From Sylvia's point of view, Constance's power wasn't having any effect on her at all.
At some point, Sylvia had even stopped noticing when Constance used it. Her body was already starting to adapt to the useless flow of power, treating it like background noise.
Constance, on the other hand, was sinking deeper into despair.
This wasn't a matter of whether the task was difficult anymore. Not long ago, she'd still felt as though Sylvia's memories were sealed behind a locked door. The lock was tough, sure, but as long as she found the right method, she could pry it open.
Then, at some point, Sylvia's presence began to fade.
By the end, Constance could barely sense her at all. On the level of memories, the person sitting right in front of her seemed like a hollow void, an empty stretch of nothingness. Whenever Constance poured her power into it, it passed straight through as if there were nothing there.
Forget digging up her memories. She couldn't even find the target anymore.
It'd be one thing if she simply couldn't pick the lock. But now the entire treasure chest had vanished with it. Was something like that even possible?
And yet, in the real world, Sylvia was still right there. Constance could touch her, feel her presence, and even hear her breathing.
How could this possibly work?
Constance stared down in disbelief at Sylvia, who sat there with her eyes closed.
'She hasn't been watching me make a fool of myself this whole time... has she?'
After all that work, she hadn't made progress. If anything, she'd gotten farther and farther away from her goal.
This... this was...
"..."
The whole situation had overturned everything Constance knew. Her emotions had nowhere to go, leaving her so frustrated that she almost felt depressed.
Her thoughts had gone from, 'Oh, this is interesting,' to, 'This is about as difficult as I expected,' then to, 'This might be tricky.'
And now?
She had absolutely no idea what was happening.
The whole chain of events had finally broken through Constance's composure. Memory manipulation was one of the abilities she'd always relied on most, yet here she was, looking like a complete clown.
Anyone would've struggled to keep a straight face after that.
Her hands stopped moving. She needed a moment to let her mind recover.
Right then, Sylvia's half-closed eyes suddenly opened. She stretched and let out a yawn.
"Mmm... Any results?"
"..."
Constance's expression had already been close to falling apart. That question was the final blow.
Her whole face crumpled, and tears began gathering in her eyes.
"Uuu..."
The miserable little sound that escaped her mouth made Sylvia jolt.
"Huh?!"
Sylvia stared at the teary-eyed Constance in shock.
'Wait, what happened just now? You tried to read my memories and failed, right? That's all, isn't it? Is this really worth crying over?'
'Weren't you supposed to be the dangerous, mature villainess type? Why're you crying now? This doesn't fit your character at all!'
Still, judging from the result, Constance had clearly come up empty-handed.
But she'd only failed once or twice. Was that enough to bring her to tears already?
Sylvia's head filled with question marks. More than anything, she found the whole thing baffling.
She even began to wonder whether Constance, the Dahlia, had simply had things go too smoothly for most of her life.
Unfortunately, Sylvia's confused stare looked very different from Constance's point of view.
'You controlled everything from the start! You went through all those ridiculous tricks just to watch me embarrass myself, and now that I'm crying, you're still pretending you don't know anything?!'
Constance had thought that after doing so much work for Sylvia over the past few days, she'd at least earned a little respect. Sylvia had even treated her fairly well before, which had only strengthened that impression.
So that had all just been Sylvia's twisted sense of humor?!
"Uuuu...!"
The more Constance thought about it, the harder she cried.
She'd been beaten in the field she was most skilled in and most proud of, and not through a simple defeat either. From her perspective, Sylvia had practically toyed with her, letting her perform like a fool for ages.
Just thinking about it made Constance feel like she was going to explode.
Sylvia, of course, knew none of this.
Seeing Constance fall apart had shocked her, but there was still something she needed to ask.
"Judging by your face, you failed, right? Do you want to keep trying? I can take a nap first. We can call it finished when I wake up."
"..."
Constance stared at Sylvia's innocent expression, and her heart cracked a little further.
No matter how she looked at it, Sylvia seemed like a victorious opponent pretending to be innocent in front of the loser she'd just crushed.
Constance wanted to hit someone.
Her reason, however, had both hands firmly wrapped around that impulse.
'Endure it. You can't beat her.'
"...No. I give up."
Constance surrendered.
If she'd merely failed, trying again would've been no big deal. But if the rest of her time here was going to involve Sylvia tormenting her like this, then she'd rather stop now.
