Deep Sea Embers

A strange word that had never been heard came to the ear, and its mysterious and harsh pronunciation did not even seem to be any language that Tirian knew.

He looked down at the document in astonishment, looked at the picture of the "stone ball" drawn with precise strokes on it, and raised his head after a long time: "Father? What did you just say? The 'moon'... is from this thing." Name? Do you know this mysterious sphere?!"

Duncan didn't seem to hear it, he was still staring at the very familiar image of the moon on the paper, until Tirian asked twice in a row, he seemed to wake up suddenly, watching Tirian quickly said: "You just said Speaking of Lucrezia, what happened?"

"Er... this is the information she sent from the Bright Star," Tirian hesitated to say, his father's strange reaction made him feel uneasy, but under the stressful gaze, he still took what he had said. Knowingly confessed, "Some time ago, a mysterious luminous object fell from the border area, and it happened to be discovered by Lucy. She has been studying that thing for a while. This weird sphere is the 'core' of the fallen object..."

Tirian explained the ins and outs of the whole incident, including the current judgment of Qingfeng Harbor scholars on "the falling object comes from Vision 001" and all their research progress on "Stone Ball" at this stage--and what they encountered. All kinds of difficulties in life, all said out.

And during his narration, Duncan didn't interrupt once, the latter just listened quietly with a kind of silence that made Tirian feel very serious, as if to engrave every sentence deeply in In my mind, I disassembled, crushed, and dissected every word a thousand times.

After ten minutes, the dome office became quiet again.

Duncan was silent for a long time, and finally exhaled softly before the air gradually became frozen: "Why didn't you mention this to me before?"

"... Lucy hopes to contact you after the research has made some progress, and more importantly... it is in a period of frost crisis."

After a while, Duncan felt his beating heart slowly calm down. He finally nodded lightly after listening to Tirian's words: "This thing is now in Lightwind Harbor, isn't it?"

"Um... yes," Tirian nodded quickly. He felt his lips dry, and at the same time he paid more and more attention to the changes in his father's expression. After hesitating several times, he couldn't help asking again, "Do you know him?" This mysterious sphere?"

"...it's called the moon, at least it looks like it, but the moon I know is not ten meters in diameter, and it's impossible to float on the sea and be dragged back to the city-state by a ship with steel cables," Duncan said slowly, "maybe it's just Some kind of artificial object imitating the shape, perhaps just the ancient kingdom of Crete..."

He stopped in the middle of his speech. The huge sense of contradiction and the conflict of thoughts in his mind made him unable to explain this matter with any conjecture—in any case, there is no doubt about it, Tirian The information picture in her hand is indeed the "moon", regardless of whether the "rock ball" Lucrezia picked up in the sea is a real "moon" or an "artificial moon" created by the ancient kingdom of Crete to imitate the moon. Flyers", there is one problem that is always present:

Why does the image of the "moon" that I am familiar with appear here? Why did it appear in this weird and twisted "different world"?

In the midst of his thoughts, he frowned and looked at Tirian: "You just said that the scholars of Qingfeng Harbor have confirmed that the mysterious luminous body came off the rune ring of Vision 001?"

"Yes, they have visually confirmed the shape of the gap on the sun's rune ring," Tirian said, and then asked again, "You said it was called the 'moon'...then what exactly is the moon?"

"The Moon..." Duncan hesitated for a moment, and suddenly realized that he didn't have the right vocabulary to explain such a simple name to Tirian. After thinking for a long time, he could only say, "...it's a planet."

When Tirian heard it, the confusion on his face became more obvious: "What is a planet?"

Duncan fell silent.

It was a long time before he heard Tyrian's voice again: "Is this a taboo question? Am I asking too much?"

"No, it's not a taboo, it... should be the simplest question, but I can't explain it to you," Duncan shook his head lightly, and looked across the mirror with a complicated expression, "Sorry, Tirian , the answer to this question is very simple, but getting you to understand it is the greatest difficulty."

Tyrian was taken aback.

He looked at his father with a complex and apologetic look in the mirror, and felt in a trance... This scene seemed to have happened a long time ago, in the depths of that long and hazy memory, in a certain faded afternoon... …

On that day, he and Lucrecia stood on the deck of the Lost Home for the last time, and asked his father who was determined to cross the border—what was beyond the border.

At that time, my father's reaction was exactly the same as now.

That is the appearance of knowing some extremely simple truth, but not knowing how to explain it to others.

At this moment, Duncan's voice suddenly came from the mirror, interrupting Tirian's sinking memories: "I have changed my plan. Next, the Lost Country will go to Lightwind Harbor."

