Chapter 1 Duncan's Dilemma

Duncan stared at Alice blankly, as if she were mentally deficient.

The echoes of history in his mind had not completely dissipated. The Frost Queen's calm, all-knowing gaze from half a century ago still lingered in his brain. However, this disturbing afterimage clashed head-on with the simple-minded Alice, shattering into pieces. The sight of her repeatedly pulling at her head, accompanied by "boop, boop, boop" sounds, was turning into a comedy.

After watching for a while, Duncan couldn't help but ask, "...What are you doing?"

"Ah! Captain!" Alice belatedly reacted, hastily steadying her head and looking at Duncan. "Oh, I just felt like there were a few hairs stuck in my neck joint..."

Duncan expressionlessly said, "Pull it two more times, and you'll be naming new hairs again."

"I already have names! If they fall out, they'll be called the Williams family..."

It took Duncan a great deal of effort to control his expression and resist throwing the doll out of the cabin.

After a few seconds, he finally sighed, his mind gradually calming down.

In all fairness, Alice's presence did bring a bit of cheerfulness to the otherwise gloomy Sea of the Lost, but sometimes it was a bit too much... Even Goathead struggled to keep up with the doll's rhythm at times, and Duncan, for the most part, couldn't figure out what kind of structure was inside her head.

Maybe it was solid.

Duncan's gaze swept over Alice, and he couldn't help but recall what he had seen in that dark space—the "reverberations." His expression turned serious, and the details he saw in the reverberations made him frown slightly.

He was certain that it was Lenore, the legendary Frost Queen who was executed by rebels half a century ago, the "prototype" of Alice mentioned in the background information for Anomaly 099. He had witnessed the scene of the "execution," and the trigger was undoubtedly the "doll coffin" in front of him.

The spirit fire had established a connection between him and the coffin.

But what was the essence of those images? Was the "coffin" consciously telling him something? Were they passively recorded "images"? Were they memories of Anomaly 099, fragments of true history, or distorted, modified "illusions"? The young queen's calm gaze as she looked at him surfaced in his mind, and he recalled her soft request—

"Whoever you are, please do not pollute history."

Who was she speaking to? Was she really speaking to him? Did these words truly transcend time, or were they merely illusions conjured by the coffin, reacting to his "visit"? Moreover, after the queen finished speaking, there was a slightly panicked voice under the guillotine, asking who she was talking to...

These successive reactions were so real, so real that they were chilling.

As for the final sounds that came from the darkness at the end of the "reverberation," Duncan was equally concerned.

One of the "charges" against the Frost Queen, who was executed by the rebels, was actually "attempting to bring the Sea of the Lost into the real world" and "building a second Sea of the Lost," as well as a "submersion" project, which seemed to be the reason for the queen's desertion... But Goathead had never mentioned these things to him!

Goathead often rambled about the "great deeds of the Sea of the Lost," such as how many ships it had swallowed on the fog route, and what great upheavals it had caused in which city. Although eight out of ten of his words were unreliable, if there really had been a city-state ruler who had "colluded" with the Sea of the Lost, he would have said it long ago—that guy would make up three thousand words for anything, let alone something so big!

Unless... this was false, just a charge fabricated by the rebels against the queen.

"Captain, Captain, are you alright?"

Alice's voice suddenly came from the side, interrupting Duncan's wild thoughts.

Duncan breathed softly, forcibly suppressing the chaotic thoughts in his mind. He glanced at Alice, wanting to find a trace of "Lenore, the Frost Queen" in her, but quickly shook his head.

"I'm fine. I just saw some 'records' preserved in the coffin."

"'Records'?" Alice curiously widened her eyes. "What kind of records?"

"The scene of the Frost Queen being beheaded half a century ago," Duncan said casually. "I saw her—she really was exactly like you."

Alice immediately touched her neck subconsciously. The doll didn't know whether to feel nervous or that this was an unremarkable matter, and after struggling for a long time, she finally managed to say, "Could it be that I really am that Frost Queen who didn't die after being beheaded, but was instead transformed into this form by supernatural powers?"

