Deep Sea Embers

It's an amazing feeling.

Duncan could clearly feel things in the distance—he could feel the Lost Homeland drifting in the boundless sea, the living ghost ship was constantly opening up the route on the chart under the control of a goat head, and one head was not very strong The cursed doll turned around in the cabin, as if familiar with the environment on board the ship, the deep and dark sea was slowly undulating around, and there were countless strange things hidden in the sea.

However, in his other line of sight, he was sitting in an antique shop in the lower part of the city-state of Pland. Nina's human girl was sitting opposite her, eating the cheapest cake in the lower city.

He is Captain Duncan, the Master of the Lost Home, the mobile Scourge of the Infinite Sea—he is sitting here like an ordinary person, eating his own breakfast, in the depths of a peaceful marketplace.

I don't know if it's an illusion, but he feels that there is a part of his heart that is always hanging and uneasy is settling down little by little. It may be the nerves that have been tense for a long time on the ghost ship, or it may be something else, but he feels that it is always Not a bad thing.

As if noticing the sight from the side, Nina who was eating the cake suddenly raised her head, and she glanced at Duncan curiously: "Uncle Duncan, don't you want to eat?"

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

"Enough is enough, it's not good to eat too much sweets."

"Um."

Duncan nodded, picked up the cake and took a bite. He seriously felt the rich taste that he hadn't tasted for a long time, and felt the coarse sweetness slowly melt in his mouth—then, he clearly felt that this body began to process the cake. The food that goes down.

He calmed down a little in his heart, knowing that the situation was as he expected.

This body is "better to use" than the one that was temporarily occupied for the first time - its "parts" are intact, the death time is not long, and the takeover of my own soul almost seamlessly restarts the vitality in the body, which is the same as before. The open-minded corpse was quite different.

He is now breathing, blood is flowing, and his heart is beating—although the beating speed seems to be a little slower, it should still be in the range of normal people.

There should be no need to worry about the problem of body corruption, and it also saves the calculation of soaking in preservatives, and in this way, it is less likely to be exposed in front of ordinary people.

But there's one thing Duncan isn't sure about.

He knew that his body should have a disease—in the memory obtained from devouring, the negative impression of being sick was more profound than all other memories, and the spirits and painkillers found in the cabinet before were also proof.

He didn't know what kind of disease this body had before, because the time of the onset and the cause of the onset seemed to be a long time ago, and it had long been blurred, but one thing was obvious: at this moment, except for ordinary people with physique Apart from the feeling of weakness he gave himself, he didn't feel anything wrong with this body.

Disease gone? Because of walking in the spirit world, this body has healed itself? Or is it because the projected soul is ultimately limited in perception, so that I can't actually feel the problem of the body, and the health of the body is actually still deteriorating?

Duncan ate quietly 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 popular. She is now studying in a school jointly run by the church and the city hall, and her major is in the steam mechanism—— 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 is paid by her uncle, and the other half is a subsidy from the city hall.

For a city-state that has developed into the industrial age, even official subsidies to train craftsmen in this area are quite worthwhile—and it is undeniable that this kind of school with a very clear purpose can at least solve the problem of literacy for civilians .

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

"I don't have any classes this morning," Nina nodded. "There are only two history classes in the afternoon. In addition, I have to tell Mrs. White that I won't be living in the dormitory for a few days..."

Duncan suddenly stopped what he was doing. He gave Nina a serious look 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" in a daze, and then suddenly became angry: "You shouldn't talk like that! You're just sick, just follow the doctor's advice and take the medicine honestly—" —Mom and Dad entrusted you to me..."

"It was your parents who entrusted you to me," Duncan corrected seriously, and he spoke while using the memory in his mind to organize the words, "You were only six years old at that time."

"But now I'm seventeen," Nina puffed her face, and stabbed the last piece of cake with a fork, "Your ability to take care of yourself is not even as good as mine - if I really move out, you won't need three You can make a mess of the room in just one day. In fact, you can also ask me to help take care of the storefront, at least clean up, the windows are so dirty that you can hardly see clearly..."

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

But slowly, he couldn't help laughing again.

He felt a kind of temperature from this girl named "Nina"... a kind of warm temperature as if bathed in the sun.

"Well, I'm just saying it casually," he said, shaking his head while stirring the last bit of soup in the bowl, "It's history class in the afternoon...how are you doing in history class recently?"

"Uncle Duncan, are you really okay?" Nina opened her eyes wide in surprise, "You never... well, at least the past two years, you never asked about my school affairs."

Duncan opened his mouth and was about to say something, but the girl in front of him continued on his own: "We are talking about ancient history recently, and old Mr. Morris is telling us about the events after the Great Annihilation... To be honest, It’s quite interesting, ancient history sounds like many parts of the story, far more interesting than modern history and modern history.”

Duncan thought for a while, with a serious face: "It sounds like you have learned well? Then I will test you. What are the related concepts of Great Annihilation?"

Today's Uncle Duncan is very strange. Although he can't say how strange it is, he is just different from usual.

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

She was very happy that what Uncle Duncan asked was exactly what she had just mastered.

So with a smug smile, she began to tell Duncan what she had just learned:

"The Great Annihilation happened about 10,000 years ago—although due to unknown reasons, minorities with unique cultural heritage such as elves, Senjin, and Jipulo recorded inconsistent times in their own calendars , but generally speaking, the time of the Great Annihilation recognized by the archaeological community was at the end of the Order Era 10,000 years ago..."

Duncan listened calmly.

My heart is full of question marks.

Elf? Senjin? Jeeplo? What's happening here? It turns out that humans are not the only intelligent group on land? And elves... Is this the same concept as the "elves" in my understanding? Could there still be elven city-states living in the age of the steam industry in the boundless sea?

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

"...There are some discrepancies 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 an era that was far more prosperous, stable and safe than it is today. At that time, there were extremely vast continents and oceans. It is far from boundless as it is today, and there is no end of the so-called "real frontier" in the sea and land...

"The era after the Great Annihilation is called the 'Age of the Deep Sea'. The Age of the Deep Sea has continued to this day, and there is still no sign of ending. The most notable feature of the Age of the Deep Sea is that the boundless sea covers almost the entire world, while only the old land remains. Less than 10% of the era, and they are all 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 have become a means of communication between 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 'Ancient Kingdom of Crete' that first rose from the ruins is the earliest ancestor of civilization in the Deep Sea Age that can be tested. Although This ancient kingdom lasted less than a hundred years, but it left behind a large number of far-reaching legacies, including the most primitive and superficial classification methods for many anomalies and anomalies in the deep sea age, as well as a lot of valuable experience in maintaining survival in the deep sea age ..."