Chapter 57: Chapter 57 The Timid Alice
The captain’s words were like the chilly night wind, piercing through the increasingly dim staircase. Alice instinctively hugged her arms and followed Duncan even closer behind. As they descended further, she finally understood what the captain meant by “the light is black.”
In the lower deck, there indeed was light—at least structurally and in layout, the compartments she saw had the same support columns, and on those columns hung oil lamps that never went out. The lamps were burning, but the flames seemed to cause the areas around the lamps to be darker than those farther away.
Yes, the closer one got to an oil lamp, the dimmer the light became, with the lamps themselves almost enveloped in shadows, faintly outlining their forms. Conversely, areas further from the oil lamps gradually brightened—the furthest corners of the ship’s cabin were almost as bright as those on the upper decks.
The stairwell had seemed particularly dim from above because there were two lamps hanging on either side—visually, it was as if these lights were actively emitting darkness, neutralizing and engulfing the cabin’s inherent brightness.
Alice stared at the overall darkness of the ship’s cabin and mumbled after a long while, “Does this… does this make any sense…?”
“You, an illogical automaton, are here talking to me about logic?” Duncan glanced at the visibly anxious Alice. “Beneath the sea level of the Endless Sea, it’s the very notion of logic that is the most illogical.”
While he spoke with an air of nonchalance, as if accustomed to these bizarre occurrences, his actual thoughts mirrored Alice’s exactly—even the spiritual body of the pigeon on his shoulder suddenly flapped its wings, echoing the sentiment: “Does it make any sense at all…?”
Duncan ignored the noise from the pigeon on his shoulder and instead carefully observed the ship’s cabin he had never set foot in before, adjusting the angle of the lantern in his hand, trying to discern the environment within the interplay of light and shadow.
Below the waterline of Homeloss… the lighting inside the cabin was “inverted.”
The fixtures seemed not to emit light but to absorb the existing light in the space, as if… some form of “world mirror.”
However, the ghostly glow emitted by the lantern in Duncan’s hand followed the normal rules of illumination: bright around the lantern, growing dimmer with distance.
Was there a principle behind this? Was it merely the influence of the Endless Sea or a mix that included Homeloss’s own traits? Was the cabin’s “bright environment” real? If those “light-absorbing” oil lamps were extinguished, would this become a bright place?
For a moment, Duncan actually harbored the bold thought of extinguishing the oil lamps of this deck to see what phenomenon would occur, but he abruptly suppressed this patently misguided notion the next instant.
He could not put out the lights here—even if it seemed that these lights were causing the entire cabin to darken, there must be a reason why they were lit!
Suddenly, he remembered something from Plunder City-State; the information he had obtained was that “burning flames can dispel strange dangers”—in that statement, it was actually the “flame” itself that had the effect, not the light it produced. Could this indicate that in certain conditions, the world’s light and dark could indeed become “inverted,” and under such inversion, the only trustworthy thing was the “flame” itself?
Could this also indirectly explain why the light emitted by “electric lamps” had no demon-repelling effect—because those emitted only light, lacking the “flame” element?
“Captain?” Alice’s voice suddenly came from the side, the automaton miss’s voice carried tension and concern, “Is there something abnormal here?”
“Nothing abnormal,” Duncan replied impassively while slowly stepping forward.
The “light-absorbing” oil lamps on the support columns burned quietly on either side, with various ropes scattered around the columns. As Duncan walked between them, the hanging oil lamps made slight crackling sounds, and the ropes on the ground slowly writhed backward, making way for the captain.
For some reason, a thought suddenly surfaced in Duncan’s mind:
Illusions of light and shadow are brought by the deep sea; below the unreliable sea level, only the flame itself remains faithfully guarding the treasures of Homeloss.
He looked towards the quietly burning lamps and nodded slightly, as if showing recognition and gratitude.
The next second, all the oil lamps in the ship’s cabin flared up visibly, with flames surging beneath each of the glass enclosures.