Duncan thought for a long time and said honestly, "If you didn't speak, didn't move, and just lay quietly in this box, I really would think so."

Alice reacted for a moment, but didn't understand.

However, she quickly threw this doubt to the back of her mind and instead looked seriously at her "coffin": "Then what... what happened after you burned it with 'fire'? Did it change? Did you successfully control it?"

Only then did Duncan refocus his attention on the wooden box and carefully sense the remaining connection between himself and the box.

The fire had faded, but the traces it left behind remained.

In his intangible perception, he could clearly "see" the marks he had left on the coffin and feel the subtle connections between himself and it. This was somewhat similar to the connection between him and the mutated sun emblem, but it was more complex and subtle. Putting aside the great mysteries that the information recorded in the coffin brought him, he had indeed successfully established a connection with this thing, but unlike the simple structure of the sun emblem, he had no idea how to control this coffin.

He couldn't even feel the option of "control" existing.

He could only be sure of one thing: the coffin was now stable, very... "tame."

After being touched by the flames, it seemed to have been completely "tamed," just like... a part of the Sea of the Lost.

"I'm not sure. Perhaps we need further testing to know if it's safe, and then we need more testing to determine whether the 'beheading' effect comes from the coffin or from you," Duncan shook his head. "But as far as I can feel, it's very 'obedient' now, just like other items on the Sea of the Lost..."

As he spoke, he turned to look at the doll beside him.

"The key now is you—do you feel anything unusual?"

Alice curiously pointed at herself: "Me? I don't. Why do you ask?"

"'You and your wooden box are one, and together you are 'Anomaly 099'. Now that I have usurped the coffin's authority with fire, you, the doll, may be affected to some extent," Duncan looked at Alice seriously. He knew that the doll was slow to react, so he gradually got used to explaining things to her clearly. "Move your body and tell me if anything feels wrong."

Only then did Alice belatedly react, and she quickly got up and examined herself. She ran around the room twice, jumped in place a few times, and finally returned to the wooden box, beckoning to her box with her finger. The box didn't move.

"It... it's not listening to me!" Alice was shocked and finally discovered a big problem. "Before, it would float up as soon as I gave the order!"

Duncan's heart stirred—when Alice beckoned to the box, he seemed to feel some response from the coffin, but...

The coffin was waiting for his command.

His eyebrow twitched, and he suddenly felt a little embarrassed: "Maybe... it's because after being exposed to the spirit fire, the coffin has regarded me as a higher-level 'master'."

Alice stared blankly at the captain in front of her, and then her expression visibly became aggrieved.

"But it's okay, I can remove my restrictions on it," Duncan felt even more embarrassed when he saw the doll's aggrieved expression, and quickly waved his hand. "It will still obey your orders."

Alice was stunned for a moment, then turned her head to beckon to her wooden box again—this time, she finally saw the box respond to her command again, just as it always had.

The doll's face immediately lit up with a smile, and after letting the box fall back to the ground, she immediately pounced on it and hugged its lid: "That's great! I thought you wouldn't listen to me anymore!"

Duncan looked at the doll, whose emotions had quickly switched, with a subtle expression, and after holding it back for a long time, he finally blurted out, "Sometimes... I really envy your open-minded attitude towards life."

Alice was stunned after hearing the captain's words, and after reacting for a long time, she still didn't understand...

"Never mind, as long as you're happy," Duncan sighed. "Are you sure there's nothing wrong with you?"

"No," Alice looked down at herself. "There's nothing uncomfortable at all, and... I actually feel better than before."

"Better than before?"

"I can't explain it, but I just feel... very relaxed, and there's a sense of solidity and peace," Alice thought for a moment, trying to find the words to describe her feelings. "It's a bit like the sense of peace I used to feel when I was lying in the box. But now I'm standing outside the box, and I feel just as peaceful..."

The doll spoke while thinking, and finally, without waiting for Duncan to help her analyze, she waved her hand quite open-mindedly: "It doesn't matter, as long as it's not a bad thing!"