The audience was abuzz with discussion.
In the ga—
Faced with i's emotionally intelligent reply—
"Mm! That's enough!"
Elysia smiled.
That girl, so often thought to have "ulterior motives," all her actions and words in front of i—perhaps from the very beginning—were just for this one "answer."
In the distant past, when she wore a white dress and stepped into the final night adorned with the one and only makeup of her life...
Did she ever receive the "answer" she sought?
Even if... she had beco a Herrscher...
At this point—
Players recalled their past suspicions toward Elysia, rembered the theories they'd crafted about her ending.
Their hearts began to sink again.
They couldn't quite explain why the story affected them this much emotionally.
Maybe... they just loved Elysia too much?
They loved this girl—resplendent as falling petals, pure and flawless.
[Feels like a tragedy's coming. No way, right? She's already dead—MiHoYo can't stab us again, right?]
[This part is making really heavy... or maybe everything's felt strange since earlier.]
[Yeah, ever since earlier the plot feels like it's been stacking emotional armor. I'm so anxious.]
With that unease—
They kept watching.
And what followed seed to ease their nerves—
As if to reassure them the Elysian Realm story was still "happy."
The earlier heaviness... had just been a feint.
"Even if you've beco a Herrscher—"
Suddenly, a strange voice interrupted the ga.
The previously soft and sorrowful BGM ca to an abrupt halt.
The atmosphere shifted.
Players: ???
i: "...Hmm?"
A familiar voice snapped i back to reality.
And yanked every player's emotions back along with it.
i turned toward the voice.
In the sunset, Elysia's smile was pure and sweet. Light spilled down her cheeks, flowing over her pale skin...
Trailing along her soft body, sothing faintly peeked out behind her—it was...
A gaphone.
And it has recording function too~♪
"So what? I'm a Herrscher too, aren't I?"
i: "..."
i: "..."
It took a while—
Before she finally gritted her teeth yet again: "E·ly·si·a...!!"
[??? Did Elysia just record what i said earlier?]
["And it even has recording function~♪"]
[I almost cried and then this gaphone interrupted the spell.]
[Hahaha, feels like she bought the gaphone from Pardofelis with just three crystal flowers. Total loss for Pardofelis.]
"gaphone recordings? That's... so very Elysia."
Eden, watching the scene, had a smile in her voice—she was clearly delighted.
"Hmm... hard to refute, honestly. If I had the chance, I probably would..."
Elysia thought it over carefully—she really had no argunt.
Eden didn't intend to press her, so after that light jab, she quickly moved on.
"Speaking of which, for 'Otto'-san to understand Elysia's personality so well, and write a script that's so Elysia-like, that's pretty impressive."
"Mm... it's not just though. 'Otto'-san really wrote everyone well too," Elysia replied seriously after so thought.
That's also why she always believed that the people in the story were just "too shy" rather than genuinely rejecting the Thirteen Fla-Chasers.
She trusted everyone in the Golden Courtyard, and so she believed in the Thirteen as well.
"...Mm."
"Alright, let's keep going."
...
The story continued.
"Okay okay, I won't tease you anymore."
"After all, now that i got her answer, she's about to leave—I just wanted to leave a little 'mory' of you."
Elysia hugged the gaphone tightly, smiling as she explained to i.
That single line of text—especially the word "tightly"—made players want to laugh and cry.
[Hugging the gaphone tightly TT]
[Because... the gaphone has i's voice.]
"But... sothing's strange."
Elysia's gaze drifted into the distance—her eyes landed on a mist-covered island on the sea's horizon.
"I should be ready already, so why is it still shrouded in fog?"
i followed her gaze. "That island... is that the 'end'?"
Elysia nodded. "Mm. Everything you want to know about that 'banquet' is stored there. I'm curious what really happened, too."
That surprised both i and the players.
"You don't know either?"
"Forget? I'm just a mory construct," Elysia replied casually. "I only know what I 'want to do'—not what actually happened."
"Hmm... I wonder how I did? What will everyone think of ?... Judging by their reactions, I guess it turned out well?"
"Otherwise, there wouldn't be an 'Elysia' in the Elysian Realm..."
No "Elysia" in the Elysian Realm?
That idea flashed across players' minds—and their hearts sank with a thud.
Maybe back when they first arrived in the Realm, before they really got to know Elysia, so players—those who weren't fans already—might not have cared much.
So of them were still caught in the grief of "Hiko-sensei is really gone."
Elysia? Who's that? Don't know her!
But...
That was all hypothetical.
Now, Elysia had been with them for so long.
In-ga—
Elysia led i toward the lively marketplace.
The two of them laughed and played together until the sun was nearly set.
Standing in a plaza, about to part ways—
Elysia asked i another question.
"Oh right, i. There's sothing I've always wanted to ask you."
At that mont, the cara zood in—switching to first-person view, making it feel as though Elysia was talking directly to the player.
"For us mory constructs... reproduced from pre-death data, so-called virtual beings—how do you see us?"
"See you?" i didn't quite understand the question.
Elysia continued: "Whether martyrs who died early or pioneers who lived on... ultimately, they're not truly 'us.' They're real beings. What's left here is just a fragnt of the past—a shadow imprinted on ti."
Players: ...
Scriptwriter really isn't human. They've never let us forget that most of the Realm is already gone.
"We can only stay here. We can't reach the reality where you live. We can't accompany you into the future."
"When you leave here and return to your normal, real life... you know very well, everything that happened here is just a story. A 'virtual' story."
"It won't take long before you forget these events, these words... forget that we ever existed."
"You'll et soone better than . Maybe you already have. In the end, you have your own life—your own tomorrow to embrace."
"In that case, our emotions, our thoughts, our will, our actions... do they really have any aning?"
"To you, to anyone... what do 'we' really an?"
"..."
Everything Elysia said—felt like it was directed at the players themselves.
So fell into deep thought, suddenly rembering the story i once took from Elysia's hands—"Because of You."
That "you"—was it Elysia? The Fla-Chasers? i? Or... the players themselves?
This story existed because of them.
They were the ones who received its emotion and impact.
Maybe characters in a virtual world could never touch reality—but that emotion they brought? That was real.
And it wouldn't lose its aning just because it would soday be forgotten.
Even if all of this will fade—
The fact that this mont was real—
That's probably enough.
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