Chapter 664 – Alice’s Trophy

Chapter 664 Alice’s Trophy

“You saw the shadow of the Lost Country ship!?” Duncan did not hide his surprise at all.

“Yes,” Lucrecia glanced at Duncan and nodded in a somewhat subtle tone, “after three days of being lost in the fog, I saw a silhouette that very, very much looked like the Lost Country ship sailing through the fog in the distance, and where it sailed through, the fog seemed to briefly thin out and reveal the normal The appearance of the sea, I …… hesitated for a long time, but at that time there was no other choice, so I gathered the courage to sail towards the silhouette, but it suddenly disappeared just as the Radiant Star was about to approach …… Then, I returned to the normal sea. ”

Lucrecia finished, giving Duncan a somewhat strange look for several seconds before adding, “That was in 1862, sixty-two years after you fell into subspace.”

Duncan was silent for a while, and while not moving, he turned to look at the distant sea to hide the change in his eyes, he said calmly, “I don’t remember this incident.”

“I know,” Lucrecia nodded, “That’s why I’ve always wondered whether what I saw at that time was really the Lost Country, or just an illusion from exhaustion, or …… that was also some kind of border’s ‘special phenomenon’.

“That was the first and only time I crossed the ‘six nautical miles’ limit, and after that I never went that deep again, nor did I ever see a similar ‘phantom’ again. ”

Duncan was silent, thoughts rising and falling in his mind.

From Lucrecia’s narration, he finally realized for the first time what kind of weirdness and danger that piece of boundless mist called “Civilization Border” and “Eternal Curtain” had, but he also had countless speculations and curiosities about the incredible phenomena that appeared in that piece of mist. Conjecture and …… curiosity.

Obviously, entering that piece of mist is a huge risk, even Lucrecia, such a sophisticated frontier scholar and great explorer, was nearly lost in that curtain permanently under the well-prepared situation, and even in the relatively “safe” six-nautical-mile calm zone, all kinds of weird and dangerous “entities” and phenomena are always ready to appear. entities” and phenomena that could kill the explorers at any time, even in the relative “safety” of the six-nautical-mile calm zone.

But those strange and dangerous “entities” precisely caused Duncan’s concern.

The “black shadow” suspected to be left behind after the crash of the New Hope is just one of them. How many other “remnants” like the New Hope are there in the mist six nautical miles from the border? Are they all “core residues” that remain after the annihilation of various worlds? And what kind of mechanism allows these remnants to remain until now? These “entities” surround the entire Infinite Sea in the mist, so what is beyond this “ring belt”? What remained there?
Vaguely, Duncan had a feeling that these “entities”, which existed in a strange “void” in Lucrecia’s perception, might help him understand the crisis at the bottom of the world, and even help him find a solution to the “underlying contamination” of the world. The “way out” of the “bottom pollution” ……

The gaze from his side made Duncan end his contemplation, he looked up and saw Lucrecia standing aside quietly looking at him, with a hint of worry in her complex gaze.

“…… You’re going there again, aren’t you?”

Lucrecia asked in a small voice.

“…… The ship is heading for the border,” Duncan patted the armrest beside him, “That gang of Annihilationists has a hideout in the Border Mists, and I’m going to take care of that, one way or another. ”

“I don’t mean this time – that band of cultists won’t be hiding very deep, and destroying their lair might be a handful for you, I mean after this,” Lucrecia gazed into Duncan’s eyes, “After this lair is dealt with, your attention will be focused on that mist, yes? You will be investigating those ‘entities’ and ‘visions’ I described to you, even …… six nautical miles away.”

Her gaze brought a bit of pressure, and for the first time Duncan felt that the gaze of this “Witch of the Sea” was actually a bit too much for him to handle, but after a few moments of silence he nodded, “I will go if the situation warrants it.”

Lucrecia pursed her lips.

But she didn’t persuade or block, she just suddenly said after a long period of silence, “Bring me along this time, my experience can help you.”

Duncan was a bit surprised, he looked at this “witch”, after a few seconds before speaking softly: “…… What if the end of the mist is subspace?”

“Then I would need your experience.”

Duncan didn’t speak for a moment, he turned and gazed out over the distant sea in silence for a while before exhaling slightly, “We’ll talk about that later, I do have that in mind, but not so much that I’m going to go into the depths of that mist right now – at the very least, I’m going to have to take care of the one that’s hiding at the the border’s cultist lair and make some contact with the Church of the Four Gods.”

Lucrecia nodded lightly.

And just at that moment, a sound of footsteps and clanking of strange metals came from a short distance away, interrupting the exchange between the two.

