Chapter 132 – Breaking Free from the Dream

Chapter 132 Breaking free from the dream
Duncan looked at the nervous Dog and smiled as kindly as he could – he felt that there might have been a bit of a misunderstanding between himself and the other man, and it was better for that misunderstanding to be resolved as soon as possible.

But just before he was about to open his mouth, he suddenly saw a sudden flash of blood in Dog’s eyes – despite not being able to discern any change of mood from a bony head, it was as if he could feel the fiercely turbulent mood of the spectral hound for a moment.

In the next second, he heard Dog’s stuttering voice come out, “You …… you’re the ‘Mr. Duncan’ we’ve been dealing with for the past two days?”

Duncan froze, followed by a glance at Sherry next to him.

He hadn’t seen much communication between Dog and Shirley, but it was clear that there was a convenient means of sharing information between the two individuals linked together by chains.

“It’s me,” Duncan said with a hint of a smile and a softened tone, “so do I need to explain anything else? Or is there anything you wish to know?”

“No!” Dog practically shrieked, his entire body pulling back, “We have no need to know any ‘knowledge’ or ‘truth’, and we have no intention of prying into your mysteries!”

“…… I always feel that there is still some misunderstanding between you and me, but it seems to be getting more and more difficult to explain,” Duncan sighed and shook his head somewhat helplessly, “Forget it, just let time slowly help us build up mutual trust. As for now, there’s something I’d like to understand.”

Dog drooped his head, “You …… go ahead.”

Duncan frowned, he was actually very curious about why he, the ghost captain who was very famous in the real world, had so much influence among the demons in the deep sea, because in his impression, the deep sea was a “place” which was very close to the subspace, and the demons who were in the deep sea should be closer to those “bottom shadows” than the mortals in the real world. The “bottom shadow”, correspondingly, they should be less fearful and resistant to the Lost Country ship returning from subspace.

However, it seemed that those demons, which were “dangerous existences” to humans, were as afraid of the Lost Country as humans were, which made him quite confused.

However, before he could figure this out, he first focused on the “nightmare” in front of him – a nightmare from the depths of Yukari’s memories, most likely recreating the truth of eleven years ago.

“I want to know about this dream,” he said while his gaze fell on Sherry, “I know this is a very painful memory for you, if you don’t want to talk about it, you can refuse.”

“…… There’s nothing I don’t want to say,” Shirley, however, just shook her head gently, “I should rather thank you for interrupting this nightmare, I can still suffer a little less… …As you can see, this is what I went through in the first place minus.”

“The Great Fire?……” Duncan nodded softly, then looked back to Dog, “What I saw was what happened when you and Sherry initially ‘met’? ”

Dog looked away, “I was still just a Phantom Demon at the time.”

“And how did you suddenly acquire a ‘heart’?” Duncan asked curiously, “From what I just saw, you had almost killed Sherry back then.”

“…… I don’t know,” Dog was silent for a few seconds, shaking his ugly head slightly, “When I first became self-conscious, all I saw was the sight of Sherry dying and falling to the ground. ”

Duncan gave the spectral hound a deep look, his eyes then moved along the chains around the other’s neck, seeing half of Sherry’s dark, twisted, fused and symbiotic body with the chains.

“After that, you …… fused together?”

“Sort of,” Shirley whispered, hanging her head and hiding her eyes and expression in the shadows of her hair, “I don’t really remember much, after all, I was only six years old at the time, and I lived a sparse life for a long time after that… …If you’re really curious as to how I slowly turned into the relationship I have now with a spectral demon that nearly killed me, then go grab a psychiatrist and come over and hypnotize me and take a look, maybe ……”

“Not necessary.”

Sherry’s words were suddenly interrupted, and immediately afterward, she was dismayed to feel a very large palm pressed against the top of her head.

That palm was surprisingly warm.

