Chapter 45: Chapter 45 History
This feeling was quite wondrous.
Duncan could distinctly sense things happening far away—he could feel the Homeloss drifting on the Endless Sea, the living Ghost Ship constantly charting new courses under the control of a goat-headed figure, a cursed puppet with a not-very-sturdy head wandering around the ship’s cabin as if familiarizing itself with the environment like an explorer, the deep, dark sea undulating around him, concealing countless bizarre creatures within.
However, in his other line of sight, he was sitting in an antique shop in the Lower City District of Plunder City-State, the voices of people and the sounds of vehicles coming in from the streets, which only seemed to highlight the quietness inside the shop, where a human girl named Nina was sitting opposite him, nibbling on the district’s cheapest cake.
He was Captain Duncan, the ruler of the Homeloss, the moving disaster of the Endless Sea—yet he sat here like an ordinary person, eating his breakfast, immersed in the tranquil depths of the city life.
Whether it was an illusion or not, he felt that a part of his heart, constantly suspended and uneasy, was settling down bit by bit. It might have been the nerves stretched tight on the Ghost Ship, or something else entirely, but he felt that, either way, it wasn’t a bad thing.
Noticing the gaze coming from beside her, Nina, who was eating her cake, suddenly looked up. She curiously glanced at Duncan, “Uncle Duncan, aren’t you eating?”
Duncan glanced at the food on her plate, “Is that enough for you?”
“Yes, eating too much sweets isn’t good.”
“Mm.”
Duncan nodded and took a bite of the cake, savouring the rich flavor he hadn’t tasted in a long time, feeling the crude sweetness slowly dissolve in his mouth—then, he distinctly perceived this body beginning to process the food he had eaten.
His heart settled a little more, knowing things were as he had expected.
This body was more “user-friendly” than the first he had temporarily occupied—their “parts” were complete and intact, the death hadn’t been long, and his soul had almost seamlessly restarted the body’s vitality, completely different from the previous, open-hearted corpse.
He now had breath, his blood was circulating, and his heart also beat—although the pace seemed a bit slow, it was probably still within the range of normal people.
He need not worry about the body’s decay any longer, nor about making calculations for immersing in preservatives, and in this way, it was also less likely that he would be exposed in front of ordinary people.
However, there was one thing Duncan was still uncertain about.
He knew that this body must have been diseased—within the memories he had devoured, the negative impression of being plagued by chronic illness was deeper than all others, and the strong spirits and painkillers he had found in the cupboard were clear proof of that.
He didn’t know exactly what illness the body had suffered from before, because the memories related to the time and trigger of the illness seemed to be from long ago and were quite blurred. But one thing was clear: at this moment, apart from the sense of weakness imparted by a normal human constitution, he did not feel any other ailments in this body.
Had the disease disappeared? Had the body self-healed because of wandering in the Spirit Realm? Or was the soul that had projected here ultimately limited in perception, so much so that he actually could not feel the body’s issues, and the body’s health was actually still deteriorating?
Duncan pondered while quietly continuing his meal, then suddenly looked over at Nina across from him, eating, “Don’t you have to go to school today?”
Nina lived in the Lower City District, not well off economically, but the Plunder City-State had clearly developed to a stage where basic education was fairly widespread. She was currently attending a school jointly operated by the church and the city hall, specializing in steam mechanics—a type of “vocational high school,” mainly aiming to supply skilled Steam Artisans to factories and churches.
Nina’s tuition was half paid by her uncle, with the other half covered by a stipend from the city hall.
For a city-state in the industrial era, training such craftsmen, even with government subsidies, was a very worthwhile endeavor—and it was undeniable that such purpose-driven schools had at least solved the problem of literacy for the common people.
Nina was studious, with the uncle’s memory indicating that the girl had good results in all her courses.
“I don’t have classes this morning,” Nina nodded, “just two history classes in the afternoon. Also, I need to tell Mrs. White this afternoon that I won’t be staying in the dormitory these next few days…”
Duncan suddenly ceased the task at hand and looked at Nina seriously, asking, “Don’t you think staying here to take care of someone like me would hold you back from many things? Living at the school for a long time might be more helpful for your studies.”
