A copy of the Pland News cost twelve pesos, equivalent to a meager breakfast or the cheapest dessert in the Crossroads District—the paper could be bought from passing newsboys, or, with a few more steps, from a newsstand at the end of another street.
With a few coins in his pocket, Duncan bought a local paper from a newsstand. The owner was a middle-aged man bent over his reading. Hearing Duncan drop the coins into the box, he waved for him to take a paper himself without ever looking up.
Duncan leaned over to glance at what the man was reading and found it was an analysis of past lottery results, covered in colorful lines mapping out every unrealistic fantasy.
He lowered his eyes to the paper he had just bought. Its front-page headline was the news that interested him most:
The esteemed Church Guardian forces, led by Inquisitor Vana Wayne, had successfully destroyed a Sun God cult gathering site, apprehended a large number of cultists, and rescued several citizens at the scene...
A photograph of that "Esteemed Inquisitor" was printed beside the article. To Duncan's surprise, she was quite a young woman. A striking scar crossed her left eye, but she could still be called beautiful—standing with her subordinates, she was on average half a head taller than every man around her.
The Inquisitor wore fitted, lightweight armor and a battle skirt, with a two-handed greatsword that seemed to have stepped straight out of the age of cold weapons, like a valiant female knight from a medieval painting—yet behind her and the Church Guardians stood an enormous steam machine, with obvious turret structures mounted on it...
A wondrous yet strange aesthetic, contradictory yet harmonious.
Duncan's gaze lingered on the photograph for a long time.
The destruction of a cultist gathering site counted as good news to him. Without having to worry about his identity being exposed, he could watch those bastards who conducted human sacrifices get arrested without the slightest burden on his conscience. At the same time, he was even more concerned with the information revealed by the photograph.
A female Inquisitor specializing in dealing with cultists, fully armed steam-powered armored robots, Church forces equipped with both cold weapons and firearms...
Information that was incredibly difficult to obtain aboard the Lost Homeland could be laid out in plain sight within civilized society for the price of a twelve-peso newspaper.
Just as Duncan had suspected before—while the Lost Homeland had drifted blindly for a century, the times had changed.
Even without judging things from the crude perspective of who could beat whom in a fight, the mortal civilized society represented by the Pland City-State had developed to a stage that was... truly remarkable.
An intersection was no place to read the newspaper. Duncan casually rolled it up and tucked it away. He remembered that a "niece" named Nina was waiting for him at the antique shop, so he headed back.
Compared to wandering aimlessly through the city alone, a local who was naturally inclined to trust him was clearly a better source of information.
As for the Lost Homeland, Duncan was not worried—even while Spirit World Walking, he could still clearly sense the situation aboard the ship and the state of his other body. Goat Head was steering in his place, and Alice seemed quite well-behaved. He should be able to stay active here for a while longer.
Besides, the Lost Homeland's Crew Code had originally stated that "the captain may occasionally leave the ship." It was no big deal if the captain went Spirit World Walking for a couple of days, right?
And as his Spirit World Walk continued, Duncan felt that he was gradually becoming more adept at controlling this unusual "mental projection." Perhaps before long, he would be able to control both bodies at once—then there would be even less reason to worry about the ship while he was Spirit World Walking.
Just then, a sweet fragrance drifted over from beside him. Duncan stopped instinctively and looked over, spotting a cake shop facing the street, with freshly baked pastries displayed outside.
This was the lower district of the Pland City-State, so naturally there were no high-end dessert shops here. Yet even the cheapest, crudest pastries made Duncan stop in his tracks.
He still had a few coins in his pocket, less than twenty pesos in total, but that was more than enough to buy a piece of cake.
After a brief hesitation, he went over to the cake shop and bought the most ordinary honey cake—the shop used some kind of coarse, thick paper to wrap it, rough and scratchy to the touch.
Duncan walked toward the antique shop with the newspaper and cake in hand, but for some reason, he was in a pleasant mood.
Walking down the street, talking to people, buying things, returning home.
Such simple things gave him the feeling of having lived through another lifetime—he savored the sensation of breathing on land, treating these ordinary daily routines as some precious kind of life experience.
Life aboard the Lost Homeland was actually not bad. Goat Head was noisy but dependable, and Alice was an interesting fellow too. Still, experiencing life on land was not bad at all.
Before long, Duncan returned to the front of the antique shop. Before pushing open the door, he looked up at the sign—the letters spelling Duncan's Antiques still rested quietly there, carrying the aged texture of something that seemed unchanged for more than a decade.
He pushed open the door, and the bell rang crisply. Immediately afterward, hurried footsteps came from the stairs.
A young girl with brown hair rushed down, then stopped sharply at the foot of the stairs. Holding onto the nearby pillar, she stared wide-eyed at Duncan, her expression tense and worried.
"Uncle Duncan, where did you go?" she asked rapidly. "You said you were just going to look outside, but then you vanished in the blink of an eye... I thought you'd gone off to a tavern or gambling house again..."
Duncan looked at the girl before him in surprise. He could tell that she was genuinely nervous and worried about something.
She was worried about the only family member she had left in the world, the person she depended on for survival—even if that relative was a drunken, gambling, degenerate, ill-tempered wreck who had secretly become involved in the bloody dealings of cultists.
An indescribable feeling quietly rose within him, but his expression did not change. "I just went for a walk and bought a few things while I was out."
As he spoke, he walked toward the antique shop counter, intending to set down the newspaper and cake. Nina seemed to suddenly relax, then immediately ran upstairs again, speaking quickly as she went. "Wait a moment, Uncle. I'll bring breakfast down—you definitely haven't eaten breakfast at this hour, have you? I made corn and beet soup..."
Before Duncan could say anything, Nina had already disappeared up the stairs. A little while later, she carefully came back down carrying a large tray.
On the tray was a simple breakfast for two.
Duncan stared blankly as the girl bustled about, watching her skillfully clear a space on the counter, arrange the food, then bring over an extra chair for him...
She was especially quick and efficient, and she seemed to be brimming with happiness from some unknown source.
Duncan watched her work, wanting to help but finding that he could not get a hand in anywhere.
He had dealt with plenty of young people around her age, but he had almost never seen a child as diligent and capable as her.
On Earth, she would probably only have been high-school age. Even here, she looked like a student.
Duncan suddenly thought that living with an "uncle" who had fallen into a cult could not have been easy—but this girl named Nina seemed to have completely adapted to a life that could not be called happy by any measure, and she had even found something within it to support herself.
"Let's eat," Nina said after preparing everything. She glanced at Duncan and spoke as if she had said it countless times before. "Doctor Albert said that if you eat breakfast regularly and keep yourself in a good mood, then in the long run, it'll work better than hard liquor... better than painkillers."
Duncan did not speak at once. He merely looked at Nina quietly, and just before her expression turned awkward and uneasy, he picked up the cake he had set aside earlier, unwrapped it, and placed it before her.
Nina's eyes widened in surprise as she stared at the item before her in confusion. "This is..."
"Cake. I bought it at the street corner," Duncan said casually. "You're still growing. You should eat something nutritious for breakfast."
Nina froze. She only stared blankly at the cheap pastry before her, and after a long while, she seemed to come back to herself and murmured almost to herself, "Are you really all right?"
"Of course I'm all right," Duncan said naturally. "I just suddenly remembered that I haven't bought you any dessert in a long time."
"That's true, it's been over a year..." Nina muttered. But then she suddenly smiled and picked up a table knife. "Then we'll split it in half. Doctor Albert said you need nutritious food too."
Duncan felt strange, but after a moment of silence, he still nodded.
"...All right."
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