The captain's words felt like a cold night breeze, cutting through the increasingly dim staircase. Alice instinctively hugged her arms and followed Duncan closely. As they descended further, she finally understood what the captain meant by "the light is black."
In the lower cabin, there were indeed lights—at least, the rooms she saw had the same support beams as above, and those beams were hung with oil lamps that wouldn’t go out. The lamps were burning, but the flames made the area around them darker than the spaces farther away.
Yes, the closer one got to the oil lamps, the dimmer it became. The lamps themselves were almost shrouded in shadow, only faint outlines visible, while areas a bit further away were brighter—at the far corner of the cabin, the light was almost as bright as in the upper cabin.
Earlier, when looking down from the stairs, it had seemed unusually dark because there were two lamps hanging on either side of the staircase. Visually, it was as if those lamps were actively releasing darkness, neutralizing the light that already existed in the cabin.
Alice stared wide-eyed at the overall dimness of the cabin and finally mumbled, "Is this... is this reasonable?"
"You, an unreasonable doll, are here talking to me about reason?" Duncan glanced at the clearly nervous Alice. "In the depths of the Endless Sea, the very idea of things being reasonable is the most unreasonable part."
He said this with a calm expression, as if he was used to such strange situations, but inside, he felt just as Alice did—his shoulder's ghostly pigeon suddenly flapped its wings and voiced its thoughts: "Is this normal? Is this normal?"
Duncan ignored the noisy pigeon and carefully observed the cabin he had never stepped into before, adjusting the angle of the lantern in his hand to try and understand the environment through the shifting light and shadows.
Below the waterline of the Lost Homeland... the cabin's lights were "inverse."
The lamps seemed not to emit light but to absorb the existing light in the space, as if it were some kind of "world mirror."
However, the glow from the lantern in Duncan's hand followed normal lighting rules: it was bright around the lantern and grew dimmer further away.
Was there some principle behind this? Was it just the influence of the Endless Sea, or did it mix with the characteristics of the Lost Homeland itself? Was the "bright environment" inside the cabin real? If those "light-absorbing" oil lamps were extinguished, would it become a bright place?
For a moment, Duncan actually entertained the bold idea of what would happen if he extinguished the lamps on this level, but in the next instant, he forcefully squashed that obviously wrong thought.
He couldn't extinguish the lights here—even if it seemed like those lights caused the whole cabin to be dark, there had to be a reason they were lit!
Suddenly, he recalled something. In the city of Pland, the information he received was that "burning flames can dispel strange dangers." In that statement, it was the "flame" itself that had the effect, not the light it emitted. Did this mean that under certain circumstances, light and darkness in this world could appear "inverse," and in such conditions, the only thing to trust was the "flame" itself?
Could this also indirectly explain why the light from "electric lamps" had no effect on dispelling evil—because it was merely light, lacking the element of "flame"?
"Captain?" Alice's voice suddenly came from beside him, her tone tense and concerned. "Is there something unusual here?"
"No unusual things," Duncan replied flatly, his expression unchanged, and slowly moved forward.
The "light-absorbing" oil lamps quietly burned on the support beams, and some scattered ropes lay around the columns. As Duncan walked past them, the hanging oil lamps made faint crackling sounds, and the ropes slowly wriggled back, making way for the captain.
For some reason, a phrase suddenly popped into Duncan's mind:
The shadows are an illusion brought by the deep sea; beneath the unreliable sea level, only the flame itself faithfully guards the treasures of the Lost Homeland.
He looked at the quietly burning lights and nodded slightly, as if acknowledging and thanking them.
Then, in the next moment, all the oil lamps in the cabin visibly flared up, with flames leaping beneath the glass lampshades.
The whole cabin grew darker...
Duncan: "..."
He suddenly regretted boosting the lamps so early; he should have waited until he was ready to return before giving them a pep talk.
Alice followed closely, carefully observing her surroundings. She saw large barrels and some crates piled in a corner of the cabin, as well as some closed rooms and a corridor leading who-knows-where. She murmured, "This seems to be a storage area... Was this once a cargo ship?"
"If it were a cargo ship, the goods wouldn't be stored this deep—there's a concept called transportation cost," Duncan shook his head and casually replied. "These are long-distance supplies meant for the Lost Homeland itself during its long voyages."
Alice blinked. "Long-distance supplies?"
Duncan didn’t respond but moved closer to inspect some goods near him.
Some of the barrels contained a kind of oil, dark brown and thick, but it didn’t have a strong smell. It might be some kind of fuel, but it clearly had been stored there for a long time—Duncan even suspected that this fuel was "stock" from before the Lost Homeland became a ghost ship. It was originally meant for lighting and dispelling evil, but after the ship turned into a ghost ship, many things in the cargo hold became useless.
In another set of barrels, Duncan found something familiar.
Aged cheese and salt pork that could crack rocks.
Duncan silently sealed the lid back on.
On this level, most places were piled high with supplies. Although a considerable portion looked useless on the current ghost ship, it was enough to prove his earlier judgment about the Lost Homeland:
This ship was at least originally built for some kind of ocean exploration. It could carry a large amount of supplies, and there were strict safety measures between the various supply holds to prevent fire, pests, and rodent damage.
Thinking about the numerous cannons and a sizable ammunition depot on the upper deck, he could almost guess what ambitious exploration dreams this ship once carried—those were the farthest routes, the most dangerous journeys, facing the most perilous environments and the most treacherous enemies. Such an exploration journey required a whole ship of loyal and excellent sailors and a steadfast captain to complete.
Yet now, that potential exploration plan had vanished into thin air, and the ambitious Lost Homeland had turned into the most terrifying disaster on the Endless Sea. The sailors had disappeared, leaving only a ghostly captain still in control of this aimless ghost ship.
He and Alice continued forward, passing several independent cargo holds before entering a corridor. If the structure of this level corresponded to the upper level, then the stairs leading to the lower level should be at the end of the corridor.
"I feel... it’s getting creepier..." Alice hugged her arms, cautiously looking around while speaking softly. "Do you hear the wind? How can there be wind in the cabin?"
"I heard it. No need to be nervous; it’s normal," Duncan casually replied, then glanced at the doll. "Why are you so timid? You at least have the title of Anomaly 099, right?"
As he said this, he also thought about the information he had received from Nina earlier—there were many lists of "anomalies" and "phenomena" that were open to the public in this world. These lists helped people avoid potential dangers or recognize signs of certain anomalies going out of control, but the lists weren't complete. Only the anomalies and phenomena that were "controlled due to threats or of special nature and close to the general public" were included; those that ordinary people would never encounter were clearly not part of it.
He had tried to ask Nina about Anomaly 099, but the girl had never seen that number in her textbooks.
This indicated that Alice, this "cursed doll," either had a special secret, which led to the authorities and church blocking the information, or... she was too dangerous and had always been kept strictly isolated from civilized society, thus never interacting with ordinary people.
Regardless of the reason, it added a layer of mystery to this doll in Duncan's eyes.
However, after hearing Duncan's words, this mysterious doll merely shrank her neck, looking anxious. "Just because I have a number doesn’t mean I’m brave. I’m Anomaly 099, not Coward 099..."
Duncan sighed, thinking that this doll might be the most embarrassing anomaly in the world. It was surprising that the sailors who escorted her had been so nervous...
(End of Chapter)