After leaving the underground of the Black Iron Palace, Yulier led Thinker back to the Liberation Army's base.
Kirito and Asuna also prepared to return to the 22nd floor. Before parting ways, Kirito tried to invite Yui to join the temporary party, but the system could not recognize her current status.
When Cardinal was severed, Yui lost her administrator ID and did not become a regular player. She was able to move around in Aincrad, but she did not have an equipment slot, friends menu, or transfer permissions.
He looks a lot like Lin Yuan.
"Where will she be staying?" Kirito asked.
Lin Yuan looked at Yui.
He didn't have a fixed residence; in the past, he either stayed at the Black Cats's Inn or rested temporarily outside the maze. It was clearly inappropriate for him to continue traveling to higher levels with a child in tow.
"The eleventh floor."
Yui looked up and asked, "Does my brother live there too?"
There's a place for me.
That was enough to make her nod.
Lin Yuan led Yui away from the Town of Beginnings. Neither of them could use the teleportation portal, so they could only ascend along the already opened-up floor paths.
Yui no longer experiences the frequent headaches she did when she arrived. Having lost her mental monitoring privileges, she can no longer hear the simultaneous fear experienced by thousands of players, and her expression is actually more relaxed than when she was on the twenty-second floor.
She still retains some knowledge that is not common among children.
When Lin Yuan avoids a monster spawn area, Yui will indicate the next spawn time in advance; when navigating a maze fork in the road, she can tell whether there are any targets behind the walls, but she cannot bring up the map or change any system rules.
"Don't casually reveal this information in the future," Lin Yuan said.
"Why?"
"Some people might want to use you as a prop."
"Can my brother do that too?"
"Won't."
Yui further.
When they arrived at the eleventh floor, the Moonlit Black Cats had just finished their leveling up for the day. Tetsuo pushed open the inn door and saw Lin Yuan standing outside with a black-haired girl in his hand. His first reaction was to close the door again.
Chaotic footsteps echoed from inside the door.
A few seconds later, Keita opened the door himself.
"Come in and we'll explain."
Lin Yuan explained the situation in just a few words: He found Yui, who had lost her memory, in the twenty-second layer of the forest; Yui was neither a player nor an ordinary NPC; she had now broken free of the original management system and had nowhere to go.
As for the part about destroying Cardinal with a single sword strike and Kayaba personally taking over the system, he didn't hide it, but he also didn't explain all the details of his brief restoration of spatial power.
The room remained quiet for a long time.
Ducker asked first, "So, the game suddenly freezing just now, was that your doing?"
"Um."
"You even shut down the management system?"
"Um."
"And then you brought back a younger sister?"
Lin Yuan glanced at Yui, who was clutching the Yui of his clothes. "Hmm."
Tetsuo patted Ducker on the shoulder. "Don't ask anymore. At least the last one sounds the most normal."
Sachi squatted down in front of Yui, not asking which program she was in, but simply asking, "Are you hungry?"
Yui can taste food and experience simulated hunger and fatigue. She hesitated for a moment, then nodded gently.
Soon, a bowl of hot soup appeared on the table.
Keita then opened the guild ledger. "Can she register into the guild?"
"Cannot."
"Then I'll be just like you."
Lin Yuan was never listed in the Moonlit Black Cats's system roster, yet he always had a room in the inn and the guild residence they later purchased. Whether or not he could register did not affect their recognition that someone belonged there.
"There's one room left," Keita said. "Give it to Yui for now. We can take care of the rest later."
Yui heard her name called and looked up at Lin Yuan.
"Is this also the home my brother mentioned?"
"It's my guild in this world."
"Then can I come back too?"
Keita answered for Lin Yuan, "Of course. We'll save you a seat here, if you'd like."
Yui didn't immediately understand the meaning of the guild. But when Sachi took her to see the room, Tetsuo started discussing children's furniture, Sasamaru and Ducker argued about who should be responsible for buying the bed, a smile gradually appeared in her eyes.
Lin Yuan stood by the door, watching this scene.
Makarov did the same thing back then: first, he would arrange accommodation for a child of unknown origin, and then consider what problems he might be hiding.
Fairy Tail is not the same as the Moonlit Black Cats.
The willingness to reserve a chair for someone who has nowhere to go is something that probably applies to all true guilds.
That night, Yui slept alone in her room for the first time.
Lin Yuan sat outside the guild residence examining " Nameless ". The Space God-Slaying Magic Power still did not respond, but the boundary perception deep in his consciousness did not disappear.
Footsteps approached from behind.
Yui stood at the door, hugging a pillow.
Can't sleep?
"Is my brother leaving again?"
Just as Lin Yuan was about to answer, someone hurried over from the other end of the street. It was an intelligence agent that Diabel had arranged to contact the Black Cats at the lower levels, holding an urgent letter that had just been sent back from the front lines.
The seventy-fifth floor of the maze has been explored.
The boss room has been discovered, and the raid team will hold a meeting tomorrow to gather all top-tier combatants.
After reading the letter, Lin Yuan folded the paper neatly.
Yui didn't ask him to stay; she just hugged the pillow in her arms tightly.
Will my brother come back?
Lin Yuan reached out and placed his hand on her head.
"Meeting."