Chapter 236

Chapter 236: Hidden Contacts Are a Local Custom

“Thanks.”

It was a very ordinary word, yet it made Duncan’s breath stop for a moment.

He was sure that word had not been on the paper just now, and there had not been that patch of paper blurred by moisture either. All of it had appeared out of thin air right before his eyes.

He stared hard at the new mark on the paper. Around him, a ghostly emerald flame already started to rise. His awareness swept across the whole ship in an instant, to make sure no uninvited “guest” had appeared on board—but he found nothing.

Where had this word come from? Who was sending a message to him? And why?

To be honest, at this moment he felt a bit of what the people he scared must have felt. For example, Vanna back then, when she did a jumping slash at the dressing mirror in her dream; and Tyrian and Lucretia just now. But it was only a bit. Next time he would still do the same.

Right now, the key point was why a single word had suddenly appeared on this sheet of paper.

Duncan frowned hard. Suddenly, a flash of insight lit up in his mind. He thought of one detail. Just now, while he had been talking with Tyrian, he had joked and said:

“If the God behind this Cathedral is watching, then She owes me a thank-you.”

Duncan’s expression turned strange. His first reaction to this idea was that it was completely absurd. How could a joke like that ever come true? But after that reflex, he could not help following the thought along that path. The more he thought about it… the less calm he felt.

He lowered his head and looked at the damp corner of the paper. After a moment of hesitation, he picked up the fountain pen at his side and wrote a few words in the drier part along the edge of the water stain:

“Storm Goddess?”

After writing, he waited patiently, like a commander who had just pressed the big build button and was waiting for the results. He kept his eyes on that damp patch, full of hope. In the end, the water almost dried up, and no reply appeared.

The other side seemed to have left a message and then slipped away—or maybe had simply read it and chosen not to answer.

Absurd and bizarre thoughts kept popping up in Duncan’s mind. He had stayed in this spooky world for so long, yet this moment still felt stranger than anything before. Even the calm mood he had worked so hard to cultivate was hard to hold. But after he waited a long time and still got nothing, he slowly put down the pen and let himself settle bit by bit.

He stood there and thought for a while. Then he got up and pushed open the wooden door to the enchanted sea chart room. By the chart table, Goathead was, as always, staring at the mist-shrouded enchanted sea chart. It turned its head at once when it heard the door open.

“There wasn’t any anomaly on the ship just now, was there?” Duncan asked at once, not waiting for it to speak first.

“On the ship? There was no anomaly on the ship,” Goathead froze for a second and answered on reflex. Then it seemed to sense something. “What happened? I’ll search the whole ship right away…”

“No need. I’ve already checked once. I just came to you for a second confirmation,” Duncan waved his hand. He steadied himself and decided not to mention the strange words on the paper for now. “I just met with Tyrian and Lucretia—they happened to be contacting each other.”

Goathead felt that the captain’s mood was a little odd at this moment. But since Duncan had no wish to explain, it wisely did not ask. After hearing Duncan’s words, it only sighed a bit: “Many people in the world guessed that Tyrian and Lucretia had a cold sibling relationship. Their proof was that Tyrian worked as a pirate deep inside the civilized seas, while his younger sister was doing great deeds of adventure and exploration on the border of civilization, and the two never met… But now it seems that the world’s random guesses are just guesses in the end.”

“In my view, their relationship is pretty good. Especially when they faced me together. That kind of tacit understanding was clearly built since childhood, from growing up together, and from a childhood scarred by their father’s beatings,” Duncan shook his head. “As for why they’re far apart now… they just chose different paths in life.”

“Ah, the sighs of an old father,” Goathead said in an exaggerated tone. “Did your talk with your pair of ‘children’ go smoothly?”

“…I think it went quite smoothly,” Duncan thought for a moment and nodded slightly. “I believe I have fully shown my goodwill and have planted, at least roughly, an impression of rationality and ‘returning to humanity’ in their minds. I also laid some groundwork for later contact. At the very least, the next time we run into the Sea Mist, we shouldn’t have to cover each other with fire. That’s the first step toward family harmony.”

Goathead stayed silent for a moment, which Duncan found strange: “Why aren’t you talking this time? You usually talk a lot.”

Goathead spoke in a low voice: “Calling it family harmony just because you’re not firing on each other… that is too powerful. I don’t know how to comment.”

Duncan also did not know how to answer that. He could only spread his hands wordlessly. After a short silence, Goathead asked: “From the sound of it, you are already preparing for the next meeting with Tyrian? Why have you suddenly become so active about this?”

“Because he once served the Frostholm Queen,” Duncan said calmly. “And I’m now curious about that part of his past.”

