Chapter 230

Chapter 230: Cozy Daily Life in the Subspace Nest

The large parrot with its brilliantly colored tail feathers beat its wings as it left the Sea Mist, streaking over the docks at surprising speed and flying straight toward the city-state.

“First Mate, what do we do? Are we just waiting here?”

On the bridge of the Sea Mist, a sailor watched Polly’s distant figure, then turned to the silent Aiden and asked.

“…We can only wait for now.” Aiden lowered his head and glanced at the deck under his feet. He weighed things quickly, forcing his cold mind to run as fast as it could. “Not only because of the captain’s order, but also because of the Sea Mist’s current condition.”

That second half of his words quickly calmed the few men who had still been a little restless.

The captain had gone ashore with only a few trusted aides, leaving his First Mate and all the other sailors on the ship. The official reason was that most of the Sea Mist’s Undying sailors looked strange and frightening, which could easily cause unrest and hostility inside the city-state. But Aiden knew the real reason very well.

Because not long ago, the Sea Mist had just run into its own flagship.

The ship was in bad shape now, not only because its hull was damaged, but because the ship’s “soul” was restless. The Sea Mist’s boiler kept shuddering, strange hollow sounds echoed through the small Cathedral, and the pressure in the steam pipes still had not fully stabilized. The ship had indeed returned to “this side”, but it was hard to say whether it would fall into a runaway state again.

When the ship was unstable like this, the sailors who had served on her for over half a century were its “anchors”. The Sea Mist’s iron anchor let her rest on the sea’s surface, while the Undying formed an Anchor of Humanity that kept her steady in the dimension of the Mortal Realm.

Aiden did not dare reduce the number of sailors on board. After vaguely sensing how strange Pland’s situation was, he dared even less to let the Sea Mist’s crew wander into the city-state at will. That could easily cause a “jolt” and wake the ship’s barely calmed “soul”.

Likewise, he did not dare let the Sea Mist signal the city-state of Pland directly, whether by whistle, bell, or a telegraph to the city’s authority. He feared he might alarm some power hidden inside Pland.

Sending the parrot Polly with a message was the lowest risk plan he could think of. He only hoped that once the captain got the news, he would hurry back, that nothing had trapped him yet, and that it was not too late.

Of course, he also could not put all his hopes on “waiting”. If the captain still had not returned after a day, he would have to send a small part of the crew ashore to take the risk.

Aiden frowned tightly and cast his gaze toward the pearl-like city shining under the sunlight. He replayed every detail of the captain leaving with that city Inquisitor, trying to find anything wrong that could explain Anomaly 203’s abnormal behavior just now.

…

Duncan, who was sitting by the counter turning the pages of a newspaper, suddenly stopped and looked thoughtfully toward the window.

Alice, who sat next to him pretending to flip through a paper as well, noticed and asked curiously: “Mr. Duncan, what are you looking at?”

“…I suddenly felt like something glanced this way,” Duncan muttered with a frown, unsure. “But it vanished the moment I blinked.”

“Oh oh, I know. That’s called a ‘Champion’s Shiver’! Mr. Goathead told me about it,” Alice said happily. “He said the stronger you are, the easier it is to feel gazes or even thoughts aimed at you, and someone as strong as you will be getting shivers all the time…”

Duncan set the paper down and looked at Alice with no expression: “He really said that?”

Alice’s smile froze a little. “…I figured out the last part myself.”

“Don’t waste time on that kind of useless reasoning.” Duncan said it casually, then focused a little and started looking for the source of that sudden shiver.

He did not treat that fleeting feeling as a hallucination. After living so long in a world full of the uncanny, he had formed the habit of paying attention to every sudden intuition and digging to the bottom of it.

Duncan’s senses spread quickly, reaching toward the city’s edges. In a moment, Pland appeared in his mind with clear outlines, just like the Vanished did. Just as he could feel the Vanished’s “texture”, he began to feel the complex “touch” this city under his feet sent to him. Among all those sensations, one message stood out, the sharpest and most abrupt.

In the southeastern Harbor of Pland.

“…Tyrian’s ship?” Duncan was a bit surprised when he sensed the source of that aura. “Why is he here?”

Then he recalled his earlier clash with that ironclad warship, the position it had been in back then and the intent it showed in battle. After a brief moment of thought, his expression grew a bit odd.

The Sea Mist had appeared near Pland and taken the initiative to attack the Vanished… Was it actually “reinforcements” that Pland’s authority had called in, meant to intercept him?

Duncan vaguely guessed the cause and effect in his mind, but only felt both amused and annoyed. He did not know whether to sigh first over this “loving father and filial son” relationship, or over Tyrian’s dedication as reinforcements. After being beaten by the Vanished until his ship almost sank, the man had still stubbornly made it to Pland. What kind of spirit was that?

