Chapter 58: The Hold

Duncan had always been curious about what made this self-proclaimed "Alice," a Gothic doll, so special and dangerous that her escorting sailors were so nervous and that she held the anomalous title 099 in a world brimming with dangerous and bizarre phenomena.

Indeed, a doll capable of moving autonomously and possessing reason was certainly eerie, and the sight of her occasionally clutching her head and running haphazardly or acting separately was truly horrifying. But in Duncan's view, this was far from sufficient to meet the criteria for a "higher-tier designation," especially when compared to the intelligence he had learned from Nina: