"A truly magnificent deduction. A brilliant display of intellect and logic."
"Am I not right, Mr. Noldrei?"
A woman appeared there, as if she had been standing there all along, simply overlooked and forgotten by the others until this very moment.
"You're... Black Swan?" Acheron recognized the woman, vaguely recalling the sensation of dancing with her.
Black Swan didn't explain her sudden appearance. As a Memetic Entity, she could appear wherever she pleased. Her presence was no more unusual than a messenger from the Garden of Recollection standing openly aboard the Astral Express.
The Stellaron itself was already unique, and now another extraordinary talent had appeared on the Astral Express.
"Mr. Noldrei?" Firefly looked around, bewildered. She didn't see any man nearby.
Stelle's eyebrow twitched. This was bad.
The whole point of a cheat is that it's not supposed to be discovered. Once a cheat is exposed, you have to question whether it's still useful at all.
Initially, Black Swan had intended to join them and offer a friendly warning to her friends on the Astral Express. But who could have predicted that the train now hosted someone who could communicate from reality with those in a dreamscape?
Noldrei, an unexpected arrival on the train.
In a remarkably short time, he had nearly unraveled all the secrets behind Penacony.
What kind of freakish talent was this?
Keep in mind, not even five system hours had passed since Stelle entered the dreamscape.
To have pushed events this far in such a short time, even managing to kidnap Sunday's important sister, Robin, was unbelievable.
Give him two more days, and would he be leading his crew to storm the Family's headquarters and install himself as the new ruler of Penacony?
'Brother, we've been exposed. Does this mean someone else has powers like yours?' Stelle thought.
[Who knows? It doesn't matter. We've already baited plenty of fish, haven't we?]
Noldrei remained steadfast, focused on his mission. He was responsible for drawing out the various factions circling the Astral Express as quickly as possible.
So far, no one could match his results. The speed of his advance was staggering.
'Are you confident about this? This person seems different from the others we've met. She seems... a little too mysterious.'
Stelle was actually quite wary of Black Swan, mainly because she clearly possessed the ability to manipulate the dreamscape from within. In reality, Stelle had no way to counter such an ability.
How was she supposed to carry on her grand plan of wiping everyone out now?
"To deduce the fundamental nature of the dream's construction just by wandering through the Golden Hour, to understand the power structure behind it from the symbolism of its architecture, and to guess that there are uncontrolled dreams beyond Penacony just by observing a Dreamweaver at work..."
"This is truly a profound revelation of ugliness by intellect. I am in awe, truly in awe..."
"Mr. Noldrei, might I be so bold as to invite you for a bit of guidance?"
Firefly also realized something was wrong. She stared at Stelle in shock, as if she had suffered a critical mental blow. The Stelle before her was not just Stelle, but a unique entity combining the traits of both "Noldrei & Stelle."
When had Firefly ever been hit with such a shock?
The legendary, ideal hero she admired—a pioneer with unparalleled wisdom—was actually a fusion of two people?! It was as if she had just watched her idol die right in front of her.
Noldrei sensed that this woman was formidable. She must possess some ability to manipulate the material basis of this world, or perhaps her own composition was not of ordinary matter at all.
"Memokeeper, why have you suddenly appeared here?" Acheron asked, staring at the newcomer. Given that the Masked Fools had already caused trouble in this place, she was wary of this Memokeeper's sudden arrival.
Black Swan's attire was rather risqué. It was hard to imagine that among the women present, Stelle and Firefly were the most conservatively dressed. Even Robin wore something more... liberal than Stelle.
"Because of a certain... accident? Or perhaps I should say it was inevitable?" Black Swan mused, deciding that her appearance now probably hadn't interrupted any critical thinking.
The moment she appeared, the Dreamweaver who had been talking to them seemed to forget everything and went back to his work, as if nothing had happened.
Poor Dreamweaver—this was the third person to tamper with him.
Stelle's brow furrowed. "Are you here for me, too?"
Black Swan shook her head. "I never imagined you would think to use such an extreme, yet correct and efficient, method to deal with the trouble here in Penacony."
"Your momentum is too strong, so I had no choice but to come out and... remind you? Or perhaps 'stop you' would be more accurate?"
"Are you trying to stop me from killing everyone in Penacony? Because I still think killing them is the better option," Noldrei asked, speaking through Stelle's body.
The change was instantly recognizable to the others. There was indeed another, more powerful and resolute will within that vessel.
If Stelle's way of speaking was gentle and cheerful, then the Noldrei beneath the surface projected a kind of absolute power.
His tone was a world apart from Stelle's. It was the voice of absolute will—a will that made it seem as if anything spoken would inevitably come to pass.
Black Swan seemed to have already anticipated this inevitable answer.
She suspected that in Noldrei's eyes, the people of Penacony didn't even count as human. Only by returning to reality and reclaiming what was rightfully theirs would they earn the right to decide their own futures.
Until then, Noldrei would act to turn these "things" back into people.
In Noldrei's eyes, the state of Penacony was as predictable and mundane as any other event in history. Black Swan had no idea what kind of future a person like that might create.
"While I share some of your views—especially regarding the pursuit of bizarre and illusory falsehoods, and I occasionally lament that some people would be better off dead than alive..."
"I must inform you of some secrets about this place beforehand. After all..."
"You genuinely intend to destroy it."
"But this place has not yet fallen to such a desperate state."
Noldrei had already grasped Penacony's most important secret: the key material used to construct this beautiful dream.
When it came to matters of material foundations, one only needed to remove a critical component, and the entire dream world would expose its most pathetic weakness to Noldrei's eyes.
If it were any other member of the Astral Express, they might still wonder which bastard was behind all this.
They might gather a team to teach the mastermind a lesson and hopefully bring back the beauty in people's hearts.
But not Noldrei. He wouldn't even consider that question.
To Noldrei, the cost of demolishing and rebuilding Penacony was far lower than the cost of reforming it.
In this situation, "Noldrei & Stelle" would simply destroy and refine Penacony, along with the parts that the Clockmaker held so dear.
Because in Noldrei's eyes, Penacony held no value worth preserving, and under his influence, Stelle also believed there was little worth caring about here.
The terrifying thing was, one had the intellect and the ideas, while the other had the drive and the luck. The two of them were a perfect match, carving a path of destruction through Penacony, hurtling toward its complete annihilation.
Black Swan wasn't acting for herself, but for the secrets hidden within Penacony. She couldn't just stand by and watch a memory that was meant to become beautiful ultimately turn into an irreparable regret.
She said to the assembled demolition crew, "I will offer you a secret, one that is on the verge of becoming common knowledge, in exchange for you showing Penacony some mercy for a time. What do you say?"