Chapter 500

Chapter 500: The One Who Set Sail

Annie looked a little dazed as she stared at the two “guests” in the small house. Her gaze shifted back and forth between Agatha and Duncan. After a long time, Annie finally reacted a little and said: “Ah, Uncle Duncan, are you going to be the warden of the cemetery here?”

“Maybe,” Duncan said, looking at Agatha, who was still in shock. “Is that not allowed? Does the cemetery warden have to be a retired Guardian?”

Agatha finally came back to her senses and spoke in a hurry: “No… Normally the cemetery wardens are retired Guardian veterans, but if I step in, I can of course arrange a position for you. That’s not the problem. The key is… do you really want to stay in this cemetery as its warden?”

“In Pland, I am still an antiques merchant,” Duncan said, his eyes full of amusement. “The Vanished will never stay in one place, but my avatar form will remain in the city-state. I need something to do. I can’t spend every day doing nothing, just drinking tea and reading the newspaper in that big house on Oak Street, can I?”

“I… never actually thought about that,” Agatha admitted, feeling a little embarrassed. “I never even considered what your ‘avatar form’ would need to do in daily life…”

“It’s normal. Most novels and films never mention what the protagonists do for work after the events end. In the Mortal Realm, you are now doing the work of two people by yourself, and Tyrian is buried in paperwork all day,” Duncan laughed. “For me, steering a ghost ship that never docks, drifting on the Boundless Sea day after day, is also rather boring. Living a normal life in a city-state is my way of making sure I still feel like a ‘human’. You can think of it as…”

Agatha cut him off at once: “I’ll arrange it for you right away. You can ‘take office’ at the cemetery tomorrow.”

Duncan said: “…I hadn’t finished speaking yet.”

“I already heard the most important part,” Agatha said solemnly. “Don’t worry. Even if the Cathedral asks questions, I will make sure you can be the warden of this cemetery in peace.”

“…I feel like you may have read a bit too much into what I just said, but it’s not a big problem,” Duncan said, a little awkward. Then he really did start asking about the “job”: “What does a cemetery warden usually have to do?”

“There really isn’t much work,” Agatha explained. “A warden’s job is just to make sure the cemetery is not ‘disturbed’, to keep supernatural powers calm, and to register the living and the dead who go in and out. As for maintaining the cemetery facilities, the Cathedral nearby sends people to handle that. Given that Frostholm is now extremely safe even at night, I think… not only you, but all the cemetery wardens probably won’t have much to do anymore.”

When she said this, Agatha’s tone grew a little strange. Her eyes kept drifting toward Duncan from time to time. It was clear she was thinking about the link between Frostholm’s recent peaceful nights and the being standing before her.

And there were some words she did not say out loud—even if the city-state’s nights were still as dangerous as before, what would it matter? Now that the cemetery had welcomed a “warden” like this, there would probably never again be incidents of restless supernatural powers. She guessed that even if something from Subspace crawled out of a coffin, this new warden would just slap it back in with one hand…

Either way, it was a good thing.

Duncan had no idea what was going through Agatha’s mind, and he himself did not think too deeply about it. He really did just want to find something for this body to do. Thinking of the last will lingering in this body, and of the “bond” between himself and this cemetery, he had finally chosen to stay here and become the cemetery’s new warden.

He would continue to cast his gaze over Frostholm from here, tending and watching over this city-state, just as he did in Pland.

The hot tea in his hand had already cooled.

Duncan set the teacup on the low table beside him, then stood up and quietly looked around the small room. The simple, plain furnishings came into view, as if they still held traces of the former owner.

On the wall by the door, an old hunting rifle hung quietly from an iron hook. It looked very worn, yet the bolt still shone, reflecting the firelight from the nearby stove.

Duncan looked at the old rifle for a moment, nodded slightly, and pushed the door open to step out of the house.

Lively, cheerful music came from some street outside the cemetery, mixed with the sound of fireworks being set off.

Annie slipped out of the door behind him. Listening to the commotion on the distant streets, she happily tugged at Duncan’s coat: “The new governor’s motorcade is about to pass through the cemetery ring!”

“Many people are still afraid of the new governor,” Duncan lowered his head, a smile at the corner of his eyes. “You don’t look scared at all.”

“I’m not afraid. Mother said the new governor is a hero who protects the city-state,” Annie lifted her face and squinted in the sunlight. “He’s very amazing, just like Dad.”

