Chapter 128

Chapter 128: Changing Course

The second floor of the antique shop was not very big. Besides the kitchen and the washroom, there were only two rooms, one for Duncan and one for Nina. The temporary guest Shirley obviously could only sleep in Nina’s room.

“Actually, I can sleep in the hallway…”

Watching Nina busy getting things ready for her, Shirley looked a little uneasy. “Or I could just make a bed on the floor downstairs…”

“That won’t do,” Nina said as she spoke, glancing toward the door. Uncle Duncan had already gone back to his own room. Now only she and Shirley were here, plus Dog, who was lying nearby, dozing. “How can we let a guest sleep in the hallway? And downstairs… downstairs is all Uncle’s ‘treasures’. He would never agree.”

“His treasures?” Shirley froze for a moment and tried to recall what she had seen on the first floor. She had been so nervous earlier that she had not even taken a good look at the place, but now that she thought back, the first floor just seemed like a pile of messy junk. To say that this was the collection of a Subspace Shadow was honestly a bit absurd.

But she quickly came back to her senses. Here, that “Mr. Duncan” only played the role of an ordinary person, and the Nina in front of her seemed to truly not know that her Uncle had other faces.

At that thought, Shirley’s expression turned strange again. In the bright light from the electric lamp, she quickly glanced at Nina and asked in a low voice: “Are you really not angry?”

Nina stopped making the bed and raised her eyebrows: “Angry? Why?”

“…I actually lied to you for quite a long time,” Shirley said softly. In her whole life she had rarely been this embarrassed and quiet, but ever since she met “Mr. Duncan”, she was getting more and more used to speaking in a low voice. “At first I only approached you because of Dog’s hint, but I didn’t think you would believe me so easily, or even… just accept me as your ‘friend’ so simply. I think you should be at least a bit angry.”

“…No one had taken the initiative to talk to me at school for a long time. Back then I thought…” Nina muttered, then quickly shook her head. “But I’m really not angry. No matter what the reason was, you really did keep me company, talking, shopping, and going to The City Museum with me.”

Shirley did not really accept Nina’s calm reaction. Or rather, she had long since gotten used to a much colder kind of human relationship, so next to Nina, who seemed to give off a warm glow all the time, she felt especially out of place: “You really are a strange person.”

“Am I?” Nina finished making the bed and sat down, tilting her head a little. “But someone did say that about me a long time ago… ‘This child has such a big heart.’ I think that’s how they said it.”

As she spoke, she waved Shirley over: “Come sit too. Why are you just standing there?”

Shirley froze for a moment, then sat down beside Nina with some hesitation. Her feelings grew even stranger.

She had never imagined things would end up like this.

She was being watched by a Subspace Shadow and had no choice but to take shelter in its “lair”. She was sharing a room with that Subspace Shadow’s “retainer”, and ever since earlier, Dog had curled up into a tight ball from some nameless fear. She knew how dangerous and strange the true situation was at this moment, maybe only a step away from death. Yet when she opened her eyes, all she actually saw was the warm yellow light of the lamp, and a girl whose smile felt just as warm.

“The electric light is really bright…”

As if she wanted to break the tension, or maybe just could not think of anything else to say, Shirley suddenly muttered in a low voice.

“You don’t have electric lights where you live?” Nina sounded surprised.

“I live in… an older part of town. There aren’t any electric lights there yet,” Shirley said, a little embarrassed. “After nightfall we still have to use oil lamps.”

“Ah…” Nina opened her mouth and felt a little uncomfortable, then forced herself to change the subject. “Do you want to change into pajamas? You can wear mine. I have one from two years ago. It should fit you.”

“…Okay.”

“Let’s go to bed early today. Tomorrow is a rest day. In the morning I’ll walk around with you nearby and, by the way, buy you a new dress. Your skirt was all burned.”

“…I don’t have any money.”

“Then treat it as a gift from me.”

“…Okay.”

…

Duncan stood at the bedroom windowsill and quietly looked toward the Sixth District. His expression grew calm.

The two girls had already fallen asleep in the next room. After everything that happened today, he did not know if Shirley felt tired, but Nina definitely was.

He closed his eyes a little and turned his head to “look” to the side.

In the darkness of his vision, two tiny green flames leaped up.

They were in the direction of the next room. The two flames were Marks he had left. One came from Shirley, and the other showed Nina’s position.

