With countless questions and conjectures in his mind, Duncan put the brass key close to his body, while Alice waited quietly beside him, her eyes rolling around like a child expecting a secret.
"Do you feel anything different now?" Duncan asked, looking into Alice's eyes.
"A different feeling?" Alice tilted her head, raised her hand to touch her back, and shook her head after a while, "I just felt a little itchy at the keyhole just now, but it's not itchy now."
Duncan frowned when he heard this: "...Nothing else? That's it?"
"No," Alice replied honestly, and then she looked a little curious, "Is there anything there? Your expression is so serious... have you figured out the key?"
Duncan frowned tightly. After a moment of hesitation, he finally organized his thoughts and words, sat down on the bed opposite the doll, and said seriously: "You may only feel that it has passed for a moment, but I am here
I stayed in a strange place for a long time - it was a huge old mansion, and its name... was called 'Alice Mansion'."
The Gothic doll opened its eyes little by little, listening to the captain's story in surprise and confusion.
Duncan did not hide his experience in Alice Mansion. He told the doll lady everything he saw and heard there, and then mentioned what he saw and heard in the deep sea, including his encounter with Hanshuang.
Meeting with Queen Leigh Nora.
Of course, he knew that Alice might only understand part of it, and even the part that she understood could only be vaguely understood, and the things that could be remembered later were also very limited, but he still chose to tell everything.
Because this is what she should know - you can't hide it from her with the mentality of "she can't understand anyway". This is the most basic respect.
Alice listened to the end in a daze, and it was not until more than ten seconds passed after Duncan's words fell that the Gothic doll came to his senses: "...Wow."
Then she scratched her hair, with confusion and a little apology on her face: "I... don't understand very well, and feel dizzy... I'm sorry, Captain, you spent so much effort to help me understand this."
Things, but I seem a bit stupid..."
"No, you're not stupid, it's just that these things are too complicated." Duncan knew that the other party would definitely react this way, so he smiled and shook his head, "Even I feel in my heart that these things are full of mysteries - there are too many clues and they are too scattered.
, it is obviously still a long way from tearing away the final fog.”
Alice nodded half-underlyingly, then thought about it seriously, and suddenly became curious: "Are there many people in that 'mansion'? And they all have no heads?"
"I only saw one person who claimed to be a butler, but according to what the butler said, there were indeed many people in the mansion, but they were all hiding," Duncan recalled, "and according to my observation, those people should be headless.
Attendant."
Alice frowned and murmured while thinking hard: "Could it be related to my 'decapitation' ability..."
"There is a possibility that some of the attendants are the souls of people who were beheaded by you." As someone who knew the "Alice Guillotine", Duncan certainly thought of this direction, but then he changed the subject, "
But according to some information revealed by the butler, there are a large number of 'drifting gathering' souls gathered in the mansion. They are like some kind of exiles, accepting the asylum of the mansion. These servants don't look like they were beheaded..."
He paused, thought briefly and then continued: "Perhaps it is your guillotine ability that makes the souls gathered in the mansion appear headless, regardless of their specific 'origin'."
"Oh..." Alice seemed to understand, and then she seemed to think of something, "What about the 'Frost Queen'? Did she really disappear like that?"
"The room has indeed disappeared," Duncan nodded. "It seems like what she said herself, when the ancient god's tentacles as the 'connection points' are destroyed, the 'drifting land' will lose its restraints and become untied."
Got the cable..."
He stopped suddenly, with a thoughtful look on his expression.
"Captain?" Alice looked at Duncan confused, "Why did you suddenly stop talking?"
She asked twice in a row before Duncan raised his head from his contemplation, with a hint of solemnity in his tone: "I'm wondering whether the 'drifting place' mentioned by Le Nora refers to her room or the entire Alice Mansion.
.”
"Ah?" Alice didn't react for a moment, "What's the difference?"
"If the drifting place refers to the entire Alice Mansion, then when the 'Connection Point' is burned down by me, it should be the entire mansion that disappears, not a single room on the second floor; if the drifting place refers to just her
A sleeping room, so what is the relationship between that room and the entire mansion? Or...isn't the 'connection' between her room and the entire mansion considered a 'connection point'?"
Duncan paused after saying this, then raised his finger and pointed at Alice.
