Duncan looked at the goat head in the wooden box. The goat head in the box looked like a real wood sculpture, responding to his gaze without any life or reaction.

Duncan was not surprised - the moment Alice came to the deck in a daze with an unopenable wooden box that had obviously been carefully sealed, he guessed that the box contained what he was looking for.

After all, what the silly beauty lacks in brains has to be made up in other areas, such as strength, optimism, and good luck.

"A goat's head!" Alice poked her head into the box and finally realized what she had found. Her eyes widened in surprise. "Is this the one in the cultist's hand? It looks exactly like the goat's head on the Lost Homeland!"

Duncan didn't say anything, but carefully observed the details of this "Dream Skull". Lucrecia squatted down and poked the goat head in the box with the small "baton". Her pretty eyebrows slightly wrinkled: "No reaction... I can't see the characteristics of being 'alive', and it doesn't seem to emit any special smell?"

"It's just like a real piece of wood," Duncan nodded. He took the carved goat head out of the wooden box and weighed it in his hand. "...It's so light."

"You didn't take the goat head from the Lost Homeland off the base?" Lucrecia looked at Duncan in surprise. "It seemed to be just placed on the table..."

"They are connected together. The goat head is an integral part of the Lost Homeland," Duncan immediately shook his head. "Although its head can turn around, it cannot be removed from the table."

Lucrecia was learning this detail for the first time and seemed to find it incredible. Alice, who was standing next to her, suddenly looked thoughtful after hearing the captain's words, and then clapped her hands: "So that's how it is!"

Duncan turned his head immediately: "Huh?"

"I was wondering why the first mate was so resistant when I tried to take his head off the table last time. He even said a lot of things to me, although I don't remember what he said..."

Duncan was stunned: "Why did you take the first mate's head off the table?"

"I wanted to clean the table," Alice said matter-of-factly, "and I wanted to take it to the bathroom to wash it...but I couldn't get it down."

Duncan: “……?”

He no longer wanted to imagine what that scene would be like - fortunately, the puppet's hand strength was not that strong! If Vanna had gone up, Sasloka would have died for the third time...

Lucrecia suddenly noticed that the expression on her father's face changed rapidly several times.

"What's wrong with you?" she couldn't help but ask with concern.

“…I don’t think I reminded the others on the boat that the goat’s head was fixed on the table and couldn’t be taken off.”

"Miss Vanna is a calm person and she probably won't come into your captain's room casually."

Duncan looked puzzled: "Why did you think of Vanna first?"

Lucrecia was stunned for two seconds, and looked at Duncan with a strange expression: "Who are you thinking of?"

Duncan thought about it and decided that it would be better not to continue discussing this increasingly obscure topic - he once again focused his attention on the "Dream Skull" in front of him.

"This should indeed be another fragment of Sasloka, otherwise the cultists would not have sealed it so carefully. However, there are differences between fragments, and not every 'goat head' has complete rationality."

As he spoke, he put the dark wooden goat head back into the box and closed the lid again - Anomaly 132 immediately jumped up from the deck next to him, hung on the lock of the wooden box, and locked himself in with a click.

"I'm going to send this thing back to the Lost Homeland first and see what happens when I put it together with the goat head on the ship."

"Hey, are we going back?" Alice reacted immediately. She stood up with Duncan and looked at the sea in the distance curiously. "I thought we were going to follow this ship directly to that...'home port'."

It was Lucrecia who answered her: "This place is still far from the border. Even if this ship is sailing at the highest speed, it will take about a week to reach the vicinity of the 'Veil'. We don't need to stay on this almost completely destroyed 'Ghost Ship' for such a long time."

"Well," Duncan nodded and added, "We can use this time to transfer the survivors in the prison to the city-state. Then, if there is a chance, we can contact the Church of the Four Gods. Perhaps they will also be interested in a cult nest hidden in the fog at the border. In addition, there is the 'goat head' in this box... There are many things to do."

"You can go back first. I will take care of the aftermath here," Lucrecia offered. "I have more experience in this area."

Duncan just nodded slightly and didn't say much.

