Hearing the captain's instructions, Alice immediately began to think very seriously—and then looked even more seriously into Duncan's eyes: "What is an escape pod?"

Duncan wasn't surprised in the slightest. He'd be worried if this doll of a girl *didn't* mess up one day. But the current situation wasn't too problematic, because after several incidents, he had confirmed that while "Alice" might be confused about many things, the operational status of "Navigator Three" was actually still online. That ancient and powerful spatial navigation system… was inside Alice's "instinct."

Now, all that was needed was to make Alice's "instinct" aware that a part of the mansion was missing—in theory, anyway.

"It's a missing part of this 'Alice Manor,' but you don't need to understand exactly what it is," Duncan said casually, seeing the doll still staring at him with wide, curious eyes. "Do you remember what I told you about the Frost Queen?"

Alice thought for a moment. "Which one? There were so many, but I don't seem to remember all of them…"

"Rei Nora took a room from your 'manor.' That room is the escape pod I'm talking about. Now she's 'riding' the escape pod to the Ashlands at the edge of the world, and I need to locate her position," Duncan explained patiently. "It doesn't matter if you don't understand now. I'll try to guide you to 'understand' this process."

Alice listened with a vague understanding, but nodded quickly after the captain finished speaking. "Oh, so what do I need to do now?"

"You stay here and continue to sit under this 'tree,' just like when you were analyzing the route through the external barrier. Maintain 'contact' with this manor," Duncan said, raising his right hand. A cluster of starlight-infused, ghostly green flames burned quietly in his palm. He handed the flame to the doll in front of him. "Take it. It will build an extra 'bridge' between you and me. I'm going to go to the 'missing' part of the manor to perform a marking. If the situation matches my judgment, I should be able to 'intervene' in the operation of Navigator Three through this method, and transmit the data to you, the 'system core,' through an external bridge."

Alice said "Oh," and nodded happily. "Okay!"

As she spoke, she reached out without hesitation and grabbed the cluster of flames that the captain handed over—a wonderful, warm sensation came from her palm. The illusory flame seemed to suddenly have substance, swaying gently in her hand.

Alice carefully held the small flame, grabbed her "drawing board" with her other hand, turned around, and returned to the "data tree" made of countless cables and pipes interwoven together. She sat down on the platform, raised her head, and showed a brilliant smile: "I'm ready!"

Duncan smiled and nodded, then turned and left the hall—he passed through the ornate little door that originally connected the garden to the depths of the manor, through the long corridor with many locked rooms and the hum of servers, through the stairs and the hall, and soon arrived at the deepest part of the corridor on the second floor of the manor: the "break point" between the escape pod and the main body of the ship.

The end of the corridor was still as he had left it last time. The floor, ceiling, and walls seemed to have been torn apart by an invisible force, showing a fragmented state. Beyond the break point was an endless, deep, dark space, so deep that it felt like just one glance could make a person "fall" into it.

Duncan ignored the darkness outside the crack. He went straight to a certain wall on the side of the corridor, and soon found what he was looking for near the break.

It was a display screen "melted" into the wall, still looping a warning message about the illegal release of the escape pod.

"...Next, it's time to verify the conjecture..." Duncan came to the display screen, took a light breath, and slowly closed his eyes. "Let me 'see'...the real appearance of this place."

A line of deep starlight escaped from the slits of his slightly closed eyes—he cautiously controlled his increasingly agitated "essence," understanding his power, trying to open his..."other eyes" without fully releasing the inverse singularity.

Duncan slowly opened Zhou Ming's eyes.

Starlight gushed from those eyes, as if the ancient stars suddenly remembered how to operate at this moment. Where the starlight spread, he saw...the other side of Alice Manor.

An astonishingly large ark ship floated in the boundless, chaotic dark space. The torn starship had barely a third of its structure left. He stood at the end of a connecting corridor in the middle of the ship. Silver-gray and silver-white alloy structures replaced the dark-toned floor and walls of the original manor corridor. Various warning lights flickered in the distance, and in front of him were the scorched, melted escape pod supports.

The escape pod release port in front had been blown open into a large, shocking hole.

