Chapter 139 – The Bright Star
Chapter 139 – The Bright Star Ship
Is it bad enough that there is a Lost Country ship in this world ……
In the divination room lit by dim candlelight, Lucrecia sat quietly in a high-backed chair covered with velvet cushions, gazing at the crystal ball placed on the table, but for some reason, her mind again recalled the events of a long time ago, that afternoon a century ago… ……
That figure, already slightly blurred in her memory, stood on the deck against the sunlight that was gradually sinking to the sea horizon, his tall body seeming to turn into a shaking, illusory flame in the setting sun, and told her in a low, depressing tone she had never heard before:
“Our world is but a pile of fading embers ……”
Nowadays, of course, she knew that her father had already contracted madness at that time, and that he would soon abandon his humanity completely, choosing to embrace the “blessings” of subspace on his own accord, but she still thought from time to time that if only she could have talked to her father more on that day, and asked him what he had meant by that, and what he had seen at the boundaries of the world, what had happened after that? If she could have talked to her father and asked him about the meaning of those words and what he saw at the border of the world, would things have developed differently afterward?
Perhaps her father would not have avoided the end of his madness, or perhaps the birth of the Lost Country was a fact of life carved into the ages that no one could reverse, but at the very least, she would have known how it happened, and where to look for the truth – instead of the way she was now. -Instead of wandering in a cursed ship, as she was doing now, in a borderland where even the clerical inspectors were reluctant to go ……
“Lucrecia, are you still listening?”
Tirian’s voice suddenly came from the crystal ball, jolting the young lady sitting at the table in a bit of a daze, and Lucrecia shook her head, shaking the tumultuous thoughts in her head aside for the moment.
“Brother,” she looked squarely at Tirian in the crystal ball, her tone becoming somewhat serious, “do you remember what father said before he sailed to the border for the last time? That time he didn’t ask us to follow ……”
“Of course I remember,” Tirian nodded, “He said that he had found clues to the anomaly 000, and was going to find ‘a cure for this world’, and he refused not only the two of us at that time, but also several other escorts to follow – and after he and the Lost Country returned, neither he nor that ship became quite the same.”
“Yes, all the crew of the Lost Country stopped talking, as if they’d been put under a muting curse, while father was still lucid enough to communicate with us at the time, saying that he hadn’t found the Anomaly 000, and then saying that even if the Anomaly 000 had existed, that it wasn’t the origin of the distortions that had caused the world to be twisted, and that the so-called cure hadn’t existed from the beginning- -After that, until the day he told us on the deck at sunset that ‘the world is a remnant fire’, he never revealed anything related to that trip to the border …… “
Tirian in the crystal ball didn’t say anything for a while, and after an unknown period of silence, it was Lucrecia who spoke again, “After that, I specifically contacted the ecclesiastical fleet patrolling near the border, including the Fire Bearers, the Deep Sea Magi, the scholars from the Academy of Truth, and even that group of twilight death cultists, and I inquired about the matter of the anomaly 000 from them, but they all stated that it was impossible for an anomaly or vision numbered zero to exist ……”
“I inquired as well,” Tirian said in a deep voice, “and received the same reply as you …… There are no anomalies or visions numbered zero in the world, not at present, but there is simply no corresponding ‘Empty Space’-
“All the numbers were already listed on that initial list that came out of the Tomb of the Unknown King, and the anomalies and visions that were undiscovered or had not yet taken shape had their own empty slots to be filled, and even ‘mycelial vials’ and ‘fungal islands’ that had anomalies and visions that evolved in the course of history have found their way into pre-planned positions after the fact, but at the beginning of the entire table, there is no position zero at all ……
“That’s why I said that I’m afraid father was out of sorts even before he set out for the border; there’s no way he didn’t know about this information.”
Speaking of this Tirian suddenly stopped, and immediately afterward, he looked up and gazed at Lucrecia in the crystal ball, and his expression became extraordinarily serious: “Why did you suddenly bring up this topic? We haven’t talked about this matter for half a century, what are you going to do?”
“…… Don’t worry, I won’t dive headfirst into that magnificent wall of fog like my father did,” Lucrecia’s face rarely showed any expression, but this time, she still smiled, “I am searching for the clues left behind by my father, but I am in no way going down his old path.”
Tirion was silent for a moment and nodded slowly, “…… That is good.”
Lucrecia, on the other hand, didn’t say anything for a while, this pair of siblings who were separated by a great distance and rarely really got together in the past century each had their own preoccupations, and it wasn’t until the distant and indistinct sound of the Sea Mist’s whistle from the other side of the Sea Mist ship was heard in the crystal ball that Lucrecia suddenly broke the silence, “Do you really want to go to Prenland? Because of that Consul’s ‘invitation’?”
