Ashes Of Deep Sea

Chapter 226: Chapter 230: The Warm Daily Life in the Subspace Nest

The large parrot with colorful tail feathers flapped its wings and left the Sea Mist, flying over the dock area at a surprising speed, and headed straight for the City-State.

“First mate, what do we do? Just wait here?”

Aboard the bridge of the Sea Mist, a sailor who watched the parrot Perl fly away turned to Aiden, who stood beside him silent.

“…We can only wait for now,” Aiden lowered his head to glance at the ground beneath his feet, his mind weighing options rapidly to ensure his cool head operated at its best, “Not just because of the captain’s orders, but also due to the current state of the Sea Mist.”

His latter words quickly settled several of his subordinates who were starting to feel restless.

The captain had only taken a few confidants ashore, leaving his first mate and the rest of the sailors on the ship. The official explanation was the Sea Mist’s undead sailors were bizarre and frightening, likely to cause unrest and hostility in the City-State, but Aiden understood the reality very well.

Because the Sea Mist had just recently encountered its flagship.

The ship was in a bad way, not only because its hull had sustained damage, but even more so because the ship’s… “soul” was restless. The boiler of the Sea Mist was still trembling, strange hollow sounds echoed from the little chapel, the pressure in the steam pipes had yet to stabilize completely, and although the ship had indeed returned to “this side,” it was hard to say whether it would go out of control again.

During this time of instability, the sailors who had served on this ship for over half a century were the ship’s “anchor”—the iron anchor of the Sea Mist allowed it to moor on the sea, while the “anchor of humanity,” comprised of the undead, enabled it to stabilize in the real dimension.

Aiden dared not rashly reduce the number of sailors aboard—especially after vaguely perceiving the odd situation in the Plunder. He was even less willing to let the members of the Sea Mist enter the City-State, as this might cause a “disturbance,” alarming the newly settled “soul” of the ship.

Similarly, he dared not allow the Sea Mist to send signals directly to the Plunder City-State, including sounding the horn, ringing the bell, or contacting the City-State authorities directly by telegraph, for fear of alerting… certain forces lurking within the Plunder.

Sending the parrot Perl to pass the message was the lowest-risk plan he could come up with. He hoped that the captain would return soon after receiving the message—hoping he was not yet trapped by something, hoping it wasn’t too late.

Of course, he couldn’t place all his hopes on “waiting”—if the captain still hadn’t returned after a day, he would have to send a small number of crew members to take a risk ashore.

Aiden furrowed his brows tightly and gazed at the shining Pearl City under the sunlight, recalling each detail of the captain’s departure with the City-State Judge, attempting to identify anything amiss that could explain the abnormal behavior from earlier.

…

Duncan, who was turning the pages of the newspaper by the counter, suddenly stopped his action and looked thoughtfully out the window.

Alice, sitting beside him imitating him by aimlessly flipping through the newspaper, noticed and asked curiously, “Mr. Duncan, what are you looking at?”

“…I just felt like something glanced over here for a moment,” Duncan muttered uncertainly with a frown, “but it disappeared in the blink of an eye.”

“Oh, I know, that’s called ‘the jolt of the strong’! Mr. Goathead told me about it,” Alice said excitedly, “It said the stronger you are, the more you can sense gazes or even thoughts directed at you, and someone as strong as you will have jolts all the time…”

Duncan put down the newspaper and looked expressionlessly at Alice: “Did it really say that?”

The smile on Alice’s face suddenly became a bit stiff: “…The last part was my own deduction.”

“Stop making useless deductions,” Duncan said offhandedly, then slightly concentrated his mind, searching for the source of that “jolt.”

He didn’t treat the fleeting sensation as an illusion—after spending so much time in this world full of oddities, he had developed the habit of paying attention to any “sudden intuition” and digging deeper into it.

Duncan’s perception expanded rapidly and spread toward the edges of the City-State. In just an instant, he felt the outline of Plunder appear as clear in his mind as Homeloss, as if he could “touch” the City-State like he could “touch” Homeloss. He began to sense the complex “touch” that this City-State beneath his feet transmitted, and among these senses, one most apparent and abrupt message entered his mind.

At the southeastern port of Plunder.

“…Tyrion’s ship?” Duncan was somewhat surprised after sensing the source of that aura, “What is he doing here?”

Then he recalled his previous encounter with that ironclad warship, the location of that ship at the time, and the intent shown by the opponent during the battle. After a short period of contemplation, his expression grew a bit peculiar.

The Sea Mist appeared near Plunder and attacked Homeloss voluntarily… Could it be that the Plunder authorities called for “reinforcements”? Were they meant to intercept him?

Gauging the cause and effect in his mind, Duncan could only chuckle wryly. He wasn’t sure whether to first marvel at the filial relationship between father and son or the dedication of Tyrion acting as reinforcements—after being pummeled by Homeloss to the point where his ship was nearly sunk, he still resolutely made his way to Plunder. What kind of spirit was that?

