Chapter 44: Breakfast for Ordinary People
Chapter 44 A Common Man’s Breakfast
The price of a copy of the Prenderian News was twelve pesos, the equivalent of a shabby breakfast, or one of the cheapest desserts in the cross neighborhoods – the paper could be purchased from a passing newsboy, or you could go the extra mile and buy a copy at the newsstand at the end of another street.
With a few coins in his pocket, Duncan purchased a copy of the local paper at the newsstand, where the owner, a middle-aged man who was buried in his reading, listened to Duncan’s movement as he dropped the coins into the box and then waved his hand to indicate that the paper was self-service, not even raising his head the entire time.
Duncan probed to see what the other man was reading, and found that it was a copy of the analysis of the past lottery, with all the unrealistic fantasies outlined in flowery lines.
He glanced down at the newspaper he’d just gotten, and on the front page of the paper was the news he was most interested in:
The honorable Church Guardian forces under the leadership of Inquisitor Vanna Wayne successfully smashed a Sun God cult meeting place and captured a large number of followers at the scene, as well as rescuing a number of citizens. ……
The picture of the “Lord Inquisitor” was printed on the side of the page, and to Duncan’s surprise, it was of a rather young woman, with a prominent scar over her left eye, but still a beautiful lady – she stood with her men, more evenly matched than each of the men around her. half a head taller on average than every man around her.
The Inquisitor was dressed in close-fitting and lightweight armor, a battle skirt, and carried a two-handed greatsword that seemed to have come out of the Cold War era, as if she were a valiant female knight in a medieval style of painting – however, behind this lady and a group of church guardians, a massive steam organ could be seen, and on that steam organ, one could even see a distinct turret Structure ……
A marvelous and bizarre painting style, contradictory yet harmonious.
Duncan’s eyes fell on this picture for a long time.
The news of the destruction of the cultist meeting point counted as good news to him, without worrying about the exposure of his identity, he could see the gang of villains who carried out living sacrifices being captured without any psychological pressure, while on the other hand, he was more concerned about all the intelligence revealed by this picture.
Female Inquisitors specializing in dealing with cultists, heavily armed steam-armored robots, church armed forces with both cold and hot weapons ……
Intelligence that was extremely difficult to obtain on the Lost Country was plainly visible inside civilization with only a twelve peso newspaper.
As Duncan had thought before – times had changed while the Lost Country was drifting blindly for a century.
Even if you don’t consider it from the crude perspective of “who can fight better than who”, the civilized society of mortals represented by the city-state of Prand has developed to a …… wonderful stage.
The intersection is not a good place to read the newspaper, Duncan casually rolled up the newspaper and then clamped it, he also remembered that there is a “niece” named Nina waiting for him at the antique store, so he took a step back.
A local with an inherent trust bonus was a much better source of information than wandering aimlessly around the city on his own.
As for the Lost Country side, Duncan wasn’t worried – even in his spirit-walking state, he could still clearly sense what was going on aboard the Lost Country, sense the state of his other body, with Goathead at the helm for him, and with Alice seemingly quite at peace, he should be able to operate on this side of the ship for a while longer.
Anyway, in the original Lost Country ship’s crew code, there was a statement that “the captain will occasionally leave the ship”, so it’s not a big deal for the captain to walk around in the spirit world for two days, right?
Moreover, with the continuation of spirit walking, Duncan felt that his control of this special “spiritual projection” was becoming more and more skillful, and perhaps soon he would be able to try to control both sides of his body at the same time – which would be even less worrying about the situation on the ship during his spirit walking. The situation on the ship during his spiritual walk would be even less worrying.
A sweet smell suddenly drifted over from the side, and Duncan subconsciously stopped and looked to the side, where he saw a cake store on the street, with freshly baked pastries being placed outside.
This was the lower city area of the Prandian city-state, naturally there were no high-grade dessert stores, but even some of the cheapest and shoddiest pastries made Duncan’s footsteps stop.
There were still a few coins in his pocket, adding up to less than twenty pesos, but it was still more than enough to buy a cake.
After a little hesitation, he made his way to the cake store and shelled out for a piece of the plainest beeswax cake – the wrapping material the store used to pack the cake was some sort of shoddy, thick paper that was gross to the touch.