Duncan still did not know what the ashes circling around Nina meant, nor what secrets were really buried in this city-state. He did not know where that “Veil” came from, nor who was pulling the strings behind everything.

But he could feel that he was getting close to the truth from eleven years ago. Bit by bit, he was prying at the thick fog that hung over this city-state, condensed from some kind of supernatural element.

Leaving a mark on Nina was one layer of insurance. This mark let him sense her condition at once and served as a locator in an emergency. And if he later figured out what the “ashes” around Nina were, he could also use the mark’s power to intervene right away, at least isolating Nina from any harmful supernatural forces around her.

But one layer of insurance was not enough.

Duncan looked at his own hands.

This body was still too weak and too far from his true body. The power the true body could send over, and the power this body could handle, were both limited, while the danger hidden in this city-state was likely beyond his expectations.

He took a light breath and slowly closed his eyes.

In the next second, Duncan aboard the Vanished opened his eyes, stood up, and pushed open the door of the captain’s cabin.

Goathead’s noisy voice came almost without delay: “Oh, great Captain! Your loyal et cetera is currently recalibrating…”

“In which direction is the Pland city-state?” Duncan glanced at Goathead and cut him off with skill born of practice.

“Pl… the Pland city-state?!” Goathead was caught off guard. Even his stiff wooden face showed a flash of shock, but he quickly reacted, and his tone turned oddly excited. “The Pland city-state! A human city-state! Is the great Captain Duncan finally going to launch a plundering expedition?! Is this your target? Are we going to attack the Harbor directly, or raid the merchant ships passing by the city-state? We could also slowly corrupt the coastal waters and seal off their shoreline step by step. The City Navy might be a bit of a prob…”

“Shut up. Don’t make extra plans,” Duncan walked straight to the chart table and knocked on it. “I’m only asking you: which direction is the Pland city-state?”

“Oh, oh, all right, all right, as you wish…”

Goathead’s voice dropped and stretched out strangely as he began to speak, and in the next second, Duncan noticed a flickering point of light appear at the edge of the fog-filled enchanted sea chart.

“The Pland city-state you are looking for… should not be too far off,” Goathead said respectfully. “Ah, sadly, the enchanted sea chart has slept for too long. It can only mark Pland’s general position. The sea conditions and markers along the way are still hidden in the unknown…”

“It looks quite far,” Duncan glanced at the bright point in the mist, judged the size of the charted sea around the Vanished, and frowned slightly. “At full speed, how long will it take us to get close to Pland’s coastal waters?”

“Half a month? Maybe a month? That’s actually already very fast. We haven’t really gone all the way to the edge of civilization yet,” Goathead started rambling. “You could also choose to let the Vanished move at full speed in the Spirit Realm, but that wouldn’t be very safe. The Spirit Realm itself isn’t much of a threat to us, but in the Abyssal Deep Sea, there are many reckless beings who might cause trouble…”

The Abyssal Deep… the Deep Sea…

Duncan subconsciously thought of Dog, but quickly shook his head. “Then let’s sail in the Mortal Realm sea for now and move toward the Pland city-state. One last question: can we avoid being discovered by the city-state?”

He fixed his gaze on Goathead’s eyes.

As the captain of the Vanished, this question was a little risky.

He was supposed to have complete control over this ship and to fully understand everything it could do.

But he still asked. He was testing this First Mate bit by bit.

Goathead’s obsidian-carved eyes showed no emotion. He simply stared back at the captain, and after a few seconds of silence, spoke as usual: “…We can hide in the mist. If needed, we can briefly slip into the broken reflections of the waves. That way, at least when we are more than fifteen nautical miles from shore, human city-states and ships will not be able to sense the Vanished approaching.

“But any closer won’t work. A God’s gaze will notice, and the city’s great Cathedral will raise the alarm.”

“All of that is experience from a century ago,” Duncan said calmly. “Does it still work now?”

“Of course,” Goathead replied lightly. “A mere century. The Gods would not have made any progress in a single century.”

Duncan let out a small breath. “Very good. Then let the Vanished move toward the Pland city-state and pay attention to hiding itself.”

“May I ask something?” Goathead spoke again. “What… are you planning to do exactly?”

“I just want to run a test,” Duncan thought for a moment, then showed a small smile. “To see if the Wi-Fi is any better this way.”

Goathead froze. “…Wi… what does that mean?”

“I’ll have AI explain it to you later.”

“No! Your loyal et cetera has absolutely no interest in what it means!”