Chapter 472

Chapter 472: Doubts about The key

Out on the distant Boundless Sea, Duncan sat at the desk in the captain’s cabin and frowned slightly.

He reached out and opened the hidden compartment beneath the desk. From the concealed space, he felt out the brass key that Agatha had discovered earlier and handed to him, and set it in front of himself to examine it closely.

The winding key had an old-fashioned design and a cold metallic sheen. It reflected the sunlight pouring in from the window. Tiny decorative patterns caught his eye on the handle, which was shaped like an infinity symbol.

This was not the first time Duncan had studied the key, but this time, as he used his gaze on this “Queen’s relic”, his feelings were completely different from before.

This might be Ray Nora’s “soul vessel”. That possibility made his gaze grow complicated.

Ray Nora, the Queen of Frostholm, was a great person. The secrets hidden in her drew Duncan’s attention even more. If there was a chance for him to establish communication with Ray Nora, that would of course be a good thing—but the premise could not be gambling with Alice.

In the city of Frostholm, Duncan, wearing a black coat, narrowed his eyes slightly. He seemed to rein in the thoughts that had scattered for a moment. His gaze fell again on Agatha, and on the hazy shadowy “Agatha” beside her.

He suddenly asked: “Do you still remember your experiences moving through the city-state as a ‘replica’?”

“Yes, I remember everything,” the shadowy figure seemed to nod as she spoke. “I also remember going deep into the mine and melding into that strange region of After the Darkness…”

Duncan said: “I already know that part. Agatha… I mean, the ‘original’ Agatha, has already reported this to me.” A thoughtful look came over his face. “To be honest, your appearance reminds me of someone.”

“Someone?” the two Agathas said almost in unison.

“A soul shadow named Martha,” Duncan said slowly. “She is Lawrence’s wife and a new member of my fleet. For the last ten-odd years, her identity has been that of a ‘replica’ wandering in mirror world Frostholm.”

The hazy phantom Agatha shifted slightly.

“In the past ten-odd years, that ‘replica’ wandered in the space of the mirror world,” Duncan went on, his gaze resting on the blurry figure. “She drew in and gathered a huge number of fragments of thoughts and memories. That made her grow into a vast ‘composite’, and ‘Martha’ is the core personality of that composite.

“From how things look now, your situation is very similar to Martha’s. The difference is that you have not yet become a composite like hers. You are still in an early, pure stage. Of course, since mirror world Frostholm has been destroyed, you will probably stay in this stage from now on.”

“It turns out there is… something like this,” said the genuine Agatha. Her tone carried disbelief. “I thought what happened to me was an exception…”

“It is not an exception. That is why it interests me even more,” Duncan said calmly, though his gaze still rested on the hazy figure. “When mirror world Frostholm faded, all the ‘replicas’ vanished with it. But now two ‘personalities’ remain.

“Does that mean the power that supports replica Martha and replica Agatha is not that mirror world city itself, but something else? The personalities and memories copied from that sea region can keep existing stably in the Mortal Realm, and Martha is even now outside the Frostholm sea. Does that at the same time mean… the power that maintains replica Agatha and replica Martha is something as vast and stable as the Mortal Realm itself?”

Silence fell over the hall where the submersible was parked.

After who knew how long, Agatha finally lifted her head and quietly met her own “shadow’s” gaze.

Duncan suddenly broke the silence: “Have you two thought about the future?”

“The future?” Agatha was stunned, as if she had never thought along that line. “You mean…”

“A person cannot live forever as someone else’s shadow—literally a shadow,” Duncan said, his gaze resting on the hazy phantom. “You should think about the days ahead.”

The blurry phantom fell silent. After a long time, she spoke with a hint of hesitation: “But I really am her shadow.”

“I will say it again: a ‘person’ cannot live forever as another person’s shadow,” Duncan still said calmly as he looked at her with his gaze. “You have your own personality and your own memories. Maybe more than twenty of those years belong to someone else, but at least the last few days belong to you.

“So what about from now on, Agatha?”

When Duncan spoke the name “Agatha”, both figures looked up at the same time without thinking.

His gaze swept over the two of them. Then he let out a light breath and said: “Think it over. It’s all right. We still have plenty of time.”

…

A knock on the door outside the captain’s cabin broke Duncan’s train of thought.

He drew most of his attention back from his “avatar form” in the Frostholm city-state, lifted his head, and looked toward the door of his bedroom: “Come in.”

