Brain bloom

"Indeed... how... how did this happen?"

"It's gone!"

"It's impossible for anyone to steal the sacred relic right under our noses!"

Many remained silent, their words stuck in their throats, unable to escape. Even those who could normally preach the doctrines of the coffin bearers for ten hours straight were now rendered speechless by shock.

This is one of the burial sites of the first popes, and also one of the most sacred areas in the entire Kingdom of the Holy Coffin.

The Pope's tombstone stands here, inscribed with his devout faith and the entire process of receiving gifts from those who brought his coffin. And of course, there are the letters SB, written in gold, gleaming brightly.

The Crystal Box of Eden should have been placed in front of the tombstone, containing the Pope's skull, as it was meant to serve as a warning to his followers, reflecting the doctrine that "wealth brings death."

But today—the Crystal Box of Eden, along with the Pope's skull inside, has suddenly vanished…

Volume 1 #073 The Coming Storm

Only after the dandelion and salt sprite disappeared did one of the guests at the Four Seasons Winery dare to move.

Although the tree spirit's soul was severely damaged, it fortunately did not die or scatter like the scarecrow. Instead, it benefited from the misfortune and returned directly to its original body.

It sighed, willing to offer its branches year after year (since they were of no use to it anyway), rather than provoke the Seasons Keeper again. An eternal scarecrow? How terrifying. No wonder the old tree spirit of the previous generation said, never mess with the Seasons Keeper.

When Dandelion first arrived, she was just a naive little girl, and the tree spirit even wanted to eat her (literally). In just a few short years, she's transformed into such a terrifying sorcerer…

She wasn't some pretty face protected by that ghost, damn it! The tree spirit was filled with regret; she should never have come...

The tree spirit immediately decided to escape, absolutely unwilling to be sealed inside the scarecrow again. That was simply... having its soul squeezed together and crammed inside was too suffocating.

More importantly, it could sense a chilling gaze approaching from the eastern sea.

And it's very close!

Something was wrong, something really very wrong. That was definitely some kind of powerful monster! As a monster itself, the tree spirit was absolutely certain of this. It shuddered, shook off a few broken branches, and twisted its massive body as it fled into the forest.

……

Dandelion collected information about her enemies; although it was all fiction, it was indeed reliable information.

That apple belongs to Tokaji, one of the most famous writers of our time, who traveled far and wide, leaving behind a wealth of adventure and fantasy stories.

These books are arguably the world's best-selling paper; if you were to count the number of words in each book, they might even rival bread in sales.

Every line of text is captivating, and the adventure stories within have even inspired many to become adventurers. It is said that the three heroes of Silvermoon City were influenced by it, which is why they left their mark on history with such a strong sense of individual heroism.

Today, many powerful people are active in the world, experiencing various adventures. Occasionally, travelers appearing in taverns will boast that some adventure teams can even rival a nation.

The pen of a great writer changed the world.

In short, Tokaji's Apple books are all constructed based on the real world. The Kingdom of the Holy Coffin and the Empire of Peda, which appear in them, are described very accurately. Therefore, Dandelion bought the whole set to use as reference material for the enemy.

She read with great interest, losing count of how many pages she read, before finally finding the section about the adventurers' journey to the Holy Coffin Kingdom—under the blazing light of SB, the adventurers were engaged in a fierce battle with evil monsters…

“Princess,” Fu Fu reminded her.

"Yes, I found it."

According to records, after the first pope died, his remains were divided into thirteen parts, which were preserved in the Crystal Box of Eden and placed in the Thirteen Churches of the Holy Coffin, as a form of martyrdom.

The most famous is, of course, the skull.

“Hmm… a skull…” The more Dandelion looked at the box beside her, the more it seemed to resemble it. “This thing… looks like the Pope’s skull.”

Dandelion even forgot to force a smile, because this was just too inexplicable.

Why would such a bizarre thing happen? A box containing the skull of an enemy's ancestor flew thousands of miles from the ancestor's grave to her feet... Could it be an apology on behalf of the descendants?

In any case, it couldn't be an assassination attempt. Those believers who worship the coffin bearers aren't crazy enough to use their ancestors' skulls to kill people.

"What...what should we do?" Fu Fu asked worriedly.

"Just playing around with it... okay, I was just kidding."

"That's good."

"Yeah, let's wait until Senshi comes back before we play. It's not fun playing alone."

As she spoke these words, Dandelion stared warily at the crystal box, wondering if her disrespectful remarks to the deceased would turn it into a murder weapon once more. But it remained mute; the empty bone openings held no eyeballs, unable even to meet her gaze.

“Princess, princess, what should we say if the enemy comes knocking?” Fu Fu, unusually clever, said, “Although this thing fell down,… perhaps the princess will be mistaken for a thief.”

"Indeed, even though we were enemies to begin with, I still hate being slandered."

The dandelion stared coldly at the Pope's skull, its eyes flashing with a hatred clearer than crystal.

"These humans are masters of slander. The Kingdom of Flowers has been slandered countless times... to the point that it has truly become what they fear."

"Oh?"

Dandelion stopped talking, closed her eyelids, and concealed her fierce gaze.

"In short, if they really come looking for me, I'll risk everything to get this to the Peda Empire. I think those brutal pirates will be more than happy to take it."

"Okay...can we go back now?" Fufu asked again, "It's a little uncomfortable here."

"Let's go, I need to think of a way to safely dispose of this skull."

She stood up, holding the Eden Crystal Box, ready to leave the secret room, but Fufu asked another question.

