The change in her expression was far too obvious.
Although they didn't know what Cyrene had seen to show such an expression, the audience had an inexplicable feeling.
At the end of her gaze was Stelle. As for why her expression had changed like that, they had no idea.
On screen.
Cyrene jumped off the swing and came over to the two of them. She wasn't particularly tall, but she wasn't especially short either.
It was only when standing in front of Phainon and Stelle that she seemed a little short.
"Goodness! Look at you rushing about... you've got the poor swing all startled..."
Cyrene tilted her head up slightly and greeted Phainon.
"Is that you...?"
Phainon didn't speak. Instead, Stelle, who was standing beside him, subconsciously responded.
After saying it, Stelle herself was startled. She didn't know why those words had suddenly slipped out of her mouth.
Besides... She had never seen this girl before, right?
But for some reason, Stelle felt that the girl before her was somewhat familiar. An extremely intense emotion surged from within Stelle's heart, and in the end, she blurted out a confirmation that didn't quite sound like one...
After hearing this, Cyrene looked toward Stelle.
She nodded, smiling until her eyes narrowed. "Hmm... There's something oddly unfamiliar about this."
"Something wrong? What do you see?"
Phainon scratched his head as he spoke from the side.
Cyrene placed both hands behind her back and leaned forward slightly, replying in the coquettish manner of a young girl, "Oh~ nothing much, just... suddenly felt a strange connection."
At this point, she seemed unwilling to continue the topic and instead said, "Look at you, leaves in your hair! Were you sleeping in a tree again, or was it the wheat fields this time? At least brush yourself off before wandering around."
Phainon put his hands on his hips helplessly and replied rather childishly, "Come on, I'm not a kid anymore, you're the only one who still treats me like one..."
Cyrene covered her mouth and laughed, teasingly saying, "Sure, sure. You may have the height advantage, but when it comes to maturity? I'm leagues ahead."
"Still fantasizing about being in heroic adventures and imagining yourself as one of the characters. That's the kind of thing kids do, not grown-ups."
"Don't you agree? And since you're playing along with his antics... who are you pretending to be today?"
Cyrene suddenly changed the direction of the conversation and looked toward Stelle beside Phainon.
At this very moment, the strangeness hidden within this harmonious and heartwarming scene was already becoming impossible to contain, almost spilling out of the screen.
So strange...
...
: Does anyone else feel like something is wrong here? scratches head
: It feels like there's some kind of story between Stelle and Cyrene, but that shouldn't be possible. These two shouldn't even know each other.
: Their conversation sounds perfectly normal, but at the same time, there's something indescribably strange about it... Damn.
: What did Lygus say just now? Stelle's role is to play the nameless hero in Phainon's heart, right?
: The strange part is the "playing" aspect. Stelle and Phainon's interactions are still relatively normal, but Stelle and Cyrene's interactions have obviously gone beyond the scope of acting and theater, haven't they?
: Exactly. That look in Cyrene's eyes was clearly filled with an extremely strong subjective awareness, and it was directed at Stelle.
: Could it be that a long time ago, the nameless hero stood in this exact position and said the same things and did the same things as Stelle? Only that could explain the interactions between the two of them.
: That would be way too ridiculous.
: Actually, that's secondary. The strangest part is that after Cyrene said she felt like they'd met before, Phainon actually asked her what was wrong and what she was looking at.
: Yes, yes, yes! That's it! That part is super weird. Isn't Stelle standing right beside him?
: Exactly! Holy shit! Then why would Phainon ask...
: Hiss... Could she be an illusion? This nameless hero actually exists only within Phainon's heart and wouldn't appear in reality at all?
: Whoa! Right! I just remembered. When Phainon brought Stelle here, everyone they encountered along the way greeted Phainon, but they all seemed completely unable to see Stelle behind him!
: That evidence is pretty convincing!!
: But if that's the case, then Cyrene should be even less capable of seeing Stelle, much less interacting with her!
: It's over. The more we analyze it, the more confusing it gets.
