After another round of discussion, the Astral Express crew reached a consensus. Using the investigation of the Stellaron Hunters as their reason, they would enter the game for now.
During this process, no one knew what Nero had said to Argenti, but after nodding, the tall Knight of Beauty left.
The rest then went to find Miss Black Swan, who was waiting nearby.
Himeko said to her, "Miss Black Swan, the Astral Express is willing to cooperate with you. In the Memory Zone, we need a suitable guide."
"At your service. I won't disappoint you," Black Swan replied with a smile.
After reaching an agreement with Black Swan, the Astral Express crew prepared to enter the dream again, agreeing to gather in the hotel's lobby afterward.
Mr. Yang, meanwhile, stayed behind in reality. As the dependable adult, he would take care of the follow-up work here, including negotiating with and explaining things to the Family.
No matter what, under the current circumstances, trying to investigate the secrets of the dream hotel was no different from dancing on the edge of the Family's blade.
Having someone stay behind to handle negotiations was still important. As the dependable adult, Mr. Yang had everyone's trust.
As one of the Astral Express's parental figures, he always had to consider things more thoroughly.
After that, everyone returned to their own rooms together. On the way, Nero asked Stelle, "Has Sister Firefly returned to reality?"
Stelle shook her head.
"I don't know, but I think she probably has. I successfully returned to reality through the passage Miss Black Swan created, and Firefly went through that door with me. There shouldn't be any problems."
She paused before continuing, "But we're probably going to get busy next. We likely won't have another chance to meet her."
"It's fine. Then next time we have the chance to meet in reality, I'll ask her how the treatment worked.", Nero said.
He cared a great deal about the results of his "treatment." Although he didn't believe he possessed some miraculous power that could cure all kinds of illnesses, Stelle had placed great hopes in him, and he really had cured mara-struck before...
March walked beside Nero. She and Stelle were walking on either side of him. After hearing their conversation, the lively pink-haired girl looked puzzled and eyed Stelle suspiciously.
"What are you two talking about? Who's Firefly?"
"A pretty big sister," Nero replied. "Someone Stelle met in the dream."
Nero answered March's question, but he didn't tell either of them that Firefly was Sam. Since Firefly herself hadn't said anything, he naturally wouldn't either. As a polite and well-mannered person, he certainly wouldn't recklessly spread someone else's secret.
Although that sense of propriety sometimes disappeared. For example, when he realized Phantylia had disguised herself as Tingyun, he mercilessly went straight to Jing Yuan and exposed her.
Whether Nero was a polite and well-behaved child really depended on the person.
"A pretty big sister?"
After hearing that, March narrowed her eyes and looked at Stelle with even greater suspicion.
She was a little worried. Stelle had always been a bit absent-minded, and she hoped she hadn't been tricked by a beautiful older woman.
Although Dan Heng didn't agree with this idea, even now March still firmly believed she was the smartest member of the trio.
After parting with the others and returning to her room, Stelle found Black Swan already waiting there.
Stelle looked at her curiously.
She wondered whether this Memokeeper had divided her consciousness into several parts, so that besides the one here, there was also an illusion of her guiding Nero, March, and Himeko in their respective rooms.
After all, for a Memokeeper, such an ability didn't seem impossible. Since they had already become a memetic lifeform, splitting off parts of themselves, temporarily remaining in a certain place, or leaving themselves within someone else's mind didn't seem impossible either.
Of course, Stelle only thought about it. She didn't ask.
Besides, although splitting oneself apart might be possible for this kind of memetic lifeform, it was hard to imagine what kind of suffering would come from dividing oneself into multiple pieces.
A fractured mind and multiple layers of mental distortion probably weren't something an ordinary intelligent lifeform could endure.
Compared to maintaining clarity and reason without falling into madness, splitting oneself apart would probably be as simple as making a cup of instant noodles.
Black Swan noticed the glance Stelle gave her as soon as she entered the room, as well as the curiosity and confusion that flashed through her eyes.
But after that brief moment, the girl seemed distracted again, apparently thinking about something else.
Although she could understand and speculate about the girl's thoughts by peering into her memories, Black Swan didn't do so rashly.
After all, she and the Astral Express were allies now, and...
Although she had still decided to "never learn her lesson," that previous dance had inevitably left some psychological scars. She still needed some time to prepare herself mentally.
Even though the chance of being embarrassed twice in a row by taking the initiative to peek into someone's memories wasn't high...
'What if?'
For the time being, Miss Memokeeper restrained her curiosity. She then mistook Stelle's wandering thoughts for nervousness and asked in a gentle voice, "You look nervous, Stelle. Are you worried about that little girl?"
Stelle came back to her senses and looked up at Black Swan. A strange expression flashed across her face.
