Chapter 503 – Going South
Chapter 503: Going South
An odd word that he had never heard before reached his ears, and its mysterious, raw pronunciation didn’t even resemble any of the languages Tirion knew.
He looked down at the document in dismay, looking at the picture of the “Stone Sphere” painted with precise strokes, and looked up only after a long time: “Father? What did you just say? ‘Moon’ …… is the name of this thing? You recognize this mysterious sphere?!”
Duncan, however, as if he didn’t hear it, was still staring at the image of the moon on that piece of paper that made him extraordinarily familiar with it, until Tirion asked twice in succession, then he seemed to wake up and looked at Tirion and spoke quickly, “You mentioned Lucrecia just now, what’s going on?”
“Eh …… this is the information she sent from the Radiant Star ship,” Tirian hesitantly spoke, his father’s unusual reaction made him feel uneasy, but under the gaze of that doubly pressurized gaze, he still told him what he knew and told him. “Some time ago, a mysterious glowing object fell from the border region, just in time to be discovered by Lucy, she’s been working on that thing for a while now, and this odd sphere is the ‘core’ of that falling object …… “
Tirion narrated the whole incident, including the current judgment of the scholars of Light Wind Harbor on “the falling object came from Vision 001” and the progress of their research on the “stone sphere” at this stage. -As well as all the difficulties they have encountered, all of them were told.
In the process of his narration, Duncan did not interrupt once, the latter only with a kind of pressure to make Tirion feel the pressure of a strange serious attitude of silence quietly listening, as if to carve every word deeply in his mind, and each word is broken apart, crumbled, and repeatedly dissected a thousand times.
After ten minutes or so there was silence once more in the domed office.
Duncan was silent for a long time, finally exhaling softly before the air all but grew solid, “Why didn’t you mention this to me before?”
“…… Lucy wanted to contact you after some progress had been made in the research, and more importantly …… it was during the Frost Crisis.”
After a few more moments, Duncan felt his thumping heart slowly calm down, and listening to Tirion’s words, he finally nodded softly, “This is in Lightwind Harbor right now, isn’t it?”
“Er …… yes,” Tirian hurriedly nodded his head, he felt his lips drying up a little while focusing more and more nervously on his father’s change of expression, after hesitating several times he couldn’t help but ask again, “Do you recognize this mysterious sphere?”
“…… It’s called the Moon, or at least the look of it is, but the Moon I know of is not ten meters in diameter, much less floating on the surface of the sea and being towed back to the city-state by a ship with steel cables,” Duncan said slowly, “Maybe it’s just some sort of imitation of a shape of a man-made object, or maybe it’s just the ancient kingdom of Crete ……”
He stopped in mid-sentence, a great sense of ambivalence and the clash of ideas in his head preventing him from explaining this with any kind of conjecture – in any case, there was no doubt that the picture in Tirion’s hand was indeed the “Moon”, and no matter what Lucrezia had said about it, he had no idea that it was the “Moon”, and no matter what Lucrezia had said about it, he had no idea what it was. And no matter if the “stone ball” Lucrecia found at sea was a real “moon” or an “artificial flying object” created by the Cretaceous Kingdom in imitation of the moon, there was one question. “One question remained:
Why did the familiar image of the “moon” appear here? Why did it appear in this strange and twisted “other world”?
In the midst of his thoughts, he frowned at Tirion: “Did you just say that the scholars of Light Wind Harbor have determined that the mysterious luminous body was detached from the rune ring of Vision 001?”
“Yes, they have visually confirmed the form of the gaping hole in the sun’s rune ring,” Tirian said, followed by a question, “You said it was called a ‘moon’ . . and what exactly is a moon?”
“The Moon ……” Duncan hesitated for a moment, suddenly realizing that he didn’t have the right words to explain such a simple name to Tyrian, and after half a day’s thought could only venture, ” …… It is a planet.”
When Tirian heard this, the confusion on his face instead grew more pronounced, “What’s a planet?”
Duncan fell silent.
It was a long time before he heard Tirian’s voice again, “Is that a taboo question? Am I asking too much?”
“No, it is not taboo, it …… should have been one of the simplest questions, but I have no way to explain it to you,” Duncan gently shook his head and looked across the mirror with a complicated look, “I’m sorry, Tirian, the question has a simple answer, but getting you to understand it is the greatest difficulty of all.”
Tirian was a little stunned.
He looked at his father in the mirror with a complex and apologetic expression, and in a trance he felt …… that this scene seemed to have happened a long, long time ago, in the depths of that long, hazy memory, in some faded afternoon ……
On that day he had stood for the last time on the deck of the Lost Country with Lucrecia, asking his father, who had made up his mind to cross the border – what lay beyond the border.
In those days, his father’s response had been exactly the same as it was now.
It was the look of knowing some extremely simple truth, but not knowing how to explain it to someone.
Just then, Duncan’s voice suddenly came from the mirror, interrupting Tirion’s gradually sinking memories, “I’ve changed my plans, next, the Lost Country will be heading to Lightwind Harbor.”
