Chapter 165 – Calls not answered
Chapter 165 – Calls Unanswered
Alice left in a happy mood, and looked as if she could be happy for many days, while Duncan stayed alone on the deck, looking at the wooden crate containing “Nelu”.
He had left Uptown with his “doppelganger” in the city-state of Prand, and was on his way back to the antique store on his bike. Before he left the doll store, he exchanged a lot of information about Lucrecia and Tirion with the old lady who owned the store, but he didn’t get much more out of it.
As the shopkeeper said herself, she was after all just an ordinary citizen who happened to live longer than human beings and had personally experienced some of the events of many years ago, but apart from that one-sided acquaintance and the information she had heard from hearsay, she actually did not know much about those two “Duncan’s descendants”.
On the Lost Country, Duncan was deep in thought.
His body even has a pair of children, even a pair of children still alive, and it sounds like that pair of siblings are not ordinary characters – one of them was loyal to the Queen of Frost, and now has become the largest pirate head of the Cold Sea, and the other one has long been wandering in the border of the civilized world, to engage in some mysterious exploratory activities, and was reverently called “Duncan’s descendants” by the captains of the ship. The other has been wandering around the borders of the civilized world for a long time, engaging in mysterious exploratory activities, and is reverently called the “sea witch” by the captains.
Such a pair of “children”, at the moment bring Duncan’s feeling is only trouble, as well as a little nervous.
He was now the “Captain Duncan” of the Lost Country, and it looked like he would have to be for the foreseeable future, so he would have to find a way to maintain this status. …what if he were to meet up with the siblings in the future?
Should I show some filial piety? Or should I be ruthless? Should I say hello, or should I walk away in a cool manner?
According to the shopkeeper’s story, the Tirian siblings had a “break” with their father a hundred years ago, and the Sea Mist and Bright Star had parted ways with their flagships, the Lost Country, after a mysterious “family conflict”. This is known to the world.
But what exactly happened at that time is probably known only to the three parties involved.
Duncan sighed softly.
Regardless of what really happened, one thing seemed certain, his relationship with the siblings was not going to be a father-son or father-daughter relationship – if they did meet, it would be better to make it in the direction of family misery. ……
He bent down, holding up the wooden box containing “Niru”, the box lined with velvet, only a few tens of centimeters high doll girl is lying quietly, this was born a hundred years ago, the little one is now a new “member” of the Lost Country.
“Was there really a connection between her and Lucrecia? Or does Lucrecia still have the doll she bought a hundred years ago named “Luni” with her?
Duncan didn’t think much about it when he bought Niru, but now his mind couldn’t help but be active, holding the wooden box, he returned to the captain’s cabin.
Goathead was at the helm as usual, and as soon as Duncan opened the door, his usual raucous voice immediately rang out, “Ah! The great captain has returned to his loyal captain’s cabin, you seem to have shipped a lot of supplies from the city states, your loyal following province is very concerned about the health of the ship’s food, if you do not mind, I will personally go out of my way to instruct Ms. Alice to become a qualified ……”
“Shut up, you need to stop fooling around with that mannequin about recipes, I don’t want my next meal to look like a pot of phantom demonic vomit,” Duncan glared at the goathead, “What’s our current position, and how far are we from Prand?”
“Oh, we’re still heading toward Prand at full speed and have made several successful Spirit World accelerations in between – it’s like ‘hitting the water’ on the edge of the real world, and the Lost Country is now only ten days away from that city-state’s journey,” Goathead said immediately and cheerfully, “and it is estimated that in a short time you will be able to feel a noticeable filling of power as you walk in the Spirit World – the Lost Country’s influence will be the greatest aid to your activities in the city-state ……”
Duncan gave the goathead a quiet glance as the latter stopped rambling and was silent for two seconds before bursting out, “A loyal first mate always knows his captain best.”
“Very well,” Duncan nodded, and with the crate in hand he headed for his bedroom, but soon he paused again, his mind rapidly weighing and combining words, before finally asking casually, with a calm expression, “How do you think Tirion and Lucrecia would react if they saw me again? ”
This was a test after he carefully weighed his options, the most normal and least suspicious question that he had weighed and could still obtain some information.
