Dorothy’s Forbidden Grimoire

Southern Coast of the Conquest Sea, Kankdar.

In the afternoon hours, on a road along the edge of Kankdar's native residential district, a carriage was steadily making its way forward. Inside the carriage, Dorothy and Nephthys sat facing each other. As they traveled, Dorothy explained the current situation—particularly the major discovery she had made yesterday regarding Mazarr's corpse.

"Unbelievable… Kankdar's government went so far to frame Sister Vania that they actually killed someone who should've survived…"

Hearing Dorothy's account, Nephthys spoke with disbelief. Sitting across from her, Dorothy nodded in agreement.

"Yeah… I didn't expect them to be that ruthless either. If I hadn't spent so much time controlling corpse marionettes and honed my sensitivity to their tactile feedback, I might've fallen right into their trap…"

Dorothy sighed as she spoke. The scheme laid by the Kankdar authorities would've easily snared almost anyone else. After all, not everyone possessed the above-average level of medical knowledge and marionette-control precision that Dorothy did. For a regular person, identifying the inconsistencies in Mazarr's body and determining their cause would have been nearly impossible.

"From their perspective, there's likely some mysterious power protecting Vania. With Ivy's appearance, they must've assumed it came from the faction she represents within the Church—a faction deeply tied to the Holy Mother Path.

"In the Church, other than Vania herself, most Beyonders of the Holy Mother Path can use healing, but lack deep medical understanding. They only know the basics and rely on divine guidance during treatment.

"Unlike Vania, who is both a priest and a proper doctor, most members of the Holy Mother Path are clergymen first and healers second. Medical study is difficult and highly specialized—even in my previous world, medical school took an extra year. The Holy Mother Path members aren't solely focused on medicine—they still have to handle spiritual duties and training, so they can't deeply specialize in healing.

Sitting in the carriage, Dorothy contemplated all this silently. Then, across from her, Nephthys spoke again.

"Miss Dorothy, now that we've seen through their plot, is it time to fight back? If we present the discrepancy between Mazarr's actual time of death and what the Kankdar government claimed, wouldn't that be enough to overturn them?"

"If this were a regular criminal case, then yes, that evidence would be very compelling and could help us turn things around. But unfortunately, this isn't a normal case—it's being judged by people whose bias is obvious. In that context, this proof isn't nearly enough. It might not hurt the Kankdar government at all, and those inquisitors might just turn around and accuse us of corpse theft. To take them down, we need evidence they can't talk their way out of."

Dorothy responded calmly, clearly not expecting much from their current set of proof. Nephthys's expression dimmed with disappointment.

"Evidence like that… feels impossible to find."

She scratched her head in frustration. But Dorothy's answer came as a surprise.

"It's not hard to find, actually. I already have a lead. We're on our way to find it now."

"Huh? We're going to look for the evidence?"

Nephthys looked puzzled, unable to imagine what kind of evidence Dorothy would need her help to find.

With those questions in her heart, Nephthys continued the carriage ride, which now headed for the outskirts of the city. As the low-rise buildings outside the window grew sparser and the roads rougher, they left the bounds of Kankdar's urban area and entered a forest.

After journeying through the woods for a while, the carriage finally slowed to a stop. Once the marionette driver opened the door, Dorothy and Nephthys stepped out, and Dorothy led the way into the woods with Nephthys following behind, still unsure of what was happening.

After passing through a small stretch of trees, Dorothy brought Nephthys into a modest clearing. Scanning the space, Nephthys noticed several figures of varying builds and appearances already present—they were all Dorothy's marionettes. In the center of the circle they formed was a ritual array already drawn on the ground. From its spiritual symbols, it was clear that it was an array of Silence.

"This is… a summoning array? Miss Dorothy, are you planning to…"

Recognizing the purpose of the array from notes left by her grandfather, Nephthys turned toward Dorothy, who didn't answer immediately. Instead, she snapped her fingers.

At her signal, four more marionettes emerged from the woods, carrying a stretcher. On it lay a fat, lifeless corpse. Nephthys immediately recognized the face—it had been featured in newspapers countless times over the past few days.

"That's… Prince Mazarr's corpse? Miss Dorothy, are you trying to summon his soul?"

She asked with a hint of astonishment in her voice. The ritual array, the corpse—it wasn't hard to deduce what Dorothy was about to do.

"That's right. I'm going to summon Mazarr's soul. His soul is the evidence I'm after—or rather, the witness."

With a faint smile, Dorothy answered Nephthys directly. Hearing her words, Nephthys furrowed her brow again in confusion and asked.

"Prince Mazarr's soul… Miss Dorothy, do you really believe… his soul can testify for us?"

Dorothy replied with a confident smile.

"Hah, if Mazarr had died at the assassination scene—killed by gunshot or poison—then no, he couldn't. He probably wouldn't even know how he died. But the truth is, he was killed two days later, after being secretly detained—strangled to death. There were even signs of struggle.

"In other words, Mazarr likely knew the truth of his own death before he died. He knew who captured him, who imprisoned him, and who ultimately killed him. He probably experienced those final two days with complete awareness. Once they figured out how to counter any poison investigation from Vania's side, they decided to silence him for good… I imagine those last two days were pretty hopeless for him. Once summoned, he might be more than willing to help us—even without coercion."

