A ghost!!

It was getting late, so the group of six found an inn first.

There were plenty of tourists on the island. Even with money to spare, they could only get the inn's last two twin rooms.

Naturally, Dill's group of three took one room, while Gunpowder's group of three squeezed into the other.

"All right, let's have a meeting first!"

Dill sat cross-legged on the floor, intending to brainstorm.

"How do we deal with Tia as quickly as possible?"

Hina raised her black gun and said eagerly:

"We sneak in, strike straight at the heart, and capture Tia;

then I take a black gun and crush the monsters inside the palace;

finally, we grab Tia's treasure and go live free!"

Since she had decided to become the finest pirate, naturally, she had to do what pirates were supposed to do.

She couldn't bring herself to slaughter civilians, but robbing a usurper gave her no qualms whatsoever.

Her method just wasn't particularly sound.

Expressionless, Dill reached into her pocket and pulled out a comic book.

"Your main task right now isn't fighting ghosts with a black gun. It's quitting these comics;

you're not allowed to read any more until the plan is complete."

"Fine. Hina is disappointed."

Hina sat down with a pout, casually tossing the black gun to Dill as a snack.

Dill caught it and began crunching away, mumbling:

"But sneaking in is a decent idea. We'll keep that for now."

As long as they repeated the sequence of operations from Cologne Island, sneaking into the palace wouldn't be difficult.

First, hypnotize a soldier, use that soldier to hypnotize a captain, then hypnotize a minister or someone like that.

With some time, they could work their way toward King Tia, step by step.

"What do you think, Robin?"

Robin frowned and pondered for a moment before saying:

"I think Vlad might hold a higher standing than we imagined."

By standing, she didn't mean a royal title or official rank, but his standing in the citizens' hearts.

"The people in town seem to be working hard to find him, not for money, but because they genuinely want him back;

Tia still hasn't succeeded to the throne, and the rank-and-file soldiers don't know the inside story either;

if we're willing to take a risk, I think we could gamble on it!

Use Vlad's identity to raise an army and launch a direct counterattack, putting pressure on Tia with his legitimate claim."

"That is a bit risky."

Dill didn't immediately agree. Instead, he decided on a two-pronged approach.

"We'll pursue both at once. Take control of the rank-and-file soldiers step by step and sound them out. If we confirm Tia doesn't have many troops under him, we'll raise an army and put down the rebellion."

With so little information to go on, the three of them couldn't think of any other methods.

"All right, let's sleep first. We start work tomorrow morning!"

Early the next morning, a constable began his daily patrol.

His face was gray and covered in dust. A large chunk of skin was missing from his left cheek, exposing his back teeth. His clothes were ragged and riddled with holes, through which wounds covered his exposed skin, as though some wild beast had bitten him.

A zombie outfit.

The constables' uniform.

As a man with dreams, he wasn't satisfied with torn clothes covered in fake blood. Every day before heading out on patrol, he applied his own makeup to make himself look more like a zombie.

"Any tourists up early today? Let me give them a scare!"

He scanned the street, trying to spot visiting tourists;

their daily patrol duties weren't limited to searching for suspicious people and criminal activity. Scaring people was part of the job too.

Thriller Bark had no mist trees, but the damp morning air still brought a thin layer of fog.

Through the haze, he saw a man wearing a demon mask step out of an inn.

The man seemed to be heading out to buy breakfast.

"Perfect chance!"

Delighted, the constable put away his flashlight. His limbs began to stiffen, and he let out mindless growls as he staggered toward the youth.

Tap~ tap~ tap~

He limped forward. Once he drew close, he suddenly accelerated like a real zombie spotting fresh flesh, waving his arms and opening his gaping, bloody mouth to bite.

To his surprise, the man abruptly turned around, his black eyes meeting the constable's from behind the demon mask.

The constable couldn't remember exactly what happened. All he remembered was vaguely hearing:

"Do you trust me?"

Dill began his work here, with Vlad serving as his assistant.

Robin's guess had been right. He did hold a very high standing among ordinary people.

With him present, Dill's work of taking control went much more smoothly.

Most people would lower their guard as soon as they saw him.

Meanwhile, Robin and the other three arrived at the cemetery to the west.

Commonly known as the Life Transfer Station.

"W-what are we doing here?"

Hina clung tightly to Robin's arm and whispered shakily:

"Hina is scared."

It was daytime, and the burial mounds sat quietly in the sunlight, looking nothing like a sinister place.

But Hina still felt an inexplicable fear.

All the monsters on the island were living people. As long as she overcame that mental hurdle, she could deal with them normally.

But the cemetery was full of corpses. Who knew what might crawl out of there?

Robin reached out and patted Hina's head, comforting the girl who was four years older than her:

"Don't worry. At worst, corpses will crawl out of the ground and bite us to pieces, that's all."

"Don't just say something that terrifying!"

Hina gripped Robin's arm tightly. Even the demon mask on her face somehow looked pitiful.

"Let's go already. What's there to see in a cemetery? Are the dead going to open their mouths and give us information?"

"The dead won't, of course, but the living can."

Robin narrowed her eyes and scanned the area. There were only three bereaved relatives visiting graves in the cemetery.

Because of the island's customs, the people here didn't consider death the end, but the beginning of another life as a real ghost or monster.

Even the cemetery was named the "Life Transfer Station."

Once people died, naturally, they became real ghosts and monsters.

But Robin hadn't come looking for ghosts or monsters. She had come looking for living people.

"The soldiers at the harbor said there have been some unusual occurrences here recently;"

she turned and instructed Gunpowder and Boren:

"We need to search this cemetery and find the source of these unusual occurrences as soon as possible."

Dill was busy hypnotizing people, and they would have had nothing to do if they stayed in their rooms.

Rather than sit idle, they might as well try their luck in this cemetery.

Perhaps those unusual occurrences were the work of the old king's trusted followers. Finding them would be a great help to their plan to put down the rebellion.

Gunpowder and Boren nodded and got to work with their masks on.

Robin's orders carried the same weight as Dill's, and they had long since grown used to following her instructions back on Cologne Island.

Robin and Hina didn't remain idle either. They approached the three bereaved relatives visiting the graves to ask what exactly those supposed unusual occurrences were.

"Oh~ you're tourists from elsewhere, aren't you?"

The man in a top hat adjusted his monocle and explained in a low voice:

"If we're only talking about recently, some gravestones have been cut through for unknown reasons. The cuts are extremely smooth, as though they were made by a highly skilled swordsman;

but further back, about two years ago, real ghosts began appearing in this cemetery. Everyone thought this was an auspicious burial site and rushed to bury their ancestors here."

"G-g-g-g..."

Hina's fingers trembled slightly as she pointed behind the man and cried in a shaking voice:

"A ghost!!"