13 Mink Street

Those white garments that had not yet fully rotted on the corpses were Light priest’s robes. The thousand-odd bodies lying neatly in that corpse pit were followers of Light.

At Bernard’s invitation, as Darkmoon Clan’s leader, these people had come to Darkmoon Island and made immense contributions to its development. Just as General Tafmann had said, Bernard had not become a hero revered by everyone on Darkmoon Island just because of his love story. He had become that figure because he had been great enough, because he had accomplished enough. Only with that foundation did his love story become something later generations could speak of with relish, elevating it into a beautiful tale and a legend.

Under Bernard’s rule, Darkmoon Island had undergone tremendous development, transforming from a small power isolated at sea into a force that could not be ignored within the region. Now, it had even reached the point where it could sit down with the Church of Order and establish cooperative ties.

All of that had been built on the foundations laid in Bernard’s era, on the structure he had established.

Karon had not read the two notebooks, but could roughly imagine what they contained. To draw such a large force of Light vermin to Darkmoon Island and have them cooperate with his clan, Bernard must have promised certain things. And for those Light vermin, a foothold, a base, a stable point from which to begin again, was a temptation they could never have refused.

Even so, they would certainly have been cautious. They understood the sensitivity of their identity. Yet despite all that, Bernard had still managed to lure them to the island. In that, his personal influence must have played a tremendous role.

But once everything was over, after those Light remnants had poured their strength and heart into the island’s development, they had been slaughtered here.

This monument was the grave marker Bernard had erected for them. On that marker, he acknowledged their contribution. And Bernard, with equal parts frankness and shamelessness, did not bother to conceal his own betrayal.

This island lay not far from Darkmoon Island, yet it had been sealed away forever. Even if a ship passed right by it, no one would ever see it.

This was no snake island, but an island for the dead. It buried not only the thousand corpses of Light believers, but also the true secret of Darkmoon Island’s rise, along with the foul, shadowed face of the Ancestor Bernard everyone praised.

Ophelia bit her lip. Her emotions at this moment must be extremely complicated.

Of course, Karon believed she would recover quickly. She would not collapse because of this, nor even suffer a true breakdown. After all, as an ancestor, Bernard had made extraordinary contributions to his descendants and to the islanders of Darkmoon Island. As one of the strongest contenders to become the next clan leader, while Ophelia might still be young, she could not possibly be ignorant of the darkness that came with such a position.

It was simply that Bernard’s story had been made too beautiful, so beautiful that when it collided with reality, the disparity became especially sharp.

Karon felt that disparity as well, because the Bernard he knew, the Bernard he had pictured in his head until now, had only been a pathetic young clan leader who had pursued Pu’er with desperate persistence. Even though Pu’er loathed his harassment, mocked him again and again, and had even abandoned him on that dangerous isolated island in a real performance of forgetting one another at sea, Bernard had remained obsessed with a love that moved no one but himself.

No, that was not all.

Through lies, he had woven a dream, and within that dream, he had not only moved himself, he had moved generation after generation on Darkmoon Island as well. So much so that when Ophelia had once stood before Pu’er’s tombstone at the Veyn manor, even her eyes had reddened.

He had seemed a laughable man, a pitiable man, a man who could stir something close to sympathy, and yet it was precisely that sort of man who had now shown Karon the cold-bloodedness beneath the mask.

Karon had met people from the Church of Light before. They were cautious. They were careful. They carried a natural distrust toward the world around them. And even with such people, Bernard had still managed to exploit and betray them.

Ophelia spoke first, “I only just started reading those notebooks. I imagine the end must record this part.”

“A pity the answer was revealed ahead of time.”

“A pity?” Ophelia murmured.

“Perhaps that is exactly why your uncle told you that when you read such things, you needed Darkmoon’s blessing upon you. These things cannot bear the Light.”

Ophelia nodded. “The person you were chasing is Light vermin?”

“Yes.”

“He knew about the teleportation array in my uncle’s villa.”

“It seems so now.”

