Deep Sea Embers

Duncan strolled to the edge of the White Oak's deck and looked down at the sea below.

At this moment, both the White Oak and the Lost Country have withdrawn from the spirit world. On the normal calm blue sea, the water around the White Oak is as clear as a mirror, while the Black Oak shrouded in fog and darkness is reflected like a shadow on the surface. In the water, in the depths of the dark shadow of the ship, faint lights lit up.

After a long time, Duncan looked back at the sea, and said softly with a trace of exclamation: "Interesting phenomenon, Lawrence, you have experienced an incredible adventure."

"Indeed...it's unbelievable," Lawrence stood aside, and replied with a respectful and cautious attitude, "I have lived in this sea for decades, and I have seen many unimaginable things, but Frost's experience this time Still better than ever, but anyway, I got Martha back and it was all worth the risk."

"Your wife, Martha—what's the state of her now? How did the two ships under your respective control establish the connection?"

"She and her Black Oak are now equivalent to the shadow of the White Oak," Lawrence replied honestly, "As you can see, she is on the reflected ship, but when the situation requires, the Black Oak It is also possible to enter the real world in the form of a phantom, sailing with the White Oak, or having the two ships reversed in light and shadow, in which case we can sail deep in the spiritual world and avoid the obstacles of the real world-in We did this once when we were going through a war zone around Frost, and it worked out pretty well."

"Is this what your wife told you? I mean, these... techniques."

"Yes," Lawrence nodded, "Martha has been wandering in the mirrored space under the frosty sea for more than ten years. She knows many things. In the previous operations, she was our guide."

Duncan didn't speak for a while, just quietly looking at the reflection below. After a long time, he suddenly broke the silence: "Can I have a chat with her alone?"

Lawrence was stunned for a moment, a trace of surprise appeared on his expression, followed by nervousness and hesitation: "This... May I ask you..."

"Don't worry, I just need to understand each of my subordinates. The Black Oak is indeed a bit weird, but in this sea, there is no ship that is more weird than the Lost Homeland. I am very tolerant in this regard-- premise Yes, there can be no secrets on the Black Oak."

Lawrence was slightly relieved at this moment. Although he still hesitated, he still nodded: "Okay, I will make arrangements and tell Martha by the way."

Duncan nodded slightly, then turned his head and glanced not far away.

Alice and the "sailor" were squatting on the deck over there, and the two "people" were enthusiastically playing with a small wooden stick that they caught from nowhere. ——

Alice thinks no, because she can't see the thread on the worm's body, and the "sailor" insists that there is, because he heard that there will be worms in Bartok's garden, and he even thinks there will be ones as big as worms" The "little gatekeeper" is responsible for taking the souls of dead mosquitoes to the resting place in summer, and going to bite those buried in June and July...

Both "people" were taken aback by each other.

This scene is like two mentally retarded people.

If you look at it more than once, you will feel that your brain is being polluted.

Duncan silently watched the undisturbed scene on the deck, and Lawrence next to him also watched silently. After a long time, Duncan shook his head: "Let them play."

"...I think so, it's better than continuing to hang on the flagpole and howl."

...

Soon, Lawrence ordered someone to prepare an undisturbed room on the White Oak, and set up a huge mirror in the room.

After the irrelevant personnel left, Duncan turned around and stared quietly at the one-person-high mirror.

"I want to talk to you," he said to the mirror.

In the next second, the mirror surface became pitch black, as if a thick ink-like fluid suddenly covered the entire mirror surface, and in the depths of the darkness, a group of expanding and contracting shadows gradually formed an outline.

A woman in a white shirt, brown vest, and trousers stepped out of the shrinking shadows.

"I heard from Lawrence that you want to talk to me alone," the lady came to the mirror and calmly responded to Duncan's gaze. "It seems...you noticed it."

"There are too many impurities, and the overlapping shadows cover the details that do not belong to the Black Oak, but this is not enough to hide my flame," Duncan said slowly, and then reached out and grabbed a chair from the side. Above, looking at the figure in the mirror—and the huge darkness behind it, entangled like some kind of phantom curtain, "How much is 'Martha'?"

"... less than one-thousandth."

"One thousandth, a very small number," Duncan stared at the other party, and the huge and chaotic "hybrid body" also met his gaze calmly, "Even so, you still consider yourself Martha, and you look ...you really have an 'identity' with this identity."