“Is it because of Miss Alice?”

“A little,” Duncan said offhand.

Then he shook his head, turned, and went back to his room. He found the sheet of paper he had been sketching on and tore off the corner that had been soaked and had words appear on it. Then he returned to the chart table in the enchanted sea chart room: “I have something to show you.”

He placed the strange hexagonal pattern in front of Goathead.

“Have you seen this before?”

Goathead’s neck creaked as it turned. It lowered its gaze and stared curiously at the pattern on the paper. Then it shook its head: “No. What is it?”

“You haven’t seen it?” Duncan frowned. After he made sure Goathead did not seem to be hiding anything, he slowly spoke: “…More than a century ago, several ascetic monks once visited the Vanished. One of them carried a charm amulet with this pattern on it.”

Goathead fell silent for a moment, then spoke softly: “Oh, then that was outside my ‘field of view’.”

Duncan instantly understood what it meant.

At that time, Goathead had not yet been on the Vanished.

Goathead was not one of the ship’s original “crew”. It had only served on the Vanished for a century. To be exact, it had appeared on this ship only after the ship crashed into Subspace.

This ship, and this “first mate”, hid many secrets. This was one of the few mysteries that Duncan had slowly probed and actually managed to solve.

Duncan said nothing for a while.

He had always been very curious. Curious about how Goathead had come to this ship. Curious why it had become the “first mate” here after the real Captain Duncan had gone completely mad. And… curious about its connection with Subspace, and the countless secrets it knew behind the scenes.

But sadly, Goathead never spoke of these things. Even the few times when Duncan tried to probe a little, it changed the subject in a stiff and obvious way.

That attitude was a hint. It could not say it. If it did, something big and bad would happen.

Duncan pulled his thoughts back and set aside the jumble in his head for now. After thinking for a moment, he nodded to Goathead: “Then keep steering. I need to take care of a few things.”

“Of course. At your service, always!”

Duncan put away the paper and turned toward his cabin. He had only walked halfway when he suddenly heard Goathead call from behind: “Captain.”

Duncan stopped and glanced back: “Hm?”

“You can always trust your loyal first mate.”

Duncan did not speak, but he gave a small nod. Then he stepped into his room.

…

Morris had tossed and turned in bed for a long time before he finally sat up.

His wife slept soundly beside him, soft and steady snores rising now and then. The glow of the World’s Wound shone in through the window and spread a sheet of night light across the bedroom floor.

Everything felt like a dream, yet everything was real.

Morris rarely had insomnia, but ever since his wife “returned”, he almost could not fall asleep. And he knew very well why.

Because he was afraid.

He was afraid that if he fell asleep, this dream-like Mortal Realm would really turn into a dream. He was afraid that all these sacred miracles were only his own wishful thinking, just like when he prayed to Subspace eleven years ago and got nothing but an illusion that would pop with one poke.

Because of this fear, he did not even dare to pray to Rahm casually. For many years, even when he had chosen to distance himself from the Church, he had never broken the habit of daily benedictions in his life. But now, because he instinctively avoided the effects of the Eye of Truth’s divine blessing, he even forced himself to stop praying.

Morris let out a light breath and let the cold night air clear his sleepy mind a little. Then he got up, put on a piece of clothing, and stood quietly by the bed, looking at his sleeping wife.

He had done this often in the past two days.

But this time, after he watched for only a short while, his head suddenly felt faint. Right after that, a vague calling and a hazy, dignified figure rose in the depths of his mind. Morris shivered at once and realized what was happening.

The captain was calling him.

The Old Scholar took two deep breaths and woke up fully. Then he walked quickly to the storage room that connected to the master bedroom. He turned on the electric light in the cluttered room, and his eyes went at once to an antique mirror placed in the corner.

Along the edge of the mirror, ethereal spirit form flames slowly floated up. The captain’s figure was just beginning to appear within.

For some reason, this was a scene that should have filled an ordinary person with fear, yet it suddenly gave Morris a strange sense of steadiness.

From those floating flames and that solemn figure, he found a sense of “reality”. Just as pain could prove that one was alive, this was proof that the sacred miracles had truly happened, proof that the present moment was not false.

Morris walked up to the antique mirror and bent down slightly: “Captain, what do you need of me?”

Duncan saw Morris and the cluttered background behind him. At once, his mind gave him a picture of a middle-aged office drone hiding in the storage room to play games, terrified that his wife would find out…

The next second, he straightened his face and shook off that silly image. He spoke to Morris with a serious expression: “I need you to investigate something. It may have to do with history or some hidden organization.”

“What kind of thing?”

“A mysterious symbol. It once appeared on the amulets of a group of ascetics.”