"Aah... How could this happen... How could this be allowed to happen... No... No! That person... That person was actually... the savior?! I... What have I done... How could... something like this happen..."
The Ferryman trembled all over in despair, his ten fingers digging hard into the Hyperion's deck and carving out ten bloody marks.
He had just learned from Ai and the others exactly who Elias was. He learned that Elias was a Flame-Chaser of Salvation, the savior of civilization, the Noah's Ark of bubble worlds, and a true hero who had saved countless tragedies and countless lives up to this very day!!
He was also the one who had achieved the ideal the Ferryman had long since abandoned, an ideal he no longer even dared to hope for and had even come to scorn: [Abandon neither side and save everyone]!
"So... his devouring wasn't destruction, but true salvation? Why? Why did it turn out like this..."
The Ferryman suddenly seemed to lose all his strength. With only half his body remaining, he collapsed painfully onto the deck.
All of a sudden, he desperately wanted to laugh, to mock himself for being such a clown. He, a failure all his life, had finally succeeded at one thing—and that one thing had been destroying his own ideal.
He had wanted to become the savior of bubble worlds, to become a Noah's Ark that carried civilizations. Yet in the end, he had never successfully saved a single person. Instead, he had only hastened the destruction of hundreds of bubble worlds.
He had even personally destroyed the savior and banished the one true Noah's Ark. How utterly laughable. A fool who devoted himself wholeheartedly to saving the world had ultimately brought nothing but destruction.
No, he wasn't a fool, nor was he a savior.
He was nothing more than a self-righteous clown!!
"I can't do anything..."
And once one compared the two rationally, it became obvious.
Compared to Elias, his Project Noah was nothing short of worthless garbage. After all, no matter how grand it sounded, the Ferryman had actually abandoned any hope of saving the majority long ago.
Even if the World's Interstice could remain untouched by the Sea of Quanta's erosion and allow a bubble world to persist forever, how many people could a single bubble world possibly house?
Even if he created one supermassive bubble world, the number of people it could accommodate would still be extremely limited.
Billions? Tens of billions? Surely no more than a hundred billion at most. That might seem like a vast number, but within the infinitely vast Sea of Quanta, the number of bubble worlds was also "infinite."
The number of people who needed saving was likewise "infinite."
A paradise capable of housing a mere hundred billion people?
How pitifully insignificant!!
From the very beginning, the Ferryman's Project Noah had been built upon the sacrifice of countless lives, preserving only a tiny handful of embers.
But Elias was different. He truly could save everyone. This supremely benevolent, supremely virtuous, supremely mighty savior was nothing like an incompetent clown such as the Ferryman. He had no need to abandon anyone.
Yet now, the Ferryman had banished this great savior and destroyed the true hope of every bubble world in the Sea of Quanta!
This was a catastrophic mistake for which even ten thousand deaths could not atone.
It was the greatest sin he had committed in his entire life.
If everything could be done over again, then the Ferryman would kill himself the instant the thought of saving the world first appeared in his mind!
At this moment, his hatred for himself had already surpassed even that of the inhabitants of the bubble worlds that had perished because of him. But... there were still four girls here whose hatred exceeded even his.
"Now do you understand just how stupid and unforgivable what you've done really is...? Right now, immediately, tell us how to bring him back from the World's Interstice!"
"Why did Human have to be hurt by a bastard like you?! Damn it, damn it! Tell me! This is the only thing you can do to make up for it! Hurry up and give my Human, give Elias back to me!!"
"Don't you dare tell us even you don't have a way, Ferryman. You have no idea how enormous a crime you've committed, or what consequences will follow. If those people learn about this, I guarantee you'll be begging for death and unable to obtain even that!!"
"Elias isn't someone whose story should end like this. Absolutely not! So hurry up and tell us how we're supposed to find him!"
Luna, Rosemary, Ai, and Himeko were practically radiating black aura at this point. Never before had they hated anyone this much, but right now, they truly wished they could carve the Ferryman apart with a thousand cuts.
"...It's useless. There's no saving him now."
"What?!"
"Once someone falls into the World's Interstice, no matter who they are, they'll never be able to return in this lifetime." The Ferryman shook his head and spoke with unbearable anguish. "Because that place is a wound in the Sea of Quanta, another dimension, a world where only time continues to flow."
He had pursued the World's Interstice for countless years.
Although today was the first time he had seen it with his own eyes, the Ferryman had already come to understand the World's Interstice fairly well.
That interstice was a region completely isolated from both the Sea of Quanta and the Proper World. It was... outside the world.
An ordinary person had absolutely no chance of escaping.
As for Elias, who possessed the Authority of the Herrscher of the Void, if he pushed that Authority to its absolute limit, he might have a tiny chance of escaping the World's Interstice, but only if he had exact coordinates.
Because the dimensions were different, even the Herrscher of the Void couldn't determine coordinates in the Sea of Quanta from within the World's Interstice.
If Elias simply guessed a set of coordinates, he would only teleport himself randomly to some other location inside the interstice.
"So no matter how powerful that person is, he can't escape the World's Interstice alone. And on top of that... time flows differently inside the interstice. In the short time we've spent talking here, more than ten years might already have passed inside."
"What did you say?! More than ten years?!"
