"Mr. Welt, can you talk about your hometown? I believe you must have had some reason for leaving your hometown and embarking on this journey of Trailblaze. Was it because you heard stories of Trailblaze since you were young and thus set out on the journey, or was it because you longed for a grand adventure in your heart?"
"My hometown... it's a very beautiful place. Although the past was always accompanied by disasters, and we always faced various trials, we eventually overcame all difficulties and made everything begin moving toward a better future. Unfortunately, I don't know how things are over there now. I have been away from home for a long time. I left my hometown after an accident, then boarded the Astral Express, hoping to use the Astral Express to return to my hometown."
"There must still be people waiting for you to return home, right?"
"Yes, they are still waiting for me to return."
A longing for past memories surfaced in Welt's eyes. He reviewed his past, remembering how he came to bear the name Welt, remembering the bits and pieces with the doctors, remembering a bastard he did not really want to recall, remembering the Valkyries who fought for a beautiful world, and the final trial he once faced, that person named Kevin... Wait, why does Caelus's voice sound so much like Kevin's?
Welt suddenly struggled out of his memories. Just as he was about to take a closer look at the young man whose voice sounded so much like Kevin's, he suddenly discovered that the young man who had been sitting next to him was gone.
"Hmm?"
Welt took off his glasses, then rubbed his brow. After putting them back on, he let out a sigh and said, "I seem to have unknowingly recalled the past and taken a nap, but why did I dream of that man?"
Welt looked again at the cake and drink on the small table nearby, feeling a strange sense of dissonance, as if the arrangement had been set for two servings of cake and juice, but one had been taken away.
But he clearly remembered only asking the conductor for one serving of cake and juice. Was he overthinking it?
Welt shook his head, deciding not to dwell on such trivial details, and began to taste the cake, completely putting the previous matter out of his mind.
Meanwhile, Caelus had just stepped off the Astral Express, closing the book in his hand that recorded quite a few of Welt's past memories.
"Unexpected, this Mr. Welt actually comes from the world I traveled to before."
Although Caelus had not completely stolen all of Welt's past memories, through this interaction, he had successfully obtained quite a bit of them, gaining a deeper understanding of that previous world. At the very least, the villainous boss figure that left the deepest impression on him was Otto, whom he had encountered in his previous world.
"Indeed, extreme love certainly does not produce ordinary people. Those who talk about love all day are either saints depicted in books, or ordinary people who do not really love at all, just using it as a catchphrase to seek profit for themselves, or they are like Bishop Otto, who became a villain in the eyes of universal values because of it."
Caelus now wanted to return to that world, wanting to taste what Otto's love for Kallen actually tasted like.
Just as Caelus was walking through the corridor of Herta Space Station, pondering the current main quest, Witnessing the Start of Fate, and what this main quest actually meant, he suddenly heard the sound of a camera shutter.
Following the sound, Caelus saw a man and a woman, they were the other two Trailblazers from the Astral Express that Mr. Welt had mentioned during their chat.
Dan Heng, March 7th.
"Dan Heng! Look over there, over there! There's actually a researcher with an afro! I thought the researchers here would all be dressed very rigidly!"
"March, you don't need to say that so loudly. And that's just a rigid stereotype from watching too many movies."
"What kind of plant is this? It actually changes color! Look, look, I took several photos, and it changed into several different colors."
"This is Light-Bathing Flower from Planet Fantalaro, its characteristic is..."
"As expected of Teacher Dan Heng, you really know so much!"
Watching those two Trailblazers, Caelus did not go forward to ask for their stories, but just stood quietly in the distance, watching them.
"Stirred by the scene?"
The system's voice rang out once again.
"No, I just feel that if I go up now, a certain entity inside that girl will hiss."
Caelus actually felt nothing. He had originally wanted to walk straight up and get some interesting stories from these two Trailblazers, but when his own memory power fluctuated outward, he could clearly sense a certain entity within that girl.
Or perhaps it was that the girl herself was very special.
"What a pity, that girl's past must have some very interesting stories. I can't see them now. But that girl's past should have a strong connection to Remembrance or Enigmata. As expected of a Trailblazer on the Astral Express, and one with such a strong connection to the protagonist of fate, she has so many secrets. That young man isn't simple either, he also has hidden power within him."
Caelus's heart of greed, stemming from devouring the masses of Liyue, made him regret not being able to extract stories from these two Trailblazers who clearly had secrets. But he did not intend to provoke someone who might be like a senior predecessor, so he could only turn and leave with regret.
At this moment, March 7th suddenly saw Caelus's departing back. For some reason, she raised the camera in her hand and took a photo of that figure.
Dan Heng, standing beside her, turned his head in confusion. He only saw the unremarkable corridor they had just walked through, there was no one there, nor anything worth noting.
"Huh? Why is it so blurry? Is my camera broken?"
March 7th did not know why she had impulsively taken a photo, but now when she checked it, she found the photo was all blurry, and she could not see what had been captured at all. She immediately became anxious, thinking her camera was broken.
Dan Heng refocused his attention on March 7th, ignoring his previous confusion. He took the camera from March 7th's hands, then took out some tools from his person and began to disassemble and repair it on the spot.
March 7th sighed at the side, saying that Teacher Dan Heng was truly capable of anything.
Then, the girl turned her gaze once again to the blurry photo, looking at it carefully, only to discover that within that blur, there seemed to be a black shadow.
It was like an ink stain had dripped onto the photo, destroying the scenery captured in the photo itself and obscuring part of the image.
This blackness should not have existed.
(To be continued.)
Author's Note:
This book has a single heroine. As I believe you can tell, it is the evolved ultimate form of Cyrene. And the protagonist of this book, Caelus, is all the possibilities that were not chosen.
I know many people now think The Final Boss is another Trailblazer who was not chosen, and that the Astral Express and the Stellaron Hunters are entities traveling toward each other from the beginning and The End.
But this argument is ultimately just speculation and has not been officially confirmed. Furthermore, the protagonist of this book is the possibility that the Trailblazer might be Caelus.
It is the Caelus who did not choose to board the Astral Express and lived in a daze on Herta Space Station.
It is the Caelus who chose to sleep in bed until the universe faded into nothingness.
It is the Caelus who remained sinking in sweet dreams in Penacony.
It is the Caelus who chose not to go to Amphoreus.
It is also the Caelus in the 4th The End, where Cyrene froze the entire universe, making memory The End.
Similarly, the Cyrene beside the protagonist in this book also comes from those unchosen possibilities, she is the Cyrene who belongs solely to the protagonist and chose to be with Caelus even if it meant the universe would freeze.