Once I dealt with a few minor troubles, I would understand what this key was for."
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Amber's Unease
With that cryptic statement, Amber took out her terminal again and sent Gwen an address.
However, Gwen, who had just discussed "minor troubles" with Otto during the day, easily understood what Amber meant—
Three days later, he was to go to that location, meet the other members of the Caslana family, get along with them, and naturally cement his identity as a member of the Caslana family.
As for whether those collateral relatives would object, or whether they might exclude him as an outsider, Gwen remained skeptical for the time being—
Although nearly every Caslana who appeared in the story had been a hot-blooded fool, Gwen would not assume that every Caslana was a universally good person.
As the saying went, a big forest had all kinds of birds. Gwen did not believe that a family with a heritage spanning centuries had not produced even a single narrow-minded person.
Of course, it would be best if there were none. If there were, they would be the minor troubles Gwen needed to deal with.
As for the key Otto had asked Amber to deliver, Gwen guessed that it had originally belonged to the Caslana family or was used to unlock something belonging to them. For some unknown reason, it had ended up in Otto's hands over the long years.
For example, perhaps the head of the family two generations ago had handed over some of the family's foundations to the Schicksal Bishop, who had already openly and covertly taken control of the Caslana family, in order to plead for his rebellious beloved son...
"Three days from now... I'll be there on time."
He pulled out his terminal and took a look. Besides the very clear address, there was also a detailed time requirement. Gwen nodded, spoke slowly, and slipped the key into his pocket.
"Mm, the message has been delivered. It's getting late, so I'll take my leave first."
Seeing Gwen finally put the key into his pocket, Amber silently breathed a sigh of relief. As she spoke, she prepared to rise and leave, only for Gwen to stop her—
"Hey, it's still early. Sister Amber, sit a little longer..."
Smiling, Gwen refilled Amber's half-empty teacup. He had no intention of letting Amber leave just like that.
"I'm completely in the dark about the Caslana family right now. If you know anything, Sister Amber, could you help me understand them a little better?"
Although Gwen estimated from Otto's reaction that dealing with those minor troubles would be easy, he was still accustomed to gathering intelligence on his opponents three days from now, lest he stumble due to an information gap like Rita had.
As the bishop's secretary, Amber might not have paid attention to people too insignificant to catch Otto's eye amid her daily workload, but she should at least have some impression of them.
And those people who had left even some impression on Amber were precisely the ones Gwen needed to pay the most attention to.
Facing Gwen's intent gaze, Amber shifted her long legs lightly in discomfort. Fortunately, the goggles on her face concealed her expression, preventing her from looking overly uneasy—
Although she had been in this world for more than forty years, Amber had spent almost all her time working at headquarters and had little experience being alone with others.
Discussing work was fine, but now that the work was over, continuing to chat left Amber feeling somewhat at a loss.
Not knowing how to continue communicating with Gwen for a moment, Amber simply treated it as work in the face of his gaze.
However, since Amber had never paid much attention to those people, once she began reporting in a worklike manner, she quickly exhausted what little information she had and became uneasy again.
Fortunately, Gwen was not blind to her discomfort and tried hard to find topics that would help Amber relax.
Yet those topics often died after only a few sentences because Amber was too straightforward and innocent. In the end, Gwen could only helplessly return to subjects Amber was good at, such as the current external situation and developments around the world.
Once they began discussing something familiar to her, Amber's unease gradually faded, and she even began to speak with some enthusiasm...
"That is roughly the current situation within Anti-Entropy..."
After briefly explaining Anti-Entropy's current circumstances, Amber pressed her dry lips together, only to find that her teacup was empty.
Before Amber could refill it herself, Gwen moved to pour her more tea, only to discover that the teapot was empty as well. He hurriedly got up to add water.
Watching Gwen rise to refill the pot, Amber suddenly felt dazed. This was the third pot of tea, wasn't it? Had she... talked too much?
She hurriedly checked the time and found that it was only ten o'clock, not particularly late yet. Only then did Amber relax slightly.
When Gwen returned, before he could refill Amber's tea, she said:
"It really is getting late, Gwen. I'll take my leave first.
Once I return, I'll organize the information you need and send it to your terminal."
"It is indeed getting late..."
Gwen glanced at the time and did not try to keep Amber any longer, but neither did he agree to her offer.
"There's no need to go looking up information specifically for this.
