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At first, I thought I heard it wrong due to the loud sound of a ship horn.

“You can’t sail a ship there?”

I was at the port of the Southern Continent, standing in front of a nearby shipyard. I gazed up at the sky for a moment.

I could see a flock of squawking seagulls soaring high in the sky.

The rainy season was over, and it was unusually sunny today.

I frowned slightly at the scorching sunlight and turned my head towards the vast sea. The shimmering, jade sea was as beautiful as a painting, and it was calm without any big waves.

Then the captain shook his head and asked, “You said you were going to Camoli Island?”

“Yes.”

“It’s not that it’s hard to sail a ship. Rather, we can’t even get close to the island. If you don’t want to die, just give up…….”

“We’ll die?”

If you approached the island, you would die?

I became serious as I recalled the members of the business, Getchu, who had been sent to Camoli Island to explore beforehand.

Unless they all agreed to commit betrayal, the complete loss of contact meant they experienced a significant risk to their personal safety.

“One hundred out of one hundred¹.”

And this was what the captain claimed.

Then Claudia came up to me, put a parasol over my head, and asked the captain, “Even if it looks like no storm is coming, and the waves are this calm?”

“When you approach the island, the ship suddenly sinks like it’s being pulled from below. It’s like the island’s haunted by a ghost.”

It was increasingly difficult to believe, but those were the words of the captain who owned the most ships here in the Port of Gelao.

So, did that mean that all the members of Getchu were dead? My mouth fell wide open in shock, and my eyes trembled.

Felix, who had been temporarily lost in thought after hearing that, took over.

“Why didn’t you request assistance from the imperial government before?”

“The Camoli Island has been private property for a long time, so we’ve only recently found out. What can you do if the officials of the island said that even the sea was their territory, and they didn’t even let us get close to it? I guess that’s what I thought…….”

The captain pulled the pipe from his mouth, puffing out thick smoke.

“About a month ago, the officials sold off the island and rushed to leave as if they were running away, and now we finally know the truth.”

They spared no time to tell the imperial government, those damn scumbags.

The captain spat on the floor and grumbled that more than one person died and suffered as a result.

Only then did I understand why the island officials blocked access to the outside.

Those guys did something wrong. They didn’t fall for the money. Instead, they sold the island off quickly because they were guilty of something.

“They must have offended God.”

The captain clicked his tongue and then turned his back and left.

There were rumors that nature, which had been polluted for thousands of years and had no room for recovery, was miraculously revived. Of course, I expected something positive, but the reality was actually chaos.

Sooner or later, it would probably reach the ears of the imperial family. Unlike the island officials who covered their eyes and ears, there was no way I could ask the people here to pretend that they didn’t see the things that they saw.

Most of all, a lot of people have died.

Before the imperial government received the news and dispatched people, they should have resolved the issue as soon as possible, cut the tail off, and then left.

But, they did this instead?

“He said people died,” I muttered to myself and thought about the members of Getchu.

I only met them once in person, but they died innocently because of my thoughtless mistake.

If they hadn’t been involved with me, they would all be alive right now. They were extras like me, but I lived while they died.

I became so gloomy that I made seven tombs out of the pure white sand that was softer than skin.

May their souls rest in peace.

Growl–

I mourned their death from the bottom of my heart. But I was hungry.

“Am I even human…….?”

Even if people died because of me, I couldn’t help but still have an appetite. What the hell was wrong with my stomach?

Felix brought me the packed lunch that he had packed separately.

‘Forget it. I don’t deserve to eat this right now.’

I stared down at it, drooling.

Claudia handed me a sandwich and said, “It’s all about trying to make ends meet.”

I sniffed out of shame as I nibbled on the sandwich. Meanwhile, some tombs were washed away by the waves, and I made a mental note that I had to repair it later.

We sat down on the beach to quench our hunger for a while. There was a restaurant famous for grilled clams nearby, but the pain in my conscience wouldn’t let me go there.

