Deep Sea Embers

This feeling is amazing. Google search reading

Duncan could clearly feel things in the distance - he could feel that the Lost Home was drifting on the vast sea, and that the living ghost ship was constantly opening up routes on the chart under the control of a goat-headed man with a head that was not very strong. The cursed doll was spinning around in the cabin, familiar with the environment on the ship as if on an adventure. The deep and dark sea was slowly rising and falling around it, and there were countless strange things hidden in the sea.

However, in another view of his eyes, he was sitting in an antique shop in the lower city of Puland City. The sounds of people and cars on the street reached his ears, which accentuated the tranquility of the shop. A man named Nina's human girl was sitting opposite her, eating the cheapest cake in the lower town.

He is Captain Duncan, the master of the Lost Home, a moving natural disaster on the boundless sea - he is sitting here like an ordinary person, eating his breakfast, deep in the peaceful city.

I don't know if it was an illusion, but he felt that a part of his heart that had always been hanging and always uneasy was settling down little by little. It might be the long-term tense nerves on the ghost ship, or it might be something else, but he felt that it was something after all. Not a bad thing.

As if noticing the sight coming from the side, Nina, who was eating the cake, suddenly raised her head. She glanced at Duncan curiously: "Uncle Duncan, aren't you going to eat?"

Duncan glanced at the food on the other person's plate: "Is it enough for you?"

"That's enough. It's not good to eat too many sweets."

"Um."

Duncan nodded, picked up the cake and took a bite. He carefully felt the rich taste that he had not tasted for a long time, and felt the rough sweetness slowly dissolving in his mouth - and then he clearly felt that this body began to process it. Eat the food.

He felt a little calmer, knowing that the situation was as he expected.

This body is "easier to use" than the one I temporarily occupied for the first time - its "parts" are intact, it didn't die for a long time, and my soul took over and almost seamlessly restarted the life in the body. This is different from the previous one. That broad-minded corpse was completely different.

He is breathing, blood is flowing, and his heart is beating - although the beating speed seems to be a little slower, it should still be within the range of a normal person.

There should be no need to worry about body decay, and there is no need to worry about soaking in preservatives. In this way, it will be less likely to be exposed in front of ordinary people.

But there's one thing Duncan's still not sure about.

He knew that his body must be diseased - among the memories obtained through devouring it, the negative impression of being plagued by illness was more profound than all other memories, and the spirits and painkillers found in the cabinet were also clear evidence.

He didn't know what kind of disease this body had suffered before, because the time of onset and the triggers seemed to be memories of a long time ago and had long been blurred, but one thing was obvious: at this moment, in addition to the physical constitution of ordinary people, Apart from the feeling of weakness he felt, he didn't feel anything wrong with his body.

Is the disease gone? Because of walking in the spirit world, this body has healed itself? Or is it because the projected soul has limited perception after all, so that he can't actually feel the problem of his body, and the health of his body is actually still deteriorating?

Duncan ate his meal calmly while thinking, and then suddenly glanced at Nina who was eating opposite him: "Don't you have to go to school today?"

Nina lives in the lower city, and the economic conditions are not good, but the city-state of Pland has obviously developed to the point where basic education is relatively common. She now attends a school jointly run by the church and the city hall, focusing on steam engines—— This kind of school can be regarded as a kind of "vocational high school", mainly to send skilled steam craftsmen to factories and churches.

Half of Nina's tuition was paid by her uncle, and the other half came from a grant from the city hall.

For a city-state that has developed into the industrial age, even if it is officially subsidized to train craftsmen in this field, it is quite worthwhile - and it is undeniable that this kind of school with a very clear purpose has at least solved the literacy problem of civilians. .

Nina was very studious, and in her uncle's memory, the girl had excellent grades in all her courses.

"I have no classes this morning," Nina nodded. "There are only two history classes in the afternoon. In addition, I have to go and tell Mrs. White in the afternoon that I won't be staying in the dormitory these days..."

Duncan suddenly stopped what he was doing. He looked at Nina seriously and asked, "Don't you think staying here to take care of someone like me will delay a lot of things? You can live in the school for a long time. That might be more helpful for your studies.”

