Chapter 694 – The Shadow of Hindsight

Chapter 694 The Shadow of Hindsight

“A third of the structure?”

Ted Reel froze when he heard Duncan’s words, and looked at the abstract and messy lines he had drawn on the paper with some confusion – to be fair, he thought he had done a terrible job, but this was the closest thing to a “primitive impression” that he could recall, and the residual effects of subspace had disturbed his mind for a long time, making him unable to recall the picture. “The residual effects of subspace had disturbed his mind for a long time, making it impossible for him to recall the details of those memories clearly, and it was difficult for him to draw a complete picture from these fragmented lines.

However, from Duncan’s tone, he realized that this “ghost captain” not only saw what was drawn on this piece of paper, and even …… he also knew what this thing should be like originally.

Duncan stood in front of the table, frowning, scrutinizing the details of Ted’s drawing, and after a while, he reached out and pointed to a certain place on the picture: “Is the structure here broken?”

Ted furrowed his brow and tried to remember for a moment, a vague impression finally emerging in his mind, “It seems to be …… but I’m not sure. I only caught a glimpse of it in my haste and didn’t even have time to see the full structure on its side ……”

“Here’s the break, then outward, and here’s some connecting structure,” Duncan didn’t care about the hesitation in Ted’s words, but just casually picked up a pencil and quickly sketched lines on the blank places on the picture, and under his pen, a symmetrical three-body structure, which seemed to Ted and Lucrecia to be completely related to a “ship”. “A strange thing with a symmetrical three-body structure, which Ted and Lucrecia could not relate to a ship, was quickly sketched out, “It consists of three main structures like this… …… This is where the engine block is located…” …”

Lucrecia had unknowingly come up to this strange “picture”, and after staring at it for half a minute, she finally couldn’t help but speak, “What in the world …… is this? ”

Duncan did not look up, after a few seconds of silence, he replied softly: “It’s called the ‘New Hope’.”

Lucrecia and Ted Reel looked at each other in disbelief, then spoke in unison, “The New Hope?”

Alice chimed in, slow to follow, “What’s the New Hope?”

Duncan looked up, his complex and odd eyes falling on the gothic figure, yet the latter didn’t seem to respond at all, just cocking his head, “What are you looking at me for?”

“…… That’s a ship, a spaceship,” Duncan retracted his gaze, speaking in a hushed tone of a subtle emotion he himself was unaware of, “It arrived on this world many, many years ago …… Or rather, crashed into this pile of world wreckage we’re in like any other ‘debris’.”

“A ship? A ship that flies?” Ted Ryer intoned with surprise, followed by a reaction, “You mean another ‘world fragment’? A flying ship known as the ‘New Hope’, part of its wreckage landed in subspace, and it turned into the mansion I saw ……?”

He raised his hand and gestured, a look of disbelief on his face.

Duncan didn’t answer the Secret Keeper of Truth’s doubt, he just lowered his head again and gazed longingly at the drawing on the table – a sketch of a huge ship in simple strokes based on the one made by Tad Reel, which, though not much restored, was indeed the same as the one he had seen in that vision, trailing long flames, “falling into this world”. The “New Hope” that he had seen in that vision, with its long flames, crashed into this world.

He remembered how he had seen that vision.

In order to examine Alice’s Clockwork Key, he had spread his flame inside the brass key – just like every time he used a similar method to examine transcendental objects, he saw the Clockwork Key’s remaining flames. He saw the “echo” that remained in the “clockwork key”.

In that “echo”, Alice’s Clockwork Key was transformed into some kind of weird …… data access medium, and the New Hope crashed in the final scene of the vision.

For a long time, he had been searching for clues about the “spaceship”, searching for any remaining legends or historical records in the world that might be related to an ancient crash, and at the same time, he often pondered the question – why did Alice’s “clockwork key” turn into some kind of strange data access medium, and the New Hope crashed in the final scene of the vision.

Why does Alice’s “clockwork key” contain the visions of the crash of the New Hope?

What is the connection between this harmless-looking gothic doll and a spaceship that crashed in ancient times?
“The gap between the doll and the ship was so huge that even with Duncan’s ability to visualize, there was no way to connect the two, but now …… had a clue! But now a more incredible clue appeared in front of his eyes.

Ted Ryer had seen the Alice Commons in subspace – the commons that, at certain moments, would take on the appearance of a third of the wreckage of the New Hope!
It wasn’t that Duncan hadn’t suspected Ted Ryer’s memories or representations, but he quickly ruled out the possibility that something was wrong in that regard – Ted Ryer couldn’t have described something out of thin air that he hadn’t seen before, and even if his memories were scrambled, he couldn’t have “just happened” to sketch out “just right” in the midst of the confusion. “Even if his memory was confused, he couldn’t have “just happened” to sketch out the structure of the New Hope in the midst of the confusion.