I only asked you because I wanted to know whether there were any troublesome people among them. Since even you have no impression of anyone, Sister Amber, I assume there aren't any. There's no need to investigate further."
"This... all right..."
Amber blinked at his words. After hesitating for a moment, she did not insist.
Soon, after watching Amber leave, Gwen returned to the sofa, poured himself a cup of tea, and slowly drank as he organized the information he had obtained from the uneasy Amber—
Although Amber's awareness of confidentiality had prevented her from revealing any secret intelligence, even the information she believed she could tell Gwen, combined with the understanding Gwen had built through games in his previous life, gave him a much deeper understanding of this world.
The most important of it was undoubtedly the news about Anti-Entropy.
Just as Gwen had originally guessed, Welt, the Alliance Leader of Anti-Entropy, had vanished from sight. Those factions that had joined Anti-Entropy not for ideals but for profit had begun to harbor their own ambitions—
After the Second Honkai War, news of the Honkai was still being suppressed, but the commotion caused by the war had nevertheless made many "important figures" in the ordinary world aware of its existence.
Compared to Schicksal, which Otto the "tyrant" held firmly in one hand, the loosely structured Anti-Entropy was clearly more appealing to those "important figures."
With Welt absent for years, those people, whose motives had never been pure to begin with, naturally started making moves—
The increasingly distinct division between the "radicals" and the "conservatives" was proof of how deeply those people had infected Anti-Entropy.
Because of this, North America, once treated as Anti-Entropy's own backyard, was no longer so obedient.
After considering it for a while, Gwen set the matter aside and did not dwell on it—
It was too early to study Anti-Entropy now or think about how to defect from Schicksal.
And even if Gwen were going to leave, he would seek out the two conservative scientists with higher moral standards, not the vermin of the so-called radical faction.
Cocolia, but the Great Guardian
However, for Gwen at present, the situation before him was more worthy of thought than Anti-Entropy on the far side of the Atlantic.
"If nothing unexpected happens, I'm probably a pawn in Otto's plan to scheme against Siegfried or Heavenly Fire Judgment..."
Fiddling with the key Amber had taken out at the end, Gwen sipped his tea leisurely as he thought to himself,
"If nothing unexpected happens, the news that I, a bloodline lost outside the family, have returned to the family and have even vaguely become the family head in substance will soon reach Siegfried and draw his attention.
Given the personality of that uncle... who was fairly clear about love and hate, he probably won't bear much ill will toward me. He'll most likely think it's Otto's scheme and treat me with caution mixed with a little sympathy. After all, Otto is far too good at making enemies.
Mm... if I get the chance to contact him privately in the future, I can try communicating with him as a potential ally.
But before confirming a friendly relationship, I still need to remain somewhat cautious. It would be bad if he mistook me for Otto's lackey and roasted me with one shot."
Thinking of Siegfried, his apparent enemy for the time being, Gwen finished one cup of tea and poured himself another—
"And... my identity...
It probably can't be like those other transmigration novels, where I'm the originally nonexistent son of Cecilia and Siegfried..."
Thinking of the face he saw in the mirror every morning and night, Gwen shook his head slightly.
Over the past year or so, Gwen's body had grown rapidly. His height had shot up, and his features had gradually matured. Compared to the fake little boy he had been a year ago, he now looked like a grown young man.
Yet as time passed, Gwen had vaguely begun to feel an abnormal sense of familiarity whenever he looked at his own face. It was not because he saw it every day, but because there was another similar face that mattered greatly to him.
It was not until one night, after finishing an examination and greeting Otto, that Gwen suddenly realized that Otto's face, with its gentle smile, seemed far too familiar. Familiar enough that it felt like he saw it every day.
After changing the hair and eye colors in his mind and giving him a different hairstyle, Gwen realized in shock that he seemed to... perhaps... more or less resemble Otto a little?
Only after several more careful observations did Gwen finally confirm that he had not been mistaken. He immediately discarded the possibility that he was the originally nonexistent child of Cecilia and Siegfried.
At the same time, that discovery made Gwen's speculation that he was an Experimental Subject from one of Otto's experiments even more likely—
Records of Otto conducting human experiments and cloning experiments could be traced back decades. It was not impossible that he had used himself as experimental material as well.
Moreover, the memories in his mind had not become clearer with his cultivation of the Spirit Awakening Scripture. Instead, they remained vague and even seemed increasingly illusory. This made Gwen more inclined to believe that they were memories Otto had fabricated for this Experimental Subject rather than memories from his previous body.
