Ashes Of Deep Sea-Chapter 365 - 369 The Gatekeeper Pays a Visit
Chapter 365: Chapter 369: The Gatekeeper Pays a Visit
Chapter 365: Chapter 369: The Gatekeeper Pays a Visit
Duncan sat on the living room sofa, leisurely reading the newspaper he had bought from the streets that morning, occasionally glancing at Sherry, who was sprawled over the coffee table, writing furiously with a troubled look, and at the dog beside her, engrossed in a book titled “A Brief Modern History of the City-State,” feeling a sense of contentment.
In this strange and eerie world, he had finally found a bit of the familiar rhythm of life.
On the other hand, bringing the dog, Sherry, and Nina over was like fulfilling a long-considered idea of his—Captain Duncan’s little classroom was back in session.
He turned his head and looked at the other side of the coffee table, where Nina had placed a small stool and was sitting there, earnestly doing her winter vacation homework, with Morris supervising by her side, occasionally helping his student correct some minor mistakes.
“You’re a responsible teacher,” Duncan said to Morris, “Nina is lucky.”
“She’s a hardworking child, and I don’t want to delay her life,” Morris smiled, then glanced at the workbook spread out in front of Sherry with an expression that was subtly complex, “However, I didn’t expect that you would also be so adept at… tutoring others.”
Duncan raised his eyebrows: “Oh?”
“The learning plans you’ve set for Sherry, Alice, and the dog are quite reasonable, even… somewhat professional,” Morris spoke with a hint of hesitation, “I also saw the exam papers you prepared for them, very professional. It’s quite… surprising to me.”
The old man chose his words very carefully, indeed he was somewhat concerned about this—when he first heard that Duncan was excited to educate the three illiterates on board, he didn’t imagine flashcards, vocabulary books, and multiplication tables. The image that first came to his mind was more along the lines of “acolytes of the Evil God gathered in a ritual site touching forbidden knowledge”—only to see the formidable Captain Duncan pulling out a bunch of literacy flashcards…
How should one put it, although he had somewhat adapted to the peaceable and friendly Duncan in private, the thought of this Subspace Shadow seriously teaching a class (and literacy at that), still made him feel irresistibly awkward.
Of course, Duncan knew what the old scholar meant, but he couldn’t explain, so he just smiled and waved his hand, “Maybe I once dreamed of becoming a teacher?”
Morris didn’t know what to say for a moment, while Duncan peered over at Sherry’s distressing handwriting and couldn’t help but sigh: “It’s a pity that the learning pace of these three ‘students’ is so varied, it really gives one a headache.”
Morris thought for a moment and nodded, “Indeed. I feel that the dog could almost hunker down in a library and self-study up to college graduation by now, but Sherry is still struggling with common words, and Alice… Alice, well…”
Duncan sighed again, “Ah, Alice is hardworking, but she is Alice.”
The learning progress of the three illiterates on board was nothing like what he had initially imagined. He thought that Sherry, who was rather bright, would progress quickly in her learning, but she was still a semi-illiterate today; her unwavering spirit of giving up and despairing learning attitude were the main reasons. Alice, on the other hand, tried harder than anyone, but it seemed the doll-like young lady’s head was really not made for reading and writing; in the end, surprisingly, the most academic of the three illiterates turned out to be a dog—with astonishing diligence and understanding, the dog not only could read literary works by himself but even solve quadratic equations with three variables…
In the hunt for knowledge, Abyssal Hounds are many—now it seems only the dog has caught up.
Frankly, this was the biggest stain in Duncan’s—or should we say Zhou Ming’s—entire teaching career.
As he was inwardly reflecting, Alice, who had gone out to buy groceries, finally returned—nearly twenty minutes later than expected.
“I’m back!”
The doll-like young lady entered the door, putting her stuff down while calling out towards the living room. Then she immediately noticed the academic star, the academic loser, and the academic dog next to the coffee table and showed a delighted expression: “Nina! Sherry! Dog! You’re here?”
“They arrived this morning; they’ve been… already been doing homework for half the day…” Sherry lifted her head, her eyes brimming with tears, “The captain said I had to rewrite everything from page sixteen of the vocabulary book…”
“It’s three times,” Duncan corrected nonchalantly, “Don’t silently cut two-thirds of the task for yourself.”
Then he ignored Sherry’s subsequent reaction, looking up at Alice: “Why did you only come back now? Did you run into trouble?”
“Ah, no, not at all!” Alice hurriedly waved her hands, “I just came across something interesting… I mean, I didn’t watch the commotion! I came across an incident, and I was investigating…”
This doll really couldn’t lie, nor was she good at making excuses; in just a few sentences, she exposed the fact that she was delayed on her way home by watching some excitement.
