Chapter 614 – The Ship and the First Mate

Chapter 614 The Ship and the First Mate
At the edge of the chart table, the silent, dark, carved wooden goat’s head had been gazing at Duncan in silence-a wordless gaze that was decidedly more squirm-inducing than the raucousness of the other goat’s head.

Duncan finally couldn’t ignore the other’s gaze and had to look up from his thoughts to ask, “Why do you keep staring at me?”

“I thought you were going to go ‘helm’ again, like last time,” Goathead said slowly, “and it felt …… marvelous. ”

Duncan raised his eyebrows and sounded a little surprised, “You expect me to go to the helm again?”

“I don’t know, I just felt that it was incredible,” Goathead mused, more than a little uncertainty in his tone, “I can feel this ‘ship’ and I understand every part of it, but I don’t know how to communicate with it to communicate …… It seems to be an old friend of mine, but I forget about it, so it just ignores me, and on the last occasion, when you went to the aft deck to take hold of that steering wheel …… I thought I heard its voice. ”

“Oh? You heard ‘it’? What kind of sound was it?”

Duncan immediately revealed a curious expression, because the last time he left in a hurry, he didn’t have time to listen to this goat-head talk about this aspect, now that the other party reminded him of this, he immediately realized that he had overlooked this issue – when he went to the helm, the goat-head in the real world woke up with a start, so this goat-head that was located on the side of the dream world What about the goathead on the other side of the dream? How did it react then?
The goat’s head was silent for a while, seemingly recalling, after nearly half a minute before slowly speaking: “Rather than a voice, it was more like something that appeared directly in my memory, it seemed to be calling out to me, reminding me not to forget the contract with the ‘Captain ‘ contract, reminding me not to go AWOL …… I also saw some images and saw ……”

It stopped abruptly, as if its half-asleep state was affecting its thinking, making it unable to organize the right words to describe the things it remembered, or as if it had once again fallen into that state of halted thinking, forgetting the topic at hand.

Duncan had to remind it from the sidelines, “What did you see? Is it an image of this ship?”

“Oh, yes, it’s this ship, but I don’t seem to be on it ……”

“You’re not on the ship?”

“I was in a very dark place, hollow …… everywhere, empty and chaotic, and a shadow floated by, the shadow of this ship, but it looked as if it would soon dissipate, and another vague voice spoke to me, and I can’t remember what the voice said, but the owner of the voice took something from me, and then again the shadow became solid ……”

The goat’s head spoke in a dreamy tone, slow and topsy-turvy, its words punctuated by turns and interruptions that lacked logic, like an already chaotic dream displaying its own glowing, ever-flashing scenes unadorned.

Goathead paused for another ten seconds or so before picking up the last sentence, “…… And so I became part of the shadow, and that seemed a long, long time ago, but the ship seemed to remember …… Strange, is it that it remembers, or do I?”

The goathead seemed to be in a daze again, muttering and muttering his voice became lower and lower, finally turning into a completely inaudible mumble, Duncan’s eyes gradually changed after a moment of thought, but he sat down behind the nautical table, his expression had become a bit stony.

The description of the goat’s head was upside down and wrong, with many details missing and vague, but that didn’t mean that there wasn’t any useful information in it – from those statements, Duncan could completely deduce and associate many things!

What it tells …… seems to be a scene from a hundred years ago, when the Lost Country and the real Captain Duncan Ebnomar took it from subspace!
On the other side of the real world, Duncan had also side-stepped and asked another goathead about this matter, but the latter had answered vaguely several times, seeming to have forgotten what had happened a century ago, and now it appeared that this piece of information had actually stayed in the memories of the goathead in this dream world? Or according to the goat head, it was the “Lost Country” that remembered this incident?

Duncan looked at the goathead, who had become silent again, and then looked up at the captain’s cabin.

This is the goat head’s dream world, and the general sense of the dream world, is the dreamer’s “subconscious projection”.

But just now, Duncan suddenly realized something.

This ship may not just be a dream of the goat’s head – the Lost Country, is also alive!
The century-long “symbiosis” had closely connected Goathead and the Lost Country, and this connection was not only reflected in the physical structure, but also in the spirit – the latter was a living ship, even though many of the ship’s ” The latter is a living ship, although many of the ship’s “objects” seem to have only the most basic activity, but as a whole, as the Lost Country …… its “consciousness” may be far more complex and complete than one’s own imagination.

Complete enough to participate in this dream in an unimaginable way.

