Chapter 26

Chapter 26: Night Without Stars

To be honest, Duncan suddenly found that when the pigeon on his shoulder started talking, he could hardly walk with any composure, even if his nerves had been thicker than a main support beam.

At that moment he very much wished he could be a normal pirate captain with a parrot on his shoulder. At worst, a monkey would have been fine too.

But he had already pushed open the door to the enchanted sea chart room. It was impossible to turn back now.

In the room where the chart table stood, Goathead was cheerfully chattering away about the twelfth legend related to fish stew. The sound of the captain’s cabin door opening finally cut off this noisy fellow. His black wooden head turned at once toward Duncan, and his tone rose with obvious delight: “Ah, Captain! You finally came out. I must tell you, Miss Alice is a truly excellent conversation partner. I have not chatted so happily with anyone in many years, you know…”

Duncan ignored Goathead’s loud babbling and looked first at the victim sitting opposite the chart table. He saw a headless doll sitting very straight in the chair, holding her own head in her hands while pressing her ears tight.

Even so, Alice’s eyes still looked as empty as if she had just sat through twelve advanced math classes in a row. She did not react at all, even when Duncan walked right up to her.

Duncan: “…”

“She pulled her own head off,” Goathead explained before Duncan could speak, “though I do not know why she would do that…”

How powerful was Goathead’s endless chatter, that it could actually force a cursed Doll to pull off her own head just to resist the sound waves?!

While Duncan was still shocked by this, the overly excited Goathead finally noticed the strange newcomer the captain had brought out. His wooden head tilted a little. His pitch-black eyes suddenly fixed on the pigeon on Duncan’s shoulder: “Hm? Captain, what is that on your shoulder…”

“Her name is AI. From now on, she is my pet.” Duncan spoke in the simplest way he could, using as few sentences as possible to avoid any slipups, and at the same time he watched Goathead’s reaction to these words.

“Your pet?” Goathead was clearly stunned for a second, then he seemed to start filling in the blanks by himself. “Ah, just now the Vanished did sense you leave the ship for a short time… Did you go walking in the Spirit Realm? Is this a trophy you brought back while walking in the Spirit Realm?”

Walking in the Spirit Realm?

A term he had never heard before suddenly appeared. Duncan thought of the brass spirit compass placed in the captain’s cabin, of the handwriting left by the real Captain Duncan in the past, and of that strange soul traversal experience of projecting his soul far away. In his heart he quietly matched these things together. Once he felt his guess was almost certainly right, his expression stayed calm as he nodded: “I just went to clear my head a bit.”

As soon as Duncan finished, Goathead began to flatter him as expected: “Ah! As expected of the great Captain Duncan. Even a simple walk in the Spirit Realm lets you bring back a trophy. This is a pigeon, yes? For it to become your pet, it must be extraordinary. You even hung your spirit compass on her. Is this perhaps… ah, of course, your judgment is always correct. But what is special about this pigeon? Could it be that she…”

From Goathead’s flattery, Duncan heard something hidden. His heart stirred as he realized that Goathead clearly recognized the brass spirit compass now hanging on AI’s chest, and that this spirit compass was obviously very important to the real Captain Duncan. So important that it should not have been casually left on some newly appeared “pet”.

But even though he sensed something was wrong, he had no way to fix it. The spirit compass was now already “bound” together with the pigeon. It even seemed that, from the feedback of controlling the flames of spirit form, the pigeon herself now felt like the true body of the spirit compass.

Duncan thought quickly, but his face stayed calm and still. While he was distracted for that brief moment, AI, who had been squatting quietly on his shoulder, suddenly let out a loud coo. Then she flapped her wings and flew right in front of Goathead.

Goathead’s pitch-black eyes locked on the pigeon at once. AI tilted her head in a very serious way and tapped his face with her beak: “Recharge some Q coins?”

Duncan: “…”

“An Anomaly with intellect?!” Goathead was also clearly stunned, but he reacted quickly, his tone full of surprise. “This pigeon can talk?!”