Nina was stunned. She looked at her "Uncle Duncan" blankly, and then suddenly became angry: "You shouldn't talk like that! You are just sick. Just take the medicine according to the doctor's advice - —Mom and dad entrusted you to me..."

"Your parents entrusted you to me," Duncan corrected seriously. He used the memory in his mind to organize the words as he spoke, "You were only six years old at that time."

"But now that I'm seventeen," Nina puffed her face and stabbed the last piece of cake with her fork, "your ability to take care of yourself is not even as good as mine - if I really move out, you don't have to do it three times." The room can be made into a mess in one day. In fact, you can ask me to help take care of the store, at least clean it, the windows are so dirty that you can hardly see clearly..."

Duncan listened helplessly to the girl's "preaching". He didn't expect that his casual "test" could bring about such a big reaction from the other party.

But slowly, he couldn't help but laugh again.

He felt a kind of warmth from the girl named "Nina"... a warm temperature that seemed to be bathed in the sun.

"Okay, I just said casually," he shook his head and said while stirring the last bit of soup in the bowl, "There is history class in the afternoon... How have you been studying in history class lately?"

"Uncle Duncan, are you really okay?" Nina's eyes widened in surprise, "You have never...well, at least you have never asked me about my school affairs in the past two years."

Duncan opened his mouth and was about to say something, but the girl in front of him continued on her own: "We were talking about ancient history recently, and Mr. Morris was telling us about what happened after the Great Annihilation... To be honest, It’s quite interesting. Many parts of ancient history sound like stories, which are far more interesting than modern and modern history.”

Duncan thought for a while and said seriously: "It sounds like you have learned well? Then let me test you. What are the concepts related to the Great Annihilation?"

Uncle Duncan is very strange today. Although I can't say why it is strange, it is just different from usual.

But Nina didn't think too much - compared to her uncle's slightly strange words and deeds, this simple girl was more happy that Uncle Duncan finally cheered up and seemed to be in a good mood.

She was delighted that Uncle Duncan was asking exactly what she had just mastered.

So with a proud smile, she began to tell Duncan the knowledge she had just learned:

"The Great Annihilation happened about 10,000 years ago - although for unknown reasons, ethnic minorities with unique cultural heritages such as the Elves, Sen'jin, and Gipulos record inconsistent times in their own calendars , but generally speaking, the time recognized by the archaeological community as the Great Annihilation occurred at the end of the Era of Order 10,000 years ago..."

Duncan listened calmly.

There are questions in my mind.

Elf? Sen'jin? Jeepers? What's happening here? It turns out that humans are not the only intelligent race on land? And elves...is this the same concept as the "elves" in my understanding? Are there still elven city-states living in the age of steam industry in the Infinite Sea?

Some very strange pictures appeared in his mind, and Nina's voice was still coming from the other side:

"... There are certain differences in the records of the Great Annihilation in various city-states, but the more common part is that the Era of Order before the Great Annihilation was a far more prosperous, stable and secure era than today. At that time, there were extremely vast continents and ocean areas. It is far less boundless than it is today, and neither ocean nor land has such an end as the so-called 'realistic border'...

"The era after the Great Annihilation is called the 'Deep Sea Age'. The Deep Sea Age continues to this day, and there is still no sign of its end. The most striking feature of the Deep Sea Age is that the boundless sea covers almost the entire world, while only the old land remains. It is less than 10% of the times, and they are divided into large and small islands or "foreign lands in the fog". Today, many city-states are built on relatively stable islands, and various ocean-going ships serve as a means of communication between the islands. , means of communicating with each other.

"In the early days of the Deep Sea Age, the remnants of the old world suffered heavy losses, and the old civilization was almost completely destroyed. The 'Old Kingdom of Crete' that first emerged from the ruins was the earliest ancestor of civilization in the Deep Sea Age that can be tested to date. Although This ancient kingdom lasted less than a hundred years, but it left behind a large number of legacies that had a profound impact on later generations, including the most primitive and crude classification methods for many anomalies and phenomena in the Deep Sea Age, as well as a large number of valuable experiences in maintaining survival in the Deep Sea Age. …”