There can't be a Harvest Moon in the RimWorld.

This voice was much more familiar, because I had been in close proximity to him just a few hours earlier. Mr. Rhodes' voice was very calm, but his tone was ambiguous.

“You know, we’ve all confirmed he’s dead…and he had to die…Do you think Dart might also…”

The pastor's words became clearer; he made no attempt to hide his desire for my death and stated that Boss Dart's disappearance was clearly related to them.

Rhodes asked, "No way, Father... How's the situation in town now... Is the plan going smoothly?"

The priest's voice echoed softly, "Everything is proceeding according to plan... When the Black Star rises on the Strange Night and the Strange Moon hovers in the zenith, we will achieve our goal..."

Rhodes said with dissatisfaction, "No, you're deceiving me. The key to unlocking all this hasn't been found, and all you've done is in vain. Unless you can do as you said before... But he's reappeared, hasn't he?"

The priest said in a low voice, "They can reappear, and they can disappear again. Everything is deteriorating, and if I don't maintain the status quo as planned, the uncontrollable trend will only get worse..."

Rhodes asked, "Then let me ask you another question... What exactly are you hiding in the forbidden area behind the church?"

The priest said vaguely, "Don't you know very well what's in there?"

Rhodes's words, however, carried an undercurrent of interrogation: "No, you know I'm not referring to those... I haven't seen Thomas in the past few days..."

The priest asked in a panicked voice, "You doubt me?! How could you doubt me... You should know me best!"

Rhodes said dismissively, "It's precisely because I know you that I asked you what happened... The whole town gathered at the church, but you never told me the story inside. Ever since you took over the nameless captain's journal, our communication has become increasingly scarce..."

The argument inside the house continued, and both sides seemed to have developed a crisis of trust in each other. However, I could also tell that the two people inside were, to some extent, on the same page and were secretly plotting a business together.

The "resurrection" they spoke of undoubtedly referred to me. As someone who suddenly emerged from a mudslide, I must have severely impacted their plans, which is why they braved the rainy night to hold negotiations and maintain this fragile and short-lived alliance.

The man who called himself "Rhodes" said that Mayor Thomas was missing and suspected that his disappearance was related to the church. So, my breakthrough point could naturally be the church, where I could take the opportunity to find Thomas hidden there. If I could find this key figure, it seemed that I could also get crucial clues and unravel the doubts in my heart.

I quietly left the window and walked towards the back of the church.

…………

Behind the church was a dense forest, trembling and swaying in the sudden wind and rain. But deep within the forest, I discovered an abandoned, ancient church.

The long-abandoned church was in a state of extreme disrepair. Some of the once towering stone arches had collapsed, and several exquisite spires had fallen down, almost buried in the inconspicuous brown weeds.

Most of the Gothic windows, blackened by smoke, remain intact, though many of the stone frames are missing. The glass panes, painted with obscure patterns, are remarkably well-preserved. A rusty iron railing encircles the entire area at the top of the wall, its gates securely locked with large padlocks.

An atmosphere of desolation and decay enveloped the building like a coffin. In the shadow cast by the black walls covered with ivy and the eaves where no birds perch, I vaguely sensed a sinister feeling that he could not explain.

As I approached, in the desolate ruins, on the windows painted with eerie colors and patterns, I saw what was depicted: a row of figures dressed in robes and wearing hoods, their bodies completely unlike humans, standing in a strange procession with their backs to me. In the scene, rows of massive, sculpted monoliths reaching to the sky stood tall in the vast desert.

I stared at this overly realistic, imagined painting, trying to see the scene inside the house through the window. But I was wrong. The row of thin, ghostly figures, almost as tall as the dense trees, suddenly turned around, revealing a row of faces—faint features and headless—that looked at me…

That's when I realized that the stained glass window decoration only depicted a vast, open field.

And the Slender Man was just a window away from me...

Chapter 400 The Nameless Captain's Notes

The ghostly images of the white void are illusions that exist only on the other side of the real world. They are silent and invisible, and even when I get close to observe them, I cannot detect their presence.

Aura is a mysterious thing. In this world, everything, good or bad, alive or dead, possesses its own unique aura, emanating distinct fluctuations. Yet these long, thin ghostly figures suspended in the dust exist silently in this world.

"Crack."

After a sudden, strange noise, the locked door of the abandoned church abruptly stopped, its rusty chain coiling and disappearing into the overgrown weeds like a panicked python. The wind and rain quietly pushed aside the obstruction, leaving me a doorway to pass through.

I stepped inside, and raindrops seeped in through the cracks in the four gabled windows on the four walls, casting a dim light into the room, which was probably only fifteen square feet.

The four windows gleamed in the flashes of lightning filtering through the decaying shutters. There once appeared to be some tightly sealed, opaque curtains, but they were now mostly rotten.