He didn’t ask Goathead what he thought of the siblings, as such a question would be too raw, nor did he inquire about what had happened between the siblings and the Lost Country in the past, as it would reveal his own situation – he ultimately chose to ask questions in a way that was more in line with who he was and the relationship between himself and Goathead.
Goathead visibly froze, and his voice hesitated for a long moment before it reached Duncan’s ears, “You mean …… your children …… I’m sorry, Captain, I don’t know if I should talk about your family matters, since you rarely talk to me about them, but if I must, I must ……”
The usually sharp-tongued goat’s head stammered several times before finally continuing, “If I had to say, I think we’d probably have another fight with Tirion, like we did in Frost, after all, he’s always been one to solve problems with his artillery, and as for Ms. Lucrecia …… She’ll probably stay far away ……”
Duncan was noncommittal, but suddenly he realized two things!
First, he remembered that Goathead had once revealed that the Lost Country had “fought a battle” with someone near the Frost City State, and that battle had been fought with Tirion!
Secondly, Goat Head’s initial reaction was strange, and he specifically emphasized that Duncan seldom mentioned that pair of siblings to him……. Judging from this sentence, could it be that this Goat Head had not really spent any time with that pair of siblings? His understanding of that pair of siblings can only rely on Duncan’s “mention”?
Hadn’t this guy been on the Lost Country from the beginning?
Duncan’s eyes slightly stared, but his face didn’t show anything, he just nodded his head to indicate that he heard the goat head’s reply, and then he didn’t move as he continued to walk, returning to his own dormitory. The thick oak door closed behind him, cutting off Goathead’s view from the chart room, and allowing Duncan’s mood to slowly regain its composure.
He let out a long breath and took Nelu out of her crate and placed her on his desk, he stared at the figure for several minutes before finally greeting her, “Hello, my name is Duncan.”
The doll, of course, didn’t respond in any way.
She really was just a mannequin.
Suddenly feeling a little guilty for his behavior, Duncan smiled awkwardly and said that luckily whoever was on this ship didn’t have the guts to pry inside the captain’s bedchamber, before opening a drawer at his hand and fumbling something out of it.
It was a small, delicate hairpin with the shape of waves and feathers.
This is Alice from the cabin rummage out of the “old things”.
Duncan quietly stared at this small hair card, as before, that strange sense of nostalgia once again filled from the bottom of the heart.
It was as if this body’s original owner had left behind the only strand of “humanity”, in the form of indifferent emotional fragments, remaining in his heart.
“I’m afraid this is really Lucrecia’s ……” Duncan muttered softly to himself, “a gift that was never given, or the only memento she left on this ship after her departure… …”
He slowly picked up the hair card and flipped it gently in the sunlight that filtered through the window, glowing brightly on its silver edges.
A small green flame spread from Duncan’s fingertips, submerging the card in the blink of an eye, and then the flame flowed through the air, wrapping itself around the doll, Niru.
Duncan calmed his mind, trying to feel if there was any extraordinary power left within these two things, or even a small “connection” that could point to a “faraway place”.
However, the flames faded quickly, and neither the figure nor the hairpin responded.
Was it because they were really just ordinary objects, or was it because Lucrecia was currently at the border of the civilized world, and the distance was too far away, so that the “connection” that remained in these two items was already so weak that it couldn’t even be captured by the flame of the spirit body?
Duncan frowned, once again diffused the flame, and at the same time, with a mindset that he couldn’t even tell, he tried to call out, “Lucrecia …… Lucy?”
He used the nickname for the name Lucrecia – perhaps the connection established by the nickname would be a few degrees stronger than the formal name?
Nothing happened.
Duncan waited half a day, but finally had to extinguish the flame in disappointment.
At the same time, in the distant borderlands, at the edge of the eternal curtain, the clockwork doll “Luni”, which was wiping the table, suddenly stopped.
A series of ear-piercing whistles of gears and bearings frantically rotating came from the body of this “engineering creature”, which had been transformed countless times by Lucrecia’s hands, and was now almost considered an “alchemical life”, followed by followed by a bunch of noises of “creaking”.
The clockwork key behind Luni’s back popped out with a click and fell to the ground, the alloy reinforced arm drooped down stiffly, and a wisp of blue smoke slowly emerged from the open seam behind the maid’s shell. ……
(End of chapter)