Nina was startled, her gaze towards her “Uncle Duncan” somewhat blank before she suddenly became upset, “You shouldn’t talk like that! You’re just sick, all you have to do is take your medicine honestly according to the doctor’s advice——my parents entrusted you to me…”
“It was your parents who entrusted you to me,” Duncan corrected earnestly, using the memories in his mind to organize his language before speaking, “You were only six years old at that time.”
“But now I’m seventeen,” Nina puffed her cheeks and stabbed her fork forcefully into the last small piece of cake, “Your ability to take care of yourself is even worse than mine——if I really moved out, it wouldn’t take you three days to turn the room into a complete mess. In fact, you could let me help manage the shop, at least with cleaning, the windows are so dirty they are almost impossible to see through…”
Duncan listened somewhat helplessly to the girl’s endless preaching, he hadn’t expected his offhand “test” to elicit such a strong reaction from her.
But gradually, he couldn’t help but smile.
From this girl named “Nina,” he felt a warmth… a cozy warmth, as if basking in sunlight.
“Alright, I was just speaking off the cuff,” he shook his head while stirring the last bit of soup in his bowl, “The afternoon is history class… how are you doing in history recently?”
“Uncle Duncan, are you really okay?” Nina asked, her eyes wide with surprise, “You never…well, at least for the past two years, you have never asked about my school.”
Duncan opened his mouth to say something, but the girl across from him continued on her own, “We’ve been talking about ancient history recently, Mr. Morris has been teaching us about the events after the Great Annihilation… Honestly, it’s quite interesting, ancient history sounds like it has a lot of parts that are like stories, far more interesting than modern and contemporary history.”
Duncan thought for a moment, looking serious, “You sound like you’re learning well? Then I will test you, what is the related concept of the Great Annihilation?”
Today’s Uncle Duncan was strange, although she couldn’t quite place what was strange, he was different from usual.
But Nina didn’t think too much about it——compared to her uncle’s slightly strange behavior, this simple young lady was happier that Uncle Duncan had finally perked up and seemed to be in a good mood.
She was delighted that Uncle Duncan’s question was exactly what she had just mastered.
So, with a proud smile, she began to recount the knowledge she had just learned to Duncan:
“The Great Annihilation happened about ten thousand years ago——although for unknown reasons, culturally distinctive minorities like the elves, Senkin people, and Gyplo people record inconsistent times in their own calendars, but generally speaking, the archaeological community acknowledges the Great Annihilation as taking place at the end of the Order Era ten thousand years ago…”
Duncan listened with a calm expression.
Inside, his mind was full of question marks.
Elves? Senkin people? Gyplo people? What is going on here? Are there intelligent groups other than humans on the land? And elves… is this the same concept as the “elves” in his understanding? Are there still elves city-states living in the era of steam industry in the Endless Sea?
Some very strange images involuntarily emerged in his mind, while Nina’s voice continued to come from the other side:
“…Different city-states have varying records of the Great Annihilation, but what they hold in common is that the era before the Great Annihilation, the Order Era, was far more prosperous, stable, and safe, with vast continents and seas not as boundless as they are today, and both the sea and land lacked so-called ‘border of reality’…
“The era after the Great Annihilation is called the ‘Deep Sea Era,’ which has continued up to the present and shows no signs of ending. The most notable feature of the Deep Sea Era is the Endless Sea covering almost the entire world, with land making up less than ten percent of the old world, split into large and small islands or ‘fog-enshrouded realms.’ Today’s various city-states are established on relatively stable islands, and different ocean-going vessels serve as the means of communication and exchange between the islands.
“In the early days of the Deep Sea Era, the survivors of the old world suffered severe setbacks, and the old civilization was almost completely destroyed. The ‘Ancient Crete Kingdom’ that first rose from the ruins is considered the earliest civilization progenitor of the Deep Sea Era that can be traced back to our time, and although it lasted less than a hundred years, it left behind a legacy of profound influence on future generations. This includes the most primitive and rudimentary classification of the anomalies and phenomena of the Deep Sea Era, as well as a wealth of valuable experience for surviving in the Deep Sea Era…”