He knew that as a "witch" who had been wandering on the vast sea for a century, Lucrecia's experiences were far beyond those of ordinary people. City-states that had encountered disasters, expeditions that were in distress, ships that had been possessed by evil spirits, and victims of cults who had been kidnapped and sacrificed - these were all "experiences" that she had already dealt with.

She knew how to comfort survivors who were on the verge of physical and mental collapse.

"Then Alice and I will return to the Lost Homeland first," Duncan nodded to Lucrecia, then patted the railing beside him, "The ship will return to its home port on its own, you don't have to worry about it. After you finish dealing with things here, you leave the 'artificial beacon' on the ship so that I can monitor the status of the ship at any time and return here when the time is right."

Lucrecia lowered her head: "I understand."

The crackling sound of flames leaping out of nowhere on the deck, and when she raised her head again, a rotating flaming door appeared before her.

Alice was the first to walk into the rotating flames, holding the big wooden box (and a bunch of her "trophies"), and then Duncan waved his hand over here, and his body burning with spiritual flames turned into a stream of fire in the blink of an eye and disappeared into the gate.

Where Duncan had originally stood, a ball of remaining fire was still burning calmly in the air, gradually shrinking and dimming, and soon it turned into a magical object only the size of a palm and fell onto the deck.

That is the artificial beacon created by the "Sea Witch".

Lucrecia stepped forward and picked up the "beacon" from the deck.

It was a tiny puppet—carved from a piece of wood from the side of the Homeless, with a lock of Duncan’s hair stuffed inside it, and it was crudely carved to resemble Duncan: wearing an old-time captain’s uniform, a gloomy captain’s hat, and a majestic beard.

The overall shape of the puppet looks more or less exaggerated, but the exaggeration is just right.

Lucrecia spent a whole night making this puppet - for a witch who had created an entire "army of servants", the task was not complicated, and this incredible magical creation could contain a trace of her father's power - although the "capacity" was very small, it was enough to replace the human body and allow her father to open the flame gate near the location of the beacon without adding an "incarnation".

Her father was unwilling to occupy more bodies to create "incarnations" - for Lucrecia, this was a good thing, and she was happy to use her expertise to help her father solve the "inconveniences in life" caused by this.

On the deck, the remaining flames from the flaming door gradually faded away.

Lucretia held up the little puppet of Duncan, looked it over in the sunlight for a moment, and then suddenly, like a thief, she looked around quickly.

Of course there would be no one else here.

So the "witch" lady withdrew her gaze from all around, walked to a corner, hesitated for a while, and poked the puppet's head with her finger.

The puppet did not respond.

She reached out her hand again and poked the puppet's beard and the exaggerated captain's hat - she laughed, and the expression on her face gradually became happy.

The puppet suddenly raised his head and made a helpless sound: "Is it fun?"

Lucrecia: “…”

A moment later, Rabbi the rabbit, who was coming out of the cabin to report something to his hostess, heard a scream that echoed throughout the deck, something he had never heard before in his life.

※※※

The clanging sound of metal colliding broke the tranquility on the deck of the Lost Homeland.

Duncan looked helplessly at Alice who was walking around on the deck with her "trophy": "Give me the box - you can take your 'trophy' to the kitchen first."

"oh!"

The puppet agreed happily, handed the wooden box containing the "Skull of Dreams" to Duncan, and walked towards the kitchen with the sound of clanging.

The noise of the kitchen knife, spatula and iron spoon colliding finally faded away.

Duncan held the wooden box containing the "Skull of Dreams" in his hands, watching Alice leave happily, and sensing the information coming from an artificial beacon in some distant unknown sea. A subtle and helpless expression gradually appeared on his face, and he shook his head and sighed, not knowing whether to laugh or cry.

"… Never mind, just be happy."

He turned and walked towards the stern deck. As soon as he entered the door of the captain's room, he was immediately met with the sight of Goat Head.

It seemed that before he opened the door, the goat head had already turned its gaze to the door - now there was a deep look in the pair of eyes carved from obsidian. For the first time, this "first mate" who was always chattering and unruly did not recite his dizzying opening remarks. His eyes were fixed on the wooden box in Duncan's hand, as if he had already anticipated what it was.

"It seems you feel it," Duncan walked to the navigation table and placed the large wooden box in his hand on the table, "I brought you a gift."