The wooden goat head stared at Duncan, who was sitting behind the navigation table. Its hard, dark face seemed to have a strange light flowing in its obsidian eyes. In reality, this thing couldn't show any expression, but Duncan could clearly sense a kind of expectation from its wooden face. This wasn’t the first time the goat head had urged him to "set sail." Every time he came here, it would say the same thing.
He even felt like the ship itself was pushing him to end this aimless drifting at sea and get back on the right path as soon as possible.
Yet, Duncan fell silent. A cloud of gloom hung over his naturally imposing face. In his thoughts, he clearly recognized two problems:
First, he was the only person on this entire massive ship. The vessel, called the "Lost Home," was at least 150 to 200 meters long. To operate such a huge craft, he would need dozens, if not hundreds, of experienced sailors. How could he manage it alone?
Second, aside from the professional concerns, there was a key issue blocking his sailing journey—he didn’t know how to operate a ship.
Duncan felt a wave of anxiety. He tried to imagine what would happen if he asked the strange, noisy goat head for advice on sailing. The more he thought about it, the more anxious he became.
However, the goat head didn’t know what its captain was thinking. It simply asked, "Captain, do you have any concerns? If you’re worried about the condition of the Lost Home, you can rest assured. The Lost Home is always ready to sail with you to the ends of the world. Or are you worried that today is an unlucky day to set sail? I have some knowledge of divination. What kind do you believe in? Celestial signs, incense, or crystals? Speaking of crystals, do you remember…"
Duncan forced his facial muscles to stay calm, suppressing the urge to argue with the goat head. He spoke in a low voice, "I’m going to the deck to check things out—stay quiet here."
"Understood, Captain. But I must remind you, the Lost Home has been drifting aimlessly for too long. You must take control of it quickly and get this journey back on track…"
The goat head said, and then, with the sound of wood creaking, it returned to its original position.
Duncan suddenly felt the whole world quiet down. He let out a gentle sigh, his racing thoughts gradually calming. He picked up the flintlock pistol that was on the table and stood up to leave the captain's cabin.
This old-looking flintlock was something he found while exploring the ship, along with a one-handed sword that was currently hanging at his waist. These two items were his source of security while moving around the ship.
During the past few days of exploration, he had spent a long time roughly learning how to use these two things—though so far, he hadn’t seen any living creatures on the ship besides himself. Talking "objects" didn’t count.
The salty sea breeze hit him, and his slightly irritated mood began to settle. He stepped out onto the deck and instinctively looked up at the sky.
Thick dark clouds still covered the sky as far as he could see. There were no sun, moon, or stars visible in the clouds, just a murky light shrouding the endless sea.
This scene had lasted for a long time. In fact, since the day Duncan boarded this ship, he had only seen this kind of sky—making him wonder if there was even normal weather in this world. Was this gloomy scene the eternal weather of this sea?
Duncan turned around and saw the door to the captain's cabin standing quietly. Above the door, there was a beam with some letters he didn’t recognize carved into it. When he focused on those letters, their meaning clearly entered his mind: "The Door of the Lost."
"The Door of the Lost… is that the Lost Home?" Duncan muttered to himself, then added with a hint of self-mockery, "Well, this ship has a nice name."
He walked around the captain's cabin and took the stairs at the edge of the deck to the upper deck at the stern. Here, there was a wooden platform, the best spot for a view besides the lookout.
A heavy black steering wheel sat quietly on the platform, waiting for its helmsman.
Duncan frowned. For some reason, he suddenly felt a sense of urgency and restlessness, a feeling that seemed to arise the moment he saw the steering wheel.
He hadn’t felt this way during his previous visits!
As if responding to his anxiety, a sudden, chaotic wind blew across the deck, and the previously calm sea instantly began to ripple. Although the wind and waves didn’t pose any threat to the massive "Lost Home," Duncan’s instincts screamed danger. The next moment, he instinctively looked toward the bow of the ship.
In front of the Lost Home, on the sea, a vast wall of white mist appeared, as if it had materialized out of nowhere, making him widen his eyes in shock!
It was a white mist that seemed to surround and isolate the entire world, like a towering cliff pressing down from above. More than its terrifying size, what made Duncan alert was that it reminded him of the endless fog outside his apartment window!
The Lost Home was heading straight for that wall of mist!
Duncan didn’t know what the fog was or what lay within it, but he instinctively felt a great danger. His survival instinct told him that being swallowed by that mist was definitely not a good thing!
He rushed toward the platform where the steering wheel was located—overwhelmed by a sense of helplessness: even if he took the helm, how could he steer this massive ghost ship away from that wall of fog by himself?
But he instinctively reached the steering wheel, and almost at the same moment, he heard a hoarse, gloomy voice coming from a copper pipe connected to the captain's cabin. It was the voice of the "goat head"—this strange entity sounded a bit panicked this time:
"Captain, there’s a collapse at the border ahead! We are approaching the limits of reality! Please adjust the course immediately!"
Hearing the goat head’s frantic voice, Duncan almost cursed out loud—adjusting the course was easy to say, but why didn’t it just conjure up a hundred sailors who knew how to operate a ship right here?
He looked up at the direction of the mast and saw only a few bare masts standing on the deck. A wave of despair washed over him—forget about raising sails; in fact, this ship didn’t have any sails at all! Those masts were empty!
In his agitation, he didn’t even stop to think about the strange words that had slipped from the goat head’s mouth. His instincts drove him to grab the steering wheel, which seemed to be trembling for some unknown reason.
For the first time in days, he placed his hand on the steering wheel of the Lost Home—previously, the strange happenings on this ship and the goat head’s repeated urgings had made him hesitant about "taking the helm." Now, he had no time to hesitate.
He gripped the wheel tightly, his mind blank, unable to think about how to control a ghost ship alone.
Change happened in the next moment.
A sound like a roaring wave exploded in Duncan's mind, as if a thousand people were cheering on the shore for a ship setting sail, as if hundreds of sailors were shouting the captain’s name on the deck, mixed with a mournful sea shanty and the sound of invisible crashing waves.
A green flame appeared at the edge of his vision. Duncan instinctively looked at his palm and saw a burst of emerald fire suddenly erupting from the steering wheel of the Lost Home, sweeping toward him with incredible speed, engulfing him in an instant.
In the blazing flames, his flesh and blood suddenly felt hollow and ethereal. His captain's uniform looked like it had been soaked in seawater for decades, becoming tattered and worn. Beneath the suddenly ghostly flesh, Duncan could even vaguely see his bones—those jade-like bones were dancing with flames, an unquenchable fire coursing through his body like water.
Yet, he felt no pain or heat. In the roaring flames, he only felt his senses spreading out in all directions.
The fire surged down from the helm, across the deck, over the railings, and up the masts. The flames intertwined like a net, rising from the deck like breathing, and spreading along the lonely masts, finally weaving into a massive sail that looked like mist between the sea and the fog.
The Lost Home set sail before the rapidly collapsing border of reality.
(End of Chapter 3)