Charlie looked at the little girl, her expression blank. No matter how she looked at that small face, it seemed stupid. "I came to say goodbye. This time, I'm really leaving. We may never get the chance to meet again."
Sonia couldn't help asking, "But didn't you just come back?"
"Come back? This isn't my hometown." The Swarm's Overmind gave a derisive laugh. Ignoring Charlie, she walked straight to the center of the hall to activate the mechanism beneath the palace.
Four months ago, she had unlocked the mechanism here, obtained the star chart of the Spiral Nebula, and claimed the last "inheritance" her father had left her.
Inheritance? Heh. Was it really an inheritance? I almost got melted by another version of myself.
Charlie sighed, nearly losing herself in those memories again. A sense of utter solitude emanated from her, as if she alone stood in the entire universe. And so, a heavy sadness silently settled over the vast stone palace, filling it with an oppressive presence that made one's heart tremble. Summer's end was still some way off, yet the air already carried the bleak chill of all things withering.
"Brrr, it's so cold~~~~" Sonia murmured.
Charlie coughed, and the grim expression that had just appeared on her face vanished without a trace. She came back to herself and walked to the center of the hall.
She was about to send her psionic energy into the mechanism when, annoyed, she used telekinesis to move aside the sod covering the floor. Then she kicked away a worker bee that was still producing creep. Only then did the hard, polished stone tiles beneath finally come into view.
Charlie was mortified. She knew that when she'd kicked out, that aura of being alone and apart from the world had naturally vanished