Chapter 140 – The Man Who Stood Fast at the Border

Chapter 140 – Those Who Stick to the Border
A century ago, the Radiant Star, like the Sea Mist, had been an escort ship for the Lost Country.

However, very few people knew what had happened to these two legendary battleships after they broke with the Lost Country, and how they had become what they were today step by step.

The Sea Mist, commanded by “Steel Lieutenant General” Tirion, had once become the main warship of the Frost City State, and was known as the “Unsinkable Ship” and the “Breathing Wreck”. The ship had been heavily damaged many times during the battles, but it was as if there was a soul that couldn’t die that dominated it, allowing it to struggle out of its almost doomed fate over and over again, and gradually transformed into a steel beast after one modification after another that almost defied the principles of shipbuilding.

Legend has it that the ship would even feed directly on steel and undersea deposits, growing turrets and armor plates on itself little by little during its unobserved night voyage.

The Bright Star, inherited from Lucrecia, the “Witch of the Sea”, has a heavier veil of secrecy due to its lesser proximity to civilization – in fact, aside from a handful of members of the Explorers Guild and the Papal fleet that patrols the borders from time to time, the ordinary captains of the Boundless Sea have no idea of the extent to which the ship has been used by the world. In fact, except for a few members of the Explorers’ Guild and the Ecclesiastical Fleet that patrols the borders from time to time, the ordinary captains of the infinite sea have never had the chance to see the ship in person.

And those who were lucky enough to have seen the Radiant Star described the ship thusly:
“It’s obviously not quite part of our reality anymore, the ship has actually sunk at least once and lost half of its structure in the Boundless Sea, half of its hull is ghostly, as it was a century ago, the other half has been twisted into strange and grotesque postures by the witch’s power, its bow is covered with cursed objects from the deep, and everywhere there are clanking machines and Its bow was hung with cursed objects from the deep, clanking machines and magical equipment were everywhere, and the members of the ship had long since died off, with soulless clockwork organoids and cursed rag dolls replacing the normal seafarers running around the decks.

“There’s no doubt that ship is a corpse underway-or rather, half a deformed corpse dragging half its soul.”

Lucrecia’s gaze slowly swept over her sitting ship, nodding slightly in satisfaction.

The Radiant Star was in good shape, and her crew was pleasant.

She knew how the world described her ship – and how the world described her older brother’s Sea Mist – and she knew that many captains feared their siblings, second only to fearing their father, who had returned from subspace.

But she didn’t care about that; she dealt with very few humans on a regular basis, and those that did either had an abundance of guts, or a wealth of learning, or at least had been on some real adventures, and those that did were able to interact with her in a sane and normal manner, and that was enough.

She and her brother are still seen as part of the real world, as “on the side of mankind”, and even if many feel that the Sea Mist and the Brilliant Star are cursed, that perception won’t change.

After all, there are too many cursed things in this world, and almost every city-state is accompanied by countless anomalies and visions, and even modern human civilization has been described as “cursed” – in this cursed world, it is possible to give two ships a chance to be “on the side of mankind”. In a world where everything is cursed, there is room for two strange ships.

Lucrecia slowly stepped down from her “stage”, which blossomed like a mechanical flower, and walked towards the bow deck, where two clockwork puppets wearing funny masks passed her with a jingling sound, and a large ragdoll sewn out of velvet, silk and ribbon ran alongside, making a shrill noise in front of her: “Mistress! Mistress! Good morning! Good morning!”

“It’s almost noon.” Lucrecia said casually, crossing over to the ragdoll and standing on the bow of the ship looking out into the distance.

She saw an incomparably magnificent grayish-white wall of fog, as if it were a giant curtain at the edge of the world standing on the sea in the distance, connecting the sky and the sea, presenting an extremely majestic and spectacular gesture.

That was the Border.

That magnificent wall of fog had many names – Border of the World, Fog of Grandeur, Misty Barrier, and its most formal name should be “Eternal Curtain”.

But Lucrecia preferred to call it “The Border”.

That was what her father had called it back then.

Under normal circumstances, the curtain of eternity was a ring-shaped barrier that encompassed all the known seas and undulated slightly within a relatively fixed range; it didn’t contract or expand, it was just a fixed natural phenomenon.

On rare occasions, however, a part of the barrier will suddenly “appear” inside the boundaries of civilization and cause a terrible catastrophe as it collapses inward, a wall of fog that suddenly appears and collapses in the dimensions of reality, dragging nearby solid matter into the depths of the world, and even opening up the door to subspace! –This terrible catastrophe is called “border collapse”.

