After the feeding session ended.
Alice-nushi turned over and straddled Jack's lap, their eyes meeting.
"Alice-nushi, if I may be a bit sentimental, why were you willing to become my dependent?"
"Why? Hmm, did I even have a choice at that point?"
"Is it really because of Klee? I don't believe it. I can feel that you have no resistance to becoming my dependent, as if you already knew it was your destiny to become my dependent and accepted it calmly."
"Oh my, men who are too perceptive can be disliked by girls, you know~"
"Then do you dislike me?"
"I don't dislike you. If Mama disliked Papa, our daughter wouldn't talk to me."
Alice-nushi answered Jack with a smile, indirectly admitting that she had known she would become a dependent all along.
But this made Jack very curious.
How could she, a character who hadn't even appeared in the original story, foresee a variable like himself, a Fourth Catastrophe?
Even the Irminsul, which didn't record Lumine, couldn't do it, but the Hexenzirkel could?
"Then another question: Lumine is the Fourth Descender. Am I counted as the Fourth along with her, or am I the Fifth?"
"Are you a 'Why' machine? Why so many questions!"
Alice-nushi's index finger, painted with red nail polish, blocked Jack's lips.
Her face was so close, as if she was about to kiss him at any moment.
[Jack: You even know the 'Why' machine meme. Have you been to Earth?]
[Alice-nushi: Eh? You're using telepathy now, darn it, this way I can't shut your mouth!]
[Jack: If you want to shut my mouth, your hand won't work.]
[Alice-nushi: Then what should I use? (Curious.jpg)]
"An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth... and a mouth, naturally, must be shut with a mouth."
Jack pried open Alice-nushi's fingers and forcefully kissed her.
However, Alice-nushi did not act as he had imagined, teasing him by offering benefits but keeping him at arm's length, maintaining the safe distance witches usually did.
Instead, she awkwardly served him with her soft, sweet tongue.
A few minutes later.
Alice-nushi lifted her head, a hint of playfulness in her red eyes.
"I know you have many questions, Papa, but let me explain everything to you later, how about that?"
"Alright, Mama."
Following this momentum, their relationship grew closer, brought together by Klee as a bridge.
"Hmm, where should I even begin? It's a bit long."
"No matter, I have plenty of time. Take your time."
"Alright! Listening to Klee's father, then let's start from when I was just a newly created folder."
"Wait! What do you mean you were a folder? There's too much to unpack there."
"Eh? Am I not even a folder? Damn it, this game company wouldn't have just designed our precious Klee and forgotten her beautiful, generous, gentle, and kind mother, would they!"
"Is the company you're referring to MiHoYo?"
"Yes, yes, yes! That's them! If I ever get a chance to go to the Blue Star, I'll have to make time to send them a big gift (a bomb) and blow up their headquarters!"
"Then they probably wouldn't want to actualize your character even more."
"It doesn't matter, even if we really encounter it, it's just a parallel universe. Alice said it's okay to blow it up!"
"Good! Then let's blow it up! I'll throw one in too!"
"Hehe, Klee's father, I find that we're quite a good match. Do you think we should have a little sister for Klee?"
"Don't get sidetracked, continue."
"Hmm, what an unromantic, silly father."
Alice pinched Jack's nose, then continued.
"Where was I? Oh right, I actually knew from the beginning that I was just a game character, and one that didn't even have a folder created, just a background character described in a few lines in the game's main story."
"But even so, the brave and strong Miss Alice didn't lose heart, but was diligently fulfilling her duty to protect Teyvat!"
"Protect Teyvat? Elaborate."
"It's the brave and strong Miss Alice protecting Teyvat! Klee's father, please say it completely."
"Alright, alright, alright, brave and strong Miss Alice, how do you protect Teyvat, and why do you protect it?"
Alice smiled, quite pleased, but then, thinking of her job, she pouted, puffed up with anger.
"It's all because of that game company! They always come up with these world-ending and world-saving plots, and someone like me with a mysterious background can only take on such tiring and difficult tasks."
"Indeed. So, what you're about to say next won't involve other company secrets, will it?"
"Not at all, because… even I don't know why I have to protect Teyvat. I just squat at the edge of the world like a machine without self-awareness, vigilant against unknown dangers coming from the Void."
At this point, a trace of confusion appeared on Alice's face.
Combining this with her previous jest, that she was just a character without a newly created folder.
Jack roughly made some judgments.
Alice, a character whose settings MiHoYo hadn't even started to fill in before Jack's transmigration.
Because the plot text was relatively late, in the early stages, they only roughly filled in textual settings for her, such as "guarding Teyvat" and "unable to accompany Klee for many years due to work."
This setting, due to Jack's transmigration, directly resulted in it being unfinished.
So, what Teyvat she was supposed to guard, and how she was to guard it.
She didn't even know the answers to all of this, because the scriptwriter hadn't written them.
"Alright, you don't need to explain any further. I already have a general idea of what happened."
"Eh? Eh!—"
Alice let out a cute gasp: "Klee's father, what do you know! Why doesn't Alice know!"
Jack pinched Alice's tender cheek, which was acting like a maiden though she was an old woman, with a hint of a smile.
"The current Teyvat continent is bound to me. The moment I transmigrated, it stopped updating and is in a semi-finished state."
"So, no matter how MiHoYo supplements the settings or releases new content later, the Teyvat that belongs to 'me' will still not change. Instead, it will stop once I complete the Fontaine main quest (update progress before transmigration)."
"In short, Alice, you are a person outside of the settings, an existence that does not belong to Teyvat! Compared to a background character in the game Genshin Impact, your existence is closer to—an NPC in my Minecraft World!"
Buzz!
As the words fell.
As if a true name had been revealed, an invisible ripple flashed from Alice's body.
Then, a vivid red light appeared, and the boss-exclusive title bar from Minecraft World gradually emerged above her head.
[Void Outworld Witch (☆☆☆☆☆ Unranked)]
At the same time, the Maid character panel suddenly popped out, as if competing for control with the Boss, causing a jumble of unidentifiable garbled characters to appear in the information display box above Alice's head.
After more than ten seconds.
The Maid system gained the upper hand, forcefully defeating the Boss panel.
Another system prompt sounded.
[Boss Void Outworld Witch defeated]
[Reward settlement in progress...]
[Ding!]
[Obtained Spell Stone Void Pearl × 1]
[Obtained Spell Stone Eye of Nebula × 1]
[Obtained Charm Star Catalyst × 1]
[Obtained Aether Ore × 8]
[Obtained world coin × 50,000]
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