Chapter 302 “Confusion”

This novel is translated and hosted on bcatranslation.com

The deck area of the Obsidian was small and easily surveyed, allowing the group to quickly finish their search without finding anything suspicious.

Despite the unusual dryness where water should have accumulated, the deck appeared no different from a typical derelict ship – severely rusted, uneven, damaged in many places, but not to the point of complete collapse.

After completing the deck inspection, Duncan decided to venture into the ship’s cabin.

They soon found a large door leading inside.

It was a rusty iron door set in a white wall, with a handle badly decayed and a lock long destroyed by seawater, leaving the door firmly shut and impossible to open by conventional means.

Morris examined the door and then gave up on opening it normally, turning to the group, “We might need to apply some force.”

“Allow me,” Vanna volunteered before anyone else could respond, “Everyone, step back to avoid debris.”

Shirley, Alice, and the others obediently stepped back, while Duncan moved a few steps to the side to avoid getting his clothes dirty. They watched curiously as the female warrior approached the rusted door and tapped it lightly with her hand.

With a short hum, a large hole shattered in the center, sending fragments scattering before the main segment disintegrated into dust.

Vanna then tore more pieces from the door frame, as easily as tearing paper, and casually tossed them aside.

Shirley and Dog watched, dumbfounded, and after a moment, they spoke in unison, “… Damn, is she even human?”

Vanna, hearing their words, smiled and replied, “I always keep up with my physical training.”

Shirley muttered quietly, “This… has nothing to do with physical training anymore, right?”

Duncan, impressed by Vanna’s straightforward approach but familiar with her feats in the city-states, showed little reaction. He looked up at the now-open doorway and asked, “What’s the situation inside?”

Vanna waved her hand, waiting for the dust to settle before peeking inside. Her expression turned strange.

After a few seconds, she stepped back and turned to Duncan, “Inside… there’s another door.”

“Another door?” Duncan was surprised for a moment, then took a few steps to look for himself. Sure enough, there was another rusty iron door a few meters beyond the outer door.

However, the space between the two doors was not a corridor or foyer, nor did it resemble a security partition. It was just an empty area with bare walls and a strangely twisted ceiling.

“I’m not sure if this is the Obsidian’s normal structure,” Morris, having come over to look, shook his head, “I knew of this ship but had never seen it in person.”

Duncan frowned slightly, then nodded to Vanna, “Open that door.”

Vanna stepped forward and smashed the second door in the same manner. She peeked inside and turned back, bewildered, “Inside… there’s another door.”

“Another one?!” Shirley, now surprised, moved closer with Dog, “My god… there really is another one?!”

Inside the second door was a third door with the same peculiar “compartment.”

A second door could be a special design, but a third, inexplicable door made it hard to dismiss as simply a “design choice.”

“The structure of this ship is unusual,” Duncan said, looking back at the previous doors with a serious expression, “Whether normal or not, there shouldn’t be such a design… Vanna, open this door as well.”

“Alright.” Vanna punched the third door, making a large hole before stopping, as through it, she could see inside.

“Captain…” she said awkwardly, her expression even stranger, “Inside, there’s a wall.”

“A wall?!” Duncan’s eyes twitched as he looked through the hole, seeing the wall Vanna mentioned.

There was indeed just a wall behind the third door, less than half a meter away.

“How could a ship be designed like this?” Nina muttered, puzzled, “Three doors and only a wall behind them… where’s the cabin? How do we get into the cabin?”

Duncan didn’t respond immediately. He quietly observed the odd “overlapping area,” appearing thoughtful.

After a moment, he nodded to Vanna, “Keep making holes.”

Vanna kicked away the remaining door panels from the third door and punched the strange wall, creating a larger hole with a loud rumble.

“It’s a corridor,” Vanna said, looking inside and turning to the others.

“Great,” Shirley sighed in relief, “Finally, something normal…”

“It’s upside down,” Vanna interrupted Shirley, “The ceiling is under our feet, and the floor is above our heads.”

Shirley: “…Damn.”

As Vanna described, there was an upside-down corridor behind the wall – just like the repeating doors, with no normal structure inside the ghost ship’s cabin!

“This ship has been twisted…” Even the knowledgeable scholar Morris was at a loss. He looked at the corridor structure, muttering, “What has twisted the Obsidian like this…”

“Let’s think differently,” Duncan interrupted, “Is this really the Obsidian?”

Morris looked up, astonished, “You mean…”

“We are near Frost, and beneath the ocean, some terrifying things have happened,” Duncan said casually, glancing at Alice, who was looking around curiously, “Remember the ‘Abyss Plan’ Tyrian mentioned?”

“I remember, I remember,” Alice nodded vigorously, “And a bunch of submarines and stuff…”

“Remembering that much is enough,” Duncan said, patting Alice’s head, “Don’t nod anymore, it’s already shaking.”

He then knocked on the nearby wall.

The metal cabin wall made a hollow thud.

“Looks normal on the outside, but it’s actually a mess inside, with crude imitation and duplication, and overlapping spaces – this probably isn’t the real Obsidian, but it’s hard to say which ‘copy’ it is.”

Alice slowly nodded, “Oh,” pretending to understand. Vanna quickly reacted, “But I remember you saying the submarines in the Abyss Plan only had errors in copying the crew, not the submarines themselves. You speculated this error was limited to humans or organisms…”

“Yes, limited to humans or organisms when the Frost Queen was alive half a century ago,” Duncan said slowly. “Now, the situation is worse. The duplication extends to inorganic domains… Whatever is in the depths of Frost’s ocean, it has become active again after 50 years of silence, and its influence is far greater.”

Shirley, listening, felt nervous. Everyone on the Vanished knew about the Abyss Plan, which made her mutter, “I… I’m getting nervous…”

“Think differently. The captain is investigating this matter. We shouldn’t be the nervous ones,” Dog muttered, “Don’t scare yourself – my heart rate is going up too.”

Shirley was startled, “Dog, do you have a heart?”

“I’m a demon with a heart!”

“A heart is not the same as a ‘heart’ – isn’t your chest empty?”

“… What if there’s something inside jumping?”

“Do you want to check?”

“No, that won’t work.”

Duncan ignored the bizarre murmurs around him, speculating about the ghost ship and focusing on the corridor leading to an unknown destination.

After a brief contemplation, he walked towards the large hole Vanna had made, “Let’s go inside and check it out.”

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