Deep Sea Embers

After hearing Agatha's report, Duncan's first reaction was to glance at the dormitory door not far away from the corner of his eye.

Then he withdrew his gaze and looked at the former "gatekeeper" in the mirror with an extremely serious expression: "You mean, its reflection in the sea?"

"Not just the reflection in the sea, but also its projection in the spiritual world - under normal circumstances, these two 'shadows' are deeply connected and will influence each other," Agatha said seriously, "Last night late at night, I walked through the ship's mirror as usual to check the situation of the entire ship, and then suddenly discovered this thing, but at the time I thought it was the 'speciality' of the Homeless Ship itself, After all, I know very little about it..."

"The Lost Home does not have this characteristic - at least as far as I know, its 'shadow' will not suddenly disappear for no reason," Duncan shook his head, "When did this phenomenon happen? Probably How long did it last?”

Agatha nodded immediately: "Judging from the time, it should have occurred during the influence of the 'Dream of the Nameless One' you mentioned, and lasted until the first ray of light appeared on the sea level."

Duncan didn't speak, but frowned tightly, with a thoughtful look on his face.

Agatha continued after a moment of silence: "When the shadow of the Lost Home disappeared, I happened to travel through the mirrors of the real world. Normally, I could 'jump' directly through those mirrors to the spiritual world. Or enter the reflection of the Lost Home in the sea. However, last night, this 'jumping channel' disappeared along with the shadow of the Lost Home...

"But in my feeling...the realm 'opposite' of the mirror does not really no longer exist, but there is a 'barrier' that I don't understand blocking it, preventing me from observing the road in the mirror and from perceiving it. The situation on the other side..."

Listening to Agatha's story, Duncan seemed to think of something: "You mean... you think that the 'shadow' of the Lost Home did not really disappear, but that it entered a state that you could not understand and observe at that time. , or is there a barrier of 'perception' that 'locks' you to the real world?"

"Very appropriate," Agatha seemed relieved, "I thought my description was too abstract, and I would have to spend a lot of time explaining it to you..."

"I have dealt with all kinds of 'curtains' in both Pland and Frost," Duncan said casually. Then he thought for a moment and glanced thoughtfully at the door not far away. "So, you became suspicious after hearing my conversation with Goat Head just now - because my 'first mate' didn't mention anything unusual about last night."

"I don't know why this is, but theoretically... it should be able to detect changes in the spiritual world. Although its perception in this regard may not be as sharp as mine, it will not be completely unaware of it," Ah There was some hesitation in Gasha's tone, "Especially the things you mentioned just now, the existence of another 'goat head', and the other party's weird and suspicious behavior..."

Duncan exhaled softly and said, "You think 'Goat Head' is no longer reliable because it may be hiding something from me."

"...I know that as a 'new crew member' I shouldn't question the first mate on the ship, it's a huge taboo, but as a former 'gatekeeper' I have an instinct for this kind of thing... 'Alert'," Agatha considered her choice of words and said sincerely, "Many irreversible situations start from that little 'wrong' at the beginning."

Duncan listened silently, neither agreeing nor blindly refuting.

After a long time, he said in thought: "There may be two explanations for this. Either, the goat head knew what happened, but it didn't tell me, which was a deliberate concealment, or it didn't even know that it was missing. The country number changed last night."

Agatha was stunned for a moment, then quickly realized: "The second explanation means..."

"There is some kind of force affecting this ship - the Goat Head is also within the range of being 'affected'," Duncan said seriously, "and you are not affected, so you can observe the changes that happen to the Homeless Ship during the night. "

…

Humming a lilting tune that she couldn't even remember the name of, Alice was busy walking in the kitchen.

For her, the busy days on the Lost Home were always her happiest moments.

There is everything she is familiar with here, the familiar deck, the familiar kitchen, the familiar pots and pans, as well as the familiar wooden buckets, kitchen knives and shovels.

They were all her friends, everything on the ship was her friend—and for the most part, she found it easier to deal with her friends on the ship than with people in the city-state.

Because going to the city to deal with people really requires too much learning, too much knowledge to remember, and a lot of drowsy "codes" to pay attention to - those guys called "human beings" always They are too fragile, with countless "threads" floating around without defense, and as long as you grab them casually, they will be inexplicably damaged beyond repair. They are more precious and easy to use than the ceramics and glassware on the ship. Much more broken.

