Chapter 24: Chapter 24: Pigeons?
Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
The pristine white pigeon stood dumbly on the table, its neck adorned with the brass Compass Duncan had searched for half a day, and the familiar Obsidian knife rested at its feet.
Duncan looked at the pigeon with a slightly blank expression, and the pigeon returned the look with an equally blank expression.
Discerning expressions on a bird's face is not an easy task, but for some reason, Duncan felt he could understand the pigeon's look. Not only could he understand its look, but he even felt he could see a kind of "wisdom" shining in those slightly reddish eyes—the bird's mung bean-like eyes stared straight ahead. When Duncan's gaze met the pigeon's, one of its eyes shifted its attention towards him, while its other eye seemed to keep staring at the captain's cabin ceiling, with an erratic and drifting line of sight.
"A pigeon?"
It took several seconds for Duncan to finally twitch the corners of his mouth and mutter subconsciously.
Why a pigeon? Why did a pigeon suddenly turn up out of nowhere? Why was his brass Compass still hanging around this pigeon's neck? And how did the knife get there?
Or to sum up in a sentence: on this abnormal ship, could anything normal ever happen?!
While Duncan was full of question marks and murmurs in his heart, the pigeon that had been stunned for a long time seemed to finally "wake up." It nodded its head, took a few steps on the table, came close to Duncan, stretched its neck, and emitted a loud "coo."
"..." Duncan watched the bird in silence, and for some reason, classic images of many pirate captains from his memory suddenly floated into his mind. Then he glanced down at the captain's uniform he wore, "It does seem standard for a captain to have a bird by his side, but shouldn't that be a parrot... What's the deal with a pigeon?"
As soon as the pigeon heard Duncan's words, it nodded solemnly, emitting a somewhat strange and rigid female voice: "Transmission complete!"
All the murmurs in Duncan's heart and mouth were abruptly cut off. He nearly choked on a gulp of saliva, staring at the white pigeon before him with a look of utter astonishment.
He remembered the feeling when he first set foot on this ship, when he met a talking goat head in the captain's cabin.
But at least this was not his first day on board the Homeloss, and he had grown accustomed to the anomalies of this world, so the pigeon speaking was only surprising to him for a moment. In the next second, his expression turned serious, and a faint green Spiritual Body flame started to emerge from one hand. He watched the pigeon before him warily, "Where did you come from?"
The pigeon tilted its head, one eye fixated on Duncan, while the other wandered haphazardly ceilingward: "Address error, please recheck the address, or contact the system administrator."
Duncan: "…?"
More than just a moment of expressionless stupor, his heart was now stirring with even greater turmoil!
The things this pigeon was saying... it did not seem to fit the "style" of this world, unlike the goat head, or Alice, or any of those robed Heretics. Instead, it sounded more like the terms that "Zhou Ming" from Earth would understand!
Yet, the pigeon seemed completely oblivious to the changes in Duncan's gaze and expression, simply lowered its head to peck at its wings, jangled the brass Compass hanging on its chest and then started to strut contentedly on the table.
After pacing a few steps, it ran over to the Obsidian knife, flicked it a few times toward Duncan with its paw, and emitted the same peculiarly toned female voice from earlier: "Take up this solar-powered battle axe and embrace the glory of battle!"
Duncan suddenly stood up from the desk, the chair scraping noisily against the floor. He fixed a deathly stare at the still innocently unperturbed pigeon before him, while an extreme sense of bizarre humor filled his mind.
This pigeon simply could not be something originally from the Homeloss, or even from this world!
The words it spoke, only "Zhou Ming" would understand what they meant!
Perhaps the noise from the chair was too loud, even audible in the chart room, as Duncan suddenly heard the goat head's voice in his mind: "Captain? Are you alright?"
Duncan kept his gaze fixed on the pigeon on the table, knowing that the goat head dared not directly peer into the situation within the captain's cabin. So he answered with a subdued voice, as calmly as ever, "I'm fine."
"Miss Alice is here to see you, shall I..."
"You take care of her first."
"Yes, Captain."
Duncan exhaled, turning to glance back at the door leading to the chart room.
The Goat Head's cacophonous barrage continued, and Miss Puppet had tried several times to get up and leave but was stopped each time. Duncan thought he should go and rescue the unfortunate puppet, but now... he had something more important to confirm.
Hang in there a bit longer, Alice.
Duncan sat back down at his desk, preparing to try to communicate with the pigeon in front of him using normal speech, and it was at this moment that he suddenly noticed something he hadn't paid attention to before—
A faint "fire line" seemed to extend from the spiritual fire that flickered between his right fingers. The flame was as thin as a strand of hair and dissipated into the air after extending out a dozen or so centimeters.
There was also a wisp of pale green flame entwining the odd pigeon, hidden in the gaps under its wing feathers, with the other end extending into the air and vanishing just as it did.
Duncan frowned, raised his right hand, and with a thought, the flames danced, and the pigeon on the table vanished instantly.
The next second, the pigeon appeared on his shoulder, pecking at Duncan's hair and making a loud noise: "Coo-coo!"
Duncan flicked his finger again, and the pigeon on his shoulder reappeared on the desk.
The brass Compass hung on the pigeon's chest, its shiny casing reflecting the green light of the flames.
Duncan's frown deepened, "…Related to this brass Compass?"
He was now certain that there was a definite connection between himself and the pigeon, an even tighter one than between him and Homeloss. This might also explain why the pigeon "knew" some Earth-derived "knowledge" that only he was aware of. He just wasn't sure why the pigeon had appeared.
After much deliberation, the only suspect he could think of was that peculiar brass Compass.
From his testing of the spiritual fire to now, all the abnormalities had started with this brass Compass. Whether it was the soul travel experience before, or the experience of spiritually projecting into a corpse, to the Compass disappearing out of the blue and reappearing hanging on the pigeon's chest... The origin of everything seemed to be this object.
Duncan stared at the pigeon for a while, then reached out for the Compass.
He wanted to take down the object to study it properly.
The pigeon did not dodge or resist, but Duncan's fingers couldn't touch the surface of the brass Compass—they passed right through and touched the pigeon's soft, fluffy chest feathers instead.
It was as if he reached through an illusion.
The pigeon hopped on the spot, seemingly tickled by Duncan, and opened its mouth as if to say, "Today is KFC's Crazy Thursday, W-me 50..."
Duncan's eyes twitched, and after two more incredulous tests, he finally confirmed that he wouldn't be able to remove the brass Compass from the pigeon—the object had clearly undergone some metamorphosis, becoming an illusion bound together with the pigeon that couldn't be touched or removed.
Or to say... the pigeon was now the true form of the brass Compass?
Many speculations that not even Duncan himself was sure he should believe flashed through his mind in an instant, but the only thing he could be certain of was one: the appearance of this pigeon was inextricably linked to his experience with the brass Compass and "soul travel," and this experience might have also changed the form of the brass Compass.
This might just be the inherent nature of the brass Compass as a sort of "abnormal object," or perhaps a "use price." As for why the pigeon was so odd... it wasn't because of the Compass, it was because of Zhou Ming, the Earthling.
All of this was still unverifiable or irrefutable unless Duncan could find an instruction manual for the various oddities aboard Homeloss.
As for now, he had to figure out what to do with this... abnormal pigeon.
After a brief moment of contemplation, he decided to first give the pigeon a name.
"I need to give you a name," he tapped the desk lightly with his finger and said very seriously to the pigeon, "I think you should be able to understand what I'm saying, right?"
The pigeon tilted its head, its mung bean-sized eyes flickering as it looked at Duncan: "Eli?"
(Holy moly!)
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone