Chapter 9

Chapter 9: Away and Back, Then Back Again

The sunlight was very bright.

If the glowing thing hanging in the sky really was the Sun, then its “sunlight”… was indeed very bright.

Duncan did not know how long he stared at the sky. Only when his eyes grew sore and aching did he finally drag his gaze down from the clouds. But the image of that “Sun” stayed burned into his retinas and deep in his mind. Even with his eyes closed, he could clearly recall it: the sphere glowing with pale gold light, the twisted streams of light curling around it, and the ring structures moving quietly around the sphere like concentric circles.

The Sun was not like this. It was not supposed to be like this. In the world he knew, even under the sky of another planet, the star hanging overhead would never look like that.

But now he had to accept the facts.

He was in a foreign land, far more distant than he had ever imagined.

Even the Sun had taken on a form he could not understand.

Duncan turned his head without thinking and looked at the door in front of the captain’s cabin.

If he pushed the door inward, he could return to the room where he had lived for many years, return to his small apartment.

But outside that apartment, the heavy fog had long since covered the whole world. The “home” he knew, in a way, had already shrunk down to that last thirty-square-meter room.

The “home” that seemed only a door-push away was, in truth, just another lonely boat drifting on the sea.

After a long silence, Goathead’s voice suddenly echoed in Duncan’s ears: “Captain, where are we going next? Do you have any plan for our voyage?”

A sailing plan? How could Duncan have something like that? He did want to draw up a proper plan to explore this world and fix the next legs of his journey, but he did not even have a normal enchanted sea chart. He did not know what lands existed in this world, what powers ruled them, or whether this endless ocean even had an edge.

Only a few hours ago he had just learned how to steer the Vanished at all.

Still, he fell into thought. A few minutes later, he spoke in his mind: “That ship that rammed into the Vanished earlier—where did it come from?”

“You wish to head for those city-states?” Goathead sounded a bit surprised, then quickly began to advise against it. “I suggest you do not go near the routes controlled by those city-states… at least not yet. You may be the great Captain Duncan, but the Vanished is not what it once was. Their city-states’ Garrison Navy and the Holy See’s Guard Corps would certainly do everything they could to resist your… attack.”

For a moment Duncan had nothing to say. He suddenly really wanted to know what kind of heaven-shaking crimes the “Captain Duncan” he had replaced had committed in the past, that just showing his face in the mortal world now seemed enough to trigger a full twenty-five-man raid on the spot…

And from Goathead’s roundabout wording, Duncan also realized that the current state of the Vanished and this “captain” of his was not as glorious as the spirit’s usual praise made it sound. Was the reason the ghost captain and his ship lurked out on the high seas simply that they did not dare return to the civilized world’s harbors?

So exile was just another way of saying “a trip to the end of the world”, huh.

Duncan felt a bit troubled. He urgently needed a way to learn about this world. He had to find some means to make contact with its “civilized society”. Whether it was to survive here in the long term or to solve the mysteries and return to the “home” he knew, he could not just keep drifting aimlessly on this endless sea. But the problem was—

The “civilized society” of this world did not seem to feel the same way.

In the locals’ eyes, “Captain Duncan” was a world boss wandering around outside the main cities. The moment he appeared within sight, they had to pull together a twenty-five-man raid…

Duncan sighed. If there had been even a single book to read on the Vanished, he would not be this passive. His only source of information here was that muttering Goathead, and right now he did not dare reveal too much about himself in front of it.

Come to think of it… how could a ship this big not have a single book on board?

For people living at sea, a lonely, long voyage was an extreme kind of pressure. People needed some way to ease that stress. Ordinary sailors might not have much time to read for fun, but the great “Captain Duncan”… surely wasn’t illiterate, right?

After all, being a captain was a skilled job that demanded a high level of knowledge. Even the roughest, most savage pirates needed a captain who could read an enchanted sea chart, understand the stars, and calculate the route.

With that doubt in mind, Duncan asked a casual question. He was careful, trying to make it sound like an offhand remark. Goathead, however, answered without any hesitation:

“Books? Reading at sea is a dangerous thing. The beings in the Abyssal Deep and in Subspace are always waiting for a gap to appear in a mortal mind. The only safe reading is those ‘classics’ published by the Holy See. Those are safe, but so dull it’s better to go scrub the deck instead… and you have never been interested in anything from the Holy See, have you, Captain?”

Duncan raised his eyebrows at once.

Since when did reading a book at sea become a life-or-death risk? And only the Holy See’s “classics” could be read safely? What kind of sickness did this endless ocean have?

