There's one thing about stubborn people: the words they speak generally aren't worth taking seriously. Even if they are, often the opposite is true.
Take Mobius, for example. She constantly claimed to dislike Elysia, but what she really thought deep down? Heaven only knows. Or rather, everyone knew, but they all tacitly pretended not to.
As for the reason... well, if she herself says it, why argue?
Precisely because of this, although Mobius had firmly said "next time" before leaving, Lin Wei decided not to take her suggestion.
Since I'm already here, wouldn't it be rude not to invite myself in for a sit-down?
"Huh? Lin Wei, you actually want to do that? But that's Dr. Mobius we're talking about!" Elysia seemed slightly taken aback. "Among the Flame-Chasers, almost everyone is terrified of her. Just hearing the name 'Mobius' is enough to make them panic and want to hide far away! No one has ever dared to show up in front of her after she explicitly refused them!"
Lin Wei stared expressionlessly into Elysia's crystal-clear eyes. His gaze made her feel a bit awkward, and she coughed lightly before putting on a stern face and lecturing him playfully, "Staring directly at a girl like that is very impolite! Don't do it again, understand?"
Like I need you to teach me!
Lin Wei couldn't be bothered to play along with her antics anymore and repeated his request to continue on to Mobius's place. Elysia didn't tease him further. Seeing that his eyes held no trace of joking or recklessness, but rather his usual calm confidence, she stopped hesitating. Right then and there, she agreed to accompany Lin Wei on this final leg of the journey.
After all, she never interfered with her friends' choices, preferring to observe quietly and offer her blessings, stepping in only when necessary.
"Vill-V, we have business to attend to, excuse us!" Elysia called out loudly, waving towards the increasingly distant Vill-V. However, the latter seemed completely engrossed in the data she was collecting, utterly ignoring them.
"Sigh, Vill-V really..." Elysia pouted as if slightly hurt, then burst out laughing. Linking arms with Lin Wei and Yuno, she led them in the opposite direction, teasing, "But this time she went truly bankrupt. I bet when she finishes tallying up all her losses, the heartache will keep her awake at night~"
"Bankrupt? Really?" Seeing Elysia's schadenfreude-filled expression, Lin Wei, with Yuno trailing closely behind, couldn't help but roll his eyes. "The last time I came to the Elysian Realm, Vill-V pulled the same stunt on me. Back then, she cried to me about being broke too—and how long has it been since then? The woman secretly whipped out all this stuff again, and the scale was even grander than last time..."
Thinking back to that period when Vill-V, under the guise of being "broke," shamelessly pestered him constantly, Lin Wei felt a pang of irritation. He hadn't thought much of it then, but now, the more he thought about it, the angrier he got. Damn it, I got played again!
"Actually, Vill-V wasn't lying to you back then. You really did blow her Spiral Workshop sky-high~" Elysia recalled the amusing incidents from that time, her smile growing wider. "After you left the Elysian Realm, Vill-V cried to us for a long time!"
Hearing this, Lin Wei paused, then pointed behind him, asking doubtfully, "Then this... she restored it from a backup?" Isn't that basically cheating?!
"Congratulations, your answer is... wrong! How could she bear to lose the data you left behind in the Elysian Realm back then? If she restored from a backup, all those precious things would be completely lost!" Elysia tilted her head, glancing at Lin Wei's increasingly puzzled and tangled expression, before revealing the answer with a smile, "The real answer is simple—it was Eden!"
"Eden? Uh..." Lin Wei paused, then realization dawned.
"You guessed it too, right?" Elysia watched Lin Wei's expression change, then suddenly turned around. Walking backward, she made a playful face. "Eden felt sorry seeing her in such a state, so she funded the rebuilding of an even larger Spiral Workshop! As for what happened next, well, hmm~ you already know!"
"..." Of course I know, Lin Wei thought, I just fought a battle there! With a major investment from her sponsor, Vill-V, now flush with cash, reverted to her old ways and started messing around again, promptly losing everything once more.
"Speaking of which, is Eden really that rich?" Lin Wei's interest was suddenly piqued by another matter. "From what I know, Eden was indeed an international superstar in your era, wealthy enough to rank among the world's richest. She even later became an investor in the Flame-Chasers, and the Elysian Realm itself was only established and maintained thanks to her funding."
"Mhm~" Elysia listened with interest, waiting for him to continue.
"But the wealth Eden displays seems... almost unreasonably vast. I just can't figure it out." Lin Wei carefully recalled all the records related to Eden—that tycoon, who loved to shower people with money whenever she got drunk, had been doing so for fifty thousand years, and could still casually pull out heaps of world-class treasures, seemingly having a bottomless fortune. It was all a bit too much...
"Mhm. The answer is simple! Because Eden is the Flame-Chaser of 'Gold'!" Elysia stated matter-of-factly, then looked Lin Wei up and down with renewed interest. "But you speak of these things, clearly buried deep within the Elysian Realm, waiting quietly for future generations to uncover and piece together... yet you recount them so casually, as if you experienced our era alongside us. This truly is an unprecedented and wondrous experience!"
"Is it? You shouldn't find it unpleasant, then?" Lin Wei asked somewhat sheepishly. "Something along the lines of 'stealing your lives without permission'..." After all, in a way, he was flaunting things that belonged to them right in their faces.
