Apex domains cannot have CNAME records.
Question and response
Question
dig nic.direct. NS
Answer
nic.direct. 5 NS v0n2.nic.direct.
nic.direct. 5 NS v2n1.nic.direct.
nic.direct. 5 NS v0n0.nic.direct.
nic.direct. 5 NS v0n1.nic.direct.
nic.direct. 5 NS v2n0.nic.direct.
nic.direct. 5 NS v0n3.nic.direct.
Authority
The response has no authority records.
Additional
v0n0.nic.direct. 160915 A 65.22.24.46
v0n1.nic.direct. 160915 A 65.22.25.46
v0n2.nic.direct. 160960 A 65.22.26.46
v0n3.nic.direct. 160960 A 161.232.12.46
v2n0.nic.direct. 160960 A 65.22.27.46
v2n1.nic.direct. 160960 A 161.232.13.46
v0n0.nic.direct. 160915 AAAA 2a01:8840:1a:0:0:0:0:46
v0n1.nic.direct. 160915 AAAA 2a01:8840:1b:0:0:0:0:46
v0n2.nic.direct. 160960 AAAA 2a01:8840:1c:0:0:0:0:46
v0n3.nic.direct. 160960 AAAA 2a01:8840:f6:0:0:0:0:46
v2n0.nic.direct. 160960 AAAA 2a01:8840:1d:0:0:0:0:46
v2n1.nic.direct. 160960 AAAA 2a01:8840:f7:0:0:0:0:46
. 0 OPT ; payload 1232, xrcode 0, version 0, flags 0