Northern Shore of the Conquest Sea, Navaha.
From moonset to sunrise, daylight returned. After an uneventful night, the coastal city once again greeted the morning.
Late in the morning, on a small hill in Navaha’s northwestern outskirts stood the broken remains of a structure. Crumbling walls and fractured turrets jutted from piles of rubble—ruins of what appeared to be some long-forgotten construction.
Amid the ruins stood a few scattered figures, looking about curiously. It appeared to be a couple of older individuals leading a group of students.
“Students, these are the remains of a military fortification. Judging by its architecture, it likely dates back over five hundred years to the Feonando Dynasty. During that era, the Cassatia region was still ravaged by war…”
Strolling through the site, Professor John from Tivian’s Royal Crown University lectured his students on the historical significance of the ruins. The students followed closely behind, listening with full attention.
The university group had only come to Navaha because the vessel they were using en route to Ivengard had encountered a major accident. As a result, they were forced to switch to a Church vessel, which had brought them to this small Cassatian city that had not originally been on their itinerary.
Despite the disruption, neither the students nor the faculty were overly concerned. Their goal had been to attend a rare cultural relic exhibition in Adria, Ivengard, and there was still plenty of time before that event. Rather than rush to find another boat, they decided to stay in Navaha for a couple of days to explore its historical sites and experience the culture of Cassatia.
As Professor John continued to share stories of Cassatian history, the archaeology students of Royal Crown University roamed the ancient ruins that had clearly been abandoned for generations. Among those trailing at the end of the group was Nephthys, who quietly took in the desolate scenery with a thoughtful look.
“I didn’t expect the first stop of our study trip to be Navaha rather than Adria. I thought this place would just be some small city with nothing worth seeing… but after asking around, it turns out there are quite a few ruins here…” She was surprised to find that, despite its modest appearance, Navaha seemed to possess a rich cultural heritage.
“Last night, Miss Dorothy contacted me in the middle of the night and warned me to be cautious about my sleep. She told me to try entering dreams through lucid dreaming if possible, saying there’s a hidden cabal in this city tied to the Dreamscape… If a hidden cabal is enough to draw Miss Dorothy’s attention, then for it to appear in a place like this… it probably has something to do with the city’s historical depth.”
While listening to Professor John’s lecture on Cassatian history, Nephthys pondered the undercurrents of mysticism flowing beneath the city’s surface.
Casting a worried glance across the ruins, Nephthys’s eyes eventually landed on a girl nearby who was absorbed in reading a newspaper—her fellow student and dormmate, Emma.
“Hey, Emma, the professor’s talking. It’s not really appropriate to be reading something else right now,” Nephthys whispered as she stepped up beside her.
Emma paused briefly at Nephthys’s words, then looked over with a cheeky smile and whispered back, “Aiya~ it’s fine~ It’s just a small town, not much important history worth hearing.”
She turned back to her newspaper with casual indifference.
Nephthys blinked in mild surprise, then asked with a puzzled tone, “Emma… I thought you don’t usually read newspapers? And this one—you bought it here in town, didn’t you? Can you even read Cassatian?”
“My grandmother’s Cassatian, so I know a little…” Emma replied.
“It’s true I don’t usually read the paper, but today’s issue is special! Look—it’s Her Excellency Thief K’s first time appearing in the news!”
Her eyes gleamed with excitement.
“Th-Thief K?! You… you call her Excellency Thief K?” Nephthys stammered.
“Of course!” Emma answered without hesitation. “Someone as dashing, elegant, and full of charisma as Thief K absolutely deserves a respectful title. What’s wrong with that?”
Stunned, Nephthys was briefly at a loss for words. After a moment, she finally said, “That’s totally a problem! Emma, she’s a thief! And you’re calling a thief ‘Excellency’?”
“Tsk tsk… If you really think Thief K is just an ordinary thief, then you’re being way too shallow,” Emma chided.
“Have you ever heard of a thief who sends out a notice before stealing something? One who makes public appearances in front of so many people? You didn’t see the scene the other night—she basically turned the exhibition into her personal stage! It wasn’t a theft—it was a performance! An art piece! Doesn’t that make her more of a performer or artist than a criminal? And great performers and artists deserve admiration, don’t they?”
