Deep Sea Embers

It’s a wonderful feeling to be able to know what’s happening from multiple angles – the Vanished floating about in the open sea, the goat head’s constant yapping and steering of the ship, and the cursed doll Alice strolling about on the vessel as she explored the various cabins.

He was Captain Duncan, the master of the legendary Vanished, a moving, walking natural disaster of the sea. Yet, he’s also currently sitting inside an antique shop sipping soup and having a peaceful breakfast with Nina, his so-called human niece.

As if noticing the attention coming from the side, Nina, who was eating the cake, suddenly looked up curiously: “Uncle Duncan, aren’t you going to eat?”

Duncan glanced at the food on the other side’s plate: “Is it enough?”

“Yes, it’s not good to eat too many sweets.”

“Hmm.” Duncan nodded and took a bite out of his own slice. Immediately, his taste buds were attacked with the rich sweetness of honey and the mellow texture of the soft fluffy sponge in his mouth. But more than the flavor and texture, he’s more surprised by the fact that his stomach was able to process the food!

Clearly, unlike the first body Duncan possessed, this second one he’s occupying had been revived with his interference. The soul of Ron may have died, but the flesh lives on. It’s able to breathe, bleed, and eat like a normal human being.

However, there was one thing the ghost captain wasn’t quite sure about.

He knew his body here must be ridden with a severe illness, that’s the most prominent memory and emotion he gained from possessing this body. The spirits and painkillers in the drawers were a testament to this fact.

Duncan grew quiet while he mulled over this, and then he suddenly thought of something else: “Don’t you have school today?”

Nina lived in the lower sector of the city, where economic conditions were poor in this household. Nevertheless, education was a universal thing in the city-state of Pland thanks to the support of the church and city hall.

As it so happens, her subject mostly had to do with steam engines and engineering, a study that was difficult and important for the church and factories.

Due to this major, Nina’s tuition had been partly paid for by her uncle, while the rest was done through scholarships from the city. Thankfully the girl didn’t disappoint. According to her uncle’s memory, she’s always had excellent grades in all her classes.

“I don’t have classes this morning,” Nina nodded, “only two history classes in the afternoon. In addition, I have to go talk to Mrs. White in the afternoon that I’m not staying in the dormitory during the next few days…”

Duncan suddenly stopped his gesture of scooping the soup and stared at Nina with a serious face, “Don’t you think staying here and taking care of someone like me will delay many things? If you stay at school, it might be more helpful to your studies.”

Nina was stunned by the concern in her “Uncle Duncan’s” voice but promptly got angry instead, “You shouldn’t talk like that! You’re just sick. You will get better if you follow the doctor’s instructions and take the medicine. Mom and Dad entrusted you to me….”

“It was your parents who entrusted you to me,” Duncan corrected the girl right away and organized his language, “You were only six back then.”

“But now I’m seventeen,” Nina puffed her face up and stabbed the fork into the last piece of cake on her plate, “your ability to care for yourself is inferior to me. If I did move out, it wouldn’t take more than three days for you to turn this room into a mess. In fact, I can also help out with the store. At least I can clean up the dirty windows and floors. I can barely see through the glass anymore….”

Duncan listened helplessly to the girl’s “preaching” since he didn’t expect his words would bring such a big reaction from the other party.

But slowly, he couldn’t help but laugh again.

He felt a temperature in this girl named “Nina”… A warmth that’s bathed in sunlight.

“Alright, it’s just a casual mention,” he said and shook his head before stirring the soup bowl with the spoon. “The afternoon is history class… How are your studies going in that class?”

“Uncle Duncan, are you really all right?” Nina’s got wide in surpise, “You’ve never been… Well, at least in the past two years, I have never heard you asking about my studies.”

Duncan was about to explain when the girl cut him off by continuing, “We are talking about ancient history recently, and Mr. Morris is telling us about the events after the Great Annihilation… To be honest, it’s quite interesting. Ancient history sounds much like the stories you find in fictional books, far more enjoyable than modern history.”

Duncan contemplated what she meant and inquired further, “Sounds like you’re studying well? I’ll test you then. What is the concept of the Great Annihilation?”

Uncle Duncan is acting very strange today. Although I can’t tell why, but different from his usual self.

But Nina didn’t think much of it. The simple girl was just glad that her uncle’s mood was happier and not the usual depressed state.

So, with a proud smile, she began to tell Duncan what she had learned:

“The Great Annihilation took place about 10,000 years ago. Although for unknown reasons, ethnic minorities with unique cultural traditions such as the Elves, Dwarves, and the Orcs recorded inconsistent dates in their own calendars, but in general, archaeologists agreed that the Great Annihilation occurred at the end of the Age of Order ten thousand years ago…”

Duncan calmly listened but got a boatload of question marks in his mind.

Elves? Dwarves? Orcs? What’s going on here? So there is not only one intelligent race on land? And the elves… are they the same type of race like I know of? Is there also another city-state living in an industrial steam age?

He couldn’t help but come up with some very strange pictures in his mind until Nina’s voice interrupted again:

“…… There are certain discrepancies in the accounts of the Great Annihilation in various city-states, but the common part is that the Order Era before the Great Annihilation was a far more prosperous, stable, and secure era than it is today. Back then, there were extremely vast continents with an ocean less extensive than what it is today. There is also no ‘reality border’ like now between land and sea….”

“The era after the Great Annihilation is called the ‘Deep Sea Age’, and the Deep Sea Age continues to this day with no signs of it ending. The most striking feature of the Deep Sea Age is that the vast sea covers almost the entire world, while less than 10% of the land is left from the old era. Currently, all of the city-states are on various island, with ships crossing the ocean as the main mean of communication between each settlement.”

“In the early days of the Deep Sea Age, the remnants of the Old World suffered heavy losses with entire civilization nearly brought to the brink of destruction. Among the many powers that rose afterward, the ‘Ancient Kingdom of Crete’ is the first and most notable within the historical texts. Its legacy lasted for merely a century before its collapse, but its influence on future generations could still be felt today. Like the primitive and crude classification of anomalies in the world, it’s the very foundation for our refined system today.”