Chapter 553 : Traces

Aboard the steadily cruising ship, Dorothy stood on the rear deck holding a plate of grilled fish, her brow furrowed as she swept her gaze over the surrounding scene. Ever since she detected the faintest trace of Chalice compound lingering within the grilled fish, she knew something was off—and her alertness instantly rose.

“Eh… Miss Dorothy, do you not like fish? If you’re not going to eat that, can I have it? They’re all out over there…”

Just then, Nephthys approached from behind. Holding a plate that now only contained fish bones, she looked at the mostly untouched grilled fish in Dorothy’s hands and commented casually. But what she received in return was Dorothy’s solemn gaze.

“Don’t eat it. There’s something wrong with the fish.”

“Eh? What’s wrong with it?!”

Nephthys was visibly surprised, quickly lowering her voice. But Dorothy didn’t respond immediately.

“Don’t worry about the details for now… Just make sure you don’t eat any more of it.”

Dorothy gave the instruction, and then activated a contingency she had set in place earlier—several seagull corpse marionettes hidden atop the ship’s superstructure. They spread their wings and took off, diving down into the crowd of diners below. Swooping in among the tourists enjoying their grilled fish, they snatched up several servings—including the one from Dorothy’s own plate—and flew back up into the sky.

The unexpected seagull attack threw the crowd into chaos. Screams and shouting erupted, followed by curses hurled at the birds—and even laughter from some who found it amusing. Amid the commotion, Dorothy quietly watched as her fish was carried off, effectively disposed of without drawing any suspicious attention.

“Those grilled fish… they contain trace amounts of Chalice compound. Do not eat any more of it.”

Dorothy said sharply to Nephthys once her seagulls had completed the task. Nephthys was startled by her tone, and hurriedly responded in a whisper.

“Ch-Chalice compound? What’s that? Is it dangerous? Am I… am I going to have problems from eating it?”

“It’s a highly addictive substance.”

Dorothy replied in a hushed tone.

“It’s often used by members of the Chalice cabals to profit or control others. As for health risks… it only becomes a problem with prolonged, high-dosage exposure. The dose in these fish is extremely low—probably not enough to cause physical harm.”

Nephthys exhaled in relief after hearing that.

“Phew… So I should be okay? That’s good…”

“Even if you are, we can’t afford to be careless. The real question is: who put Chalice compound into the food, and why would they give it—however diluted—to so many people? We have to be cautious from now on. Someone else on this ship may be plotting something.”

Dorothy’s tone was serious. Nephthys swallowed nervously and glanced around with unease.

“Someone’s plotting something… Is this going to be like that last time on the Shimmering Pearl? Another Chalice cultist planning to sacrifice us all? Why does this kind of thing keep happening whenever I go anywhere with you…”

Nephthys muttered nervously, but also couldn’t help complaining in her heart about how traveling with Dorothy seemed to attract danger like a magnet. Dorothy, however, shook her head.

“We don’t know anything for certain yet… We can’t jump to conclusions. For now, don’t do anything rash. Keep a low profile. Stay away from the fish. Act normal. We’ll gather information first, then make our move…”

Dorothy gave her instructions calmly. Nephthys nodded quietly and stepped aside to continue her tasks, still worried. Meanwhile, Dorothy moved to a secluded corner of the deck and began covertly releasing her corpse marionettes, deploying miniature ones throughout the ship for surveillance.

She began by focusing on the fishermen and the chefs grilling the fish—watching carefully for any sign that they were secretly adding something to the food. But after a long period of observation, she found nothing unusual. Neither the anglers nor the cooks showed any sign of tampering.

With no progress on that front, Dorothy shifted to a longer-term approach. She waited for the fish schools near the ship to disperse, for the fishermen to pack up, and for all the grilled fish to be cooked and served. Then she used her micro-marionettes to track both groups to their resting quarters and quietly examined their bait and seasonings. She even stole small samples to inspect personally.

The result? Ordinary bait. Ordinary seasonings. No trace of anything suspicious.

This outcome caught Dorothy slightly off guard. She hadn’t expected that neither the chefs nor the anglers were behind the additive.

“Not the anglers… and not the chefs either? Interesting… So who added the Chalice compound to the fish?”

After her initial surprise, Dorothy swiftly adjusted her strategy. She expanded her surveillance net—while continuing to monitor the previous suspects, she now included the entire ship crew, starting with the captain. Based on her past experience aboard the Shimmering Pearl, if there were Beyonders plotting something on the ship, chances were high that it involved the crew.

She deployed a large number of micro-marionettes, spreading them throughout the ship via the ventilation system. After sneaking into the captain’s quarters and obtaining the crew roster, she began monitoring all staff members in real time, determined to spot any suspicious behavior.

Thus, under the shade of a sun umbrella on the rear deck, Dorothy lay back in a chair and calmly watched surveillance feeds covering every corner of the cruise ship—from captain to boiler worker. As time passed, she ended up learning how to run the entire ship through observation. By the time the sun was setting over the western sea, Dorothy had practically learned how to pilot the cruise ship herself—she could even replicate full onboard services using her corpse marionettes.

After an entire afternoon of this, Dorothy had thoroughly learned how a cruise ship operated.

But she still hadn’t figured out the source of the Chalice compound in the fish.