But the captain attaches great importance to those "people". He doesn't want to mess with other people's "threads", let alone damage those who shouldn't be damaged.

This was a little difficult for Alice.

It's like putting a cat in a room full of yarn balls but not allowing it to touch any of them with its paws.

So after the novelty of going to the city a few times wore off, Alice found that she still liked living on the boat - because here, she could hardly beat anyone.

Just be careful not to "bump" into your friends who are also on the boat.

She liked this, she liked the way the world around her felt solid and stable.

After opening the wooden barrel where the kippers were stored, Alice carefully approached the barrel and sniffed the smell inside, with a satisfied look on her face.

The captain has never understood this, and other people on the ship actually don't understand either - why does a doll have a sense of smell?

Alice didn't know it herself, but she never thought so much.

She was just satisfied with her craftsmanship, so she took a wooden basin from the side and prepared to take out some of the kippers in the bucket. She stretched out her hand towards the bucket, but before she could take anything from it, something appeared on the counter next to her. A long-handled spoon suddenly jumped up and hit her arm with a "snap".

Alice exclaimed, quickly taking her hands back and saying, "I washed my hands, just now!"

The ladle swayed on the edge of the barrel, but still showed no intention of getting out of the way.

Alice pursed her lips, a little unhappy: "It doesn't work!"

The long-handled spoon floated slowly, and the head of the spoon gestured in front of the puppet.

"...Okay," Alice finally reluctantly accepted, reaching out and grabbing the handle of the spoon while muttering, "Didn't it mean that she dropped her head when she bent down to pick up something last time? As for it being so troublesome... "

She took the fish from the bucket and chatted with her friends in the kitchen. Sometimes she would mention what she had seen and heard in the city-state, and sometimes she would talk about things related to the captain.

Then she began to check other food storage containers - since Ai can supply fresh ingredients to the Lost Home at any time, most of the food that needs to be stored here are things that have been processed and can be stored for many years, and pickled fish is the most popular among them. popular.

There are a total of twelve large wooden barrels for storing pickled fish.

Alice started at the door and counted along the wall—one, two, three, four...twelve, thirteen.

She stopped suddenly.

Miss Doll blinked in confusion and went back to the beginning to count again.

Still thirteen.

One more.

Alice stood in front of the row of wooden barrels in a daze, her head working hard. At first, she suspected that she had made the wrong number again. After all, her performance in arithmetic had not been very good, and sometimes she even She couldn't compare to Shirley, but she soon felt that she shouldn't be that stupid after all - after all, she was just counting twelve barrels.

She can already calculate addition and subtraction of more than two digits.

So Alice rubbed her eyes and patiently counted again.

twelve.

The extra numbers just now disappeared and everything returned to normal.

Alice counted over and over again between the barrels, and finally confirmed that she had not counted wrong again, but she felt that the doubts in her heart were not relieved at all. She turned her head, glanced at other things in the kitchen, and couldn't help but speak curiously. : "Did you notice? There seemed to be an extra bucket just now!"

However, her friends in the kitchen couldn't really answer her - even if they could speak, these things that were at best "restless things" and showed the characteristics of living creatures due to the special environment of the Lost Home were not complete. intelligence to help solve the doll’s confusion.

Alice didn't get an answer, so she turned her head again and patted the large wooden barrels placed along the wall: "Did there be an extra one among you just now?"

The barrel didn't answer her either.

…

Sarah Meir was dumbfounded as she listened to what the "Sea Witch" told her, and she didn't even notice that the food in her hand fell on the table.

He no longer cared about the free-flowing witch lady breaking into his house early in the morning and interrupting his breakfast time.

"These incredible things...all happened last night?"

The elf archon said in disbelief. In fact, what he wanted to say at first was "Are you kidding me?" But considering the temper of the witch lady, he did not make such unnecessary provocation.

"Looking at your reaction, the situation is exactly as I expected," Lucretia sighed. She sat on the chair opposite Sarah Meier. As for the trembling servants in the restaurant, when she spoke She had been kicked out before she could talk about "business", and now she and the Archon were the only two people here. "The scope of influence of that 'dream'... was greater than imagined."