Chapter 1 The Beginning

A large parrot with iridescent tail feathers beat its wings and left the Deep Sea Embers, flying with surprising speed over the dock area, heading straight into the city-state.

"First mate, what do we do? Just wait here?"

On the bridge of the Deep Sea Embers, a sailor watched Polly fly away and turned to Eden, who stood silently beside him.

"...We have no choice but to wait," Eden said, lowering his head and glancing at the ground beneath his feet. He was rapidly weighing his options, trying to get his cold mind working as efficiently as possible. "Not just because of the captain's orders, but because of the Deep Sea Embers' current condition."

The second half of his statement quickly calmed several of his subordinates who had been restless.

The captain had only taken a few trusted men ashore, leaving his first mate and the rest of the crew on the ship. The stated reason was that most of the Deep Sea Embers' undead sailors were bizarre and frightening, easily causing chaos and hostility within the city-state. But Eden knew the real reason.

The Deep Sea Embers had just encountered its flagship not long ago.

The ship was in bad shape, not just because its hull had been damaged, but because the ship's… "soul" was restless. The Deep Sea Embers' boilers were constantly shaking, strange hollow sounds echoed in the small chapel, and the pressure in the steam pipes had yet to stabilize. The ship had indeed returned to "this side," but it was hard to say whether it would lose control again.

While the ship was unstable, the sailors who had served on it for over half a century were the ship's "anchors"—the Deep Sea Embers' iron anchors allowed it to dock at sea, while the "human anchors" composed of the undead stabilized it in the real dimension.

Eden didn't dare reduce the number of sailors on board—especially after vaguely noticing the strangeness of Prand. He didn't dare let the Deep Sea Embers' crew enter the city-state, as it was likely to trigger something and awaken the ship's newly stabilized "soul."

Similarly, he didn't dare let the Deep Sea Embers directly signal the Prand city-state, including sounding the whistle, ringing the bell, or directly contacting the city-state authorities by telegraph, for fear of disturbing… certain hidden forces within Prand.

Letting Polly the parrot deliver the message was the lowest-risk option he could think of. He hoped the captain would return as soon as he received the message—hoped he hadn't been trapped by something, hoped it wasn't too late.

Of course, he couldn't put all his hopes on "waiting"—if the captain didn't return after a day, he would have to send a small group of crew members ashore to take a risk.

Eden frowned tightly, staring at the Pearl City that shone brightly in the sunlight, recalling every detail of the captain's departure with the city-state judge, trying to find anything wrong to explain the 203's unusual behavior earlier.

…

Duncan, who was sitting behind the counter flipping through a newspaper, suddenly stopped and looked out the window thoughtfully.

Alice, who was sitting next to him mimicking his actions, noticed and asked curiously, "Mr. Duncan, what are you looking at?"

"...I suddenly felt like something was looking at me just now," Duncan frowned, muttering uncertainly, "But it was gone in the blink of an eye."

"Oh, oh, I know! It's called 'the jitters of the strong'! Mr. Goat Head told me about it," Alice said happily. "He said that the stronger you are, the easier it is to feel gazes or even thoughts directed at you, and someone strong like you will always be jittery…"

Duncan put down the newspaper and looked at Alice expressionlessly. "He really said that?"

The smile on Alice's face froze slightly. "...I deduced the last sentence."

"Don't make useless deductions." Duncan said casually, then focused his mind slightly and began searching for the source of that "jitter" just now.

He didn't dismiss that fleeting feeling as an illusion—after spending so long in this world full of strangeness, he had developed the habit of paying attention to any "sudden intuition" and getting to the bottom of it.

Duncan's perception quickly expanded and spread towards the edge of the city-state. In just a moment, he felt Prand emerge clearly in his mind, just like the Ghost Ship, as if he could feel the "touch" of the Ghost Ship. He began to feel the complex "sensations" that the city-state conveyed to him, and among these sensations, the most obvious and prominent piece of information entered his mind.

In Prand's southeastern port.

"...Tirion's ship?" Duncan was a little surprised after sensing the source of that aura. "What's he doing here?"

Then, he recalled his previous encounter with the steel battleship, recalling the ship's position at the time and the intentions it had shown in battle. After a brief moment of thought, the expression on his face became rather strange.

The Deep Sea Embers had appeared near Prand at the time and taken the initiative to attack the Ghost Ship… Could it be that the Prand authorities had called in "reinforcements"? To intercept him?

Duncan vaguely guessed the cause and effect, but he only felt a sense of amusement. He didn't know whether to first marvel at the father-son relationship or Tirion's dedication as reinforcements—after being beaten so badly by the Ghost Ship that his ship was almost sunk, he still steadfastly arrived in Prand. What kind of spirit was that?

