Chapter 26: A Starless Night

Chapter 26 The Starless Night
Seriously, Duncan suddenly found it hard to get out of his subdued stride when this pigeon on his shoulder spoke, even if he had a nerve thicker than the top beam.

It was a moment when he wished beyond hope that he could look like a normal pirate captain with a parrot on his shoulder – or worse, a monkey?

But he had already pushed open the door to the chart room, and turning his head back at this point was out of the question.

In the room where the nautical table was displayed, the goat’s head was chattering gleefully about the twelfth tale of the sea-fish stew, when the sound of the door opening to the captain’s bedchamber finally interrupted him, and his dark, wooden head immediately turned in Duncan’s direction with an upturned, cheerful tone: “Ah, Captain! You’ve finally come out – I have to tell you, Miss Alice is such a wonderful person to talk to, it’s been many years since I’ve had the pleasure of chatting with someone so much, you know ……”

Duncan directly ignored Goathead’s loud pussyfooting around, instead looking first to the victim across the nautical table, before seeing the headless figure sitting bolt upright in a chair, holding his head in his hands while pressing dead center on his ears.

Even so, Alice’s eyes were still as lax as if she had taken twelve high math classes in a row, and she didn’t even react when Duncan walked up to her.

Duncan: “……”

“She pulled her head off herself,” Goathead explains without waiting for Duncan to open his mouth, “although I don’t know why she did it either ……”

What is so incredibly powerful about Goathead’s ranting that it could force a cursed doll to pull her own head off to counter Sonic?

And while Duncan was shocked in his heart, the goat-head who was talking about getting high finally noticed some strange guy that the captain had brought out, his wooden head turned slightly, and his dark eyes suddenly stared at the pigeon on Duncan’s shoulder, “Eh? Captain, this is …… on your shoulder.”

“Its name is Aye, and it’s my pet from now on.” Duncan said succinctly, using as few sentences as possible to avoid possible loopholes and simultaneously watching to see how the goathead reacted when he heard this.

“Your pet?” Goathead visibly froze for a moment, and then it was as if he was brainstorming something to himself, “Ah, just now, the Lost Country did sense that you had temporarily left the ship …… Are you going to conduct a spirit world walk? This is the loot you brought back during your spirit world walk.”

Spirit world walking?

A word that he had never heard before suddenly appeared, Duncan, on the other hand, thought of the brass compass that was placed in the captain’s bedchamber, thought of the handwriting left behind by the real Captain Duncan at one time, as well as the marvelous experience of the soul shuttling and projecting itself to a faraway place, and he vaguely corresponded it in his mind, and felt that he had guessed about eight to nine times before he nodded his head with a bland expression, “A little distraction is all. ”

Duncan’s words fell, that goat head suddenly expectedly complimented: “Ah! How worthy of the great Captain Duncan, even a simple walk in the spirit world can bring back trophies – is this a pigeon? To be your pet, it must be something special? You even hung your compass on it? Is this …… ah Of course, your judgment is always correct, but what is so special about this pigeon? Could it be ……”

Duncan heard something euphemistic in the goat-head’s compliment, and with a twitch of his heart, he realized that the goat-head obviously knew the brass compass that was now hanging on Aye’s chest, and that this compass was obviously very important to the real Captain Duncan – important enough that it should not have been casually placed on a newly-emerged “pet”.

But even if he realized that something was wrong, he could not do anything about it, because the compass was now “tied” to the pigeon, and even …… according to the feedback from the manipulation of the fire of the spirit body, it seemed that the pigeon was the body of the compass at the moment!
Duncan’s mind quickly thought, but his face still maintains no fluctuation of expression, and it is such a moment of concentration, originally was honestly squatting on his shoulder Ai suddenly issued a loud cooing sound, followed by flapping wings flew to the front of the goat head.

The goat head’s pitch-black eyes instantly stared at the pigeon, while the latter cocked its head in a fussing manner and pecked the goat head’s face with the shell of its beak, “Charge Q coins or not?”

Duncan: “……”

“An anomaly with spiritual intelligence?!” Goathead was also clearly stunned, but then reacted with a tone of extreme surprise, “This pigeon can even talk?!”

Duncan immediately reminded politely from the side, “You can talk too.”

