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

"……Really?!"

"It's fake. I just want you to take care of yourself first."

If I were to recap what happened here, two actions would be key.

First, Miss Elliott, a disqualified journalist, sneaked out of her room late at night and quietly made her way to the coast before the storm, boarding the Pegasus.

Secondly, Kay sensed something unsettling in the storm and decisively cut the anchor chain, letting the yacht drift into the sudden downpour.

What enabled him to make this judgment, as I said, was that the danger did not originate from the sea.

After all, even the fiercest ocean surface cannot stop a wise captain's command, but if the ship runs aground due to rising sea level, then only if Kay has the ability to sail on land can he escape.

What disturbs me even more is Kay's behavior.

A ship without anchor has essentially given up the opportunity for normal anchorage. And judging by the apparent slow rise of the seabed, it poses no real threat. This allows Kay to swing his axe without regard for the normal option of retrieving anchor…

He dared not touch the sea!

"Grey, stay away from that sea!"

I immediately called out to Gray, telling the kid to make sure nothing bad happened to him.

Upon hearing my call, Gray quickly turned back, carrying a piece of wood that had drifted ashore. It seemed that if I hadn't called him, he would have already been swimming in the sea.

"Boss, did you find something? Look at this strange piece of wood..."

I raised my hand to interrupt: "I don't have time to look at the wood right now. Have you heard of this strange phenomenon happening in Mineral Town before?"

Gray shook his head in confusion: "I've never heard of that. I've been to the beach countless times and have never encountered anything strange."

I said with dissatisfaction, "You have no sense at all! You can't be telling me you've never encountered a tropical storm like this before, can you?"

Gray retorted angrily, "Boss, but we need to be reasonable, right? Who would go out in this weather and risk their life to go to the beach?!"

“What you said makes sense…really not?” I asked back.

"No, I don't think so..."

"Wait a minute, I just remembered someone..."

"What a coincidence, I also thought of someone."

"Is the person you're talking about someone with a two-character name?"

"Yes."

"Is this person very familiar with the sea?"

"Yes."

"This person also has extraordinary connections with Mineral Town?"

"Correct!"

"Okay, we might have guessed the same thing. Tell me, who is it?"

"You go first."

"No, boss, you go first..."

"Do you think you're Zhou Yu?! Want to write it all on your palms and pass on the Will of Fire? Let's say it together!"

Gray was silent for a moment, then reached out to wipe the rain off his face. His gaze suddenly turned to the small house on the other side, and they both said the name in their hearts at the same time.

"Zack!"

"Kay!"

...I knew we'd be out of sync!

"Zack's house is right here, why are you saying it's Kai, you bastard, with such an obvious clue!"

Gray said matter-of-factly, "When I met Kai, he lived by the sea and was very familiar with the ocean. His grandfather was also the old captain of this island, so he must know about this strange place! But boss, your guess is a bit far-fetched. Zack's sea phobia is so severe that he hides in the tavern every stormy night. How could he know these things!"

I retorted, "Although Zack is ill, he was originally the captain and took over the Kai family's business on the island, so of course he is one of the people in the know."

Ahem... Since I only knew Zack before, I immediately brought him in to check for suspicious persons, but after hearing what Gray said, Kay does indeed have a lot of suspicion...

No, from another perspective, it's not contradictory that both Kay and Zach knew about it; in fact, it's quite reasonable.

To expand on this further, Mrs. Lilia and Mr. Rhodes, who rescued Zach from the shipwreck, may also know about it, and Mr. Dart may also know a little about it.

Even more likely, the Navigators' Alliance may also have clues about the anomalies here—after all, it was these sea wolves who brought the old miners the clues and led them to the island…

Gray wanted to argue with me, but I ruthlessly interrupted him and started another topic.

"Grey, it's almost time. Do you know what's the most unexpected thing?"

Gray asked naively, "When is it about time?"

I shrugged and said, "You see, arguing about this is pointless—especially when everyone's focus isn't on the same thing. Let me tell you, the scariest thing isn't a bunch of keyboard warriors trying to storm the tower, but the tower itself storming over."

"What does this mean?"

"Turn your head and see for yourself."

If today's experience could be used to write user reviews, I would only write one review right now: Thanks for the recommendation, I met Mr. Ke, and everything was great except that I'm still a bit dizzy looking at everything!

…………

When the strange sound echoed across the sea, Stuart on the beach had already gone mad, burying his head in the sand and letting the murky seawater wash over his hair, making a bizarre, half-crying face.

In the turbulent ocean, strange structures, bearing witness to all the oddities from antiquity to eternity, slowly rise from the sea!

It was a terrifying cylindrical reef, outwardly no different in size from other rock formations, but its internal volume defied human understanding of basic physical space. Tens of thousands of tons of seawater were sucked in through the central gap, turning into whirlpools and disappearing without a trace, as if falling into the belly of a giant whale.

Everyone could see that it was not a single entity, but a loose structure made up of layers of twisted crustaceans and other substances, each layer shrouded in shadow. Between the layers, indescribable spongy substances or remnants of matter greedily extended outwards, appearing and disappearing intermittently.

Brownish-red and dark green seaweed, like deformed flesh, clung together layer upon layer, resembling a veil over an ugly bride's head, preventing the true horror within from being revealed to the world prematurely. What was truly chilling was the gleaming anchor, deeply embedded in the reef, piercing through that flesh-like tissue!