Dorothy explained calmly. During the autopsy, she had found faint traces of skin tissue and dried blood beneath Mazarr's fingernails—only visible under magnification. These were his own. From this, she deduced that Mazarr had desperately struggled before his death. His hands had been tightly bound, so all he could do was clench his fists and flail weakly, digging his own palms and leaving behind those traces.

Though the marks on his palms had been erased during the corpse-marionette conversion—along with the bruises on his neck—these traces remained. From this, Dorothy concluded that Mazarr died in pain and full awareness. He knew who killed him. So his soul would too—and summoning it would make for the perfect testimony.

Letting Mazarr himself describe how he died—in a case like this, the words of the victim are indisputable proof, even in extraordinary domains.

"Yes… If we can summon this prince's soul to testify, their accusations won't hold water. Miss Dorothy, give me a moment. I'll begin the summoning."

Understanding now what Dorothy had brought her here for, Nephthys nodded and sat cross-legged beside the array to begin preparations. She now understood her role in this task—helping to summon the soul.

Seeing Nephthys seated and ready, Dorothy wasted no time. She commanded her corpse marionettes to place Mazarr's body into the array as the medium for summoning. Having an intact corpse as a physical anchor would serve as an exceptionally strong lure for spirits. Unless the soul had already sunk too deep into the Nether River or been drawn beyond recovery by the Great Soul, they should be able to summon it.

Once the medium was in place, Nephthys closed her eyes and began channeling her spirituality, conducting the ritual exactly as recorded in her grandfather's notes. Due to recent widespread media coverage, there was no shortage of public information about Mazarr, making it easier to establish spiritual linkage.

Guided by the medium, Nephthys's consciousness was pulled into the Nether River in search of Mazarr's soul. But soon, she furrowed her brow and spoke.

"Miss Dorothy… I can't find Mazarr's soul in the Nether River. He's only been dead two or three days—he shouldn't have sunk below the Realm of No Return yet. Either his soul never entered the river… or someone summoned it before we could."

Nephthys delivered the news, and rather than showing surprise, Dorothy simply nodded with a knowing expression.

"Hah… of course they'd put safeguards in place on the spiritual side too."

Dorothy murmured. She had suspected they would interfere spiritually as well. Mazarr's soul had likely been summoned by their own people and sealed away using something like a Spirit-Binding Coffin, preventing anyone else from summoning him. Given the opportunity, they'd probably even try to destroy it to eliminate any future risk.

Still, Dorothy believed the soul must still exist. Spirits could be expelled, sealed, hidden, devoured, even shattered—but truly erasing them was exceptionally difficult. The Nether Coffin Order was proof of that. When they captured the wild spirits of the New Continent, they couldn't destroy them on-site and had to ship them back to the Main Continent. Even the largest Silence syndicate only had a few soul-refining installations—making such tools rare. If even a Nether Coffin Order hunting squad had to capture and detain a secret-knowing target like Kapak rather than eliminate him outright, then other groups wouldn't stand a chance.

"Senior Neph, switch the ritual. Let's perform a reverse soul summoning and call the wild spirit Soulwhisker instead."

Dorothy gave new instructions calmly—she had prepared for this scenario.

"Soul… Soulwhisker? That little gremlin… Miss Dorothy, did you already get Elder Uta's permission?"

Nephthys asked in surprise. Dorothy nodded.

"Yes. I spoke with Kapak this morning and asked him to do me a favor—he contacted Elder Uta and got the arrangements in place. They're already set to send the spirit; you just need to receive it."

"Ah… got it, got it."

Nephthys quickly began adjusting the ritual, temporarily removing Mazarr's corpse and converting the summoning array into a reverse communion array. Once all preparations were complete, she began the second round of the soul ritual.

This ritual went smoothly. As it concluded, a ripple of spirituality spread across the array, and a small spectral lynx began to take shape in the center. The spirit blinked into visibility, looked around briefly, then walked over to Nephthys with a swaying tail. It sat down in front of her and raised its head with a haughty expression.

Seeing this, Nephthys immediately reacted by pulling a coin—an iron piece used as a Silence spiritual storage item—out of her wallet and respectfully placing it in front of the lynx spirit. The spirit, seeing this, gave a satisfied nod, then lowered its head and began to lick the coin.

"Soulwhisker is a wild spirit that can sniff out soul traces," Dorothy explained as she watched the spectral lynx.

"According to Uta, after death, a person's soul aura lingers on their corpse for a while—especially in the bones, where it lasts even longer. Once Soulwhisker finishes sniffing Mazarr's aura, Senior Neph, you'll attune to it and use its power to locate the place where Mazarr's soul is being sealed."

Listening to Dorothy, Nephthys nodded with understanding.

"Relying on Lord Soulwhisker to sniff out a soul… just like what we did during the New Year in Tivian? This will be easy."

As Nephthys caught on, Soulwhisker, on the other side, finally finished licking the spirituality from the storage coin. It stretched lazily, let out a yawn, and then gracefully leapt into the air, floating toward Mazarr. It first sniffed around his corpse, then began to dive and dart through it—phasing through the flesh to sniff the bones directly. After finishing its examination, it gently floated back up and hovered in front of Nephthys.

Seeing this, Nephthys began the attunement process. Before long, she successfully attuned to the Soulwhisker's spirit. When she opened her eyes again, her pupils had transformed into feline vertical slits, and her entire demeanor had become colder, sharper, and more regal.

Then, she took a careful sniff through the air, turning her head slightly until her gaze locked in one direction—she had caught the scent of her target.