Strangely, we didn't see any trace of the Slender Man on the dusty floor. There were only strange corpses lying haphazardly there.

These corpses were severely shrunken and withered, their shriveled flesh revealing a waxy color. Their similarly shrunken eyelids could not cover their empty eye sockets, and their lips could not conceal their charred teeth. They were exposed to the air in a nauseating manner, as if staring in disbelief at reality, only to receive no response.

Strangely, perhaps due to weathering after death, these corpses appeared to be unusually small, only about half the size of an adult.

What puzzled me even more was that there were some strange things scattered on the old floor, such as oversized shoes, metal buttons, large buttons on the collars of round sleeves, and scraps of cloth all over the floor.

"These...are Thomas's?"

Judging from the unique design and identical size of these shoes, the scattered items may indeed have originated from Thomas's clothing. It's unlikely that the equally burly Zack would wear such comical red shoes, and no one else would need such an unusual outfit. It seems the mayor really did appear here and spend some time alone with these shriveled corpses.

When I looked away, I noticed a rather strange-looking pile of ash in a corner of the room, near the wall.

Although I can't explain why I'm particularly concerned about that clump of ash, certain features in its outline convey some information to my subconscious.

Finally, I walked through the dust to the ash heap, parting the cobwebs hanging around it as I went, and then he began to discern the horrifying side of the ash heap…

After brushing away the dust with their hands, they quickly discovered a thin notebook hidden beneath the dust. It was written on parchment and tightly rolled up, as if a panicked person was desperately curling up to build a safe haven for self-defense.

"Navigation log".

The parchment cover, with its small print, clearly states its significance.

Legend has it that captains sailing the high seas often kept private nautical logs to record the most secret things that happened on board. These logs might involve a conspiracy or mutiny, a dishonorable murder, sordid business dealings on board, fatal errors in command, or even inexplicable mysterious events along the way.

The information in this manuscript was quite perplexing, and I carefully read everything written on it through the dimly lit window to the west.

The times and coordinates corresponding to the events were represented using some kind of shorthand code used by navigators. It is likely that only the author knew their meaning. Due to the fragmented text, I could only understand parts of the content.

"...The voyage was calm and resupply was completed smoothly. Three sailors perished. No resupply is needed."

"...Upon approaching the shore, the ship encountered turbulent storms, resulting in severe damage to supplies. The ship struck a live reef, and an unidentified slime seeped into the hull. Five sailors perished, and three remain missing. Some supplies are needed."

"...The team that went ashore to fetch water was attacked. Survivors claimed that the dead were lifted into the air and that they heard unidentified laughter. The island has claimed the lives of three more sailors. No further details needed."

"...A mysterious flash appeared in the dense forest, suspected to be a human sacrifice. The six-person investigation team has disappeared. The number of witnesses has increased, and a large reward has been given to complete the replenishment."

"...An unidentified underwater creature attacked the ship, forcing our voyage into a sea of ​​erratic celestial phenomena. A mutiny broke out, fifteen people were executed, and more were injured. The voyage was temporarily suspended."

"...Inexplicable ghost stories began to circulate on the ship. Three people were scared to death, and another tried to commit suicide by jumping into the sea but was stopped. The ghost stories were about how the ocean would eventually end and flow into a deep abyss perpendicular to the sea surface."

"...This voyage was longer than ever before, and the newly recruited crew members all showed a tendency toward religious groups, but none of them could articulate their doctrines or idols. 21 people were dismissed upon arrival at port."

"...The expulsion was ineffective, and the crew continued to whisper among themselves and secretly watch me. I shot one of them. But the dead man seemed like someone I had seen many times on the ship before."

"...More familiar faces appeared on the ship, but none of the crew noticed them except for me. Food and fresh water were being consumed too quickly, but no one noticed anything unusual."

"...The crew spoke in the same tone, often saying the same things without prior arrangement, and then chuckling furiously. There was a stench coming from the lower decks, but I couldn't leave the captain's cabin. I planned to fire half the crew."

"...I abandoned the entire crew, left those damned bastards on the island, and sailed away alone in the Courage. Wait a minute... how did I manage to start this three-masted sailing ship all by myself... Where am I...?"

I quickly flipped through the similar nautical logbooks and found that they were all recording weather, hydrology, and management conditions in a perfectly normal way. However, each section was followed by a record of casualties during the voyage.

From the context, we can see that the ship Courage in the journal was constantly replenishing its crew and sailing on a fixed route, like a donkey unknowingly pulling a millstone.

However, the further the notes went, the more unstable the writer's mental state became. He seemed to begin to hallucinate, describing the abnormalities he saw in long and short passages, and his records became more subjective.

Until the very last piece, he said that he started the large sailboat all by himself... Such a description is simply nonsense that an ordinary person would utter. Only someone with a severe personality disorder would have such a tendency to talk to themselves and contradict themselves in their actions.

