Chapter 664

Chapter 664: Goathead.

Duncan looked at the Goathead in the wooden box. The Goathead in the box looked like a real wood carving, lifeless and unresponsive as it met his gaze.

Duncan was not surprised. From the moment Alice had muddled her way onto the deck with a wooden box that could not be opened and had clearly been carefully sealed, he had guessed that what he was looking for was inside.

After all, the silly beauty was missing a few points in the brain, so she had to make up for it in other areas, like her grip, her optimism, and her good luck.

“Goathead!” Alice craned her neck to look into the box. She finally realized what she had brought back so muddle-headedly, and her eyes instantly went wide with surprise: “This is the one the cultist was holding? It really looks exactly like the Goathead on the Vanished!”

Duncan did not speak. He just carefully studied the details of this “Dream-Skull”. Beside him, Lucretia crouched down and poked the Goathead in the box with her small Conductor’s Baton. Her beautiful brows drew together slightly: “No reaction… I also can’t see any traits of being alive, and it doesn’t seem to be giving off any special aura either?”

“Just like a real piece of wood.” Duncan nodded, reached into the box, took the carved Goathead out, and weighed it up and down in his hand: “…So it’s actually this light.”

“Have you never taken the Goathead on the Vanished off its base?” When Lucretia heard this, she looked at Duncan in some surprise. “It always seemed to just sit on the table…”

“They are connected. Goathead is part of the Vanished as a whole.” Duncan shook his head at once. “Its head can turn around, but it cannot be removed from the table.”

This was the first time Lucretia had heard this detail, and she seemed to find it quite incredible. Beside her, after hearing the captain’s words, Alice suddenly showed a thoughtful look. Then she clapped her hands: “So that’s how it is!”

Duncan turned his head at once: “Hm?”

“I was wondering why, last time when I tried to take the First Mate’s head off the table, it resisted so much and muttered a whole bunch of things at me. I don’t remember what it said though…”

Duncan stared: “Why did you try to take the First Mate’s head off the table?”

“Because I wanted to wipe the table,” Alice said, as if this were only natural. “And I wanted to take it to the washroom and give it a rinse… but I couldn’t get it off.”

Duncan: “…?”

He no longer wanted to imagine what that scene had looked like—thankfully this doll did not have that much strength in her hands. If it had been Vanna instead, Saslokar might have died a third time…

Lucretia suddenly noticed that Father’s expression flickered a few times.

“What is it?” she asked, unable to hold back her concern.

“…I don’t think I ever reminded the others on the ship that Goathead’s head is fixed to the table and cannot be taken off.”

“Miss Vanna is a steady person. She probably wouldn’t just walk into your captain’s cabin.”

Duncan looked puzzled: “Why was Vanna the first person you thought of?”

Lucretia froze for two seconds, then gave Duncan a rather odd look: “Then who did you think of?”

Duncan thought about it and decided it was better not to keep talking about this topic that was getting more and more ridiculous. He turned his attention back to the “Dream-Skull” in front of him.

“This should indeed be another shard of Saslokar. Otherwise those cultists would not have sealed it up so carefully. But shards differ from shard to shard. Not every ‘Goathead’ has a complete mind.”

As he spoke, he placed the pitch-black wooden Goathead back into the box and closed the lid again. Anomaly 132 at once jumped up from the nearby deck, hung itself on the box’s latch, and with a click, locked itself in place.

“I will send this thing back to the Vanished first and see what happens when I place it together with the Goathead on the ship.”

“Ah, are we going back already?” Alice reacted at once. She stood up with Duncan and looked curiously at the distant sea. “I thought we were going to follow this ship straight to that… what was it… the ‘home port’.”

The one who answered her was Lucretia: “We are still far from the border. Even at its highest speed, this ship would need about a week to reach the area near The Veil. There is no need for us to stay on this almost completely ruined ghost ship for that long.”

“Mm.” Duncan nodded and added: “We can use this time to move the survivors from the prison to the city-states. Then, if we get the chance, we can contact the Four Gods Church. They may also be interested in a cult nest hidden in the mist near the border. And then there is the ‘Goathead’ in this box… there is a lot to do.”

“You can go back first. I will handle the aftermath here,” Lucretia offered. “I have quite a bit of… experience with such things.”

He only nodded slightly and did not say more.