"...Rei Nora definitely didn't 'leave quietly' like she said she did," Duncan's mouth twitched as he glanced at the broken pipes, supports, and the blasted-open ship hull at the end. "...How did she blow this place open when she didn't even understand what this thing was?"

Of course, no one in the empty ship corridor could answer his question. After all, the only "owner" and "victim" of this place didn't even know what an escape pod was—Duncan just shook his head after sighing, and once again focused his attention on the flickering display screen.

Now, he could see the full picture of the device—it was part of the escape pod's external release system, fixed to a curved support. The entire support was severely twisted and damaged, and even the internal pipes were exposed, but it was obviously still functioning normally.

Duncan placed his hand on the device, preparing to use his flame to "read" the data here and transmit it to Alice—that was his idea, simple and crude.

Alice's current state was unable to understand the "essence" of her manor, and therefore unable to sense the system failure here. The instinct of the "Navigator Three" system was still there, but it wasn't reacting because Alice couldn't read the signal, so what Duncan had to do was solder a fly-line between Alice and the "failure point" of this manor.

Of course, he didn't understand the principle of this starship—but most mobile phone repairmen didn't know the specific structure inside the chip either. Anyway, as long as the fly-line was soldered on, it could run.

Fly-line technology, shockingly effective.

The flame burned quietly, beginning to gradually seep into the escape pod release system.

Just then, Duncan suddenly caught sight of something else out of the corner of his eye.

A mass of...black-gray metallic luster, a constantly surging and undulating substance like sludge, flowed out from some equipment grids and pipes nearby at some point!

The strange sludge accumulated and flowed on the floor, slowly approaching him, making a chilling, low noise. However, just as Duncan became vigilant and prepared to do something, the sludge suddenly stopped not far away, as if observing or judging something.

Duncan was stunned for a moment, then suddenly realized—

It was the "cleaner" in Alice Manor! That strange shadow used to drive away "invading foreign objects"!

...Is this thing part of the New Hope's maintenance system? Some kind of "damage control" device? Nanite swarm?

While maintaining the data intrusion into the escape pod system, many thoughts popped into Duncan's mind. Just then, he saw the "nanite sludge" creep a few steps closer to him.

Without any hostility.

Under Duncan's cautious gaze, the nanite swarm slowly differentiated into a "limb" like a tentacle. It tapped the curved support of the release system with this limb, as if to demonstrate something to Duncan, and pulled a broken cable from the support.

Duncan's expression was strange: "...Are you saying, connect from here?"

The sludge differentiated into another limb and waved it up and down in the air.

Duncan was stunned, and hesitantly extended his flame to the broken cable.

The sludge shook its two limbs with satisfaction, then slumped back into a liquid state, slowly drilling towards a crack in the nearby wall while making a gurgling sound.

Duncan: "..."

This thing can actually communicate and think?!

While he was stunned, the sludge had completely left. Immediately afterward, he heard Alice's voice coming from the mental connection: "Captain! The drawing board is lit up! The drawing board is lit up! I think I understand where that 'escape pod' is!"

...

"There are one hundred and seventy-six people here now—all those who have 'awakened' are here," Helena said, walking with Vanna and Lucrezia across the connecting bridge in the center of the residential area. "This was originally part of the port power plant. After more and more people 'awoke,' the first to awaken and those in better condition spontaneously gathered here and built it into a camp."

Vanna stopped on the connecting bridge, holding the railing and looking down at the residential areas temporarily built on the basis of the power plant's original facilities.

The voice of the High Priestess continued after a moment: "We will soon expand into a better living area—the dormitory next to the power plant. It is still occupied by 'dazed compatriots.' We cannot forcibly expel them, and we must avoid conflicts with them as much as possible, but now more and more people are awakening in that area. When the awakened people occupy the majority, we can expand the main area of activity over there."

"...Unimaginable," Lucrezia on the side couldn't help but say after a moment of silence, "The world has actually become like this..."

"Adapt as soon as possible. The current city-states are just a thousand times larger than this," Helena said softly. The High Priestess, who was personally stationed in this lighthouse in the form of an avatar, turned her head and looked at Vanna and Lucrezia. "As for now...it's your turn. Tell me about the end of the world."

(End of this chapter)