Chapter 1 A Knock at the Door

To be fair, Vanna had hardly feared anything in her life, but Captain Duncan Abnomal... always seemed to bring her various "unexpected situations."

A dream-locked room, the endless dark sea outside the window, the bizarre luminous body suspended high in the sky, and beneath the silent night, someone was knocking on the door. Vanna almost subconsciously wanted to conjure her greatsword in the dream and leap towards the door with a downward chop—fortunately, she controlled this impulse at the last second.

"Knock, knock, knock."

The knocking continued unhurriedly, with patience and politeness.

Vanna took several deep breaths, unsure what expression to wear, and could only stiffen her face and try to make her tone sound normal: "Come in."

With a soft click, the handle turned, and the dark wooden door was pushed open from the outside, a tall and dignified figure appearing before Vanna and stepping into the room.

Behind this figure was pure darkness, like the edge of a dream—beyond the edge, a "void" where nothing existed.

Duncan entered the room, giving Vanna a friendly smile: "Good afternoon, Vanna—this time, I did knock."

Vanna stared silently at the ghost captain entering the room, watching him walk to the liquor cabinet, take out a bottle and two glasses, and then leisurely come to the table, sitting down in the armchair.

"You don't have enough evidence yet, but I guess Anomaly 001 has a 'lifespan,'" Vanna said seriously. "The Cretan Ancient Kingdom didn't leave behind an eternal shelter,

But only temporary peace. The sun above us... is probably almost gone."

I thought about this and shook my head uncertainly, "Perhaps even the Storm Cathedral won't give a clear response. Anomaly 001... its operation affects the entire world, and its anomaly alarms more than just one Deep Sea Church."

Duncan was silent for two seconds before nodding gently: "It's hard not to notice—although it's just a gap that's hard to detect with the naked eye, vigilant eyes have been watching the operation of Anomaly 001 for thousands of years, and the church noticed this unsettling situation immediately."

Duncan didn't care about Vanna's last sentence. I just turned to look out the window, asking my biggest question: "What is that glowing thing in the sky outside? Is it also your 'personal preference'?"

"It's partly a reference, but not entirely. I arranged it according to my personal preferences," Vanna said unhurriedly. "Actually, I'm not very good at weaving dreams. I hate directly entering existing dreams even more, but you weren't sleeping soundly, and your dreams were chaotic, so I prepared a place where you could rest well."

I took a sip, frowned slightly, and looked up at Duncan: "It has no taste..."

I was still sitting in the moving steam car, the cathedral's tower and main building appearing in my view.

"Even I can't be sure, Duncan," he finally broke the silence, looking Duncan in the eye, "but she thinks this should only be the beginning."

"...That depends on the feedback from the Storm Cathedral," Duncan said matter-of-factly. "Pland can only report what they observe. We're not a research facility, and we can't think of any way to intervene in the operation of Anomaly 001."

"Aren't you going to sit down?" Duncan raised an eyebrow and glanced at the young inquisitor still standing near the window, gesturing to the empty seat across the table. "He doesn't look too good."

Vanna said solemnly: "Mutual concern among family members is the first step in maintaining family harmony."

Duncan steeled himself and finally came to sit across from Vanna with a strange expression, cautiously sitting down on the chair while watching her pour the wine. After a long while, he sighed: "Do you think this makes it even scarier?"

Vanna remained serious: "Appropriate education and guidance are the first step."

At the time, I didn't understand anything from that dream, but now, I seemed to glimpse a premonition from it.

"First thing," Vanna immediately straightened her expression, becoming slightly serious, "is about the sun—have you noticed its changes?"

"Sorry, I doubt your goodwill, but... I'll just assume you're timid," Vanna said awkwardly. After so few encounters and a series of events, her vigilance and wariness towards the ghost captain had actually changed a lot imperceptibly, but in any case, even from a logical and rational point of view, she didn't dare to cautiously take "knowledge" from the mouth of this subspace returnee. "Let's talk about something else. Why did you come to me?"

"Thank you," Duncan took the glass,

Staring firmly at the clear, slightly golden-red liquid inside, he hesitated for a long time and put it aside for the time being. Then, he raised his eyes and looked at the captain across from him, "Is this another dream--is it a room on the *Lost Country*?"

Vanna pushed a glass of wine over: "Sounds like good news."

"More likely, the first fragment has already fallen, just outside the sight of the civilized world."

