Chapter 471

Chapter 471: The Possibilities Behind the key.

In Frostholm, in a secret facility deep beneath the southern Harbor, all unrelated personnel had already been cleared from the site. Agatha and Tyrian were waiting together for Duncan to arrive.

Behind them stood the huge machine secretly built by the former City Hall. An egg-shaped pressure-resistant capsule was fixed firmly among the beams by steel cables. Light from the ceiling shone down onto the metal hull of the submersible, making it gleam with a cold, mute sheen.

Silence filled the hall. After a slightly tense wait, Agatha suddenly lifted her head. Her voice, ethereal and hoarse like a Restless Soul, broke the silence: “He is here.”

As soon as she spoke, she spread her hands in midair. Green flames roared up from the scars and cracks all over her body, as if she were embracing a blazing sun. In front of Agatha, a dim green flame suddenly burst upward and gathered into a rotating gate of fire. The skeletal form of Ai was the first to fly out of the gate, followed by a tall figure wrapped in bandages and wearing a black coat.

Tyrian bowed to that figure and stepped half a pace to the side: “Father.”

Agatha lowered her hands and drew back the flames on her body. She clasped her hands before her chest in a prayer-like pose and bowed her head slightly: “I am sorry to trouble you to come in person again.”

“It is fine. This avatar has nothing else to do anyway. Seeing the site in person is more efficient than listening to reports,” Duncan waved his hand and walked past Tyrian and Agatha. His gaze had already fallen on the huge machine behind them. “So… this is it?”

“Yes,” Agatha nodded gently. “This is the legacy left by Governor Winston – and perhaps by other former governors as well. According to our current inspections, the submersible is close to completion and in good condition.”

Duncan gave a quiet “Mm” but did not speak further. He simply stood there in silence, as if gazing upon a fragment of frozen history.

That sealed history seemed to gaze back at him. Time had trapped ambitions and lonely searching that no one could fully know today. Under the crisscrossing lights, in this hall that had almost been buried and forgotten, all the fears and courage of mortals had been cast into this cold steel.

Duncan could almost hear the obsession and the roars cast into the steel.

He took a few steps forward, came to the edge of the railing, and reached out to touch the submersible’s cold, hard shell. Deep within his own body, this shell that had already lost its life, there seemed to be a faint tremor. The feeling disappeared in an instant.

But even that fleeting feeling gave Duncan a sense of familiarity. He searched his memories and found where it came from:

It was when he first set foot on the surface of Pland, standing before Nina as “Uncle Duncan”, and Nina ran toward him with a bright smile, arms wide open. It was when he found that silver brooch on the Vanished and heard someone speak the name “Lucretia”. At those times, faint traces of attachment and memory had surged up from the depths of his heart, like scraps of humanity left in a shell that could never quite be wiped away.

Duncan drew back his arm and lowered his head, looking thoughtfully at his own palm, as if he were gazing at the former master of this body. After a long time, he spoke softly: “Ah. So you know about this…”

Tyrian’s voice came from the side: “Father? What did you say?”

“Nothing,” Duncan turned around. “Can this submersible be used now?”

“Well…” Tyrian sounded a little troubled. “We carefully checked the facility here and the condition of the submersible. The main structure of the submersible is intact, but there are two problems. First, it seems all the original technicians in this facility have been lost, and the documents and equipment left in the outer hall are badly damaged. That problem is still manageable. Some of the ‘old hands’ in the Sea Mist Fleet should be able to handle this thing, since it was built based on the blueprints left by the Queen of Frostholm. The second problem is more troublesome…”

Tyrian paused for a moment, then went on after choosing his words: “From our preliminary checks, we found that this submersible is very different from the ones used back then. It does not rely on air pumps on the surface. Instead, it uses built-in oxygen cylinders. But we have only found where the cylinders should be installed. We have not found any cylinders themselves. Perhaps that part was never finished. That is why Lady Agatha said it is ‘almost complete’. If we want to quickly build an oxygen supply system that fits this submersible now, it may take quite some time.”

Duncan turned his head and looked at Tyrian quietly.

Tyrian grew a little nervous: “Father?”

“I do not need to breathe,” Duncan looked into Tyrian’s eyes. “Is there still a problem now?”

