Deep Sea Embers

With countless questions and conjectures in mind, Duncan put the brass key close to his body, and Alice waited obediently beside him, rolling his eyes around, like a child expecting a secret.

"Do you feel any different now?" Duncan asked, looking into Alice's eyes.

"Does it feel different?" Alice tilted her head, raised her hand to rub her back, and shook her head after a while, "I just felt itchy in the keyhole, but it's not itchy now."

Duncan frowned upon hearing this: "...Is there anything else? That's it?"

"No more," Alice replied honestly, and then showed some curiosity, "Is there something? Seeing how serious your expression is...do you understand the key?"

Duncan frowned tightly. After a moment of hesitation, he finally sorted out his thoughts and words, sat down on the bed opposite the puppet, and said seriously: "You may only feel that a moment has passed, but I am here A strange place for a long time--a great old mansion whose name...is called 'Alice's House.'"

The gothic puppet opened its eyes a little bit, listening to the captain's narration in surprise and confusion.

Duncan did not hide his experience in Alice's mansion. He told the puppet lady in front of him everything he saw and heard there, and then he mentioned what he saw and heard in the deep sea, including his relationship with Frost. A meeting with Queen Leigh Nora.

Of course, he knew that Alice might only understand part of it, and even the part he understood could only be vaguely understood, and the things he could remember afterwards were limited, but he still chose to say everything.

Because this is what she should know - you can't hide it from her with the mentality of "she doesn't understand anyway", this is the most basic respect.

Alice listened to the end in a daze. It wasn't until more than ten seconds after Duncan's voice fell that the Gothic puppet woke up: "...Wow."

Immediately afterwards, she scratched her hair, with confusion and a little apology on her face: "I... I don't understand well, I feel dizzy... Sorry, Captain, you took so much effort to help me understand this things, but I seem a little stupid..."

"No, you're not stupid, it's just that these things are too complicated." Duncan knew that the other party would definitely react in this way, so he shook his head with a smile, "Even I feel that these things are full of mysteries everywhere-there are too many clues and too scattered , there is obviously still a long way to go before tearing open the final fog.”

Alice nodded half-understanding, then thought about it seriously, and suddenly became curious: "Are there many people in that 'mansion'? And there are no heads?"

"I only saw a man who claimed to be the butler, but according to the butler, there are indeed many people in the mansion, but they are all hiding," Duncan said while recalling, "In addition, according to my observation, those should be headless Servant."

Alice frowned, and muttered while thinking hard: "Could it be related to my 'beheading' ability..."

"There is a possibility that some of the attendants are the souls of people who were beheaded by you." As someone who has learned about "Alice's Guillotine", Duncan certainly thought of this direction, but then he changed the subject again, " However, according to some information revealed by the steward, there are a large number of "drifting gathering" souls gathered in the mansion, they are like some kind of exiles, accepting the asylum of the mansion, these attendants don't seem to be beheaded..."

He paused, thought for a while and continued: "Perhaps, it is your guillotine ability that makes the souls gathered in the mansion appear headless, regardless of their specific 'source'."

"Oh..." Alice seemed to understand, and then she seemed to think of something, "What about the 'Frost Queen'? Did she really just disappear like that?"

"The room has indeed disappeared," Duncan nodded, "It looks like what she said, when the 'connecting point' of the ancient god's tentacles is destroyed, the 'drifting ground' will lose its restraint, like unraveling with the cable..."

He stopped suddenly, with a thoughtful expression on his face.

"Captain?" Alice looked at Duncan inexplicably, "Why are you silent all of a sudden?"

She asked twice in a row before Duncan raised his head from his contemplation, with a dignified tone: "I'm thinking, does the 'drifting place' in Le Nora's mouth refer to her room or the entire Alice mansion? .”

"Ah?" Alice didn't realize it all at once, "Is there any difference?"

"If the drifting place refers to the entire Alice mansion, then when the 'connection point' is burned by me, it should be the entire mansion that disappeared, not a single room on the second floor; if the drifting place refers to only her The sleeping room, so what is the relationship between that room and the whole mansion? Or... the 'connection' between her room and the whole mansion, isn't it a 'connection point'?"

Duncan paused when he said this, then raised his finger and pointed at Alice.

