Sparkle's little golden fish darted out again.
According to the script Silver Wolf had given her, she was supposed to be the one orchestrating Firefly's third death here in the future.
But if she did that...
Wouldn't Evan end up hating her?
And her darling would definitely hate someone like that.
So instead, she could only swim around the sidelines.
And now that she had stumbled upon Firefly's problem—
Entropy Loss Syndrome...
She knew about it.
Sure, she was a Masked Fool, a member of the Tavern under the Path of Elation.
But there was no way she could forget the reputation of the Iron Cavalry of Glamoth.
The Glamoth Empire had fallen a long, long time ago.
Strictly speaking, there had never been a Glamoth Republic.
Only the Glamoth Empire.
The Empress's commands were absolute.
Warriors with identical faces were born from cultivation pods.
They swore loyalty to the Empress and vowed to reclaim Glamoth's skies.
The Iron Cavalry marched through mountains of insect corpses and rivers of blood.
They crossed the scorched remains of burning Swarm creatures.
Crushed the shattered shells left behind by colossal monstrosities.
The destiny of the Iron Cavalry was to endure the slow entropy of bodily collapse—
To burn fiercely on the edge between life and death.
Until the flames were extinguished.
Until the endless swarm became blackened ash.
Until no one survived.
And then...
The cycle would continue once more.
According to Silver Wolf's script, the girl standing before her now—
Was the final ember of Glamoth.
A survivor of the Glamoth Empire.
The pilot of the mech known as Sam.
She had joined the Stellaron Hunters in pursuit of a way to defy fate.
The Interastral Peace Corporation had placed a bounty of 9.723 billion Credits on Sam.
Who would ever imagine that hidden inside that terrifying mech...
Was a beautiful young girl?
No matter how you looked at it, it felt unbelievable.
Still...
Evan said he planned to cure Firefly's illness?
That...
It wasn't that Sparkle didn't believe him.
How could she not?
Of course she believed in him.
But Entropy Loss Syndrome wasn't some ordinary sickness.
It was a chronic dissociation condition.
A genetic defect.
Evan might be a genius, but life sciences weren't exactly his specialty.
Could he be planning to ask Ruan Mei for help?
Sparkle knew about her too.
A genius in bioengineering.
Rumor had it she was researching the birth of Aeons themselves.
Those geniuses were all monsters.
And getting help from one of them usually came with a price.
Because of that, Sparkle became extremely curious about how Evan planned to cure Firefly.
"Still..."
"Can you really cure it?"
"You're doubting me?"
Evan raised an eyebrow.
"Little goldfish, I'm a genius."
"You still call me darling, yet you know so little about me?"
"Ah, what a tragic romance."
"Forget it."
"You should leave."
"Don't interrupt my date with Firefly."
After teasing Sparkle, Evan turned his attention back toward Firefly.
Waiting for her answer.
"Miss Firefly."
"Do you want to stand beneath the sun?"
"I..."
Firefly clenched her fists.
"I do."
"I'm willing to try."
To stand beneath the sunlight—
Even if she only had a single day left to live.
Outside of dreams, she couldn't even leave Sam's armor.
Her life had never truly belonged to her.
That was why there was nothing anyone could use against her.
No bargaining chip.
No future to trade away.
She only possessed the past of an Iron Cavalry soldier.
She had never possessed a future as Firefly.
"Good."
Evan nodded.
"Then let's return to reality first."
"Once you're ready..."
"Come wait for me in my room."
He smiled reassuringly.
Then left the Radiant Feldspar.
Penacony — The Reverie Hotel
Evan's room.
A Stellaron Hunter.
Sam.
Arrived by invitation.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Three rounds.
Nine knocks in total.
The sound pulled Evan out of the dreamscape.
As expected.
Penacony truly deserved its reputation as the world of dreams.
Even someone like him, who possessed the Authority of Sentience, found the dream-diving technology fascinating.
In Evan's eyes, Penacony's dream pools weren't all that different from the Simulated Universe.
The Simulated Universe gathered countless pieces of data.
Created by four geniuses for the sake of research.
And at its core—
Its ultimate purpose was the study of Aeons.
Its value was immeasurable.
It could even be used to research Aeons themselves.
An incredible achievement.
But Penacony's dreamscapes were just as impressive.
A group of people who weren't even Memokeepers had managed to utilize memoria.
Constructing one dream after another.
No matter how one looked at it—
The Dreamweavers were the true cornerstone of this world.
"I'm coming."
Evan slowly climbed out of the dream pool and opened the door.
A Glamoth combat mech stood directly before him.
This thing...
"Firefly?"
"S-Evan..."
"I'm here..."
Hearing Firefly's voice transformed into a male voice by the armor's external speakers—
Evan frowned.
Then relaxed.
Right.
This girl...
Every member of the Iron Cavalry of Glamoth was a clone.
Artificial lifeforms created from the Empress's genetic template.
Tools.
Born to be used.
And discarded once their purpose was fulfilled.
The Glamoth armor wasn't limited to sword-wielding units like Firefly's, either.
There was a strict classification system.
Heavy Assault Units.
Long-Range Units.
Melee Units.
Support Units.
...
"Alright."
"Take off the armor."
"And go lie down in the dream pool."
"B-But..."
The Glamoth armor was Firefly's only means of survival.
Removing part of the suit was one thing.
But removing the entire armor...
Wouldn't that...
Wouldn't that be dangerous?
"It's fine."
Evan said calmly.
"You only need to trust me."
The crimson eyes of Sam locked onto Evan's gaze.
Then—
The helmet opened.
A beautiful young girl appeared before him.
Several faint blue cracks ran across her face.
The unmistakable signs of Entropy Loss Syndrome.
Every Iron Cavalry soldier had been born from the Empress's genes.
Their purpose from birth was to protect and serve her.
They never had a past.
And they were never meant to have a future.
As for Firefly—
She wasn't a survivor from the final days of the Glamoth Empire.
The era she belonged to was the Skyfront.
The battlefield against the endless Swarm.
There, her comrades fell one after another.
Even her captain perished.
At the decisive moment—
Firefly awakened an even greater power.
She destroyed an entire planet.
And perished together with the colossal insect she fought.
The Glamoth Empire hadn't fallen to the Swarm.
The Empire accepted the war against the Swarm.
Won that war.
And then—
Collapsed in a civil war afterward.
Firefly looked nervously into Evan's eyes.
But those eyes told her only one thing.
He wasn't lying.
And so—
The Glamoth armor opened completely.
For the first time, the girl stepped out of the machine.
Just like that distant day long ago.
When she had stood together with her comrades upon a peaceful field untouched by war.
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