Chapter 57

Chapter 57: Timid Alice

The captain’s words were like a cool night wind, passing down through the increasingly dim stairway. Alice instinctively hugged her arms and moved closer behind Duncan. As they went lower and lower, she finally saw what the captain meant when he said “the light down here is black.”

There really was light in the lower cabins—at least in terms of structure and layout. The cabins she saw had the same supporting pillars as the levels above, and on those pillars hung the ever-burning oil lamps. Those oil lamps were burning, yet the flames actually made the area near them darker than the places farther away.

Yes— the closer it was to an oil lamp, the dimmer the light became. The lamps themselves were almost wrapped in a layer of shadows, so that she could only faintly make out their outlines. But a little farther away from the lamps, the brightness instead began to grow. In the far corners of the cabins, the light level was almost the same as in the upper decks.

From the stairs above, the space below had looked strangely dark exactly because there were two lamps hanging on either side of the stairwell. From a visual standpoint, it felt as if those lamps were actively giving off darkness, canceling out and erasing the light that originally existed in the cabins.

Alice stared wide-eyed at the cabin that was dim overall. After a long time, she finally muttered: “This… this can’t be reasonable, can it…”

“You, an unreasonable doll, are asking me to talk about reason?” Duncan looked over at the clearly nervous Alice. “Under the surface of the Boundless Sea, the things that make sense are the most unreasonable things of all.”

When he said that, his expression was quite calm, as if he had long grown used to this kind of weirdness. But in truth, his reaction inside was almost exactly the same as Alice’s. Even the undead dove on his shoulder suddenly flapped its wings and blurted out its true feelings: “Does this make sense, does this make sense, does this make sense…”

Duncan ignored the noisy dove on his shoulder. Instead, he carefully observed this cabin he had never set foot in before, adjusting the angle of the consecrated lantern as he walked, trying to use the changes in light and shadow to read the environment.

Below the Vanished’s waterline… the light in the cabins was inverted.

The lamps did not seem to give off any light at all. Instead, they were absorbing the light that originally existed in the space, as if… they were some kind of mirror shade of the world.

Yet the spirit form glow that Duncan’s consecrated lantern released still followed the normal rules of light. It was bright around the lantern and grew dimmer as it spread outward.

What principle lay behind this? Was it only the influence of the Boundless Sea, or was it mixed with the Vanished’s own traits? Was the “bright environment” in the cabins real? If those oil lamps that “absorbed the light” were put out, would this place become bright?

For a moment, a bold idea really appeared in Duncan’s mind. He actually found himself wondering what would happen if he extinguished all the oil lamps on this level. But in the next instant, he forcibly cut off that clearly wrong thought.

He could not put out the lights here. Even if it looked like these lights were responsible for the darkness in the cabins, there had to be a reason they were burning here.

He suddenly remembered something. In the city-state of Pland, he had learned that “burning flames can dispel eerie dangers.” In that statement, the real effect came from the flame itself, not from the light it gave off. Did that mean that, under certain conditions, light and darkness in this world could become inverted, and under that inversion, only the flame itself could be trusted?

Did this also indirectly explain why the light from electric lamps had no exorcising effect—because that was only light, lacking the essential element of “flame”?

“Captain?” Alice’s voice suddenly came from the side. The doll’s tone carried both tension and concern. “Is there some sort of Anomaly here?”

“There is no Anomaly.” Duncan’s expression did not change as he answered calmly, while slowly walking forward.

Those oil lamps that “absorbed the light” burned quietly on the pillars on either side. Some coils of rope were piled around the pillars. As Duncan walked between them, the lamps hanging from the posts crackled softly, and the ropes on the floor slowly wriggled backward, making way for their captain.

For some reason, a sentence suddenly rose up in Duncan’s mind:

Light and shadow are illusions brought by the Deep Sea. Beneath the untrustworthy surface, only the flames themselves still loyally guard the Vanished’s treasures.

He looked at the quietly burning flames and nodded slightly, as if offering his approval and thanks.

In the very next second, every oil lamp in the cabin flared up visibly. Under each glass cover, the flames leaped higher.

