A strange word that had never been heard before came into his ears, and its mysterious and stiff pronunciation did not even seem like any language that Tirian knew.
He looked down at the document in astonishment, and after a long while he looked up at the precise strokes of the "stone ball" depicted on it: "Father? What did you say just now? 'Moon'... is the name of this thing? Do you know this mysterious sphere?!"
Duncan seemed not to have heard anything, still staring at the familiar moon image on the paper. It was not until Tirian asked twice that he suddenly woke up and looked at Tirian and said quickly: "You mentioned Lucretia just now, what's going on?"
"Um... this is the information she sent from the Brilliant Star," Tirian said hesitantly. His father's strange reaction made him feel uneasy, but under the pressure of his gaze, he still told him everything he knew. "Some time ago, a mysterious glowing object fell from the border area and was discovered by Lucy. She has been studying that thing for some time. This strange sphere is the 'core' of the fallen object..."
Tirian recounted the whole story, including the scholars in Breeze Harbor's current judgment that the "fallen object came from Anomaly 001" and all their current research progress on the "stone ball" - as well as the various difficulties they encountered.
During his narration, Duncan did not interrupt once. He just listened quietly with an unusually serious silence that made Tirian feel pressured, as if he wanted to engrave every word deeply in his mind and take apart, crush, and dissect every word thousands of times.
After more than ten minutes, the dome office fell silent again.
Duncan was silent for a long time, and finally he exhaled softly before the air gradually became solidified: "Why didn't you tell me about this before?"
"...Lucy hopes to contact you after the research has made some progress, and more importantly...it was during the Frost Crisis."
After a while, Duncan felt his pounding heart slowly calm down. Listening to Tirian's words, he finally nodded gently: "This thing is in Breeze Harbor now, right?"
"Um... yes," Tirian nodded quickly. He felt his lips dry. At the same time, he became more and more nervous as he watched his father's expression change. After hesitating for several times, he couldn't help but ask again, "Do you know this mysterious sphere?"
"...It's called the moon, at least it looks like it, but the moon I know is not ten meters in diameter, and it is even less likely to float on the sea and be towed back to the city-state by a ship with a steel cable," Duncan said slowly, "Maybe it's just some kind of man-made object that imitates its appearance, or maybe it's just the ancient Kingdom of Crete..."
He stopped talking halfway. The huge contradiction and the chaotic conflict of thoughts in his mind made it impossible for him to use any conjecture to explain this matter. In any case, there was no doubt that the picture in Tirian's hand was indeed the "moon". Regardless of whether the "stone ball" that Lucretia picked up at sea was the real "moon" or an "artificial flying object" made by the ancient Kingdom of Crete to imitate the moon, one question always existed:
Why did the image of the "moon" that I was familiar with appear here? Why did it appear in this strange and twisted "other world"?
In his confusion, he frowned and looked at Tirian: "You just said that the scholars of Light Wind Port have determined that the mysterious luminous body fell off the rune ring of Anomaly 001?"
"Yes, they have visually confirmed the shape of the gap in the sun rune ring," Tirian said, and then asked, "You said it is called the 'moon'... What is the moon?"
"The moon..." Duncan hesitated for a moment, and suddenly found that he had no suitable words to explain such a simple name to Tirian. After thinking for a long time, he could only say, "...it is a planet."
When Tirian heard this, his confusion became even more obvious: "What is a planet?"
Duncan fell silent.
After a long moment, he heard Tirian's voice again: "Is this a forbidden question? Am I asking too much?"
"No, this is not a taboo. It... should be the simplest question, but I can't explain it to you." Duncan shook his head gently and looked at the other side of the mirror with a complicated look. "I'm sorry, Tirian, the answer to this question is very simple, but it is the biggest difficulty for you to understand it."
Tirian was a little dazed.
He looked at his father in the mirror, who had a complicated and apologetic expression. He felt vaguely that... this scene seemed to have happened a long, long time ago, in the depths of his distant and hazy memories, on a faded afternoon...
On that day, he and Lucrecia stood on the deck of the Lost Homeland for the last time and asked their father, who was determined to cross the border, what was beyond the border.
My father's reaction then was exactly the same as it is now.
It was the look of someone who knew some extremely simple truth but didn't know how to explain it to others.
At this moment, Duncan's voice suddenly came from the mirror, interrupting Tirian's gradually sinking memories: "I changed the plan. Next, the Lost Homeland will go to Light Wind Harbor."
