Dorothy’s Forbidden Grimoire Novel - Chapter 412

**Chapter 412: The Sky-Pan Moth**
**North Coast of the Conqueror’s Sea, Nawaha.**

As the night faded and the sun crept over the horizon, the coastal city of Nawaha awoke to another serene morning.

Early that day, on a modest hill to the northwest of the city, ruins lay scattered—fragments of a once-formidable stronghold. Tumbled walls, fractured towers, and strewn masonry bore the marks of age and erosion.

Amid these remnants moved a small group, composed of a few older guides and several students, young and attentive.

“Take note, students—this site was likely a military outpost,” said Professor John, who hailed from Royal Crown University in Tivian. He moved through the remains as he spoke, pointing to various features in the rubble. “Based on the structure’s design, it likely dates back to the Ferdinand dynasty, over five centuries past. During that era, the Castiglia region was still locked in conflict…”

Trailing him were students from Royal Crown’s archaeology department. Originally en route to Iwig, their journey had been abruptly rerouted when their ship suffered a major malfunction. They’d transferred to a vessel operated by a local church and ended up docking at Nawaha—a destination not part of their original itinerary.

Despite the hiccup, neither faculty nor students appeared overly troubled. Their ultimate objective was the artifact exhibition in Adrias, Iwig, and that event remained days away. There was no rush to leave Nawaha. Instead, they decided to linger, explore the town, and dive into its rich Castigian legacy.

As Professor John continued his lecture, the students wandered among the ruins, taking in the decay and emptiness. Near the back of the group, Nevis walked in silence, her mind occupied.

‘Funny… I expected the first stop on this trip to be Adrias, not some tiny port like Nawaha,’ she thought, her gaze drifting across the debris. ‘I assumed it’d be nothing more than a dull backwater. But after asking around, I found it actually has several important ruins…’

Nevis found herself unexpectedly intrigued. Nawaha’s humble appearance belied a deeper cultural and historical richness.

‘And last night… Miss Dorothy reached out in a hurry. She warned me to watch my dreams, to stay lucid while sleeping. She said dream-based factions were operating here… If such groups exist in a place like this, and Miss Dorothy felt it worth warning me, there has to be something more lurking beneath this city’s past…’

As Professor John traced through Castiglia’s turbulent history, Nevis kept replaying Dorothy’s warning. A tension began to creep in—some unspoken current beneath the ruins.

Her eyes drifted to a classmate standing nearby, who wasn’t paying the slightest attention to the professor. Instead, the girl was absorbed in a newspaper. It was Emma—her roommate from the dorms.

“Emma,” Nevis whispered, leaning in. “The professor’s talking. Shouldn’t you be paying attention?”

Emma didn’t look up. She flicked a hand dismissively. “Oh please~ It’s just Nawaha. Nothing here that’s worth missing.”

Perplexed, Nevis tilted her head. “I don’t remember you reading newspapers, though. What’s so fascinating about that one? That’s a local paper, right? Can you even read Castigian?”

“My grandma’s Castigian. I learned enough to get by,” Emma said with a grin. “Normally I’d skip it, but today’s paper is different. Look—it’s Thief K’s first major feature!”

Her eyes gleamed as she held the paper up. Nevis blinked. “Th-Thief K? You’re calling her ‘Your Excellency’?”

“Obviously! Someone as graceful and dazzling as Thief K deserves the title,” Emma replied without hesitation. “What’s wrong with that?”

Nevis looked stunned. After a pause, she blurted, “What’s wrong? She’s a criminal, Emma! You’re treating a thief like royalty?”

Emma tsked. “You’re thinking too small. Ordinary thieves don’t send warnings ahead of time. Or put on theatrical displays. You didn’t see it that night? She practically turned that whole exhibition into a stage. That’s art, not theft. And great art deserves respect, doesn’t it?”

She waved her newspaper for emphasis, as if her argument was bulletproof. Nevis found herself speechless, then managed a shaky reply.

“A performer…? Still, at the end of the day, she steals things. Glorifying her like that feels… off.”

“She can be both,” Emma countered. “Being a thief doesn’t mean she can’t be an artist, too. And it’s not just me saying this. Look—these articles are by a famous Farano poet. He was on the White Pearl that night. He said her heist was the most captivating spectacle he’s seen in years. He even called it romantic. I agree with every word.”

Emma pointed enthusiastically at passages in the article. Nevis’s jaw tightened in disbelief. Her thoughts reeled.

“There are… articles like that? They actually publish this stuff?”

Before Emma could reply, Professor John shot them a sharp look. “Miss Boyle. Miss Baker. We are in the middle of a lecture. Kindly focus. Just because we’re outdoors doesn’t mean classroom etiquette no longer applies.”

