Duncan walked to the edge of the deck of the White Oak and looked down at the sea.

At this moment, both the White Oak and the Lost Homeland have exited the spiritual world. On the calm blue sea, the water around the White Oak is as clear as a mirror, and the Black Oak, shrouded in fog and darkness, is reflected in the water like a shadow. In the depths of the dark and hazy ship shadows, lights are faintly lit.

After a long while, Duncan withdrew his gaze from the sea and spoke softly with a sigh: "Interesting phenomenon, Lawrence, you have experienced an incredible adventure."

"Indeed... it's incredible," Lawrence answered respectfully and cautiously, standing aside. "I have been making a living on this sea for decades, and I have seen many incredible things, but Frost's experience this time is still far beyond the past. But no matter what, I brought Martha back, and all the risks were worth it."

"Your wife, Martha - what is her current condition? How did the two ships controlled by you two establish a connection?"

"She and her ship, the Black Oak, are now equivalent to the shadow of the White Oak," Lawrence answered honestly. "As you can see, she is on the reflected ship, but when the situation requires, the Black Oak can also enter the real world in the form of an illusion and sail with the White Oak, or have the two ships reverse their light and shadow. In that case, we can sail in the depths of the spirit world and avoid the obstacles of the real world. We did this once when we passed through the war zone around Frost, and it worked very well."

"Your wife told you all this? I mean, these... techniques."

"Yes," Lawrence nodded. "Martha has been wandering in the mirror space under the Frost Sea for more than ten years. She knows a lot of things. In the previous operations, she was equivalent to our guide."

Duncan didn't say anything for a while, just quietly looking at the reflection below. After a long time, he suddenly broke the silence: "Can I talk to her alone?"

Lawrence was stunned for a moment, a hint of surprise appeared on his face, followed by nervousness and hesitation: "Well... may I ask you..."

"Don't worry. I just need to get to know each of my men. The Black Oak is indeed a little weird, but in this sea, no ship is weirder than the Lost Homeland. I am very tolerant in this regard - on the premise that the Black Oak cannot have any secrets."

Lawrence was slightly relieved. Although he was still hesitant, he nodded and said, "Okay, I'll make the arrangements and tell Martha by the way."

Duncan nodded slightly, then turned his head and looked not far away.

Alice and the "sailor" were squatting on the deck over there, the two "people" were excitedly using a small wooden stick to poke a small insect that they had caught from somewhere, and while they were fiery discussing whether insects had souls or not.

Alice thought there were no such things, because she couldn't see the threads on the insects. The "sailor" insisted that there were, because he had heard that there were also insects in Bartók's garden. He even thought that there were "little gatekeepers" as big as insects, who were responsible for taking the souls of mosquitoes that died in the mortal world to the resting place in the summer, so that they would bite those who were buried in June and July...

Both "people" were stunned by the other.

This scene is like two idiots.

If I look at it for one more second, I’ll feel like my brain is being polluted.

Duncan silently watched the undisturbed scene on the deck. Lawrence beside him also watched silently. After a long time, Duncan shook his head and said, "Let them play."

"...I think so too. It's better than hanging on the flagpole and howling like a ghost."

※※※

Soon, Lawrence ordered people to prepare an undisturbed room on the White Oak and set up a huge mirror in the room.

After the irrelevant people left, Duncan turned around and stared quietly at the mirror that was as tall as a person.

"I want to talk to you," he said to the mirror.

The next second, the mirror surface turned pitch black, as if a thick ink-like fluid suddenly covered the entire mirror surface, and in the depths of the darkness, a shadow that expanded and contracted gradually took shape.

A lady in a white shirt, brown vest and trousers walked out from the expanding and shrinking shadows.

"I heard from Lawrence that you wanted to talk to me alone," the lady came to the mirror and responded to Duncan's gaze calmly, "It seems... you noticed it."

"There are too many impurities, and the overlapping shadows obscure the details that do not belong to the Black Oak, but this is not enough to conceal my flames," Duncan said slowly, then reached out and grabbed a chair from the side. He sat on it and looked at the figure in the mirror - and the huge darkness behind the figure, which was entangled like some kind of phantom curtain. "How much is 'Martha'?"

“…less than one thousandth.”

"One thousandth, a very small number." Duncan stared at the other party, and the huge chaotic "hybrid" also met his gaze calmly. "Even so, you still call yourself Martha, and it seems... you really have a 'self-identification' with this identity."