...
The audience keenly noticed that something was wrong with the plot.
But there were too many contradictions, making it impossible to reach a conclusion for the time being.
They could only keep this suspicious point in mind and continue watching.
In the scene, after Cyrene asked Stelle the question, Phainon also turned to look at Stelle, seemingly waiting for her answer.
Stelle frowned deeply. She also felt an indescribable sense of strangeness.
Was this truly a performance, a fragment of memory, or was there some other mystery behind it?
Suddenly, Stelle's eyes shifted as a mischievous idea popped into her head.
What was the thing a theatrical performance feared most? Breaking character, of course.
"Greetings. I'm the Stellaron Hunter."
Stelle spoke to Cyrene.
But Cyrene didn't respond.
Instead, Phainon, standing beside her, spread his hands and coughed. "Uh... today she's going with "Stellaron Hunter.""
Only then did Cyrene react.
She leaned forward and once again adopted that coquettish posture, saying to Stelle, "Steal-a-heart Hunter? Planning to steal someone's heart, are we?"
Without waiting for Stelle to answer, Cyrene turned toward Phainon with an amused expression. "Switching roles again? What happened to being the valiant hero from a distant shore who made that solemn pact to learn the sword..."
There it was again. That way of speaking.
It clearly didn't sound like she was talking to a normal person.
Otherwise, why would she finish speaking to Stelle but not wait for Stelle's reply, immediately turning to speak with someone else instead?
Yet the three people present acted completely naturally.
After hearing Cyrene's words, Phainon was so embarrassed that his toes practically curled into the ground. He hurriedly begged for mercy and tried to change the subject. "...Spare me! Can we not bring this up?"
"Speaking of which, what about those oracle cards? We haven't done divination in forever. Why the sudden interest?"
Cyrene rubbed her chin, her expression becoming slightly more serious. "I was just about to tell you. Earlier, while napping on the swing, I had the strangest dream..."
"There was this mysterious voice in my dream, calling out for something..."
Phainon was startled and hurriedly asked, "...Wait, you had that dream too?"
"Yes... you too?"
Cyrene nodded and said, "That would explain this lingering sense of unease..."
After the opening of the first act, when Phainon woke up in the wheat field, there had also been that calling.
Only, at the time, the voice that called Phainon awake had been Cyrene's.
Now Cyrene had heard it too?
Was the calling the two of them heard the same thing? The audience frowned and took note of this important information.
On screen.
Like Phainon, Cyrene also couldn't recall the contents of that calling.
"Which made me think of those old oracle cards I used to play with as a kid, though the Oronyx prophecies were always hit or miss."
Cyrene explained.
As for the fact that the interpretations were inaccurate, Phainon had experienced that deeply himself.
"Yeah, all the kids would get so excited drawing cards like "Ruler" or "Warrior," but throw fits over "Devil" or "Drunkard" and demand a redo."
"If you just redo it when you don't like the result... what's the point of divination?"
Phainon scratched his head. He wasn't questioning Oronyx's authority.
Rather, this method of divination simply seemed a little too casual.
Cyrene didn't think so. She chuckled softly and said, "Ah, the blessing of childhood. Believing the gods might not notice our little corner of Aedes Elysiae, willing to let our small deceits slide..."
"Still... fate is absolute. After all, we never really know just how far into the future the prophecy extends."
Phainon didn't understand the meaning behind Cyrene's words.
After all, he wasn't proficient in divination either. But to Stelle, and even to the audience, those words carried profound meaning.
If they treated the story of this act as a real world, then Stelle and the audience were essentially people from future Amphoreus who knew far more than the current Cyrene and Phainon did.
Thus, they understood the weight of Cyrene's words even more clearly.
She was right. One Chrysos Heir after another had used their own lives to prove the accuracy of the prophecy. And most of them had taken an extremely long time to fulfill their oracles.
After realizing this, in the eyes of the audience, Cyrene, who sometimes spoke to Stelle and sometimes spoke to Phainon, became even more mysterious.