Holding the newspaper, Emma spoke to Nephthys as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Nephthys, listening to her roommate’s comments, found herself at a complete loss for words. After standing there dazed for a while, she finally responded, incredulously.
“A performer… an artist…? People really say things like that now? No matter how you dress it up, she’s still a thief! Isn’t it a bit much to be giving a thief that kind of praise and title?”
“What’s so wrong about that? Being a thief and an artist aren’t mutually exclusive,” Emma replied without hesitation.
“Besides, I didn’t come up with this myself—it’s what the newspaper says. Look, here and here—these are all articles about Thief K. The author’s a famous poet from Falano, and he was actually on board the Shimmering Pearl too. In the article, he lavishly praises Thief K’s artistry in theft. He said it was the finest performance he’d seen in years—called it incredibly romantic. And honestly, I completely agree with him.”
Clearly displeased by Nephthys’s reaction, Emma defended her stance while pointing to the article’s text. Nephthys, meanwhile, didn’t know what to say. She hadn’t expected someone committing a theft to receive commentary like that. The idea felt unbelievable—and left her feeling vaguely uneasy.
“There… there are actually articles like that? Stuff like this gets published in newspapers?”
She muttered, exasperated. Just then, Professor John’s gaze swept toward them from a distance, and he called out in a slightly stern tone.
“Miss Boyle, Miss Becker—this is still class time. Being outside the classroom is no excuse for chatting.”
“Sorry, Professor…”
Startled, Emma and Nephthys both quickly apologized. Emma tucked the newspaper away, and the two of them quietly shifted back into attentive mode.
Seeing them quiet down, Professor John nodded before turning back to a section of broken wall and resuming his lecture.
“If you look closely at the carvings on this wall, you’ll see the image of a moth. This moth motif—and, more rarely, a similar butterfly emblem—appears frequently among ruins throughout southern Cassatia. Because of this, many believe they were the heraldic symbol of a noble family that once resided in this region…”
He explained in detail, gesturing toward the worn and barely discernible image of a winged insect with its wings spread wide. Nephthys followed his gesture and narrowed her eyes on the fading carving, silently musing.
“Moths and butterflies, huh…”
…
Later that morning — somewhere in the outskirts of Navaha
On a grassy hill, Dorothy sat quietly in her soft-sleeved loungewear, gazing out toward the seemingly peaceful city below.
After the events of the previous night, she had resolved to begin investigating the hidden cabal lurking beneath the city. As far as leads went, her best entry point was the psychiatric hospitals scattered across the outskirts. With so many locals afflicted by Dream Decay Syndrome, it was obvious something mystical was at play—likely orchestrated by the underground cabal. These hospitals might hold the key.
Seated on the hilltop, Dorothy deployed her miniature corpse marionettes and stealthily infiltrated two of the psychiatric hospitals, conducting meticulous surveillance in search of any leads. Her investigation had already been underway for some time.
Just like her first scouting attempt, however, Dorothy found nothing substantial. The hospitals, top to bottom, seemed ordinary. Aside from the fact that the patients all suffered from eerily similar symptoms, there was nothing outwardly suspicious. The staff behaved normally, no one acted unusually, and no signs of mystical activity were present.
Undeterred, Dorothy continued her observation for several more hours. But when nothing yielded results, she decided to switch tactics.
Using one of her miniature marionettes, she infiltrated the hospitals’ archive cabinets, secretly sifting through the files and records. Finally—she found something useful.
While reviewing the patient rosters, Dorothy noticed a striking pattern: a large number of patients shared the same last names. In fact, many of them were blood relatives.
“Enrique Lesias… Diego Lesias… Raul Lesias… Dias Castellon… Alfonso Castellon… Julio Castellon…”
“Hmm… so many people with the same surnames. That must mean a lot of these patients are related—many of them are from the same families? Could it be… this so-called Dream Decay Syndrome is actually a hereditary condition?”
Dorothy muttered with a serious expression. The phenomenon of mental illness clustering within family groups intrigued her deeply—and her first hypothesis was, of course, genetic inheritance.