"Why would you think that? Of course not!" Elysia stopped walking, effectively closing the distance between them, and said with absolute certainty, "Perhaps you know, even in our era, many, many people harbored their own secrets. Some were even viewed as monsters and treated with suspicion—but even so, didn't everyone eventually gather together like this, fighting for the same ideal, ultimately becoming inseparable companions? You feel the same way, Lin Wei, don't you?"
"It's just that unlike us, after leaving the Elysian Realm, you still have a much longer future ahead; while we are merely shadows lingering in the past."
"Actually, whether it's this Elysian Realm or us memory data existing within it, we are essentially a storybook sleeping deep underground, waiting for later generations to discover. To be seen by you in another form, for you to enjoy this story, and to arrive here bearing your own gifts to meet me—isn't this the most romantic thing imaginable? I couldn't be happier, so how could I possibly feel annoyed?"
"..." This speech left Yuno, beside them, momentarily lost in thought. She realized she quite liked this eloquent pink-haired pixie girl, even though just moments ago she'd been exasperated by her "roguish" behavior.
"...Ha. That sounds exactly like something you'd say. Alright, it's fine now." Lin Wei felt as though a small weight had lifted from his chest. He let out a light sigh and smiled. "Okay, back to the topic—you still haven't told me why Eden is so wealthy."
"Heehee, you change subjects so abruptly~" Elysia chuckled playfully, then turned around again, walking alongside Lin Wei and Yuno, picking up where Lin Wei left off. "Actually, the real Eden was exactly as you described. In fact, back when our era was still ongoing, Eden wasn't always living in luxury. There was quite a long period where she lived frugally, even pinching pennies—and I'm not talking about before she became famous, but after she joined the Flame-Chasers!"
"And then?"
"And then, as our civilization irrevocably headed towards extinction, 'wealth' itself lost all meaning. In those final years, Eden, like the rest of us, gnawed on hard-to-swallow compressed biscuits every day. As for clean drinking water, clothes to wear, and daily necessities, she, like us, scavenged through the city ruins, sharing whatever she found with everyone. Eden embraced this life willingly, never complaining even once."
"If we really couldn't find any supplies, she would join the rest of us with disheveled hair, and then we'd all laugh heartily at each other's messy appearances. But every time, Eden would pull out a towel from somewhere—old, perhaps, but very clean—and carefully wipe the dust off everyone's face, making us look less unkempt."
"For us back then, that towel in Eden's hands was the most precious treasure in the world... Later on, Eden couldn't even produce a towel like that anymore..." Elysia recounted with emotion, her face full of reminiscence and nostalgia, murmuring sadly, "Thinking back now, those years were difficult, but they were also a kind of happiness, weren't they?"
"..." Lin Wei fell silent, unsure how to respond. It felt like any answer would be a kind of desecration. Yuno, beside him, clearly felt the same empathy. A pang of sadness struck her heart, and she opened her mouth, wanting to say something, but then closed it again.
"But the Eden in the Elysian Realm is still as radiant as ever, perhaps even more so!" Elysia quickly shifted her mood, burying the sadness in her heart beneath a smile. She continued cheerfully, "Perhaps it's a unique property of the Elysian Realm itself that caused Eden's wealth to undergo a small... change..."
"Change?"
"Yes, a change! And it's a miraculous change, similar to Pardofelis's—you probably already know that the real Pardo doesn't have a cat named Can, but here in the Elysian Realm, it mysteriously appeared and exists quite reasonably." Elysia explained with a strange expression,
"As for Eden... perhaps because of her unique views on 'wealth' and her generous nature, after she joined the Elysian Realm, these abstract concepts were manifested by the Realm in a concrete form. Simply put, Eden henceforth possessed an inexhaustible treasury of gold, and from then on, she fell into deep distress over having far too much wealth..."
"...So that's how it is? This Elysian Realm really is amazing." Lin Wei deadpanned with a dark expression. Please share some of that distress with me, thank you.
"Ah, we're here~" As they spoke, the group had already left Vill-V's area. Elysia suddenly stopped and pointed lightly into the air. A small path leading to an unknown region materialized out of the shadows, flowing like a dark swamp. A pale green light rippled around its edges, emanating an icy chill like the gaze of a predator hidden in the darkness, giving off an extremely unsettling and eerie aura.
Elysia subtly held back Yuno, whose hair was standing on end slightly, and smiled at Lin Wei. "Dr. Mobius is just inside. I won't accompany you! Otherwise, she'll probably be even angrier when she sees me—after all, I did just play that prank on her~"
"...Is that so? You certainly have a lot of faith in me." Lin Wei rolled his eyes and replied noncommittally.
"Heehee, of course! After all, you're the amazing person who can defeat a Herrscher and still become very good friends with her afterward!" Elysia seemed full of confidence in Lin Wei, encouraging him almost like she was cheering him on. "Dr. Mobius is also a very lovely girl! I'm sure you'll get along splendidly with her, right?"
Lin Wei had no idea where she got such confidence from, her tone even holding a hint of eager anticipation.
"...I'll do my best." Lin Wei glanced helplessly at Elysia, then asked her to take Yuno back to the main hall and look after her. He then stepped onto the dark, green-glowing path alone.
Elysia was right about one thing: visiting Mobius this time definitely wasn't suitable for bringing anyone else along.