Chapter 63

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.CHeCk for new stories on no/v/el/bin(.)c0m

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.