Chapter 437: The Culprit

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In the dozens of days of sailing that followed Lucy fishing the survivor out of the sea, everything happening aboard the Xiangyang finally became as calm as usual.

After much probing by Lita and Yun Mu, the identity of the woman Lucy fished out of the sea was confirmed by them to be none other than Lita's mother, Karin Sissilaya!

Yun Mu was at least eighty percent confident in this, and the remaining twenty percent was still due to that one problem.

If the other party really was Lita's mother, why, after so many years, was she only salvaged by Yun Mu and the others now, and why, after so many years, did her appearance still look so young?

The latter could perhaps be explained by the fact that this is a world with Transcendental beings, but from Yun Mu's Perception, the other party was just an ordinary person.

The difference in appearance between an ordinary person in their twenties and their thirties is still quite obvious.

Yun Mu did not consider herself blind to that degree, and even if she were, Lucy, Lita, and Brenna surely wouldn't all be.

As for their reason for confirming the other party was Karin Sissilaya, it was actually quite simple.

First, after investigation, the Scholar robe the other party was wearing was, without surprise, a product of the Starry Church; Yun Mu and the others discovered the Starry Church's emblem on the chest, hidden beneath a shawl.

Second was that when Lita introduced herself, she emphatically described her full name—Lita Sissilaya.

The latter was visibly stunned upon hearing her name; Lita, who was in the room at the time, was so excited she nearly rushed forward to acknowledge her kin, only refraining after forcing herself to calm down.

And after that, Lita asked the other party if she felt familiar with the names Edward and Karin.

The result of that answer was quite unexpected, to the point that even Yun Mu was led in the wrong direction.

"Those... are names that feel very familiar?" In her memory, the rescued Young Girl closed her eyes tightly, her palm gently stroking her chest.

"A fire that cannot be calmed burns in my chest; even death, so close at hand, cannot bring me peace, but upon hearing these two names, I suddenly have the illusion of having come back to life."

"That is a new birth, a happiness filled with beautiful fantasies for the future."

"Hehehe, is that really so?" The Young Girl suddenly let out a neurotic, treacherous laugh, and mocking words came from her mouth: "Then who exactly was it that ended all of this with their own hands?"

As soon as the words fell, she changed her expression: "Of course it is jealousy—why should a group of mortals also be able to obtain such happiness, while I must rot in the deep sea where there is no peace?"

"I only, slightly, stirred up some unease."

Before the words were finished, the other party's voice came to an abrupt halt.

She fainted on the infirmary bed, and when Yun Mu asked Brenna and the others about the words they had just heard, she discovered that everyone except her had not heard the latter part!

It was unknown whether Yun Mu had suffered a Hallucination, or if that voice did not come from the physical world but from somewhere else, and because of some special quality of hers, only she heard the subsequent voice? The truth remained unknown, but the questions at hand had increased significantly.

Assuming the words she heard at the time were not a Hallucination, then who was the person truly speaking?

It couldn't be said that the Young Girl saved by Lucy and the others was actually a patient with schizophrenia!

Eh? Thinking about it carefully, such a possibility was not non-existent.

Yun Mu even felt it was somewhat plausible.

If analyzed this way, the story could perhaps be reconstructed like this... Karin possessed three personalities in total; for the sake of convenience, let's designate them as Personality A, Personality B, and Personality C.

Personality A was the normal Scholar personality, the one who spoke and communicated normally at the beginning.

And Personality B was the personality that said it had to face death; considering the issue of split personality, the death the other party spoke of might refer to Karin being about to cure her schizophrenia?

Hmm... analyzing it this way, Personality C was that treacherous, laughing fellow.

And Personality B seemed to be jealous that Personality A, as Karin, had fallen in love with Edward and experienced the taste of happiness, while she herself was about to face the reality of disappearing, so out of jealousy, she utilized Personality A?

After all, wasn't it just said that she utilized her unease?

As for what Personality B ultimately did, Yun Mu was completely unaware.

After all, the other party didn't even finish her words; to analyze more possibilities, more information would be needed.

Unfortunately, after the Young Girl woke up, she had no impression of the things described, and such a special situation never occurred again.

And after Lucy and the others finished listening to Yun Mu's description, they also unanimously agreed that without more intelligence, perhaps this hypothesis of split personality was the most likely.

As for what Personality B actually did in the hypothesis, Lucy did analyze it seriously.

She believed that perhaps it was precisely some things done by Personality B that caused the fleet where Edward and Karin were to encounter a crisis like the Sea Dragon King.

And the Sea Dragon King, as a Legendary creature, obviously would not be so easily influenced by mortals.

So Lucy believed that it was highly probable that Personality B did something to the Meteor Fragment carried by the fleet at the time, which ultimately led to the Sea Dragon King being attracted.

Of course, all of the above were just assumptions made by Yun Mu and the others, and there were still quite a few problems with loopholes and unexplainable points.

Among them, the hardest to explain was still that question of familiarity.

If the person in front of them was truly Karin, why was she only salvaged from the sea by Lucy now? And after such a long time had passed, why was there no sign of it at all from her appearance? And then there was the claim of split personality, which was too outrageous.

If Karin truly had schizophrenia, it would be impossible for there to be no signs at all, and Edward, who was a companion on the Starry Church's research ship and spent a long time with her, could not have failed to notice.

The latter was a Fourth Order Master Transcendental; one should not underestimate the other party's observational abilities! As things stood, Yun Mu could only choose to take it one step at a time.

