"Black Swan left in such a hurry… Cute. No wonder people call her oversized Fischl."
Watching Black Swan's retreating back, Lynelle propped her chin up with one hand and smiled, pleased as if she'd just enjoyed a great show.
"Still, it looks like she's misunderstood something… Well, whatever. At this rate, Kiana-chan should be out before I have to rush to Amphoreus. Any misunderstandings can be taken up with my Finality Tuna."
"As for now… since Black Swan just left me, and Sparkle sent that letter earlier, it looks like the plot hasn't started yet. At the very least, Stelle probably hasn't met Firefly. After all, Sparkle has the script Silver Wolf gave her. There's no way she'd miss the story beats."
Lynelle tapped her cheek and looked around.
"Where should I go next… Maybe I should explore some off-plot areas the game never mentioned?" Just then, her phone gave a sharp beep. "Huh? Who's messaging me now… Stelle?"
[Stelle: Lynelle, Lynelle, I found something fun in Golden Hour!]
[Stelle: The place is called Dr. Edward's Dreamscape Sales Store. You can probably buy all kinds of dreams there, and new customers get one free trial… Guess what I just tried?]
Ah, so it's this part. Lynelle caught on right away, but she still played along and sent a curious Pom-Pom sticker.
[Stelle: Hakivili's dream!]
(T/N: Using the last two letters of Aha and combining it with Akivili.)
[Lynelle: Wait… Aren't you scared Pom-Pom will see your phone? If you call THEM Hakivili in secret, watch out. The conductor might make you sweep the Express.]
[Stelle: How do I put this… If this Memory Bubble is real, then calling THEM Hakivili honestly feels fair. THEY were way too wild. I still can't picture the Aeon of Trailblaze spending every day on the Express blowing the budget to raise nose-walking beasts, or secretly stealing Pom-Pom's train pot…]
[Lynelle: Uh… actually…]
[Lynelle: That Memory Bubble is probably real.]
[Stelle: Huh?]
[Lynelle: You can buy it and show it to Pom-Pom if you don't believe me… Oh, right. Do you still have enough Credits?]
[Lynelle sent a red packet: Credits x 10,000,000]
[Stelle: T-That much? Pom-Pom shocked.jpg]
[Lynelle: I've been a little short on money lately, so… I found a way to get some.]
[Lynelle: Don't worry. The source is clean. Silver Wolf's been spending a bit too much on gacha lately, so she came to me for help.]
[Stelle: O.o?]
[Lynelle: We split the reward fifty-fifty afterward. As for whether Silver Wolf got caught… I'll just say the odds of her messing up with this kind of thing are probably lower than the odds of us walking down the street and suddenly falling into Nihility.]
[Lynelle: Anyway, tonight's spending is on Miss Silver Wolf. If you run into any good friends on the way, don't hold back. Treat her to a big meal.]
Seeing Stelle fall silent on the other end, Lynelle put down her phone with relief.
Under her guidance, Stelle probably wouldn't end up eating poor, adorable Firefly out of house and home the way Lynelle had back then…
At the very least, letting the two of them have a great time shouldn't be a problem.
Still…
"Dr. Edward's Dreamscape Sales Store… Since Stelle already bought that dream bubble of Hakivili, should I go take a look and see what kind of dream bubble Mr. Edward would choose for me?"
--+--
"What's Lynelle doing? Why'd she suddenly start chatting with someone… Damn it. She's too far away. I can't see a thing…"
On the other side, Miss Sparkle, who'd noticed Lynelle stop walking and start typing in place, had no choice but to stop too.
"Ugh, forget it. Who knows which little girlfriend she's chatting with now… But this works out fine. The great Sparkle gets more time to set up her perfect trap."
"Now that I think about it, after I successfully capture Lynelle this time, should I turn the record of me dealing with her into a video and show it off to her harem later? That'd definitely be fun."
"But when I think about how Lynelle probably has even more defeat CGs of me and Vita saved away, maybe I'd better not…"
Muttering to herself, Sparkle adjusted the markers she'd left along the road bit by bit.
As for what those markers did… they weren't all that impressive.
Sparkle had named them the Acheron Special Attack Buttons, and their effect was to blur a person's memory of their route on a subconscious level, making them lose their way.
When set up perfectly across Golden Hour like this, the markers could trigger a chain reaction of blurred memories and guide the "victim" down a route Sparkle had arranged ahead of time.
Sparkle had done special research before, and Lynelle's mental defenses wouldn't filter out subconscious interference on this level at all. The effect was too weak. It wouldn't even trigger Lynelle's automatic defenses.
"Ah, looks like Lynelle's moving again… Hehe, I knew it. She fell for it!"
Sparkle's face filled with eager anticipation. At the end of this wrong path was a "Dr. Edward's Dreamscape Sales Store" she'd prepared with great care.
After all, Lynelle would only lower her mental defenses and let herself sink into a dream bubble while experiencing one.
As for whether Lynelle would notice anything suspicious… that part was fine.
Dr. Edward was already famous to begin with, and before setting up this plan, Sparkle had even disguised herself as Lynelle and gone to the real Dr. Edward to experience the whole process.
In other words, the service Lynelle would receive was a perfect one-to-one copy. The only difference was that the contents of the dream bubble had been swapped out by Sparkle for… hehe.
But there were two things Sparkle hadn't predicted.
First, while Lynelle had never come here in real life, she'd run around plenty of maps in the game.
Second, just moments ago… Lynelle had already asked Stelle to buy that dream bubble.
"Dr. Edward's Dreamscape Sales Store?"
Seeing that she'd nearly drifted all the way to somewhere outside Oti Mall, Lynelle blinked in confusion. Bro, is this really where you'd open a shop?
Or could it be…
Lynelle suddenly remembered something. A certain Masked Fool girl had left her a notice saying to wait for a little midnight surprise before twelve o'clock.
In theory, after wandering around the mall for so long and having a meal with that goose, it should've been well past midnight. But this was Golden Hour, where time was frozen before twelve. Lynelle could even picture Sparkle's smug face if she really walked into this trap.
Still… since she was already prepared, why not go in and try it? With her current strength, as long as she kept her guard up, there was no way Sparkle could trick her.
Hehe, I'm going to enjoy the look on Sparkle's face when this blows up on her!
With that thought, and under the ecstatic gaze of a certain little girl under one meter forty not far away, Lynelle walked straight up to the dreamscape sales store without hesitation.
--+--
T/N: If you want advance chapters, you can find it at [email protected]/AspenTL