Chapter 1

The snow-white pigeon stood blankly on the table, a brass compass that Duncan had spent half a day searching for hanging around its neck, and the familiar obsidian dagger lay at its feet.

Duncan stared at the pigeon with a slightly dazed expression, and the pigeon stared back at him with an equally dazed expression.

It wasn't easy to read an expression on a bird's face, but for some reason, Duncan felt that he could understand the pigeon's expression. Not only could he understand its expression, but he could even see a certain "wise" light in the pigeon's slightly red eyes—the bird's two beady eyes were just staring straight ahead, and when Duncan looked over, one of its eyes clearly turned its attention to him, but its other eye seemed to still be looking at the ceiling of the captain's cabin, its gaze wandering aimlessly.

"A... pigeon?"

After reacting for several seconds, Duncan finally twitched the corner of his mouth and muttered subconsciously.

Why a pigeon? Why did a pigeon suddenly appear? Why was his brass compass hanging on this pigeon? And how did that dagger get here?

Or, to sum it up in a thousand words: On this abnormal ship, can anything normal still happen?!

While Duncan was full of question marks and muttering to himself, the pigeon, which had been in a daze for a long time, finally seemed to "wake up." It tapped its head and took two steps on the table, then approached Duncan, stretched its neck hard, and made a loud "coo" sound.

"..." Duncan looked at the bird speechlessly. For some reason, many classic images of pirate captains suddenly flashed in his memory, and then he glanced down at the captain's uniform he was wearing. "It seems that a bird is indeed standard equipment for a captain, but shouldn't it be a parrot under normal circumstances... What's with the pigeon?"

The pigeon heard Duncan's words and immediately nodded solemnly, making a female voice that was somewhat strange and rigid: "Transmission complete!"

All of Duncan's muttering, from his heart to his mouth, was suddenly cut off. He almost choked on his saliva, stared at the white pigeon in front of him with wide eyes, and a look of astonishment on his face.

He recalled the first time he set foot on this ship, when he saw a talking goat head in the captain's room.

But at least this wasn't his first day on the Vanishing, and he was already used to the abnormalities of this world, so the pigeon speaking only surprised him for a moment. The next moment, his expression became serious, and at the same time, a faint green spirit fire emerged from one of his hands as he watched the pigeon in front of him warily: "Where did you come from?"

The pigeon tilted its head, one eye staring straight at Duncan, the other eye vaguely looking at the ceiling: "Address error, please recheck the address, or contact the system administrator."

Duncan: "...?"

Compared to the momentary stagnation on his face, an even greater wave was surging in his heart at this moment!

What this pigeon was saying... didn't seem to fit the "style" of this world. It didn't sound like something that could come out of the mouth of the goat head or Alice or any of those black-robed cultists, but rather a term more familiar to him as "Zhou Ming," the Earthling!

However, the pigeon didn't seem to notice the change in Duncan's eyes and expression at all. It just lowered its head, pecked at its wing, shook the brass compass hanging on its chest, and then began to stroll leisurely on the table.

After taking a few steps, it ran to the obsidian dagger, used its claws to push it a few times in Duncan's direction, and made the same strange-toned female voice as before: "Take this solar battle axe and embrace the glory of battle!"

Duncan suddenly stood up from the desk, the chair scraping harshly against the floor as it collided, and he stared intently at the still innocent and indifferent pigeon in front of him, while an extremely bizarre yet comical emotion filled his mind.

This pigeon could not possibly be something that originally existed on the Vanishing, and it was almost impossible for it to be something that originally existed in this world!

The words it spoke, only "Zhou Ming" could understand what they meant!

Perhaps because the sound of the table and chairs colliding was too loud, the commotion could even be heard in the chartroom. Duncan suddenly heard the goat head's voice in his mind: "Captain? Are you alright?"

Duncan was still staring at the pigeon on the table. He knew that the goat head didn't dare to directly peek at the situation in the captain's cabin, so he replied in a low voice with his usual calm: "I'm fine."