“Who is he?”

“I don’t know.”

“You are still hiding things from me.”

“Yes. There are some things I cannot tell you.”

“We are of the same bloodline, are we not?”

“I am still searching for a sense of belonging, and in any case, now is not the time to discuss that. How are we supposed to get back?”

“That monument is only the receiving point of the teleportation array.”

“The previous owner of your uncle’s villa, who was it?”

“It has always belonged to the palace. Members of the direct lineage may be granted the right to use it.”

“In other words, in the past, it could also have belonged to Ancestor Bernard?”

“Uncle said the villa once belonged to that person. That person should have been the leader of this Light verm... this group of Light believers.”

“The house is large. It would not necessarily have housed just one person, so this absolutely could not have been a one-way teleport. The array that sends people back to Darkmoon Island must also be somewhere on this island.

“Look, the corpses were laid out neatly. They were obviously arranged after the killing. The people who handled the bodies, the people who erected this monument, they must have had a way to return. It is even possible Bernard himself used to come back here from time to time.”

“Come back and look?”

“To mourn his old friends, perhaps. There is no contradiction in that, even though he betrayed and murdered them.”

“Then let us begin looking. I want to leave this place, and this place should not be made public.”

“The way you say that makes it sound as though you intend to silence me.”

“You are a descendant of Ancestor Bernard. You ought to protect his good name.”

“Perhaps I should imitate the poet Rogin and leave behind a Karon’s Secret Diary, to be published fifty years after my death.”

“This is not the moment for wit. I am angry, because of what you concealed tonight.”

“I know, I know. That is why I was trying to distract you.”

Ophelia reached for Karon’s collar, but his gaze sharpened and he pushed off with one leg, avoiding her grasp. “Tonight, you heard what I said to my uncle. I told him I had feelings for you.”

“I have feelings for you as well. You are beautiful, and adorable.”

“Perhaps I should learn from Ancestor Bernard and bury you here as well. This is a good place for burying shameful feelings, is it not?”

At that, Karon licked his lips. He knew she was angry. Given her status, for her to endure it this long, from the afternoon meeting to the evening meeting and all the way until now, before finally showing signs of venting, was already rather remarkable.

“I can do it. Even if you carry Darkmoon blood, even if your status in the Church of Order is high, do not truly provoke me.”

“All right.”

Ophelia nodded. “Now, we find the teleportation array.”

“All right.” Karon understood perfectly well. She was upset. Her heart was not at ease. Under the current circumstances, unless he intended to soothe her, nearly anything he said would only count as another offense.

Fortunately, Karon believed she was only speaking in anger. She could still control herself.

The teleportation array was unlikely to be near the sea, so the two of them headed toward the denser part of the forest. There were many snakes on this island. As they walked, the soles of their shoes easily stepped on shed snake skin scattered on the ground, some of it already dry and brittle. Karon finally understood where the term snakeskin sack had come from.[1]

Still, although the island was thick with vegetation, there seemed to be no signs of any other creatures. So how had so many snakes managed to reproduce here?

Near the center of the island was a slope, though it was not especially high. Ophelia stepped up across the rocks, with Karon following behind. As they climbed, both kept an eye out for caves.

At last, they reached the top. From there, the whole island could be seen. The sea surrounded them on every side, bringing with it a bleak sense of abandonment and isolation.

“Let us split up. I will search this side, you search that side. In one hour, we’ll reconvene here,” Ophelia suggested.

“I disagree with splitting up,” Karon said, finally speaking after keeping silent the whole way. “Too many things can go wrong.”

In an unfamiliar and dangerous place, separating was practically the same as lending fate a hand in arranging an accident, but Ophelia seemed to misunderstand what he meant. “I will not abandon you and teleport back alone.”

Karon looked at her. He wanted to laugh, but restrained himself and kept his tone as even as possible. “I was never worried you would leave by yourself.”

“Then why...?”

“Because I’m timid. I’m scared. I’m afraid of the dark.”