Unexpectedly – Tirion knew this was how things would turn out when his father reacted the way he did when confronted with the sphere known as the “Moon”.
“I understand, I will explain the situation to Lucy.”
……
Nina looked worriedly at Duncan, who was standing on the far edge of the deck looking out to sea, and was stopped by Alice as she passed by.
“What’s going on with Uncle Duncan?” Nina lowered her voice, “He’s been looking off into the distance since just now, and he looks like he has a lot on his mind ……”
“I don’t know,” Alice looked up and shook her head with a blank expression, “The Captain’s been like that since he came out of the Captain’s cabin, he said he had to think about something ……”
“Thinking about something?” Nina blinked in confusion, “Did something happen?”
Alice nodded as she thoughtfully recalled, “He was in contact with Tirian coming in, but I don’t know what all they said.”
“Mr. Tirian?” Nina froze, and then immediately began to use her full imagination, an odd expression growing on her face, “Is it because Mr. Tirian never gets married?”
Alice looked confused, “Huh? What does that mean?” Nina thought for a moment and began to analyze solemnly, “I heard from Mr. Morris, he is constantly worried about Miss Heidi’s marriage, and Mr. Tirion is older than Miss Heidi, so by the same token the captain must be more worried about this ……”
Alice was bluffed and nodded her head sparingly, “So that’s it!”
No sooner had the words fallen from her side than Duncan’s voice suddenly came from beside the two, “You’ve almost got it – Nina, no teasing Alice like that, she’ll take it seriously.”
“Whoa!” Nina was instantly startled, only then noticing that Uncle Duncan had come next to her at some point, she hurriedly craned her neck and stood obediently.
Alice, on the other hand, scratched her hair in a bit of confusion and looked at Nina quizzically, “Were you just teasing me?”
“…… Anyway, don’t take what she just said seriously,” Duncan said helplessly, then his gaze fell on Nina, “Don’t worry, nothing happened.”
Nina spat out her tongue, but then showed a somewhat worried look, “Uncle Duncan, what’s going on? You’re rarely as preoccupied as this ……”
Duncan did not know how to answer this girl’s question for a while, what came to his mind was still the picture he saw in Tirion’s office, as well as the strange object Lucrecia “picked up” at sea.
Moon ……
He raised his hand and pinched his somewhat distended brow, but in the next second, his movements suddenly stopped, and he turned to look at the girl in front of him with a fixed gaze.
Nina stood there obediently with a slightly worried expression on her face.
Duncan looked at her, at the still, gentle, well-behaved little Helion, and underneath that shell of a young human girl, it was as if he could see directly into the brilliant arc of light that had been left behind in the wake of the shattering of the star, into the plasma heat streams that had once spewed out into the cosmic void with dazzling intensity ……
The tiny day-old tilted his head and reached forward, stroking Duncan’s furrowed brow as if trying to smooth out those deep furrows, “Uncle Duncan, are you really all right?”
Duncan didn’t say anything, just gently grabbed Nina’s hand and pressed it to his forehead, then exhaled slowly.
He once again understood something, behind the heavy curtain, the world once again revealed to him the corner of the “truth”, but this corner of the truth, he had no one to share.
“Don’t worry, Nina, everything’s fine,” he said slowly, gradually regaining his usual appearance, “I’ve run into some difficulties, but it’s hard to explain them to you at the moment, so when I’ve solved them, I’ll tell you properly.”
Nina listened in stunned silence, then nodded vigorously, “Uh-huh.”
“Very well, then return to your cabin, it’s time for us to depart – but before we do, we need to make a detour to the Sea Mist Fleet’s quarters, we need to pick up something for Tirian ……”
……
Frost City State, inside the Consul’s domed office.
Accompanied by a slight buzzing sound, the crystal ball gradually lit up, and the figure of the “Witch of the Sea” gradually became clearer in the shimmering light.
“Brother?” Lucrecia looked over curiously, “Are you done over there? Did it go well?”
“If you’re talking about the inauguration ceremony, it was over in the morning, everything went well,” Tirian said, his face growing a bit complicated, “But I was looking for you for something else.”
Lucrecia frowned, “Something else?”
“Two things,” Tirian hesitated and spoke while deliberating, “First, I’ve already prepared the Spirit Realm Lens you asked for, and through the legal channels of the city-state, I’ve gotten you the best quality and most accurate lens device at the moment.”
In the crystal ball, Lucrecia’s face instantly showed a happy look, “Ah, that’s great! Brother, you’re still quite reliable! What about the second thing?”
“…… The second thing, guess who went to deliver the lens to you?”
“Was it a transport ship under you?”
Tirian didn’t say anything.
Lucrecia’s expression finally faded, “…… It’s a transport ship under you, isn’t it?”
Tirian still didn’t say anything.
Lucrecia responded.
“…… Dad?”
“Yeah.”
(End of chapter)