Episode 10

"A Butler, a Ghost Ship, a Ward, and the Palace of the Dragon King" (Shitsuji to, Yūreisen to, Yōshi to, Ryūgūjō) is the 10th episode of In the Land of Leadale anime series.

Synopsis
The fishing village, surrounded by thick fog, was full of zombies. There Cayna meets with Quolkeh, whom she met at the Helshper Adventurers Guild. Quolkeh is said to be trapped in a foggy fishing village with his friends. Cayna was guided to the basement of the warehouse that is her hiding place. Beyond that, Exis was protecting the only surviving girl.

Summary
Armed with the Eternal Flame blade, Cayna continues investigating the zombie village. Contemplating what to do inside of a house, Kee warns her of a presence closing in, and an alerted Cayna readies herself to face off against it. The presence she felt was Quolkeh who was trapped there along with her companion and Exis. After they recognize each other from the guild in Helshper, Quolkeh offers to bring Cayna to her companion, but Cayna warns her that she'll blow up the village if it's a trap. Startled by the threat, Quolkeh claim, she claims that there's a survivor in the village.

Led to a storehouse basement, Cayna meets Exis and Quolkeh starts to talk differently while noting Cayna could be a player stronger than she, and Cayna picks up on the vocal change as well. Exis then tries to attack Cayna who promptly points her sword at Exis' neck and notes the nerve he has for trying to attack her. Clearing up the tension toward him, Exis reintroduces himself as Tartar Sauce, a player from Cayna's old guild Cream Cheese who created a second account that has a stronger appearance. Quolkeh then introduces herself and Cayna asks if she's a "guy", to which, she answers things have happened. Exis then asks how long Cayna has been in the game who answers a couple of months and Exis claims Quolkeh and him have been trapped in the game for over two years. Cayna then asks why they're at the location of the Dragon King's Palace, and the players claim they're on a quest assigned by the guild. It details that fish isn't being delivered to the market, so both Quolkeh and Exis decided to investigate the village. However, once they reached the village, they learned that the fog that engulfed the village transformed the villagers into zombies. Players, however, are unaffected by it, but they still had trouble with the former villagers and took shelter in the basement where they found a survivor. Exis points out the survivor, a little girl named Luka who rested on a matt, while Li'l Fairy appears and shocks the two players. Cayna introduces the astonished players to Li'l Fairy and explains that Opus gave it to her. Hearing that name infuriates Exis and Cayna and he explains to Quolkeh who Opus was to them. Not wanting Luka to transform into a zombie, Cayna figures the source of the problem is a monster and the three decide to exterminate it. Ringing one of the two special item bells that she got by playing the game for over 10,000 hours, and on Exis' suggestion, rings the one that summons Roxilius. Rox appears before the group via a magical door and introduces himself to the group. Assigned to watch over Luka, Cayna summons Kee to search for quests related to the keywords, village, fog, and zombie. Kee manages to get a hit and Cayna learns that for the quest, one has to defeat the zombie captain located on a ghost ship. Armed with her staff, Cayna readies herself to beat the boss and save the village.

Outside of the basement, the group locates the ghost ship and Exis claims he'll deal with the boss, while Cayna and Quolkeh would be left dealing with the skeleton crew. They promptly do this and the Ghost Ship disappears which saves the village. That night, back at the village, Cayna has Luka rest in her lap by a campfire with her companions and Rox encircled around it. Luka awakens and is served some tea from Rox and Cayna offers to adopt her, which, Luka seemingly tacitly agrees to. The following day, Cayna journeys to the Guardian Tower she was looking for, the Palace of the Dragon King, with the help of her Blue Dragon. Close to the destination, Cayna has the blue dragon search for a mermaid village, while she enters the guardian tower. Endowing the tower's core with her MP, the guardian a giant frog terrifies Cayna and after talking with her, it accepts her as its new master. Returning outside to where her Blue Dragon was, Cayna learns that it couldn't find a mermaid village anywhere. At the surface, Cayna accepts both Quolkeh and Exis' friend requests and sends them back to Helshper. Cayna then promises to show Luka her base village where she'll introduce her to Lytt.

Characters

 * Cayna
 * Kee
 * Quolkeh
 * Exis
 * Luka
 * Li'l Fairy
 * Opus
 * Roxilius
 * Roxine

Trivia

 * Cayna hates Frogs
 * Players are immune to the zombification fog; its unknown if they can pass this down to offspring.
 * Exis may be Cayna's old comrade, but he has no clue that that reason she has two of those bells is that she was paralyzed in a hospital bed 24/7 with nothing else to do; she had no life to live.