Eternal Night's Radiance, Part 1 / Hello, Officer

"You may feel lost about your future for now, but you will eventually find your way forward."

... This sounds like he's just being perfunctory. It's like a fortune teller on the street looking at someone's face and saying, "Sir, I can see you have something on your mind." Isn't that just empty talk?

"Regarding the casual companions you mentioned, I think we can try to subtly probe them. For example, that maid is highly suspicious, and we can definitely try to get information out of her. However, based on the characteristics you described, she seems to be a deep thinker, so it's best not to be too obvious."

"Then there's another one... I don't know about this one. She's a very serious person, and from your description, she clearly doesn't intend to get to know you better. But perhaps there will be some unexpected surprises with her. Observe her behavior more closely, and you can also ask the maid for information about her and get closer to her."

"It's a pity that I can only offer some insignificant advice from across the Quantum Sea. Otherwise, with my rich social skills and excellent ability to influence people's hearts, I would certainly be able to help you."

That concludes the message. After reading all the words, Lin thought for a moment and then typed into the communication device.

"Sigh, that's the power of a considerate and warm-hearted man. Just give him a few pointers, and those two girls are completely charmed."

The man leaned against the carriage wall, feigning melancholy, his tone filled with overwhelming loneliness. He put away his communicator and sighed sadly.

He turned his head and saw the silver-haired girl holding a cup of coffee looking at him expressionlessly, as if she was silently expressing something.

"Little Yan Luo, what kind of look is that? Do you think someone's threatening your position again? That alluring and charming maid, and that aloof little girl who looks exactly like our old acquaintance—they're definitely competitive. Compared to them, our Little Yan Luo is just a clumsy girl who likes to talk trash and once clashed with Lin Daojian. Waaah~ so pitiful~ how can you ever catch up with this disadvantage~"

"Idiot." Yan Luo blew on his coffee, a look of disdain flashing across his eyes. "The analyses you write are only useful to kindergarteners. You call that rich social skills and excellent ability to influence people? You're such a childish idiot who can cry over a magical girl movie. Stop trying to talk like an adult and go flush yourself down the toilet."

"... Little Yan Luo, you seem to be getting increasingly foul-mouthed lately." Ling, who had been thoroughly scolded, sat down on the ground, completely dejected and devoid of any color in her face.

Yan Luo ignored him and went back to drinking his coffee.

"Drop--"

The communicator, which had been put away, rang. Zero picked it up and saw that it was a reply, and the content was...

"I'm not asking about those two. I'm asking about the plot of that magical girl anime you recommended to me last time. Is Xiao Jiu actually the villain?"

"..."

Yan Luo glanced at Ling, who was standing there dumbfounded, rubbed his forehead, shook his head and sighed, "Two idiots."

Rita and the other girl—Lin had indeed considered that they might know something about him, and he had tried to subtly probe them. But Rita completely ignored him, always wearing a sweet smile and playing games with him, while the other...

Lin Mo at the empty treadmill.

The girl I met in the training room earlier Delta; she's a companion I met during the past few months of sailing.

Actually, their encounter was quite bumpy. Both Lin and she had given their all and were covered in wounds. When Lin asked her if she wanted to come with him, she lay on the ground covered in wounds and remained silent for a long time before finally agreeing to him with empty eyes.

For months, she has been keeping to herself. Except when she is needed to fight, she is only a cold, businesslike, and emotionless girl.

What Lin cared about was what she said when she agreed to his request.

The pink-haired girl, her face covered in blood, lay on her back, wearily whispering, "Then let's go as promised..."

At first, Lin thought it was an agreement between them, but upon closer inspection, he could see that something was amiss.

After taking a shower to wash away the sticky feeling from his training, Lin arrived at the Hyperion's lobby and immediately spotted a pink-haired girl lying on the sofa playing a handheld game console.

She changed into her usual red and blue symmetrical outfit, took off her shoes and put them on the sofa, her pretty face, which seemed to be covered with a layer of frost, was facing the handheld game screen, and she was playing the game with complete concentration.

She didn't notice Lin, or rather, even if she did, she felt there was no need to pay attention and continued playing her game.

Lin didn't say anything. He walked to the bookshelf in the hall and started looking for books to read.

The materials and books on the Hyperion are more abundant than imagined, and many of them are related to the Quantum Sea, such as the World Bubble property, Aether Anchor, Isotope, Hunter, Rift, etc. in the Quantum Sea, which encompass everything from systematic knowledge to extremely rare phenomena and monsters.

