"May I have your name?"
"Your Majesty, my name is Mersin Kolebo."
Schliemann deliberately did not explain the misunderstanding of being regarded as a god. He nodded and continued to ask: "Where do you live?"
"Dark Star City, Lower City, Fluorescent Mushroom Street."
Mersin answered seriously, his body upright, and the person standing in front of him seemed not to be a god, but an officer.
When he heard that there was a city, Schliemann didn't care whether he was regarded as a god or something else. He glanced at the stunned Hilpeter and sighed.
"Dark Star City, where is this city?"
"In a cocoon."
"Cocoon? What is a cocoon?"
Mersin was stunned for a moment, his brows furrowed for a moment, then lowered.
"Are you... a god? Why don't you know anything?"
Schliemann laughed twice and said: "Of course I am not a god..."
Mersin exhaled and slumped down on the deck.
"Since I'm not a god, let me take a breath first... I'm going to be exhausted."
Schliemann waved his hand, and Hilpeter quickly handed over the kettle.
"Drink some water and speak slowly. Your city is in a cocoon. What is this cocoon?"
"The cocoon...the cocoon is a place that protects us from the demons of hell...our church doesn't allow us to leave the cocoon anyway."
Schliemann suddenly understood.
"Did you crawl out from under the ground?"
Mersin was stunned, dropped the kettle and looked around.
"Is the place where we have been living underground? I thought it was the whole world..."
Mersin stood on the side of the deck, facing the sand dunes and the horizon of the sky, feeling lost.
"What's wrong? Are you okay?"
Mersin reacted and felt something rolling down her cheek. She reached out to touch it and found two lines of tears.
"Is the place where we have lived for generations just underground? This is so unfair!
Why do you have such a vast world as soon as you are born? Why is everything we have underground...why? "
Schliemann waved his hand and drove away the approaching crew members.
"Alas, we don't know either. You have to ask the god in your mouth..."
"I don't want to! I just climbed out and I just saw the sun. Is that the sun? I don't want to die!"
"Hey, don't get excited yet. No one here plans to do anything to you."
Ten minutes later, with Vivian's comfort, Mersin finally got rid of the hysterical mania. After she hugged Vivian and cried for a while, the injury on her face became even more swollen.
Selu ran to the cabin and found that the medicine box had been thrown away. Then she ran back and wiped Mersin's face gently with a wet towel.
Seeing that Mersin's mood had stabilized, Schliemann sat down cross-legged and said, "How about this, you tell me about your world, and I tell you about the world you just saw."
"Okay...but I don't know where to start."
"Tell me about your king."
"King? What is that?"
Apton on the side was extremely surprised and quickly explained what the king meant.
"Oh, ours is called the Pope."
"Ah? The unity of politics and religion?"
Schliemann was extremely shocked. In this world, he did not expect to see such a disgusting zombie-like political system.
"I don't know about the unity of politics and religion. Anyway, our world is a world inside the cocoon of the Pope's rule. Outside the cocoon is hell, controlled by Satan."
Schliemann was shocked again. He did not expect that the rulers of hell in the two worlds were exactly the same.
"It's hell outside, why are you still running out?"
"I didn't want to run away, I just wanted to see what it was like outside the cocoon."
"You've finished reading it now, what happens next?"
Mersin's expression was very complicated, including pain, confusion, and a little bit of happiness. She even turned her eyes to one side, avoiding Schliemann's sight.
"After watching it, I never want to go back."
Schliemann laughed twice, his voice full of helplessness.
"You have to go back..."
Mersin asked in confusion, and Schliemann spread his hands.
"This place is a small empty island. It's full of desert. If you want to survive, you really have to go underground."
"Then how do you..."
"We are explorers from other islands. Just like you trying to get out of the cocoon, I am also trying to get out of the cocoon of this world."
Such an explanation was completely unacceptable to Mersin. She didn't know what Sky Island was. When Schliemann explained the basic conditions of the world in detail, she became hysterical again and refused to believe it.
"Sil Peter! Go around the island! It's just the right time for her to rest."
As the Crescent sailed around the island, the light in Mersin's eyes went out. She was no longer as excited as when she had just crawled out of the hole, but had a look of despair.
"In a sense, your pope is right, there is indeed hell outside the cocoon.
Oh, by the way, luckily you followed the hole and dug it out from the top. If you dug it out from the side, you might fall directly into the blue sea.
The blue sea is the real hell. "
Mersin's eyes trembled as she stared at the endless gold and dots of blue, a color she had never dreamed of in her dreams.
"What about the outside world? It can't be that the world is so lifeless, right?"
"Oh, that won't happen. We come from the mainland island of Valance, where the climate is pleasant, the scenery is beautiful, and it's habitable..."
Before Schliemann finished speaking, Mersin interrupted him, and the flame of hope ignited in her eyes again.
"Take me there!"
“Well… we’re actually in a little trouble.
The hole you made caused our flying boat to slip into the water, and all our food and other things got into the water.
And, we lost a lot of stuff trying not to slip into that hole.
To put it bluntly, all the food and supplies we prepared for the journey were gone. "
Mersin was at a loss and opened his mouth, not knowing what to say.
"This is not completely irremediable. You can take us to your Dark Star City. We can buy enough food, drink, and supplies to continue exploring.
However, we have no current plans to return to the mainland island of Valans. "
"You will always go back! Right?"
Schliemann nodded and stretched out a finger to emphasize: "If you like any world during the exploration of Crescent Moon, you can disembark at any time."
Mersin looked excited, holding Schliemann's hands and repeating the agreement.
"I'll take you to buy supplies, and you take me away! That's right!"
"That's right!"
"You won't lie to me, will you?"
"We can't come back without you, right?"
"That's right! I'm the leading cave explorer!"
"Okay, okay, Hilpeter! Go back and find the hole!"
"Okay! Turn around and sail, full left rudder!"
Hilpeter's loud command came from the bridge.
Ampton remained silent. Seeing that the captain had already made an important decision, he patted Mersin on the shoulder.
"Mersin, what material are your clothes made of? It looks like I've never seen it before."
"Insect skin clothing can be found everywhere in the cocoon."
Schliemann and Ampton looked at each other and asked the same question.
"Ah, what do you usually eat? Are they also insects?"
