Chapter 704

Chapter 704: Doll and Doll and Doll.

In the dining room on the upper deck, Duncan and Lucretia sat side by side, both with stiff faces. The two head?swapping troublemakers, who had just put their heads back on, sat in the chairs across from them. Lunie looked a little nervous and uneasy, while Alice wore her usual bright smile and even looked as if she had not played enough.

After holding it in for a few seconds, Duncan finally spoke first: “Was it fun?”

Lunie immediately lowered her head and fidgeted with her fingers, looking awkward. Alice, however, nodded happily: “It was fun, Captain! You have no idea, it turns out our connector sizes are exactly the same…”

Duncan’s eyelid twitched. Then he noticed Lunie’s little habit of picking at her fingers. For some reason, the gesture felt familiar. After wondering about it for a moment, he looked thoughtfully at the Sea Witch beside him: “When you were little and did something wrong, didn’t you also like to pick at your fingers?”

“Uh… that was when I was very young…” Lucretia had not expected the topic to suddenly fall on her. She froze for a moment. Then her expression turned a little odd. “You… you still remember that?”

“…I don’t remember, but it still feels familiar,” Duncan shook his head lightly, then cleared his throat twice and turned his gaze back to the two dolls. “Whose idea was it first?”

This time the two dolls finally answered in unison: “Shirley!”

Duncan: “…?”

A moment later, Duncan and Lucretia still sat on the dining room bench with stern faces. But this time, sitting across from them, besides the two head?swapping troublemakers, there was also Shirley.

Dog lay on the floor next to Shirley, hugging his own head with his paws while muttering under his breath: “Don’t look at me, this has nothing to do with me, I tried to talk them out of it, I just couldn’t stop them…”

Duncan glanced at the grumbling Dog, then looked at Shirley. He remembered how she had once tricked Alice into pouring superglue down her own neck, and could not help sighing in his heart. He really did have to keep a closer eye on this girl who feared the world might be too peaceful…

“Why are you giving them bad ideas just because you’re bored?” Duncan sighed and looked helplessly at Shirley. “We are sailing in the Spirit Realm. This is not like being on land. If they really got dizzy and fell into the sea, would you be the one responsible for fishing them out?”

Shirley had already drawn in her neck in that well?practiced pose for accepting criticism. But when she heard the captain’s words, her eyes suddenly lit up: “So that means we can play like this on land?!”

Duncan: “…Do you want to listen to what you’re saying?”

Shirley gave an awkward little laugh, but then her smile turned sly. She leaned forward, grinning, and muttered: “You can’t blame me for this, Captain. Think about it, when you saw the two of them, didn’t you have the same thought? Two dolls who can take their heads off, using the same kind of joints. In Old Gentleman’s words… it’s the spirit of exploration, right? You really don’t want to try it…?”

In the ears of someone with a strong curiosity, Shirley’s words were like a tempting whisper from Subspace itself. Duncan’s eyebrow twitched. He was just about to speak when he heard a barely audible mutter beside him: “It does kind of make sense…”

Duncan’s expression turned a little strange. He turned his head toward the source of the mutter. Lucretia looked up, a bit embarrassed, and when she realized what she had said, she hurried to add: “Of course this kind of behavior is not something we should encourage. Any experiment has to be built on caution and safety…”

Duncan had to work hard to keep his face under control. He kept a calm, serious look and pretended to ignore Lucretia’s mutter. Then he sighed and looked at the two head?swapping troublemakers across from him: “Don’t play like that again. At least, don’t do it on the ship. It’s not safe. Remember?”

“Okay, got it, Captain!” “Yes, Old Master.”

“Go back to your room and stay there. If you really don’t want to do your homework, then read a book for a while, even a picture book,” Duncan waved a hand at Shirley. “We are about to leave the Spirit Realm and then enter the eternal Veil. Before that, stop running around making trouble everywhere.”

Shirley lowered her head and answered obediently: “Oh, okay, Captain…”

The dining room finally grew quiet. Shirley left with Dog, while Alice dragged Lunie to a corner of the room. The two whispered about who?knew?what—at least this time each of them was carrying her own head.

Duncan glanced in the directions they had gone, shook his head, and sighed. But for some reason, he felt a bit relaxed and cheerful inside.

It seemed that ever since the Lightwind Harbor incident, it had been a long time since he had been able to breathe out like this.

But Lucretia’s slightly uneasy voice came from beside him: “Are you… angry?”

Duncan did not look back: “Why do you say that?”

“…We are about to head to the border to investigate the cultists’ holy land. It’s a dangerous and serious task. Yet Lunie chose this time to cause you trouble…”

She had only spoken halfway when Duncan suddenly interrupted her: “So that’s what you were like as a child?”

