Mist Island

The luxury suite naturally came with room service, so the three of them could easily spend two days holed up inside without going out.

Dill, however, made a special trip to the dining hall on the first floor.

The menu alone could not tell him how good the food was. Only by tasting it could he find out what suited his palate best.

After chewing on black guns aboard Narcissa's ship for three days, his mouth was practically numb. He urgently needed good food to save him.

"Let's see, Robin's sandwiches, Hina's skewers, and my roast meat, pasta, ham..."

The ship's cooks were fairly skilled, and Dill soon picked out several favorites.

As he carried a large pile of food away, he spotted a shaved head in the crowd.

It seemed vaguely familiar from a distance, but by the time he tried to catch up for a closer look, the shaved head had vanished into the crowd.

He could only return to the room with the food first.

Over the next two days, he spent most of his time holed up in the room.

Occasionally, he went out to look for that shaved head, but unfortunately, he never found him.

"A shaved head, a shaved head... are there any big shots in the West Blue with shaved heads?"

Lying on the bed, he frowned and racked his brains.

"Robin, does anyone come to mind?"

"No, but we're almost at our destination."

Robin closed her book and looked outside through the room's window.

"Mist Island, a small island near Thriller Bark."

Mist Island, as its name suggested, was an island shrouded in mist.

At its center grew a forest of mist trees.

These trees released mist constantly, so the closer one got to the forest, the thicker the mist became.

For convenience, the vast majority of the island's townspeople lived near the harbor.

The mist there was thin enough not to affect daily life.

The passenger ship docked at this heavily populated harbor and would sail on to Thriller Bark after replenishing some supplies.

"Ah!"

Hina had just stepped onto the gangway when she grabbed Robin's arm and said in a trembling voice:

"D-d-didn't you say there weren't any ghosts?"

A white ghost was floating in the harbor below the three of them.

"Of course there aren't any ghosts. That's just a tall person wearing a white sheet. Look closely underneath. He has feet."

Dill pointed at the person's lower body as he explained, while looking over the various monsters in the harbor.

A vampire in formal attire crouched in front of a stall, bargaining with its furry werewolf owner.

A Frankenstein's monster with a face covered in stitches bent down and shouldered a heavy load.

A burly Pyramid Head walked arm in arm with a bloodstained nurse whose face was wrapped in bandages.

Two little demon children chased each other around, shouting something about a "demon elbow strike."

The overcast sky blocked out the sunlight, and beneath the thin veil of mist, the entire harbor looked like a gathering of cavorting monsters.

I wonder if anyone dresses up as the Flame-Swallowing Lord. Probably not. He looks no different from a human, after all.

As Dill's thoughts wandered, he suddenly felt a weight on his arm. He turned to find Hina clinging to it.

"Hey, weren't you holding on to her just now?"

"My legs went weak. I was afraid she couldn't hold me up. Hi-mmph!"

Dill reached out and stopped her verbal tic. There were still people around; she could not just blurt out her name.

Dragging Hina along with one hand, he walked down the gangway with Robin and officially set foot in Mist Island's harbor.

With Thriller Bark nearby and mist covering the island, dressing up as ghosts and monsters was just as popular here.

They first bought three demon masks from a roadside shop.

Wearing them would let them blend in perfectly with the locals while saving Robin some effort on disguises.

Their destination was none other than a spot beside the Mist Tree Forest at the center of the island.

"Are you going to visit the forest too?"

The driver was dressed as a vampire. As he flicked his whip, he tried to dissuade those inside the carriage.

"I wouldn't recommend it. The mist there is so thick you can't see what's right in front of you. Even us locals don't go there."

Outsiders who did not know better often wanted to enter the Mist Forest.

The lucky ones made it out. The unlucky ones died inside.

To prevent an endless stream of visiting tourists from going to their deaths, the people of Mist Island had enclosed the entire forest with ropes and wooden stakes as a warning boundary.

On top of that, drivers taking visitors there were required to warn them, preferably talking them out of their foolish ideas.

Closing it off completely was impossible. Many people came specifically for the forest. How would they make money if they sealed it off?

"Please focus on driving, sir. We can barely see anything through the mist already."

Dill was a little panicked and held tightly to the two women beside him, because the carriage was moving incredibly fast, yet the driver kept turning around to talk to them.

The surrounding mist grew steadily thicker, until they could barely see anything more than five meters away.

"Hahaha! I'm not the one guiding us. The dogs are."

The driver simply turned all the way around and sat cross-legged facing the carriage, paying no attention whatsoever to their direction as he laughed.

"These dogs follow fixed routes, going back and forth every day. They've long since learned the routes by heart. They also use their noses to check whether there are strangers ahead. They're very clever."

"Speaking of which, have you heard this scary legend? They say..."

The driver launched into a horror story, but it achieved nothing beyond giving Hina a fright.

Before long, the dog-drawn carriage arrived outside the Mist Forest.

After collecting his fare, the driver promptly left.

He had already warned them, anyway. Whatever happened to Dill and the other two had nothing to do with him.

"If we follow the forest's warning boundary, we'll find Gunpowder and the others' tent."

Dill kept his left hand on the boundary rope and held Robin with his right, while Robin held Hina.

The mist here was extremely thick, with visibility limited to half a meter. The three advanced hand in hand to avoid getting separated.

Before long, they bumped into a tent.

Zzzip!

The zipper opened, and Gunpowder poked his head out. After looking them up and down, he bellowed impatiently:

"Are you blind?!"

Three masked people-probably more idiots looking for a thrill here.

"Oh! It's you, boss!"

Now sporting a footprint on his face, Gunpowder rubbed his hands together and smiled ingratiatingly with narrowed eyes.

"Please come in, please come in! You're finally here."

Besides Gunpowder and Boren, there was a boy inside the tent who looked about fifteen or sixteen.

He had short black hair and a line of stitches across his forehead. When he saw Dill and the two women enter, he instinctively shifted back and lowered his gaze to the ground, even breathing a little more quietly.

Who knew where they had bought it, but the tent's interior was remarkably spacious. Even with six people inside, it did not feel crowded.

Still, there was mist inside the tent too, so visibility was not particularly clear.

Dill sat cross-legged, propping his chin on one hand as he stared curiously at the stitches on the boy's forehead.

"Did you draw that on?"

The boy shook his head and said quietly:

"My father personally implanted this in me. It is the symbol of a king."

Dill lit a flame in one hand and leaned closer to examine it. He discovered that the horizontal line began with a sword hilt and ended in a sword tip.

Each vertical line was a different monster, thirty-six in all. From a distance, they looked like stitches, but up close, they formed a longsword piercing thirty-six ghosts.

"Raise your head and look at me."

The boy raised his head at those words, pressed his lips together, and met Dill's gaze with a hint of timidity.

"Do you trust me?"