Deep Sea Embers

Chapter 63 “Return To Port”

Is the scene inside the bottom of the Vanished the World Creation?

If the bottom of the ship is indeed the subspace, then is the World Creation also part of the subspace? Or at least there is some connection between the two?

But in the end, conjectures and speculation are only that, speculations. He had no evidence of this being true.

The scar was too far away to make any experimental comparison, and even if he looked through a telescope, it wouldn’t provide any more detail than what he knows now.

Duncan spent a long time afterward just standing on the deck and letting the sea breeze blow against his face. The guy wanted to think about things, but more than that, he wanted to make sure everything was back in order.

The news of him touching the “door” had unsettled the Vanished, and even now, there’s a notable tremor happening across the ship and its habitants.

“Relax, this is nothing to worry about.” Duncan tapped the nearest armrest and said in a calming voice.

This time, he got clear feedback: the tension from the ship gradually subsided, and the ropes and sails had stopped shaking.

From the looks of it, the ship has reaffirmed the captain remains the captain and not something else.

Duncan eventually returned to the entrance of the captain’s room after doing that, but instead of gently pulling the door open like usual, he used a bit of force and pushed it inward.

As expected, the swirling grey fog was still there when he did this.

Ai didn’t stay on the ghost captain’s shoulder then; instead, she suddenly flapped her ways and flew to the nearest mast and cried out: “The road ahead is broken! The road ahead is broken!”

That earned a curious glance from the man himself, but in the end, he still stepped through and returned to the familiar bachelor apartment.

Here, he’s Zhou Ming, the regular normal human of Earth. He still had on his familiar shirt, his familiar trouser, and a body far weaker than Captain Duncan’s.

Afterward, he examined the room for any differences. From what he could tell, everything was as he had left it. Not even the layer of dust had changed from the some areas.

Then Zhou Ming mindfully turned around and faced the door behind himself – he wanted to test something.

Assuming there’s another person behind the door, Duncan took on the same position as the fake did behind that door down at the Vanished. Then leaving only a slit, he peered through, expecting a surprise somehow.

This foolish act left Zhou Ming’s heart pounding. Even though it’s unreasonable to assume anyone would be there or that a ghost captain would suddenly stab a pirate sword through the crack. Nevertheless, the thought of this happening still brought exhilaration to the guy.

Yet, there was only the billowing swirling black fog outside of his room.

While Zhou Ming became relieved that he didn’t get stabbed, a strange sense of loss still plagued his heart. It’s stupid of course to think this way. Who in their right mind would want to be stabbed? But he just couldn’t help it.

Shaking his head vigorously to shrug off the idiotic desire, he slowly got up and came to his desk. There’s the scrap paper he scribbled on, the diary he used, and the computer screen in the middle that’s still running despite the power being cut off.

Nothing’s changed….

Zhou Ming exhaled, but suddenly, his expression froze.

There is a change!

His gaze had fixed onto the corner of the desk where there’s a lifelike model of the Vanished just sitting there….

A stroke of lightning blasted Zhou Ming in the head. Crumbling into the chair as he gasped for air from the shock, the man took several good minutes to get over this discovery.

Once he’s confirmed there was no mistake in his memory about this model ship never being here before, Zhou Ming hastily snatched the item up with his hand and examined the darn thing.

This realistic-looking “ghost ship” was only about half a foot long, and the thing didn’t weigh any different from an ordinary model. However, the details were so refined that he could clearly see the ropes and buckets strewn across the deck…

Compared with the real Vanished, the only difference was its size.

Abruptly, Zhou Ming appeared to have thought of something. Lifting the ship up to eye level, he carefully buckled open the door leading into the captain’s room at the stern with his finger.

He could see the miniature mapping table, but there was no wooded figurine of the goat head nor the sight of Alice.

A surge of weirdness gripped Zhou Ming at why he would think this. It’s outrageous to think a model ship would have Alice inside it, but then again, wasn’t the ship model’s appearance outrageous in itself?

The guy stayed in this state for a long while afterward to ponder the next step.

He didn’t know how the ship had appeared on his desk, but it was clear that the connection between his cordoned bachelor’s apartment and the “world across the door” was more profound than he had imagined.

The change may have occurred after he “took the helm” or peered into subspace through the crack in the door. Regardless of the reason though, one thing’s certain, he’s still getting feedback from the other bodies across the door. This meant there was no threat to him yet from the change.

Just like that, he sat in the chair for who knows how long until his eyes caught a glimpse of the shelf to the right.

He had bought this cabinet years ago, but even until today, the guy never found the opportunity to fill it up aside from some decorative crystals.

Figuring there was no better timing, Zhou Ming held the Vanished up and carefully placed the “model” in one segment of the shelf. Done with that, he took two steps back and examined his “achievements” with a weird sense of satisfaction.

How this thing came to be in his room was still a mystery, but during his days of entrapment, he’s got a new hobby of decorating this empty shelf.

……

A loud and melodious whistle broke the calm on the sea this morning. Vanna, who had arrived in the port early, immediately came to the observation deck to oversee the start of the operation.

The authorities had emptied the place in advance so there was no worry of innocent bystanders getting dragged into the mess. Instead, heavily armed policemen and clerics from the church were patrolling the dock with twelve of those spider steam walkers acting as blockades to the roads.

Soon enough, the intended target had begun to approach the coastal waters.

It’s a large mechanical steamship, the White Oak.