As expected - when his father reacted that way to the sphere called "the moon", Tirian knew things would turn out this way.
"I understand. I'll explain the situation to Lucy."
※※※
Nina looked at Duncan with some worry, who was standing on the edge of the deck in the distance, looking out to sea. Alice passed by her and was stopped by her.
"What's wrong with Uncle Duncan?" Nina lowered her voice. "He has been looking into the distance since just now. He seems to have a lot on his mind..."
"I don't know." Alice looked up and shook her head in confusion. "The captain was like this when he came out of the captain's room. He said he wanted to think about something..."
"Thinking about something?" Nina blinked in confusion. "What happened?"
Alice recalled carefully and nodded: "He contacted Tirian, but I don't know what they said."
"Mr. Tirian?" Nina was stunned, and then she began to use her imagination to the fullest, with a strange expression on her face. "Is it because Mr. Tirian never gets married?"
Alice looked confused: "Huh? What does this mean?"
Nina thought for a moment and began to analyze the situation seriously: "I heard from Mr. Morris that he is always worried about Miss Heidi's marriage, and Mr. Tirian is older than Miss Heidi. By the same token, the captain must be more worried about this..."
Alice was frightened and nodded in confusion: "So that's how it is!"
As soon as she finished speaking, Duncan's voice suddenly came from beside the two of them: "That's enough - Nina, you can't tease Alice like this, she will take it seriously."
"Wow!" Nina was startled for a moment, and then she noticed that Uncle Duncan had come to her side without her noticing. She quickly retracted her neck and stood still obediently.
Alice scratched her hair in confusion and looked at Nina questioningly: "Were you teasing me just now?"
"...Anyway, don't take what she just said seriously," Duncan said helplessly, and then his eyes fell on Nina, "Don't worry, nothing happened."
Nina stuck out her tongue, but then she looked a little worried: "Uncle Duncan, what happened? You rarely look so worried..."
Duncan didn't know how to answer the girl's question for a moment. What came to his mind was still the picture he had seen in Tirian's office before, and the strange thing that Lucretia "picked up" at sea.
Moon……
He raised his hand and pinched his swollen eyebrows, but the next second, he suddenly stopped and looked at the girl in front of him.
Nina stood there obediently, with a slightly worried expression on her face.
Duncan looked at her, at this quiet, gentle, and well-behaved little solar prominence. Under the body of a human girl, he seemed to be able to directly see the brilliant arc of light left behind after the star shattered, and the dazzling plasma heat flow that once gushed out in the universe...
The little prominence tilted his head, reached out his hand, and stroked Duncan's frowning brows, as if trying to smooth out those deep furrows: "Uncle Duncan, are you really okay?"
Duncan didn't say anything, but gently grabbed Nina's hand, put it on his forehead, and then slowly exhaled.
He understood something again. Behind the thick curtain, the world once again revealed a corner of the "truth" to him, but he had no one to share this corner of the truth with.
"Don't worry, Nina, everything is fine," he said slowly, gradually returning to his usual self. "I have some problems, but it is difficult to explain them to you now. I will tell you when I have solved them."
Nina listened in a daze, then nodded vigorously: "Yeah."
"Very good, let's go back to the cabin first. It's time for us to set off. But before we set off, we have to make a detour to the base of the Sea Mist Fleet. We have to bring something for Tirion..."
※※※
Frost City, inside the Archon's dome office.
With a slight buzzing sound, the crystal ball gradually lit up, and the figure of the "Sea Witch" became clearer in the dim light.
"Brother?" Lucrecia looked over here curiously, "Have you finished your work over there? Is everything going well?"
"If you mean the inauguration ceremony, it was over this morning and everything went well," Tirian said, his expression gradually becoming complicated, "but I want to talk to you about something else."
Lucrecia frowned, "Anything else?"
"Two things," Tirian hesitated for a moment, and then spoke while considering. "First, I have already prepared the spiritual lens you requested. Through the legal channels of the city-state, I have obtained the best quality and most accurate lens device for you."
In the crystal ball, Lucrecia's face instantly showed a happy expression: "Ah, that's great! Brother, you are still very reliable! What about the second thing?"
"…The second thing is, who do you think will deliver the lens to you?"
"Is this your transport ship?"
Tirian said nothing.
Lucrecia's expression finally changed: "...It's your transport ship, right?"
Still Tirian said nothing.
Lucrecia responded.
"…Dad?"
"right."