Of course she knew who the "little girl" Black Swan meant was. Firefly. She had just been talking about her with Nero not long ago.
But at the moment, this Memokeeper lady had clearly misunderstood her state of mind. She wasn't nervous, she just had some... unusual ideas.
Still, Stelle knew you couldn't let someone's words fall to the ground, so before Black Swan's words could do so, she caught them. The little Stellaron baby nodded.
"A little. But I'm more concerned about how her illness is doing. I wonder if she's recovered yet. Nero also cares a lot about how effective the treatment was. We were talking about it on the way here."
This time, it was Black Swan's turn to wear a strange expression.
The word "treatment" reminded her of the strange ritual that young Nero had performed on that girl in the primal dream. In the eyes of the person responsible for making it all happen, Stelle, that had apparently been a form of treatment.
Even as a well-traveled Memokeeper who had seen all kinds of treatments in countless memories, taking medicine, injections, IV drips, replacing body parts, spirit dances, sacrifices, that particular method was something even she had to admit she had never seen before.
It didn't seem practical in the slightest, and somehow felt even more abstract than spirit dances and sacrificial rituals.
Even after coming into contact with the authority of "Memory" and gaining the ability to manipulate memetic substance, she still felt that treatment method was... novel and mysterious.
Black Swan opened her mouth.
She wanted to say something to Stelle, to express some personal thoughts about that treatment method.
But as the seconds passed, she realized she couldn't put together any suitable words for that scene. She couldn't find an adjective that truly fit.
She wanted to say something, yet nothing came out.
In the end, she quietly closed her mouth again.
Plop!
'What was that sound?'
It turned out someone's words had fallen to the ground.
Silence instantly filled the entire room.
Stelle and Black Swan stood where they were, staring at each other with wide eyes.
After a long while, Stelle silently turned around and lay down in the dream pool.
"Shall we begin now?"
Black Swan finally came back to herself.
"...Mm."
The Memokeeper looked at the gray-haired girl before her with a complicated expression, but quickly adjusted her state of mind.
"All right. I'll stay with you the whole time."
Stelle closed her eyes in the dream pool.
The faint sound of bubbles echoed in her ears. Then her consciousness seemed to sink into some dark blue, viscous environment.
Strange visions began appearing in her mind.
The deep sea.
Illusory cries.
And... seafood... schools of fish.
When she opened her eyes again, she had returned to that dimly lit guest room with its inexplicably oppressive atmosphere.
But unlike before, Miss Black Swan had also appeared in the room this time, as if she had been waiting there all along.
A Memokeeper didn't need a dream pool at all to enter a dream filled with memetic substance. It was as though she could come to Penacony on vacation anytime, anywhere.
'How enviable.'
Looking at the now fully dreaming Stelle, Black Swan asked, "How do you feel? You're not feeling unwell, are you?"
Stelle nodded.
"I feel fine."
"Then I'm relieved," Black Swan said as she looked at Stelle.
"I know you're especially sensitive to memetic substance, so you're more easily affected by dreams than others. That's also why I need to accompany you personally."
Listening to Black Swan, Stelle blinked, and once again thought of what had crossed her mind before entering the dream.
Now she could be certain.
The mysterious Memokeeper big sister in front of her had not split herself into pieces.
Black Swan had no idea what Stelle was thinking. She simply continued, "I'll use a few methods to make you feel a little more comfortable."
"Don't worry. Your companions are also safe. Before entering the dream, I asked each of the two girls for a small accessory. That allows me to sense their presence within the Memory Zone. As for that young man..."
Black Swan paused slightly.
"I don't think we need to worry about him. He's very powerful. Even the 'Death' within this dream can't do anything to him. Besides... his ability to manipulate memetic substance is so natural and fluid that even I find it astonishing."
Stelle blinked as she listened.
So Nero could manipulate memetic substance too.
'Why doesn't that sound surprising at all?'
'He was extremely talented and seemed to know how to do everything. He was always showing something remarkable.'
Stelle felt she was gradually getting used to it.
She remembered that on the Xianzhou Luofu, when she had spent some time training Yanqing together with Nero, Nero had once evaluated him like this...
"When you learn swordsmanship, you understand it the moment you see it, and master it as soon as you learn it. You don't need to deliberately study all those techniques."
"What you should be doing now is working hard to strengthen your body and raise your stats! Try to unleash a complete Skyfall as soon as possible."
"You don't have to make the sky go dark or send sand and rocks flying, but at the very least, one swing of your sword should be enough to flatten a few mountains!"
The later part of Nero's expectations for Yanqing could be ignored. After all, different people had different constitutions. Even though Yanqing was already a genius, Nero had been capable of splitting the sky with a single ordinary slash much earlier.
The important part was what Nero had said about Yanqing's ability to learn.
Stelle felt that it suited Nero himself just as well.