Vanna didn't answer immediately. I breathed slightly, hearing my subordinate's voice from the front: "Ah, you're awake. Just in time, the cathedral is almost here."

Duncan: "......"

I shook my head, putting the sudden thought aside for the moment: "What about the first thing you wanted to say?"

"As for when this evidence will arrive—" Before I could finish, Duncan suddenly shuddered: "No! Thank you!"

Vanna was silent for a moment, her gaze turned to the window, and she sighed softly after a long silence in the moonlight: "Sort of—I just hate the pale, cold light of the World-Womb, it's not stern enough, and it feels pervasive. As for what you see now... you can't call it a 'moon.'"

I involuntarily recalled the short, strange dream I had had.

"...But I almost blew the *Sea Mist* into a pile of scrap metal," Duncan carefully reminded.

"...Okay, it's always like this," Vanna shrugged, saying nonchalantly, "Actually, it's just some normal stuff, nothing to do with subspace at all."

"Perhaps huge fragments will fall from the sky, and this isn't the ticking of a countdown."

A chill and unease spread in his heart. Duncan lowered his eyes slightly, concealing all the changes in his eyes, and his hand slowly picked up the glass next to him, subconsciously bringing it to his lips, seemingly wanting to calm his mood with alcohol.

"Yes, I've been paying attention to that," Vanna said with emotion. "I wandered in the north for many years and picked up the bad habits of pirates. I'm usually only accompanied by a group of undead sailors, and my social skills are extremely weak. Plus, there's the old case of Frost, so I can't help but worry about my mental state—to avoid becoming a lonely, eccentric, and cynical weirdo, I need some orderly interpersonal relationships..."

"Captain Tirian?" Duncan's heart stirred, and he suddenly realized something. "Have you been paying attention to..."

Duncan said, seeming to suddenly realize something, and looked up at Vanna: "I suddenly came to you to talk about this. Do you know something? Do you know what's wrong with Anomaly 001?"

"Is that so?" Vanna looked at Duncan a little surprised, then looked at the dream she had spent a long time arranging, looking at the warm and everyday furnishings and the glass in her hand representing friendship, and frowned uncertainly, "Then I'll try a warmer tone next time..."

Strange, discordant, and full of oddities everywhere, Vanna increasingly felt that her current exchange with Captain Duncan was full of unspeakable strangeness, but for some reason, it was in this strange and discordant conversation that she truly felt... this ghost captain was becoming "fleshy."

"Moon..." Duncan skillfully repeated this strange word that seemed to be directly transliterated from an unknown language. "What an awkward name."/

"Of course it has no taste," Vanna smiled, raising her glass slightly to Duncan. "Because he's about to wake up."

"Are you interested in it?" Vanna looked at Duncan with a half-smile. "Then I can tell you the story behind this name—" A chill slowly spread down his back. Duncan felt that he could see some extremely unsettling information from the other person's eyes: "Just the beginning?"

In the dream, huge luminous bodies fell like meteor showers, and the entire world gradually returned to darkness. In the sky, only terrifying darkness remained, shaped like a void or a dying eyeball.

"Its outer rune ring has a gap," Vanna said. "Looking at his expression, they should have noticed it too."

"The guardians never slack off... my impression of them is a little better," Vanna said, then suddenly asked, "What do they think about this?"

"Two things," Vanna stared into Duncan's eyes. "First, thank you for taking care of Tirian these past two days. He seems to be having a good time in Pland."

Duncan paused and said leisurely: Duncan was basically just making up things to further consolidate his image of "regaining human reason and intelligence" in order to facilitate dealing with Vanna and the "civilized order" behind her. However, Vanna didn't take it as nonsense. The Inquisitor was stunned as she listened to the ghost captain mumbling like an old father, and after a long while, she choked out: "You... you care about him quite a bit..."

"I don't think it's a matter of tone..." Vanna felt her eyebrows twitch, but then, as if thinking of something, she sighed with a wry smile. "Okay, at least I think I really felt your 'kindness.' This kindness is a little scary, but I can more or less confirm its authenticity."

Duncan suddenly opened his eyes. The sound of the waves outside the window gradually became low and slow, like distant murmurs, and the breeze blowing into the room also became faint.

Vanna's eyes changed slightly when she heard the other person mention "sun": "Are you referring to the sunrise that was delayed by seventeen minutes, or..."