"That's really strange..."
Raven stood in a corner of the arcade, holding a cup of soda and watching the two guys frantically mashing buttons in front of the arcade machine.
If she could take a picture, she'd really want to bring this scene back to the Elysian Realm. After all, Lin and Kevin smiling happily together playing arcade games sounded like a horror story.
Two months had passed since her conversation with Lin, or more accurately, the time in this space had advanced by two months.
The time in this space changed at will, and the location also shifted as time passed.
Over the past two months, she had watched how Kevin's enthusiasm had gradually won Lin over, and how they became friends step by step. If she told anyone else this process, they would surely dismiss it as a fantasy.
She noticed that Lin had many contradictions. He had characteristics that were both extraordinary and perfectly ordinary, but those traits often clashed with his normalcy. For example, he easily believed Raven was from the future, but his personality was completely unlike that of a fanciful, delusional teenager.
Also, he showed interest in the future Raven spoke of, but then bluntly gave up when he knew he couldn't go there.
It was like emotion and rationality existed simultaneously in the same person without conflict.
And the most crucial way to leave still hadn't been found.
"Do these two ever do anything serious?" Raven tossed her empty drink cup into the trash can and sighed. She couldn't remember how many times she had seen the pair skip class to play basketball, sing karaoke, go boating, play games... their leisure life was unbelievably rich.
Incidentally, even with daily truancy, Lin's grades remained high, while Kevin's academic curve was a bit more modest.
Kevin, sitting in front of the arcade machine, nudged Lin's elbow and glanced at Raven in the corner: "Lin, I've been meaning to ask... do you know that female student? I feel like she follows us everywhere."
"She's from the future," Lin, in his usual attire and mask, controlled his character to steal some HP while Kevin was distracted, his face unchanging. "Ignore her."
"Uh... alright." Kevin turned his head back, confused, only to find that his character had been ground down to a sliver of health by Lin.
"Damn it! Lin, you're too dishonorable!"
While Kevin was fumbling with the controls, Lin also spared a glance for Raven, pondering her sighing expression for a moment.
...
"Do you need something?"
After sending Kevin away, Lin walked up to Raven.
"Do you have a reason to stay around the two of us all the time, other than your 'future person' identity?"
"You guessed it."
Raven had wanted to ask Lin directly, like Mei, if there was a way to leave, but every time she tried to talk, Lin would ignore her or pretend she didn't exist. Over time, this forced her to follow them like a phantom, relying solely on eye contact to pressure Kevin and Lin.
It proved to be an effective tactic. Lin was initiating conversation.
"I didn't want to bother you guys, sigh..."
In that far-off future, so distant that they might not even remember this happy time, both of them had forgotten how to smile, bearing their suffering alone.
This made Raven feel a kind of empathy. Her childhood experience and her adult self made her reluctant to destroy their still-youthful past.
If only she could.
"Lin, if you..."
"If I still exist in some form in that so-called fifty thousand years in the future, what would my current self think?"
"..."
Raven first stared at Lin in silence, then touched her moist, thin lips, wondering if she had spoken unintentionally. After confirming that Lin had spoken first, she looked at him with renewed suspicion.
"I can't read minds." Lin dispelled her thought. He crossed his arms, a posture identical to his future self. "You've been tracking Kevin and me separately, which means you knew us from the start. Combined with your claim of the 'future,' it's not hard to guess."
"No, you're severely underestimating yourself," Raven retorted.
Could anyone truly come up with such a bold conjecture?
"You are currently restricted by some kind of dilemma and have come to seek my help. Is it because of something that happened in the future?"
"No... this is a bit... complicated to explain." Raven found it difficult to explain. She couldn't just say that he was a memory construct, his friend was a memory construct, and what they were doing was just a memory playback of their originals.
Lin lowered his head and contemplated for a few seconds, then looked up and said: "I'm data, Kevin is data, and this space is made of data. You are a living person, trapped here."
"...Do you have mind-reading abilities?"
"To be preserved for fifty thousand years, I could only think of one way: storing memories as data."
"It's not the only way."
"Is Kevin alive?" Lin's abrupt change of topic brought the conversation to a new place.
"...I don't know if I can call him alive."
After seeing the current Kevin, Raven couldn't connect him with the sovereign outside. The World Serpent sovereign still looked like Kevin on the outside, but his essence might have long been another person.
Sacrificing his sensitivity to emotion to fight the Honkai—could that be considered being alive?
"That's good." Lin wasn't too surprised by this answer. He told Raven, "Ask whatever you want. However, I probably can't help you. No matter what I become in the future, right now I'm just a student. After you're done, I have things to do."
Raven was surprised by his carefree attitude: "Don't you find it hard to accept? That you're just virtual data or something?"
"Analyzing the low-level logic of a matter allows one's acceptance capacity to increase."
"I have to hand it to you."
After this, Raven thoroughly explained the situation, telling Lin about the Elysian Realm, the Thirteen Flame-Chasers, Memory Construct Lin, and the mysterious staircase.
"Since you lost your original equipment upon entering here, it's very likely that this isn't truly another space. This situation, similar to a game's setting where 'entering a certain area causes rule changes and equipment restrictions,' shouldn't happen in the Elysian Realm, according to you."
"But you're sure this is still within the Elysian Realm, which means there is something that has altered your perception, rather than truly moving you into another area."
After listening to Raven's account, Lin quickly analyzed the crux of the problem.
"Altering perception..." Raven thought of something, and that something did happen to exist in the Elysian Realm.
Could it be...
At that moment, an alarm suddenly rang out like a death knell.