Rosemary's beautiful face lost all color, and the others reacted the same way. Just imagining Elias having already spent more than ten years alone beyond the world, where there was nothing at all, made their hearts ache unbearably.
"No, I'm not completely certain about that part either. I only know that time flows differently inside the World's Interstice, so the actual situation could be much longer... or much shorter," the Ferryman hurriedly added.
"..." x4
At that moment, all four girls silently prayed that the time ratio would be something like one year passing here for every single second inside the interstice. Because anyone who had spent even a little time in close contact with Elias knew one thing clearly.
That white savior, who seemed capable of doing anything and always appeared strong and dependable, was actually terribly afraid of loneliness.
"Is there really no other way? I don't believe it. Anything will do. Just tell me!"
Luna grabbed the Ferryman by the collar. Even she found it unbelievable. She had spent more than ten years without ever growing accustomed to loneliness, yet it had taken only a few days for her to become accustomed to Elias' presence.
Now that the white-haired boy was lost and the connection that had always existed between them had been severed, Luna felt an unprecedented sense of unease.
"...There is one method that could barely be called a method, but the probability of success is far too low. It might not even reach one in a hundred million." The Ferryman hesitated in silence for a moment before speaking.
"That's still better than doing nothing!"
"All right. The method is to gather a large number of Ether Anchors again and ignite them, tear open the World's Interstice once more, then personally cross over to the other side and find that person yourselves."
Even as the Ferryman said it, he shook his own head.
Perhaps even one chance in a hundred million was being optimistic.
Gathering hundreds of Ether Anchors would take at least several years. During that time, there was no telling how long might pass inside the World's Interstice.
More importantly, because spatial coordinates were unstable, even if they successfully opened the World's Interstice again and the girls entered it, they wouldn't be transported to the same location as Elias. The distance between the two sides might even span an entire galaxy.
And the World's Interstice was boundlessly vast. Trying to find one person lost inside it was so difficult that even calling it a fantasy or searching for a needle in an ocean was nowhere near enough to describe it!
If someone could still manage to find Elias under such circumstances, then that person would surely have to be someone whose fate was tightly intertwined with his.
"I see. Then that's what we'll do!"
"What?"
The Ferryman stared at the four girls in stunned disbelief. He had already explained every difficulty involved, and he had expected Luna and the others to fall into the same despair and give up just as he had.
But there wasn't the slightest trace of hesitation in any of their eyes!
The next moment, Rosemary and Ai nearly made the Ferryman's eyes pop out. The two women brushed the rings on their left ring fingers, and hundreds of Ether Anchors immediately spilled out.
"These are the Ether Anchors Captain gave us. I didn't expect we'd be using them again so soon."
"There's no time to waste. Let's begin immediately."
In the past, Elias had worried about the two girls' safety, so he had given Rosemary and Ai a large number of Ether Anchors in case of emergencies. Now, they happened to be exactly what was needed to reopen the World's Interstice.
As Rosemary and Ai looked at those Ether Anchors, both of them momentarily felt as though all of this had been destined to happen.
But that alone still wasn't enough.
Ai seemed to suddenly think of something and returned to the Hyperion. Before long, she came back.
In her hand was a white sphere the size of her palm, and across its surface was a constantly changing row of coordinate values.
"This is a spacetime coordinate locator I created using the Hyperion's construction functions. It automatically reads the current coordinates of whoever is holding it, and once the holder enters the World's Interstice, those coordinates will automatically become fixed."
"Then the miniature computer built into the sphere will convert those coordinates into... spatial coordinates that can still be used inside the interstice to return from the World's Interstice to the Sea of Quanta!"
Ai's explanation left the other three girls feeling a little dizzy. Rosemary and the others gave wry smiles and asked her to put it more simply and speak like a normal person.
"Ahem! Simply put, this sphere is a coordinate marker. As long as someone carries it and finds Captain, Captain will be able to use these coordinates with the Authority of the Herrscher of the Void and return from the World's Interstice!"
"O-Oh, I see. Got it." x3
Even if the World's Interstice was opened, it would heal very quickly. In other words, once someone entered, there would be no way to return by retracing the same route. Whoever went searching for Elias would become lost together with him, and neither of them would be able to return.
Therefore, only if the person carrying this coordinate marker found Elias inside the World's Interstice, and Elias then used the Authority of the Herrscher of the Void based on those coordinates, could the two of them return together.
If the coordinate marker was lost, then even if they found Elias, they would only be able to wander through the World's Interstice with him forever.
"Good. Then only one final question remains. Who should we send to search for Lord Captain?"
"Huh? Aren't we going together?"
"No. We can't. We can't go together."
The AI girl shook her head solemnly.
They already knew that time flowed differently within the World's Interstice, that the distance separating them from Elias after entering would be unknown, and that they would have no clues to guide their search. There was simply no way to know how long it might take.
If they were incredibly, impossibly lucky, it might take only a few days or months. But far more likely, it would take decades, centuries, or perhaps even longer...
No one knew how much time would be required. Rosemary and Himeko, as two "ordinary humans," could search for at most a hundred years. Ai possessed a body combining biology and machinery, but even a thousand years would be her limit.
Therefore...
"Only I can go search for Human. I'm a vampire, cursed with immortality. I'm the only one who can keep searching forever and ever! And I... will absolutely bring Human back!"