"Princess, may I bring my novel up with me?"

"You want to see?" she asked with interest.

"Hmm...no, no, no—it'll be so boring waiting for Mori-neechan to come back, you might need something to kill time."

"Idiot, that's not necessary. The process of 'waiting for her to come back' itself is very enjoyable."

Dandelion smiled slightly, her voice filled with joy. She looked down at her new clothes, the exceptionally beautiful new robes fitting her perfectly, as if she could hear Sen Shi saying at any moment, "I'm right beside you."

“She will come back and say, ‘I’m back.’ Maybe she’ll chatter on and on about all the things that happened… This is a kind of happiness that you can only understand if you’ve been lonely… I can cook for two now.”

"I don't really understand," Fu Fu said dejectedly, "but... it's definitely nice to have someone with you."

Her smile deepened. She didn't explain her happiness to Fufu anymore. Instead, she took all the books on Tokaji apples and then pushed open the door to leave the secret room.

Back on the ground, Fufu transformed into a girl, picked up her clothes, and put them on. Then, with a hint of shyness, she reached out her little hand to Dandelion, as if asking for candy. Dandelion hesitated, wondering whether to tear out the adult content from the book, but ultimately handed it to Fufu intact.

"Then I'll go read a book." The salt sprite smiled happily.

"Okay, I'll go deal with this skull. This is such an unexpected nuisance... Oh right, where's the tree spirit?"

"I don't know, do I have to go find it... Oh, Princess, is it dark yet?" Fu Fu looked up and noticed that the sky was dark.

"...Wait a minute, it's still afternoon."

Dandelion did the same, but she saw it more clearly and discovered that a dark cloud in the east had brought about the gloomy sky.

Was it a cumulonimbus cloud? But the typhoon season is over. She is very sensitive to nature, and if a storm of this magnitude were to hit, she would definitely notice it.

No, this is not a cloud, Dandelion's brows suddenly furrowed like mountains and rivers, but some kind of black mist.

She instinctively felt a chill, even holding her breath, as a tattered sailboat was leading the black mist through the sea! And rows of seemingly laughing skeletons were staring at their prey with empty eye sockets.

Volume 1 #074 I don't understand what you're saying either

It was a two-masted sailing ship, with its square sails tied into triangles.

But the ship was terribly dilapidated, covered in bloodstains, wounds, and signs of corrosion. It looked more like a pile of junk made of broken planks and rusty iron than a ship.

It is more suited to sleeping on the seabed and keeping company with schools of fish than sailing on the sea.

But in the reality that Dandelion saw, this damned ship was wrapped in an immense force like a celestial anomaly, preparing to dock here.

Some seagulls that happened to be circling nearby were shrouded in the fog from the ship—and immediately lost their lives, dissolving into it little by little, leaving only their skeletons.

Even more terrifying were the dozens of skeletons standing on the ship, some of them wearing sailor's headscarves and carrying tattered pirate scimitars.

But the inside of the bone was black, as if it were being controlled by black mist.

These guys came with ill intentions, and they're exceptionally powerful.

Dandelion clutched her head in despair: "What did I do to deserve this? Why am I so destined to run into bones today?"

"Then...could it be..."

Almost instantly, Fufu took off its clothes, transformed into a salt sprite, flew to the window, and stopped there to gaze into the distance.

"Love and Peace!"

"You call that weird thing that looks like a ghost ship from legend the Love and Peace?"

“Yes…it must be!” Fufu immediately flew to Dandelion’s shoulder. “Before I became a salt spirit, every drop of seawater that made up my body had traveled in the sea for a long time. I’ve heard some stories from recent times! That was the ghost ship, Love and Peace!”

"The legendary ghost ship, hailed as the mysterious ruler of the sea..."

Silvermoon City, being situated on an island, provides a constant source of conversation for sailors and merchant ships alike. Among these conversations, the mysterious ghost ships that occasionally appear in the night are the biggest nightmare for all those who travel by ship.

A mysterious ghost ship, sailing and spreading death.

A sail stained with blood always seems to swallow even more blood.

Even the Peda Empire's invincible hunting fleet is said to have been bullied by a small sailboat, which robbed it of a great deal of its wealth.

This ghost ship has appeared in every sea in the world, and it always returns with a bountiful harvest, said to be extremely rich in treasure.

The more legends about the ship she recalled, the more frightened Dandelion became. She never imagined that such a remote and secluded port would attract such enormous trouble. She stared at the approaching ghost ship and gripped her staff even tighter.

"Princess, run!" Fufu jumped anxiously on Dandelion's shoulder.

"……Why?"

“That ship can’t get to land. There’s still time… That fog is very strange, it’s coming from the seabed… It’s very troublesome!” Fu Fu was somewhat incoherent.

“Run? Maybe I can survive, but my winery will be destroyed.”

She added to herself in her heart—those precious wines, the memories of the land of flowers, and the house that should have been waiting for Mori would all be looted.

Fu Fu timidly continued to persuade, "But you can live..."

“Your premise is wrong. It’s not even certain who will drive whom away.” She looked at the city behind her. “Go to Silvermoon City and find the acting lord—no, this is private land, they won’t help… Fufu! Go find Senshi!”

"……real?"

"Yes, go quickly." She grabbed Fufu and threw her out the door. "I can hold out for a long time, don't worry—even if I accidentally die, as long as Senshi is there, I can see her again. She's a Four Seasons Person! She definitely knows what to do!"