Some messy and broken clues seemed to be quietly establishing connections, and some unimaginable conjectures emerged in Duncan’s mind.

With the ebb and flow of thoughts in his mind, Duncan reached into his personal pocket and fumbled for the brass key that had been used to wind Alice up.

The brass key lay quietly in the palm of his hand, and the cool metal end of the key showed the classic “∞” symbol, as if all the secrets were hidden in infinite silence. After a few moments, he put away the key, and when he looked up, he met the curious but hesitant gazes of Lucrecia and Ted Ryer.

“Let’s start with the rest,” Duncan shook his head, his gaze falling on Tad, “What else did you see in subspace?”

Tad nodded, realizing that the New Hope might point to something too old and dangerous to be true, he sensibly controlled his curiosity and instead began to tell of the incredible sights he had seen in subspace.

The giants standing in the wasteland, the thrones and headless figures, the nameless warriors who died leaning on the wreckage, and all sorts of other strange and bizarre things that you couldn’t tell if they were real or just a figment of your imagination.

Duncan did not interrupt again; he listened with rapt attention, nodding softly from time to time, until Ted Reel’s narrative came to an end, and then he breathed a long sigh of relief.

The headless body on the throne, the nameless warrior beside the bizarre wreckage, the massive structure standing in the wasteland …… each of these things was indeed unthinkable, but anything could appear in subspace – at least in Duncan’s mind, they were all more than “There is an Alice House in subspace” and “Alice House is part of the New Hope” were much easier to accept.

“…… It’s been a wonderful and impressive journey,” Lucrecia broke the silence in the room after an equally long period of silent listening, “Fifteen minutes . …Lord Ted, those fifteen minutes of your experience are already enough for many scholars to study for a lifetime.”

“I can use these fifteen minutes of experience to write enough scholarly papers for the rest of my life, but to be honest, I’d rather not have this experience,” Ted sighed, “Do you know? To this day I can still hear those noises buzzing around in my head from time to time …… They’re like living creatures burrowing all over the inside of my consciousness, and even with my harsh training in the psychology of toughness and the theory of volitional control, it seems incredibly tough to combat that noise, and the after-effects are likely to continue for a long time to come ……”

He shrugged at that, his face a little worse-

“And to make matters worse, I have to return to the academy tomorrow to face the plodding students …… Their clear-eyed but stupid views expressed in the academic realm are simply ‘subspace noise’ in a different sense to me ……”

Mr. Secret Keeper muttered, raising his hand to cover his forehead in pain, clearly the subspace residual noise intertwined with the, predictable shadows for the future, casting a thick shadow in his mind.

There was nothing Duncan could do to comfort him in this situation, but he could only sigh slightly and raise his hand to pat Ted on the shoulder, “I understand that feeling all too well.”

Tad was a bit surprised and looked up at Duncan suspiciously, “How can you understand?”

Duncan was stunned for a moment, feeling that it was a difficult question to explain, but soon enough, Shirley’s homework book, and Alice’s doodle book came to his mind.

“…… I have clearer students on board than yours.”

Ted froze for a moment, and not knowing how much of it was all understood, he nodded with a complicated expression, “It seems …… you’re usually quite difficult.”

He then quieted down, as if he was feeling a little tired after a long period of remembering things about subspace and wanted to relax his mind, but just less than half a minute later, he seemed to suddenly remember something else.

“There’s another situation,” Ted looked up, his expression becoming somewhat serious, “not about subspace, but about …… that White Oak ship.”

“The White Oak?” Duncan was a little puzzled, “What happened to that ship?”

“…… I don’t know if it’s my own illusion, after all, at that time I was affected by subspace, my perception and thinking were confused, but I always felt …… that when I was talking to that ‘sailor’ on the White Oak ‘ when talking to him, something wasn’t quite right.”

Listening to Ted’s words, Duncan’s expression became serious.

“Sailor …… you mean that ‘anomaly’ with the number 077? What’s not quite right about him?”

“I can’t say, but after coming back over here, I recalled how I felt when I was talking to that ‘anomaly’, and it always seemed like I wasn’t just talking to ‘him’ at the time,” Ted -Ril frowned, trying to recall while weighing his words, “I was talking to him about something about the world, about the perspective of being an ‘anomaly’ looking at the world, and while he was answering me …… I always felt as if I could hear plural voices …… as if something else was also hiding on that ship, and right next to that ‘sailor’ at the time.”

(end of chapter)