Chapter 83

Chapter 83: Ghosts Also Entangled with the Mortal Realm

Her Uncle brought some calming herbal liquor. The herbs and the alcohol together slowly eased Vanna’s restless mood. She opened the door to the balcony, stepped out into the wind, and looked toward the distant Cathedral.

Dante’s voice came from behind her: “Every time you come back to stay, you have these nightmares, and they always take you back to your childhood.”

“…For an Inquisitor, this is a weakness I shouldn’t have,” Vanna said in a low voice. She was more than a head taller than her Uncle, but in front of the elder who had raised her, she never minded showing her true feelings. “It troubles me.”

“…Have you talked to Heidi?”

“She recommended four kinds of brain surgery and two kinds of nerve-piercing therapy,” Vanna sighed. “Considering our years of friendship, I didn’t hit her.”

“…That sounds like her. She doesn’t deal with normal people much,” Dante said, shaking his head. “I didn’t think that after all these years, you would still be trapped by that night’s nightmare.”

“I always thought I had already moved past it,” Vanna said, rubbing her brow. “Maybe it really has something to do with this big house. Every time I come back here, I dream of those scenes again… Maybe I should perform another exorcism ritual for this place. Otherwise I keep feeling that the shadows of that disaster are still sealed inside these walls…”

Uncle Dante thought about it for a moment. He did not object, but asked thoughtfully: “Did you see that fire in your nightmare again this time?”

Vanna nodded. “Yes. There was fire everywhere. You carried me out of the fire. I remember clearly that we fled along the factory pipes to escape the district. Nearby, a burning building was slowly collapsing in the flames…”

She stopped there and looked at her Uncle. “…You don’t remember any fire, do you?”

“It’s not just me. No one remembers it,” the city-state’s Governor said, slowly shaking his head with a serious expression. “I only remember the leaking gas pipes and those crazed cultists… There were many people involved that night, but it seems only you saw a sea of roaring flames.”

Vanna did not speak for a long time. She stayed silent and thought for who knew how long before she suddenly spoke softly: “Aside from the ‘fire’ part, your memories and mine match… Back then I didn’t understand anything, but now I know that this must be the work of some supernatural power. So many years have passed, and I have even advanced to become a Saint, yet this influence still has not faded.”

“That means either the source of this influence has a very high rank and burned an everlasting mark into your soul, or the source itself did not vanish when the incident ended. Instead, it has stayed hidden somewhere in the city-state. I have been investigating this for years, but sadly, there has been no progress.”

Dante’s voice carried a hint of apology at the end. He was not only sorry that he could not ease his niece’s pain, but also regretful that, as the city-state’s Governor, he had still not been able to solve an old case.

The “Great Chaos” eleven years ago had left scars that ran too deep.

Vanna knew that this matter was not only a knot in her own heart. It had also weighed on her Uncle all this time. But she was not good at comforting others. After thinking for a long time, all she could do was change the subject: “I remember we arrested a lot of cultists back then. From the later reports, that incident was even bigger than the ‘Black Sun’ incident four years ago.”

“Yes. We arrested thousands. There were so many that I even wondered how that many cultists could hide in just one city-state, Pland,” Dante sighed. “And it wasn’t just one sect… There were Suntists who followed the Black Sun, Annihilators who worshiped the Abyssal Lord, and even Enders who worshiped Subspace itself… All those maggots from the sewers crawled out that night and ran around wrecking everything in a frenzy.”

Vanna looked at Dante. “But according to the later interrogations, among the thousands of saboteurs the authority caught, not one could be called a ‘mastermind.’ Not a single one knew why the chaos had started that night. It was less like those cultists had planned to cause trouble together and more like the madness buried deep in their minds had all exploded at the same time. They had fallen into a collective runaway state.”

Dante did not speak for a moment. He thought quietly, then suddenly looked into Vanna’s eyes: “Your nerves aren’t just because of the nightmare, are they? You brought up all this so suddenly. Does it have something to do with the unrest in the city-state lately?”

Vanna did not avoid the question. “It does have something to do with it. Suntists are gathering toward the city-state. They are looking for an Anomaly called the fragment of the Sun. At almost the same time, the Vanished has reappeared in the Mortal Realm, and its ‘course’ seems to point faintly toward Pland. We still don’t know if these two things are really connected, but this sense of turbulence… it keeps reminding me of the chaos eleven years ago.”

“…I have already ordered all the Harbors to strictly inspect everyone coming and going, and I have spoken with the Governors of other city-states. Quite a few Suntists were dragged off ships. We have basically cut off their way into the city-state. As for the ones who are already inside Pland… that will mostly depend on the Church. Guardians are the professionals when it comes to hunting down and locking onto supernatural crimes.”

When he said this, the middle-aged Governor suddenly stopped. He seemed to weigh whether he should bring something up now. After a moment of hesitation, he still made up his mind. “As for the Vanished, I can’t do much in the supernatural field. But in the secular world, I have an idea.”

“In the secular world?” Vanna frowned. She was just about to say how that ghost ship, the Vanished, could have anything to do with the “secular” side, when she suddenly remembered a certain rumor. “Wait, you mean…”

“The captain of the pioneer exploration ship, the Radiant Star, Lucretia Abnomar, and the pirate lord in the Northern Seas, Tyrian Abnomar, captain of the Sea Mist,” Dante said slowly. “It’s true that the Vanished is a ghost ship beyond the Mortal Realm’s understanding. But as long as it once belonged to the Mortal Realm, the Mortal Realm still holds the ‘anchor points’ of its existence… I wonder how Captain Duncan’s two children will react to their ‘father’ returning to the world again.”

Vanna’s eyes slowly widened. She was used to dealing with enemies in simple, direct ways and had never thought about the Vanished from this angle. But soon she frowned. “I’ve heard that those two hardly deal with any city-state powers at all… On the Boundless Sea, they each rule their own territories and keep distant, even tense relations with all the city-states.”

“That’s normal. After all, they are the children of that ghost captain, and the Radiant Star and the Sea Mist were once the two escort ships of the Vanished. Even though they parted ways more than a hundred years ago, in the eyes of most city-states, anyone who had anything to do with that ghost captain meant the curse and danger. It’s not so much that they keep their distance from the city-states as it is that the city-states have been avoiding them.”

Vanna looked at her Uncle with a frown. “So you’re counting on them to help Pland fight their own father?”

“It’s only an idea, but it’s worth a try,” Dante said, surprisingly serious. “After all, we all know that the Radiant Star and the Sea Mist parted ways with the Vanished more than a century ago. Lucretia and Tyrian had already broken with their father before the Viseran Thirteen Isles incident. And there were even rumors, more than half a century ago, that some Deep-Sea Captains personally saw the Sea Mist fighting the phantom of the Vanished in the Northern Seas. At that time, the Vanished had already become a legendary ghost ship. That might show those two captains’ attitude when it comes to facing their own ‘father.’”

“More than half a century ago… At that time, the Sea Mist was still the main flagship under the Frostholm Queen’s command. Captain Tyrian might have only been protecting the city-state under orders,” Vanna said slowly as she thought. “But you’re right. At least it proves that the Sea Mist really does have a record of fighting the Vanished.”

But she still had doubts. After a few seconds of thought, she spoke them aloud: “What if the Radiant Star and the Sea Mist ignore Pland?”

“That’s why this is only a try,” Dante said quietly. “I’ll spread the word and find ways to get news of the Vanished’s return and its course toward Pland onto those two captains’ desks. That’s all I’ll do. How they react after that will be up to them.”