There were no interruptions along the way. Lumina smoothly checked into the room with Herta.
Since neither Lumina nor Herta was Acheron, they quickly found their room by following the number printed on the keycard.
Click!
"Is this the Dream Pool? It's... decent enough," Herta remarked after observing the massive Dream Pool in the center of the room.
"And..." After inspecting the Dream Pool, Herta turned her gaze to Lumina, who was closing the door behind them. "Why are you still here?"
"Why wouldn't I be?"
"Why would you be?"
"...I helped you check in, find the room, and do everything to make things easier for you. And now, the moment we're inside, you want to kick me out? Isn't that a little heartless?"
Lumina, as if possessed by a drama queen, clutched her heart, her face a mask of pained anguish from Herta's icy words.
"Heh." Herta propped her cheek in her hand, her expression a mixture of amusement and exasperation at Lumina's childish antics.
Herta still remembered when she first met Lumina. She had initially assumed she was dealing with a serious and proper individual. The reality, however...
Watching Lumina's slightly over-the-top performance, Herta sighed. "You want to enter the Dream Pool with me?" she asked.
"Then come on. This Dream Pool is quite large—it could easily accommodate ten people. Just the two of us won't feel crowded at all."
What else could be keeping Lumina here? Herta thought. She must want to lie in the same Dream Pool with me and enter Penacony together.
After all, besides the Dream Pool, the room contained only commonplace objects, nothing Lumina would particularly care about.
Hmm... actually, there is one other thing: me.
As clever as Herta was, she had long seen through all of Lumina's little schemes.
It can't be helped, she mused. This is simply the result of intellectual suppression.
"Not really. I can't enter the Dream Pool with you."
But even Herta, as clever as she was, had miscalculated this time. Lumina had absolutely no intention of sharing a dream with her.
Hmm... but the idea of lying in the Dream Pool with her is still quite appealing.
"Huh? You've changed your personality?" Herta asked, her face filled with astonishment. Observing that Lumina wasn't lying, she wore an expression that seemed to say, You're not Lumina! Who are you really?
"Hey, hey, hey! What kind of image do you even have of me?" Lumina's lips twitched involuntarily as she observed the expression on Herta's face.
"Hmm... The kind of girl who's utterly paralyzed by the sight of a beautiful girl?"
Herta earnestly lowered her head to ponder this, recalling Lumina's behavior toward Asta, March 7th, and even herself. After a moment, she voiced her perception of Lumina's character.
[Succinct, vivid, authentic, and piercingly accurate.]
Seeing the atmosphere had reached this point, the System couldn't resist adding another jab.
Lumina: ...
"Madam Herta, I think you might have some misunderstandings about me," Lumina said, her lips twitching uncontrollably before forcing a strained smile.
While Herta wasn't entirely wrong, setting aside ten thousand facts, she was definitely misunderstanding something.
"Is that so?" Herta nodded, seeming to realize her assessment of Lumina might have been too extreme.
After pondering further, Herta, with utmost seriousness, revised her assessment: "Not someone who freezes in his tracks at the sight of a beautiful girl, but someone who simply stops moving altogether."
[Fair enough, fair enough. Herta did misunderstand earlier. This time, she's finally expressing her true feelings.]
"Why can the System only block half of itself at a time?"
Ignoring the two lines of text on the screen, Lumina scoffed and blocked the System again.
Then, she flashed a smile and began pacing around the room, right in front of Herta.
After a while, Lumina asked, "See? I can walk so casually and confidently even with a super-duper beautiful girl like you, Madam Herta, right in front of me."
"Do I look like the kind of person who freezes in place at the sight of a beautiful girl, or someone who can't move at all when they see one?"
"Hmm, you certainly don't," Herta nodded in agreement.
"After all... it's not a matter of looking alike or not."
"When has the main body ever compared itself to its own main body?"
As a genius, Herta naturally approached problems with rigorous logic.
Take Lumina's question, for example. Herta herself was someone who froze in place at the sight of a beautiful girl and couldn't move at all when she saw one. So, how could there even be a question of looking alike or not?
Lumina: ...
"Let's enter the Dream Pool."
Seeing Herta's earnest expression and realizing she likely couldn't salvage her image in Herta's eyes, Lumina sighed helplessly.
Lumina was tired. Lumina wanted to rest. Lumina wanted to be with a beautiful girl...