Chapter 563: Revisiting the Garden

Chapter 563: Revisiting the Garden

As was her usual disposition, Alice demonstrated an unwavering trust in Captain Duncans judgment. She didnt question or doubt him when he suddenly expressed the desire to use a particular key once more. With a cheerful demeanor, she instantly agreed to his request, her faith in him unshaken.

Taking the opportunity to clarify his intentions, Duncan explained to Alice, I need to re-enter the Alice Mansion to test some theories Ive been developing about a place or time referred to as the Old World.'

Alice responded with an enthusiastic nod. Although the term Old World was unclear to her, she grasped the seriousness of the matter. She was keenly aware that whatever Duncan was planning, it was of utmost importance.

With a sense of familiarity bred from their previous collaborations, Alice swiftly located a stable and comfortable spot to sit down. She then turned around to expose the keyhole situated on her back.

As a matter of fact, Ive been talking to Nina about possibly altering my dress, maybe cutting an opening right where the keyhole is, she chatted animatedly as she waited for Duncan to wind her up with the key. But she had reservations, thinking that sand or dust might find its way in. I find her concerns a bit exaggerated. After all, its not like Im rolling around on the ground; how would anything get in there?

Better to err on the side of caution, Duncan advised in a laid-back tone. We cant be certain how sensitive or fragile the internal mechanism might be. If it were to malfunction due to debris, Im not equipped to repair it.

Alice kept up her chatter, adding, Well, Miss Lucretia might have the skills to fix it. She was able to repair Luni, remember? But yes, you have a point, Captain. Repairing Lunis head took quite a bit of time.

Listening to Alice discuss subjects that would sound downright surreal to an outsider, Duncan couldnt help but break a smile. He picked up the unique brass key that had been the subject of their conversation. As he had done previously, he gently and carefully inserted it into Alices keyhole.

As the key turned automatically, a familiar clicking sound reverberated through the air. Duncan braced himself. Within a second, his sensory perception underwent a dramatic change; his focus shifted and his orientation reconfigured.

A few moments later, he opened his eyes, initially enveloped in total darkness. He allowed his senses some time to adapt to this new reality. When his eyes finally adjusted, the strange garden, framed by a sky that seemed straight out of a cartoon and an abundance of verdant greenery, materialized in front of him once more.

Stationed at the gardens center, surrounded by entangled vines and bristling thorny bushes, was a silver-haired gothic humanoid doll identical to Alice. The dolls sketchpad lay beside her, untouched and in the exact same position as it had been during his last visit.

Taking a moment to cautiously scan his environment and mentally compare it to his previous experiences, Duncan remained still before finally allowing himself to move.

About thirty seconds later, Duncan had finished surveying the environment around him and found no irregularities. Everything appeared as he had left it, untouched and unaltered. A curious sensation washed over him, leading him to suspect that time in this so-called Alice Mansion had come to a standstill in his absence, resuming only upon his reentry.

The notion was unsettling, yet it didnt feel entirely baseless.

He found himself reflecting on an encounter with a rather peculiar entity in the mansiona headless butlerwho had once informed him of the Alice Mansions unique rules governing the passage of time.

After mulling this over briefly, Duncan lifted his eyes to examine the sky that stretched over the bizarre garden setting.

During his last visit, his senses had been overwhelmed by the mansions myriad of surreal and unsettling phenomena. Questions had bombarded his mind so quickly that he couldnt focus on any single aspect of his surroundings. Although the skycartoonish and peculiarhad caught his eye back then, he had never taken the opportunity to scrutinize its details.

Today, he looked up with a newfound sense of urgency and determination.

An idea seized him abruptly. He glanced down at the sketchpad clutched in the puppets hands. Could this seemingly insignificant artifact be a key to unlocking not just the puzzles of the Alice Mansion, but of ancient worlds and perhaps even the Ancient Gods themselves?

It was becoming increasingly evident that the Alice Mansion wasnt just a localized mystery, but rather a piece in an incomprehensibly vast cosmic jigsaw puzzle that awaited completion.

After hesitating for a brief moment, Duncan carefully crouched down, cautiously maneuvering around the thorny underbrush that surrounded him. With deliberate precision, he extracted the sketchpad from the puppets unresisting hands.

The cover of the sketchpad depicted an unsettling vortex, twisted stars, and a menacing red hue that seemed to ooze malevolence. On the back cover, however, was an engraved inscription that Duncan found strangely familiar:

The messenger brings news from afar, the chosen clan has picked up the lost ancient star and forged it into a blessed crownThe Third Long Night has ended.

His eyes settled on these words, mulling over their weight and meaning.

These lines described the actions of the ancient Crete Clan who, guided by an entity known as the King of Darkness, had constructed Vision 001 and raised it to the heavens.

When Duncan first encountered this text in the garden, it was nothing but cryptic and meaningless to him. But now, after absorbing what hed seen and experienced, he was hit with an unanticipated realization.

His thoughts veered toward the fallen ten-meter-diameter moonwhich he understood was a fragment, a component that had detached from the rune circle of Vision 001.

In Duncans mind, the rune circle encapsulating the sun resembled an illustrious crown, and the deformed, compressed moon seemed to perfectly fit the description of a lost ancient star.

Just as he was engrossed in this intricate web of thoughts, a soft, indistinct noise reverberated from somewhere deep within the garden, snapping him back to his immediate surroundings.

Duncans head shot up, his eyes darting towards the direction from which the noise had originated.

Before him was nothing but dense vegetation. The shadows cast by thriving shrubs and dwarf trees gave way to a more profound darkness that lay beyond.

But Duncan was certain he had not imagined the sound.

According to the headless butler, this was the innermost part of the Alice Mansion, a place where even the mansions high-ranking servants werent allowed to tread casually. Only Mistress Alice and a mysterious entity known as the Gardener had access. Yet, the Gardener had been absent for an indeterminate amount of time.

Could there be an intruder? Or had the long-absent Gardener finally returned?

With his brows tightly knitted, Duncan carefully returned the sketchpad to the puppets arms. With stealthy steps, he began to move cautiously towards the luxuriant, shadow-cloaked shrubbery.

Rustle swish rustle The faint noises manifested again, emanating from an undefined, obscured location.

Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he saw it. A shape resembling a sinuous, unsettling tentacle was surreptitiously wriggling and weaving its way through the inky darkness at the gardens periphery.