He knew that as a Witch who had wandered the Boundless Sea for a century, Lucretia’s experiences had long surpassed those of ordinary people. City-states struck by disaster, stranded expedition teams, cursed sea ships, and victims kidnapped and offered up in the sacrificial rites of cults—she had dealt with all these before.

She knew how to settle those survivors whose bodies and minds were already on the verge of collapse.

“Then Alice and I will return to the Vanished first.” Duncan nodded to Lucretia, then patted the rail beside him. “This ship will sail back to its home port on its own. You don’t need to worry about it. After you finish dealing with things here, leave that ‘artificial beacon’ on the ship. That way I can monitor its condition at any time and come back here when the time is right.”

Lucretia lowered her head: “I understand.”

The sharp crackle of leaping flames rose out of thin air on the deck. When she looked up again, a spinning door of fire had already appeared before her.

Alice, holding the big wooden box (and her string of “spoils of war”), was the first to step into the whirling flames. Then Duncan waved toward her side, and his body, wreathed in spirit form flames, turned into a streak of fire in an instant and vanished through the gate.

In the place where Duncan had just been standing, a clump of lingering fire still burned calmly in midair. It slowly shrank and dimmed, and soon turned into a magic item no larger than a palm, which fell onto the deck.

That was the artificial beacon the Sea Witch had made.

Lucretia took a step forward and picked the beacon up from the deck.

It was a small puppet, carved from a piece of wood taken from the rail of the Vanished. Inside it was tucked a strand of Duncan’s hair. It had been roughly carved into Duncan’s likeness: wearing a captain’s uniform from the Old Era, a gloomy captain’s hat, and a stern beard.

The puppet’s overall shape looked somewhat exaggerated, but in just the right way.

Lucretia had spent a whole night making this puppet. For a Witch who had created an entire army of Servants, this task was not complicated. This incredible magic construct could hold a trace of Father’s power. Even though its “capacity” was very small, it was enough to replace a human body and let Father open a door of flames near the beacon’s location without adding another avatar form.

Father did not wish to occupy more bodies to create more avatar forms. To Lucretia, this was a very good thing. She was happy to use her skills to help Father solve the “practical inconveniences” that came with it.

On the deck, the remaining flames of the fire gate slowly faded.

Holding the small puppet in Duncan’s likeness, Lucretia lifted it and examined it back and forth in the sunlight. Then, like a thief, she suddenly glanced quickly to either side.

There was of course no one else here.

So the Witch young lady withdrew her gaze from the empty surroundings, walked to a corner, hesitated for a moment, and reached out to poke the puppet’s head with her finger.

The puppet had no reaction.

She reached out again, poked the puppet’s beard, then poked its exaggerated captain’s hat. She began to laugh, and her expression slowly grew cheerful.

Suddenly the puppet lifted its head and spoke in a helpless voice: “Having fun?”

Lucretia: “…”

A moment later, Rabby the rabbit, who had just crawled out of the cabin and was about to find her mistress to report something, heard a scream that echoed across the whole deck, a scream the like of which she had never heard in her life.

…

The clanging of metal broke the calm on the deck of the Vanished.

Duncan gave a somewhat helpless look at Alice, who was walking back and forth on the deck with her “spoils of war”: “Give me the box. You can take your ‘spoils’ to the kitchen first.”

“Oh!”

The doll answered happily and casually handed Duncan the wooden box holding the “Dream-Skull”. Then she walked toward the kitchen, accompanied by a trail of clanging sounds.

The noise of cleavers, spatulas, and iron spoons knocking together finally grew distant.

Duncan held the wooden box containing the “Dream-Skull” and watched Alice’s cheerful back as she left. At the same time he sensed the information coming from the artificial beacon in some far, unknown sea area. A subtle yet helpless expression slowly appeared on his face. He shook his head, smiling and sighing at the same time.

“…Forget it. As long as she is happy.”

He turned and walked toward the aft deck. As soon as he pushed open the door of the captain’s cabin, he immediately met Goathead’s gaze.

It was as if Goathead had already turned its gaze toward the door before he opened it. Now those obsidian-carved eyes were deep and still. The “First Mate”, who normally chattered endlessly and never acted serious, for the first time did not recite its dizzying, patter-like opening speech. Its eyes were fixed tightly on the wooden box Duncan held in his hands, as if it had already guessed what was inside.

“Looks like you sensed it,” Duncan said as he walked to the chart table and set the big wooden box on it. “I brought you a gift.”