“If it’s hereditary, then that opens a new direction for investigation. If I look into their family backgrounds, I might find something new.”
Dorothy followed this line of thought, and wasted no time putting it into action. Since there was nothing more to glean from the mental hospitals themselves, she shifted her focus to investigating the families of the patients.
She returned from the outskirts to the city center and found a small restaurant near the city hall. Ordering a few snacks, she sat down to eat while sending her miniature corpse marionette to infiltrate city hall.
Before long, Dorothy located Navaha’s population records and began her search.
Thanks to her high-level information processing ability, she was able to comb through the archives in a matter of hours, quickly uncovering the family records of the hospitalized patients. She identified the addresses of all family members residing in the city—both those currently hospitalized and those still at home. In the process, she noticed another strange pattern.
While reviewing family relationships in the population records, Dorothy realized that many of the patients she’d assumed were related by blood—due to shared surnames—were, in fact, married couples. The wives had taken their husbands’ surnames after marriage, which had led Dorothy to mistakenly believe they were blood relatives.
“Couples… If that many are actually married, then the theory of the illness being hereditary needs to be reconsidered. Married couples typically don’t share blood ties. Genetic disorders can’t spread between them. And judging by these files, many of the affected households have marital ties—one household’s hospitalization predating another. It’s like this illness can spread from a husband’s family to the wife’s, and vice versa. That’s really not how inherited diseases work…”
Seated in the restaurant, Dorothy pondered this new information. After reviewing all the files, she retrieved her miniature corpse marionette and began wandering the streets once again.
Her investigation now entered its next phase. Using the addresses obtained from the population records, Dorothy dispatched her miniature marionettes to infiltrate the homes of Dream Decay Syndrome sufferers, hoping to uncover more useful clues.
Soon, her various marionettes silently entered over a dozen households across the city and began their searches. In some of the homes, Dorothy found complete vacancy—furniture in disarray, everything coated in dust. In others, a few relatives still lived there, all of them listless and drained. Some sat idly at windows, staring blankly into space—clear signs of early-stage Dream Decay Syndrome.
“Just as I thought… Dream Decay Syndrome isn’t so much a genetic disorder as it is a contagious one, concentrated within family units…”
Having formed a general understanding of the condition in these dozen or so homes, Dorothy proceeded with deeper investigation. It took only half an hour for her efforts to pay off.
In one cluttered and abandoned residence, the air thick with dust, upturned chairs and tattered linens told the story of a family of three that had long since been institutionalized. Within this home, she found a large, tightly locked wardrobe.
Dorothy had one of her rat-shaped corpse marionettes gnaw through the wood and squeeze inside. Using the light filtering in through the gaps and holes, she saw it.
On the inner wall of the wardrobe, painted in dull pigments, was a strange symbol: a stylized, abstract moth with outstretched wings.
Its grotesquely thick body was segmented with flat, symbolic markings. The damaged wings were painted with disorienting spirals. From its head grew two short antennae, curved inward to form crescent shapes.
Below the moth mural, resting on the base of the wardrobe, were a series of candles of varying lengths. In their midst stood a small platform, dusted with an unidentified powder. The setup clearly bore elements of mystical significance.
“This setup… is this an altar? A hidden altar inside the wardrobe? Was this family performing some kind of worship before they were taken away?”
Dorothy stared at the scene, mind racing. With her background in mysticism, she could instantly recognize the arrangement as a makeshift altar—and where there’s an altar, there’s worship.
“If this is an altar, then someone in this house was engaging in worship. Could it be that Dream Decay Syndrome isn’t caused by a disease at all, but by this hidden cultic practice?”
“If this is a form of clandestine worship, it might explain how it spreads—from one family member to another, friend to friend. It’s a hidden faith, passed on secretly… That might be the real reason Dream Decay Syndrome clusters in families.”
Determined to examine further, Dorothy focused on the moth image at the center of the altar. After several careful scans, she noticed a few carved inscriptions near the mural.
The etchings spelled out an archaic Cassatian phrase. Dorothy sounded it out and translated the meaning.
“May Panmoth bring beautiful dreams, May beautiful dreams bring peace to my soul.”