Chapter 219

Chapter 219: The New Crew Members.

Duncan returned to the cabin with a rich haul.

With a heavy thud, he threw down a big fish almost as tall as an adult. Then he tossed several smaller ugly fish beside it in a noisy scatter.

“Those fish really struggled today. Good thing I’m still stronger,” Duncan said in a proud, cheerful tone. He raised a hand to wipe his forehead. He had not actually broken a sweat, but as an angler showing off a pile of big fish, wiping his brow felt like the basic respect due to his catch. “Come and take a look. These count as a specialty from the depths of the Boundless Sea. They look ugly, but they taste pretty… Why do you all look like that?”

Duncan finally tore his gaze from his catch and looked up. In the cabin, Shirley, Morris, and Dog were all huddled far away. Dog’s expression was hard to read, but Morris and Shirley both clearly looked very unwell.

Only Nina ran over, greeting him as usual: “Uncle Duncan!”

Then she stared curiously at the fish on the floor.

They really were fish, though very ugly. They were indeed the same kind Uncle Duncan had brought home before.

“They’re really so ugly…” Nina sighed in wonder. “So they look even uglier before they get dried? And how did they end up like this…”

“Why do they all look like that?” Duncan finally asked, staring at Shirley and Morris on the other side of the cabin as if they had seen a ghost.

“They got scared by the noise when you were catching the fish, Uncle,” Nina answered at once. Then she thought for a moment and looked a bit embarrassed. “Actually, I was startled too. You make quite a scene when you fish…”

“I make a lot of noise when I fish?” Duncan frowned in confusion, as if he faintly sensed something. He looked up at Morris sitting far away. “Did something happen just now?”

Only then did Morris carefully get up from his chair. He cautiously approached the ugly strange fish, bent down, and looked them over again and again. Only after he confirmed they had really turned into fish did he speak, hesitating: “Mr. Duncan, are you… on very bad terms with the Deep Sea Spawn? Bad enough that you twisted them into this shape…”

Duncan froze. He finally understood what the constant sense of wrongness had been. He slowly turned his head toward Nina and said thoughtfully: “…In your eyes, what I caught weren’t fish?”

“They are now, but they weren’t before,” Nina answered in a small voice, sticking out her tongue. “We saw you fighting something huge just now. It looked… like this…”

Nina stretched her arms wide, trying to show the size of that vast sea monster that should never appear within human reason. Then she described what she had seen on deck just now. As she spoke, Duncan’s expression grew serious, and he sank into thought.

“That’s about it,” Nina finally finished. She glanced again at the bizarre fish, sounding full of disbelief. “We just didn’t expect that thing to actually turn into… fish.”

Duncan fell silent for a while before muttering thoughtfully: “That sounds like a very large octopus…”

Shirley, who had been hiding and saying nothing, finally plucked up her courage and edged closer. She could not help asking when she heard that: “Octopus? What’s that?”

“It’s also edible,” Duncan explained. “It looks scary, but it tastes fine.”

At those words, Shirley and Morris’s faces both twisted into quite a sight again.

Duncan paid no attention to their reactions. He only stared at his catch and fell into thought.

So the “fish” he caught had not been fish at the start.

The Deep Sea Spawn, the terrible monsters of the Boundless Sea, the sea monsters that made captains and sailors tremble, only became fish after he “hooked” them.

Why did this change happen?

At first Duncan felt surprise and confusion, but in the end, all of it merged into a more basic question:

Could he still eat the fish?

Duncan hesitated for a moment, but after a few seconds he had his answer. He had eaten them before, and aside from looking ugly, they tasted quite good.

This was the Boundless Sea. The Boundless Sea already held endless strange things. Compared with those truly unspeakable Great Terrors, what was so shocking about Deep Sea monsters turning into ugly fish once they came ashore? The words “Deep Sea Spawn” sounded impressive, but if you loosened your thinking a bit, Deep Sea Spawn were just another sort of sea monster. Looking over human civilization, how many creatures once treated as terrifying beasts had eventually ended up on the table?

In Duncan’s view, the essence of the whole thing was just one kind of ingredient turning into another kind of ingredient on the Vanished…

“I’ve eaten it anyway.” These words wiped away all his doubts. He decided not to worry about it. He could just treat it as having uncovered the secret behind this ingredient’s delicious taste. If he was really worried, he could always ask Alice to cook it a bit longer.

