The inside of the antique shop was just as Duncan had guessed—cluttered, shabby, and utterly deserted. Just looking at the dust piled up near the display windows, a visitor could imagine how thoroughly the owner had made a mess of his life.
The first things he saw were display stands along the walls on both sides. Large vases, sculptures, and vaguely totem-like objects sat atop the low, sturdy surfaces, while the walls behind them were divided into cubbies for smaller "goods." The counter stood directly opposite the front door, a long bar-like structure, and the shelves behind it were equally dusty, filled with dark-toned picture frames and small ornaments.
Behind the counter, he could also see a staircase leading to the second floor. It was dark up there, and the layout could not yet be made out.
There was also a small door beneath the stairs. According to the "memories," it should lead to the storeroom at the back of the shop—half its space was piled high with miscellaneous junk.
It was hard to imagine that the cultist whose body he had taken over made a living from a shop that looked like no one would ever visit it, and even had money left over to make offerings to the Sun God's priests.
Duncan headed deeper into the shop toward the counter. The old wooden floor creaked beneath his feet, and as he passed the stairs, he noticed the lamp fixed to the wall.
It was an electric lamp.
Duncan immediately frowned slightly.
The design of the fixture was unfamiliar. Its wrought-iron frame and grayish lampshade had an exotic air to them, but the structure of the tungsten-filament bulb inside was unmistakable—the lamp was powered by electricity.
Was electricity already this widespread in this world? Did ordinary commoners in the Lower City use electric lamps too?
Then why had the sewers used gas lamps, oil lamps, and torches? Why did the streetlights outside use gas lamps as well?
A huge question rose in Duncan's mind. It clearly made no sense to him, especially in a place like the sewers—open flames and gas lamps using flammable fuel had obvious disadvantages compared to clean, safe electric lights!
He had initially assumed technological limitations forced the city's administrators to use gas lamps as the sewer's light source. Yet now it seemed... at least in Pland City-State, technology had long since advanced to the point where electricity had entered ordinary households!
An overwhelming sense of incongruity filled Duncan's heart. He tried to search the fragments of memory in his mind for relevant knowledge, but found only the answers: "This is common sense," and "The city was planned this way."
It seemed that either this knowledge had not been disclosed to the public, leaving the cultist whose body he had taken over completely ignorant of it, or it was simply too basic, leaving too faint an impression in the cultist's mind. After his death, the related memories had rapidly blurred and faded, leaving behind only the sense that it was "only natural."
With this temporarily unsolvable puzzle in mind, Duncan reached out and switched on the electric lamp. With a soft click from the switch, bright light immediately illuminated the area around the stairs and counter.
There was another switch on the opposite wall, used to control the lights in the rest of the first-floor shop, but Duncan had no intention of touching it for now.
It was late at night. A small lamp lighting up inside an antique shop that had already closed could still be explained as "the owner getting up and moving around at night," but having the place suddenly blaze with light might attract unnecessary attention.
Using the limited light near the stairs, Duncan first swept his gaze over the nearest merchandise. The first thing he saw was a wooden, totem-like object less than half a meter tall. Strange mask-like patterns had been painted onto it in red and blue, and beside it stood what appeared to be an antique ceramic vase—their price tags displayed absurd prices.
Original price: 420,000. Discounted price: 360.
It practically radiated an air of utter resignation.
Duncan quickly looked away and scanned the entire shop.
If there was even one genuine item here, he would ram the Lost Homeland straight into Pland's city walls.
They were fake beyond doubt. There was no need for a real collector to appraise them—anyone with a functioning brain would never believe that an antique shop in the Lower City was selling genuine relics. Would anyone truly capable of dealing in antiques set up a market in a slum like this? The oldest thing in this entire shop was probably the sign over the door...
Yet Duncan was not surprised by the shop's existence itself. The owner knew he was selling fakes, and the people who came here to buy things never expected to place a thousand-year-old statue in their homes. Everyone understood what was going on. The commoners of the Lower City also needed ways to satisfy their spiritual needs—the "antique shop" sign outside was not hung there by the owner for others to see. It was there for the customers themselves.
After all, there were people selling jade beneath overpasses on Earth. A bracelet for ninety-eight could be advertised as old-mine icy jade, yet a careless knock against a doorframe after taking it home would leave shards of glass all over the floor—did the buyers and sellers really not know what was going on?
Duncan had no interest in the shop owner's formerly miserable life. He cared about only one thing: this place could serve as his first "foothold" on land as captain of the Lost Homeland.
A forward outpost for understanding the world on land and modern civilized society.
He had already made a quiet decision. So long as the conditions for Spirit World Walk permitted it, he would preserve his current body as much as possible and use this "antique shop" as cover while operating in Pland City-State. And if his training of Ai went smoothly, if Ai truly could transport "physical objects" between the Lost Homeland and Pland in a stable, controlled manner, this antique shop would also become a secret transit warehouse for supplies.
Duncan went behind the counter, sat down in a chair, and carefully sorted through the fragments of memory in his mind, considering every possible source of danger.
The original owner of this body had been a Sun God believer, but only a bottom-ranking member of the entire Church hierarchy. Due to the city-state authorities' continual crackdown on cult activity, the Sun God believers' room to survive in Pland had been squeezed to the limit. Their members contacted one another with extreme caution. Not only did they have to wear full-cover hoods and masks whenever attending gatherings, but many low-ranking members had contact with the upper levels of the Church only through one or two designated intermediaries. For Duncan now, this was undoubtedly good news—
It meant that even among the cultists, only that one person knew "his" real-world identity and contact method. Once that person was gone, no one would know "his" unspeakable heretical identity anymore.
He could walk openly before the city-state's administrators, bearing the identity of an upright, law-abiding citizen.
And the even better news was that, after carefully sorting through his memories, Duncan confirmed that this greatest danger had already vanished.
Because "his" intermediary had been one of the three black-robed cultists he had seen just after waking up...
Those three unlucky bastards had already been taken out by the pigeon.
He relaxed a little and shifted into a more comfortable position in the chair.
With the greatest danger gone, if there was still anything to worry about, it would be the other Sun God believers who had participated in the sacrificial ritual at the underground gathering site, along with the larger, more secretive and dangerous Sun God Church behind them.
If the memories in his mind were correct, Pland City-State had dealt a severe blow to the Sun God Church entrenched within the city four years ago. Ever since then, this heretical faith had never recovered in the city-state. Let alone conducting rituals, they could count themselves fortunate if they managed to stay hidden and avoid being dragged out by the Church Guardians.
Yet now, these cultists who normally kept such an extremely low profile had done something rather high-profile.
The purpose of the sacrificial ritual had been to please their god; another purpose was to gather power or strengthen their god's influence over the Real World. The cultists at that gathering site, including the priest Emissary who had presided over the ritual, had actually been only low-ranking members of the Sun God Church. Would these low-ranking members spontaneously organize something this major on their own?
There were not many memory fragments in Duncan's mind, and a low-ranking cultist could never have access to the Church's core secrets. But even by reasoning from the information already available, he could guess that the cultists who had suddenly made this move had likely received instructions from higher up.
That heretical sect worshipping the "True Sun God"... they wanted to do something big in Pland, and the sacrificial ritual he had accidentally ruined was likely no more than the smallest ripple before that larger event began.
Duncan did not have much attachment to this "Pland City-State," but if he wanted to use this place as a starting point for his development, he had no choice but to consider what impact a group of lunatics like the "Sun God believers" running wild through the city-state might have on him.
Before you continue