Lucretia did not react for a moment: “…Hm?”

“Lunie,” Duncan raised his hand and pointed at the clockwork doll in the distance who was whispering with Alice and now and then showing a happy smile. “Is that what you were like as a child? I mean, in terms of personality.”

Lucretia did not speak for a while. She only pressed her lips together. After a good moment, she finally spoke softly: “…Lunie was the first doll I made. I sealed in her body some parts of my soul that tend to make me make mistakes. Most of the time, those sealed fragments do not affect her operation. But sometimes, they make her act in rather odd ways.”

“So most of the time Lunie looks calm and reliable. But when she is with Alice, she becomes lively?”

“…Yes. It seems it will make her make mistakes—at least it raises the chance of it.”

Duncan looked back at Lucretia: “Even this level of ‘mistake’ counts as a problem?”

Lucretia was silent for a few seconds, then answered softly: “On the border, a mistake can easily get you killed.”

Duncan did not speak for a while. He only watched the two dolls in the distance with a thoughtful gaze as they chatted happily about something. After a while, he spoke in a calm tone: “When you are by my side, you are allowed to make mistakes.”

For a moment Lucretia seemed a little dazed. She opened her mouth as if she wanted to say something, but in the end said nothing. Her gaze only followed Father’s gaze in that direction:

Alice seemed to be telling Lunie about some fun things on the ship, or at least things she thought were fun, and Lunie listened with great interest. Alice rarely chatted so happily with anyone other than the captain, and Lunie—who served as the first mate on the Radiant Star and the Sea Witch’s servant—had probably never met a kindred spirit like Alice whom she could talk with this way.

The two dolls seemed to be getting along very well.

Just then, Duncan seemed to suddenly remember something: “Right, there’s something I’ve been putting off…”

As he spoke, he waved casually in midair. AI, who had been happily devouring fries at a nearby table, vanished on the spot. The next second, a ring of eerie, spinning green flame appeared beside Duncan. He reached into the ring of fire and fished something out, then set it down on the table in front of him.

Lucretia looked at the object in surprise. It was an elegant wooden box about seventy centimeters long. Aside from its fine, old?fashioned craftsmanship, it did not seem special.

But slowly, she felt from the wooden box a long?lost sense of… familiarity and closeness.

“This is Nilu.” Duncan opened the wooden box, and a delicate one?third?scale doll appeared in front of Lucretia. “I said a long time ago that I would give her to you, but too many things have been happening and it got delayed. Now that I saw Alice and Lunie together… take her. Let their ‘sister’ join them again.”

Lucretia’s expression turned a little strange. She took the box and carefully lifted the one?third?scale doll named “Nilu” out of it. She set the doll on the table, letting her sit leaning against the box, while her thoughts slowly drifted far away—

In that distant afternoon, with the clear sound of wind chimes ringing, she had walked hand in hand with her brother into that doll shop. Lunie and Nilu had sat quietly in the shop window. Warm sunlight shone on their delicate hair and dresses like a faint veil.

Back then, she could only take one of them away.

But that was already one of the few warm memories of her childhood that she still had. In those warm days, the Sun had still been something that was sure to rise into the sky again the next morning.

The Witch felt a little dazed, and in that daze, the little doll sitting on the table and leaning against the box slowly turned her head and showed her an empty smile.

Lucretia woke from her trance and saw that the little doll was still sitting quietly on the table, her head tilted obediently to the side. The shell without a soul inside was hollow and empty.

She reached out and tapped her finger on the doll’s forehead: “Go back to sleep.”

The doll’s body suddenly shook, as if a brief life had been poured into her. Then she climbed to her feet stiffly and stumbled into the elegant wooden box. She grabbed the lid beside her and tried hard to pull it down.

But she was too weak.

Duncan reached out and gave it a push, helping the doll close the lid.

“Thank you.” A tiny voice came from inside the box, then fell silent again.

“That was remarkable.” Duncan looked up and spoke to Lucretia with some surprise.

“We are entering the border now. Many things are becoming active,” Lucretia said. “If we inject souls into some things ahead of time, we can stop some uninvited guests from ‘sneaking aboard’. Many years ago, Lunie ‘woke up’ for the first time in just this way.”

“…It’s also time to rise up and get some air.” Duncan nodded. As he spoke, he slowly rose from behind the table.

As he moved, the Vanished began to rise slowly from the depths of the Spirit Realm. Outside the dining room portholes, the daylight was growing brighter.

The Shadows that lurked in the Spirit Realm slowly faded away from all directions.