It certainly wasn't the spirit of upholding world peace and taking responsibility.

Most likely, it was the spirit of enjoying the endless fun of fighting with his dad.

"Mr. Duncan, you're spacing out," Alice's voice rang out again from the side. The doll tilted her head slightly and looked over. "Do you want to go out?"

"No," Duncan shook his head, maintaining his perception of the Deep Sea Embers. Because the latter hadn't become one of his "collectibles" like the Ghost Ship and Prand, he couldn't sense the details of the ship, but considering his "connection" with the Deep Sea Embers and Tirion, he had already begun trying to locate his "eldest son"—but these complex things wouldn't be understood even if he explained them to Alice, so he simply didn't explain. However, he couldn't help but frown when he saw the doll tilting her head. "Don't tilt your head, it'll fall off."

Alice quickly nodded slightly: "Okay."

Just then, another sound of footsteps came from behind the small door behind the counter, and then the door opened, and a petite figure came out.

"Mr. Duncan," Sherry said, patting the dust off her skirt, greeting Duncan with a look of wanting to be praised, "The storeroom is clean! All the sundries you asked me to tidy up are on one shelf!"

"Well, good job," Duncan said, keeping part of his attention on the port while nodding to Sherry. "You still have some dust on your shoulder."

"Oh," Sherry turned her head and patted off the dust, then looked at Duncan a little nervously. "Mr. Duncan, what… what should I do next?"

When she was talking to Duncan here, the expression on her face was obviously not as panicked as it was on the Ghost Ship, but she was still visibly nervous. It seemed that this sense of nervousness couldn't be completely eliminated for a while, but compared to the beginning, her current state was obviously much better.

Obviously, at least rationally, she knew that Duncan was well-intentioned towards her. As for the nervousness that couldn't be eliminated… that would have to wait until Aggie's nervousness was resolved.

Duncan nodded, then his eyes swept over Alice, who was messing with the newspaper beside him, but didn't actually recognize a single word.

Illiterate.

Then he looked at Sherry across from him.

Another illiterate.

And Aggie, hidden in the shadows beside him, though he hadn't shown his face, his aura was becoming less and less concealed.

Still an illiterate.

He had hired these three to help in the store, but they couldn't even figure out the accounts.

Duncan sighed in his heart, then thought of an idea he had had before, as well as his old profession.

"Come on, you all sit here, Sherry, you sit to Alice's right," Duncan grabbed a chair from the side and put it next to the counter. "Aggie, you squat behind the counter… Don't hide, I can see your shadow. Come on, I have something planned."

Sherry quickly sat down obediently, while Alice finally put down the newspaper she couldn't understand and looked over curiously. "Ah, what's the plan?"

"Anyway, Nina hasn't come back from buying things yet, and we're just idle, so I'll teach you how to read," Duncan said cheerfully, and got up and straightened his clothes. "You can't be illiterate forever, right?"

Sherry never expected that Captain Duncan's serious "plan" would be this, and was immediately stunned. Alice was full of curiosity, and her eyes even shone slightly, while Aggie, who had been squatting obediently behind the counter, raised his head and looked at Duncan, then looked at Sherry, his dog head full of question marks. "But I'm just a dog…"

Duncan heard this and looked down. Before he could say anything, the abyssal demon suddenly perked up and straightened his upper body. "But I can try to be a cultured dog. I have the enthusiasm and confidence…"

"That's fine," Duncan said cheerfully. He kept his attention on the port and reached under the counter to take out a few blank notebooks and distributed them to the "students" while saying, "Then let's use these as alphabet books. Let's start with the most basic letters…"

Sherry took the notebook Duncan handed over with a confused look on her face.

Then, she entered an even more confused state.

Letters and spelling, the door to a completely incomprehensible new world.

Only a few minutes passed before Sherry confirmed one thing: it was easier to fight cultists with Aggie than this!

But Duncan obviously didn't pay much attention to Sherry's distressed expression—or rather, he was already used to this expression.

He only felt joy, a kind of joy when he suddenly came into contact with familiar things and suddenly did familiar things while wandering in a foreign land.

But this happy time didn't last long—when Sherry began to stumble through learning to write the fourth letter, a crisp bell and light footsteps suddenly came from the door, interrupting this "class time where the spatial shadow imparted knowledge to its dependents."

Nina's cheerful voice rang out at the door. "Uncle Duncan! I'm back!"

Duncan looked up from his pleasant teaching and saw Nina pushing the door into the store, but then he noticed that something was following Nina in.

"I saw Ayi when I came back," Nina said happily. "Ayi seems to have brought a friend back too!"

"Friend?"

Duncan frowned slightly, then saw Ayi flying into the store behind Nina, followed by a large parrot with iridescent tail feathers…

Duncan: "...?"