Did Rita prepare this?

Lin believes that's not entirely true. The first owner of this warship was clearly not Rita; she was a maid, and she introduced herself when they first met. A maid could not possibly be the owner of a warship.

The original owner of the warship had collected a large amount of information. The database contained a dazzling array of files on World Bubble and Aether Anchor, indicating that the other party had not only visited countless World Bubble, but had also carefully and thoroughly investigated the World Bubble they had visited.

Could there be a world of forests within it?

As Lin was browsing through the books, Delta on the sofa suddenly covered her head, frowned, and took a deep breath, which caught Lin's attention.

"..."

Delta has two special symptoms.

"Are you alright?" Lin closed the book and asked casually.

"There haven't been any battles recently." Delta rubbed her temples, her expression not very good. "It'll be fine in a little while."

At that moment, Lin suddenly had an inspiration and came up with a way to get Delta to talk.

"Delta, should we..."

"Captain, Delta, we have arrived at our destination."

The gray-blonde maid appeared at the entrance to the hall at just the right moment, interrupting Lin's words.

Chapter Three: The Eternal Night's Radiance - Beginning

Lin is the captain of the Hyperion, but that doesn't mean he can freely maneuver the warship to wherever he wants. Most of the time, they travel along the routes set by the Hyperion. According to Rita, she found him on the Hyperion's route.

Of course, he didn't know whether this was the Hyperion developing its own consciousness or something left behind by the former captain, but since Rita brought him back and made him the captain of the Hyperion, he should do his part out of both courtesy and reason.

What kind of effort should be put in? This relates to the purpose of the Hyperion's voyage and Lin's special abilities.

The Hyperion will travel to some "distorted" World Bubble, each with different causes of distortion. Due to the special dimensional structure of the Quantum Sea and World Bubble, their time and space are far from normal, making investigation extremely difficult.

Lin's consciousness structure is very special. He can directly project his consciousness into the World Bubble, saving outsiders a lot of unnecessary trouble when entering the World Bubble. It is the best way to investigate the cause of the distortion.

In other words... the Hyperion's purpose is to save those in the World Bubble that is collapsing for various reasons.

Lin agreed with this, saying that he couldn't explain why, after learning that his duty was to save lives, all his past anxieties vanished, and he devoted himself wholeheartedly to the task.

"Thank you for your help this time, Captain." The gray-blonde maid bowed gently to Lin Qingqing with a smile, seeing him off.

Delta leaned against the side, hands in her pockets, chewing bubble gum. She watched the two of them indifferently. She would be responsible for the guards while Lin was away, although she might not have the chance to make a move.

"No need for trouble, just make sure I can have a normal meal when I get back."

"Hehe, Rita will prepare a sumptuous feast for you before you return." Rita smiled and crossed her hands on her lower abdomen. "Then, please set sail, I look forward to your triumphant return."

The night, like saccharin in warm water, melts into the colorful neon lights of the city. All sorts of people float like silhouettes, and joy, noise, and filth play out in every visible and invisible corner.

A flawless, maddeningly bright moon hangs in the sky, splitting from one into two, then into four, its illusory shadows shrouding the light curtain.

The sky seemed to be filled with a hazy mist.

"——————"

In that instant, April returned to normal, the indistinct howls vanished, the magical mist dissipated, and tranquility returned to the heart.

The man clutched his head, a deluge of information assaulting his poor brain. Countless fragmented memories struggled to piece together a comprehensible form, and the iridescent light in his eyes gradually faded under the gentle caress of the moonlight.

After sorting through the details of his memories, the man lowered his hand and looked up to observe his surroundings.

There is a hidden danger in consciousness mapping. Because his identity is automatically corrected when he is mapped into the World Bubble and is treated as "a person who truly exists in this world", each time he enters the World Bubble, memories that belong to him but are not entirely his will enter his brain. Over time, his consciousness may become lost in a large number of memory fragments.

However, that's not now.

After sorting through his memories, Lin officially entered the World Bubble and chose to walk towards the light.

This World Bubble doesn't have any particularly strange or distorted phenomena at first glance. Just last month, Lin and Delta entered a special World Bubble, which contained only two constantly moving cities.

At a certain point each year, the two cities meet, and all sorts of bizarre phenomena occur after Lin and Delta enter the World Bubble and arrive at the time of their meeting. Originally, the two cities should have separated after the time point ended, but they remain linked together, leading to conflicts within the cities and the outbreak of war.

