroidery. Rorschach waited until he had adjusted the distances and secured the lens assembly, then took the modified "Microscope."

The Dwarf was very confident in his handiwork. "I don’t have any proper grinding tools, so I couldn’t polish the lenses. It’ll have to do."

"Actually, my Stone Shaping Skill can shape glass..." But Rorschach had no experience making lenses, so he didn’t dare alter their shape.

Rorschach took the bottle containing the "Living Water Body" from his ring. The Blue Light Barrier had faded, and the "Living Water Body" itself had also gone still. Rorschach shook the bottle. It seemed no different from ordinary water.

Singrev had finished his Pirate’s Rum before he even started modifying the Microscope, leaving him with an empty, clear bottle. "Not bad." The Dwarf let out a boozy burp and handed it to Rorschach. The Mage promptly smashed it into pieces.

He activated his Stone Shaping Skill, and some of the shards flattened out into the shape of microscope slides.

With everything ready, Rorschach placed a drop of the sample on a slide and peered into the Microscope. He couldn’t see anything... Rorschach used the Light Technique to add illumination, but the eyepiece just showed a field of blinding white. He was having trouble focusing, so all he could do was lower the lens as close to the slide as possible.

He changed tactics. He dismissed the Magic Light Ball, cast his Resuscitation Skill on the sample, and then observed it with Arcane Vision. The effect was equivalent to staining the sample with a fluorescent dye.

Now he could just about make things out... As he’d suspected, even after the Spiritual Light from the Resuscitation Skill faded, traces of Magic Power’s own Spiritual Light remained, outlining clumps of microorganisms as they separated and congregated in the water. The individual organisms were round, looking less like bacteria and more like hyperactive yeast.

Then, their forms began to change. They linked together, their Spiritual Light flared brighter, and the Magic Power began to move rhythmically. Through his Arcane Vision, he could see faint trajectories as the power constantly converged around these tiny things.

The image blurred. Rorschach pulled his eye away from the eyepiece and saw that the tiny drop of water on the slide was actively wriggling and thrashing about. He gently tapped one end of the slide with his fingertip, and the droplet struggled, deforming as it tried to move toward the tapping.

So the truth behind the "Living Water Body" was these microorganisms. Rorschach’s "Microscope" was too crude to make out their structure, so he couldn’t determine if they were fungi or bacteria. But he wasn’t a biologist; for his purposes, this was enough.

"The so-called ’Living Water Body’ is just water filled with tiny organisms. They can actually absorb Magic Power and then use a magic-like method to manipulate the water..." ’It’s not that the water in the Shadow Land is inherently active,’ he realized, ’but that these microorganisms are the cause. They form some kind of unconscious colony and probably capture organisms for sustenance by sensing vibrations.’

Rorschach’s words were astounding. The Dwarf was taken aback. "By my beard! Things so small you can’t even see ’em can use Magic!"

"It’s only magic-like." ’It doesn’t even qualify as a complete Elemental Spell,’ Rorschach thought. ’It’s just converting Magic Power into kinetic energy. Still, the prospect of studying its mechanism is incredibly tempting. It’s not hard to imagine how wild the Mages of the Tower of Forest would go for this.’

Rorschach swirled the sample bottle. The tiny creatures inside had been starving in his Storage Ring for a long time and were now barely alive. As it happened, there was still some broth left from the offal pudding the Dwarf had brought down. Rorschach poured it in. ’If they can hunt, then this broth should theoretically work as a nutrient source,’ he reasoned.

"What a waste of good broth! Just bleed this fatso to feed ’em!" The Dwarf kicked Klaup’s beer belly.

’Are you the Cultist, or is he?’ Rorschach was speechless at the Dwarf’s suggestion. He wanted to try something else, so he separated out another portion of the "Living Water Body" and added a pinch of flour.

The Living Water Body became a bit more active. It waved tiny, transparent tentacles with what looked like great cheer.

’Don’t tell me it prefers carbs?’ Rorschach’s interest was piqued. He took some sugar from Mr. Klaup’s personal stash and sprinkled it into the "Living Water Body." To his surprise, the Spiritual Light flared brilliantly, and the water became frenetically active.

"Mr. Klaup’s approach was wrong from the start. Instead of forcibly stimulating them with that powder, he should have just fed them carbohydrates to make them reproduce like crazy."

"Who... called me?" The Sect’s man in charge actually woke up, opening his eyes groggily.

Singrev snatched the soporific powder from the table—the same powder Klaup had used during the fight on the ship. Its effect on its owner was excellent. Having just woken up, Klaup was once again blessed with the sleep of a baby.

Rorschach looked at Klaup, a headache forming. "The Sect will be back. When they do, they’ll definitely discover what happened here. We can’t stay in the Semi-submerged Area for long."

"So we move? But there’s still no news about the person you’re looking for." Singrev felt that their "mansion" here in the Shadowlands—or at least, in the Semi-submerged Area—was a good foothold, far better than some cave.

"We’ll just have to treat this like we’re out in the wilds—take turns resting and keeping watch." As he said this, the sound of the poet’s singing and playing drifted down from upstairs. Rorschach sighed. "The Wandering Minstrel Poet is unreliable. It’ll just be the two of us taking shifts."