But we should have just gone. The seagulls here were more combative than I thought and was constantly eyeing my packed lunch, so I had to be vigilant at all times.

“What do we do now?”

“Can’t we buy a ship?”

That’s right. If no ship wanted to sail to Camoli Island, we could just buy a ship.

I didn’t know when I started to accept those words so naturally. Anyway, there was another problem.

“There are also the people whom Irene hired.”

I turned my head in the direction Claudia was pointing. Sorcerers, spiritualists, doctors, swordsmen, archers, and so on.

‘Well, I thought it’d be better than nothing, so I brought them here.’

As they were all introduced by Martina, there was no doubt about their skills. But this time, that wasn’t the problem.

To paraphrase it, it was like a disaster.

No matter how powerful a human being, it was impossible for them to prevent earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, or infectious diseases.

It was not an opponent that we could fight and win after devising a strategy.

‘I need more information.’

I thought as I watched the people near the shoreline passing by us naturally.

Felix told me there was magic that could alter appearances.

It was possible to alter a person’s appearance, and that person could communicate with other people freely. If the people they spoke to tried to recall the conversation, their impression of that person would feel clouded. I couldn’t even imagine how it would look.

It was remarkable magic. The beauty of the diamond siblings could be obscured.

Felix and Claudia also looked relieved to be freed from the attention and gazes that followed them like shadows everywhere.

“I should have used this magic earlier.”

Claudia said to herself as she looked down at the artifact, wrapped around her wrist like a bracelet.

However, the astronomical price was second to none, and the magic wouldn’t work on people that the person had spoken to before.

For this reason, only the employees who had never met the siblings before, such as the sorcerers, spiritualists, doctors, swordmen, archers, and others, didn’t recognize them.

‘But Chloe wants to get away from the three useless brothers.’

However, it was no use altering her appearance.

I tucked her silver hair, which was fluttering to and fro in the sea breeze, behind her ear as I brooded over the feelings of pity.

But it was then.

Squawk-squawk!

“Ugh!”

A seagull with a uselessly intelligent head flew away with the basket of packed lunch while I was distracted!

“My food!”

I didn’t know what I would do after chasing it, but I unknowingly ended up running wildly after the seagull.

Behind my back, I could hear Claudia and Felix’s panicked voices, but I ran without hesitation. I held the edge of my skirt firmly.

As I ran as far as my physical strength allowed, before I knew it, I reached a quiet and secluded place where hardly any people ventured.

“Haaah……. Haaa…….”

I coughed a few times because I felt like throwing up and then just collapsed onto the sand.

‘Oh, my stomach hurts.’

My obsession with food……

After realizing it belatedly, a deep sense of dread came over me. Did I really think I’d be able to catch the seagull by chasing it?

‘Let’s go back.’

I sighed and stood up, brushing the sand clinging to my butt.

I had a conscience, but I was going to grill clams and eat to my heart’s content at the famous local restaurant. As Chloe said, it’s all about trying to make ends meet.

I started to make my way back to where the siblings were.

…….Until I saw a large lump lying on the beach.

‘A person…….’

Co-corpse?

I slowly took a step back, clutching my pounding chest.

But at that moment, the thing that I determined as a corpse threw up seawater and rose.

What tenacious vitality. I haven’t even done anything like artificial respiration yet, but it unbelievably woke up on its own.

I admired it from the bottom of my heart, and to my surprise, it was a familiar face.

‘You! You are the last member of Getchu member that I recruited, the 15-year-old boy!’

I felt like I was looking at the past me where I was screaming about how money was the best, and I ended up hiring him without realizing it!

‘His name……. I know his name!’

“Andrew!”

“*Cough*, it’s Anthony.”

Even in this situation, the boy retorted in a hoarse voice.

* * *

^{1. The captain is implying that there’s a 100% chance of dying if they attempted to go to the island since all the people who attempted to travel their never came back.↩}