Duncan gently reminded him from the side: “You can talk too.”

The pigeon AI took two steps across the table, then walked away while muttering to herself: “Is this normal is this normal is this normal…”

Seeing this, Duncan rubbed his fingers together. Green flames suddenly leaped up. The pigeon pacing on the table vanished in an instant, and the next moment she appeared back on his shoulder.

“Yes, an Anomaly with intellect. And I control her directly,” Duncan said as he nodded to Goathead. “Any other questions?”

Goathead answered at once: “Ah… of course not, of course not, then there is no problem at all. Everything is under the control of the great Captain Duncan.”

Duncan ignored Goathead after that. Once he ended the topic, he turned his attention to Alice, who was still dazed while holding her head. Maybe that earlier, broad-minded experience had made his nerves tougher, or maybe he had just gotten used to it after seeing it a few times. Now, when he looked at Alice sitting there with her head in her arms, he did not feel it was that creepy. Instead, he thought she was actually… a little cute.

He reached out and patted the doll Miss on the shoulder: “Wake up, wake up.”

Alice’s body shuddered at once, as if she had just woken from a long nightmare. The head she was holding in her hands opened its mouth and spoke: “Cap… cap… cap…”

Duncan: “Put your head back on first.”

Only then did Alice react. She hurried to put her head back in place in a fluster. With a click, the joint locked, and her voice finally flowed smoothly: “Ah, Captain, you are back? Just now it felt like… Is Mr. Goathead finished talking?”

Goathead on the table spoke at once: “No, we had just reached certain legends about fish stew. We can talk about that next time…”

Duncan cut him off with a few blunt words: “Shut up.”

“Oh.”

Beside them, Alice clearly flinched the moment Goathead opened his mouth. This proud cursed Doll actually showed a horrified expression. Even though Goathead shut his mouth at once under the captain’s order, she still looked at the chart table with lingering fear.

Duncan suspected that for quite a long time in the future, this doll Miss would not dare step into the captain’s cabin again.

Thinking of this, he finally asked with some curiosity: “Why did you come looking for me? What is it?”

“I…” Alice looked a bit blank, as if her original reason for visiting the captain’s cabin had been completely erased by the long talk with Goathead. After a few seconds, she finally remembered. “Ah, right, I just wanted to ask if there is a place to take a bath on the ship. My wooden crate was soaked in seawater earlier, and now my joints feel a bit… uncomfortable.”

By the end, the doll Miss’s expression was clearly awkward. But the one who really should have felt more awkward was Duncan. After all, he was the one who had thrown that crate off the ship before.

And he had thrown it several times.

His embarrassment flashed by. Duncan forced his expression to stay steady and said in a calm tone: “Just for that?”

Alice sat on the chair, very stiff: “J-just for that.”

“For many long-range sea ships, fresh water is a very precious resource. Taking a bath is a luxury and something you have to restrain,” Duncan started seriously. Then he suddenly smiled a little. “But you are lucky. The Vanished is not an ordinary ship. Fresh water is not a problem here. Come with me. There is a place to bathe in the cabin under the middle deck. To get there, we have to cross the upper deck first.”

Alice stood up at once. She truly did not want to stay in this place with Goathead even one more second.

Before leaving the room, Duncan looked back at Goathead: “You keep steering.”

After giving his order, he pushed open the door of the captain’s cabin and led Alice out onto the deck.

By now the veil of night already hung low.

Over the Boundless Sea, the night sky was clear.

After many days of clouds, this was the first time Duncan stood under a clear night sky in this world.

He suddenly stopped and tilted his head back, staring up at the veil of night without moving.

The sky was pitch-black and starless. No heavenly bodies existed there.

The only thing he could see was a faint, gray-white “crack” that seemed to tear open the entire sky. It stretched across the horizon, and along its edges fine cracks spread outward like ripped flesh. A dim, pale halo slowly leaked from the rift, like a stain of blood spreading through deep water.

This “Pale Scar” across the sky lit the whole Boundless Sea. It was more than twice as bright as the moonlight in Duncan’s memory.