Shirley's Anomaly

As they ventured deeper into the interior of this "Holy Land Island," the surroundings grew quieter and quieter—there was no longer any sound of wind, nor could they hear birds or streams. An unnatural stillness gathered within the fog, hanging over the party's heads.

Yet this extreme silence only brought greater unease. Once the sounds nature should have possessed had completely faded away, the thought that "this island is alive" began to take over uncontrollably. Shirley kept feeling as if a gaze were falling upon her from within the mist, as if the island were watching and scrutinizing these uninvited guests who had entered its domain. Even the fog slowly drifting around the party seemed to be taking on the air of a "watcher."

And the party continued deeper, heading toward the "Excavation Site" that had appeared in Shirley's mind.

After leaving the Port District, they found a narrow footpath leading toward the center of the island. It seemed to have been opened up by the island's cultists long ago—it ran between two pitch-black rock walls, with no signs of any kind along the way. Here and there, where the path met the rock walls on either side, they could see black stones resembling crystal clusters.

Duncan's gaze was drawn to those black "Stone Clusters." Such "Stone Clusters" were not uncommon on the island. On the cliffs along the island's western side, clustered rocks even larger than these seemed to "grow" everywhere. They burst out from the earth and mountain walls like some bizarre kind of "plant," making one deeply curious about how they had formed.

Even with Morris's vast knowledge, he seemed unable to explain the appearance of these "Stone Clusters" from a purely geological perspective... But considering that the entire island was "alive," as Shirley had said, perhaps