Conquest Sea, shining white pearl.
On the forward deck in the dark night, passengers were densely packed. The deep blue heart exhibition that everyone had been anticipating had taken an unexpected turn. No one had thought that the advance notices, which had been considered pranks during the day, were actually real! Thief K not only truly existed but also appeared at the exhibition site as promised and stole the precious deep blue heart under the watchful eyes of the crowd!
After witnessing Thief K's appearance and her graceful movements in toying with the sailor guards, the audience erupted. After Thief K displayed the true brilliance of the deep blue heart, a burst of exclamations erupted from the crowd, and some even couldn't help but applaud. They simultaneously marveled at the thief's intelligence and skill, as well as the beauty of the deep blue heart.
After the bow was sealed off by dark red smoke, every audience member couldn't wait to crane their necks, eager to see clearly what was inside the smoke, wanting to see how the elegant and daring thief would escape.
The dark red mist spreading over the bow seemed to possess some magical power, remaining gathered and not dispersing despite the continuous sea breeze, until this unusual phenomenon of gathering gradually ended automatically several minutes later. The dark red mist was dispersed by the sea breeze, and at the bow, there was no longer any sign of Thief K, only Massimo and a few sailors standing before the angel statue, looking around in astonishment.
"That fellow... disappeared? Where exactly did she go!"
Looking around in a panic, Massimo tried to find the daring thief's figure but found nothing. In his urgency, he ordered the sailors beside him to search the front rows of the audience on the deck, but they still couldn't find anyone. Meanwhile, far behind the forward deck, Costa, who was on the upper level, had a thought after seeing all this.
From the very beginning, Costa had been keeping a close eye on the situation at the bow from the cruise ship's superstructure. His position was higher than the forward deck, so he could clearly see that the area sealed by the dark red mist did not extend into the audience seating. Therefore, it was impossible for Thief K to hide among the audience using the smoke. If she had fled towards the audience seating, she would have been seen by Costa as soon as she left the smoke.
Therefore, in Costa's eyes, Thief K did not mix with the audience, the deck had no holes, and nothing flew up from within the smoke. Thus, the only direction Thief K could have fled was by jumping into the sea from the side of the bow; this was her only escape route.
'Hmph... Did she prepare a boat or an Extraordinary item that enhances underwater abilities beforehand? Such things might work against mortals, but using them against us is looking down on people too much.'
After a quick analysis, Costa thought this to himself. As an Extraordinary of the Wave Path and a follower of the Sea Abyss Church, his abilities in water were unparalleled.
"That fellow must have jumped into the sea. Go down and catch her!"
"Yes!"
Costa ordered his subordinates beside him. The three sailors beside him immediately responded after hearing Costa's command. Then, they all ran to the railing and jumped into the sea without being seen by the audience in front. Costa himself, after taking off his Captain's coat and removing his Captain's hat, also ran to the railing and jumped down.
They were going to search for the daring thief's figure in the sea and then capture her. In the sea, no Extraordinary could be their match.
...
'Heh... These fellows jumped into the sea to search...'
Among the crowd, after seeing Costa and the others' actions using a small Corpse Puppet, Dorothy silently thought to herself. After the mist dispersed, Thief K disappeared. With no signs of flying away, burrowing into the ground, or mixing into the audience, jumping into the sea was the most likely possibility.
'But these fellows won't find anything but fish later, right? After all, although the person jumped into the sea, she didn't actually enter the water at all. At most, they'll catch a few fish to bring back and make themselves some fish soup to warm up.'
Dorothy thought this way. Due to sufficient preparation beforehand, Neff had already removed her makeup and slowly returned to the deck wearing a new dress. The deep blue heart and Neff's disguise clothes were now all inside the magic box in Dorothy's Corpse Puppet's hand, with no risk of being discovered.
'Up to now, the Phantom Thief Neff plan can be considered a success.'
Thinking of this, the smile on Dorothy's lips deepened. Ever since she discovered that the deep blue heart, an important item for this sacrificial ritual, was difficult to remove, she had brewed this phantom thief plan in her heart, intending to have Massimo remove the gem himself.
The inspiration for this plan actually came from the tricks of a phantom thief in a certain Detective anime Dorothy watched in her previous life. By pretending the treasure was stolen, the treasure holder, eager to inspect it, would unlock the security measures themselves, thus creating an opportunity for the real theft. To complete this plan, the first step was to hint to the treasure holder that the treasure might be stolen.
And this was the purpose of the phantom thief's advance notices. Dorothy's purpose in sending these notices was to hint to Massimo and Costa that a Thief K was coveting the deep blue heart, implanting the suggestion in their minds that the deep blue heart might be stolen.
