"March, look! There's actually a pink butterfly inside the trash can."
Aidan and Stelle held up the cockr... butterfly they had scavenged from the trash can.
"For some reason, I feel like this butterfly is very connected to me."
Aidan stared at this cardboard butterfly that had crawled out of the trash can. Although it looked and grew like a cockroach, he just felt that this giant cardboard cockroach was actually a butterfly.
"...Eh! Look here, March. There's a signature here named Xin, one named Yugo, another named Eren, and... Elysia?"
The wings of this giant pink cardboard cockroach were covered in dense handwriting from people in various parallel worlds.
"No, why do I feel like I know it?"
Aidan caught a glimpse of the very top line.
[This is... the treasure of... and... must... hope... kind-hearted...]
The top line of text was blurred by various things, but it seemed he could vaguely see the name there as well.
Who was that?
It scratched around a bit, dropped something for Aidan, and then gestured for Aidan to put something on its back.
Aidan suddenly realized.
Oh!
This must be a fixed supply station.
"Awesome."
Aidan labeled his various magical small cubes with their functions, folded the paper, put it into a bag, and hung it on the pink giant cockroach's back.
"Safe travels~"
Aidan and Stelle sent the giant cockroach back into the trash can. When they looked again, the cardboard giant cockroach was gone. While Stelle was still peeking to see where the giant cockroach went, Aidan turned back and picked up the magical small prop from the ground.
It was a shiny coin, with a heart on the front and a skull on the back.
"Can't tell what it is."
Might as well keep it.
Side Quest: Encounter with the Pink Cardboard Butterfly · (1 / 1)!
A cardboard butterfly seemingly made by Miss Pink Elf. It has wise-looking eyes, but for some reason, everyone always Cassie is a giant cardboard cockroach.
Yeah, why is that? — Miss Pink Elf♪
"Do you think it'll come back next time?" Stelle was still squatting by the trash can, peeking inside.
"Don't know."
— — —
At midnight, Aidan switched his Path on time in his room.
Mystery.
Stepping onto Enigmata this time, Aidan was much better prepared.
He took out the many outlines he had written under the Path of Erudition and used the Path power of Enigmata to construct something out of nothing.
"How can having just me as Captain... be enough?"
"If there is light, there must be darkness."
"Carrying the expectations of countless World Bubbles, traversing through the Sea of Quanta..."
The Ferryman is a lie, and so is the Captain.
"Saving people whose planets are about to be destroyed onto another Hyperion, but this ship is ultimately too small to hold everyone..."
Aidan put pen to paper and continued writing.
"Under the black robes of the [Ferryman] is a faceless puppet, operated entirely by me..."
The Ferryman has no face, so there's no need to worry about being questioned about what exactly is under the black robes.
Everywhere in this universe, countless people lose their homes every moment due to natural and man-made disasters. The [Ferryman] who saves these homeless people... could become another identity for Aidan on the side of good.
"The key is... it can't be too specific."
He murmured to himself, his pen tip tapping lightly on the paper.
The power of fiction lies in leaving blanks. Often, the more you say, the more loopholes there are. Conversely, as long as you provide a sufficiently vague yet attractive silhouette, people will automatically fill in those blanks with their own imagination.
The Ferryman will appear before those worlds are completely destroyed and ask that eternal question—
"Are you willing to come with me?"
Those who are willing will board that ship; those who are not will stay in the place they chose to remain.
"This setting..." Aidan rubbed his chin and thought for a moment, "Is it a bit too cruel?"
But he soon rationalized it.
Those who are unwilling to leave their homes should have the right to choose for themselves.
...
"Another destroyed planet."
The Ferryman only revealed the lower half of a face made of a white mask-like material, with no features. This duplicated Hyperion was currently loaded with survivors from a planet.
The people who had just lost their homes had hollow eyes, their bodies trembling slightly from fear and cold. Some huddled together sobbing quietly, while others stood dazed in place, staring blankly at the disintegrating planet.
"Are you willing to live within a World Bubble?"
The Ferryman asked the refugees. Several clusters of liquid matter floated before him, emitting a brilliant halo of light.
"It could be an uninhabited primeval forest, or perhaps empty skyscrapers, but they are all safe. Those willing to live in a World Bubble may enter on their own."
When the last survivor disappeared into the halo of the World Bubble, a deathly silence returned to the massive cabin of the duplicated Hyperion.
Being his first time ferrying, Aidan's experience was somewhat lacking.
Controlling this [Ferryman] body to receive those refugees...
He wasn't quite sure if letting those refugees enter the World Bubbles anchored to the Hyperion was right, but watching people die, he knew that was definitely wrong.
He remembered the expressions of those refugees very clearly. Fear, despair, numbness, doubt... but when they saw that massive warship appearing out of thin air, all their expressions turned into the same thing: hope in a desperate situation.
"Are you willing to come with me?"
When he asked that question, many people looked as if they had seen hope itself.
Thinking back now, that feeling was very strange. It was like being a high-and-mighty deity looking down on all living beings, yet also like a common bystander who was powerless. What he could do was give them a Path, but he couldn't walk it for them.
"Yeah."
This isn't bad. As Human, one should do good deeds without seeking fame.
Calling himself the Ferryman wasn't a problem either.
The power of the Path of Enigmata was just like that. It could turn fictional stories into reality, yet retain a certain ethereal sense of unreality. Those refugees were indeed saved, and their world was indeed destroyed. And that duplicated Hyperion carrying them was now quietly anchored in some corner of the Sea of Quanta.
The door was suddenly knocked on, but this time the person who appeared was not March 7th, but Evernight.
"It's you. Why come to see me at night? I thought March 7th was sleepwalking again."
"You seem to have created some very interesting things. A power emanated from the Express and returned with countless faint echoes... and the source of that power is [Mystery], isn't it?"
Evernight looked at Aidan with great interest.
"Exactly."