Grand Voyage : Surviving on a Ghost Ship-Chapter 237 - Sea-borne black mist

The Sea of Origin also had black mist.

That one was placed there on purpose by the system, a hazard meant to push players forward.

But the mist in front of them was different. It drifted only on the surface of the water, and its colour was thicker, as if darkness itself were flowing.

Yang Yi studied it for a moment with his third eye, then looked at Suna and shook his head. He had no idea what it was.

“A few minutes ago, there was nothing like this on the sea, so it must have appeared just now. And it has a physical presence. It’s not an illusion. I can see it with the third eye as well.”

Suna stared at the mist for a while, then ran to the storage room at the stern to get a wooden barrel. She planned to scoop some up.

Yang Yi got there before her. He moved to the rail, tied a live long-legged sardine to his fishing line, and cast it into the water.

The sardine hit the water without trouble. The mist formed only a thin layer and below the sea was as usual.

The fish entered the water, but Yang Yi sensed something was wrong almost at once.

There was no resistance at all at the other end of the line. It felt like a dead weight, as if a lifeless fish were hanging there.

He reeled it in and checked it. The fish really was dead, and the way it died was unsettling.

Suna arrived with her barrel in time to see Yang Yi staring at the dead sardine.

“What happened?” she asked.

“I tried using a long-legged sardine to test the mist, to see if it was dangerous. And then it just died…”

He showed her the dead fish.

It had no visible wounds. Its eyes were cloudy, and its scales had lost their shine. Most striking of all were the four long legs.

The skin on them had lost its sheen and elasticity. They hung there in wrinkled folds like strips of torn cloth.

Suna was drawn to the sight and asked for the fish.

To be careful, she brought out another long-legged sardine and pressed the two together to check for anything contagious.

Two minutes passed. The second fish showed no symptoms and was only weak from lack of oxygen.

Yang Yi picked it up and tossed it back into the bucket before picking up the dead one again.

“This one… it died of old age,” he said after checking its item information.

【Name: Elder Long-Legged Sardine】

【Description: It… died of old age.】

“I’ll dissect it later.”

Suna took the fish and stored it in her treasure pouch. The bag moved it into the witch’s laboratory.

“The mist is thin, less than a centimetre thick. Below it is seawater,” Yang Yi told her.

She nodded and lowered her wooden barrel. She tried a few times but soon frowned.

The mist behaved as though it were a single solid mass. It was so dense she simply could not scoop it.

She tried several more times. Each time the black mist slipped out of the barrel. Even changing containers didn’t help.

“Let me try.”

Yang Yi took the barrel, climbed down along the hull, and slowly approached the surface. He made an attempt to scoop.

He needed to be fast.

He knew the mist would slide away, so he had to be quicker than it could escape.

Now.

He caught the right moment and made a swift sweep. He actually managed to lift a clump of the mist mixed with seawater.

But once raised, the mist became unstable. It darted wildly inside the barrel, shifting shape as it moved.

“This mist seems alive!” Yang Yi said in shock.

Before it could climb out, he threw the barrel away, still stunned by what he’d seen.

Suna had seen it too.

“I’ll get a glass container with a lid. Wait here!”

She ran off at full speed.

Five minutes later she managed to trap some of the black mist in a glass bottle. It even writhed inside, like a gaseous living thing.

“Be careful. Don’t let it leak,” Yang Yi warned.

“I know.”

Suna sent the sealed container into the laboratory.

The two of them ran a series of tests on the black mist and found that it had a clear effect on living plants and animals, as well as on corpses or food. It caused rapid aging or spoilage.

It had little effect on materials like stone, bone, glass, wood, or steel.

For example, a coconut would spoil after contact. The juice inside would turn into a murky, foul liquid.

Vines would dry out and harden, losing all vitality and becoming nothing more than firewood.

“If we ever run short on timber, we could use these vines for emergencies, but we shouldn’t burn too many of them…” Yang Yi said.

A large number of vines suddenly sprouted at his feet, as if they were protesting.

Suna fell into thought, then filled a barrel with seawater and headed for the laboratory.

She had already examined that seawater. It had a faint black tint. If evaporated, it produced fresh water and a black gas.

The gas was extremely unstable. It wouldn’t last, not even in a sealed bottle, and would disperse in a short time.

Suna had never figured out where that black gas came from, nor why it dissipated.

But now she had a clue.

It should be connected to the black mist. The reason it dissipated might be that some force was sweeping it away, and on a large scale.

There might be some kind of purifying force within the safe zone that could disperse the black mist.

All she needed to do was evaporate seawater again, produce more black gas, and check whether it would dissipate. That would confirm her guess.

She was just about to run the test.

After she left, Yang Yi continued studying the black mist.

He linked it to the white mist and tried using firelight to drive it away.

“Doesn’t do anything.”

He set up a fire basin at the bow, lit it, and saw no change.

Not convinced, he tried the giant anglerfish lantern. The result was the same.

Dispersing the black mist wasn’t going to happen.

The good news was that the mist floated only on the surface of the sea. It didn’t affect the hull of the Nightmare Star and didn’t block their course.

Yang Yi checked the sea chart and activated the lookout skill. The result was a blank sheet. (Nothing appeared on the image.)

That meant there were no islands nearby.

He used the third eye and the telescope but found nothing. Everything looked the same.

So, he chose to continue in the direction of the phantom image of the players’ island and let the old captain take the helm.

He began inspecting the deck.

According to the system update, after the teleportation the Nightmare Star should have received an automatic points vending machine.

But he didn’t see anything like a vending machine on the deck. He walked the entire span and found nothing new.

“Maybe it’s in the cabin. Or in the captain’s room. Or Suna’s room.”

Yang Yi reached the captain’s room, pushed open the door, and finally found the vending machine.

To his surprise, this time it was a real vending machine, not a monster statue or a model.

It was extremely old though. It looked as if it had been abandoned for centuries. The surface paint was peeling, the glass display had a hole in it, and there were even cobwebs inside.

At least there were no products in it, otherwise someone could have reached through the hole and taken them out.

Yang Yi had every reason to suspect that the system had scavenged this vending machine from a junkyard somewhere, then refurbished it as best it could…

Wait.

He noticed a familiar emblem or symbol on the top of the machine.

The peeling paint made it blurry, but he couldn’t mistake it.

It was a bald human head, with the inner structure of the brain drawn like a circuit board.

The red stone embedded in the brain was no longer visible because the paint had flaked off, but this design was identical to the one he had seen on the protein bar box earlier.

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