Lin's investigation eventually revealed that the controller of one of the cities had used the Aether Anchor to link the city and wanted to control the other city. This action caused an anomaly in the World Bubble, allowing "Hunter" from the Quantum Sea outside the World Bubble enter it.

Lin and Delta could only defeat the controllers who used the Aether Anchor and then seal off the World Bubble to prevent the Hunter from entering it, but the controllers' actions accelerated the World Bubble's decline; all they did was buy time.

The operating rules of this World Bubble are no different from those of a normal world, at least there are no particularly obvious anomalies.

The city he was in was called Canghai City, and there was certainly a reason why he was wandering around there late at night.

Stepping out of the shadows, Lin glanced back at the deep and intricate alleyways. Cities are never short of such paths, and it's impossible to know whether alchemists, magical girls, or heroic spirits are engaged in fierce battles within them.

He wasn't sure if it was just his imagination, but he seemed to sense something stirring in the darkness, a pair of evil eyes silently watching his back, gradually approaching.

When he came into the light, the feeling disappeared. The time from its appearance to its disappearance was very short, and Lin couldn't be sure if it was an illusion.

"Hey, you sneaky guy up there, stop right there."

"..."

As Lin was contemplating whether to return to the alley to investigate, a somewhat familiar voice came from behind him.

Does that sound familiar? Why does he feel that way?

A strange thrill flashed through Lin's mind, and when he turned around, he saw a red figure emerging from the darkness.

Red...

Lin's head throbbed with pain. A forlorn figure carrying a wine bottle flickered in the shattered mirror, but before he could even see who it was, the person vanished without a trace.

"Hey, are you alright?"

Lin lowered her hand from her head, exhaled, and calmed her racing mind. "I'm fine."

"That's good. You're under arrest. Come with me."

"Click".

After a moment of silence, Lin blankly looked down at the silver bracelet on her wrist.

Are these handcuffs?

There are two possibilities: first, he encountered a hardcore SM enthusiast who wanted to take him back to do some weird things; second, he encountered the police.

Lin immediately realized what was happening. "Wait, officer, I'm innocent..."

"You started crying innocence before I even asked you anything. There's definitely something fishy going on. Let's talk in the interrogation room!"

Isn't it unfair that you arrested people without explanation?

Thus, before Lin had even done anything upon entering the World Bubble, he was bewildered and disoriented as he was handcuffed and taken to the detention center.

"Alright, confess the truth. When did you start committing the crimes? Confess and you'll be treated leniently; resist and you'll be punished severely."

Lin sat in the interrogation room, silently watching his hands and feet being cuffed, while the other person held a notebook and was completely absorbed in a certain rhythm.

"Officer, do you know my name?"

"Have no idea."

"You're starting the interrogation before you've even asked my name? You're asking me to confess to crimes when you can't even confirm anything?"

"That's true."

Lin breathed a sigh of relief; it seemed the other party wasn't entirely unreasonable.

The young police officer then pointed his pen at the handcuffed man. "So, what's your name?"

"Forest."

"Okay, Lin, tell me when you started committing the crimes. Confess and you'll be treated leniently; resist and you'll be punished severely."

"..."

Chapter Four: Hello, Sir

"Why are you still wandering around in such a sparsely populated place so late at night?"

"Everyone needs a nightlife."

"Why do you subconsciously observe your surroundings? If I'm not mistaken, your actions are from counter-surveillance techniques, aren't they?"

"I learned it online."

"Why have you been staring at me since just now?"

"... Are there other people here who can watch?"

Lin stared intently at the red-haired girl with a ponytail who didn't look very old. It was true that there was nothing else to look at, but another reason was that he had a vague sense of familiarity with the person in front of him.

But this sense of familiarity isn't very strong; it's more like... encountering someone who looks a lot like someone you know.

The red-haired girl interrogated him for half an hour but couldn't get anything out of him. Her intuition was right; there was definitely something wrong with the person in front of her. However, his impeccable responses left her helpless against Lin.

"Has something happened to you lately?" After listening to her questions for half an hour, Lin finally asked in return, "Something happened that made you pay attention to someone you suspect..."

"Hmm? Are you trying to trick me into telling me something?"

The red-haired girl paused, her hand that was taking notes stopped, while Lin's handcuffed hands swayed, and his gaze shifted to his surroundings.