Cave

Cold. Damp. The stench of rotting flesh. The grating noise of chains scraping against stone.

A flood of alien sensations poured into Duncan's mind, but for a moment he couldn't manage to open his eyes—in that instant, he felt as if his soul had been split in two, one part still aboard the Lost Homeland, while the other had been crammed into a completely foreign shell, a body as unwieldy as a worn-out, broken machine. Chaotic perceptions crashed through his nervous system, mingled with a dull numbness. He tried to open his eyes, to move his fingers, but couldn't feel those corresponding body parts at all.

This unpleasant sensation lasted several seconds before the indescribable numbness and sluggishness in his nerves finally began to fade. Duncan felt his "body" stir as if waking from a long hibernation, gradually regaining the ability to move.

At last, he opened his eyes and saw the situation around him.

Before him was a dim, cave-like space, with burning torches thrust into the distant stone walls. Their flickering light revealed a horrifying scene. Duncan saw many people—or rather, many dead bodies—strewn haphazardly across the damp, waterlogged earth and rocks. Most were ragged and tattered, though a few still wore intact clothing.

Condensed droplets fell from the cave ceiling, and in the distance, he could faintly hear the sound of flowing water, like an underground river or a drainage channel. The noise of scraping chains seemed to come from deep within a tunnel connected to the cave, already fading into the distance.

Duncan blinked, trying to make sense of what had happened. He looked down at his right hand and saw a completely unfamiliar, thin palm, along with the tattered sleeve covering his arm. The brass compass he had been holding was gone.

He raised his head to look beside him. He remembered catching a glimpse of a shadow following him as he wove through that sea of starlight and luminous webs—a shadow whose outline resembled some kind of bird. But of course, he found nothing.

That bird-like shadow didn't seem to have followed him into the real world.

Duncan slowly clenched his hand, forcing down the anxiety churning within him, then tried rubbing his fingers together.

A faint wisp of green flame flickered from his fingertips.

He had to admit, this flame looked far weaker than the one he was familiar with, but it still brought him a measure of reassurance. As the flame burned, his still-chaotic mind steadied slightly, and he sensed more clearly than before a certain... mental rift and connection.

He could distinctly feel that another part of his consciousness wasn't here. He sensed the presence of the Lost Homeland, sensed himself sitting at the desk, holding the brass compass.

The sensation was bizarre, but Duncan quickly grasped the situation:

His mind had undergone some kind of... projection, or extension. That projected fragment of his consciousness had crossed an unknown distance and now burrowed into yet another unfamiliar body.

And in this projected state, he could still clearly feel the existence of his "original self."

This must have something to do with that brass compass! Could this be the ability of that "anomalous item"?

Speculations arose in Duncan's mind, but he didn't let random thoughts consume too much of his time. After confirming that his original body was safe, his mind still under control, and he had merely temporarily entered a distant, nameless shell, he calmed down somewhat and prepared to first figure out what exactly this "new body" was all about.

First, one thing was certain: the environment around him was definitely not on a ship.

This was land—land he had failed to find after drifting at sea for so many days!

Second, this gloomy cave didn't look like a good place. The scattered corpses didn't resemble a normal "burial" scene. What kind of misfortune had trapped the shell he now occupied in such a hellish place?

Duncan took a deep breath, pushed himself up, and sat upright—his body had been leaning against a large rock, a position far from comfortable.

But as he inhaled and rose, Duncan suddenly felt a massive wrongness from the body. He sensed the air he breathed in immediately leak out, a hollow, eerie sensation spreading from his chest, and even his movement became distorted.

Duncan looked down in surprise and saw a large hole.

The hole was right where the heart should be. Its contents were naturally missing. A cold wind blew through it, mingling with the breath he had just inhaled that hadn't fully dissipated, eventually escaping into the damp air.

From a certain angle, Duncan could even clearly see the scene behind him.

"...What the hell?!"

Even with the thickest of nerves, even after gaining some "worldly experience" aboard the Lost Homeland, Duncan still felt a cold sweat break out in that instant. He felt goosebumps rising in waves, every hair on his body standing on end!

But after that initial jolt of terror, the next thing he realized was: he was still standing here just fine, still capable of cursing.

Despite the missing heart and the gaping hole in his chest, he felt no pain from this body at all!

"Is this... a corpse?"

After a moment, Duncan came to his senses. He understood his situation further and quickly calmed down.

Occupying a corpse's shell and moving around might not be something to make a fuss over. After all, he had a ghost ship that sailed itself, a wooden goat first mate whose chatter could boil a person's brain, and had recently met a cursed doll who could detach her head and was adept at riding the wind and waves across the Boundless Sea. Which of those wasn't more unsettling than "a dead man talking"?

At least he was only missing a heart now—Alice's head often wasn't on her neck...

With these random thoughts swirling in his mind, Duncan regained his composure at a speed that surprised even himself. Then he checked the mobility of his current shell, slightly adjusted to the distortion in his movements caused by the chest cavity, and finally stepped toward the corpses discarded in the cave.

"Just as I thought..."

Duncan looked at the first corpse and felt no surprise upon seeing the horrifying hollow in its chest.

It was a gaunt, ragged middle-aged man, looking like a beggar by the roadside. He had been dead for some time, but his wide-open, furious eyes still conveyed the struggle and despair of his final moments.

Duncan moved on, seeing one heartless corpse after another, miserably sprawled on the cold stones. Only two were exceptions—their heads bore gruesome wounds, as if they had smashed them against the rocks and died on the spot.

Duncan couldn't help but speculate—perhaps these two had taken their own lives before enduring the agony of having their hearts torn out.

To be honest, the things in this cave were a bit too much for an ordinary person. Even Duncan felt overwhelmed after checking all the bodies, so much so that he had to find a relatively clean rock farther away to sit on, slowly organizing his thoughts and piecing together the truth as he calmed down.

Clearly, this was a horrifying murder—but from the cold, uniform method of killing, it seemed to be more than just murder. It hinted at some kind of sinister... ritual.

Duncan summoned the spirit flame again, feeling the connection to his "original self." He knew he could cut off this "projected state" at any time and return to the safety of the Lost Homeland.

But he felt he needed to understand what had happened here.

If only to gather some intelligence about the land.

Duncan exhaled, feeling the wind through his chest, and stood up from the rock where he had been resting. He looked toward the tunnel deep in the cave, recalling that the sound of scraping chains had come from that direction.

This underground space held not only corpses but also other living beings moving about. Those who could freely move in this terrible place... should be able to give him some answers.

Rushing over to investigate blindly wasn't exactly safe, but Duncan didn't care—

After all, he was broad-minded now.