Free Web NovelChapter 43: Chapter 43 Good morning, Mr. Duncan
Duncan put the book back in place and checked the rest of the furnishings in the room. He found nothing of value—the contents of this small bedroom were pitifully scant and it seemed rarely used. The most valuable clues were that book and the two old notebooks in the desk drawer.
The notebooks were filled with content related to steam engines and engineering principles, occasionally interspersed with complaints about certain teachers or classmates.
This made it easy to conclude that the occupant was a young person of school-going age.
After slowly sorting through fragments of memory, Duncan returned everything in the room to its original state and went back to the master bedroom.
Sitting on the edge of the bed for a while in thought, he then stood up and approached a nearby wardrobe, almost instinctively pulling open the door and opening one of the drawers.
Several bottles of strong liquor hid quietly in the depths of the drawer, accompanied by half a box of pills used for pain relief and to soothe nerves, belongings of a heretic named "Ron."
He suffered from a serious illness that had worsened to the point where it was incurable. The poor-quality liquor and temporarily effective painkillers were a constant in the drawer, but these items were clearly of no help in extending the life of a person afflicted by disease.
Consequently, the man who had lost hope in life turned to the Sun Sect. The preachers told him the Sun God’s healing powers could cure all worldly diseases and purify the bodies and minds of the converts. To some extent, the heretics did fulfill their promise:
They had a bloodied and bizarre ritual that used blood as a medium to transfer the life force of innocent people into the bodies of ailing believers. Duncan didn’t know the principle behind this ritual nor if it truly cured incurable diseases. Based on the remaining fragments of memory, the heretic named "Ron" did indeed improve after the ceremony and became wholeheartedly devout, even donating much of his family’s fortune to the "messenger."
However, Duncan wasn’t concerned with whatever had happened among those dead heretics. freeweɓnovel.cѳm
He reached deeper into the drawer, feeling his way to a hidden compartment, and, after fiddling around in there for a bit, found a revolver and a box of bullets in good condition.
The Plunder City-State did not prohibit the possession of firearms, but it required legal procedures. A supposed antique dealer living in the Lower City District obviously lacked the funds and status to obtain a gun licence, so this was undoubtedly an illegally acquired weapon—for safety, the original owner of this body had left the gun in the room instead of taking it to meetings. Normally, he would have used it to protect his shop, but now it was Captain’s property.
Of course, Duncan knew this was just an ordinary weapon. Compared to the "anomalies" aboard the Homeloss, even the seemingly outdated flintlock he had on the ship might possess a special power over this revolver—but he was a realist. He knew his movements in Plunder City-State were unlike those aboard the ship, as his current body was flesh and blood, and many parts of the city were far from safe.
After all, he couldn’t exactly let a dove ’dove’ every issue he encountered—Ai Yi’s movements were too conspicuous, likely drawing unnecessary attention from the church forces within the city.
Just then, a faint noise suddenly caught Duncan’s attention.
He heard the sound of keys scraping from the direction of the ground floor shop entrance, followed by the sound of the door opening and hurried footsteps.
Duncan quickly secured the revolver close to his body, only then noticing that it was broad daylight outside—the whole night had passed while he busied himself in the antique store. Meanwhile, Ai Yi suddenly chirped on his shoulder, "You have a new short message!"
"Quiet," Duncan glanced at Ai Yi and spoke rapidly as he headed for the door, "Stay in the room for now, wait for my command. And if outsiders are present, don’t speak."
"Aye captain," Ai Yi replied as she flapped her wings and headed toward a nearby cabinet.
Duncan hastened out of the room, and just as he reached the stairwell, he heard the hurried footsteps climbing the stairs. Then, a young and anxious girl’s voice called from below, "Uncle Duncan? Have you come back?"
The next second, a girl dressed in a brown dress and a white shirt, with long, deep brown hair, stepped into Duncan’s view.