Duncan walked towards the antique store with the paper and the cake in hand, but in an inexplicably cheerful mood.
Walking the streets, talking to people, buying things, returning to his place.
Something so simple, yet it created a feeling of being a world away – he almost savored the feeling of breathing on land and viewed these ordinary routines as if they were some sort of valuable life experience.
Life on the Lost Country was actually okay, Goathead was raucous but reliable, and Alice was an interesting fellow, but it wasn’t bad to experience life on land. It didn’t take long for Duncan to get back to the antique store, and he still glanced up at the sign on the store before pushing his way in – the Duncan’s Antiques row of letters was still silently emblazoned on it, with an aged quality that seemed as if it hadn’t changed in over a decade.
He pushed his way into the store, the clash of bells rang out crisply, followed by a rush of footsteps coming from the direction of the stairs.
The young girl with long brown hair ran down the stairs in a hurry and came to a sharp halt in front of the stairway again, holding onto the pillar next to her and staring wide-eyed at Duncan with a nervous and worried expression.
“Uncle Duncan, where have you been?” She spluttered, “You said you were going to the door to check it out, but as soon as you turned around you were gone …… I thought you had run off to the tavern or casino again ……”
Duncan looked at the girl in front of him with a bit of surprise, he could hear that the other was really nervous and worried about something.
She was worrying about a family member who was dependent on her and the only one left in the world – even if this family member was a rotten person who was addicted to alcohol and gambling, decadent and violent, and had a backstabbing of the cultist’s bloody business.
An indefinable feeling faintly welled up, but there was little change in the expression on his face, “I just went out for a walk and did some shopping on the way.”
While saying that, he walked towards the counter of the antique store and prepared to put the newspaper and cake on it, Nina, on the other hand, seemed to suddenly drop her heart and ran towards the upstairs again right after that, saying quickly while running, “Wait a while, uncle, I’ll bring down the breakfast – you must not have eaten breakfast again at this time of the day, right? I’ve cooked corn and beet soup ……”
Before Duncan had time to speak, Nina’s figure had disappeared up the stairs, and then after another moment she came down carefully carrying a large tray.
On the tray was a plain breakfast for two.
Duncan watched with a slightly dumbfounded expression as the girl bustled up and down the stairs, watching her skillfully clear a space on the counter and arrange the food before going to the side and moving an extra chair for herself ……
She was extraordinarily handy, and oozed a sense of glee that came from nowhere.
Duncan watched her as she went about her business, wanting to help but realizing he couldn’t get his hands dirty.
He’d dealt with a lot of young people this age, but he’d hardly ever seen a child as industrious and nimble as she was.
On Earth, she would have been just high school age, and even here, she looked like a student.
It occurred to Duncan that living with an “uncle” who had fallen into a cult wasn’t an easy thing to do – but this girl, Nina, seemed to have adapted to a life that wasn’t very fulfilling by any stretch of the imagination, and had found something to sustain her in life. and has found something to sustain her.
“Let’s eat,” Nina had everything ready by now, and she glanced at Duncan and spoke as if she’d said it a million times before, “Dr. Albert said that if you eat a regular breakfast and keep in a good mood, in the long run it’ll be better than hard liquor …… works better than painkillers.”
Duncan, however, didn’t say anything for a while, just quietly looking at Nina, before the other party’s expression was about to become constricted and tense, he took the cake that he had put aside earlier and opened the package and put it in front of Nina.
Nina’s eyes widened in surprise, looking at what was in front of her in confusion, “This is ……”
“Cake, from around the corner,” Duncan said casually, “You’re growing, eat something nutritious for breakfast.”
Nina, however, froze, she just stared blankly at the cheap pastry in front of her, and only after half a day, as if reacting, did she whisper almost to herself, “Are you really alright?”
“Of course I’m fine,” Duncan said with a rather natural expression, “It just suddenly occurred to me that I haven’t bought you a dessert in a long time.”
“Indeed, it’s been over a year ……,” Nina muttered, but then suddenly laughed immediately afterwards while picking up her dinner knife, “Then we’ll split it half and half, Dr. Albert said that you need something nutritious as well. ”
Duncan’s feeling was odd, but after a moment of silence he nodded.
“…… Good.”
(End of chapter)