For captains who sailed the endless seas, border collapses were worse than storms, turbulence, and mass hysteria.

The only good news is that these collapses don’t happen very often.

Lucrecia had spent most of her time in the borderlands, observing them, studying them, and trying to summarize the workings of that fog, trying to figure out why it suddenly collapsed inward-as her father had done a hundred years ago.

But to this day, no one has been able to unravel the secrets of the curtain.

What did her father discover or “hear” that made him suddenly decide to go through the fog and look for Anomaly Zero?
Lucrecia withdrew her gaze from the border.

In the borderlands, one should not gaze long at the Eternal Curtain. Although there was no clear evidence that the fog had the ability to consume the mind and influence thinking, there was a natural risk in gazing at any target on the sea, especially far away from civilized city-states. God knows what could be transmitted with the “gaze” here.

The calm of the border waters was shattered by the sound of a gentle siren.

Lucrecia looked at the sound and saw tiny silhouettes emerging from the edge of the wall of fog, which slowly drew closer and finally took on the outline of a ship.

It was three ships, the newest of the steel battleships, powered by a surging and powerful steam core, and they were heading towards where the Radiant Star was, but it was only a chance encounter.

The other ship was the first to sound its horn, which was a greeting – whoever one met in this borderland was something to be happy about, as long as the other was not an evil god of subspace.

“Mistress,” Luni stepped forward, a stilted voice coming from within the clockwork maid, “it’s a patrol formation from the Church of the Order …… visually confirmed, the Church of the Firebringer.”

“…… Only the Firecallers and Stormtroopers would patrol so close to the Eternal Curtain,” Lucrecia sighed softly, “All a bunch of desperados.”

“Want to respond?” Luni asked.

“…… Hail them,” Lucrecia said softly, “To our still-continuing civilization.”

……

There weren’t many customers in the antique store today, and no one had stepped foot in the store except for a pair of unassuming ornaments that had been sold in the morning.

Nina is sitting next to the counter with a mechanics textbook, concentrating on those delicate and complex mechanical structures above, occasionally picking up the sketchbook placed next to her and sketching in the blank space, while Duncan is sitting inside the counter, curiously looking through Nina’s history textbook while casually making some notes in his notebook.

Only Shirley had nothing to do, she wanted to go home but didn’t dare to go, she wanted to talk to Nina but couldn’t understand what the other party was studying, after circling around the nearby shelves for several times with boredom, she finally couldn’t help but mutter, “Is it really that interesting to read books?”

“Interesting!” Nina looked up, “And I’ve got finals coming up, so I need to hurry up and study for them.”

Duncan also looked up at Sherry, “If you’re really bored, you can also find a book to read …… I’ve got a brief history of the Age of City-States over here, do you want to read it?”

Shirley glanced at the several books in Duncan’s hand and opened her mouth with an embarrassed look on her face, “I …… I don’t know how to read ……”

Duncan suddenly stopped reading, and Nina next to him looked up in some surprise.

“What’s all the surprise for,” Shirley glared at the situation as if she’d been hurt by something, “I …… I told you I blended into the school, I . . is it weird that I just never went to school, I was raised by a dog ……”

Duncan was indeed a little surprised, but after seeing Shirley’s reaction he was more emotional: “You don’t know how to read, but you can still blithely blend into the school, I really don’t know whether to say that you’re overconfident or overly convinced of the unreliable cognitive disruption ability of Dog.”

“Ah Dog’s cognitive interference ability is very reliable!” Sherry instantly defended, “It’s just …… just ……”

The girl’s face reddened slightly, and the words that followed didn’t seem quite daring, but Duncan guessed what the other was trying to say, and he gave a hint of a smile, “You’ve already dared to argue in front of me – look, there’s nothing to be afraid of, is there?”

“That’s just it, how kind my uncle is,” Nina, a silly girl who didn’t understand anything, chimed in sparingly, “He was cranky for a while before, but isn’t he all right now!”

“I ……” Shirley opened her mouth, but suddenly did not know how to communicate with this “uncle and nephew” in front of her, held back half a day also did not hold back the second word.

Duncan saw the situation smiled and shook his head, but just when he wanted to say something else, a slightly familiar atmosphere suddenly appeared in his perception!
Duncan was slightly startled, and in the next second, he was able to discern who the aura was coming from-

Vanna! That young Inquisitor is approaching this antique store …… and fast!

(End of chapter)