“‘Invitation’ doesn’t matter, I don’t really care about any security issues in that city-state, but that consul said in his letter that the Lost Country has reappeared in the real world, and it’s so true that I have to go and see what’s going on,” Tirian said with a serious look on his face. “That ship has not been seen for almost half a century, and it is suspicious that it has reappeared now.”
Lucrecia thought for a moment and asked, “You had an encounter with the Lost Country ship once half a century ago, and I remember that you were still in Frost at that time …… Was it really the Lost Country ship you saw then?”
“…… A thousand times over, as hard as it is to believe, it really was the Lost Country,” Tirian’s voice trailed off, “I can’t even remember the position of each of its masts or the distribution of each set of cables correctly. ”
“And …… was it really ‘Father’ who was standing on the ship?”
Tirion hung his head slightly, his face hidden in the shadows, “…… It was him, though I would have preferred that the thing was not him.”
Lucrecia looked at her older brother in the crystal ball, hesitating for a moment before speaking softly, “Be careful, if that really was him, you’ll be in danger.” “I know,” Tirian sighed softly, “That’s already a raging specter that’s been completely warped by subspace, I’m not going to take it lightly ……”
Lucrecia shook her head expressionlessly, “No, I mean, if that’s really father, he’s going to come down even harder than he did half a century ago when he sees what you’ve transformed the Sea Mist into.”
Tirion froze for a moment and glared, “What does that mean? It’s a fruitful modernization! What’s wrong with steam boilers and rapid-fire cannons! And you have the nerve to say that about me – I at least kept some of it, and that ship of yours still has even one deck that’s still as bright and starry as it was back in the day ……”
The crystal ball went out.
Lucrecia breathed a soft sigh of relief and rose from her chair.
It was good to see that her older brother was still spry, mid-air with a little stimulation, and maintaining an exuberant curiosity about modernization.
The worst fear in a long eternity was mental decline and soul rot.
A light footstep came out of the dimness, interspersed with the friction of mechanical mechanisms and clockwork devices in operation, and Lucrecia looked around to see a clockwork demonic doll with a female appearance approaching her – a demonic doll that was six times similar to her own appearance, but with a distinctly riveted and mechanically-jointed structure all over its body, made of Steel and ceramic as the main texture of the shell was made into the appearance of a maid’s dress, in the dim light, looking more or less bizarre horror.
As the puppet walked along, the clockwork device behind her continuously made a slight clicking sound, she arrived in front of Lucrecia and offered the black tea in her hand, her articulated mouth clicked, emitting a slightly stiff and stilted female voice: “Mistress, please use the tea.”
“Thank you,” Lucrecia took the tea cup and asked casually, “Luni, what is our current location?”
The clockwork puppet called Luni answered, “The Radiant Star has just crossed the ‘Foghorn Island’, and is currently sailing at the edge of the Eternal Curtain, would you like to enjoy the view from the window?”
“…… Open the dome,” Lucrecia took a sip of her black tea and placed her teacup back on the tray in Luni’s hand, “It’s getting light, I should get some sun.”
“Yes, Mistress.”
Lunie hung her head slightly and stepped backwards.
At the same time that the clockwork puppet’s words fell, a slight vibration suddenly came from the entire “Divination Room”!
The creaking sound of the mechanical device operation resounded continuously, the humming and creaking sound of the giant clockwork and magic unit joint operation seemed to form a concerted movement, driven by countless gears and slides, the walls of the room began to recede in all directions, unfolding, and the original dimly lit room was instantly illuminated by the sunlight – under the sunlight, the whole room Under the sunlight, the entire room slowly bloomed like a mechanical flower, and eventually bloomed into a stage-like appearance.
This is the upper deck of the Bright Star, the room where the “Sea Witch” Lucrecia resides bloomed into a towering stage at the front of the deck, and around this blooming mechanical flower, the entirety of the Bright Star could be seen – the ship was divided into two parts, one in the middle and the other in the middle, the other in the middle.
The ship was clearly split in two.
The front half of the ship had been completely remodeled, countless runes and magical artifacts were spread all over the hull, making it look more like a huge magical organ than a ship, while various strange materials collected from the border areas or the sea reconstructed the ship’s deck structure, making everything as far as the eye could see faintly glow with grotesque and psychedelic colors, as if there were never-ending magical rituals going on between those The dense spell formations and crystals were running between them;
And in the back half of the ship, there was a very different appearance – there, half of the ship’s hull took on a ghostly, translucent form, a veil of seemingly real and phantasmagorical shrouding the stern of the Bright Star, and in the floating phantasmagorical light, one could vaguely see that that portion of the structure still retained the ship’s original appearance –A century-old windbreaker.
A sailing warship built a century ago, vaguely similar to the style of the “Lost Country”.
(End of chapter)