"Mr. Lin, please pay attention to your meal composition. Do not overeat. Here is the diet plan from the Doctor." The girl with pale green hair and dark circles under her eyes handed the list to Prometheus. After glancing at Prometheus's elbow joints again, she said, "Also, if possible, please let this... young lady help you with some simple exercises."
"I understand." Lin, in his wheelchair, nodded, moving his neck with difficulty.
"The Doctor said she would personally give you some other things. She hopes you recover quickly so you can lie on her operating table."
"..."
"Goodbye, Mr. Lin... I hope we can meet again."
Klein returned after relaying Mobius's message, leaving only Lin and Prometheus, who was pushing his wheelchair, on the tarmac, waiting for the transport plane to be prepped.
A refreshing wind ruffled the edges of their clothes. Lin gazed at the distant horizon of the sea. The empty, information-less interface felt unusual but allowed him to feel a long-lost sense of relaxation.
After a while, he quietly closed his eyes, savoring the hard-won peace.
"Lin, aren't you going to say goodbye to them?"
Prometheus looked at the base and asked the closed-eyed Lin.
"Who?"
"Your squad members, Doctor Mei, Kevin, Vil-V, the Fifth Squad... and Elysia."
Based on the information Prometheus had gathered from the intranet, Lin was more withdrawn before than he was now. In the months after joining the Moth of the Flame, he had no interaction with anyone except Delta and his squad members until Elysia actively sought him out.
From the results, Lin should have changed somewhat, but after the Fourth Eruption ended, Prometheus sensed an unfamiliar feeling from Lin.
She was an artificial intelligence and couldn't use more concrete words to describe that feeling. She had been by Lin's side during the Third Eruption and hadn't encountered him before that, but she did notice that Lin spoke even less now.
"..."
Usually, Lin would explain why he wasn't saying goodbye, but now he just continued to close his eyes in silence.
The transport plane's engines started, driving away the gentle wind.
"Let's go."
Prometheus pushed Lin into the transport plane. Amidst the low whirring of the rotors, they moved away from what was envisioned to be humanity's last stronghold.
Right after Lin's transport plane left, another transport plane landed on the tarmac.
"You have to make it, Squad Member Lin..."
A blood-stained girl jumped off the transport plane and rushed anxiously into Headquarters.
...
"This card has no spending limit. Please feel free to use it."
Dressed in a black suit and black sunglasses, a deliberate attire seemingly only to highlight his identity, the man handed a card bearing the name of XX Bank to Prometheus. Then, the wrinkles on his face shifted as he said, "We will not interfere with your daily life, but please do not leave this city and cause trouble for us."
"..."
Lin nodded. The man then left the house immediately.
This was Lin's first time living in a villa, a luxurious, three-story mansion spanning five hundred square meters. The opulent decorations, which made gold clink audibly, were enough to make Lin's ears numb.
The space was so vast that a hundred Lins would be more than enough. A child of a few years old might be excited enough to play there for days, but Lin felt an uncomfortable sensation, like having needles in his back.
The villa was fully equipped with invisible surveillance equipment, covering every blind spot.
He hadn't come to enjoy a grand villa but to be a prisoner in a beautifully decorated jail.
"Lin, what should we do next?"
"Wait."
Inside the helmet, where no one could see, a large amount of data quietly returned to his blank display screen.
...
"Hmm? Was this staircase here in the Elysian Realm before?"
Raven, wandering around the Elysian Realm, walked into an unfamiliar place.
The places she had reached in the Elysian Realm were far from its limits. Raven was interested in the deepest parts of the Realm but felt no need to investigate. As she had told Mei, she was just getting paid to do a job, and knowing more meant dying faster, a rule that a mercenary had to strictly abide by.
So, upon reaching this unseen area, her first point of focus wasn't the strange scenery but the very conspicuous staircase that stretched upward into the unknown.
Of course, unusual phenomena were common in the Elysian Realm. For example, Lin's perpetually rainy grave was considered commonplace.
The strangest thing about this staircase was a sign placed in front of the bottom step, upon which four large characters were neatly written.
Do Not Go Up.
"...What the heck," Raven's mouth twitched.
How to put it... just having a funny, out-of-place sign appear in the Elysian Realm was enough to lower one's guard. Moreover, in this situation, being told not to look only made one more curious about what was up there.
So, should she go up and look, or not?
While Raven was hesitating, a faint meow came from above. Then, Raven saw Can, the cat, tumble down the stairs and safely land, balancing in mid-air.
After meowing boastfully at the stunned Raven, Can, holding something in its mouth, hopped and skipped away along a small path.
A cat? Why was it here?
"Hmm? It looks like there's something written on the back..." Raven noticed in her peripheral vision that there seemed to be writing on the back of the sign. She took two steps forward and saw what was written...
If you insist on going up, I won't stop you either.
"...Is this some kind of helpless compromise?"
Raven was still unsure. The Elysian Realm held too many unsolved mysteries. For the sake of safety, neither she nor Lin allowed others to come into contact with overly dangerous elements.
Lin was like a bottom line in the Elysian Realm. Most things he didn't allow visitors to touch were things that weren't necessary and shouldn't be touched.
Even though he wasn't one of the Thirteen Flame-Chasers...
Wait a minute.
At this moment, a flash of insight struck Raven. Thinking of the other "Lin" that Mei had mentioned in the Elysian Realm, a bold conjecture formed in her mind.
Why was Lin not one of the Thirteen Flame-Chasers, nor an armed puppet like Klein, yet he held a pivotal role in the Elysian Realm, like a guide? Furthermore, the Flame-Chasers' attitude toward him was often one of respect, like an elder.
What could have happened for a memory construct of a person who wasn't even a MANTIS to enter the Elysian Realm?
Perhaps their guess about the direction was wrong from the beginning?
The Elysian Realm changes under the influence of the Flame-Chasers' and visitors' memories. So, could this Lin actually be composed of the memories of the Flame-Chasers?
Although they hadn't seen a human reproduced purely from memory, most enemies in the Elysian Realm were created by the memories of the Flame-Chasers and visitors. Combined with the cat just now, a memory construct formed from the collective memories of the group wasn't impossible, was it?
These consecutive questions made Raven's gaze slowly turn toward the upper part of the staircase.
Her intuition was usually accurate, and this time, her intuition told her that the answer to her questions lay at the top of this staircase.
"Whatever, I'll just consider myself scouting for the Lady," Raven sighed. After a moment of hesitation, she nonchalantly put on her hood and stepped onto the staircase.
No one had expected that after Raven ventured toward that unknown end, she would never emerge again.