Shirley and Morris watched as Duncan’s expression turned cheerful again and heard his conclusion: “No need to think too hard. I’ll take these fish to the kitchen first.”

Shirley forgot to be cautious: “We’re really going to eat them?!”

“It’s not like you haven’t before,” Duncan said, giving the young lady a strange look. “Didn’t you enjoy them last time?”

Shirley: “…”

No matter what the Visitors thought, this special dinner on the Vanished was served in the end.

And for Duncan, today was bound to be a special day too.

After such a long stretch of emptiness, the Vanished finally had a day that could barely be called “lively”. In the cabin amidships, the dining room that had been shut for so long was opened again. Bright whale-oil lamps drove away the gloom. The long table had been polished until it shone, and on it lay the richest meal the ship could offer now—

Freshly baked bread, vegetable soup, stewed peas and meat, jam and mashed potatoes, two kinds of light wine and one strong liquor, and fish.

And of course, AI’s fries and ketchup.

Duncan sat at one end of the long table, with Nina beside him and Alice on his other side to make up the numbers. Along the sides sat Shirley, Dog, Morris, and AI.

To be fair, compared with the huge dining room and long table, this small handful of people did not really count as “lively”. Strictly speaking, Morris was the only truly ordinary person here. Even so, this would be the most atmospheric meal Duncan had had since coming aboard this ship.

After all, normally the only ones at his side when he ate were Goathead or Alice. The whole ship could not even produce two people who ate human food. When AI finally appeared, her menu had only fries…

And for the few Visitors who had come aboard today, this would likely be the most unbelievable, most unforgettable meal of their lives.

Morris looked down at his plate. The roast fish that Alice had cut with her own hands sat at the center. After cooking, the Spawn’s flesh no longer showed any eerie or frightening trace. It looked like real food, even giving off an inviting smell.

Sitting on the Vanished, living alongside the Shadows of Subspace, sharing the flesh of the Deep Sea Spawn.

Morris almost could not help whispering the holy name of the God of Wisdom Rahm, but he was afraid the God might actually send him a divine blessing and let him see something he should never see.

The atmosphere around the table felt a bit stiff. Duncan noticed this, so he was the first to raise his glass: “First of all, let me welcome you all again. The process was a bit unexpected, but you are now all members of the Vanished. Let’s use this drink as a welcoming ritual.”

Their inner tension quickly gave way. Morris hurriedly lifted his glass and stood. Shirley followed, and Nina copied her. But Duncan quickly glanced at the two girls: “Juice is enough for you two.”

“I’m almost an adult!” Shirley blurted out on reflex.

“I… I’ll just sip a little,” Nina said in a small voice. “Fruit wine would be fine…”

“…Then you two may only drink a little,” Duncan said seriously. “I’ll have Alice keep an eye on you.”

“Okay, Uncle! Okay, Mr. Duncan!”

Morris watched the exchange between Shirley, Nina, and Duncan with some surprise. The scene felt almost too down-to-earth, and it suddenly loosened his taut nerves a little.

And not just Morris’s nerves.

When Nina eagerly took a sip of fruit wine and still ended up coughing again and again, the whole dining room seemed to relax.

Duncan felt it was time to talk about his next ideas and plans.

“After dinner, I’ll have AI take you back to the city-state,” he said, looking around the table, his tone relaxed and calm. “Mr. Morris, you can go straight home. Shirley, Dog, and Nina, you can return to the antique shop.”

Nina was still recovering from her coughing fit when she heard his words and suddenly thought of something: “Cough, cough… Uncle… then you…”

“Of course I’ll be waiting for you there,” Duncan said with a smile, his gaze also resting on Shirley. “In fact, that’s always been the case. I am both here and in the city-state.”

“Uh…” Shirley stared for a few seconds before blinking. “I thought… after you solved Pland’s problem, you wouldn’t pay attention to that city anymore. That you would, like in the stories, just keep sailing on with your adventure…”

“Of course the captain will keep adventuring. The Vanished will still sail on the Boundless Sea,” Duncan said, half smiling as he looked at her. “But the captain still watches the civilized world. As for the Vanished’s crew members… you will go back to the land you know, but there is always the chance you’ll come aboard again if the situation calls for it.”

“…We have to come back?!” Shirley froze for a moment before reacting.

Nina reacted too: “We can come back?!”