Chapter 107 Drifting Ground

With countless questions and guesses in his heart, Duncan carefully kept the brass key close to his body. Alice waited obediently beside him, her eyes darting around like a child expecting a secret.

"Do you feel anything different now?" Duncan asked, looking into Alice's eyes.

"Anything different?" Alice tilted her head, raising a hand to touch her back. After a moment, she shook her head. "I just felt a little itchy where the keyhole was, but it doesn't itch anymore."

Duncan frowned. "Nothing else? Just that?"

"Nothing else," Alice answered honestly, then looked curious. "Should there be something? You look so serious. Did you figure out something about the key?"

Duncan frowned deeply. After a moment of hesitation, he finally organized his thoughts and words. He sat down on the bed opposite the doll, looking serious. "You might only feel like a moment has passed, but I spent a long time in a strange place—a grand old mansion called 'Alice Manor.'"

The doll's eyes widened slightly as she listened to the captain's story with surprise and confusion.

Duncan didn't hide his experiences in Alice Manor. He told the doll everything he saw and heard there, then mentioned his encounters in the deep sea, including his meeting with the Frost Queen, Lei-Nola.

Of course, he knew Alice might only understand a part of it, and even that part she might only understand vaguely, and she might only remember a limited amount. But he still chose to tell her everything.

Because this was something she should know—it was important not to assume she wouldn't understand and withhold information from her. That was the least he could do to respect her.

Alice listened blankly until Duncan finished speaking, and then it took her another ten seconds to come back to her senses.

"Wow," she said, scratching her hair with a confused and slightly apologetic expression. "I don't really understand. My head feels dizzy… I'm sorry, Captain. You went to so much trouble to help me figure these things out, but I guess I'm a little slow."

"No, you're not slow. It's just that these things are too complicated," Duncan said, shaking his head with a smile, knowing she would react this way. "Even I think these things are full of mysteries—the clues are too numerous and scattered. We're still far from uncovering the final truth."

Alice nodded as if she understood, then thought about it seriously for a moment and suddenly looked curious. "Are there many people in that mansion? And are they all headless?"

"I only met one person who claimed to be the butler, but according to him, there are indeed many people in the mansion, but they're all hiding," Duncan said, recalling the events. "Also, from what I observed, they should all be headless."

Alice frowned, muttering to herself as she tried to think. "Could it be related to my 'New Head' ability?"

"It's possible. We can't rule out the possibility that some of the servants are the souls of people you beheaded," Duncan thought, as someone who understood "Alice's Guillotine." But then he changed the subject. "However, according to some information the butler revealed, a large number of drifting souls are also gathering in the mansion. They're like some kind of exiles, receiving the mansion's protection. This part of the servants doesn't seem to be beheaded."

He paused, thought for a moment, and continued, "Perhaps your guillotine ability is causing those souls gathered in the mansion to appear headless, regardless of their specific source."

"Oh," Alice said, seeming to understand. Then she seemed to think of something else. "What about that 'Frost Queen'? Is she really just gone?"

"The room has indeed disappeared," Duncan nodded. It seemed that, as she herself had said, when the ancient god's tentacles that acted as the connection point were destroyed, the drifting ground would lose its restraints, like a ship untied from its mooring.

He suddenly stopped, a thoughtful expression on his face.

"Captain?" Alice looked at Duncan, puzzled. "Why did you suddenly stop talking?"

She asked twice before Duncan looked up from his thoughts, his tone a little grave. "I was wondering if the 'drifting ground' Lei-Nola mentioned refers to her room or the entire Alice Manor."

"Ah?" Alice didn't understand. "Is there a difference?"

"If the drifting ground refers to the entire Alice Manor, then when the connection point was burned, the entire mansion should have disappeared, not just a single room on the second floor. If the drifting ground refers only to the room where she slept, then what is the relationship between that room and the entire mansion? Or is the 'connection' between her room and the entire mansion not a connection point?"

