After a few collaborations, Alice skillfully exposed the keyhole behind her back, and sat honestly on the bed waiting for the captain to turn the clockwork key.

Duncan took the brass key with the ring-shaped handle and slowly brought it closer to Alice's clockwork hole, but at that moment, he suddenly heard the puppet speak: "Captain, I have a question. ”

Duncan immediately stopped what he was doing: "Question? ”

"You said that this key is a route to the other three god 'nodes' on the outer barrier, right, and I'm still the same thing...... Pilot Three, huh? In other words, as long as there is a route, I can take you far away, even at the end of the world......"

Alice said, her tone was a little hesitant, as if she couldn't think of the right words to express her thoughts for a while, and Duncan didn't urge, just waited patiently—after a while, the puppet seemed to finally straighten out her train of thought, and continued: "Then you say, are there any other 'routes'?" Or if I don't have this new key, can I try to take you somewhere else? ”

Duncan felt a little confused: "...... Why did this suddenly come to mind? ”

"I just...... Suddenly I was a little curious about myself," Alice said slowly, "I never seemed to think about this before, and it was satisfying to be busy on the ship every day and do something I liked, but it seemed that everyone but me did not like this...... Everyone knows what they're going to do, what it's called...... Oh, the sense of mission, it seems like everyone has a sense of mission, but I don't have ......."

The puppet suddenly stopped and thought seriously: "Should I have it too?" ”

“…… There's nothing wrong with that," Duncan shook his head, "but I don't stop you from thinking about and understanding yourself more – knowing yourself is part of growth, and it's a good thing." ”

"Will the puppet grow too?" Alice was a little curious.

"Yes, as long as you have the heart, anyone can grow, and you have grown a lot now than when you first arrived on the ship - more knowledge is growth, meeting more people is also growth, going to more places, seeing more scenery, these are all growth. As long as you are different from yesterday, it is a kind of growth for yourself. ”

Alice sighed as if she didn't understand, then thought for a while, and suddenly thought of something happily: "Ah, then I forgot a few words I learned yesterday this morning, is it growth?" ”

Duncan suddenly fell silent: "......"

Alice: "Captain? Captain, why don't you speak? ”

“…… Sometimes I don't say anything rigorously," Duncan looked at Alice's back with a blank face, trying to focus on that keyhole, "You have to understand dialectically. ”

Alice thought about it, but didn't figure it out - because she didn't know what "dialectic" meant.

But she felt that the captain was right, so she nodded happily: "Okay, then I have no problem!" I'm ready, you wind me! ”

Duncan took a light breath, quickly calmed his thoughts, and then carefully inserted the brass key into the doll's keyhole.

The familiar click sounded, and the clockwork key slid into the keyhole as if it had been actively attracted, and then the intricate ornate pattern around the keyhole lit up slightly—the clockwork key began to spin on its own with a slight click.

In the next second, Duncan felt the familiar dizziness and perceptual reset coming from all directions, and then the darkness descended like a curtain, enveloping everything around him, and then a faint cool touch came to his face—he seemed to pass through an invisible door, and in the darkness, the fragments of light and shadow quickly reassembled, and gradually stabilized into a spacious, gorgeous, yet dimly and eerie place.

Duncan quickly woke up from his trance, and immediately looked around with his eyes wide open after breaking free of the vertigo.

He found himself in the splendid and huge bungalow, with its extraordinarily large living room, its verandah, its dark red carpet, its spiral staircase leading to the second floor, its high, narrow Gothic pointed windows, and its gloomy chandelier hanging high from the ceiling that seemed to be shaking slightly.

But almost instantly, he realized that his surroundings were not the same as the "Alice's Mansion" he remembered—the lights were even more dim, and the pale glimmer of the candles covered a small area like a limited veil, and most of the corners of the bungalow were shrouded in darkness; The roof is even more dilapidated, and the mottled and peeling dome even faintly reveals a skeleton-like structure in some places, but only a chaotic gray can be seen between the gaps of the skeleton.

A more eerie and eerie atmosphere enveloped the place than the remembered "Alice's Mansion", and even in the dark corners that were close at hand, it seemed that countless invisible lurkers were hiding, watching the uninvited guests who intruded here with cold and empty eyes.