On this matter, she believed the first thing to do now was to find Edward and let him personally claim his wife.

As for the twists and turns within, they could all be dumped on him.

Having one more person with a headache meant one more possibility for a solution.

And besides this matter, there were a few other things that happened on the Xiangyang worth mentioning.

First was about the Leader BOSS. Under Yun Mu's specific arrangement, the crew on the Xiangyang would encounter the Leader she recruited from the Dungeon almost several times every day.

Just as expected, the first day they were very afraid, the second day they were still afraid, but by the third day, some people's courage gradually grew.

It even indirectly caused Yun Mu quite a bit of trouble.

For example, that guy, the Burning Monarch Sargeras, actually lost at cards to the crew and owed a mountain of debt; he was simply a disgrace to demons! Yun Mu had never heard in any film or television work that a cunning demon would owe debt because of losing at cards!

Fortunately, this guy was powerful and had absolutely no money on him, and the crew on the ship wouldn't come to Yun Mu to ask for the debt, otherwise she would really have to consider the idea of repatriating him.

However, regarding this, that Burning Monarch seemed to have his own take.

"Hahaha, after losing today and not paying, I am truly too Evil; I am simply the benchmark for demons!"

"Winning or losing doesn't matter; those humans only see my debt growing larger and larger, but they never thought that I would never pay them back, hehehe."

"Sigh, I lost at cards again today; foolish humans, they haven't realized at all that they have already fallen into the trap I set!"

"It's about time to close the net; tomorrow I will let you all witness my true strength!"

"Cough, cough, I'll let you be smug for one more day, be grateful for my mercy!"

"I am the right-hand man of the Demon King, the Burning Monarch Sargeras who commands the Burning Legion! How could mere mortals understand my schemes!?"

"What? I'm too much of a noob so you won't play with me!? Very well, human, you have successfully caught my attention!"

The above conversations appeared almost every day in the cabin of the Xiangyang, and Yun Mu was already too lazy to talk to this guy.

As for the next one, it wasn't quite as heavy-duty, just some minor issues: "Oh, oh!"

Cheerful shouts from the crew came from the deck—Lita and the Scarlet Knight were seen holding real swords, confronting each other.

That's right, Lita and the Scarlet Knight had started sparring.

At first, it was just the Scarlet Knight accidentally seeing Lita practicing swordplay on the deck, so he started practicing along with her.

Later, Lita discovered that the Scarlet Knight's Swordsmanship and strength were quite superb, so she took the initiative to challenge him, and the Scarlet Knight actually agreed.

In just ten days, these two had sparred more than twenty times, leaving over three hundred various scratches on the deck and walls of the Xiangyang.

They cut the mast once, severed the ropes securing the sails six times, and accidentally injured bystanders among the crew twelve times—no words for that.

Those crew members didn't learn their lesson even after getting hurt; every time they saw excitement, they would crowd around, and at a very close distance, too.

Fortunately, both Lita and the Scarlet Knight knew their limits; even if they accidentally injured someone, it was never a fatal wound.

As for the damage to the Xiangyang... it was a Ghost Ship anyway, it would recover on its own.

However, it didn't end there... honestly, it wasn't until Yun Mu pulled out all the recruited Leader bosses that she realized just how much trouble these guys could cause.

The Plague Mad Crocodile, which likes to lurk in Damp places—one could always encounter this guy on the lower deck of the Xiangyang.

Yun Mu learned from the crew yesterday that this guy would actually hide inside the water storage containers, giving the crew member responsible for fetching water a huge fright!

Then there was the Gatekeeper.

He liked to hide quietly behind all sorts of Portal doors, and sometimes he would even hang his body on the wall to disguise himself as a painting.

Well, aside from being a bit scary, there was no real loss, though it did make Yun Mu feel a bit surprised.

As for the Goblin Brave, he just liked to eat, eat, eat, and show off, showing off, showing off; like a reincarnated glutton, one could definitely see him at mealtime every day.

But it wasn't without its benefits; at least there was someone to handle the leftovers every day.

The downside was that Yun Mu discovered the food stored in the cabin seemed to be running low.

Fortunately, she still had quite a bit of food stored in the space of her Divine Blood Pendant, otherwise, whether they could successfully reach Frostfall City would be a problem.

Come to think of it, this guy would sometimes even go into the sea to catch fish himself... the Goblin Brave, isn't that amazing?

Among the guys summoned by Yun Mu, the most worry-free ones were Dabai and Liliya.

The former did nothing but sunbathe and help the crew move things every day, while Liliya liked to play with Chester and the bone dragon of the Witch, Boletina.

That's right, these three little ones hung out together, which could be considered a success in helping Yun Mu escape Chester's dog-like, boundless energy.

But speaking of the bone dragon Boletina, the Witch actually had some peculiar tastes of his own.

This guy always liked to crawl silently in dark corridors, then ambush the crew by pulling open his yellow robe to reveal the twisted, stacked bones inside.

According to him, Fear was a very good emotion that could help him digest and improve his own strength.

Therefore, Yun Mu just let him go and scare the crew.

However, after being stimulated for more than ten consecutive days, the crew basically became desensitized to this guy and were no longer scared by him at all.

It actually made the latter feel a bit disappointed... what are you disappointed about, you ghost!

When Yun Mu found out about this, she couldn't help but complain in her heart.

Wait, this guy really is a ghost.

(End of chapter)