"Something Wrong" Was Everyday Life Here

Before everyone's eyes, the large ship wreathed in ghostly flames, blazing like a gigantic torch, charged straight into the jagged cliffside—yet the explosion and deafening crash everyone expected never came.

At the instant of impact, the ship seemed to "melt." Its sturdy deck, hull, and keel structure all liquefied like mud and flowed downward, silently splashing against the cliff. Rather than crashing into it, it looked more like a mass of sludge being "flung" across the rocky wall—and then the entire ship seemed to be absorbed by the island, completely dissolving among the clustered stone spires.

As for the Spectral Flame that had been blazing atop the ship only moments ago, it burst into a massive ring of fire against the island's cliffs. A sea of ghostly green flames rippled along the coastline before, after a brief delay, spilling into the sea and igniting the mist-shrouded waters. It slowly spread out before the combined fleet.

It happened so suddenly that the Church fleet seemed not to have processed what had occurred. On the Lost Homeland, Nina's eyes widened in shock. "That ship committed 'suicide'?!"

Lucretia sounded equally incredulous. "Dad, did that ship... just break free of your command?"

Duncan did not answer. He merely frowned deeply, confirming the vague "sensation" the ship had suddenly conveyed to him just before it struck the cliff. After a long while, he finally broke the silence thoughtfully. "No... it didn't lose control."

"It didn't lose control?" Lucretia was confused. "Then why did it suddenly ram into the cliff...?"

"The command I gave it was to 'go home'—so it carried it out," Duncan said slowly. "I had assumed that a ship's 'home' was the harbor where it was normally docked and maintained. But for that ship... its 'home' was probably this island itself."

Lucretia still