As expected—Tirion knew it was going to happen when his father reacted that way to the sphere called the Moon.

"I see. I'll explain the situation to Lucy."

...

Nina looked worriedly at Duncan who was standing on the edge of the deck overlooking the sea in the distance. Alice passed by her and was stopped by her.

"What's wrong with Uncle Duncan?" Nina lowered her voice, "He's been looking into the distance since just now, and he seems to have a lot of things on his mind..."

"I don't know," Alice looked up, shaking her head blankly, "The captain just came out of the captain's cabin like this, he said he had to think about something..."

"Thinking about something?" Nina blinked in confusion, "Did something happen?"

Alice recalled it carefully, then nodded: "He has contacted Tirian, but I don't know what they said."

"Mr. Tirian?" Nina was taken aback for a moment, and then she began to use her full imagination, her face gradually becoming weird. "Is it because Mr. Tirian never gets married?"

Alice looked blank: "Ah? What does this mean?"

Nina thought for a while, and began to analyze seriously: "I heard from Mr. Morris that he is often worried about Miss Heidi's marriage, and Mr. Tirian is older than Miss Heidi, so the captain must agree I'm more worried about this..."

Alice was stunned for a moment, and nodded in confusion: "So that's how it is!"

As soon as her words fell, Duncan's voice suddenly came from beside the two of them: "You're almost done—Nina, don't tease Alice like this, she will take it seriously."

"Wow!" Nina was taken aback for a moment, and then she noticed that Uncle Duncan had come to her side at some point, she quickly shrank her neck, and stood obediently.

Alice scratched her hair in confusion, and looked at Nina suspiciously: "Did you just play tricks on me?"

"...Anyway, don't take what she just said seriously," Duncan said helplessly, and then his eyes fell on Nina, "Don't worry, nothing happened."

Nina stuck out her tongue, but she still showed a worried look: "Uncle Duncan, what happened? You are rarely so preoccupied..."

For a moment, Duncan didn't know how to answer the girl's question. What came to his mind was still the picture he saw in Tirian's office and the picture that Lucrezia "picked up" at sea. That weird thing.

Moon……

He raised his hand and squeezed the swollen eyebrows, but the next second, his movements suddenly stopped, and he turned to stare at the girl in front of him.

Nina stood there obediently, with a slightly worried expression on her face.

Duncan looked at her, looked at this stagnant, gentle, and well-behaved little prominence, under the body of that pair of human girls, he seemed to be able to directly see the bright arc light left after the broken star, looked at To the dazzling plasma heat that once spewed out in the cosmic space...

The little prominence tilted its head, stretched out its hand, and stroked Duncan's frowning brows, as if wanting to heal those deep grooves: "Uncle Duncan, are you really alright?"

Duncan didn't speak, just gently grabbed Nina's hand, pressed it to his forehead, and then exhaled slowly.

He understood something again. Behind the heavy curtain, the world once again revealed a corner of the "truth" to him, but he had no one to share this corner of truth with.

"Don't worry, Nina, everything is fine," he said slowly, gradually returning to his usual appearance, "I have encountered some problems, but it is difficult to explain to you at the moment, when I solve the problems Alright, let me tell you well."

Nina listened in a daze, then nodded vigorously: "Yeah."

"Very well, let's go back to the cabin first, we should set off—but before we set off, we have to take a detour to the station of the Sea Fog Fleet, and we have to help Tirian with something..."

...

Frost City-State, inside the dome office of the consul.

Accompanied by a slight buzzing sound, the crystal ball gradually lit up, and the figure of the "Sea Witch" gradually became clear in the dim light.

"Brother?" Lucrezia looked at this side curiously, "Are you done with your work? Is everything going well?"

"If you're talking about the inauguration ceremony, it's over in the morning, and everything went well," Tirian said, his face gradually getting a little complicated, "but I'm looking for you for other things."

Lucrezia frowned: "Other things?"

"Two things," Tirian hesitated, and said as he considered, "The first thing, I have prepared the spirit world lens you want for you. Through the legal channels of the city-state, I have obtained the best quality lens for you so far. , the lens device with the highest precision."

In the crystal ball, Lucrezia's face instantly revealed a look of joy: "Ah, that's great! Brother, you are quite reliable! What about the second thing?"

"...Second thing, who do you think will send you the lens?"

"Is it your transport ship?"

Tyrian said nothing.

Lucrezia's expression finally gradually changed: "...Is it your transport ship?"

Still Tyrian said nothing.

Lucrezia reacted.

"... Dad?"

"right."