After confirming that Alice had no response to any of the "keywords" and had no idea about the "decapitation" ability, Duncan decided to tell this confused cursed doll what he had just learned.

Because he already had a vague guess at this time: Perhaps the key to Anomaly 099 - Puppet Coffin is not actually Alice the doll... but her "coffin".

The waves were gentle on the vast sea, and the cabin was swaying gently with the wind and waves. In the flickering glow of the oil lamp, the ghost captain slowly narrated the past and present lives of the puppet coffin - and then scared the puppet so much that it almost shrank into a ball.

Duncan looked expressionlessly at Alice, who was already sitting on the corner of the bed, leaning against the wall with her head in her hands. "Are you really that nervous?"

“This… this sounds really scary!” Alice’s tone of voice changed, like an ordinary human girl who had just listened to a ghost story. “What? Indiscriminate beheading? Stopping only when everyone is dead within a certain range? Constantly expanding the territory… This, this, this… I have no idea!”

"I now believe that you really don't know," Duncan glanced at Alice, "but this is indeed the information about Anomaly 099 - Puppet Coffin."

Alice held her head and looked at Duncan with a stiff neck: "Then..."

"So I have two guesses now. First, the above-mentioned 'decapitation' may be an ability you activated unconsciously. Because you are an abnormal object, your power is most likely just a passive area effect. Even if you were in the 'sleeping' state before, it would not affect the occurrence of the decapitation effect."

Duncan said this, slowly rising from his chair. He walked to the ornate wooden box and touched it with the front end of the sword in his hand.

"Second, the 'decapitation' power of the puppet coffin may not come from you as a puppet, but from your 'coffin'."

"Coffin...you mean my box?" Alice slowly widened her eyes, and her gaze subconsciously followed Duncan's movements and fell on the wooden box beside the bed. The puppet seemed to react only then: "You mean..."

"The full name of Anomaly 099 is 'Puppet Coffin'... In other words, you and your wooden box together make up the complete 'Anomaly 099', and when I first met you, I subconsciously thought that you were the 'leading part' of it... Because at that time I didn't know the full name of 'Puppet Coffin'," Duncan stroked his chin and said while thinking, "Now that I think about it carefully, the word 'Puppet Coffin'... The focus seems to be on the second half?"

Alice blinked her eyes, thought about it for a while, and finally clapped her hands: "Oh! I came with this box!"

Duncan looked at the stupid puppet expressionlessly and said, "...You don't have to say it with such pride."

Alice seemed not to hear the mockery in Duncan's tone. She just looked at her wooden box with a heavy heart and said with a worried tone: "So... my box has been 'beheading' people? But I have lived in it for so long, and I don't think it is so evil and dangerous... and I don't feel that it has any special power..."

"Nonsense, you are part of the entire Anomaly 099, can your feelings be used as a reference?" Duncan frowned, "And if you touch your neck, I suspect that the reason why your head falls off every now and then is because you sleep in this box for too long!"

Alice immediately felt that the captain was right, and her expression became complicated. But then she became a little confused: "But if that's the case... 'Beheading' is an inherent attribute of my coffin. Then why hasn't its ability been activated after being on the ship for such a long time?"

As soon as she said this, she was met with Duncan's gloomy gaze. The doll lady, who realized it belatedly, felt a silent pressure slamming on her head - she had relaxed after living on the ship for a while, and only then did she suddenly remember what kind of person the captain in front of her was.

Duncan just stared at the doll silently. After Alice shrank into a smaller ball, he said faintly, "I am the only humanoid creature on this ship besides you. What do you mean..."

"That's nothing!" Alice almost jumped up, and said, waving her hands hastily, "Please listen to my explanation. I mean this box..."

"I didn't say I was going to do anything to you," Duncan looked at her helplessly. "You are now a member of the Lost Homeland. I am your protector on the vast ocean. You don't have to be so scared. Can you just sit still? It looks like I have done something to you."

Alice then said "oh" and slowly moved back to the bed, but Duncan's mind was filled with other thoughts because of Alice's interruption - yes, no matter whether the main body of the puppet coffin is a puppet or a coffin, Anomaly 099 has been on the Lost Homeland for so long, it has long exceeded its "inspection" cycle, and this anomaly has always appeared harmless to humans and animals... Obviously, this is due to suppression.

So who is suppressing it, the Lost Hometown or himself, the "captain"?

Duncan looked down at his hands.

He knew that he possessed a very powerful force. This power not only allowed him to completely control the life of a cultist named "Ron", but it was even so powerful and weird that it could make Alice, a superior anomaly, tremble at the first sight, and make "Agou", a deep demon, tuck his tail between his legs. He did not know the nature of this power, but this did not prevent him from gradually becoming aware of his own uniqueness.

On the other hand, the Lost Homeland is the fifth most common anomaly in the Boundless Sea - it is a "phenomenon" rather than an anomaly.

This means that as long as you are within the range of the Lost Hometown, there is a "field" that is effective 24 hours a day, constantly exerting an influence on all targets within the range.

With the suppression of the captain and the ship, Anomaly 099 is naturally harmless, but if he really takes Alice to the Plande city-state as planned... then the situation is likely to get out of control.

Therefore, he had to figure out a series of things - was the main body of the effect of Anomaly 099 Alice, or the wooden box? Was it himself, the captain, or the Lost Hometown that suppressed Anomaly 099? If Alice and the wooden box were separated, would the effect of Anomaly 099 still appear? If the suppression effect was produced by himself, the captain, then what was the suppression distance?

His thoughts extended -

If the "coffin" was the one that produced the decapitation effect, would it be safe for me to bring Alice to the Plande city-state alone? If the "coffin" was an abnormal element that could be separated, would my flame also be able to affect it alone? If I used the flame to completely control the box, would it be equivalent to controlling the decapitation effect that was originally uncontrolled? Just like using the flame to control Ai and the brass compass?

Duncan had a lot of questions in his mind, and these questions gradually formed a complex control test plan. But at the end of the plan, he was frustrated to find one thing:

He lacked many of the necessary conditions for testing.

The Lost Homeland was not a qualified testing ground, as the power of the ghost ship would interfere with the accuracy of the results, and he did not have a suitable test target - because the decapitation effect of Anomaly 099 was more life-threatening... the life of the "tester".

Duncan raised his head and looked at Alice who was sitting obediently beside the bed. The doll lady was looking at her favorite wooden box with some sadness, and all the entanglements in her heart seemed to be printed on her face.

As if she noticed the captain's gaze, Alice suddenly broke the silence and whispered, "Since the day I became conscious... I have been living in this box. It is my bed, my home, and my shelter. When I sleep in it, I feel very safe."

Duncan didn't say anything, but just looked at the puppet in front of him quietly.

"Now I know why those humans are so scared," Alice reached out and gently stroked her wooden box, "They are afraid of 'us'."

"I was originally planning to take you to the city-state of Plande during my next spiritual journey," Duncan said in a deep voice, "I need a helper there."

Alice's eyes seemed to light up for a moment, but then dimmed: "Ah, this won't work..."

"The plan has been postponed, but not cancelled," Duncan's expression and tone did not change much, "We just need more time to confirm your...'you' power, and master the conditions for the effectiveness of this 'decapitation' effect. The human city-states on land can seal and even use a variety of anomalies through various tricks, and this is the Lost Homeland, we can do more."

Alice glanced at Duncan doubtfully, and from the captain's calm and deep gaze, she realized that these were not empty words of comfort.

"You have a plan?"

Duncan thought about it, raised his fingertips, and lit a cluster of faint flames.

"First, we might need a little fire."