Chapter 164 – A physically and mentally exhausting exchange
Chapter 164 – A physically and mentally exhausting exchange
The bone pigeon surrounded by spiritual flames circled twice over the deck, and the cargo from the city-state of Prand emerged from the flames, and Alice looked a little dumbfounded at the first thing that appeared in front of her, and only half looked up at the captain after a long time.
Seriously, Duncan almost thought for a moment that the figure was about to run away crying – the most likely of the many reactions he expected from Alice – and he ended up staring wide-eyed at the naive figure for half a second before the latter finally nodded frostily, “Thanks oh! ”
Duncan: “……?”
“You really bought me new hair hey!” In the next second, Alice’s face was beaming with joy, as if she had received the most heartwarming of gifts, “I thought you were just kidding last time! Mr. Goathead all said that wigs for dolls are a very expensive thing ……”
Duncan: “……”
What he’d been expecting for so long didn’t happen, and the persecution was a colossal failure from the start – the persecuted guy was happy as a clam, even filled with gratitude.
Duncan felt as if he was at the moment like the musician who had lost his fun.
“Captain? Why are you gawking again, Captain?” Alice’s voice came out of nowhere, snapping Duncan out of his wanderings, the doll tiptoed around holding her wig, her face almost to the tip of Duncan’s nose, “You’ve gawked so many times today ……”
Duncan blinked, face pulled back a little, a face oddly looking at this cursed doll: “I did not think you heart so wide – the last time I told you about the wig thing you are not still quite frustrated it, I thought that this time to receive a gift how you have to struggle in the heart of the fight ……”
“I’m frustrated about losing my hair, why would I be frustrated about getting new hair?” Alice blinked her eyes, as if she felt that Duncan’s three views have problems generally explained, “I am a mannequin ah!”
Duncan finally realized what the problem was.
Alice is usually too active on the ship, except for her neck bones, she looks just like a normal human, so after getting along with her for a long time, he unconsciously treats her as a human – as a result, he has overlooked the specificity of this guy’s outlook as a doll… …
As a doll, she wouldn’t care about wearing a wig! Would a human care if she got new shoes?
“Forget it, just pretend I’m overthinking it,” Duncan covered his face and waved his hand, as the biggest natural disaster on the infinite sea, he once again felt the mood of being unable to strain himself in front of Alice, “Anyway …… you can just like it. ”
“Like it!” Alice happily held the wig, then just stretched her neck over Duncan’s shoulder to continue looking at the things on the deck, “The rest of this ……”
“This one’s for you too,” Duncan sighed, trying to ignore the visual impact of an elegant and beautiful gothic doll gleefully holding a top wig, and turned to pick up a box from the deck, “Open it.”
Curious, Alice opened the delicate little wooden box to see a set of silver hair ornaments made of thin diamond-shaped pieces linked together lying quietly in a velvet lining.
She looked up in shock to see the Captain nodding slightly at her.
“Last time I took away the feathered hairpieces you found in the hold,” Duncan said lightly, “I promised you I would buy you new ones then, and I’m making good on that promise now.”
Alice was stunned for half a second before she finally responded with a smile of unprecedented joy, “Thank you Captain! Captain you are too kind!”
“Don’t be so loud,” Duncan’s ears perked up at the doll’s sudden octave-high voice, and couldn’t help but wave his hand, “It’s just a hair accessory, no need to get so excited.”
“Not just a hairpiece, but the new hair you bought me!”
Duncan was instantly a bit embarrassed, an intense sense of shame lingering in his mind of a lezzo person wanting the whole job but being solemnly thanked by the person in question, “…… You don’t mention that wig ……”
Alice, however, was completely oblivious to the captain’s subtle mood at the moment; the not-so-mindful mannequin was now fully immersed in joy, and immediately afterward, she naturally noticed the last wooden box on the deck.
It was a half-meter long wooden box – or rather wooden chest – with elegant and antique decorations and locks and hinges made of brass, which looked like it gave people a sense of high class.
And for some reason, it reminded her of her own “house”.
“What is this one?” Alice put the wig and hairpiece in her hand aside, curiously went up and pushed the wooden box, and looked up to ask.