"Because 'Martha' is the only complete personality among them," the "female adventurer" in the mirror answered, "Without the support of personality, memories are just pale books. Flipping through them is not enough to form a 'self'. The huge and chaotic memories have been reorganized countless times in blind disorder. In the end, I think 'Martha' is the only 'representative' who can manage all of this - I need to be Martha, Martha needs to exist."

"So, you are a hybrid, and you are a mixture of much more things than you told Lawrence. A considerable portion of the minds that fell into that sea in the past fifty years have flowed into your 'body', or in other words...you have devoured those minds?"

"Swallow... this is a very offensive term, but I don't think so. I have never swallowed anything, and I am not interested in souls. It is the huge power deep in the mirror space that is swallowing everything, and the 'memories' that make up me are just the residue left after being crushed by that huge power. The tiny tributaries will gather together, like dust condensing into a ball. I did not exist before those fragments, but those fragments condensed into me - Martha, just a ghost awakened from the fragments, belatedly taking on the role of the collector."

"The residue left after being crushed..." Duncan frowned, "Why wasn't Martha crushed?"

"Because Lawrence came to this sea area," the female adventurer in the mirror smiled, "he is favored by you, so Martha is also favored by you."

Duncan did not speak. He fell into a long period of contemplation. After a long while, he broke the silence thoughtfully: "The world in the mirror is discontinuous..."

"Yes, the world in the mirror is discontinuous, space is discontinuous, and time is discontinuous - the end was born before the beginning. You created Martha, and Martha is now answering your questions."

Duncan breathed a sigh of relief.

"A huge mixture of data... This can explain why you know so many things," he brought the topic back, "Not only because you have been wandering in that mirror space for a long enough time, but also because you have enough 'memories'... So back to the beginning, less than one thousandth of 'Martha', is it really enough to support your stable personality and allow you to maintain your current self-awareness forever? Will there be a day when your 'collector' personality will be submerged in the vast sea of ​​memories? Will you forget your own name and become a chaotic, huge, dangerous ghost?"

The female adventurer raised her eyes. With a calm expression, she seemed to have mustered up great courage: "Like you were before?"

"No, I went further than you did. The Warp is a place deeper and darker than the Mirror World - so I was more dangerous than you at that time." Duncan did not care about the other party's bold remarks, but maintained his usual calm tone. "So, I understand better how much harm an out-of-control ghost can cause - even if this ghost is a little 'safer' than I was at the beginning."

The female adventurer in the mirror fell silent for a moment.

After a long moment, she suddenly said, "Do you think I can be considered 'Martha' now?"

Duncan thought for a few seconds.

To this huge and complex mixture, Martha is only one thousandth of it, but to the personality that identifies itself as "Martha", this mixture contains 100% of her.

Who exactly is this huge hybrid, and what state its future personality will be in, seems to be completely in a "pending" state - there is a probability of losing control, but its current personality and self-awareness undoubtedly exist.

Duncan hesitated for a moment, but at the moment when this hesitation just emerged, a scene that seemed real and illusory suddenly emerged in his mind -

The sea breeze is gentle and the waves are mild.

He stood on the water, with green waves spreading under his feet.

Some fish jumped out of the water, and under the bright sunshine, they swam leisurely in the surrounding air.

He lowered his head and looked at his feet.

The surface of the water, from which ripples slowly appear, appears clear and transparent, but its depths seem to be shrouded in mist, making it difficult to distinguish reality from illusion and to see through.

New things leaped out of the water and swam around him.

They are fish.

Duncan suddenly woke up and looked at the mirror in front of him.

The shadow in the mirror expanded and shrank, squirming, as if waiting for an answer.

"...Ms. Martha," Duncan finally broke the silence after a long while, "Welcome to join the Lost Home Fleet."

The mass of darkness that was filled with confusion and chaos, without any tangible outline, and was constantly expanding and contracting suddenly shrank and turned into a female adventurer wearing a white shirt, brown vest and trousers.

The huge shadow behind her has calmed down.

At the same time, on the deck of the White Oak, Lawrence, who was watching the puppet Alice and the mummy "sailor" poking bugs like a temporary guardian, also looked down at his body in confusion.

The green flames that had been rising and spreading uncontrollably were quickly converging, and his body, which had been passively maintaining its ghost form since three days ago, was also recovering quickly. In his perception, the "ghost fires" that had been activated from time to time for inexplicable reasons seemed to have truly calmed down for the first time and became a controllable part of his body.

It seemed that some "stimulus source" that caused the frequent passive activation of the spiritual fire suddenly disappeared.

"…under control?"

Lawrence blinked and muttered to himself in confusion.