“Investigating?” Duncan looked at Alice with a hint of surprise; he wasn’t looking into her “watching the commotion,” although he had indeed warned her not to wander around, but that was just a minor issue. What he cared more about was… the usually dull Alice actually saying the word “investigating” seriously.
Even if it was an excuse she found on the spot, he also cared what the doll had been investigating.
“Just down the nearby street, there’s a household, they said someone died, and people from the church went there,” Alice immediately began telling Duncan about what she had seen and heard on her way back, “A woman, something about her killing her own husband, then the onlookers said the man of the house had been out before all this… Ah, that’s right, I also saw a woman, she dressed similar to you, wrapped in bandages too…”
Duncan listened in bewilderment to the doll’s disjointed and unfocused narrative, barely managing to understand what had happened. He then paid attention to the “bandaged woman” mentioned at the end, furrowing his brows slightly, about to ask some details, when he saw Fenna, who was sitting not far from the dining table feeding pigeons, suddenly stand up.
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“A stranger is approaching,” Fenna said quickly, “a clergy member.”
Duncan immediately motioned with his hand, signaling Alice to quiet down and put her veil back on. The dog squatting beside the sofa blinked and withdrew into the shadows, while Ai Yi flapped her wings and hid atop a nearby cabinet. Morris rose from the sofa and made his way to the door.
“Don’t be nervous, it’s just a visitor,” Duncan was rather composed. He waved at Fenna and Morris, who seemed a bit tense, then casually walked over to the door and opened it.
A young woman stood outside the door, wearing a black trench coat, wrapped in bandages, donning a black round hat, and holding a walking stick. She was poised to knock.
She seemed to freeze in place.
Duncan looked the young lady up and down, then glanced down at himself.
“Ah, twinning,” he said offhandedly.
“It’s her, it’s her,” Alice, standing behind and to the side of Duncan, now saw the person at the door clearly and excitedly moved closer, “The black-clothed woman I told you about, the one I saw on the way back from buying groceries…”
Alice’s voice snapped Agatha out of her daze, and her facial muscles twitched slightly as she struggled to move her gaze away from the tall and burly figure before her to the source of the sound.
That blond woman who neither breathed nor had a heartbeat, whom she had just encountered, was now standing inside the house, looking over with curious and delighted eyes.
She was indeed here.
Agatha took several deep breaths, trying to calm her racing heart. The slight ringing in her ears gradually faded in her mind, and the blackness and double vision caused by staring directly at the “truth” finally dissipated—she took a relieved breath, and the purpose of her visit came back to her amidst the confusion.
A somewhat stiff smile appeared on her face: “I… didn’t mean to intrude, I just came to check on things, you…”
“Come in,” Duncan said calmly, nodding his head and stepping aside to clear a path, “It’s quite cold out, don’t stand at the door.”
Agatha paused for a moment, not immediately grasping the situation.
Seeing this, Fenna, who had stood by without a word, couldn’t help but frown, stepped forward and looked at the other, “You rushed over here despite knowing what this place was, you didn’t actually think about what would happen after the door opened, did you?”
“Understand a little,” Morris quickly intervened, speaking from the side, “The mind gets really messed up after seeing the captain for the first time. The higher the spirit sight, the more so, and this girl looks all confused.”
Upon hearing this, Fenna immediately recalled her own experience of joining the crew on Homeloss and felt the old man made sense.
While Fenna and Morris were talking, Agatha finally snapped out of it—her brain was indeed still in some disarray, but her rationality had retaken control. Due to Duncan’s conscious restraint, her mind wasn’t too disturbed. No sooner had she recovered than she hastily nodded: “Sorry, I was a bit distracted.”
Then she glanced at the path Duncan had cleared, hesitated for a moment, and finally took a step inside.
She knew what this place was.
She knew that the towering figure was essentially an indescribable being, possibly an ancient god-grade entity that had descended upon the City-State.
She knew she had stepped into a “descent site”.
But from the moment the door opened, there was no turning back.
Behind Duncan, Morris watched the young lady, tense all over, step into the house and whispered to Fenna with a slight tilt of his head, “Stronger than you were at first.”
Fenna muttered quietly, “That’s not my fault, the captain was too terrifying during the ‘first dream.'”
He nodded, “That’s true…”
Fenna added, “But I was much calmer the second time around.”
Listening to the two of them muttering behind him, Duncan finally couldn’t help turning back, “You weren’t that much stronger the second time—quiet down, our guest is here.”