Tyrian: “…”

The new governor of Frostholm froze for a moment, then suddenly realized. An awkward look flashed across his face, and he hurriedly nodded: “Ah. Then there is no problem at all…”

“You can hardly find anyone in the entire Sea Mist Fleet who even needs to breathe, yet you are getting stuck on this,” Duncan shook his head. “It seems everything lately really has worn you out. All right. Since there is no problem, go get ready. I want this submersible made ready in the shortest possible time. That is what I care about most in Frostholm right now.”

Tyrian straightened at once. Though he had not heard an order from his father for a century, his muscles still tensed by reflex: “Yes, Father!”

Then Tyrian left, going to carry out his father’s order as quickly as possible.

Duncan turned around and looked again at the strange diving apparatus for a while. Then he noticed that Agatha was still standing where she had been and looked as if she had something to say.

Duncan turned his head, his gaze sweeping over Agatha and the shadow on the ground beside her. Then he nodded: “You can speak now. It is just us here. Go on, what is happening? Which of you will speak first?”

Agatha was stunned for a moment, then reacted sharply: “You… already noticed?”

“There are two shadows in the firelight. One of them tried very hard to hide, but the flames on your bodies come from me. From my point of view, that kind of hiding is… clumsy,” Duncan turned back, his eyes a little gentle. “I noticed as soon as I arrived, but since you did not want to mention it just now, I did not ask.”

“I only thought this matter should not be made known to General Tyrian for the moment.”

As Agatha spoke, she slowly stepped aside.

Her shadow stayed where it was.

The next second, the shadow left on the ground suddenly rippled. A vague, ghostly figure rose from it, wearing what seemed to be the old attire of a Gatekeeper. The figure bent slightly toward Duncan, and a hoarse voice almost identical to Agatha’s sounded: “It is good to see you, Duncan… Captain.”

“This should be my first time seeing you,” Duncan looked at the wavering shadow with a hint of surprise. After studying it curiously for a few seconds, he suddenly raised his head to look at Agatha not far away. “Is she always this blurry?”

“She is very clear when she is in a mirror, but there is no mirror here,” Agatha explained at once. “Also, from our tests, she becomes blurry when she feels nervous. The more nervous she is, the blurrier she gets. Right now… she is a little nervous in front of you.”

“How remarkable,” Duncan found it more and more incredible. He looked at the phantom. Even though he had already sensed her presence earlier, he still could not help his amazement now. “I thought you had already scattered into the darkness. Agatha read the memories you left behind when you faded.”

“I did fade for a time, but in the end I returned to this world,” the hazy shadow said. “I am sorry. I do not know how to explain the process either. When I became aware of my own existence again, I was already a reflection in a mirror…”

Agatha spoke again: “We suspect it has to do with that ‘key’, but we have no proof.”

“The key?”

“The brass key,” Agatha nodded. “From her hazy impression, she reappeared in this world when I took hold of that brass key. Perhaps that key does more than store information. It might also preserve memories, personality, or even a soul to some extent. When the right conditions are met, the stored memories and soul can be ‘reshaped’ in some form…”

Duncan listened quietly and did not speak right away.

The key left behind by Queen Ray Nora of Frostholm was now aboard the Vanished, in the hand of his true body. Out of caution, he had not yet tried using that key on Alice, and now it seemed… that caution might have been right!

Agatha touched the key, and the “replica Agatha” who had once also held the key had returned to this world. So if he used the key on Alice, what would happen?

Could that key be storing Queen Ray Nora of Frostholm’s memories, or even her soul?

For generations, every governor of Frostholm had been affected over and over whenever they came into contact with the brass key. They had been forced to learn the truth of the Abyssal Trench Project, forced to inherit the Queen of Frostholm’s “legacy”, and even had their own wills disturbed by the Queen’s will. All this influence had always been crudely explained as “the Queen of Frostholm’s curse”. But what had happened to Agatha now made Duncan aware of the possibilities behind that key.

When he thought again of how Alice had the exact same face as the Queen of Frostholm, those possibilities pointed toward an even more unsettling direction: the doll was the vessel, and the key held the soul. Put together, they would be the Queen of Frostholm.

Duncan kept silent, though he sighed softly in his heart.

He understood now why Agatha had not brought this up in front of Tyrian earlier.

But then he suddenly felt that something about this was not right.

Alice as a doll, and the brass key that could “store a soul”… were those really enough to bring about the Queen of Frostholm’s return? Could things truly be that simple?