Shrouded Seascape

Chapter 798: What Has Been Lost

Charles stared calmly at 005 in front of him. "I don't care about your goal. Since you've chosen me specifically, there must be something about me that's worth giving one more wish for. One more wish isn't too much, is it?"

Although he had made a deal with 005, Charles still didn't trust her. However, he had already decided to go through with the deal, so why not squeeze as much value out of it as possible?

005 came to a halt. She looked at Charles and pondered briefly over Charles' words before replying, "Sure. You have one more wish now. So Charles, have you already decided on your three wishes?"

Charles didn't answer 005's question. His single eye stared intently at her bandaged face. "Didn't you say you're a spectator? As a spectator, you should just sit down and watch."

The outline of a smile appeared on 005's bandaged face. "This can be considered to be interference, so I've technically become a participant now rather than just a spectator. But fine, I can afford to wait for this bit of time."

005 then raised her hand, and three white balls emitting a soft light appeared in her palm. "I await your good news. Bring me everything you've lost, and these three are yours."

Swoosh!

A gust of wind blew across the grassy canopy, and 005's figure vanished before Charles could even realize it. As soon as he discovered that 005 was no longer standing before him, the canopy was forced open, and Anna emerged from it.

"You're so amazing!" Anna exclaimed. She opened her arms wide and pounced on Charles. "Three wishes are just enough for the three of us!!"

Somehow, Charles wasn't surprised to find that Anna had been eavesdropping. He hugged her, turned around, and walked toward the hole in the canopy.

"Since you were eavesdropping, did you not hear what she said? We can't make the same wish twice," Charles asked.

"It's fine! We can just change the wording, and I bet it's going to work!!" Anna exclaimed. She wrapped her arms around Charles' neck and inundated his face with kisses.

Upon returning to the Governor's Mansion, Charles still couldn't call it a day and sleep, as the excited Anna kept him up until morning.

When the holes in the canopy over Hope Island were uncovered, allowing sunlight to illuminate Hope Island once again, Charles could finally rest. He sat in his office with a pen in his hand and an empty page of his diary on the desk before him.

All of a sudden, Charles' fingers moved slightly, and words written with the Subterranean Sea's script appeared on the white paper.

Skull and scalp, stomach, heart, left arm, eye, ear. These were what he had lost in the Subterranean Sea. He had to retrieve them and give them to 005 in exchange for those three wishes.

A creaking noise echoed just then as the door to the office opened, revealing Linda's figure. Linda clad in a black robe walked into the office with a glass jar in her arms. "Captain, I brought what you asked for."

Charles took it from her hands, but he saw nothing but a cloudy liquid inside the jar. He couldn't see anything else inside of it.

"I don't see it. Are you sure a part of my stomach is in here?" Charles asked.

Linda nodded and reached into the jar with her right hand. She tugged lightly, and a piece of rotten, whitish flesh appeared in her palm.

"This is a part of your stomach. I decided to keep it to study the reason behind why I had to cut this out of your stomach. Just in case I had to do that surgery again," Linda replied.

Linda showed all sides of the rotten flesh to Charles before stuffing it back into the glass jar.

"Hmm..." Charles held the glass jar and examined it for a few seconds. He then picked up the pen on the desk and crossed out the word "stomach." With that, only five words were left on the page.

Charles tapped on the word "heart" with the pen and looked up at Linda before him, asking, "Can I get my heart back?"

Linda glanced at the words that Charles had written on the diary page and asked back, "Captain, do you want to get back all the body parts that you've lost? Why?"

"Now isn't the time to ask questions. Take a look at my heart first. I need it to return to its original condition," Charles said.

005 had specifically requested everything he had lost, so Charles presumed that it included his crystalized heart.

Linda took out a headlamp and put it on her forehead. She then raised both hands and shoved them into Charles' body. After ensuring that she had a solid grip on his ribs, Linda stuck her head into Charles' chest.

Since sound waves could travel through flesh, Charles could still hear Linda's muffled voice, even though her head was inside his chest.

"Captain, I'm about to do a small test. It might hurt a bit, so please bear with it until I'm done."

"Mmhm, go ahead."

Charles' words had just fallen, but he immediately felt Linda tugging at his heart.

It wasn't exactly painful, but the sensation was extremely uncomfortable.

Charles gnashed his teeth. The bizarre sensation was becoming stronger and stronger until it became both uncomfortable and painful. Eventually, Charles felt like there were two knives slicing at the blood vessels around his heart.

The bizarre sensation lasted for a while, and Charles concluded that someone literally grabbing one's heart couldn't feel great at all.

Linda tormented Charles for fifteen minutes before finally pulling herself out of his chest. She took off her gloves and said, "Captain, that special relic has completely fused with your heart. The blood vessels around your heart are in the process of crystallizing as well.

"Despite your strong regenerative abilities, forcibly removing that relic is still going to be quite dangerous. I also need some time to consult the books on how to perform that kind of surgery."

"Go ahead. Let me know once you've found a way to do it," Charles said. He picked up the pen and drew a circle over the word "heart."

Charles believed that the heart wasn't that big of an issue. If worse comes to worst, he could just replace it. It wasn't difficult to replace one's heart with the Subterranean Sea's current level of technology.

Of course, the priority was still to extract his crystallized heart and get rid of the relic around it.

Linda took one last glance at Charles' diary before her figure melted into the floor to the hall down below.

The stomach and heart were considered resolved, so Charles decided to focus on the remaining four—skull and scalp, left arm, eye, and ear.

Charles' skull and scalp were inside SITE 6, but they still had no idea whether 004 had left the site or not. Thus, Charles decided to postpone the quest for it until the site was deemed safe to visit.

His left arm was left inside Hypnos' fingerprints. Unfortunately, locating a Divinity in the Subterranean Sea was incredibly difficult.

If Charles wanted to track down Hypnos, he'd have to rely on the entire Subterranean Sea by issuing a bounty for Hypnos' location.

Charles decided to postpone the search for his left arm and skull and scalp, which meant that his priority was to look for his eye and ear. He had lost his eye on the Ropelings' island, while his ear… was devoured by that green, centipede-like companion of 134.

Just then, 005's words echoed in Charles' mind: "I want you to find whatever you've lost in the Subterranean Sea. It doesn't matter whether they've rotted, withered, or have become something else. I need them all."

With that in mind, Charles picked up the telephone next to him and dialed a few numbers.

Soon, a cold female voice echoed from the other end of the line.

— Do you need anything, Governor Charles?"

"Margaret, is 134 there? Give her the telephone."

There was a moment of silence before 134's disgusted voice echoed.

— You're so annoying!!! What do you want?!

Charles didn't bother wasting time and immediately said, "Your companion… that green centipede with a long tail is there, isn't it? Can you ask about where it went to defecate after eating my ear back then?"