The pigeon, Aey, also paced the table twice, walking away while chanting to himself, “Like words? like words? like words ……”

Seeing this Duncan then rubbed his fingertips together and with a sudden leap of green flame the pigeon pacing the table disappeared into thin air in the blink of an eye and was back on his shoulder in the next instant.

“Yes, an anomaly with psychic intelligence and under my direct control,” Duncan nodded to the goat head, “any more questions?”

Goathead hurriedly replied, “Ah …… of course not, of course not, that makes it perfectly fine – everything is in the hands of the great Captain Duncan.”

Duncan then no longer pay attention to the goat head, after quickly ending this topic he then focuses on Alice who is still holding her head in a daze – perhaps it is the previous experience of having an open mind that further strengthens the toughness of his nerves, or perhaps it is also the habit of looking at it after watching it for a few times, he looks at Alice’s head-holding daze at this time and surprisingly does not feel too evil, but instead feels that this is a good time to look at the look. feel too evil, but rather feel that this guy is a little …… cute.

He reached out and patted Miss Doll’s shoulder, “Wake up, wake up.”

Alice’s body suddenly stirred, as if waking up from a long nightmare, and then the head that was held in her hands had a mouth that opened and closed to make a sound: “Ship …… ship …… ship ……” Duncan: “You connect the head first.”

Alice then reacted, hurriedly hand and foot to put the head back in place, clicked the joints closed after her voice finally returned to fluent: “Ah, captain you’re back? It seems like it happened just now …… Mr. Goathead finished?”

The goat’s head on the table immediately spoke, “No, we just talked about certain legends about sea fish stew, this topic can be …… next time”

Duncan was succinct: “Shut up.”

“Oh.”

Alice on the side, on the other hand, shivered very visibly the moment the goathead opened his mouth, dang a cursed mannequin with a horrified expression on his face, and even if that goathead honestly shut his mouth at the captain’s command in the next second, she still glanced at the direction of the nautical table with palpitations in her heart.

Duncan suspected that the doll lady would not set foot in the captain’s cabin for quite some time to come.

With that in mind, he finally asked curiously, “What is it you came to see me about?”

“I …… “Alice’s expression was a bit dumbfounded, as if her initial goal of visiting the captain’s room had already been forgotten with a conversation with the goat head, but she still reacted after a few seconds, “Ah yes, I just want to ask Is there a place to bathe on the ship? I got seawater in my crate earlier and now my joints feel a little …… uncomfortable.”

At the end of the sentence, the expression on Ms. Mannequin’s face was obviously a bit embarrassed, but in fact, the one who was more embarrassed than her should be Duncan instead – after all, her crate had been thrown off the ship by Duncan before.

And it had been thrown several times.

With a flash of embarrassment in his mind, Duncan tried to keep the expression on his face unchanged, his tone flat: “Just for this?”

Alice sat down in the chair in a formal manner, “Just …… for this.”

“For many ocean-going sea vessels, fresh water is an extremely valuable resource, and bathing is a luxury and something that requires restraint,” Duncan first spoke in a serious manner, but then a sudden smile appeared immediately afterward, “But you’re lucky that the Lost Country isn’t an ordinary ship, and fresh water isn’t a problem here. Follow me, there’s a bath in the cabin below the mid-deck, to get there you first have to cross to the upper deck.”

Alice immediately stood up – this place with the goat’s head on it was one she really didn’t want to be in for a second.

Duncan, for his part, glanced back at Goathead before leaving the room, “You stay at the helm.”

After giving his explanation, he then got up and pushed open the door of the captain’s room, leading Alice to the deck.

The night was low at the moment.

The night sky on the boundless sea was clear.

This was the first time Duncan stood under the clear night sky of this world after many days of continuous cloudiness.

He suddenly stopped and tilted his head back to look at the sky, staring motionlessly at the night sky.

The night sky was dark and starless, with no celestial bodies present.

The only thing that could be seen was a grayish-white “crack” that vaguely seemed to have torn through the entire sky, and that crack stretched across the sky, with its edges stretching out into thin cracks as if it were a bloom of flesh and blood, and a dull grayish-white halo slowly escaping outward from the cracks, just like a pool of deep water diffusing into a trail of blood.

This “pale scar” across the sky illuminated the entire Boundless Sea, more than twice as bright as the moonlight in Duncan’s memory.

(End of chapter)