"Ely, why have you been so listless lately? Is little Ducky giving you trouble?"
Noldrei saw Elysia's miserable state and tried to restore her spirits.
However, it was no use. Elysia remained dispirited. It seemed she had been thoroughly bullied by little Ducky.
"Don't even talk about it. That little girl learns too fast... especially..."
Elysia was truly suffering. She had genuinely tried to communicate with little Ducky. But little Ducky didn't actually like her very much; in fact, she could be said to actively dislike Elysia.
Elysia had no idea why she was so disliked. What had she done wrong? Wasn't it just some playful teasing?
"Tell me about it. Let's see if I can help you with anything. I just got back from a tour of the Far East with Vitas, and I haven't seen the results of your work yet."
Elysia complained, "It's hard to explain. I tried to get closer to little Ducky and build a bond. But she just tells me, 'Noldrei's little bootlicker is being obedient again. Why don't you get your own act together?'"
Noldrei sucked in a sharp breath, looking at Elysia in shock as if he had misheard something.
Elysia continued, "Then I try to reason with her, and she says, 'Classic. I can't even. You're just rehashing all of Noldrei's old talking points, aren't you?'"
Noldrei felt a headache coming on. Little Ducky had never shown this side of herself to him. Where on earth did the little one learn this stuff?
Elysia didn't feel at all like she was tattling. She explained helplessly, "If I show even a little bit of anger, she says, 'Triggered, triggered. Look at you, you're about to use that annoying, condescending tone of voice again.'"
Noldrei figured that in her tens of thousands of years, Elysia had probably never encountered anything like this. As a beautiful girl, she usually had special privileges on the internet. At worst, she might get a few comments like, "You guys, who understands?!"
Elysia probably never expected little Ducky to be so mischievous with her.
"Hold on, don't get worked up yet. You have to tell me who taught her all this. It can't be that she's been arguing with too many netizens from Shenzhou, can it?"
"I don't know!" Elysia rested her forehead on the table. She was about to give up on this job.
Teach little Ducky? Little Ducky absorbed knowledge faster than she could teach it. This made Elysia feel even worse. She had never dealt with someone like this before. She knew she had this job, but she had no idea how to handle this kind of barrier.
It was rare for Noldrei to see such an expression on the usually smiling Elysia's face. It just went to show how potent the "Six Arts of the Internet" of the current civilization were.
"If she doesn't like you following her around, then just don't. It just means she has her own opinions. Given little Ducky's current abilities, I wonder if she can construct her own moral world."
Noldrei, on the other hand, wasn't that worried. Little Ducky wasn't a bad kid; she just didn't like Elysia.
"Why, though? Why does she dislike me so much?"
Elysia was completely dejected, unable to figure out why a child would dislike her.
'You talk strangely, and your personality seems a bit two-faced. Your first impression is that of a bad woman, so of course she'd dislike you,' Noldrei thought.
Noldrei had high moral standards. When he first met Elysia, he never had the thought of verbally attacking her. He had a good guess as to who had taught little Ducky all this. It was most likely a "sacred text" that Sirin, who was working in Shenzhou, had transmitted to little Ducky over the network.
Noldrei looked at Elysia and comforted her, "Don't worry, she just doesn't want you to follow her. It's highly likely that you were set up by me. I've observed the current civilization for a long time. The children of this era tend to dislike arrangements made by their parents. Especially from someone like me with strong political power, whom she can't even refuse. She's bound to hate it."
"Little Ducky can't attack me, so she turns around and attacks the person I assigned to her, for example... you, Elysia."
Elysia's mood gradually calmed as Noldrei soothed her. She felt much better after Noldrei took the blame.
She looked at Noldrei and shook her head pitifully. "It must be hard for you. You're not even ten years old, and you already have to start studying how to raise children. How can something so absurd happen?"
Elysia suddenly remembered something and said, "Oh, right, Mei told me. Ducky wants Vitas to be her maid. I don't know what she's thinking. Does she prefer to be close to people like Vitas?"
Little Ducky's mind was cunning and ever-changing. Even Elysia found it difficult to take care of such a mischievous child, let alone teach her well.
"Oh, I see..."
Noldrei wasn't surprised by this situation. The world little Ducky was born into was already full of replacements. By now, she should be able to feel the discomfort of being a replacement herself, one who could be replaced by others at any time.
Academy City had reached this stage. This feeling would soon sprout and flourish within its walls.
And the first to bear the brunt of it would naturally be little Ducky, who was at the center of the conflict.
She would naturally dislike the Elysia assigned to her. In terms of identity, the current Elysia was a memory backup using Noldrei's body, a part that could also be replaced at any time.
Elysia had never really cared about this existential crisis of her identity, but little Ducky disliked people like that.
"Vitas, huh? It's not really a surprise. As an agent, Vitas could be replaced by a new creation from Sa at any time. It's only natural that little Ducky would subconsciously go against this and pull Vitas to her side."
"Unlike you, Ely. If I were to replace you for some plan or some job, you would, because of some ideal of your own, or because you are immersed in Elysia's memories, resolutely walk the path of self-sacrifice."
Elysia looked at him, surprised, and asked, "So, would you sacrifice me? I mean, in the sense of just kicking a replacement like me aside."
Noldrei looked back at her and replied, "I do hold the power to replace you at any time, but there's no need..."
He constantly held the power to replace backup lives. Including Tesla, and even himself, there were backup lives waiting in the wings.
The fundamental purpose of these actions was to increase fault tolerance and to stimulate more wisdom and strength from life.
But there was really no need to replace the current Elysia. She was already a memory backup. What good would preparing another one do?