“Also from the Doll Shop, but this isn’t for you,” Duncan said casually, “You can open it.”
Alice gave an oh-so-curious sigh and opened the wooden crate.
A well-made, classically styled doll of a young girl lay silently in the wooden crate.
Alice: “……?” “You can call her ‘Niru’,” Duncan’s voice came from the side, “but unlike you, she’s just a regular doll …… probably. ”
Alice, however, was half-unresponsive, and it was nearly ten seconds before she suddenly stirred – with a click-boop-boop-boop, her head fell into Niru’s box and rolled with the minifigure inside.……
“Help …… help …… help …… help ……”
Duncan sighed and gingerly picked Alice’s head up and mounted it, looking at the disgraced fellow with a bemused expression, “Did you have to react like that?”
Alice, however, just held her head with two hands to break her neck upright, and then she looked at her captain with wide eyes, her face full of disbelief, “Captain, you …… you have a new mannequin …… “
“What a mess!” Duncan felt as if something was wrong as soon as he heard this, and hurriedly interrupted Alice before she could sprout more trash talk, “Didn’t I say it, Niru isn’t like you, she doesn’t run and jump around like you do, and what do you mean by having a new mannequin? That’s said like I have some sort of weird collecting fetish.”
“Then aren’t you buying dolls back ……”
“There’s a very specific reason for that,” Duncan exhaled softly, rising to look out over the distant sea in an effort to try and quell the trash-talking going on in Alice’s naive brain with a serious, deep expression on his face, “This one’s named ‘Niru This doll named ‘Niru’ and another doll named ‘Luni’ were originally a pair, and many years ago, my daughter took ‘Luni’ away from me, and now I have coincidentally found ‘Niru’ that was left in the store in the dust. ‘Niru’, and I think …… I should buy her.”
Duncan did not conceal the information he had just learned, and spoke of it in a natural manner-at any rate, he must now play the part of “Captain Duncan,” and from that persona he must ” know of his children as a matter of course”.
Alice, unsurprisingly, stared at her captain with wide, dismayed eyes.
“Captain of the ship ……, you have a daughter?!” The mannequin held his head with both hands, as if he was afraid that his head would leave the house in the next second due to shock, “This is the first time I …… have heard of it!”
Duncan sighed in his mind, thinking that it was the first time he had heard of this himself ……
But he maintained the same expression on his face as always and just nodded lightly, “Is that strange? I have another son, and I haven’t seen them in a century.”
“You have another son!?” Alice was instantly even more shocked, she even took two steps backward, and right after that, her eyes rolled around twice, and after running through her brain for a bit, she suddenly popped out a sentence, “Then wouldn’t they still have a mom?”
Duncan: “……”
For a split second, he and Alice were left with nothing but wide-eyed stares.
“I kind of regret opening this topic with you,” Ryoga finally sighed and said with a look of mirth, “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Oh …… oh oh! Okay!” Alice didn’t know what was going on in her head, she froze for a moment and then nodded repeatedly, then she glanced down at the “Niru” in the wooden box, and suddenly realized, “Ah, then that feather shaped hairpin that I found in the cabin last time . …could it be your daughter’s?”
Duncan was noncommittal.
He wasn’t really sure about it, but considering the nostalgia he couldn’t help but feel from the bottom of his heart when he saw the hairpin, it was more than likely not too far off from Alice’s suspicion.
He then noticed how Alice had been surreptitiously checking herself out, noting the odd expression of wanting to speak that surfaced on the doll’s face from time to time.
“Say what you want to say,” he said lightly, “It’s more rude to ogle so surreptitiously than to mouth off.”
“Ah, nothing, nothing, I just ……” Alice waved her hand, then only hesitantly said, “I just suddenly think …… you seem to still have humanity hey.”
Duncan: “…… You’re complimenting me?”
Alice was instantly stunned, then as if she recalled what Mr. Goathead had taught her, an apologetic expression appeared on her face, “Ah, I’m sorry Captain, I shouldn’t have scolded you for having humanity ……”
“I …… I thank you,” Duncan sighed, waving his hand with a physically and mentally exhausted look, “Take your gift and go back, I want to stay by myself for a while.”
“Oh.”
(End of chapter)