The girl looked to be around seventeen or eighteen years old, slim and petite, with what appeared to be morning dew in her hair. She was not particularly striking, just youthful and pretty, befitting her age. Her eyes widened in surprised delight as she looked at Duncan standing at the top of the stairs.
Duncan did not respond. He just stood silently on the second floor, with the sunlight streaming in from a narrow window behind the staircase silhouetting him, leaving his expression shrouded in obscurity. He watched the girl silently for several seconds before finally speaking slowly, "What did you just call me?"
"Duncan... Uncle?" A flicker of surprise crossed the girl’s face, followed by a slight tension. She steadied herself on the banister of the staircase, peering cautiously, as if trying to discern the middle-aged man’s expression in the backlight, "Is something wrong? Have you been drinking again? You haven’t been home for days... I just saw the light on downstairs..."
The girl’s expression and voice were both caught by Duncan’s eyes and ears—she clearly did not know (or had not thought) to mask her emotional response. freēwēbnovel.com
According to the memories he had assimilated, this girl should be the "niece" of the original owner of this body, and his only relative.
Duncan vaguely confirmed that the girl did not think there was anything wrong with what she said, not realizing that the "Uncle Duncan" she referred to was a misnomer from the very start.
Where was the problem? Why would this girl, theoretically incapable of knowing his secret, naturally call out the name "Duncan"?
A myriad of speculations rapidly churned in his mind, and at the same time, Duncan found a scrap of information corresponding to the girl among the memory fragments in his mind—the child with deep brown hair, the last somewhat nostalgic figure of this body’s original owner in the world.
"Nina," Duncan said, his expression unchanged, his tone even, the storm in his mind utterly concealed, "Did you stay at school yesterday?"
"I’ve been staying at school these past few days," the girl downstairs immediately answered, "I thought you would be out for at least a week like before, so after tidying up the house, I went to stay with a classmate... Mrs. White, who manages the dormitory, agreed. I came back in a rush today because I remembered I left a book at home... Are you alright? You seem... odd..."
"I’m fine, just a bit groggy from waking up."
Duncan responded naturally and started walking down to the first floor, a wild theory forming in his mind that he now needed to confirm.
He and Nina brushed past each other, the young girl on the staircase turning to glance at Duncan curiously, and just as he was almost at the bottom, she suddenly asked, "Uncle Duncan, are you going out again? Are you... going to stay home for a few days?"
"...It depends," Duncan did not turn back, as he was not sure if his facial expression appeared normal enough. He simply followed the expected response patterns from his memories to address the "niece’s" question, "I’m just going to check the door. If nothing’s up, I’ll be home for the next few days."
"Ah, okay, then I’ll go back and buy some groceries later, we’re running low on food at home..."
The girl spoke rapidly as she ran up the stairs, her steps hurried and her tone somewhat cheery.
Duncan had already reached the entrance of the shop. He took a deep breath and pushed open the door.
He turned around, looking up at the shop sign hanging over the doorway. The old, dirty sign clearly displayed the letters: Duncan’s Antique Shop.
The first letters were as worn as the others with no signs of recent alteration, as if it had always been that way.
Duncan frowned and slowly approached the display window next to him. He peered forward, observing his own face in the reflection of the dirty glass.
Indeed, it was a stranger’s face—not belonging to the imposing and gloomy Ghost Ship captain, but rather to a middle-aged man with a disheveled beard, deep-set eyes, and an air of weariness, belonging to Ron, the Heretic who had taken his last breath in the sewers.
Duncan straightened up bit by bit. He heard the City-State slowly awakening around him. The crisp sound of bells clinking at the doorsteps of shops opening for the day, the bicycle bells ringing, the voices of passersby beginning to flood the streets. Someone passed by the antique shop, likely a neighbor from next door, and a greeting reached Duncan’s ears:
"Good morning, Mr. Duncan—have you read today’s paper? The Deep Sea Church apparently took down a large Heretic cell. It’s quite the event!"