It certainly wasn’t the spirit of an obligatory defender of world peace.

More likely, it was the joy of competing with his father.

“Mr. Duncan, you’re zoning out,” Alice’s voice rang out again from beside him, and the automaton tilted her head slightly as she looked over, “Do you want to go out?”

“No,” Duncan shook his head while maintaining his perception of the Sea Mist. Since it was not yet one of his “collections” like Homeloss and Plunder, he couldn’t sense the detailed situation on that ship. However, considering his connections with the Sea Mist and with Tyrion, he had started trying to locate his “eldest son”—but since explaining these complicate matters to Alice would be beyond her understanding, he simply didn’t bother to explain. He couldn’t help frowning when he saw the automaton tilting her head, “Don’t tilt your head, it might fall off.”

Alice quickly nodded with a slight motion, “Oh, oh.”

Just then, another set of footsteps sounded from behind the small door behind the counter, followed by the door swinging open, and a petite figure emerged from inside.

“Mr. Duncan,” Sherry patted the dust off her skirt and greeted Duncan with a face expecting praise, “The storeroom is all cleaned up! And all those knick-knacks you asked about are arranged on a shelf too!”

“Mm, well done,” Duncan kept part of his attention on the harbor while nodding to Sherry, “You’ve got some dust on your shoulder.”

“Oh,” Sherry turned and patted off the dust, then looked at Duncan with a bit of nervousness, “Mr. Duncan, what… what do we do now?”

While speaking with Duncan here, the expression on her face was obviously not as panicked as on the Homeloss, but there was still some evident nervousness, which seemed hard to completely shake off anytime soon. However, she was clearly in a much better state now than she was initially.

Clearly, at least rationally, she knew of Duncan’s goodwill toward her, but as for that lingering nervousness… it would first take addressing the dog’s nervousness.

Duncan nodded and then let his gaze slide over to Alice, who was randomly flipping through the newspaper without actually recognizing a single word.

Illiterate.

He looked at Sherry across from him.

Another illiterate.

And there was the dog hiding in the shadows nearby, although never showing itself, its presence was harder and harder to conceal.

Still illiterate.

Bringing these three to help out at the shop, none could even figure out the accounts.

Duncan sighed internally, then remembered an idea he had before, along with his old profession.

“Come on, all of you sit down here, Sherry you sit to the right of Alice,” Duncan pulled a chair next to the counter without much effort, “And Dog, you squat behind the counter… no more hiding now, I see your shadow. All come over, I have a plan.”

Sherry hurriedly sat obediently on the chair, while Alice, who had finally put down the unintelligible newspaper, looked over curiously, “Ah, what plan?”

“Since Nina went out to shop and hasn’t returned, we’re not doing much; I might as well teach you how to read,” Duncan said cheerfully, getting up to straighten his clothes, “You can’t stay illiterate forever.”

Sherry never expected that Captain Duncan’s serious ‘plan’ would turn out to be this. She was instantly stupefied. On the other hand, Alice was full of curiosity, her eyes even sparkling with excitement, while the dog, who had been squatting obediently behind the counter, lifted its head to look at Duncan, then at Sherry, its doggy head filled with question marks, “But I’m just a dog, you know…”

At these words, Duncan looked down, but before he could say anything, the Profound Demon suddenly shivered, its upper body abruptly straightened up, “But I can try to be a cultured dog; I have the enthusiasm and confidence…”

“That’s the spirit,” Duncan said pleasantly. He kept his watch on the harbor while reaching under the counter and pulling out several blank notebooks, distributing them to his ‘students’ as he spoke, “Let’s start with learning the alphabet then, the most basic…”

Sherry received the notebook Duncan handed over with a puzzled look on her face.

And then, she entered an even more baffled state.

Alphabets and spelling, a gate to an entirely new world that she couldn’t begin to understand.

In just a few minutes, Sherry confirmed one thing: swinging a dog at Heretics was easier than this!

But Duncan seemed unconcerned about Sherry’s distressed expression—or rather, he had grown accustomed to such expressions.

He was just happy, a kind of joy one feels when, adrift in a foreign land, one suddenly comes in contact with familiar things, suddenly undertaking familiar tasks.

However, the joyous time didn’t last long—while Sherry was stumbling through learning to write the fourth letter, a crisp bell sound and brisk footsteps came from the door, interrupting the “Subspace Shadow imparting knowledge to its kin” classroom time.

Nina’s cheerful voice rang out at the entrance, “Uncle Duncan! I’m back!”

Duncan looked up from the pleasant teaching activity to see Nina pushing the door open to enter the shop, but then he noticed something else following her flying in.

“When I was coming back, I saw Eli,” Nina said happily, “It looks like Eli brought a friend back too!”

“Friend?”

Duncan frowned slightly and then saw Eli flying in after Nina, followed by a large parrot with colorful tail feathers…

Duncan: “…?”