Boat……

I remembered the strange ship I saw at the beach. Could the author of this nautical logbook be the captain of that ship?

Did this captain, who lost his mind, abandon his trustworthy sailors in his madness, set sail on a ship full of ghost crew members, and be taken on an uncontrollable and bizarre route from which he could never return?

Chapter 401 Rotting Residents

Everything inside the room was clearly visible. Some of the short skeletons appeared very scattered, and the ends of a small portion seemed to have been strangely dissolved, while others were strangely yellowed.

This manuscript, with faint signs of burning, is just an ordinary manuscript, perhaps embellished with some inexplicable mysterious events and the ramblings of some patients. Why was it hidden in this house, and what is its connection to Thomas's disappearance and the small skeleton in the house?

One question after another plagued me, as perplexing as the endless downpour outside. Why did this town become like this?

Suddenly, I sensed something was amiss, so I carefully recalled the stories in the journal and speculated on all the possible possibilities of the writer.

The stories in the nautical log are simple and easy to understand. Could it be that the real secrets are hidden in places I have overlooked?

The only thing I couldn't decipher was the coordinates and dates recorded by those mysterious symbols. The coordinates represented specific locations in navigation, while the dates not only represented time but also the specific positions of certain celestial bodies.

Could it be that the two people in the church are searching for clues in the manuscript, trying to pinpoint a specific location?

"Alright, at least I've grasped part of the riddle, so I'm finally qualified to guess the answer..."

I comforted myself, carefully tucked the notebook away from my body, and left the long-sealed church. But I couldn't find a chain to lock the door, so I took two rags and tied them to the doorknob to create a crude disguise—I didn't intend to do anything to hide it anyway.

At this moment, the church seemed to have started another round of revelry, with shouts in the hall almost drowning out the torrential rain from above, and the end of this revelry seemed to be approaching.

Standing at the edge of the dense forest behind the church, I saw residents slowly walking out of the church. No one was carrying an umbrella; they were all wearing strange black and gray raincoats. They silently and slowly lined up and walked out of the building that sheltered them from the wind and rain.

The priest, still wearing his robe, carefully avoided the rain that was drifting in from outside, waving to the departing residents and offering his sincerest blessings, while huddling behind the church's tall pillars to ensure he didn't get wet.

This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I bypassed the people in the church, walked through a dense forest, circled around to the back of the town's police station, and then returned to the main road. I carefully lay in ambush by the roadside, ready to look for any lone residents and find out what had happened.

Standing under a tree in the pouring rain was not a safe thing to do, so I moved to another sheltered eaves and squeezed into a corner to look out.

Soon, a lone person came into my view.

The man was wearing a strange raincoat, making it impossible for me to see his build or age, let alone identify him. So, I cautiously threw a pebble at him first. The pebble hit the pavement, bounced twice, and struck his feet before finally coming to a stop.

As expected, the person was drawn to me, stopped in his tracks, turned his head as if to observe my movements, and took off the raincoat covering his head.

In that instant, I saw the true face of this person!

It was a grotesque face with features vaguely resembling those of an apes. Its sparse, smooth skin was shiny, like that of a waterlogged corpse. Its eyes were enormous and swollen, unable to close. Foul-smelling pus slid down its face with the rain, its expression stiff and blank, yet prominent gills protruded from the sides of its neck…

The monster's appearance resembled both the Deep Ones I'd seen and distinctly zombie features. Its lifeless, decaying exterior made it hard to believe it belonged to a town resident who had just finished a devout prayer in church and was preparing to go home…

His true resting place should be deep within the cemetery.

The corpse-like monster approached, its movements unhurried. I also saw it slide a suspicious trail of slime across the glowing black water.

We can't let this guy find us!

I instantly had an idea. I turned around and kicked a nearby tree, snapping it in two. The sound of the tree falling filled the air, creating the illusion that a strong wind had struck down the tree. I took the opportunity to escape into the woods behind the house.

The strange creature searched slowly for a while, then left empty-handed, pushing open the door and walking straight into the house, after which there was no further sound.

I crept closer to the house, wanting to see what the creature was doing inside, but in that instant, an uncertain yet tormenting panic suddenly struck, transforming into a petrifying spell cast upon me…

I saw a strange being incredibly close to me inside the window, staring at me intently with a terrifying focus.

The monster sat stiffly at the table by the window. When I saw its bulging, glass-like eyes, its stiffened features, and the horrifying look of fear on its distorted face, I couldn't help but turn away, gripped by a nauseating panic.

But those frozen and dilated pupils seemed to prove that there was only a cold corpse in the room.

"died?"

How is this possible? Just a minute ago, I saw this person stagger open the door and walk into the house. How come in the blink of an eye, there is only a dead body left in the house?

The corpse was wearing a gray-black raincoat, from which black water dripped, slowly soaking the wooden floor beneath its feet.