It definitely was not a spirit of “duty bound to protect world peace”.

Most likely, it was the spirit of “nothing is more fun than fighting with your own dad”.

“Mr. Duncan, you’re spacing out again,” Alice’s voice sounded at his side once more. The doll tilted her head slightly as she looked at him. “Do you want to go out?”

“No.” Duncan shook his head while keeping his senses on the Sea Mist. Because that ship had not yet become one of his “collections” like the Vanished and Pland, he could not sense its details. But thinking of his “connection” with the Sea Mist and with Tyrian, he had already started searching for the position of his “eldest son”. There was no point explaining such complicated things to Alice, who would not understand anyway, so he did not bother. He only frowned when he saw the doll tilt her head. “Don’t tilt your head. It will fall off.”

Alice quickly nodded in small jerks. “Oh, oh.”

Just then, footsteps sounded behind the small door behind the counter. The door opened, and a small figure slipped out.

“Mr. Duncan.” Shirley patted the dust off her skirt and greeted Duncan with a proud look. “The storeroom is all cleaned up! All that junk you told me about has been piled onto one shelf!”

“Mm, nicely done.” Duncan kept part of his attention on the Harbor while he turned and nodded to Shirley. “You still have some dust on your shoulder.”

“Oh.” Shirley turned and brushed the dust away, then looked at Duncan a little nervously. “Mr. Duncan, what… do we do next?”

When she spoke with Duncan here, her expression was clearly not as terrified as it had been on the Vanished. She was still obviously tense, and that tension would not go away in a short time. But compared with the beginning, she was clearly much better now.

Clearly, at least in her mind she knew Duncan meant her well. As for that lingering tension, they would have to fix Dog’s nerves first.

Duncan nodded, then let his gaze slide over to Alice, who was still messing randomly with the newspaper even though she could not read a single word.

Illiterate.

Then he looked at Shirley across from him.

Another illiterate.

And there was Dog, hiding in the nearby Shadows, not showing himself but unable to hide his presence.

Also illiterate.

He had brought this trio in to help at the shop, and not one of them could even keep the books.

Duncan sighed inwardly, then remembered an earlier idea and his old line of work.

“Come on, you all sit here. Shirley, sit on Alice’s right,” Duncan said as he dragged a chair over to the counter. “Dog, squat behind the counter… stop hiding, I see your shadow. All of you come here. I have a plan.”

Shirley quickly obeyed and sat down. Alice finally put down the newspaper she could not read and looked over curiously: “Ah, what plan?”

“Nina is still out buying things. We have nothing better to do, so I’ll teach you to read,” Duncan said cheerfully, standing up and straightening his clothes. “You can’t stay illiterate forever.”

Shirley had never expected Captain Duncan’s serious “plan” to be this, and she froze on the spot. Alice, on the other hand, was full of curiosity; even her eyes seemed to light up. Dog, who had been crouching dutifully behind the counter, lifted his head to look at Duncan, then at Shirley, his dog head full of question marks: “But I’m just a dog…”

Duncan lowered his head at the words, but before he could say anything, the Abyssal Demon suddenly shuddered. Its whole upper body straightened. “But I can try to be a dog with culture. I have the passion and confidence…”

“Then that’s fine,” Duncan said in a pleased tone. He kept his attention on the Harbor while he reached under the counter and pulled out a few blank notebooks, handing them out to his “students”. “These will be your letter books. We’ll start from the most basic letters…”

Shirley took the notebook from Duncan with a dazed look.

Then she became even more lost.

Letters and spelling were a door to a completely incomprehensible New World.

After only a few minutes, Shirley confirmed one thing: swinging Dog around and fighting cultists was easier than this!

But Duncan clearly did not care much about Shirley’s pained expression, or rather, he was long used to that kind of look.

He only felt joy, the joy of a wanderer in a foreign land suddenly touching something familiar and doing something he was used to.

But the happy time did not last long. When Shirley was stumbling over writing the fourth letter, a clear bell and light footsteps suddenly sounded at the door, cutting off this little “Subspace Shadows passing on knowledge to the retainers” class.

Nina’s cheerful voice came from the doorway: “Uncle Duncan! I’m back!”

Duncan lifted his head from the pleasant lesson and saw Nina pushing the door open. Then he noticed that something else was flying in behind her.

“I saw AI on the way back,” Nina said happily. “AI seems to have brought a friend!”

“A friend?”

Duncan frowned slightly, then saw AI flying into the shop behind Nina. Right after the pigeon came a large parrot with brilliant tail feathers…

Duncan: “…?”