As for whether he could use that identity as a get-out-of-death-free card, Gwen did not hold much hope.
Had Otto not been utterly ruthless when brainwashing Theresa, the beloved granddaughter he had once believed had inherited Kallen's soul?
He was merely an Experimental Subject that could be mass-produced. He should not dream too beautifully.
Besides, since he had the ability to actively choose the future he wanted, Gwen would never hand over the initiative and let someone else decide his future...
After further advancing his analysis of his identity, Gwen finished a pot of tea without adding more water and prepared to go to bed—
Cultivating with the Light Shadow Stone's energy still required the cover of a blanket.
But just as Gwen was about to stand up, an indescribable feeling suddenly caused him to freeze.
For a moment, Gwen found it hard to describe what kind of feeling it was. Yet following that feeling, he instantly summoned his system.
Closing the status panel he had been viewing earlier, Gwen followed that feeling and did not look at the Chat Group, which had disappointed him countless times over the past year. Instead, he looked toward the sidebar on the left.
There, a striking red message notification entered Gwen's sight.
"This is..."
His heart filled with surprise and delight, Gwen opened the interface marked by the red dot and saw a message from a blank avatar—
"Hello, may I ask who you are?"
By the time Gwen came to his senses, he realized that he had already opened the chat box first.
Looking at the chat box before him, which was almost identical to the social media software he had used in his previous life, Gwen felt as though he were privately chatting with a Netizen.
However, although his brain had briefly crashed from excessive surprise, Gwen had not been overwhelmed by it.
Rather than immediately answering the stranger's question, Gwen clicked back to the Chat Group page. Seeing that he was still the only person inside, a storm of emotions rose in his heart—
"Could it be... just like part of the upgrade system's functions were shattered, the Chat Group is also partly broken, and the part that broke just happens to be the group chat function...?"
At the thought of that possibility, Gwen's heart could not help but twitch.
While countless thoughts churned in Gwen's mind, in another corner of the universe, someone else was equally uncertain in the lonely city of Belobog, trapped by wind and snow—
Not far from the magnificent Qlipoth Fort, within the private residence where generations of Great Guardians had lived, Cocolia Rand, the current Great Guardian, frowned as she looked at the notebook before her.
After becoming the Great Guardian, Cocolia, like each of her predecessors, had begun to receive the Stellaron's incessant whispers and temptations.
Even though Cocolia considered her will strong, she found it difficult not to be affected by the Stellaron's whispers in the face of harsh reality.
That afternoon, Cocolia had received a battle report from the front. Under the assault of Rift monsters, the front lines had suffered grievous losses. The battle line had retreated once more and had even withdrawn into Belobog's urban district.
Having lost territory and cities, Cocolia could already imagine how those old men in the city would put on their hypocritical performances. Coupled with the unceasing whispers in her ears, she was irritated beyond measure.
Yet with the war situation worsening, Cocolia could not simply abandon her governmental affairs. She could only force her exhausted mind to keep working, not returning home until midnight.
Fortunately, her adopted daughter was gradually growing up and becoming more sensible, which brought Cocolia considerable comfort.
Still, the irritation in her heart made it difficult for Cocolia to sleep. She prepared to find some old book left in the study at some unknown time and read it as a form of "sleep aid."
However, before she found a dull book suitable for helping her sleep, Cocolia unexpectedly discovered an Invitation Letter wedged in a gap between some books.
Mutual Probing
Cocolia occasionally had to attend banquets and deal with the city's powerful figures, so she initially assumed that the Invitation Letter had been placed there at some unknown time by herself or one of the previous Great Guardians.
Yet when she casually opened the Invitation Letter, which for some reason was still brand-new, the thin letter suddenly blossomed with light and transformed into... a mobile phone?
Cocolia, who had not cared much just moments ago, immediately became highly alert—
Even in books and documents describing Belobog before it suffered its catastrophe, there was no record of such a strange transformation.
Yet no matter how Cocolia tested it, she could only conclude that it was an utterly ordinary mobile phone.
But Cocolia, who had just witnessed a single thin Invitation Letter turn into a stack of the common mobile phones currently produced in Belobog, clearly would not treat it as an ordinary phone.
After receiving no response at all, Cocolia hesitated for a moment before picking up the unremarkable phone, which seemed as though it truly was just an ordinary mobile phone.
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