Under her surveillance, everything appeared completely normal: chefs, anglers, stewards, sailors—the entire crew showed no anomalies. The captain and first officer were checking the navigation route, stewards were assisting guests, and boiler workers were laboring in the depths of the ship. No one behaved suspiciously. None of them spoke a single mystical word. No rooms contained any forbidden cult items. They all seemed like completely ordinary people with no ties to the mystical world.

Dorothy rubbed her temples, sitting under the sunshade with a frown. For the first time, she felt at a loss.

“Tch… no abnormalities at all? Are these people really just normal civilians? Then who was it that contaminated the fish with Chalice compound…?”

After a moment of contemplation, a sudden realization struck Dorothy—an overlooked possibility.

“Wait a second… why am I assuming that someone added the compound to the fish after they were caught? What if… the fish had it in them beforehand?”

It dawned on her that she might have made a faulty assumption. While the idea sounded strange, she couldn’t ignore it. To be thorough, she immediately had one of her corpse marionettes steal a live fish from the kitchen tank. Plenty of fish had been caught that day, and not all had been grilled—some were kept by anglers, and others were preserved by the kitchen for future meals in different styles. After all, grilling all of them would be wasteful.

With careful coordination between several humanoid corpse marionettes, Dorothy successfully retrieved a fish and had it transported to a secluded storage room below deck. There, under her command, the marionettes dissected the fish. Using tools like the Illuminating Beacon, they confirmed what she had feared: even this raw, uncooked fish contained trace amounts of Chalice compound.

“So it really wasn’t added after the fish were caught—they already had it inside them... No wonder the chefs and anglers were clean.”

Dorothy exhaled in grim understanding. But that only raised a deeper question: Why would naturally occurring ocean fish contain Chalice compound in the first place?

As the thought took shape in her mind, a new hypothesis surfaced. She slowly walked to the ship’s rail and looked over the side at the now empty ocean. The massive schools of fish that had gathered there earlier were gone, and the curious crowd that had once watched them had long since dispersed. The remaining passengers were now enjoying the peaceful sunset. The entire atmosphere was tranquil.

“Just a little longer… then I’ll check it again.”

She whispered to herself and returned to her cabin.

…

Time passed quickly, and before long, the sun dipped completely beneath the horizon. Night fell over the sea. As darkness enveloped the cruise ship, the deck emptied. Passengers moved indoors to enjoy the ship’s evening entertainment. In her room, Dorothy began her next move.

Seated on her bed, she activated several avian corpse marionettes that had been stationed outside in advance. They took to the sky and descended along the sides of the ship, flying at a matched pace alongside it. Under Dorothy’s control, one of them glided down until it hovered just meters above the sea, staying close to the hull—right where the fish had congregated during the day.

Then, the birds began to operate in tandem. One large bird carried a miniature lantern in its beak, and another pecked it open. A soft orange glow illuminated the surrounding dark waters, allowing Dorothy to observe the area with far greater clarity.

Using the marionette’s vision, she carefully examined the ship’s hull above the crashing waves. Eventually, she spotted a circular opening—a short pipe extended from it, rimmed with black sludge, vegetable scraps, and other refuse. It was unmistakably a wastewater discharge pipe—the cruise ship’s sewage was being expelled into the sea from there.

Dorothy paused for a moment and had another bird activate a second lantern—this one giving off a warm orange light imbued with detection properties. As its glow washed over the pipe, tiny red glimmers appeared around the edge. A warning symbol lit up on the lantern itself.

Indeed, this lantern was a high-powered Illuminating Beacon, capable of revealing faint artificial spirituality undetectable even to spiritual sight. The red specks marked remnants of Chalice mystical contamination.

“Just as I thought…”

Dorothy now understood why the fish had gathered at that exact spot earlier. It wasn’t natural behavior; it was attraction. Something in the ship’s waste was luring them in.

And that something was Chalice compound.

The wastewater being expelled contained trace amounts of it. Drawn by this spiritual substance, the fish congregated to feed on it. Since Chalice compound is easily absorbed into the body, it quickly entered the fish. Later, those fish were caught, grilled, and served—delivering faint doses of the compound to unsuspecting passengers, triggering their appetites.

“Good thing I didn’t eat it…”

Dorothy muttered with relief, then immediately turned her focus to analyzing the broader implications.

ᴜᴘᴅᴀᴛᴇ ꜰʀᴏᴍ N(o)vᴇl(F)ire.nᴇt

“The Chalice compound is coming out with the ship’s sewage… That suggests someone aboard this ship is handling it somehow. But maybe—just maybe—the fish gathering was just a side effect. Feeding the fish might not have been intentional. It might not be a conspiracy… just a coincidence…”

Still, Dorothy wasn’t about to lower her guard. Until she had unraveled the whole truth, she had no plans to stop her investigation.

Next, she recalled all the bird marionettes from the sea and redistributed her micro-marionettes throughout the ship, redeploying them to monitor new targets: the kitchens, laundry rooms, medical bay, restrooms—any location that could produce wastewater. To assist the search, she used a Scent-Tracking Sigil, a mystical item gifted by her friends in the Abyssal Church during the Shimmering Pearl incident.

Before long, her renewed search bore fruit.

In one of the restrooms, the Scent-Tracking Sigil reacted strongly. Dorothy smelled a heavy concentration of blood—a distinct metallic tang lingering in the air. With her experience, she instantly recognized it.

Someone had bled profusely in that restroom, not long ago.

And perhaps…

Someone had been killed there.