The door opened. Alice poked her head in first to take a look, then slipped into the room like a thief, holding a plate of still-steaming pastries in her hands: “I learned how to bake cookies!”

With a proud tone, she set the pastries on the table in front of Duncan, then glanced around the room as if looking for Ai.

“Ai is in Frostholm,” Duncan said casually, his eyes resting on the Brother Doll in front of him.

This was the “inner room” of the captain’s cabin, his bedroom. On the whole ship, besides Nina, only Alice could walk into this room so casually.

She was the first person—the first humanoid being—he had met after coming to this world.

He trusted her. Although she was not very reliable, Duncan knew that this doll young lady’s honesty and trust in him outweighed everything. Even though this almost extreme trust mostly came from her simple, solid brain, in this cold and unfamiliar world, that first and deepest trust still felt very precious.

Alice finally noticed Duncan’s gaze. She turned her head in confusion, checked her clothes, then touched her neck and asked: “Why are you staring at me?”

“It’s nothing,” Duncan withdrew his gaze and casually picked up a cookie from the plate, popping it into his mouth. “…It tastes okay.”

Alice laughed happily.

Then she noticed the brass key lying on the table.

“Ah, you’re studying this key,” Alice said. She picked it up without thinking and played with it curiously. Then she felt around her back. “Are you going to wind me up?”

“Don’t mess with it.” Duncan reached out and snatched the key back, his tone turning very serious. “From now on, you cannot touch this key without my permission.”

Maybe she had not seen Duncan this serious for a long time. Alice was even a little frightened. She quickly pulled her hands back. A tense, almost scared look came over her face: “S-sorry…”

“Sorry, I scared you,” Duncan said at once, realizing it and softening his tone. “You did nothing wrong, and I’m not scolding you—it’s just that this key may be dangerous for you.”

“Dangerous?” Alice blinked, as if she could not understand. She reached back in confusion and felt the keyhole through her clothes. “But I heard Shirley and Nina say… this key should be used to wind me up… Ah, Nina even bought a wind-up toy soldier in the city. I played with it for a long time. The toy soldier’s winding key was just like this…”

Duncan rubbed his brow. Even though he knew Alice might find it hard to understand, he still explained patiently: “This key is not something that simple. It is an extraordinary item, do you understand? Queen Ray Nora left it behind, and I now suspect this is some kind of method she prepared to revive herself.”

Alice stared straight into Duncan’s eyes. After a long while, she drew out her voice: “Ah… ah?”

“Ray Nora’s memories and soul might be stored in this key,” Duncan said. He was not surprised by Alice’s reaction. He only sighed softly, pressed the key down on the table, and looked at the doll in front of him. “And you look exactly the same as Ray Nora.”

After staring blankly for a while, Alice finally began to understand. She lowered her head to look at her own body, then looked at the key pinned to the table by the captain. After a long time she asked: “So, if you wind me up, that Frostholm Queen might be able to control my body?”

“That is what I’m worried about,” Duncan nodded. In front of this simple-minded doll, he did not hide his thoughts. “Of course, this worry is not very… reasonable. There are still many doubtful points.”

“Doubtful points?”

“The biggest one is how uncontrollable the whole process is,” Duncan said. “You should know how you were found. Your doll’s spirit coffin drifted in the sea near Frostholm and was salvaged by a passing ship by chance.

“And the key? The key was in the hands of the city-state’s successive governors. They passed it down for half a century, yet no one knew about the link between the key and you, this doll. If this is the Frostholm Queen’s method of reviving herself, then it depends far too much on luck.

“The doll might not end up together with the key. The person who gets the key might not know of its connection to the doll. Even if they know, they might not choose to turn the key. Even Tyrian does not know any of this. Who would wind you up then? And besides… under the terrifying label of Anomaly 099, how many people would even dare approach the doll’s spirit coffin?”

Alice half understood as she listened to the captain. After she finally grasped most of it, she asked curiously: “Then… what about the other doubtful points?”

“The other doubts…”

Duncan thought for a moment. In his mind, he suddenly recalled the Frostholm Queen he had seen in the “vision” when he had probed Alice’s “coffin” earlier, and the sentence the Frostholm Queen had left—

Please do not corrupt history.

Would the Frostholm Queen, who had calmly gone to her death in the face of fate, really arrange a backup plan to revive herself decades later?