Chapter 18: Underground sewer

Before leaving the temporary hiding place in the cave, Duncan tore some rags
from the nearby corpses and wrapped them around himself.
It wasn’t because he couldn’t stand the cold but rather to partly cover his wide-
open chest. Although the hole in his chest completely didn’t affect Duncan’s
‘survival,’ as a person with a normal mindset, walking around with an agape
chest was overly unnerving. Covering himself at least provided some
psychological comfort and reduced the strange sensation of ‘drafts’ blowing
through him.
Duncan also considered the possibility of encountering someone else in this
underground space—according to common sense, having a large open hole in
your chest might not be conducive to conversations with strangers...
With that, after hastily covering his ‘wound,’ Duncan cautiously left the gloomy,
damp cave. He entered the tunnel connected to the cave and slowly moved
toward its depth.
This temporary body he was occupying wasn’t very ‘convenient.’ Not only did
the fatal chest wound hamper the agility of his movements, but Duncan also
clearly felt a significant weakness in the body itself. The frail limbs made it
difficult to walk quickly, completely incomparable to the formidable body of the
‘Ghost Captain’ that far surpassed ordinary humans.
Duncan couldn’t see the full appearance of the body he was now inhabiting, but
just by judging the parts he could see, he guessed it was that of a young boy, one
severely weakened by long-term malnutrition. Despite being controlled by the
powerful soul of a ghost captain, apparently this powerful soul seemed unable to
surpass the frail body’s physical limitations.
Unfortunately, there were no other options at the moment. Duncan had to
control this barely functional body as he slowly explored deeper into the tunnel.
He knew that in this body’s current state, any crisis would leave him helpless, so
he could only hope this shell would last a while longer.
The tunnel was long, damp, and dark, but there seemed to be hidden vents, with
faint drafts flowing nearby. Every so often, Duncan saw torches or oil lamps
hanging on the walls, indicating that someone had been active here recently.
After walking a long way along the tunnel, Duncan suddenly found the path
opening up, and man-made signs began to appear. In his line of sight, he saw a
fork at the tunnel’s end. The fork’s connected path had smooth walls and high,
arched domes. The floor was paved with dark and damp bricks, with two sewer
channels running along the sides, carrying foul-smelling sewage.
On both of the walls, he could see openings resembling drainage pipes, from
which sewage flowed into the channels below, heading into the distant darkness.
"...An underground sewer?"
Duncan quickly realized that what lay before him was apparently some kind of
large-scale sewer system, and the cave where the bodies had been hidden
seemed to be a natural structure which happened to be connected to the sewer.
A vast sewer, a natural cave connected to it, and hidden corpses.
Countless speculations instantly sprang up in Duncan’s mind, and while these
thoughts swirled, he earnestly observed the details of this ‘sewer.’
The scale was enormous, the construction was of excellent quality, and seemed
primarily supported by reinforced concrete. In times of necessity, it could even
serve as an underground bunker.
Building something of this scale meant that the city above must be quite large,
presumably with a certain level of technological development.
Technology couldn’t exist in isolation. Inevitably, every engineering product
was synchronously supported by inumerable related industries and technologies.
Even a sewer could reveal to Duncan information about construction, planning,
materials, maintenance levels, and the lifestyle of the residents.
This was sufficient to provide Duncan with valuable information from the
civilized world, which was currently severely lacking.
As Duncan walked along the sewer, he suddenly stopped after a short distance,
his gaze falling on a nearby wall.
Embedded in the wall was a lamp—a glass-encased lamp protected by a sturdy-
looking metal covering.
Compared to the torches and oil lamps in the cave, this wall-mounted lamp was
clearly brighter. The frosted glass case housed a bright, steadily burning flame
that illuminated a considerable distance in the sewer.
Duncan moved closer, examining carefully. For him now, anything from outside
the Lost Homeland, especially modern artifacts, held great appeal.
After a while of observing, Duncan finally understood the nature of the light
source before him—a gas lamp.
However, this gas lamp seemed different from those he had seen in records.
Aside from the design differences, the most noticeable thing was the fine
symbols etched into the glass casing of the lamp.
These symbols seemed to have been added during the production of the lamp
casing. They were curved and resembled hieroglyphics. Duncan didn’t
recognize these symbols, but his first association was of the mysterious runes he
had seen on that mechanical ship and on Alice’s ‘coffin.’
Though the content differed, they shared a similar... ‘aura.’
It was some kind of sanctified, ritualistic thing.
Duncan stepped back a bit, raising his head and looking deeper into the sewer.
He saw that lamps like this were installed at regular intervals along the walls,
each brightly burning.
For an underground facility that people rarely visited except for necessary
maintenance, the number of lights installed seemed a bit excessive. And each of
these gas lamps perhaps had similar mysterious ‘runes’ on them,
This gave Duncan the impression as if these tightly distributed gas lamps were
warding off something in the underground desolated darkness—they represented
the ‘civilized world’ of humanity, battling against something.
As Duncan continued along the path illuminated by the gas lamps, he kept an
eye out for any valuable clues on the surrounding walls, floor, and arched
ceiling. Suddenly, his peripheral vision caught something unusual.
He stopped between two gas lamps, in one of the dimmer sections of the sewer,
and looked up at the wall. Near the top of the wall, close to the sewer’s arched
ceiling, dark red paint had been used to draw something.
Duncan squinted, trying to make out the details. After some time, he finally saw
the rough outlines of what had been painted—he saw pairs of hands reaching
towards the sky, seemingly in worship of something. In the direction where
those hands were gathered, a sphere suspended high above was emitting lofty
rays of brilliance.
Beneath this scene of worship and gathering was a line of crooked writing. The
shaky strokes seemed to contain intense zealotry and anticipation. Though the
letters weren’t from any language on Earth, Duncan understood them naturally
—
"The False Sun shall fall, and the true Sun God shall rise from blood and fire!
All life belongs to the Sun, all order belongs to the Sun!"
Duncan stood silently in the sewer, looking up at the area where the gaslight's
glow was the dimmest. He stared at the dark red graffiti, at that seemingly
blood-soaked disk, at that fervently worshipped radiant Sun.
It was as if he were staring into another world for a long time.
He remained like this for a while until a noise suddenly echoed from deeper
within the sewer. The sound of footsteps reached Duncan’s ears.
He quickly looked towards the source of the sound and saw several robed
figures approaching. Their heads and faces were hidden under shadows of the
hoods, giving them the semblance of sinister phamtoms emerging from the
murky depths of the sewer.
Duncan didn’t hide—in fact, there was almost no hiding spot in this perfectly
straight sewer section. His temporary body with limited mobility could not make
any complex maneuvers like ‘blind spot movement’. So after a brief thought, he
simply stood carefree in the middle of the sewer, calmly watching the clearly
highly suspicious hooded figures coming his way.
Since this body was unlikely to escape and was destined to be a disposable
vessel, he might as well gather some information before the end.
In the next moment, the hooded figures emerging from the depths of the sewer
noticed Duncan's presence.