Chapter 216

Chapter 216: the Vanished’s Hospitality

The sea was calm. The breeze was pleasant. The small waves rolled gently, and the sunlight was not very strong. If one did not know what kind of Great Terror lay beneath the Deep Sea, this could even have been called a beautiful and peaceful scene.

It felt as if the terrible nightmare from not long ago, when the entire city-state had been dragged into Doomsday and burned in raging fire, had never happened at all.

On the raised platform at the stern of the Vanished, the dark helm turned by itself with no one touching it, slowly adjusting its angle. Not far away, the sails shifted bit by bit, changing their posture on their own.

Nina sat on the deck at the edge of the platform. She leaned her upper body on the rail, her legs hanging outside, swinging lightly back and forth. Duncan sat on a large wooden barrel beside her.

“…This feeling is very strange. I know you are my Uncle Duncan. I know you are someone I can rely on and trust. But at the same time, another fact is just as clear…”

She sounded as if she were talking to herself, her voice soft and slow.

“I had an uncle. He was an ordinary person. He used to be a very good man, honest and steady, hardworking. But later he became… not so good. He got sick. He started drinking, gambling, and losing his temper. Things got worse every day. At that time, I even felt that going home was a frightening thing…

“But then suddenly, my uncle became good again, like in a dream. His health improved, his temper kept getting better, and the atmosphere at home seemed to return to how it was before. It was even better than before, really. And from then on… I often thought, if only you could really be my uncle forever, how great that would be.”

Duncan slightly frowned.

“You had already noticed back then?”

“Vaguely… but I did not dare be sure. And there is one thing I still cannot figure out.” Nina turned her head and tilted her face up a little. “If it really was the kind of Evil Spirit in the books that took over my home, then why would that Evil Spirit still treat me so well?”

Duncan looked into Nina’s eyes. After a moment, he suddenly smiled.

“I am much stronger than any Evil Spirit.”

“Now I can see that. And you are also much kinder than an Evil Spirit.” Nina smiled too, resting her head on the railing beside her, looking lazy. “You are Uncle Duncan, right?”

“Yes. And I can be that forever.”

“That is really good… I feel much better now.” Nina let out a soft breath. She fell silent for a while before she spoke again, hesitating: “My other uncle… was he calm when he left?”

Duncan remembered the night he truly stepped into the city-state of Pland.

A cultist who could no longer be saved took his last breath in a cold, damp sewer. His gloomy companions were already planning to throw the corpse into the depths of the darkness. In his muddled mind, besides poisonous resentment, there was only twisted, fanatical worship of the Black Sun.

But a little bit of humanity still remained, and he still remembered the family member who had depended on him.

So Duncan had acted for that last bit of humanity.

“He went very peacefully. Now he should already be at rest,” Duncan said softly. “There were not many things he was still worried about at the end. You were among them.”

“That is good, then.” Nina let out a long breath, as if she had finally laid down the last of her burdens. She stretched hard, then simply leaned back and lay flat on the deck. The semi-transparent spirit form sails of the Vanished were reflected in her eyes. “So many things have happened lately, especially today… can you tell me about them? The things you have not told me yet. About this ship, about you, and… about me.”

Duncan rose from the barrel and came to lie down beside Nina. He said: “That will take a long time. Your uncle here has a lot of stories…”

…

“In short, Captain Duncan was just that amazing…”

On the wide deck of the Vanished, Alice was happily telling the Visitors about the captain’s great deeds. She had been chattering on for quite a while. At least two thirds of those deeds were things she had heard from Goathead. Those stories had first been exaggerated by Goathead, and now they had been scrambled all over again by this doll Miss, until they were twisted into something humans could barely understand. If Duncan himself heard them, he would probably jump in shock. Alice herself could not even guarantee she could repeat them correctly a second time.

Yet Shirley and Morris listened to such nonsense with great seriousness, and even Dog at the side put down his newspaper and listened with full attention.

They did not feel there was anything unreasonable in Alice’s chaotic stories at all, not even when Alice firmly insisted that there were actually two huge long legs under the Vanished, and that the ship only ran so fast because it sprinted along the seabed.

When it was the big boss of Subspace, when it was the Vanished, the number one calamity on the Boundless Sea, things were supposed to sound outrageous. The more unreasonable, the more likely they were to be true.

In front of them stood Lady Alice, someone who had a place on the Vanished, who followed Mr. Duncan, and who even dared pinch Mr. Duncan’s cheek back in the antique shop. What she said had to be right.

“No wonder it is the Vanished…” Morris clapped his hands in praise. He had spent his whole life studying, yet only when he listened to Alice did he realize how short his own knowledge fell. “I have seen many essays in books that study this ship. Those authors sit in their rooms and, relying on imagination alone, can write a whole book. But now it seems more than ninety percent of what they wrote is actually ridiculous…”

No sooner had the old gentleman finished speaking than a firm, authoritative voice suddenly came from the side: “I strongly advise you not to take Alice’s words seriously. She is far more outrageous than those made-up books.”

The moment this voice sounded, Dog shot up and darted behind Shirley. Morris quickly stood and looked toward the tall figure stepping down the nearby stairs. “Ah, Duncan… Captain, are you done?”

Duncan nodded and walked down the stairs. A small figure then followed him down.

“Nina!” When Shirley saw that figure, she jumped up and ran over in delight. “You are fine! You are back!”

As she stood up to greet Nina, the black chain wrapped around Shirley’s arm snapped tight. Dog, who had been burying his head and pretending he did not exist, was yanked forward by the chain and went tumbling and scrambling along, hopping and shouting: “Hey, slow down, slow down… hey, you are still dragging me… ow, my head…”

“Shirley.” Nina beamed, grabbed Shirley’s arm, and shook it hard twice. Then she bent down to look at Dog, whose skull had just banged into the stairs, and patted his bony head. “And you too, Mr. Dog. I am back.”

Morris also stepped forward to greet his student. Then he turned his head to look at Alice beside him and said: “Miss Alice, what you just said… you made all of that up?”

“I did not make it up! Mr. Goathead said it!” Alice widened her eyes at once. “It said it has served on the Vanished for a whole century. It knows this ship better than anyone!”

Morris looked completely puzzled. “Goathead?”

“My first mate. You will not enjoy dealing with him,” Duncan said casually. Then he let his gaze sweep over the people now standing before him.

Morris, Shirley, Dog. Unplanned passengers, Visitors the Vanished had not seen in a long time.

Back when the situation in the city-state of Pland had been critical, Duncan had already made a plan to use the Vanished’s special nature to strip away the historical corruption. But to be safe, he had still used an emergency teleportation to send the guests who had been taking shelter in the antique shop onto this ship. Now that the troubles in the city-state had calmed down, it was time to think about what came next.

At the very least, old Mr. Morris still had family in the city-state. He would not want to stay on this ghost ship forever.

After a brief thought, Duncan withdrew his gaze.

“I think you already know where you are now, and you already know who I am,” he said. “As you can see, this is the Vanished, and I am the captain of this ship. Over the past century, at least half of the horror tales on the Boundless Sea are more or less related to me.

“I will not comment on how true or exaggerated those tales are. But there is one thing the legends do get right. Once you board the Vanished, it is very hard to cut your ties with this ship. In a sense, after going through AI’s teleportation and the Vanished’s spirit form transformation, you already count as crew members of this ship.

“Sadly, this process is both irreversible and unavoidable.”

Duncan stated this fact straight out. It was also a conclusion he had reached recently from his experiences with the Vanished and with his own power.

Those who encountered the Vanished, those who came into contact with the ghostly flame, would unavoidably form a connection with Duncan, even if he himself did not notice it. The earliest example was the White Oak. The most recent was Vanna.

Morris and Shirley reacted more calmly than Duncan had expected. Only Dog drooped his head and muttered something no one could hear.

It seemed they had already thought of this outcome and were somewhat prepared.

Duncan deliberately paused for two or three seconds, then suddenly smiled and shook his head.

“But there is one way things are different from the legends,” he said, his tone turning lighter. “This ship does not only issue one-way tickets. And as for me, the captain… as you can see, I am not really the kind of calamity in a crazed runaway state that the legends describe.

“Your boarding happened because the situation was urgent back then, so I will not restrict your freedom.”

This time, Shirley and Morris finally widened their eyes a little, especially Morris. A moment ago, the old gentleman had still been worrying over how he could possibly return to the city-state, how he could win back the right to go back to the mortal world from a Subspace shadow. He had not expected the matter to be this simple and was greatly surprised. “So… we can go back?”

“Of course you can.” Duncan smiled. “The crisis in Pland is over. You are free to come and go. But…”

Morris immediately tensed up again.

“But at least stay for a meal before you go,” Duncan said casually. “That is my way of treating guests. The food on the Vanished is simple, but it has its own special flavor. Especially the seafood. They are things you cannot get back in the city-state…”