Duncan frowned, he noticed that he was standing on a platform on the second floor of the mansion at the moment, through the empty space on the edge of the platform he could see the hall on the first floor and the spiral staircase leading to the hall, after a little thought, he decided not to go to the first floor first, but turned around and walked to the corridor that led to the deepest part of the second floor.

And at the moment when he turned around and walked, he suddenly noticed another "abnormality" here.

It was quiet, empty, no one—he didn't see the headless maids and attendants of the mansion, nor did he hear any movement from the servants, nor did he see the headless butler.

He still remembered that although it was also very empty in the previous "Alice Mansion", he could still see the headless servants hurrying through the doors and corridors from time to time, even in the seemingly empty rooms and halls, he could always hear the sound of whispering and the collision of utensils, and sometimes even the faint sound of music that seemed to be a dance party - although those sounds were more eerie and eerie in an empty bungalow, at least they were "lively" movements.

But there wasn't even that sound here, it was as quiet as ...... Dead as well.

Duncan gradually raised his guard and walked towards the second-floor hallway.

The entire huge building echoed only the monotonous and slightly hollow sound of his footsteps.

He stopped in front of the entrance to the hallway that led to the "mistress's bedroom", looked up at the nearest wall, and then his gaze suddenly rested on a painting.

There were many oil paintings hanging on the walls of the "Alice Mansion", and he remembered what they looked like - mostly abstract and gloomy, painted with large expanses of color as if prophetic or historical, some of them even depicted the disintegration of the New Hope and the "Red Shift of the Doom", but here he suddenly found the oil paintings...... was replaced.

The nearest painting to him was a pile of rudimentary, abstract figures—immature pencil lines on white paper that outlined Shirley as she was holding a chain and picking up a dog.

Duncan: "......"

After a few seconds of silent silence, he suddenly felt the eerie atmosphere in the mansion dissipate a little, and then he noticed another painting next to him, with a scruffy beard and a large hat drawn on it......

He even felt that the atmosphere in the bungalow was starting to warm.

Sure enough, this is still the "Alice Mansion", and some of the details in the bungalow reflect the memories and daily life of the puppet lady - in some ways, it seems to be even more closely related to the "doll Alice" than the "normal version" of the bungalow.

At least the normal version of the bungalow would not have an abstract painting of all the members of the Lost Country.

Duncan smiled helplessly and strode deeper into the hallway.

As expected, he saw the huge "hole" at the end of the hallway.

What was once the "hostess's bedroom" has vanished out of thin air here - the room that was "driven away" by Ray Nora is also a hollow here.

Duncan paused in front of the shattered ground at the end of the hallway, his head bowed and a moment in thought.

It seems that this is still the "Alice Mansion" that I know, but ...... It is "another version".

Winding Alice with different keys will lead to different "copies" of the same "Alice's Mansion"?

So what does this more gloomy atmosphere and seemingly abandoned bungalow have to do with the "shipping route"?

Duncan pondered in silence where to start to find clues about the "route" in the treacherous bungalow, and then he thought of the garden - and the puppet sleeping in the thorny bushes of the garden.

But just as he turned to head to the garden, a flash of light in the corner of his eye made him stop abruptly.

The outline of the light in a flash made Duncan's heart move abruptly, and he immediately stepped over to the shiny thing, and reached out to brush the shadows that covered the air like a black veil—the darkness receded like substance, and he saw the thing as it was: a ...... No matter how you look at it, it's something very abrupt here.

A "screen" like an LCD screen.

The thing was "inlaid in" the wall at the end of the hallway, the silvery-white metallic border "melting" into the wall panel in some strange way, and the screen-like surface was faintly glowing, with text and flashing red frames dancing on it.

Duncan stared at the words on the "screen", and immediately realized that they were the same thing as the words on the device he had seen in the cave illusion of "Holy Land Island", and immediately after, the meaning of the words appeared directly in his mind in the form of information-

"The core escape pod is offline - illegal release, unauthorized operation."

Duncan stared at the words for a few seconds, and finally slowly reacted, then turned his head to look at the broken break and the "big hole" at the end of the corridor, and turned the "New Hope Navigation Section" and "Alice's Mansion" back and forth in his mind, and finally understood a fact that was obvious but only today to figure out what was going on.

The Queen of Frost drove away from the New Hope's escape pod......

No wonder she was able to drive her "house" to the end of the world - that thing was an escape pod for a spaceship!

(End of chapter)