The entire cabin became even darker…

Duncan: “…”

He suddenly regretted praising them so early. He should have waited until he was ready to head back before giving these oil lamps any encouragement.

Alice followed behind. The doll carefully studied the surroundings. She saw huge wooden barrels and some crates stacked in the corners of the cabin, as well as some closed rooms and corridors leading to unknown places. In a low voice she muttered: “This seems like another storeroom… Was this ship once a cargo ship?”

“If it were a cargo ship, the cargo wouldn’t be stored this deep—there’s a thing called transport cost,” Duncan shook his head and said casually. “These are long-distance supplies, meant for the Vanished itself to consume during long ocean voyages.”

Alice blinked: “Long-distance supplies?”

Duncan did not answer. He simply walked forward to inspect the goods closest to him.

Some of the barrels were full of a kind of oil, dark brown and sticky, but without a very strong smell. It might have been some kind of fuel, and it had clearly been here for a very, very long time. Duncan even suspected these fuels were “stock” from before the Vanished became a ghost ship. They had probably been used for lighting or warding off evil, but after the ship turned into a ghost ship, many things in the cargo holds ended up like this—no longer of any real use.

In another group of barrels, Duncan saw something more familiar.

Cheese older than he was. Salted meat hard enough to crack stone.

Duncan silently put the lids back on.

On this level, most areas were piled with supplies. Although a good part of them seemed useless on the ghost ship as it was now, they were enough to prove his earlier judgment about the Vanished.

This ship had at least originally been built for some kind of long-distance expedition. It could carry a huge amount of supplies, and there were strict safety measures between the various supply holds to prevent fire from spreading or pests and rats from ruining the provisions.

Thinking of the large number of cannons on the upper decks and the sizable magazines, he could almost picture the ambitious dream of exploration this ship had once carried—the farthest sea routes, the most dangerous journeys, facing the most deadly environments and the most vicious enemies. Such an expedition would need a whole ship full of loyal, skilled sailors, and a steadfast captain to see it through.

Now, however, that possible exploration plan had long since blown away on the wind. The ambitious Vanished had become the most terrifying calamity on the Boundless Sea. The sailors had disappeared without a trace, and only a ghost captain was left, still in control of this ghost ship that no longer had a goal.

He and Alice kept moving forward. After passing several separate holds, they entered a corridor. If the layout on this level matched the one above, then the stairs leading further down should be at the far end of the hallway.

“I feel… like it’s getting more and more creepy…” The doll hugged her arms as she carefully looked around and spoke in a small voice. “Do you hear the wind? How can there be wind inside the cabin?”

“I hear it. Don’t be nervous, it’s normal,” Duncan said casually. Then he glanced at the doll. “Why are you so timid? You at least have the title Anomaly 099, don’t you?”

As he spoke, he also thought of the information he had gotten from Nina before. In this world, many registers of Anomalies and Visions were open to the public. These registers helped people avoid dangers they might encounter in daily life or recognize early signs that an Anomaly was entering a runaway state. But these registers were not complete. The parts open to ordinary people only covered Anomalies and Visions whose threats were controlled, or whose nature was special enough that they might draw near to everyday life. The Anomalies and Visions that ordinary people would never have a chance to encounter in their whole lives clearly were not included.

He had tried to ask Nina about Anomaly 099, but the girl had never seen that number anywhere in her textbooks.

That meant this “cursed doll” Alice either carried some special secret, so that the authority and the Church had sealed away all information about her, or… she was so dangerous that she had always been strictly kept outside the borders of civilized society, with no chance to ever come into contact with ordinary people.

Either reason was enough to add a bit more mystery to this doll in Duncan’s eyes.

But this doll, wrapped in layers of mystery, only shrank her neck when she heard Duncan’s words. Her face was full of nerves as she said: “Having a number doesn’t make you brave. I’m Anomaly 099, not ‘Courage 099’…”

Duncan sighed. In his heart, he thought that the one in front of him was probably the most embarrassing Anomaly in the world. It was really something that the sailors who had escorted her before had managed to get so nervous over her…