The entire cabin grew even darker…
Duncan: “…”
He suddenly regretted praising too soon and thought he should have waited until he was ready to return before stimulating the oil lamps.
Alice followed, the doll observing her surroundings carefully. She saw the large wooden barrels and some plank crates piled up in the corner of the cabin, as well as some sealed rooms and corridors leading to unknown places, muttering softly, “This looks like a storeroom too… Could this have once been a cargo ship?”
“If it were a cargo ship, the goods wouldn’t be stored so deep within—there’s a concept called transportation cost,” Duncan shook his head and said offhandedly, “These are all supplies for long ocean voyages, to be used by Homeloss herself during extended trips.”
Alice blinked, “Supplies for a long voyage?”
Duncan didn’t utter a word but moved forward to check some of the goods closest to him.
Some of the barrels contained a kind of grease, dark brown and viscous in texture yet without a strong smell, likely some form of fuel. But it had obviously been stored here for a very, very long time—Duncan even suspected these fuels were “stock” from before Homeloss became a ghost ship. They might have been intended for lighting or warding off evil, but once the ship turned into a ghost ship, many things in the cargo hold like these became useless.
In another set of barrels, Duncan saw something familiar.
Cheese older than himself, salted meat that could split rocks.
Duncan silently resealed the lids.
On this level, most of the space was filled with stockpiled supplies. Even though many of them now seemed superfluous aboard the current ghost ship, it was enough to confirm his previous judgment of Homeloss:
This ship, at least at the time of its construction, had been prepared for some kind of oceanic exploration. It could carry large amounts of supplies, and there were strict safety measures between the various supply storerooms to prevent the spread of fires or damage to provisions from pests or rodents.
Considering the large number of cannons on the upper deck and the sizably stocked ammunitions depot, he could nearly guess the kind of ambitious exploration dream Homeloss once harbored—the most remote of routes, the most perilous of journeys, facing the deadliest of environments and the most vicious of enemies. Such an expedition would require a full crew of loyal and excellent sailors, as well as a resolute and unwavering captain to complete.
However, now, this exploration plan that may have once existed had dissipated with the wind. The ambitious Homeloss had become the most terrifying natural disaster on the Endless Sea, with the sailors nowhere to be found, leaving only a ghost captain who still controlled this aimless Ghost Ship.
He and Alice continued moving forward, passing several independent storerooms and entering a corridor. If the layout of this level corresponded to the one above, then the staircase leading further down should be deep within this hallway.
“I feel… it’s getting more sinister…” The doll lady hugged her arms, looking around cautiously while speaking softly, “Did you hear that? The sound of wind? How could there be wind in the ship’s cabin?”
“I heard it, don’t be nervous, it’s normal,” Duncan replied casually, then glanced at the doll, “Why are you so timid? You have the designation ‘Abnormality 099,’ don’t you?”
As he spoke, he also thought of the information he had obtained from Nina before—in this world, there were many registers of “abnormalities” and “phenomena” open to the public. These registers helped people avoid everyday dangers or identify signs of out-of-control anomalies, but they were incomplete. Only those threats deemed controllable or of a special nature and closer to the general populace were made public. Abnormalities and phenomena that ordinary people had no chance of encountering were clearly not included.
He had tried to inquire about Abnormality 099 from Nina, but the girl had never seen this designation in her textbooks.
This implied that this “Cursed Doll” either had a special secret, serious enough to be suppressed by the authorities and the Church, or… her danger level was so high that she was always strictly isolated from civilized society, thus never interacting with the general population.
Either reason was sufficient to add a hint of mystery to Miss Doll in Duncan’s eyes.
Yet this doll, shrouded in enigma, merely shrank her neck upon hearing Duncan’s words, with a look of nervousness: “Just because I have a designation doesn’t mean I’m brave. I’m Abnormality 099, not Courage 099…”
Duncan sighed. He thought to himself that this creature must be the most embarrassing abnormality in this world. It’s a wonder those sailors who escorted her before were so nervous…