Sylvia shook her head, telling March 7th not to worry.
"If they're looking to assign blame, they should go find the other genius. It's not like I was the one running the experiment."
Sylvia was brimming with confidence.
And as it turned out, Herta was indeed tracking down Ruan Mei at that very moment to settle the score.
"Ruan Mei, take a look at this. Your little experiment has completely trashed my space station."
"My mistake. I will compensate for the damages," Ruan Mei replied smoothly. "But more importantly, Sylvia managed to keep that Starcrusher Swarm King—which was only supposed to survive for fifty-six seconds—alive for nearly ten more. Herta, do you know anything about that?"
"Oh? Is that so? What did she do?"
"She did the exact same thing as that Doomsday Beast, though it didn't seem to quite succeed."
Unsurprisingly, it took only a single sentence for Herta to completely toss the space station incident to the back of her mind.
After all, compared to a giant toy, nothing captivated a genius's attention quite like the unknown.
Besides, fixing up a single Seclusion Zone wouldn't cost Herta much anyway. To be honest, it was hardly worth getting worked up over.
If Asta hadn't sent her a text saying the Express was ready to set sail, Herta might have forgotten Sylvia even existed.
It wasn't long before Sylvia received a text from Asta regarding the Express.
Only then did she, Mei, and the others finally leave the Seclusion Zone.
As for the Cat Cakes, they were naturally left settled in their original spot rather than being brought along.
Herta soon crossed paths with Sylvia, but she didn't say a word about the state of the Seclusion Zone.
Instead, she merely urged Sylvia to hurry along to the platform.
Herta didn't press for details regarding Mei, who had suddenly appeared by Sylvia's side, either.
Though...
The way Herta sized Sylvia up was a bit peculiar.
It was an odd, intense gaze, almost as if she wanted to strip Sylvia down to her bare secrets and consume every drop of knowledge, which left Sylvia feeling a little unnerved.
--+--
Down on the platform.
The Astral Express, fully repaired and looking completely revitalized, sat resting on the tracks.
It looked fresh out of the factory, right down to a brand-new coat of paint.
Even the researcher in charge of the project remarked that, at this point, the frame was practically the only original part left of the Astral Express.
The supervisor was incredibly worried that the moment the thing started up, it would just fly wildly through space before getting dragged down by the gravity of The Blue.
He simply couldn't fathom how installing all those components onto a train would ever allow it to perform an interstellar warp.
Yet, despite receiving a report like that, Herta stepped into the passenger car without a care in the world.
Preparing to board along with her were March 7th, Stelle, Sylvia, and Mei.
Ruan Mei did make an appearance, but she only offered a smiling greeting to Sylvia from the platform.
"Sylvia, here are your little pets, returned to you completely safe and sound."
Handing the two Pokéballs back to Sylvia, Ruan Mei continued, "I will be staying at the space station for a few more days. Regarding those little ones, if you like them, you are more than welcome to take them with you."
"We'll see. Those little guys seem to really like you, their creator."
Ruan Mei offered a soft smile at those words but didn't say much else. After tucking the Pokéballs away, Sylvia extended an invitation to her.
"Aren't you going to come aboard the Express to take a look? Who knows, it might just be a success."
"No need. I have other matters that capture my interest."
The Trailblazing Astral Express could certainly be considered a Curio, but it didn't fall within the scope of Ruan Mei's interests.
After conducting an analysis on the two bugs Sylvia had handed over to her, she had developed quite an interest in Permanence. In the future, she might just have to make a trip out to the Xianzhou Luofu.
Seeing Ruan Mei decline, Sylvia didn't press further.
She said her goodbyes to Asta and stepped onto the train.
Inside the passenger car.
Sylvia glanced around, noticing that Herta and the researcher in charge were nowhere to be seen.
"March, where did they go?"
"Huh? You mean Herta? I think she said she was heading to the engine room. The supervisor is there too, apparently handling the train's ignition."
Right at that moment—
The Express's intercom crackled to life.
Herta's voice echoed through the speakers.
"Ahem—Sylvia, can you hear me? The Astral Express's ignition test is about to begin. You count it down—"
As she spoke, the voice on the intercom switched over to the researcher in charge.
As the countdown commenced, the entire train began to vibrate slightly.
Sylvia took a glance at the experiment manual.
According to the instructions, this vibration and ringing in the ears were just normal phenomena from the engine's initial startup, and they would fade once the energy stabilized.
"Three—two—one—launch!!"
The supervisor's tone sounded far more ecstatic than anyone else present.
Then, accompanied by a wave of tremors, the train finally began to roll forward slowly, steadily picking up speed as it hurtled toward the boundless starry sky.
"Woohoo—it's moving!"
March 7th pressed herself against the train window to look outside, waving enthusiastically toward Asta.
This repaired train was something she and her team had personally dragged back, after all!
As for Mei, she sat down right next to Sylvia, gazing out at the distant starry sky through the window.
"The view from inside the train truly is wonderful."
"I'm planning to head over to the engine room to take a look. What about you?"
Sylvia was incredibly curious about how the Astral Express actually started up, so she intended to go watch with Herta.
"I'll go too."
Mei didn't hesitate for a single second. Just moments after praising the view right here, the second she heard Sylvia was going somewhere else, she immediately abandoned her spot.
Meanwhile, March 7th and Stelle had already dashed off to the rear cars to explore.
They muttered something about picking out their rooms on this train now, so they'd have a place to sleep on both sides in the future.
Sylvia didn't mind them, walking straight toward the front of the train.
There hadn't been enough time to properly adapt the new engine model, so it had simply been bolted down as is inside the compartment.
The moment you stepped through the door, you could see its main body.
A massive cluster of cables and pipes ran directly into the surrounding walls, its exact purpose entirely a mystery.
It was here that Sylvia found the bustling supervisor, along with Herta, who stood waiting off to the side.
"Hey, you made it."
Herta glanced at Sylvia and nodded.
The supervisor turned to Sylvia and said, "I was just about to go looking for you. The train is all set and ready for the ignition test at any moment."
"Sorry to trouble you. Let's get started then."
"You got it!"
The control space at the front of the train carried a thoroughly vintage atmosphere.
To put it bluntly, you couldn't even see a single control stick.
The engine's startup had actually been rigged by the supervisor using two exposed wires hooked up to an external controller.
Rumble—
A low hum thrummed beneath their feet along with the vibration.
Peering out through the front windows of the train, the Express was already being propelled forward, accelerating off the platform.
Within a matter of seconds, it gathered incredible speed and soared right out of the space station!
The wheels beneath the train detached from the tracks, and the clattering sound of metal on rails abruptly vanished.
"The train has cleared the space station tracks and officially entered the vacuum environment."
The supervisor's broadcast was still going, but in the next second, his thrilled tone twisted into sheer panic.
"Wait, wait, wait—we're deviating from the projected course!! I can't control the front of the train, we're getting caught by The Blue's gravity!! Are we still accelerating?!"
--+--
T/N: If you want advance chapters, you can find it at [email protected]/AspenTL