"Miss Alice has come to see you, do you want me to..."

"Receive her first."

"Yes, Captain."

Duncan took a breath and glanced back at the door leading to the chartroom.

The goat head's noisy bombardment of Alice was still continuing. The doll girl had wanted to get up and leave several times but was stopped. Duncan felt that he should go out and rescue that unlucky doll, but now... he had something more important to confirm.

Alice could suffer a little longer.

Duncan sat back down at the desk, preparing to try to communicate normally with the pigeon in front of him, when he suddenly noticed a scene he hadn't paid attention to before—

A wisp of "fire" faintly extended from the cluster of spirit fire jumping between the fingers of his right hand. This stream of flame was as thin as a strand of hair, and its end dissipated into the air after floating out a dozen centimeters.

And on that strange pigeon, there was also a wisp of ghostly green flame entwined around it. The flame was hidden in the gaps of the feathers under its wings, and the other end also extended into the air, disappearing into thin air.

Duncan frowned, raised his right hand, and with a thought, the pigeon on the table disappeared in an instant.

The next second, the pigeon appeared on his shoulder, lowered its head, pecked at Duncan's hair, and made a loud sound: "Coo!"

Duncan flicked his finger again, and the pigeon on his shoulder reappeared on the desk.

The brass compass hung on the pigeon's chest, the shiny shell reflecting the green light of the flames.

Duncan frowned: "...Is it related to this brass compass?"

He was already certain that there was a certain connection between this pigeon and himself, a connection even closer than the connection between him and the Vanishing. This might also explain why the pigeon would "know" some "knowledge" from Earth that only he knew. He just couldn't determine the reason for the pigeon's appearance.

And after thinking about it, he could only place his suspicion on that strange brass compass.

From the time he tested the spirit fire to now, all the abnormalities started with this brass compass, whether it was the previous experience of soul-traveling or the experience of projecting his mind into a corpse, or the compass suddenly disappearing just now, only to reappear hanging on the pigeon's chest... the source of everything seemed to be this thing.

Duncan stared at the pigeon for a while, then reached out his hand towards the compass.

He wanted to take this thing off and study it carefully.

The pigeon didn't dodge or stop him, but Duncan's fingers failed to touch the surface of the brass compass—his fingers passed right through it, touching the soft fluff on the pigeon's chest.

It was like passing through an illusion.

The pigeon jumped twice in place, seemingly tickled by Duncan, opened its mouth and shouted: "It's KFC Crazy Thursday today, give me 50..."

Duncan's eyes twitched twice, and he tested it twice more, unwilling to believe it, finally confirming that he couldn't take the brass compass off the pigeon—this thing had obviously undergone some kind of mutation, becoming an illusion bound to the pigeon, unable to be removed or touched.

Or... was the pigeon the actual body of the brass compass now?

A lot of guesses that even he himself didn't know whether to believe or not popped up in Duncan's mind in an instant, and the only thing he could be sure of was: the appearance of this pigeon was inseparable from his experience of using the brass compass for "soul-traveling," and this experience might have also changed the form of the brass compass at the same time.

This might be the nature of the brass compass itself, its inherent attribute as some kind of "anomaly," or rather, its "cost of use." As for why the pigeon was so strange... it wasn't because of the compass, it was because of "Zhou Ming," the Earthling.

All of this could not be confirmed or falsified for now, unless Duncan could find the instruction manual for the various anomalies on the Vanishing.

As for now, he had to think about how to settle this... abnormal pigeon.

After a brief thought, he decided to give the pigeon a name first.

"I have to give you a name," he tapped the table lightly with his finger, and said very seriously to the pigeon in front of him, "I think you should be able to understand what I'm saying, right?"

The pigeon tilted its head, its two beady eyes looking at Duncan vaguely: "Aiyi?"

(Holy crap!)