Stelle's question was, to put it mildly, a bit malicious.
Unfortunately, it wasn't Stelle who asked it, but Noldrei, borrowing her voice.
'*Is she going to report us? It would be bad if she thinks we're some kind of villains.*'
[It doesn't matter. Just kill her. We're going to have to kill someone anyway, so why not pick a random person and test it out?]
'*Wow, so cold!*'
Stelle gained a deeper understanding of Noldrei's decisive and efficient way of doing things. The guy was all about action.
[Keep going. See what else she can say. When she's no longer useful, find a place and get rid of her!]
'*Alright! I'll see if I can get any more information out of her.*'
Stelle remembered her purpose for being here. One of the reasons for the Express crew's visit was to find the history of past crew members. Another was to use secrets to bait other secrets, luring more people to them so they could hook them.
The pretty girl in front of her couldn't be called a fat fish, but she could still provide some information. At the very least, they should squeeze as much value out of her as possible before Noldrei was ready to dispose of her.
Firefly dutifully continued her guide duties, leading Stelle to The Golden Hour's landmark building.
Clockie Plaza.
In the center of the plaza stood a giant statue of Clockie. At first glance, the statue seemed to have some copyright issues, but apparently, the copyright had expired, so it didn't matter anymore.
"From Penacony's longest-running and most famous cartoon, it tells the adventure stories of the protagonist, Clockie, and his friends living in Dreamville—it's been running for over ten thousand episodes!"
What Firefly said held little appeal for Stelle.
Ten thousand episodes sounded like a lot, but at one episode a day, that was only about thirty or forty years. In cosmic terms, that was a very young cartoon.
With the technology here, producing such a cartoon would be incredibly simple. Just an AI scriptwriter could churn out several weeks' worth of work in a day. Afterward, they'd just need a few people to quickly edit and splice it together, and it would be ready to air.
Stelle wanted to speak but stopped, then wanted to speak again. She was starting to wish she could make the Noldrei in her head just shut up.
Her expectations for Penacony had already dropped to an extremely low level, and now Noldrei was here, constantly revealing even more absurd secrets.
'*What the hell? So it's just this cheap and simple stuff after all?*'
The look of anticipation on Stelle's face faded more and more. She realized that Noldrei was causing her threshold for these things to constantly rise. If it got any higher, she'd probably end up pursuing some legendary spiritual world demand.
Can't let that happen! We haven't even started trailblazing yet.
"Explore," "Understand," "Establish," "Connect."
There were four aspects of trailblazing, and they hadn't even begun the first one! Noldrei had already crushed Stelle's desire to explore to its lowest point.
Firefly noticed that something was wrong with Stelle. "What's the matter?" she asked with concern. "Are you not interested in Clockie?"
Stelle nodded awkwardly, then looked up at the huge statue again.
"It's not that I'm not interested. If I could see a living Clockie, maybe I would be. It's just that you telling me how long the cartoon is and how many people like it... it doesn't feel real to me. After all, a cartoon with one episode a day, ten thousand episodes is only about thirty years, right?"
"It feels like a pretty young cartoon..."
Stelle smiled awkwardly.
Firefly heard the meaning behind Stelle's words and smiled awkwardly back.
The two of them stood there under the Clockie statue, smiling foolishly at each other.
"Let's change the subject... Do you see something moving on Clockie's eyebrow?"
"Huh? Something? What eyebrow?" Firefly looked up at the Clockie statue, suspecting Stelle had seen something wrong.
'*Even if you want to change the subject, you shouldn't use a method like this.*'
Stelle looked up at the Clockie statue. She was certain she hadn't seen wrong. There was definitely something moving there.
[Give it a couple of tugs and see.]
Stelle was also a person who dared to think and act. She climbed up the statue and pulled out the moving "eyelash."
She pulled out a yellow, origami-like thing that looked like either a bird or a colorful chicken.
After being pulled out, the thing landed on the foot of the Clockie statue, flapping its wings and shouting, "Hey, hey, hey! Thank, you, beautiful, person!"
"Thank you! I will, repay, you! To the big tree, go! To the big tree, go! I will, give, you something good!"
The little thing flew away as soon as it finished speaking, without saying where this big tree was.
"What... what are you doing? Why did you suddenly jump up like that?" Firefly was a little surprised by Stelle's strange behavior, and Stelle was equally surprised by her reaction.
[It seems she can't see what you see, but that's not right... Let's try later to see if others can see this thing.]
'*I'm not sure either. Should we go to the big tree now?*'
[That thing has already run off, and it didn't tell us where the big tree is. Let's go look for it later. Since it's a big tree, it must be in a conspicuous place.]
'*Alright, then let's continue to wander around Penacony.*'
[By the way, Stelle, someone has been following you since a while ago. And they didn't appear at the beginning. They appeared with this girl after you met her.]
[Our fishing was a success...]
'*Hmm?*'
Stelle hadn't even noticed someone was following her. They were all sharing the same sensory system, yet Noldrei had detected someone tailing her.
"What's wrong? You've been acting strange ever since you jumped onto the Clockie statue. Is there something you're in a hurry to do?"
Firefly saw that Stelle wasn't answering her at all, and was even lost in her own thoughts.
She had to nudge Stelle, just in case the person tailing them caught up.
"It's nothing. I just don't think there's much I want to see here. Even that amusement park was just okay. I don't really feel like playing. Once you've seen enough, it's all the same."
Stelle thought for a moment and asked, "Do you know of any places that are quiet, have few people, and are fun?"
Her question put Firefly in a difficult position.
For a moment, she really couldn't think of a place that met Stelle's needs. In The Golden Hour, people rarely looked for such places.
"I know! Come with me!"
Firefly led Stelle toward a place she liked in her own memory.
She actually liked such places too and even had a good understanding of them from her memories.
[Find a dark and gloomy place and take care of both of them!]
'*Why does it feel like we're the bad guys?*'
Despite saying that, Stelle's hands were itching. In reality, her heart was also a little eager to try.