Good Morning, Mr. Duncan

Duncan put the book back, then checked the rest of the room's furnishings. He found nothing of value—the tiny bedroom held pitifully few belongings and seemed rarely used. The most valuable clues were that book and the two old notebooks in the desk drawer.

The notebooks were filled with material on steam engines and engineering principles, occasionally interspersed with complaints about certain teachers or classmates.

It was easy to draw a conclusion: the occupant was a young person still of school age.

Duncan slowly sorted through the fragments of memory in his mind. After returning everything in the room to its original place, he went back to the master bedroom.

He sat on the edge of the bed and thought for a while, then got up and went to the tall cabinet beside it. Almost following the memory in his muscles, he opened the cabinet door and pulled out one of the drawers.

Several bottles of liquor were quietly hidden deep inside, along with half a box of painkillers and nerve-soothing tablets. These were the worldly possessions left behind by the cultist named Roen.

He had been seriously ill, and his condition had worsened beyond cure. Cheap liquor and painkillers that offered only temporary relief had been regular fixtures in the drawer, but such things clearly did nothing to prolong the life of a man ravaged by disease.

So this man, who had lost all hope in life, had turned to the Sun Cult. Its preachers told him that the Sun God's healing power could cure every ailment in the world and purify the body and soul of those who converted. To a certain extent, those cultists had indeed kept their promise:

They had bloody, bizarre rituals that used blood as a medium to channel the vitality of innocent people into sick believers. Duncan did not know how the ritual worked, nor whether it could truly cure terminal illness. But judging from what remained in the memory fragments, the cultist named Roen had indeed improved after the ritual. He had then become a devout believer of the sun, even donating more than half his family fortune to the Emissary.

But Duncan did not care what had happened among those dead cultists.

He reached deeper into the drawer and easily found a hidden compartment. After feeling around inside, he found a revolver and a box of well-preserved bullets.

Pland City-State did not prohibit citizens from owning guns, but legal procedures were required. A fake antiques dealer living in the lower district clearly lacked both the money and status needed to obtain a firearms permit, so this was undoubtedly an illegally possessed weapon. Out of caution, the body's former owner had left the gun in the room instead of taking it to the gathering. He likely used it to protect his shop, but now it belonged to the captain.

Duncan naturally knew it was an ordinary weapon. Compared to the "anomalies" aboard the Lost Homeland, even his seemingly outdated flintlock pistol might possess powers beyond this revolver. But he was a practical man. He knew that acting in Pland City-State was unlike being aboard the ship. The body he was using now was flesh and blood, and many places in this city were far from safe.

After all, he could not have the pigeon make people disappear every time something happened—Ai Yi's movements were too conspicuous and could easily draw unnecessary attention from the city's Churches.

Just then, a faint sound suddenly caught Duncan's attention.

He heard the scrape of keys coming from the entrance to the shop downstairs, followed by the sound of the door opening and hurried footsteps.

Duncan swiftly tucked the revolver away on his person. Only then did he notice that daylight had already fully broken outside—he had spent the entire night busy in this antique shop. Then Pigeon Ai Yi suddenly began squawking on his shoulder: "You have a new short message!"

"Quiet," Duncan immediately shot the pigeon a look as he hurried toward the door. "Stay in the room and wait for my orders. Also, do not speak if there are outsiders present."

Ai Yi immediately flapped its wings and flew toward a nearby cabinet. "Aye captain!"

Duncan quickly left the room. Just as he reached the stairway, he heard those hurried footsteps already mounting the stairs, followed by a young girl's anxious voice from below. "Uncle Duncan? Is that you? You're back?"

The next second, a girl in a brown long dress and white blouse, with long dark brown hair, came into Duncan's view.

She looked no older than seventeen or eighteen, small and thin. There seemed to be a little morning dew still clinging to her hair. Her appearance was not especially striking, but she possessed the youthful beauty fitting for her age. She stared wide-eyed at Duncan standing at the second-floor landing, surprise and delight on her face.

Duncan did not respond. He merely stood silently on the second floor. Sunlight streamed in from a narrow window behind the staircase, backlighting him and concealing his expression in hazy shadow. He looked at the girl in silence for several seconds before finally speaking slowly. "What did you just call me?"

"Uncle... Duncan?" The girl's face showed a flicker of surprise before she grew slightly nervous. She gripped the stair rail beside her and peered cautiously upward, seemingly trying to make out the expression on the middle-aged man's face through the backlight. "Is something wrong? Did you... did you drink again? You haven't been home for days... I saw the lights on downstairs just now..."

Every expression and every note in the girl's voice reached Duncan's eyes and ears. She clearly did not yet know—or had never even considered—how to hide her emotional reactions.

According to the memories he had devoured, this girl was supposed to be the "niece" of this body's original owner, and his only remaining relative.

Duncan vaguely became certain that the girl saw absolutely nothing wrong with what she had said. She had not realized that "Uncle Duncan" was an incorrect form of address from the very beginning.

What had gone wrong? Why would a girl who should have had no possible way of knowing his secret call him Duncan so naturally?

Countless speculations surged through his mind. At the same time, Duncan found a small piece of information corresponding to this girl among the fragments of memory—the dark-haired child, the last figure in the human world to whom this body's original owner still held some attachment.

"Nina." Duncan's expression did not change, and his tone remained calm. None of the storm raging in his mind showed on his face. "Did you stay at school last night?"

"I've been staying at school these past few days," the girl below immediately replied. "I thought you'd be like before and stay out for at least a week, so after tidying up the house, I went to stay with a classmate... Mrs. White, who manages the dormitory, agreed to it. I only came back today because I suddenly realized I'd left a book at home... Are you all right? I feel like you're... acting strange..."

"I'm fine. I was just a little groggy from sleep."

Duncan responded naturally, then headed downstairs. A wildly absurd suspicion had begun to form in his mind, and now he had to confirm it.

He passed Nina on the stairs. The young girl turned sideways to let him through while curiously studying Duncan's eyes. When he was almost at the first floor, she suddenly asked, "Uncle Duncan, are you going out again afterward? Are you... going to stay home for a few more days?"

"...That depends." Duncan did not turn around, because he was not yet sure whether his expression was natural enough. He merely answered his "niece" in the tone the memories told him he should use. "I'm just going to check outside. If nothing's wrong, I'll be home for the next few days."

"Oh, all right. Then I'll go buy groceries later. There isn't much food left at home..."

The girl spoke quickly as she scampered upstairs, her footsteps rapid and her tone carrying a certain lightness.

Duncan had already reached the shop entrance. He took a soft breath and pushed the front door open.

He turned around and looked up at the sign hanging above the entrance. On the old, grimy signboard, a line of letters came clearly into view: Duncan's Antiques.

The first few letters were as old as those that followed, with no trace of a temporary alteration. It was as though it had been that way from the very beginning.

Duncan frowned and slowly walked to the display window beside him. Leaning forward, he used the image reflected in the filthy glass to examine his own face.

It was indeed an unfamiliar face. It did not belong to the imposing, gloomy Ghost Captain, but to a bearded, hollow-eyed, weary-looking middle-aged man—the cultist named Roen, who had already breathed his last in the sewers.

Duncan slowly straightened up. He could hear the district gradually coming alive around him. The crisp clinking of bells came from street-facing shops opening in the morning, while bicycle bells and the chatter of passersby slowly filled the street. Someone walked past the antique shop, seemingly a neighbor from next door, and a greeting reached Duncan's ears:

"Good morning, Mr. Duncan—have you seen today's paper? The Deep Sea Church seems to have destroyed a major cultist hideout. That's quite a big deal!"