No matter how disdainful they acted towards this advance notice, deep down they both knew that a Thief K existed. Therefore, after Dorothy used the combination of the ring of concealment and Spirit threads to hide the Spirituality traces of the deep blue heart, Massimo, upon seeing the note placed on the gem by the small Corpse Puppet, immediately reacted by thinking the deep blue heart might have been switched, and thus was eager to check.
If the advance notice hadn't provided the suggestive effect, Massimo's first reaction upon seeing the deep blue heart with its Spirituality traces gone might not have been that the gem was switched, but that something was wrong with the gem, and he wouldn't have been so eager to check. Therefore, for Dorothy, the phantom thief's advance notice was not a show but an important means of hinting to the other party, and thus the existence of Thief K, played by Neff, was necessary.
So far, Dorothy's plan had progressed smoothly. The deep blue heart was in hand, and this group of Sea Abyss Church followers on the ship would not be able to carry out their plan. However, Dorothy did incur a slight loss for this.
Costa and Massimo were both Extraordinary aligned with 'Light'. They had their detection abilities active when they were plotting, so Dorothy consumed some'Shadow', a total of two points, when she was investigating them. Using Electrification to shock Massimo and save Neff also consumed two points of'Stone' and two points of 'enlightenment'.
Besides this, the most significant consumption was that patch of dark red smoke. The test tube used to create this smoke was one of the spoils from when Dorothy defeated the Vampire Claudius. It was Claudius's life-saving item. Dorothy had found two tubes on him then, used one, and had one left now.
Furthermore, in order to allow Neff's abilities to be used, Dorothy specifically asked Great Shaman Uta to reverse-channel the Wilderness Spirit Soul Xu. Of course, this time the request was not free. A Great Shaman of a tribe wouldn't work for free. Uta had already helped Dorothy without charge last time to repay a favor. This time, Dorothy's request to him also came with compensation.
Dorothy asked Kapak to negotiate with Uta. Ultimately, Dorothy offered various medicines, food, weapons, and ammunition worth 1500 pound as leverage to ask Uta for help, requesting him to communicate with the Soul Xu and reverse-channel it over.
After Kapak became the doctor of the Tupa Tribe, the medical and health conditions of the Tupa Tribe improved significantly. After receiving assistance with advanced medical technology from the Main Continent, the health status of the Tupa Tribe members improved noticeably, and the people of the Tupa Tribe were also very happy with such improvements.
Kapak was very happy that he could truly help his tribesmen, but treating illnesses also required medicine. After Kapak had been treating for a long time, the medicine in his previously collected medicine box ran out. He could only disguise himself and go to the New World colonial cities to sell tribal specialties in exchange for the colonists' currency to buy new medicine. Thus, the Tupa Tribe had always faced the predicament of insufficient medicine. They had little trade with the colonists and not enough colonial currency to buy these things.
Therefore, Dorothy was able to trade supplies with the Tupa Tribe. Utar Shaman was happy to see the health of his tribesmen improve, and he was willing to contribute to exchange for the supplies the tribe needed.
Dorothy had already made arrangements. After the ship docked, she planned to transfer the money to Adele, asking her to use her connections in the East District underworld to purchase the supplies at the Tivian black market, and then smuggle the goods to the New World. For this, Dorothy was also willing to pay Adele a service fee of 200 pound.
The total price was 1700 pound. Although it seemed a bit expensive, it was still worth it for Dorothy, as it opened up a channel for trading supplies with the Tupa. In the future, she could use supplies to ask them to do more things, such as asking Utar to help contact more Wilderness Spirit, or even contact other tribes. The main reason for the higher cost this time was that the Tupa Tribe currently had a shortage of supplies, and Dorothy took the initiative to buy more for them. She didn't mind doing extra favors for these natives.
Another point is that the """Silent""" storage object Neff gave Soul Xu as cat food was something she bought herself at the Golden Contract Bank last time. Since she didn't know how the cat master's appetite was, under Dorothy's suggestion, Neff bought more than one storage object at the time. After buying the storage objects, she almost spent all the more than one thousand pound she had saved in the White Stone Craftsmen's Guild. Of course, after New Year's Eve, Dorothy reimbursed her for a full one thousand pound, and the remaining cat food Neff had later all ended up in Dorothy's hands, and they were all used this time.
Lastly, what was consumed quite heavily was probably Neff's cosmetics. To meet the needs of long-term travel, Neff brought a lot of backup cosmetics. As a result, this time, for the need of disguise, she directly painted herself white-skinned, using a lot of expensive cosmetics in one go, which made Neff feel very pained.
