Dungeon Raider System-Chapter 603: A ghost in the ship Part 1

By completing the mission Luna not only earned the company a decent amount of credits which would translate into increasing her budget, she also got praised by Uriel which meant the world to her. She walked the ship's hall happier than ever, though the only ones who could notice were her closest friends and also Professor Lamar who spent a lot of time with her on the laboratory.

"Professor, I brought a sample." Luna handed the black acorn to the man who barely looked at it.

"It's an acorn from a Goethe tree." He replied after taking a disinterested glance at the item Luna held on her hands.

"Can you... uhm... uhmm."

"Fine." The professor moodily cleaned his glasses and then placed the acorn in the microscope under Luna's expectant supervision.

"It's a Goethe acorn and it's painted black." Professor Lamar pushed his glasses up his nose bridge then turned back to study the chemical composition of Uriel's energy drink.

Despite his mood swings, Lamar was an authority on the biology field all over the world and should have no issues finding a well paid job anywhere, even in Hollywood and the only way Uriel managed to convince him to stay was to offer him an unlimited supply of samples and enough time to investigate it.

Needless to say, his presence on the ship made everyone feel safer since he was also an eminence in hunter anatomy and bringing hunters back from the verge of death was only a chore for him.

Unfortunately for Luna, Lamar couldn't find anything wrong with the acorn. Although it may have seemed that he barely paid any attention to her finding, she knew that just that short span of attention was enough for him to gather more data than she herself would have been able in weeks. In other words, it wasn't that Lamar didn't want to help her, he actually couldn't.

This left Luna with no choice but to look for a proper expert which meant asking for the help of one of the few people she openly disliked. It was troublesome to say the least, but something in Luna's gut told her it was worth the shot.

"I... uhm... uhm... need help." Luna stuttered after finding Bella sitting on a stool in the cafeteria.

"Aw! Look at you, so cute and cuddly! Of course I'll help you." Bella picked Luna up and placed her on the stool. Luna would have loved to rebuke and say she didn't need help to do that, but climbing those needlessly tall stools was actually difficult for her.

"What can you tell me about this?" Luna said after thanking Bella for her nice gesture.

"Sweet Prada! What do you guys have with cursed objects?" Bella seemed shaken by the sight of the black acorn, though compared to when she saw Uriel's book her reaction was pretty mild.

"So, it is cursed." Luna lowered her gaze preparing herself to jump off the stool, though Bella mistook it for her being dejected.

"Don't worry, it's probably not that dangerous. I can't tell you what it does or how to use it, but I bet once you find how to use it you'll become stronger." Bella said patting Luna in the head. Due to her wind barrier she couldn't feel anything, but she loved how Luna reacted whenever she did it mistaking her anger for joy.

As obvious as Luna's expressions were now to Uriel, Medusa and Luna, Bella had absolutely on clue about Luna's emotions leading to many misunderstandings, for instance, the fact that Luna disliked her had gone over Bella's head the entire time.

"She really loves me." Bella said to the maid after Luna retreated, but the woman remained silent not to cause a stir as she was able to tell what Luna's true feelings were. Contrary to Bella, the maid paid close attention to each and every one of the members of the crew. She heard their conversations, knew their likes and dislikes and even who got along with who.

"Please." Luna begged Nika by her side.

"No, no and no."

"But." Luna didn't say anything else, she didn't need to. She also didn't need to try hard to fake a facial expression because her 'dolly' face was all she needed to melt Nika's heart.

"Don't look at me like that, do you think I don't know when you try to manipulate me? You're not asking me for a candy or to borrow some money, you're asking me to subject myself to that thing again!" Nika voiced out, then proceeded to activate her trait to escape Luna's puppy eyes only to return a few seconds after.

"Did you change your mind?" Luna asked, but Nika's face was paled as though she had seen a ghost.

"I think I just heard a ghost." Nika said.

"Tell me." Luna nodded expecting a detailed explanation of the incident despite it's short duration.

"I blinked into my shadows and then I heard this... wail. It was so painful and for some reason my heart raced and..." Nika was cut short by Luna who gestured her to come closer so she could listen to her heart.

"You're not lying."

"Why would I lie about hearing a ghost!?"

"You always say you see ghosts and give me hopes, but they're always lies."

"It's not lies! I swear there was something haunting the cafeteria!"

"That was the sound of the fridge when it turns itself on."

"It was spooky and it startled me, okay? But this one is for real." Now that she was alone with Luna, Nika could afford to pout without affecting her public image in front of the employees. They thought her to be this impressive veteran hunter who used to work for one of the most reputable companies and even as Walter Work's bodyguard.

This statements were all true, but she was also an airhead, easygoing and scared of anything related to the supernatural which for some strange reason no one could understand didn't apply to cryptids in her mind.

"We should tell Uriel." Luna declared hiding behind her stony face the fact that she just wanted an excuse to spend more time with him.

"He's sleeping, we should tell Medusa instead. She knows this ship better than anyone and she could help us find the source to the sound."

"Don't you know it?" Luna tilted her head.

"Of course not, when I enter the shadows everything becomes fuzzy. The only things I can sense in that state is lights and Uriel's presence, but since I didn't have a specific shadow on mind I just blinked at a place at random." Nika shrugged.

Finding Medusa was easy because she always announced her whereabouts to avoid any accidents and she also would only remove her blindfold when she was absolutely certain there was no one around. Unfortunately to Nika, she had no means to know whether Medusa had her blindfold on or not which prevented her from blinking towards her.

She had already been petrified once and didn't want to find out what would happen to her if it happened again.

"What do you want? I'm working so make it quick." Medusa opened the workshop door before they could even knock.

"And what exactly are you working on? I thought I made myself clear that you can't spend any more orichalcum in experiments." Nika Looked at her with suspicion.

"I know! I'm just trying to fix this stupid comms. array but it just won't work. I've checked the structural integrity and the components several times, I've even managed to upgrade it with Stella's help, but it just won't work!" Medusa let out an annoyed sigh.

"Still trying to fix that thing!? It should have been fixed weeks ago!" Nika scoffed.

"I should fix your stupid face instead..." Medusa muttered under her breath.

"I heard that!"

"I know." Medusa said with a smirk and they started bickering. Instead of trying to stop them, Luna joined in adding more fuel to the fire.

"If you were a capable engineer..."

"That's it! Now I'm angry!" Medusa shouted as she channeled her flux energy outside knowing that Luna would have a hard time withstanding it in her human form.

"Stop it, you'll make things worse! If she transforms now she'll wreck the entire room!" Nika placed both hands in front of Medusa, who not only couldn't see them, but also didn't care. She was so frustrated at her failure to fix the communication array that starting from scratch didn't sound so bad anymore.

"Uhm... the lights are on." Instead of transforming into a werewolf, Luna spoke in a calm voice while trying her best to endure Medusa's intimidation attempt.

"They are?" Medusa tilted her head and immediately stopped channeling her flux energy.

"Not anymore." Nika shrugged thinking it was nothing but a fluke, but Luna seemed to know better.

"There might really be a ghost in this ship." Her short statement filled the room with dread prompting the huntresses to get ready for battle.