She... did she know something? But wasn't this merely a play being presented by Lygus? How could Cyrene possibly know what would happen in the future?!
They couldn't figure it out. They simply couldn't figure it out!
...
: I don't believe this is just a play. From the beginning of the story until now, there have been suspicious points everywhere. These suspicious points definitely aren't something an ordinary play would have.
: Yeah. Instead, I think this part is just like Lygus said. It's better to experience it immersively.
: As for whether this is a play or real history, I don't think there's any need to distinguish it so clearly. After all, don't forget that this is Oronyx's territory.
: Stelle's performance when she used the power of Oronyx was already outrageous enough. This place is also strongly connected to Oronyx, so there's no telling whether some special situation might occur.
: Cyrene also seems to have some connection to the Time Titan, which makes this even more thought-provoking.
: Maybe there's a reason behind all this strangeness that we don't know about. If we keep watching, the mystery should eventually be revealed!
...
The comments streamed past.
On screen, Phainon and Cyrene, along with the third person, "Stelle," prepared to set out and search for the Oracle Cards.
When Phainon and Cyrene were young, the two of them often played with Oracle Cards together with their other companions.
But as they grew older, they gradually stopped playing the game. The last time they played, they had hidden the Oracle Cards in their "secret base."
Children were like that. They would always find some hidden, hard-to-discover place to use as a base and hide important things there.
But when they actually needed to search for what they had hidden there all those years ago, Phainon couldn't immediately remember where it was.
Fortunately, the village wasn't large, and there were only a few places where things could be hidden.
At Cyrene's suggestion, the group began searching according to their childhood memories.
The first place they found was a pier on the lake. When Phainon and Cyrene arrived, two children were already standing there.
They were holding fishing rods and arguing over something.
"It's mine. I caught it fair and square!"
"You did not! It's mine!"
"Give it here! My rod, my catch. I only let you borrow it, remember?"
When the little girl holding the glass bottle saw Phainon appear, it was as though she'd spotted her great savior. She hurriedly ran over and hugged Phainon's leg.
"Phainon, Cyrene, come quick! Look at this huge bottle I just caught!"
The little boy on the other side also rushed over and hugged Phainon's other leg.
Looking at the two children clinging to him, Phainon smiled gently and rubbed their heads.
"What's got you two so worked up? Here, show me..."
"Here!" The little girl placed the bottle into Phainon's hand.
Phainon weighed the bottle in his hand. He couldn't see anything strange about it, so he planned to prepare another identical one for the other child to keep them from arguing again.
But while examining it, Phainon's eyes suddenly narrowed as he finally saw what was inside the bottle.
A rolled-up piece of paper. So it was a message in a bottle.
"..."
Phainon removed the stopper, poured the piece of paper into his palm, and unfolded it.
The handwriting on the letter was crooked and uneven. It described the innocent wishes of a child.
In the letter, the child earnestly introduced their hometown, Aedes Elysiae, describing its windmills, wheat fields, and the statue of Oronyx.
The child also described in detail the celebration the village held at the end of the year. Of course, the main focus was all the delicious food served during the celebration.
It was obvious that the child had made themselves hungry while writing this part.
After introducing the village, the child began writing about things they had encountered in their own life.
For example, when they lost their baby teeth, their parents told them to bury the fallen teeth in the soil.
And when they played Oracle Cards as a child, they had drawn the Savior card. Although all the other children playing with them had been envious, this child didn't like the Deliverer.
[People really like the Deliverer, but I'd rather be a Wonderer or a Skholar. Well, being a Deliverer sounds super amayzing, but it also means carrying a really, really heavy herden.]
[I'm not that amazing, so I can't be the Deliverer.]
That was what the child had written in the letter.
There was even a typo. With the combination of the inner voice and the subtitles displaying the letter, the contents and details of the letter could also be presented to the audience.
At this moment, the audience had already guessed who the owner of this letter was.
But they didn't rush to flood the screen with comments. Instead, they continued watching...