In total, Dorothy currently has over 3200 pound in cash, and accumulated Spirituality of 7 """Cup""", 8 """Stone""", 5 """Shadow""", 2 """Light""", 14 """Silent""", and 7 """enlightenment""". Two """Shadow""" Spirituality storage objects were used, leaving 5. Thanks to Soul Xu's small appetite, only 1 of the 3 cat food items given was eaten, so there are 2 """Silent""" storage objects left, which can be used to feed the cat next time.
'Fortunately, after reaching the Chalk, the consumption of the Spiritual Silk Path ability has significantly reduced. Last time, controlling the drunk Living Puppet to entangle with that group of sailors for over an hour, the final consumption was only a little. If it were before, it would definitely have consumed at least three points of """Cup""".'
Dorothy thought this in her heart, and then she began to ponder the next actions of those Sea Abyss Church followers.
'If these guys can't find anything in the sea, they'll probably immediately shift their search focus back to the ship. Just before the exhibition started, I had the Corpse Puppet steal a lifeboat and row away. It's already rowed quite far. I hope that after those guys discover the lifeboat is gone, they'll suspect that Thief K has escaped and is no longer on the ship.'
'Of course, they might not believe it... If they don't believe that Thief K has left this ship with the deep blue heart and are determined to find Thief K, then things will become a bit troublesome.'
Looking at the slightly chaotic scene on the deck before her, Dorothy thought this in her heart. She knew that although she had successfully stolen the deep blue heart and successfully stopped the sacrificial ritual, the crisis was not completely resolved yet. As long as these cultists still controlled the ship, the lives of everyone on board were not completely safe.
'So... next is to see what those guys will do.'
Dorothy thought silently in her heart. She was ready to continue clashing with Costa and Massimo in the dark.
...
Thief K's appearance and departure caused quite a stir on the foredeck. While the spectators on the scene were discussing amongst themselves, they also vied to crowd onto the bow to visit the area where Thief K had been active. However, Massimo naturally wouldn't allow this. He immediately organized the crew, sent the spectators on the foredeck back into the cabins, and then immediately led people to start searching the ship.
After several tens of minutes, Massimo, having found nothing in the search, arrived at the stern with a grim face, accompanied by the cultist crew members, and waited silently for something. After a while, he saw several wet large hands reaching up from below and grabbing the edge of the ship's hull. Then, a drenched Costa climbed back onto the deck after grabbing the portholes and climbing thirty meters. Behind him were one after another equally drenched sailors.
"How is it? Did you find that guy?"
Upon seeing Costa, Massimo immediately spoke eagerly, while Costa spoke as he picked up a towel and wiped his head.
"No... I took people and swam all around this ship, diving almost eight hundred meters deep. I didn't see any sign of anyone. That guy should still be on the ship. I don't know what ability or method was used to deceive our eyes, escaping from the bow and mixing back into the cabins."
Costa said with a serious expression. Listening to his words, Massimo's brows furrowed slightly, and then he continued to speak.
"Still on the ship? No way... When I just checked the ship, I found that one lifeboat was missing. This might be what that guy's accomplice used to pick her up from the sea surface. After she jumped into the sea, she might have directly gotten onto the lifeboat and run away. They might have some ability that can accelerate the lifeboat's speed. Before the fog above dissipated and before we could determine that guy's location, they might have already gone far away."
Massimo put forward his hypothesis. After all, because the fog at the bow had lasted for a while just now, Costa, who hadn't figured out the thief's movements, didn't immediately jump into the sea, so the lifeboat had time to escape.
Massimo said this in his analysis, while Costa shook his head repeatedly after hearing Massimo's analysis.
"No... I don't think so! I just swam through the sea area three or four nautical miles around this ship at the fastest speed. I didn't find any trace of a lifeboat. They might have some ability to accelerate a lifeboat, but I don't believe this ability is faster than me swimming."
"So, I think the disappearance of this lifeboat is just a trick, a trick that guy used to try to make us believe she has escaped from this ship. She should still be on this ship now. If we believe she has really escaped, then she can rest easy!"
With a serious expression, Costa said this. All these judgments were based on his confidence in his own abilities. He didn't believe that thief could be faster than him in the sea.
"Judging from that guy's skills and the trick of concealing the deep blue heart's Spirituality traces, she is an Extraordinary on the Black Earth or Chalk,'Shadow' Path! I absolutely do not believe that this'Shadow' thief, driving a lifeboat without even a sail, can be faster than me at sea. Therefore, she must be on the ship. As long as we search properly, we will definitely find her!"
Costa said this, and then fiercely threw the towel in his hand onto the ground.