“Sorry, Professor…”

The two girls quickly lowered their heads, murmuring apologies. Emma tucked the paper away, and both pretended to listen intently.

Satisfied, John turned back to the wall behind him.

“Now, these carvings,” he said, gesturing. “Notice the moth design? This motif, sometimes accompanied by a butterfly, appears in many southern Castigian sites. Some scholars believe it may represent the insignia of an extinct noble house that once held power here…”

As he continued, Nevis found her eyes drifting again—to the wings etched into stone. Her thoughts stirred uneasily.

“Moths and butterflies…”

……

That same morning, not far from the city, on another grassy hill overlooking Nawaha.

Dorothy sat quietly, dressed simply, staring at the seemingly peaceful sprawl below.

After last night’s events, she was determined to investigate the dream-linked secret societies she believed were at work here. Her first priority: the psychiatric clinics along the city’s edge. The high number of Exhaustion Plague cases concentrated in these facilities suggested some deeper, unseen influence at play. It was a clue she couldn’t ignore.

Stationed on the hillside, she deployed her small corpse puppets—discreet agents of flesh and bone—sending them to infiltrate two mental institutions simultaneously. They began a quiet, detailed sweep.

Hours passed. As with her earlier investigations, she found nothing overtly strange. Symptoms among patients were uniform. Staff acted normally. No suspicious objects, no residue of arcane rituals.

But Dorothy wasn’t discouraged. Shifting tactics, she sent her puppets creeping into the archives. There, buried in patient files, she started noticing something unusual.

Many patients shared last names.

“Enrique Lecías… Diego Lecías… Raúl Lecías… Díez Castrón… Alfonso Castrón… Julio Castrón…”

Clicking her tongue, Dorothy frowned. “So many repeated surnames? So we’re talking about families—bloodlines. Could this be genetic?”

The pattern suggested that families were affected in clusters, hinting at a hereditary condition. That opened a different avenue entirely.

‘If the illness is passed down, then maybe digging into family connections will reveal something.’

Satisfied that she’d exhausted the asylum itself, Dorothy descended into the city. She picked a café near the town hall, ordered a plate of pastries, and sat by a window. While eating, she sent her puppets into the government archives below the building.

Quickly, she located the city’s population records and began sorting through them. Thanks to her mental acuity, she was able to map out affected families with stunning efficiency. Within hours, she had charted where everyone afflicted by the Exhaustion Plague lived—including their healthy relatives.

But then, a new twist emerged.

Looking closer at the records, Dorothy noticed something she’d missed earlier: many patients who shared surnames weren’t blood relatives—they were married couples. The wives had simply adopted their husbands’ names, creating a misleading impression of shared ancestry.

‘So many are husbands and wives? That throws off the hereditary theory. They’re not kin. Diseases passed by genetics wouldn’t leap across unrelated spouses like this. Yet… household infections still cluster. Often, one family gets hit first, then another tied by marriage…’

That pattern didn’t match a genetic illness. It looked more like transmission—but of what?

Finished with the archives, Dorothy left the café and wandered through the city.

With addresses in hand, she launched the next phase—dispatching her puppets to investigate twelve afflicted households. One by one, they slipped in, scanning for anomalies.

In just under half an hour, one puppet found something.

The house in question had been abandoned. Everything inside was covered in dust, with signs of disorder—overturned furniture, ripped fabrics. It looked like a family of three had lived there before being taken to the asylum.

In a corner stood a wardrobe, sealed tight. One puppet, rat-shaped, chewed its way through the wood and slipped inside.

Inside the wardrobe, a chilling discovery awaited.

Painted crudely across the wooden panels was a grotesque image: a moth, drawn in harsh lines and murky pigment.

Its body was thick and segmented. Wings extended wide, filled with spiraling, dizzying lines. Its antennae curled like crescent moons, curling inward.

Below the moth, an arrangement of objects had been left: uneven candles, a shallow dish of unidentified powder. The scene radiated ritualistic intent.

‘Is this… an altar?’ Dorothy narrowed her eyes. ‘A hidden shrine, inside a wardrobe? So before this family was taken, they were… worshipping something?’

Her studies told her what she was seeing: this was no random decor. It was deliberate. Devotional.

‘If this affliction stems not from contagion, but from faith… from devotion to something forbidden… then maybe it spreads through belief. Through households. Through trust. Through whispered conversions.’

She stared at the moth emblem, heart heavy with realization. Then she saw something carved nearby—clumsy knife marks dug into the wood.

It was Castigian, awkwardly written. She slowly deciphered the message:

**“May the Sky-Pan moth grant us sweet dreams. May sweet dreams soothe our spirits.”**