Ophelia looked at Karon for a long moment, then could only nod. “Very well. This way.”

The two began descending the slope, Ophelia in front, Karon behind.

Halfway down, she suddenly stopped. A cave had appeared ahead.

“The teleportation array is likely inside,” she said, drawing a luminous pearl from her pocket. Her fingers brushed across it, and at once the pearl flared with light, bright enough to rival a searchlamp.

They entered the cave.

Unexpectedly, it was very dry inside. By all rights, this should have been a natural nest for snakes, yet there were no visible scales, no shed skins, nor the fishy reek that usually clung to serpent lairs.

After going deeper for some distance, a stone door appeared ahead. Karon was about to step forward and push it open, but Ophelia moved first. With a hand against it, she pushed, and the stone door swung open.

The luminous pearl floated forward, entering the space and illuminating the interior.

Inside stood a stove with a pot set upon it. The stove was small, only able to support a single pot. Farther in was a stone bed, and beside it a stone cabinet.

It was a rough dwelling, but one that lacked nothing essential. In the corner, Karon even spotted a large jar, which, unless he was mistaken, served as a chamber pot. The pearl rose higher, revealing a stone chandelier carved above. It must once have held oil, though by now it likely could no longer be lit.

“We may have entered from the wrong direction. The real entrance should be over there,” Karon said, pointing toward the other door set in the opposite wall.

Ophelia walked over and pushed it open. Beyond was a larger chamber, lined with a row of tables and chairs, like a drawing room.

As the luminous pearl floated farther and lit more of the space, two figures appeared ahead. Both Ophelia and Karon instantly went on guard, only to quickly realize it was a false alarm.

They were not people. They were two humanoid stone statues.

Opposite the statues stood two stone coffins.

“This is a statue of Ancestor Bernard,” Ophelia said, pointing to one of them. “And this one... looks very familiar.”

Karon stepped closer and saw that it was a statue of a woman. She wore a hood. Around her neck hung a gemstone necklace. She was dressed in a long gown, with boots on her feet, and held a wand in one hand. Isn’t this Pu’er?

“It’s Lady Poelle,” Karon stated.

“Oh, that’s right. I saw her statue in the Palace of Remembrance that Ancestor Bernard built for Lady Poelle. It is indeed her.”

Karon noticed that the two statues’ hands were clasped together, standing close like a pair of lovers.

That small detail stirred an instinctive disgust in him. If Ophelia had not been standing beside him, he might have smashed Bernard’s statue on the spot.

Now, at last, he truly understood the revulsion Pu’er had always expressed when she called Bernard annoying and disgusting. The man was so pathologically self-absorbed that it became nauseating.

“These two stone coffins...” Ophelia looked at them. “Do they symbolize Ancestor Bernard and Lady Poelle being buried together after death?”

“We can open them and take a look,” Karon suggested.

Ophelia hesitated, but then nodded.

Karon bent down, gripped the edge of the lid, and began to push. Stone grated loudly against stone, stirring up a cloud of dust. At last, the lid shifted halfway open.

Inside was empty. There was no corpse.

“It should be symbolic after all,” Ophelia said again, repeating her earlier guess.

Karon did not comment, but simply moved to the second stone coffin. He bent down, placing both hands on the lid, and pushed.

This time, to his surprise, the lid moved without raising the cloud of dust the first coffin had. Which meant it had been opened recently. By whom?

Captain, was it you?

Has the captain already been here? Then where is he now?

After all, three people had been teleported to the island, so the most likely explanation was undoubtedly the captain.

Karon pushed the lid the rest of the way aside.

This coffin was not empty. Inside lay a female corpse. The body had already dried into a mummy, yet some trace of her appearance remained, and her clothes were also Light priest’s robes.

“That is not Lady Poelle,” Ophelia stated.

Of course not. At this very moment Pu’er is most likely asleep in a large bed back home. There’s no way she would be lying here.

Karon shook his head. “It is his wife.”

“His wife?”

“This was not arranged purely as a symbolic display. It should have been arranged on behalf of two families, representing the friendship and relationship between them.”