"More importantly, after I turned the clockwork key on you, I entered the 'Alice Mansion'. Obviously, the connection between that mansion and you is the strongest. You should even be some kind of 'One Heart'."
In the relationship of the same body, if the 'drifting place' needs a connection point to exist stably... then you are obviously the most stable connection point."
Alice blinked and listened carefully, trying to understand—but failing.
But her advantage has always been sincerity: "What are you talking about?"
"The room where the Frost Queen was sleeping was 'torn' out of the main body of the mansion, and there were obvious signs of damage on the edges. I didn't pay much attention to this at first, but just now it suddenly occurred to me... Le Nora might be interested in
I'm hiding something.
"The so-called 'drifting place' should theoretically refer to the entire Alice Mansion, and that mansion is closely connected with you. As far as I can see, there is no 'drifting' tendency, so Leigh Nora is very
Maybe I took advantage of the opportunity when I burned the ancient god's tentacles, and when some kind of 'connection' was weakened, to forcibly 'separate' her room from the main body of the mansion."
Alice continued to struggle to understand.
But this time, she finally understood most of it.
"You mean the Frost Queen took advantage of you to set fire to her room and ran away? Like taking advantage of the fog to run away the lifeboat on the ship?"
Duncan was stunned when he heard this, and looked at the puppet in surprise: "Your metaphor makes a lot of sense...how did you come up with it?"
"Mr. Goathead told me many stories about this. The mutinous sailors took advantage of the fog to steal the lifeboat on the ship, steal the wine barrels on the ship, steal the cheese on the ship, steal the
Salted fish or something, and then the wise and powerful captain will cross the entire boundless sea to snatch back the stolen salted fish...Are you going to catch the Frost Queen who stole the room?"
Duncan was stunned for a while, and after Alice finished speaking, he curled his lips with a strange expression: "Let's not talk about why the mutinous crew stole the salted fish, and why I had to cross the entire boundless sea to snatch back a salted fish -
- Where should I go to find that Frost Queen? Besides, you should be the one to catch her, right? She stole your room - you are the mistress of Alice Mansion."
"...Yes," Alice thought for a moment and simply agreed with this truth, then shook her head, "Then I won't arrest her. After all, that room is hers. But...why would she do this?
Ah? Didn’t you just say that once the drifting place loses its restraints, it will fly everywhere, and may even fall into the subspace, just like being exiled - isn’t this a terrible thing? "
Duncan couldn't help but ponder, and slowly said: "Yes, why..."
He recalled the Le Nora he had met, and recalled the person who seemed to have been in shackles since birth. She was crowned in the shackles, and was overthrown in the shackles. Even if she fell into the deep sea, she had been imprisoned in a nightmare.
The "Frost Queen".
She said she continued to sleep in a cage, even though the bars were later removed.
Now, she's escaped - taking her cage with her.
"Probably for 'freedom'." Duncan said softly.
But is it just for "freedom"?
…
The dial pointer on the control panel was shaking rapidly, and the shaking as it approached the water became more and more obvious. Through the thick glass portholes, some water sprinkled from above could be vaguely seen in the deep and boundless sea water outside.
light.
Sunlight appears in the water - this means the submersible is quickly approaching the surface.
However, the gradually filling light could not completely dispel the remaining depressing impression of the deep sea - it was as if there was still something floating up, escaping, and extending invisible tentacles in the vast darkness below the submersible.
I open my arms upward to retain the uninvited guests who have entered the deep sea.
The things that Duncan told himself during the ascent are still swirling in his mind - scary, strange, bizarre, and shocking to the world.
Whether it is the soul of the Frost Queen who has lived with the ancient gods in the deep sea for fifty years, or the terrifying possibilities contained in all things in the world, it is enough to make a person with a firm mind and devout faith feel the piercing cold under the sun.
All things in the world are the descendants of the ancient gods. The flesh and blood of the ancient gods exist in all living beings and are gradually awakening.
Even in the most blasphemous, deviant and filthy classics, no one dares to record such remarks - the craziest Annihilation cultists only dabble in theories such as "The Creation of the Holy Lord of the Deep".
The sunlight from the sea is getting brighter.
The dead body cannot feel any warmth.
Agatha clasped her hands in front of her chest, silently calling Bartok's name, wanting to pray to her god.