Chapter 24

Chapter 24: Pigeons?

The snow-white pigeon stood blankly on the desk. The brass spirit compass Duncan had been searching for hung around its neck, and the familiar Obsidian Dagger lay by its feet.

Duncan stared at the pigeon in a daze, and the pigeon stared back at him in the same way.

It was not easy to read a bird’s face, but somehow Duncan felt he could see this one’s expression. Not only that, he even seemed to see a kind of “wisdom” shining in its slightly red eyes. Those two little bean-like eyes just stared straight ahead. When Duncan looked over, one eye clearly turned its attention to him, but the other eye still seemed to be watching the ceiling of the captain’s cabin, its gaze wandering all over.

After several seconds, Duncan finally twitched the corner of his mouth and muttered without thinking: “A… pigeon?”

Why was it a pigeon? Why did a pigeon suddenly appear? Why was his brass spirit compass hanging on this pigeon? How did that dagger get here?

In short, all his questions boiled down to one thing: on this abnormal ship, was it even possible for anything normal to happen?!

While Duncan’s mind was full of question marks, the dazed pigeon finally seemed to “wake up”. It bobbed its head and took two steps on the desk, leaned toward Duncan, stretched its neck as far as it could, and let out a loud: “Coo!”

“…” Duncan looked at the bird without a word. For some reason, many classic images of pirate captains from his memories suddenly floated up in his mind. Then he lowered his head to glance at his own captain’s uniform and murmured: “A captain with a bird at his side was kind of standard, but normally it should be a parrot… what was with a pigeon?”

After hearing Duncan’s words, the pigeon immediately nodded very seriously and spoke in a stiff, oddly pitched female voice: “teleportation complete!”

All the muttering in Duncan’s heart and at the tip of his tongue was cut off at once. He almost choked on his own saliva. He stared wide-eyed at the White Dove in front of him, utterly stunned.

He remembered how he had felt when he first stepped onto this ship and, in the captain’s cabin, saw the talking Goathead for the first time.

But at least this was no longer his first day on the Vanished. He was already used to the Anomalies of this world. So the pigeon talking only surprised him for a moment. The next second, his face grew serious. Green spirit form fire rose in his palm as he watched the pigeon with gaze, staying on guard: “Where did you come from?”

The pigeon tilted its head. One eye stared straight at Duncan, while the other drifted toward the ceiling: “Address error. Please check the address again, or contact the system Administrator.”

Duncan: “…?”

His face froze for a second, but the wave in his heart was even bigger.

What the pigeon said did not match the “style” of this world at all. These were not words Goathead, Alice, or any of those black-robed cultists would ever use. Instead, they were terms far more familiar to him as Zhou Ming, a man from Earth.

Yet the pigeon seemed not to notice the change in Duncan’s eyes and expression. It only lowered its head to peck at its own wings, then shook the brass spirit compass on its chest and began to stroll lazily around on the desk.

After a few steps, it ran over to the Obsidian Dagger. It used its claws to nudge the dagger a few times toward Duncan and spoke again in that strange, stiff female voice: “Pick up the Solar Axe and embrace the glory of battle!”

Duncan suddenly stood up from the desk. His chair scraped harshly against the floor. He stared hard at the pigeon, which still looked innocent and calm, while a feeling that was both absurd and eerie filled his mind.

This pigeon could not possibly be something that had always been on the Vanished. It was almost certainly not something that had always existed in this world.

Only Zhou Ming could understand the phrases it spoke!

Perhaps the noise from the chair hitting the floor was too loud, loud enough to reach the enchanted sea chart room. Duncan suddenly heard Goathead’s voice in his mind: “Captain? Are you alright?”

Duncan still stared at the pigeon on the desk. He knew Goathead did not dare to peek into the captain’s cabin directly, so he answered in his usual calm, low voice: “I’m fine.”

“Miss Alice came to see you. Should I…”

“You entertain her for now.”

“Yes, Captain.”

Duncan let out a breath and glanced at the door that led to the enchanted sea chart room.

Goathead’s noisy attack on Alice was still going on. The doll had already tried several times to get up and leave, only to be stopped every time. Duncan felt he should probably go out and rescue that poor doll, but right now… he had something more important to confirm.

For now, Alice would have to suffer a little longer.

Duncan sat back down at the desk, ready to see if he could talk with the pigeon in a normal way. Only then did he notice something he had missed before.

A faint line of fire stretched out from the spirit form flame jumping between the fingers of his right hand. The thin stream of flame was as fine as a hair. It extended a dozen centimeters into the air before fading away.

On the strange pigeon, a wisp of ghostly emerald flame also twined around it, hidden in the gaps under its wings. That flame also stretched out into the air and vanished halfway.

Duncan frowned and lifted his right hand. With a thought, the flame leaped. The pigeon on the desk vanished at once.

The next second, the pigeon appeared on his shoulder. It lowered its head, pecked at his hair, and let out a loud: “Coo!”

Duncan snapped his fingers again, and the pigeon on his shoulder reappeared on the desk.

The brass spirit compass hung on the pigeon’s chest. Its shiny shell reflected the green light of the fire.

Duncan frowned. “…Is it connected to this brass spirit compass?”

He could already tell that the pigeon had a certain bond with him, a connection even closer than the one between him and the Vanished. This might also explain why the pigeon “knew” some things that only he knew, strange bits of “knowledge” from Earth. He just could not be sure why the pigeon had appeared.

After thinking it over, he could only place his doubts on the strange brass spirit compass.

From his first tests with the spirit form fire until now, every Anomaly had started from this compass. The experience of soul traversal, the time he used mental projection to control a corpse, the compass vanishing just now and then reappearing on the pigeon’s chest… all of it seemed to begin with this thing.

Duncan watched the pigeon for a moment, then reached out toward the spirit compass.

He wanted to take it off and study it carefully.

The pigeon neither dodged nor tried to stop him. Yet Duncan’s fingers never touched the surface of the brass spirit compass. His fingers passed right through it and pressed into the soft fluff of the pigeon’s chest.

It was like passing through an illusion.

The pigeon hopped in place twice, as if Duncan had tickled it. It opened its beak and squawked: “It’s KFC Crazy Thursday today, send me 50…”

The corner of Duncan’s eye twitched. He tested it twice more, refusing to give up, and finally had to admit that he simply could not take the brass spirit compass off the pigeon. It had clearly undergone some kind of change and turned into an illusion bound to the pigeon. He could neither remove it nor touch it.

Or maybe… the pigeon was now the real body of the brass spirit compass.

A flood of wild guesses rose in Duncan’s mind, and even he did not know how many of them he should believe. The only thing he could be sure of was this: the pigeon’s appearance was closely tied to his use of the brass spirit compass for soul traversal, and that experience might also have changed the form of the compass itself.

This might be the true nature of the brass spirit compass, its innate property as an Anomaly, or some kind of “price” for using it. As for why the pigeon was so strange… that was not because of the spirit compass, but because of Zhou Ming, the man from Earth.

He could not prove or disprove any of this yet, unless he found a manual for the various Anomalies on the Vanished.

For now, he at least had to decide what to do with this Anomalous pigeon.

After a short moment of thought, he decided to give the pigeon a name first.

“I have to give you a name,” he said seriously to the pigeon, tapping his finger lightly on the desk. “I think you can understand what I’m saying, right?”

The pigeon tilted its head. Its two bean-like eyes drifted as it looked at Duncan: “AI?”