Duncan slowly placed his hand on the chart table in front of him, he gazed at it for a long time, as if he was looking at the entire Lost Country through this table, he thought about the information revealed by the description of the goat head, his fingers unconsciously rubbed the rough tabletop— “You want to take advantage of this?

“Are you trying to take this opportunity to tell me something?” He inquired mentally.

But he received no response.

Perhaps the Lost Country’s “consciousness” was a state he couldn’t understand, and it might have responded – but no one could.

Duncan pondered what Goathead had just said.

It said that it had floated in a dark, empty place, surrounded by nothingness and chaos, which is very consistent with the characteristics of subspace, and it also said that the Lost Country appeared in front of it, and it looked like a phantom that was about to be dissipated …… That was the state of the Lost Country when it first met the goathead?
Dissolving …… That is to say, when the Lost Country had just crashed into subspace, it was actually in a very bad state, even so bad that it had lost its entity, and in a sense, the ship had even been erased from subspace at that point – leaving behind only a blurry voice of Duncan Abnormale.

Then, the owner of the voice took something from the Goathead, and the phantom of the Lost Country regained its physical form. …… This “something” is the key!

Duncan’s eyes were suddenly heavy, and then he remembered what Goathead had said at the beginning – the Lost Country had reminded it not to forget its “contract” with the captain. There was a contract! A contract between Goathead and Duncan Abnormale!
What was the content of the contract? What did they agree to when they met in subspace a hundred years ago?
Duncan Ebnomar took something from Goathead to remake the entity of the Lost Country, and the Lost Country took Goathead out of subspace and into a stable dimension of reality ……

This should all be part of the contract.

But what happens after that?

Duncan Abnormale didn’t live until now, he has already disappeared, in this powerful body, is now a soul named “Zhou Ming”.

The goat head in the real world …… obviously already knew the change of the “captain”.

But it still diligently performed the duties of a first mate.

This is also the content of the contract?

The goat head in the real world said it didn’t remember its own experience in subspace, so …… does it still remember this contract? Or is it that it has also forgotten the contract, but some kind of “restriction” is still in effect, so that it has to continue to fulfill the agreement ……

The thoughts in Duncan’s mind were spinning rapidly, and after a few moments, he suddenly got up.

The goat’s head on the table did not react to this, nor did it follow Duncan’s movements as it had done before.

It seemed to be still immersed in that half-asleep, half-awake state of bewilderment – the previous memories and thoughts had already exceeded a certain “threshold of thought” for it.

Duncan ignored the goat head, knowing that it would recover after a while – he had more important things on his mind right now.

He left the captain’s cabin, stepped onto the stairs leading to the aft deck, and followed the familiar route to the bridge that housed the wheel.

With the experience of the last time, and the preparation for this one, Duncan didn’t hesitate for anything longer; he quickly took a few steps forward and tightened his grip on the heavy tiller wheel.

The next moment, the ship was “revitalized” by the captain’s steering.

Familiar scene appeared in front of us again, the huge ghost ship in the rapid awakening, all parts of the ship are coming from the activation of the movement of the items, the halyard in the taut, the sails in the drumming, the cable and the winch in the squeaking and rattling – and that huge, as if some kind of enough to accommodate a huge ship “root tunnel” is also almost the same time, as well as the “root tunnel”. Tunnel” also appeared in front of the Lost Country at almost the same time, and came like a huge whirlpool.

Countless branches, roots, and phantom light in the mist filled Duncan’s vision, encircling the Lost Country’s forward direction, and once again the warm streams of light climbed up onto the deck, wandering aimlessly around the bridge.

“Sasloca, is that you?”

A slightly childish voice reached Duncan’s ears as the streams of light roamed around him as if searching for something, yet as if they were simply just sleepwalking.

“…… Sasloca won’t be coming.”

Despite knowing that Silentis couldn’t hear him now, Duncan replied with all seriousness, then he ignored the phantom lights that were wandering around him, and gave his full attention to the ship at his feet.

The Lost Country was sailing through the darkness, moving quickly through the massive “root tunnel”, which occasionally had the appearance of a fork in the road, but the ship chose its own course as if it knew the path itself, and did not need the captain’s control to do so.

Duncan only needed to hold the wheel.

He was also able to focus more on his senses.

If the situation was what he thought it was, if this ship was both a goathead’s dream and the Lost Country’s dream, then …… somewhere on this ship there must exist something that was not quite the same as the Lost Country that was in reality today.

That’s the subconscious tinkering with the dream, a memory flashback.

It was the Lost Country ship trying to exhibit something to itself.

(End of chapter)