(Friday night, I might livestream Sekiro on Bilibili—going in blind, just playing casually [something to watch while eating].)
After Bai Ye finished the candied hawthorn skewer, he slowly began to explain:
"Trade is one of the most direct ways to understand a place."
"First of all, the people here are different from NPCs in ordinary terminal games. They seem more intelligent, but I can say for certain that they cannot be called real people."
"Why?" Everyone was somewhat puzzled.
"Because they have no souls of origin. They seem like illusory existences. Though they have flesh and blood, they are like puppets implanted with memories."
Bai Ye frowned as he spoke.
"Just as I expected, the creator behind this place is not actually that omnipotent. They cannot directly create independent souls and wills, so this does not count as truly creating life."
"Um... I feel like Master's words are getting harder and harder to understand..." Melantha furrowed her brow in distress.
"Simply put, these people have neither a past nor a future. Children will always be children, and old people will always be old. In this world, they are forever trapped in this single slice of time. Their lives are more like something that was set in advance; they only need to keep running according to a certain cycle."
As Bai Ye spoke, he used the bamboo skewer from the candied hawthorn to draw on the ground.
"I see..." Lava suddenly understood.
"That makes sense. Without this kind of control, the cycle here would probably have collapsed long ago..." Kroos nodded.
Resources were limited, while in such a peaceful and harmonious environment, population growth was clearly positive—in other words, if the people here were real humans, this resource-limited world would likely collapse within only a few years.
It would never be