Duncan paused, then pointed to Alice. "More importantly, I entered Alice Manor after turning the wind-up key in you. Clearly, the connection between that mansion and you is the strongest. You should even be something of one mind and body. If the drifting ground needs a connection point to exist stably, then you are clearly the most stable connection point."

Alice blinked, listening carefully and trying to understand—but she couldn't. However, her strength was always her honesty. "What are you talking about?"

"The room where the Frost Lady slept was torn away from the main body of the mansion. There were obvious signs of damage on the edges. I didn't pay much attention to it at first, but just now I suddenly realized that Lei-Nola might have been hiding something from me."

The so-called "drifting ground" should theoretically refer to the entire Alice Manor, and that mansion is closely connected to you. From what I observed, it doesn't seem to have a "drifting ground" tendency, so Lei-Nola most likely took advantage of the opportunity when I burned the ancient god's tentacles and forcibly separated her room from the main body of the mansion, taking advantage of the weakening of a certain connection."

Alice continued to try to understand. This time, she finally understood most of it. "You mean the Frost Queen took the opportunity when you set the fire to run away with her room? Like taking a lifeboat from a ship during a fog?"

Duncan was stunned and looked at the doll in surprise. "Your analogy is somewhat accurate. How did you think of that?"

"Mr. Goathead told me a lot of stories about that, like rebellious sailors stealing the ship's lifeboats during a fog, stealing the ship's wine barrels, stealing the ship's cheese, stealing the ship's salted fish, and then the wise and mighty captain would cross the entire boundless sea to get the stolen salted fish back… Are you going to catch that Frost Queen who stole the room?"

Duncan listened in a daze, and then grimaced strangely after Alice finished speaking. "Let's not talk about why the rebellious sailors wanted to steal salted fish, or why I would cross the entire boundless sea to get back a salted fish—where would I even find her? Besides, if that Frost Queen ran away, you should be the one to catch her. She stole your room—you're the mistress of Alice Manor."

"Oh, right," Alice thought about it and simply accepted that logic. Then she shook her head. "Then I won't catch her. After all, that room was originally hers. But why would she do that? Didn't you just say that once the drifting ground loses its restraints, it will fly around everywhere and might even fall into the sub-space, like exile—isn't that a terrible thing?"

Duncan pondered, slowly opening his mouth as he thought. "What is it?" He recalled the Lei-Nola he had seen, the Frost Queen who had seemed to wear shackles from birth, crowned in those shackles, and overthrown in those shackles. Even after falling into the deep sea, she had been imprisoned in a nightmare.

"She said she had always slept in a cage, even after the bars of that cage were removed. Now, she broke out, taking her cage with her."

"Probably for 'freedom,'" Duncan said softly.

But was it just for "freedom"?

The dial pointers on the console were shaking rapidly. The shaking as they approached the surface was becoming increasingly obvious. Through the thick glass porthole, some light from above was vaguely visible in the deep, boundless "seawater."

Sunlight appeared in the water—this indicated that the submersible was rapidly approaching the surface.

However, the gradually increasing light could not completely dispel the oppressive feeling left behind by the deep sea—as if in the vast "darkness" below the submersible, something was still rising and dissipating, reaching out with invisible tentacles, opening its arms upward, trying to hold back the uninvited guests who had intruded into the deep sea.

The things Duncan had told himself during the ascent were still swirling in his mind—horror, bizarreness, strangeness, and shocking revelations.

Whether it was the soul of the Frost Queen who had coexisted with the ancient god in the deep sea for fifty years, or the terrifying possibilities hidden in all things in the world, both were enough to make a determined and devout person feel a bone-chilling cold even in the sunlight.

"All things in the world are the offspring of the ancient gods, the flesh and blood of the ancient gods exist in all living beings, and they are gradually awakening." Even in the most blasphemous and heretical defiled scriptures, no one dared to record such remarks.

Those craziest annihilation cultists only dabbled in theories such as "the Creation of the Abyss Lord."

The sunlight from the surface became brighter and brighter, but the already dead body could not feel any warmth.

Agatha clasped her hands in front of her chest, silently calling Bartok's name, wanting to pray to her god, but she couldn't calm down no matter what.