With that thought, Constance looked at Sylvia again.
For one brief moment, she even wondered whether she could bypass the whole problem physically and extract the Memoria directly. But every time such a dangerous thought surfaced, the power of Nihility left inside her stirred in warning.
It almost seemed conscious, as though it were actively forbidding her from entertaining any thoughts that might put Sylvia in danger.
"I see."
Sylvia pushed herself upright on the sofa.
Constance sniffled and turned away before sitting off to the side. Silence settled over the room, broken only by the occasional sniff as she wiped away the last of her tears.
Sylvia watched her but didn't feel any urge to take a commemorative picture or anything like that.
After all, even Dan Shu was closer to Sylvia than Constance was. Naturally, Sylvia didn't feel close enough to go over and comfort her either.
"Well, I guess that's that. I'll ask Mei to remove the power inside you."
Sylvia took out her phone and sent Mei a message.
Since yesterday, Mei had been busy arranging things aboard the Astral Express. Most of it involved buying plenty of Penacony drinks, along with large amounts of food and snacks.
Maybe it was because she expected to live aboard the Express for quite a while in the future, but Mei seemed unusually enthusiastic about the whole thing.
As Sylvia thought about her, a smile appeared on her face without her noticing.
Because of that, she missed the change in Constance's expression.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean you're free to leave or stay after this. I wasn't planning to keep you prisoner for the rest of your life."
After seeing Mei's reply, Sylvia turned and gave Constance a puzzled look.
How should she put it?
She'd already gotten pull rewards from Constance, and there wasn't any irreconcilable grudge between them.
Constance wasn't like Phantylia or Polka Kakamond. Those were the sort of enemies where only one side could walk away alive. Besides, judging from Constance's current state, today's attempt should've been enough to make her give up on prying open Sylvia's mind for good.
And when it came to Constance's special abilities as a Memokeeper, the Swarm could serve as an alternative anyway.
Sylvia had never planned to hold Constance here forever, nor did she intend to get rid of her once she'd outlived her usefulness.
That was all there was to it.
Besides...
According to what March 7th and Stelle had said in the group chat, Black Swan had approached Himeko and the others. Apparently, she'd suggested a possible destination for the Astral Express's next stop.
Sylvia had also noticed that Black Swan and Constance seemed to subtly avoid each other. She wasn't going to force them into the same room.
There was no reason to.
"..."
Constance, however, really did seem to have assumed she'd be kept here.
Her life was in Sylvia's hands, after all. And to put it less politely, Constance's abilities were especially useful for dirty work.
So hearing Sylvia suddenly say she was free to go caught her completely off guard.
She even stopped crying.
Constance simply stared at Sylvia, dumbfounded, revealing a rare glimpse of an ordinary young woman beneath all her usual poise.
That alone was enough to broaden Sylvia's horizons.
If the old Constance, the one who'd always worn that unsettling smile, could see herself now, what kind of expression would she make?
Neither of them spoke again.
Eventually, the door opened and Mei walked in.
She swept her gaze across the room, then froze for a moment when she saw Constance's face. Her sharp eyes immediately turned toward Sylvia.
"...?"
Sylvia raised an eyebrow, just as confused.
'What's that look supposed to mean?'
"..."
Mei blinked, then placed a hand against Constance's forehead. She withdrew the dormant power she'd left inside her before giving Constance a small nod.
"All right. You're free now."
"Mm..."
It seemed Constance only truly processed the situation at that moment.
Her disbelieving gaze moved back and forth between Sylvia and Mei. She clearly hadn't expected them to actually release her just like that.
She'd assumed that, at the very least, they'd hand her over to the Family or summon Gallagher.
Constance rose to her feet and gave Sylvia one long, deep look.
Then, right in front of them, she left the room. Her figure faded away soon afterward, and her whereabouts became unknown.
Just as Sylvia let out a relieved breath, Constance's information panel suddenly popped up again.
[Target: Constance]
[Affinity: 73 (The Only Person Who's Ever Made Her Lose Face)]
[Relationship: Lingering Ties]
"..."
Sylvia could ignore the fact that Constance's Affinity had somehow risen by another three points.
The last increase had been just as baffling, so one more wasn't anything new.
But that relationship label...
What kind of nonsense was this?
Who had "Lingering Ties" with her?!
When had Sylvia and Constance ever formed some deep bond?
