Pale Night

Real life was different from strange tales. The biggest difference was that when you lived in reality, you had to consider a whole heap of real, trivial details—

Did a moving Cursed Doll need joint maintenance? Would Alice constantly taking apart her joints eventually make her suddenly fall to pieces while walking? Had the salted meat and dried cheese aboard the ghost ship expired?

Did superheroes who socialized by day and fought evil by night ever sleep? Did the evil forces who fought superheroes normally have to go to the supermarket to buy groceries?

Stories never told you these things. People in stories were forever dressed in white, coming and going like the wind. The Cursed Dolls in stories only needed to suddenly crawl out of some hidden corner to scare people. Just as the Ghost Captain in stories had never worried about the ship having nothing but century-expired salted meat and hard cheese.

But a Cursed Doll in reality was itchy all over after soaking in seawater, and even taking a bath meant figuring out how to deal with the salt grains lodged in the gaps between her joints...

Standing outside the cabin, Duncan sighed and realized more clearly that surviving aboard this ship for the long term seemed to require more than determination alone.

He also had to consider a whole lot of practical matters, especially now that the crew had grown.

The ghost ship did not actually have very abundant living supplies. Duncan knew that perfectly well.

The ship had an unlimited supply of fresh water, but fresh water was all it had without limit. The ingredients stored in the food hold would not replenish themselves once consumed, and the only edible things there were salted meat and hard cheese. Though they showed no signs of spoilage due to the Lost Homeland's special nature, Duncan reasonably suspected that they had been stored there for at least a century.

Besides that, there were no spare clothes aboard suitable for Alice's size—though the Cursed Doll had never mentioned needing any—and nothing for entertainment, not even a chess set or a deck of cards.

The Boundless Sea was vast and endless, yet it was difficult for the Lost Homeland to obtain any real supplies from this immense ocean. The ship seemed to have no reliable "home port" where it could dock and refit, much less any channel for exchanging goods with the civilized city-states on land.

Goat Head seemed never to have cared about such matters, but Duncan was now seriously considering them—he needed to find a way to improve the Lost Homeland's current shortage of supplies.

Further still, he was considering how to establish contact with the "city-states" on land.

Drifting blindly across the sea forever was an extremely inefficient means of exploration. Information about this world had to be obtained from land; that was Duncan's deepest impression after Spirit World Walk.

Setting that aside, even for the sake of his own mental and physical health, he had to try making more contact with those "city-states" on land, with this world's civilized society—otherwise, he truly feared that after a long drift, he would become a twisted, gloomy, reclusive Ghost Captain.

Thinking this, Duncan turned his head slightly and looked at Pigeon Ai Yi, who was obediently perched on his shoulder, preening her feathers.

His gaze was mainly fixed on the Brass Compass hanging at Ai Yi's chest.

The pigeon tilted her head at her "master" and suddenly blurted out, "Set up a branch base! Spread the fungal carpet! Hey, do you even know how to manage this?"

Duncan fell silent for a moment. Most of the time, this pigeon was utterly erratic, but the things she occasionally said were so fitting that one could not help suspecting she was wise beneath a foolish exterior.

For now, Spirit World Walk seemed to be the only viable way to "reach" the land-based city-states.

Though the method seemed fraught with uncertainty, and though mysterious accidents like "Ai Yi" had occurred after its last use, Duncan knew he would soon undertake another Spirit World Walk—not only to gather intelligence from land, but also to verify and master a very useful ability as soon as possible.

And just as important as Spirit World Walk was Pigeon Ai Yi's "special ability" to bring back a ritual dagger from distant land.

If she could bring back a dagger, could she bring back more things? What were the rules and limits governing the items this bird could carry? Could the process be controlled deliberately?

After thinking for a moment, Duncan decided to ask the pigeon directly. "Do you know how you brought that dagger back?"

The pigeon thought for a moment, then said in a profound tone, "You need more crystal ore."

Duncan: "..."

He decided to give up communicating with the pigeon for now. It would be more reliable to try it himself during the next Spirit World Walk.

Inside the cabin, Alice finally fumbled her way through how to use the water pipes and roughly figured out how to take a bath.

On a ghost ship with limited conditions, she could only take a cold bath, but for a doll, that was not a problem at all.

Before climbing into the bathtub, however, Alice decided to greet everything in the cabin first.

She patted the enormous oak barrel, then knocked on the pillars supporting the cabin. She nudged the floor beneath her with the tip of her foot, then stood on tiptoe to fiddle with the ropes and hooks dangling from the ceiling.

"Hello, my name is Alice," she happily greeted these cold, unfeeling objects, just as she had greeted Mr. Goat Head earlier. "I'll be living aboard this ship from now on."

Nothing in the cabin responded to her greeting, but Alice did not mind in the slightest.

Goat Head had said that the Lost Homeland was alive. Many things aboard this ship were alive.

Though they apparently did not possess true "intelligence" like Goat Head, nor even the ability to communicate, that did not stop Alice from treating the entire Lost Homeland as a "neighbor" who needed to be greeted.

The Lost Homeland was a living object, and so was she.

Certain that her greeting had been polite and appropriate, Alice's mood brightened even further. Only then did she take off her gorgeous dress and clumsily climb into the oak barrel, which had already been filled with water.

First step: take off her head and rinse it—after all, the joint in her neck was not very sturdy to begin with.

Miss Doll thought her plan was perfectly reasonable.

At last, Pland City-State in the dead of night had ended its daylong bustle. Beneath the pale glow of the night sky, this prosperous "Pearl of the Sea" gradually fell asleep.

Yet in the quiet darkness, there were always night watchmen watching over the sleeping city.

At the window of the Grand Clock Tower, the tallest building in Pland City-State, a young woman with long gray-white hair and an exceptionally tall, upright figure stood overlooking the city.

The woman's features were beautiful, but a striking scar running across her left eye inspired fear at first sight. She was taller than most men and wore silver-gray light armor and a battle skirt. She had clearly undergone extensive training; the muscles of her limbs were full and evenly defined. Within arm's reach beside her rested a greatsword that gave off a faint silvery gleam—the hilt bore runes symbolizing ocean waves, while Faint Light rippled across its blade like water.

Behind the woman, the sounds of machinery constantly echoed—the Grand Clock Tower's mechanism was running steadily under the power of steam engines. Complex, precise gears and connecting rods ran through the roof and floor, driving the four clock faces above as well as the simulated celestial instrument hidden deep within the building.

Judging by the sound, this enormous and precise machine was operating in excellent condition. No evil force had disturbed its sacred steam core.

Yet Judge Vana still felt a faint unease. A terrible premonition—as though something was about to happen, or had already happened, and she was destined to be powerless to stop it—left her deeply unsettled.

Footsteps came from the stairway. The gray-haired woman by the window turned toward the sound and saw a priest in Sea Priest robes ascending from the stairs. He carried a brass Incense Burner in his hand, clean smoke slowly curling around him.

The priest walked to the central mechanism pillar in the room, removed the old Incense Burner hanging from the pillar's railing, and replaced it with a new one. He observed the smoke drifting from the burner and confirmed that it floated unhindered around the moving gears and connecting rods. Only then did he softly recite the name of the Goddess of Storms and turn to look at the gray-haired woman by the window.

"Good evening, Judge—are you standing watch in person again?"

"I have a bad feeling. It has been like this for the past few days—especially tonight."

"A bad feeling? About what?" The priest looked up, concern in his deep eyes. "Has the Goddess given you an omen?"

"Not anything so clear," the young female judge said, shaking her head. "I only vaguely feel... that something is approaching this city."