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 ant by “the light is black.”
In the lower deck, there indeed was light—at least structurally and in layout, the compartnts she saw had the sa support columns, and on those columns hung oil lamps that never went out. The lamps were burning, but the flas seed to cause the areas around the lamps to be darker than those farther away.
Yes, the closer one got to an oil lamp, the dimr the light beca, 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 seed 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 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 accustod 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 sentint: “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 environnt within the interplay of light and shadow.
Below the waterline of Holoss… the lighting inside the cabin was “inverted.”
The fixtures seed not to emit light but to absorb the existing light in the space, as if… so 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 dimr with distance.
Was there a principle behind this? Was it rely the influence of the Endless Sea or a mix that included Holoss’s own traits? Was the cabin’s “bright environnt” real? If those “light-absorbing” oil lamps were extinguished, would this beco a bright place?
For a mont, Duncan actually harbored the bold thought of extinguishing the oil lamps of this deck to see what phenonon would occur, but he abruptly suppressed this patently misguided notion the next instant.
He could not put out the lights here—even if it seed that these lights were causing the entire cabin to darken, there must be a reason why they were lit!
Suddenly, he rembered sothing from Plunder City-State; the information he had obtained was that “burning flas can dispel strange dangers”—in that statent, it was actually the “fla” 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 beco “inverted,” and under such inversion, the only trustworthy thing was the “fla” 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 “fla” elent?
“Captain?” Alice’s voice suddenly ca from the side, the automaton miss’s voice carried tension and concern, “Is there sothing 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 so 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 fla itself remains faithfully guarding the treasures of Holoss.
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 flas 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 so plank crates piled up in the corner of the cabin, as well as so 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 Holoss herself during extended trips.”
Alice blinked, “Supplies for a long voyage?”
Duncan didn’t utter a word but moved forward to check so of the goods closest to him.
So of the barrels contained a kind of grease, dark brown and viscous in texture yet without a strong sll, likely so form of fuel. But it had obviously been stored here for a very, very long ti—Duncan even suspected these fuels were “stock” from before Holoss beca 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 beca useless.
In another set of barrels, Duncan saw sothing familiar.
Cheese older than himself, salted at 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 seed superfluous aboard the current ghost ship, it was enough to confirm his previous judgnt of Holoss:
This ship, at least at the ti of its construction, had been prepared for so kind of oceanic exploration. It could carry large amounts of supplies, and there were strict safety asures 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 Holoss once harbored—the most remote of routes, the most perilous of journeys, facing the deadliest of environnts 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 Holoss had beco 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 “phenona” 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 deed controllable or of a special nature and closer to the general populace were made public. Abnormalities and phenona 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, rely shrank her neck upon hearing Duncan’s words, with a look of nervousness: “Just because I have a designation doesn’t an 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…
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