What had Constance even done to earn a label like that?
Sylvia's lips twitched. She was deeply dissatisfied with the system's assessment.
If she'd actually done something to deserve it, then fine.
But Constance?
This was outright slander against an innocent woman!
Sylvia silently complained to herself while Mei, standing beside her, couldn't hear anything related to the system. All she could tell was that Sylvia seemed to be grumbling about something.
"So, what happened just now? The Dahlia looked like she'd been crying."
Even Mei found that hard to believe. After meeting Constance several times, she hadn't taken her for the crying type.
It wasn't as though she had Sylvia's personality.
"Hey! I heard that!"
Sylvia rolled her eyes.
What was that supposed to mean?
Aside from those unusual circumstances when she'd been pinned down on the bed, when had she ever cried?
"I don't know what happened either. She's been obsessed with my memories this whole time, right? So I let her investigate them herself, and she failed."
"That's it?"
"Yeah. I'm confused too. I took a short nap, woke up, asked how things were going, and she started crying."
Sylvia spread her hands helplessly.
She really had no idea.
"...All right."
Mei didn't know what else to say.
"Forget about that. Come with me to Herta Space Station."
"The Lord of Silence?"
Mei's expression turned serious at once.
Sylvia had already found time to tell her about Polka Kakamond.
"Yeah. It's time we figured out what we're going to do about her. First, we need to find her. We can decide everything else afterward, and the project most likely to give us answers is the Simulated Universe."
As Sylvia spoke, she raised a hand to her temple.
She gathered what had happened out in the universe, along with the images she'd seen back then, and condensed them into a Dream Bubble.
That would be far more direct and convenient than explaining everything aloud.
--+--
Herta Space Station.
Sylvia and Mei set foot on the station once again.
It was as busy as ever. Sylvia greeted Asta on the way in, then headed straight for Herta's office.
Ever since the Simulated Universe project had officially entered operation, Herta's puppet had rarely gone completely offline at the station.
If you wanted to find Herta, her office was usually the right place to start.
"Herta, you here?"
Sylvia strode into the office and called out to the puppet.
"..."
No one answered.
Herta's puppet stood motionless, as though she'd completely disconnected.
That wasn't normal.
As Sylvia had just been thinking, ever since the Simulated Universe went online, Herta had almost never disconnected from Herta Space Station entirely.
At most, she'd leave the puppet idle while she worked on research elsewhere. Whenever a message came in from the station, she'd usually check it sooner or later.
"Herta? Madam Herta—!"
Sylvia walked up to the puppet and waved a hand in front of her face. She even gave her head a small shake.
There was no response at all.
"What's wrong?"
Mei noticed Sylvia's growing frown and stepped closer.
"Herta isn't connected to the station. That's strange. The Simulated Universe is still running, so there's no way she'd normally go offline at a time like this."
Even if Herta had needed to disconnect, she should've left Asta a message.
After all, Sylvia and Stelle came by every few days to run tests.
"Something happened? The Lord of Silence?"
"Maybe, but I'll contact Screwllum first."
Compared with the other two members of the project, Screwllum visited more often because he was responsible for maintaining the Simulated Universe's systems.
Sylvia pulled out her phone and sent messages to both Herta and Screwllum.
Maybe there was some event or research project she hadn't heard about, which would explain why Herta couldn't be found.
As expected, Herta's chat showed neither a read receipt nor a reply.
Screwllum, however, responded almost at once.
[Screwllum: Logic: The project discovered an unknown void. Madam Herta volunteered to carry out repairs. The scheduled communication time has now passed, and I am currently traveling there because of this.]
[Sylvia: Something went wrong with the Simulated Universe again?]
[Screwllum: Logic: The Simulated Universe itself is operating normally. Rather, an unknown void has appeared within one of the simulated segments of spacetime.]
[Screwllum: Conclusion: This research may produce an unexpected discovery. At the same time, it carries considerable risk.]
[Sylvia: I'll wait for you at the station.]
Sylvia lowered her phone and looked at Mei.
"Something really did happen, but it doesn't sound like the Lord of Silence had anything to do with it. Apparently, they discovered something strange in a certain era."
"Which era?"
"Screwllum said he's already on his way here, so I didn't ask for details."
Sylvia shrugged.
Mei nodded and fell silent.
--+--
T/N: If you want advance chapters, you can find it at [email protected]/AspenTL