"More importantly, after I turned the clockwork key on you, I entered the 'Alice's mansion'. Obviously, the relationship between that mansion and you is the strongest. You should even be some kind of 'one-hearted The same body' relationship, if the 'drifting land' needs a connection point to exist stably...then you are obviously the most stable connection point."

Alice listened carefully, blinking her eyes, trying to understand - but couldn't.

But her strength has always been sincerity: "What are you talking about?"

"The room where the Frost Queen slept was 'torn' from the main body of the mansion, and there were obvious signs of damage on the edges. At first I didn't pay much attention to this, but just now I suddenly thought... Ley Nora might be interested I'm hiding some things.

"The so-called 'drifting place' should theoretically refer to the entire Alice mansion, and that mansion is closely related to you. As far as I can see, there is no tendency to 'drift', so Leo Nora is very It may be that I took advantage of the opportunity of burning the ancient god's tentacles, and took advantage of the opportunity of a certain 'connection' being weakened, to forcibly 'separate' her room from the main body of the mansion."

Alice continued to struggle to understand.

But this time, she finally understood most of it.

"You mean that the Frost Queen 'opened' her room while you set it on fire? It's like taking the lifeboat out of a ship when it's foggy?"

Duncan was taken aback when he heard the words, and looked at the puppet in surprise: "Your metaphor is subtle and somewhat reasonable...how did you think of it?"

"Mr. Goat's Head told me many stories about this. Some rebel sailors took advantage of the fog to steal the lifeboat on the ship, the barrel of wine on the ship, the cheese on the ship, and the wine on the ship. Salted fish or something, and then the wise and mighty captain will cross the entire boundless sea to snatch back the stolen salted fish...Are you going to catch the Frost Queen who stole the room?"

Duncan was stunned for a moment when he heard it, and then curled his lips with a strange expression after Alice finished speaking: "Let's not talk about why the renegade crew wanted to steal the salted fish, and why I had to cross the entire boundless sea to get back a salted fish— —Where can I go to find that Frost Queen? Besides, if you want to catch it, you should be the one to catch it. She stole your room—you are the mistress of Alice’s mansion.”

"...That's right," Alice thought for a while, and she simply accepted the truth, then shook her head, "Then I won't arrest her, after all, that room belongs to her. But...why would she do that? Ah? Didn’t you just say that once the drifting ground loses its restraint, it will fly around, and may even fall into the subspace, just like exile—isn’t this a terrible thing?”

Duncan couldn't help thinking, and slowly said in thought: "Yes, why..."

He recalled the Le Nora he saw, the one who seemed to be in shackles from birth, crowned in shackles, and overthrown in shackles, even if he fell into the deep sea, he was always imprisoned in nightmares The "Frost Queen".

She said she has been sleeping in the cage, even though the cage has since had its bars removed.

Now, she's out of prison -- and with her cage.

"Probably for 'freedom'." Duncan said softly.

But only for "freedom"?

...

The dial pointer on the control console is shaking rapidly, and the shaking is becoming more and more obvious when approaching the water surface. Through the thick glass porthole, you can faintly see some water sprayed from above in the deep and boundless sea outside. light.

Sunlight appears in the body of water - a sign that the submersible is rapidly approaching the surface.

However, the gradually filling brilliance could not completely dispel the repressive impression left in the deep sea—it was as if something was still floating and dispersing in the vast darkness below the submersible, stretching out invisible tentacles, It is opening its arms upwards, and it is holding back the uninvited guests who have broken into the deep sea.

The things that Duncan told himself during the ascent were still circling in his mind—horrifying, treacherous, bizarre, and shocking to the three views.

Whether it is the soul of the Frost Queen who has lived with the ancient gods in the deep sea for fifty years, or the terrifying possibility contained in all things in the world, it is enough to make a firm-minded and pious person feel chills in the sun.

Everything in the world is the descendant of the ancient god, and the flesh and blood of the ancient god exists in all living beings, and they are gradually waking up.

Even in the most blasphemous, deviant and filthy classics, no one dared to record such remarks—those craziest Annihilation Cultists had only scratched the surface of the theory of "creation of the deep and holy lord".

The sunlight from the sea grew brighter.

The dead body can't feel any warmth.

Agatha clasped her hands in front of her chest, silently calling Bartok's name, wanting to pray to her god.

But no matter what, he couldn't calm down.