Duncan looked up in the direction from which the sound had come, and was seeing Alice coming this way in high spirits – the doll lady was holding a large wooden box in one hand, and in the other she was carrying a large pile of kitchen knives, spatulas and iron spoons that she had scrounged out of nowhere, which she had strung together with wire, and was as happy and ostentatiously, making a clanking noise all the way across the deck.

“Captain!” The silly mannequin came to Duncan, holding up the large string of wire “treasure” in his hand and shaking it in mid-air, “You see! I’ve got my own trophy!”

Duncan didn’t react from the serious topic with Lucrecia just now, and this gleeful and naive beauty interrupted all his thoughts, he froze and looked at the string in Alice’s hand for a long time before he finally reacted, “…… You ransacked the kitchen? ” “Yes, yes,” Alice nodded her head repeatedly with a small amplitude, and said with a proud face, “Goat head said, after occupying the enemy ship, you must ransack the treasure trove at the first time, and get enough loot before the ship sinks, and I have just followed those toy soldiers to drill a lot of places in the ship, and finally found the The ship’s galley ……”

Said this she recalled, not without emotion said: “This ship is really not too good, the ship things are not very smart look, I collect loot when the kitchen things are not with resistance, I am ready to fight with this chopper some of the preparation …… “

Lucrecia listened dumbfounded to the mannequin’s ramblings, while Duncan beside her finally couldn’t help but speak after a moment of silence, “…… Alice.”

“Huh?”

“Not everyone needs to fight with kitchenware when they cook ……”

“I know, the kitchens in the city-state wouldn’t fight anyone, but isn’t this on a ship?”

“…… Not all ships have buckets, mops and pots and pans that will fight, either.”

Alice’s eyes widened in surprise.

Two seconds later, the mannequin let out a gasp, “That amazing?”

Duncan: “……”

And just then, Lucrecia noticed the odd wooden box Alice was clutching in her other hand, “What’s this again? Is it your loot too?”

“Yeah,” Alice responded instantly, nodding her head back and forth, “I found it in a strange ship’s cabin, and there was this one wooden box in a room that big, with several chains around the box – I took most of the chains off, but the lock on the box was strange, I couldn’t open it with any amount of force, and I didn’t know what was inside, so I took the box with me ……”

While saying this, she handed the large wooden box in her hand to Duncan, “Would you look at it?”

While listening to Alice’s narration halfway through, Duncan’s heart was already flooded with a hint of odd intuition, he took the heavy wooden box with a dark surface covered with many complex patterns, his eyes swept over the lock, but saw that it was just a plain looking iron lock, as if the crappiest of burglars could have opened it with a piece of wire – but It was such a lock that blocked the mannequin of great strength.

Duncan was aware of Alice’s strength, she could swing a coffin board and paddle a coffin out on the ocean at the speed of a punching bag, or she could yank off the chains used to confine the wooden box with her strength – Duncan could even imagine Alice, the simpleton, running into the cabin and yanking those chains off with brute force, only to be helpless against the last broken iron lock on the box Duncan could even imagine Alice the Bean running into the cabin and yanking those chains off with brute force, only to be helpless against the last broken lock on the box.

The child is not smart, but the child is strong (x)
The child is strong, but unfortunately not smart (√)
By the looks of it, the box should be what one is looking for.

“Anomaly 132-Lock,” Lucrecia came closer and quickly discerned what was going on with the iron lock that Alice couldn’t open with brute force, “It requires a special ‘key’ to open it, and the key is a piece of secret code, known only to the person who put the lock on. It becomes indestructible when locked, and it will make the container it is locked to indestructible as well – even if it is just a papier-mâché box. This anomaly is one of the few harmless anomalies that, though not highly numbered, has a special purpose and can be used to aid in sealing some dangerous items, and it was stolen from a transshipment ship during a pirate attack in 1876 …… I never expected it to end up in the hands of this group of cultists.”

After recounting the intelligence related to this iron lock, Lucrecia did a little thinking and spoke with less certainty: “The cultists who carried out the last ‘locking’ operation are dead, the secret key has been lost, but I can try to use other means to crack the riddle of this lock, which is though ‘indestructible’, but I’ve heard it has a loophole ……”

“A soft click interrupted what the “witch” was about to say.

Lucrecia looked in dismay at the wooden box in Duncan’s hand.

The lock had opened itself.

“It doesn’t look like it wants you to try it,” Duncan said to Lucrecia as he smiled, “or perhaps it knows that if it doesn’t work for you to try it, then it’s time for me to ‘try’ it myself. ”

Lucrecia froze, “…… Reasonable, my mind is limited.”

Duncan laughed and shook his head, then placed the large wooden box on the floor, removed the padlock that was already open, and carefully opened the lid.

A dark, carved wooden goat’s head lay silently inside the box.

(End of chapter)