Some undeveloped marine embryos clung to the surface of the reef, seemingly trying to speak with their still-developing organs, praising the unidentified creation above them—at the top of the reef, a bloated, obese octopus head was carved meaninglessly, its sole purpose to lure ignorant and foolish humans into uncovering this horrifying mystery…

Chapter 601 The Strange Tales of Mineral Town Harbor (Part Four)

Splash...

Splash...

Splash...

The monotonous sound of rippling water echoed endlessly, and the icy, piercing pain on his skin jolted Stuart awake from his nightmare.

The unfortunate man suddenly tried to sit up, but almost lost his balance and fell into the water. Fortunately, one of his feet was tied to the middle of a wooden stake, which saved his life after he swallowed a couple of mouthfuls of water.

But then, Stuart began to retch, a horrific sound as if he were about to vomit his guts out. After a long pause, his unfocused gaze returned to me and Gray, and he asked in a voice hoarse from choking on seawater, "How...how did I get here..."

He slowly came to his senses, staring at the undulating sea around him, looking at us as if in a daze.

"Don't speak, first clean the water plants out of your mouth."

I stood at the front of the simple wooden raft, gazing into the distance at the dim world, and kindly offered a reminder.

"You were just lying on the ground imitating an ostrich, and then you tried to practice the alchemy of turning sand into glass inside your stomach. We were afraid you would die on the spot, so we stuffed something in your mouth to prevent you from biting your tongue and committing suicide."

Stuart stared blankly for a moment, then gagged again, vomiting a puddle of black liquid from his stomach. He said with difficulty, "Then why... ugh... my stomach feels so bad..."

Gray, who was rowing vigorously at the stern, said quietly, "Because we're stuck in traffic, we can't keep up with how fast you're eating..."

This isn't my fault!

His mouth was like a paper shredder; he would eat as much as you put in. Since we couldn't feed him rotten wood or pebbles, we could only dig up some strange blackish-purple plants on the beach and feed them to him little by little until he was completely numb and couldn't move anymore.

Hmm... The various herbs in the town have a strong paralyzing effect, you guys haven't forgotten that setting, right?

"Don't dwell on what you ate. You should be glad you don't have a big appetite. Otherwise... have you seen my rubber shoes?"

Stewart, probably because of his long immersion in seawater, immediately shivered and wisely shut up and stopped asking questions.

"You've been soaking in cold water for so long, your body must be stiff."

I noticed that Stuart was trembling more and more violently, as if the numbing effect was slowly wearing off and the cold was rapidly creeping into his thinly dressed body, so I said with concern.

Stewart, somewhat touched, managed to say, "Thank you for your concern, Sheriff... I... Phew... I can manage... Don't worry about me..."

"Don't push yourself too hard, your health is the most important thing."

Meeting Stuart's grateful gaze, I looked around again to confirm my location, and then handed Stuart a simple wooden paddle.

"Come on, let's row harder, it'll help us warm up!"

Stuart: "..."

…………

It was clear that Stuart, now fully awake, was very curious about the period when he lost his memory, but he dared not speak because of the silence between me and Gray. So we just rowed silently together, braving the raging wind and rain, and fighting against the raging waves that surrounded us.

Regarding what we just saw, we only told him that in the final moments before the dark stone pillar rose from the seabed, we gathered usable supplies from the beach (including the warehouse where Zack's house was originally locked) and finally managed to build a raft that was barely navigable. We then rowed desperately against the ocean current with him and managed to escape to the open sea.

However, we tacitly refused to reveal the other details to him, and Stuart could only find other topics to add some fun to this painful journey.

"The wood used for this raft seems to be a bit unusual..."

Stuart touched the raft beneath him and suddenly said, "It looks like some old fir wood... Sheriff, where did you find it?"

Gray replied, "It's right on the beach. These logs just floated ashore. It's pretty common, isn't it? What's wrong?"

Stuart frowned and said, "Common? If this kind of wood is common, then there are no rare woods left in the world!"

"Hmm? Judging from your tone, you seem to know a lot about wood?" I asked absentmindedly.

Stuart rowed the wooden paddle in alternating directions: "Of course, my family are traditional timber merchants, and I've known about rare woods since I was a child. In my father's room, there's a piece of wood the size of my palm made of this material. And it's said that my ancestors spent three times its volume in gold to buy it!"

"Is it really that precious?" I looked at the rotten wood, clearly incredulous.

Gray also poked at the wood with his fingers, probably trying to see if there was a part inside that could be worth more than gold.

Stuart expressed great indignation at our questioning.

"This is not ordinary cedar wood, but a type of fir that has been extinct for a long time. After being buried in the mud and sand at the bottom of the water for countless years, this wood evolved into the wood you see here, also known as ghost wood."

...Isn't this description exactly like petrified wood? I even caught one last time I was fishing, and I casually carved it into a Gatling gun statue.

Seeing that we still didn't believe him, his tone became somewhat low as he began to recount what he had heard.

"In the elegiac songs circulating in the southern islands, the body of Harald, the legendary ruler of the seas, sank into the sea on a raft made of ghost wood, turning into a wandering ghost on the ocean..."