"Ahaha..." Hearing what Nero said, Stelle quickly remembered too. "It really was scary when Mem first appeared out of nowhere back then. But you sent her running with one hit."
Misha stood where he was, listening to the conversation between Nero and Stelle. His brows gradually furrowed.
He remembered that for a period of time, Mem's body had looked very strange and asymmetrical. She also cried every day and was especially terrified of her usual pick-up and drop-off duties...
'Okay, okay, okay!'
'So it was you, kid!'
'You gave Mem a psychological scar by beating her up!'
Nero noticed Misha's gaze. He raised a hand and scratched his head, giving an awkward yet polite smile. "Hehe..."
Looking at Nero, Misha opened his mouth, but in the end, he let out a long sigh.
'Forget it. It had already been so long.'
Although most people paid him no attention at all, as if they could not see him in the first place, Misha had lived here for so long and had traveled all the way through the Dreamflux Reef with the members of the Astral Express. He had heard quite a few things.
The current situation on Penacony could definitely not be called good. These outsiders had chosen to help Penacony without hesitation. What could he possibly criticize them for?
So what if Mem had suffered a little?
"Anyway, the problem now is, who brought you here back then?"
Himeko said to Stelle. Seeing that the children's conversation was gradually drifting off topic, she had to quickly steer it back.
They had not come here to chat. There were more important things to do.
"Based on the clues we have so far, it might not have been that Fool. So finding out who it was is extremely important."
Himeko spoke with considerable certainty. Since everyone had returned here through the dream bubble left behind by Mikhail, she did not think Sparkle had been capable of sending Stelle and Firefly to this place back then.
As for the gift left behind by that former Nameless in such a hidden location high up in the Dreamflux Reef, she did not think Sparkle had had any opportunity to learn about or come into contact with it.
The key point was Misha.
Himeko had noticed long ago that this boy's state of existence seemed to be quite special... Until now, it seemed that not a single member of the Astral Express, apart from the Knights, had been able to see this child.
"We're already close to the core of the truth again," Himeko said. "Give Misha a little time. He'll definitely be able to uncover the secret of this dream bubble for us."
"Alright." March accepted Himeko's explanation. "But there are doors everywhere here. Which one should we use to get out... Misha, do you know?"
As she spoke, March thought to herself that there was actually a simpler solution. At least when Nero was around, none of these maze problems were really problems.
Nero had plenty of ways to solve a maze, and the simplest one was definitely to tear it apart by force, just like the kid had done at the space station back then.
However, no matter what, this dream bubble had been left behind by a former Nameless... Doing that somehow felt a little disrespectful to the old man who had already left.
Still, if doing this could somehow annoy the old man enough to bring him back to life, that actually sounded pretty good too, even though it sounded a little hellish.
Misha had no idea what March was thinking. Since the girl had thrown the question at him, he looked around, then thought it over.
Combining that with the vague sense of familiarity in his mind, he made his deduction. Finally, he pointed in one direction and said uncertainly,
"Hmm, I think... maybe this way? I'm not sure... but let's give it a try."
With that, Misha ran ahead, and everyone followed behind him.
They passed through doors and corridors and arrived in another room. Throughout the entire process, Misha never stopped or hesitated, nor did he lead them into a dead end.
Everything seemed to show that he was extremely familiar with everything here. He moved with such ease that it was as if he were in his own home.
March could not help but marvel. "He got it right on the first try?"
'Could it be that Misha...'
'Has the same enviable good luck as Nero!?'
In the new room, Misha slowly stopped. There was a hint of confusion and unease on his face, as if even he had not expected to find the right path so easily.
"Strange. This clearly isn't the hotel, and the difference is huge, but I always feel like I've been here before, and... that I've even stayed here for a while."
"Maybe you came here in a dream," Nero said.
"Sometimes things like that happen. You dream about a certain place, but after waking up, you can't really remember it. Then one day, when you happen to pass by that place, you vaguely feel like you've been there before.", Nero spoke half-jokingly, but his tone was quite serious.
Because he had experienced something similar before, and not just once.
Before he transmigrated, he had once dreamed that he and his grandfather went somewhere. It was nighttime, and a street food market had been set up there.
Two months later, he really did go to that place with his grandfather while they were out for a walk. But it was daytime then, and there was no street food market.
There was only yellow earth and some iron-frame structures that had been set up. Yet Nero really did feel extremely familiar with the overall layout of the place.
Even though he was certain it was his first time there, the structure and arrangement were not much different from what he had seen in his dream.
After transmigrating, Nero would occasionally have similar dreams too. But as he lived here longer and became increasingly familiar with his surroundings, dreams like those became rare. Instead, they were replaced by another kind of dream.
He often dreamed that he had become a perspective floating high in the sky. That was not quite accurate.
He always dreamed that he was looking down from a position above everything, drifting around aimlessly like a ghost and watching the universe of Honkai: Star Rail.
The reason he could tell that it was the universe of Honkai: Star Rail was because from that perspective, he could often see the Aeons. Familiar ones like Aha appeared especially often.
The Aeons in his dreams all looked like little figurines. Yet before transmigrating, he had never seen MiHoYo sell merchandise like that.
Moreover, in his dreams, these little things always seemed to want to attack him for some reason, although he had no idea why, and the attacks in his dreams were completely useless.
According to Secretary Tong's explanation, it was because his imagination was too rich. On top of that, he played too much during the day, and when he was tired, things stored in his subconscious were prone to turning into those dreams that could only be remembered for a short time.
Listening to Nero's explanation, Misha's expression became somewhat strange.
Because right now, they really were in a dream. And not merely in a dream. Since this was inside a dream bubble, they were actually in a dream within a dream.
Misha thought for a moment, then turned his head toward a corner and said to everyone, "If I remember correctly, if we follow that corridor forward, there should be a warm fireplace. Clockie and I often sat there by the fire, listening to the firewood crackle."
After saying that, Misha looked toward the wall on the other side. There was another door shaped like a keyhole there. "And the room on the other side is... is the room where the toys are kept. I like to dump everything from the boxes onto the floor all at once, then make up stories for them one by one."
Listening to Misha, March could not help complaining to her companions, "An experience like that... how should I put it? I feel like Misha is kind of like those princesses or whatever from fairy tales...?"
"Kind of." The Stellaron Hunter seriously thought about it for a moment, then nodded in agreement with March. He then asked, "What do you think about Nero?"
"Nero?" March answered without even thinking. "Nero is obviously the kind of kid who reads a fairy tale, decides it's badly written, and then goes to teach the author how to write stories."
"Yep, that's very Nero." Stelle nodded.
While March and Stelle were whispering to each other, Misha's expression began to grow somewhat panicked.
In a slightly trembling voice, he muttered to himself, "No, that's not right. That's not right. Didn't I grow up in the Dreamflux Reef? Then what is this place..."
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