“The one who left the notebook?”

Her uncle had given her two notebooks to read. One was Bernard’s, and the other belonged to “him.” “He” had been the leader of that band of Light believers.

“Most likely,” Karon said, pointing at Bernard’s statue. “He is continuing that friendship in this way. This statue represents Bernard himself, and beside him is Lady Poelle, the woman Bernard imagined should have been his other half.

“Opposite them, these two coffins should belong to that ‘he’ and ‘his’ wife.”

Ophelia noticed that this time, when Karon referred to Bernard, he used no honorifics, yet she simply assumed that Karon still felt no real sense of belonging to his bloodline or to Darkmoon Island.

In truth, the disgust Karon felt toward Bernard had already reached an extreme. How shameless would a man have to be to murder another man’s followers, murder his wife, and then arrange so much pageantry afterward as though playing house?

It was truly revolting.

“Only ‘his’ wife is here?” Ophelia asked.

“He should have escaped. Bernard didn’t kill him.”

“He escaped? Then the person you were chasing, is he that man’s descendant?”

“Very likely.”

That “he” should have been a descendant of the mad pope, in other words, a member of the Phileas family. That man had died beneath the sea, and the captain had discovered the man’s corpse and consumed it, merging with the descendant of the Phileas family to a certain degree.

Thus, if one insisted on calling the captain “his” descendant, it was not exactly wrong.

Once upon a time, “Phileas” had led a great band of Light believers and cooperated with Bernard, helping him to build up Darkmoon Island. Once the work was finished, Bernard slaughtered them all.

Phileas’s wife had also died in that betrayal, while Phileas had escaped.

Did he die while fleeing pursuit? Or did he survive for some time before eventually dying in that underwater cavern? Karon had no way of knowing, but judging from the clues in the captain’s “memories,” Phileas had to be that “he.”

No wonder the captain had refused to wait even one day. Even after the current owner returned, Nio had still insisted on entering and uncovering this secret. To “him,” what lay buried here was indeed of the utmost importance.

“It does not seem the teleportation array is here,” Ophelia said. She remained more concerned with how to return.

“Then it should be outside from here. This should be the back entrance. The way out should be at the front.” Karon steadied his emotions, pushed the coffin lid back into place, rose, and gestured for Ophelia to follow him out.

There was another stone door outside. Once they pushed it open, the view beyond became clear. This side faced directly toward Darkmoon Island, and beneath the cover of the trees stood a concrete platform.

The teleportation array was there!

“There’s someone there!” Ophelia spoke first in warning.

Karon had already seen it too. A person stood on the platform, with a deer head on top of his shoulders.

Captain! Karon let out a long breath. The captain was waiting here so that they could return together. Good. This little adventure, or absurd farce, could finally end. More than anything, Karon missed his soft bed back in the hotel room. He really should have gone to soak in the hot springs tonight.

And yet what happened next made the calm he had just recovered vanish in an instant.

“Elisa, you left me, Elisa...”

Is the captain reminiscing about Miss Elisa?

“Genevieve, you left me too, Genevieve...”

Genevieve? Karon immediately thought of the woman lying in the coffin he had just opened.

Then, the captain turned to look at where Karon and Ophelia stood. A wave of dread rose from the bottom of Karon’s heart. The moment the captain had uttered that unfamiliar woman’s name, Genevieve, Karon knew something was wrong.

The captain raised a hand and removed the deer head from his own. The face revealed beneath was not wrapped in black gauze, nor was it the captain’s own face. It was a raw, blood-red face, slick with savagery.

The captain had removed his mask.

His gaze fell upon Ophelia. He drew in a deep breath, then bared his teeth in a vicious grin. “The scent of Darkmoon bloodline... yes... this scent... heh... Darkmoon... should perish... Darkmoon bloodline... all of it should be exterminated.”

The captain... had fallen into derangement.

1. A Chinese term for woven plastic utility sacks whose texture resembles snake scales. ☜