Duncan thought for a moment, then reached out and gently pressed down on the girl’s furry hat.

“Yes. He will be an excellent governor.”

…

Out on the Boundless Sea, Duncan crossed the aft deck and returned to the captain’s cabin.

Goathead was carefully holding the wheel. On the chart table, the thick mist floating across the surface of the large enchanted sea chart was slowly shifting and fading.

Duncan stood before the enchanted sea chart for a while, his gaze sweeping over the route near Frostholm that was gradually becoming clear. Then he stepped over to a corner of the room.

The Oval Scrying Mirror with its old, elegant frame still hung quietly on the wall of the captain’s cabin. It reflected the scene in the room, but for some reason, under the crossing sunlight and shadows, that reflection looked faint and hazy.

Duncan stepped forward, curled his finger, and lightly tapped the edge of the mirror.

In the next second, the surface of the seemingly ordinary mirror rippled with layer upon layer of hazy light, as if countless mists and motes of dust were rising from the world inside the glass. Then, within that blur of light, a figure appeared.

Agatha—the Gatekeeper in the mirror—appeared before Duncan.

“Good day, Captain,” Agatha’s slightly magnetic voice came from the mirror. “I’m glad to see you.”

Duncan nodded and asked casually: “How do you feel? Are you getting used to it?”

“I feel… pretty good,” Agatha said slowly. “When I first ‘transferred’ onto the ship, the vast, empty world inside the mirrors made me a little nervous. But as I’ve grown used to it, that empty darkness has slowly faded… I also tried talking with Lady Martha. She taught me many skills and bits of knowledge about being a mirror world. They were all very useful.”

Hearing this, Duncan raised his eyebrows: “Oh? You can contact Martha directly from here?”

“The Black Oak is drifting in the reflections of the nearby sea. In the world of the mirror worlds, she and I are ‘neighbors’,” Agatha said with a smile. “It’s a very strange experience—the world inside the mirrors is not continuous, yet everything is connected. I can jump from one mirror to another, appear in many mirrors at the same time, or hide in the vast emptiness behind the glass… It may take many, many years before I fully understand it all.”

Duncan listened with great interest as this mirror world described those mirror laws that lay far beyond ordinary understanding. When she finished, he nodded lightly: “It sounds like you’re enjoying it. That’s good.”

Agatha paused, then sighed softly: “…Yes. It’s better than I imagined.”

The captain’s cabin fell silent for a while. After an unknown time, Duncan suddenly broke the silence: “I want to know what made you decide to leave Frostholm and set out on a journey with the Vanished. This will be the longest voyage of your life. This ship may go to many places—distant city-states, sealed secret realms, the Spirit Realm, the Abyssal Deep, even Subspace…”

Agatha in the mirror fell into thought. She considered the question very seriously. After several minutes, she spoke slowly: “I think it was when ‘we’ descended together into that dark Deep Sea.”

Duncan did not speak. He just watched the person in the mirror, waiting for her to go on.

Her voice came again from the mirror—

“I have all of Agatha’s memories and feelings. In those memories, I was born in Frostholm. I grew up with my family and friends. I studied and trained and faced the Church’s trials. There were those streets, those old clock towers, all those things that were worn and run-down yet still so familiar. All of it is in my mind, clear and deep, as if… I had lived it myself.

“But we both know that up until the day the mirror world invaded, the part of that life that truly belonged to ‘me’ was only three days long.

“So when my mind returned, when I came back to this world again in the form of a mirror world, I kept asking myself one question—am I Gatekeeper Agatha, or am I just a ‘person’ who inherited someone else’s memories and was born into this world again?”

She stopped. As a mirror world, her eyes were bright, and right now those eyes were fixed on the captain outside the mirror with a serious gaze.

“You were right. A ‘person’ cannot live forever as someone else’s shadow.

“Almost all the memories of my life came from another person. But even so, there are three days in those memories that belong to me alone.

“But if I stayed in Frostholm, those three days of ‘life’ would sooner or later be buried under the larger, deeper memories. I can’t cut off my connection to that city, and I cannot avoid my human weaknesses as a Mortal. I would be doomed to be a shadow—a shadow full of regret, trapped in memories. And as time went on… that regret would sooner or later turn into resentment and hatred.

“I can’t accept that possibility.

“But during that ‘Deep Dive’ I took with you, something you said to me… showed me a new possibility.”