"Because 'Martha' is the only one with a complete personality," replied the "female adventurer" in the mirror, "without the support of personality, memory is a pale tome, flipping through them is not enough to form a 'self', huge and muddled My memory was reorganized countless times in blind disorder, and in the end, I thought that 'Martha' was the only 'representative' who could manage it all - I needed to be Martha, Martha needed to exist."

"So, you're a hybrid, and you've mixed far more than you've told Lawrence, and a fair amount of the mind that's been in that sea for the past fifty years has flowed into you 'inside', or something else It is said... that you devoured those minds?"

"Swallowing... This is a very offensive statement, but I don't think so. I have never swallowed anything, and I am not interested in the soul. It is the huge power deep in the mirror space that swallows everything, and the formation of Those "memories" of mine are just the residue left after being crushed by that huge force. The small tributaries will converge together, like dust condensed into a ball. I did not exist before those fragments, but those fragments Condensed into me—Martha, just a ghost awakened from the fragments, belatedly assuming the role of Groomer."

"The residue left after crushing..." Duncan frowned, "Why wasn't Martha crushed?"

"Because Lawrence came to this sea area," the female adventurer in the mirror smiled, "He is favored by you, so Martha is also favored by you."

Duncan didn't speak. He fell into a long thought. After a long time, he broke the silence thoughtfully: "The world in the mirror is not continuous..."

"Yes, the world in the mirror is discontinuous, not continuous in space, not continuous in time—the end was born before the beginning, you created Martha, and Martha is now answering your questions."

Duncan breathed a sigh of relief.

"A huge mixture of data... This can explain why you know so many things," he pulled the topic back, "not only because you have wandered in that mirror space for long enough, but also because you have contained Enough 'memory'... So back to the topic at the beginning, is less than one thousandth of 'Martha' really enough to support your stable personality and allow you to maintain your current self-cognition forever? Yes There won't be a day when your personality of the 'Sorcerer' will be submerged in the vast sea of ​​memories, will you forget your name and become a chaotic, huge, dangerous dead soul?"

The female adventurer raised her eyes. With a calm expression, she seemed to muster up a lot of courage: "Like you once?"

"No, I went farther than you back then. The subspace is a deeper and darker place than the mirror world—so I was more dangerous than you at that time," Duncan didn't care about the other party's bold speech, but maintained As always, with a calm tone, "So, I understand better how much harm an out-of-control revenant can cause—even if this revenant is a little 'safer' than I was before."

The female adventurer in the mirror fell silent for a moment.

After a long time, she suddenly said: "Do you think I can be counted as 'Martha' now?"

Duncan thought for a few seconds.

For this huge and heterogeneous mixture, Martha is only one thousandth of it, but for the personality who recognizes herself as "Martha", what is contained in this mixture is 100% of her.

"Who" is this huge mixture, and what kind of state will its future personality be in? No doubt it exists.

Duncan fell into a momentary hesitation, but at the moment when this hesitation just appeared, a scene that seemed real and illusory suddenly appeared in his mind——

The sea breeze is gentle and the waves are gentle.

He stood on the surface of the water, and blue waves spread under his feet.

There are fish jumping out of the water, and in the bright sunlight, the fish swim in the surrounding air, circling leisurely.

He lowered his head and looked at his feet.

The slowly rippling water surface looks clear and transparent, but its depths seem to be shrouded in mist, making it hard to see through.

Something new jumped out of the water, cruising around him.

They are fish.

Duncan woke up suddenly and looked at the mirror in front of him.

The shadow in the mirror shrinks and squirms, as if waiting for an answer.

"...Ms. Martha," Duncan finally broke the silence after a long time, "Welcome to the Lost Fleet."

The turbulent darkness that was full of chaos and chaos, without any tangible outline at all, shrank suddenly, and turned into a female adventurer in a white shirt, brown vest and trousers again.

The complex shadow behind her has calmed down.

At the same time, on the deck of the White Oak, Lawrence, who was watching the puppet Alice and the mummy "sailor" poking bugs like a temporary guardian, also looked down at his body in doubt.

Those green flames that were rising and spreading uncontrollably are rapidly converging, and the body that has been passively maintaining the ghost form since three days ago is also recovering rapidly, and in his perception, those that are activated from time to time for inexplicable reasons For the first time, it seemed that the "ghost fire" had truly found peace and become a controllable part of his body.

It seems that some kind of "stimulus" that caused the frequent passive activation of the spirit body fire has suddenly disappeared.

"...under control?"

Lawrence blinked and muttered to himself with some doubts.