Nolan finally learned the truth behind retaining her memories through reincarnation. Unfortunately, the truth was not a pleasant one for her.
More difficult to accept than learning that the world was a false program was discovering that she herself was the product of a program. Although Nolan was far calmer and wiser than others, she was just as unprepared to face this reality.
"You don't have to dwell on it too much," Lily said, moving beside the console to comfort Nolan. "Oh, right, I never introduced myself. I'm Lily. I helped out when we moved you here this time. I've heard Landlord talk about your world. All the humans were transformed into the virtual world, right? If you think about it, they were turned into data too. You're data, and souls are data. There's no difference between you."
Hao Ren glanced at Lily. This husky always managed to be helpful when people least expected it, and her broad-minded way of thinking really suited the situation before them.
Nolan merely smiled at Lily's explanation. "It's fine. You don't have to go out of your way to comfort me. I understand the reasoning. It's just a little painful to suddenly learn about my origins. When I first learned that the real world existed, I even wondered what I might have been like there. I also wondered what kind of life I had lived before entering the virtual world... But now it seems I was just overthinking things. Did my life really begin when the virtual world booted up?"
"All Zhuom people started from the same line. That planet has been completely burned away on the material level, and every person is now nothing but data. In that regard, you're no different from them," Hao Ren reminded her, though he had to admit