“I’m sorry, I’m not trying to open your scars, I just want to know all sorts of details about what happened eleven years ago,” Duncan pressed gently on the girl’s hair, knowing that his questioning wasn’t very pleasant for Shirley, who had just broken free from a nightmare, “You should know that the events of eleven years ago didn’t only include sun Shards showed up, there were more than a few cultists operating, and the Phantom Hound …… was theoretically supposed to be a summoner of the Cult of Annihilation.” Shirley looked up a bit in a daze as she heard Duncan continue, “The fact that a demonic-like creature from the Phantom Deep suddenly gained humanity is a ‘mutation’ in itself, and has it ever occurred to any of you that this mutation might have been influenced by a certain trigger back then as well? ”

Shirley blinked and said a little sluggishly, “The Sun Shard?”

“I’m not sure …… No one knows exactly what form the Sun Shard took, or what powers it had, except that in the teachings propagated by the Sunists, the ‘real Sun God’ was not at all ‘granting humanity’ or authority similar to that,” Duncan shook his head, “so what caused Dog to take on a human form may have been something …… other than the Sun Shard. ”

“Are you saying that there may have been more than just the Sun Shard that appeared in the city-state of Prand eleven years ago?!” Sherry finally snapped out of it, and she snapped her eyes wide open.

“Just a little suspicion,” Duncan patted Shirley’s shoulder gently, then withdrew his hand, “because I’ve always felt that there’s a great deal of defiance in this case: the Sun Shard is a ‘holy relic’ pointing to the Sun Cultists. According to the description of the cultists, its power is actually very simple, and is only related to the ‘Real Sun God’ in terms of occultism, however, in the chaos eleven years ago, only the official disclosure of the documents in the captured cultists already included the Annihilationists and the End of the World Preachers and other people who have nothing to do with the ‘Real Sun God’. ”What are they doing in this?
“Of course, it can be explained by the fact that the sun fragments were so powerful that even those who don’t believe in the Sun God were affected, causing them to go mad on the same day, but that doesn’t explain why such a strange …… ‘phenomenon’ like Dog’s occurred. ‘ – What happened to a demon that possessed the attribute of madness itself, but instead suddenly gained sanity during the event?

“Even extending out, there are many suspicious places, including and not limited to the curtain that shrouded the ‘fire’ outside, the memories remaining in your and Nina’s minds, the odd phenomenon in the sixth block …… We have always put We’ve always attributed all of these irregularities to the Sun Fragment, but now that we think about it, is this really all the power of the ‘Sun Domain’? Then the so-called real Sun God could be too omnipotent.”

Duncan voiced out the doubts in his heart, and some of those doubts had actually arisen long before today, only after he had just seen Dog’s mutation eleven years ago did he strengthen a portion of the doubts in his heart.

The fire eleven years ago might have been caused by the sun fragments, but there was definitely something else that played a role in the whole incident!
Shirley, on the other hand, was still a bit confused, she actually wasn’t very good at thinking about these complicated things, and in her daze, she heard Dog’s voice ringing sharply in her head: ”Shirley are you alright? Was he touching your head just now to release the curse? Are you still sane? Are you ……”

“I’m fine,” Shirley replied back in her head with a bit of a cry, “Dog you’re too nervous.”

“Nonsense, can I not be nervous! You’re in direct contact with a source of contamination that’s enough to drive a normal person insane instantly!” Dog’s voice was panicked to a fault, “So how do you feel?”

Sherry thought for a moment, not quite sure, and touched the top of her head.

As far as she could remember, the last time someone had stroked her hair like this, whispering comforting words like they would to a small child, had been many, many years ago.

“…… warm.”

She spoke softly in a trance.

Dog was startled, “Sherry are you really out of your mind?”

“…… You shut up!”

Duncan, however, had no idea what Dog and Shirley had exchanged in this brief moment, he just looked thoughtfully at the window that was filling with a dim red light and suddenly asked, “What’s out there?”

Sherry froze, “Huh?”

Duncan raised his hand and pointed to the window, “Outside the room, what’s there?”

“I …… don’t know,” Shirley blinked, suddenly realizing that in this nightmare that constantly plagued her, it seemed as if an otherwise impossible option had suddenly appeared at the moment, “I’ve never given it a second thought. Every time I dream, I’m trapped in this room ……”

“But now that you’ve broken free,” Duncan whispered back as he walked to the doorway of the cabin, the words seeming like a lure in the darkness, throwing an unprecedented choice in front of Shirley and Dog, “want to try and see if, while awake… . to see what the edges of your dreams look like?”

(End of chapter)