"As we said in the last chapter, at that time, the Xianzhou was surrounded by Abundance abominations..."
Caelus sat by the tea stall, drank a sip of hot tea from his cup, and listened to a storyteller on a platform not far away loudly recounting the past history of the Xianzhou.
"Caelus, why are you here listening to storytelling today? If you have time, come play a couple rounds of Celestial Jade with me!"
Qingque looked at Caelus, who was sitting at a tea stall like a retired old man, sipping tea and listening to the storyteller. She complained speechlessly, "You're a young person, why do you like listening to stories and drinking tea like an old man? If you weren't an Outsider, I would have thought you were a local of the Xianzhou."
Caelus finished the last drop of tea, tipped the hardworking storyteller some System Currency, and said to Qingque, "As far as I know, in the worlds I've experienced, the people who gather offline to play mahjong all day are basically middle-aged uncles and aunties."
"Hey! Who's a middle-aged auntie! Our lifespans cannot be measured on the same time scale! And what is this mahjong you speak of? Is it fun?"
"Looking at the rules, it's also Celestial Jade, just with some differences in the winning conditions and scoring."
"Oh, that was probably spread by the Xianzhou people in the past. Those guys who like to follow The Hunt across the stars always bring back some strange knowledge. I've heard some people even specifically like to go to backward civilization planets to act as immortals, I don't know what they're after. Anyway, enough about that. We're one short, you in?"
"Sure. But isn't it your work time right now? If you run out like this, aren't you afraid the Master Diviner will come to catch you again?"
"I've already finished all my work. Why would the Master Diviner spend all day staring at a small employee like me? Let's go!"
Caelus didn't say anything more and followed behind Qingque, ready to go to the Exalting Sanctum to join the card game.
It had been a month since he arrived at the Xianzhou. After leaving the Type-Moon universe, Caelus received a notification from the System that the stage of fate in his main universe was about to enter the next act, and it was time to come back and do the main quest.
Before the traversal...
"Can the flower I gave away still remain in bloom in a chaotic and distorted environment? I can only confirm that under the corrosion of the Nihility's distortion, the flower can still exist, but I'm not sure if it can remain intact in the chaotic and distorted environment of those Outer Gods."
["It's fine, don't worry. That flower is blooming perfectly fine right now, and it's being kept very carefully."]
"That's good."
["I'm saying, you gave away that flower, you aren't actually planning to romance Nyarlathotep, are you?"]
"How is that possible? It was just a flower that was slightly special in the other party's long life. It was nothing more than stirring up a few ripples on the lake of their heart. Perhaps before long, that Outer God will forget about me."
["...I can't really say."]
"What's wrong? Isn't that right? But according to my own memory, all I did was have a conversation with the other party and give a return gift. Is that really so special?"
The System didn't reply again, and Caelus himself was a bit confused. He didn't feel that his actions were overly intimate or to the point of making someone develop feelings for him. Why did the System keep repeating these things to him?
Oh, perhaps it's because that Outer God basically hasn't received any gifts before, and since he was the first person to give them a gift, he appears somewhat special, which would arouse their curiosity and attention.
It's likely that the Outer God has set their sights on him. Because of curiosity, they probably treat him as a fresh toy. That's why the System is warning him not to be too relaxed. He might encounter this Outer God in future worlds, and the journey will likely be full of twists and turns.
After all, it's impossible to romance an Outer God just with a few words and a flower, right? How could that be possible? The other party is an Outer God who has lived for an unknown number of long years, full of chaos and trickery. It's hard to say if they even possess a complete sense of humanity.
Caelus thought this to himself, but he also felt that if they could meet again and communicate normally, he would still want to obtain some less dangerous stories from them, and by the way, he also wanted to know what the appearances of their other incarnations looked like.
After all, the strange, terrifying, and twisted appearances in the Cthulhu Mythos are essentially the various hallucinations, distortions, and chaos produced in the human brain after seeing appearances that they cannot define or comprehend.
He wondered if he was qualified to see the true appearance of the god, which even the authors who wrote the Cthulhu Mythos had never imagined.
After thinking for a while, Caelus decided not to dwell on these things for now. He pushed his curiosity and desire for knowledge aside, regained his composure, and took out the reward for completing the third stage of the main quest, Memory Crystal.
[Consumable: Memory Crystal
Effect: Seals a fragment of memory within it.
Description: Once you have sealed a memory fragment inside and crush it, everything from that fragment will be reenacted.]
Caelus looked at the description, blinked, and understood how to use this item. He rummaged through his backpack and found that he didn't seem to have anything worth showing off. Then, he used the power of the Path of Remembrance to condense a book made of crystal and began to engrave memories into it.
Mem popped out at this moment. Seeing Caelus making a crystal book out of memories, after thinking for a moment, she stretched out her little claws to help Caelus regulate the power of memory.
"Partner, I'll help too."
"Aren't you going to ask me why I'm doing this?"
"Partner must have their own reasons for doing things, and I trust Partner, so helping Partner is definitely not wrong."
"Mm."
After finishing the crystal book with Mem, Caelus invoked the powers of The End and Abundance to solidify the existence of the book before putting it away. He looked at his System Currency, which had increased again, and decided to save it for now, just in case he might need to use it directly for something later.
Thinking of this, he couldn't help but recall the past. It didn't seem like much time had passed, but compared to the beginning, when he had no feelings in his heart, didn't even know how to save money, and had no thoughts about the future, was he now much more filled with humanity?
"The next location is the Xianzhou Luofu. Host, do you want to purchase an identity?"
"Yeah, I want the identity of an Outsider. It would be best if this identity could have some source of income. Although I worked at the Herta Space Station for so long, I was basically working for free and never prepared my own personal account, so it seems I don't have a single cent in my own main universe."
"Poor..."
"Shut up."
Time returns to the present.
After finishing the card game with his new friend Qingque, Caelus walked on the road home. His luck was pretty good today. Although everyone was just playing with a little bit of money for fun, he still earned a few hundred credits, which counted as his snack money for the day.
"Mem, want to eat some snacks?"
"Although I really want to eat them, the dinner Partner made is also very delicious, and I don't want to waste any of it. I'm so conflicted."
"Then we can eat snacks after dinner. We can watch TV while eating then."
"But if I eat like this every day, will I get fat? Will I become not cute anymore?"
"It's okay. You might be even cuter when you're chubby. I wouldn't dislike you because of that. Besides, neither you nor I are normal flesh-and-blood lifeforms, so how could we get fat from eating too much or too little?"
"Oh, right! Then I want to buy more fancy snacks!"
"Okay, let's buy some more."
(To be continued.)