He felt he had learned a bit more about this world, but with that came new questions. Duncan could only force those fresh doubts down inside. He walked to the rail and looked out over the endless stretch of sea and sky.

The golden “Sun” poured down rays of light, and what shone on the sea looked like rippling sheets of fine gold leaf. If he ignored how strange the Sun itself looked, it really was a beautiful scene.

“I want to hear your advice,” Duncan finally said to Goathead after much thought. His tone was still careful. “I’m getting tired of this aimless sailing. Maybe…”

He had only gotten halfway through the sentence when a strange feeling suddenly rose from deep inside. It came from the link between him and the Vanished, as if some “foreign object” had suddenly touched the ship. Right after that, he heard a “thump” from the stern, like something heavy had hit the deck.

Duncan frowned. At once he drew the loaded flintlock pistol at his belt with one hand and his single-handed longsword with the other, then ran quickly toward the source of the sound.

Moments later, he reached the aft deck. The thing lying there quietly left him stunned.

It was that ornate wooden chest that looked like a spirit coffin.

It was that eerie doll.

A chill crawled over Duncan’s heart. He stared hard at the still-wet chest, half expecting it to pop open by itself at any second. Then he noticed that all the nails around the lid were gone.

Those were the nails he had hammered in before throwing the chest into the sea. They should have been very solid.

He stood there, facing the chest with tense caution for several minutes. At last he made up his mind. Keeping a tight grip on the flintlock in one hand, he slipped the longsword into the crack of the lid with the other, then pried it open with force.

The ornate lid creaked open. The lifeless Brother doll still lay quietly inside, surrounded by red velvet lining, like a princess in her sleep.

Duncan stared at the doll for several seconds and spoke in a deep, serious tone: “If you are alive, then get up and speak with me.” [He believed he was showing enough authority in that moment.]

He repeated the words twice, but the doll did not move at all.

Duncan kept his serious expression as he looked at her, then finally said in a flat voice: “Very well. Then I can only send you back again.”

Once he finished speaking, he closed the lid again without hesitation. Then he fetched tools and hammered in another crisscrossing ring of coffin nails. When he was done, he even found an iron chain and used the hooks already on the chest to fasten the lid down tight.

After he finished all this, Duncan straightened up and clapped his hands in satisfaction. He looked at the “spirit coffin” he had bound up and nailed all over and nodded slightly. “This time you shouldn’t be able to climb out of your coffin.”

Then he kicked the chest into the sea again without a hint of hesitation.

He watched the chest hit the water, then watched it rise and fall with the current as it slowly drifted away. Duncan let out a small breath, then turned and left the stern.

But halfway across the deck, he suddenly turned back and looked again toward where the chest was drifting.

The wooden chest was still bobbing on the waves.

Duncan nodded, turned away, and kept walking. Then he suddenly looked back again.

The chest was still floating on the sea, and it had already drifted very, very far.

“Maybe I should put a cannonball or something in there. Then it would sink…”

Duncan muttered this under his breath, then finally turned for real and slowly walked toward the captain’s cabin.

“You are a bit harsh toward that lady,” Goathead’s voice sounded in his mind.

“Shut up—are you really calling a cursed doll a ‘lady’?”

“It does indeed look like a cursed doll… but what curse on the Boundless Sea could compare to the Vanished and the great Captain Duncan? Captain, that lady is actually quite gentle and harmless…”

Duncan: “…”

Why did Goathead sound so proud every time it mentioned the curse and ill fame of the Vanished and Captain Duncan?

Perhaps sensing Duncan’s foul mood behind the silence, Goathead quickly changed the subject: “Captain, you said earlier that you wanted to hear my advice. Specifically…”

“We’ll talk about it later. I need to rest for a while. Steering the Vanished through the Spirit Realm earlier drained my energy. Stay quiet for now.”

“Yes, Captain.”

Goathead fell silent, and Duncan returned to the captain’s cabin. He walked to the chart table and let his gaze casually sweep over the enchanted sea chart.

The next second, his eyes suddenly froze.

The enchanted sea chart seemed to have changed in a subtle way. The gray-white patches that had covered the whole sheet and writhed like living things had faded a little. The sea area around the Vanished was becoming clear!

Was this thing… updating information on the surrounding waters in real time as the Vanished sailed?

Duncan stepped up to the chart table at once and focused all his attention on the subtle shifts on the enchanted sea chart.

But his concentrated state did not last long.

From deep within his mind, the Vanished once again sent the signal of “contact with a foreign object”. Right after that, Duncan heard another “thump” from the deck just behind and to the side of the captain’s cabin.