"The dream world is 'dying'."
"It's melting away. Even if you do nothing, Penacony won't last much longer."
"The more beautiful something is, the more... false it becomes."
Black Swan's explanation wasn't particularly surprising. It was like how people, in moments of extreme bliss, often start to think in reverse...
Is this happiness I'm experiencing real? Could this all be a dream?
In other words, the more humanity satisfies its needs, the more it desires to establish new needs. The world is a never-ending cycle of contradiction and struggle.
"It seems the dream world itself contains the seeds of its own opposition." Noldrei nodded, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. It was just like when he had decentralized the authority of the Stigma Spaces back on Earth.
When everyone possessed that power, the so-called "beauty" of the Stigma Spaces ceased to be beautiful. Its value depreciated as it became commonplace.
And that wasn't even mentioning that Penacony's dream was barely different from reality. Why would anyone persist in staying in such a dream? Just to suffer in a different location?
"Exactly. That's why I hope you can find the Clockmaker's Legacy using a method that preserves Penacony. As something that is destined to fade away, it's not worth you destroying it with such fanfare."
Black Swan finished explaining her reason for being there. She wasn't lying; her suggestion was offered with complete sincerity.
Firefly finally recovered from the massive shock. She still couldn't quite accept that the Nameless Guest she admired and loved was a fusion of two people.
How was she supposed to continue being friends with Stelle now?
She couldn't just walk up to Stelle in the future and say, "Please, Stelle, fuse with Noldrei one more time!"
That would be way too weird.
Robin hadn't expected Penacony to be facing such a terrifying crisis. She had thought there were merely traitors to the Harmony within the Family, not that Penacony itself was the problem.
"What about the Family?" Robin asked urgently. "What are they planning to do?"
Black Swan shook her head and said meaningfully, "Shouldn't you know the answer to that better than anyone? Since one path failed to preserve Penacony, they will automatically start looking for other ways to maintain its existence."
Acheron pondered this for a long time before asking, "What happens next? How will the Family deal with Penacony?"
Black Swan shook her head again. "That is beyond my knowledge..."
It might have been her imagination, but Acheron seemed to wear a speechless expression.
Meanwhile, Stelle was still trying to process it all.
'Why would people feel a sense of falsehood in such a realistic dream?'
[Because falsehood itself is a part of reality. The sensory input that material reality provides you includes falsehood, and the suffering that comes with it.]
Noldrei thought for a moment, then spoke through Stelle. "Imagine an iron house without windows, impossible to destroy. Inside, many people are sound asleep, and they will soon suffocate to death. But they will pass from slumber to oblivion, never feeling the sorrow of dying. Now, if you cry out and startle a few of the lighter sleepers, making this unfortunate minority suffer the agony of an inescapable end, do you think you've done them a favor?"
"However, since a few have awoken, you cannot say there is no hope of destroying this iron house."
"And this iron house is a tool for solving the problems of a bygone era. People aren't afraid of the agony of their end; they're afraid of the suffering and problems they would face without the iron house. To overcome this iron house, simply waking people up is not enough."
"You must find a tool that is better than the iron house at solving the problems of that era. Once you find that 'tool,' the iron house will naturally fall apart on its own."
"Penacony is exactly that!"
Noldrei looked at Black Swan. "Killing people is just the 'shout' needed to wake the others. What we do next is the real action that will destroy the current Penacony."
"I have read Penacony's history. I know it was once a prison. Its essence was simply to organize everyone together through the dreamscape, to make them work towards breaking free from the real-world prison of that time."
"And from this, old-era organizational forms like the Family were born."
"But the problem Penacony faces now is no longer just the cage of the past. It's that they don't know what kind of real Penacony they should create. This very uncertainty further highlights the importance of the dream to them. They gained their freedom through it; it was the first liberation brought by this dream of Hanu."
"None of that matters now. All the answers from the past cannot solve the troubles Penacony faces today. So they will act while they think, and think while they act, even changing their course of action, just to find a solution for the next stage of conflict."
"The Family may have realized the dream's inevitable demise, but they've also realized another problem. Without Penacony, is the Family still the Family? That is the crucial question of their right to rule."
"Some people want Penacony's dream to last forever, not for the sake of pursuing continuous development of beauty, but out of conservatism. Their core ideology is to preserve the beautiful dream of the old era."
"They are merely playing the role of the leaders who liberated the prison, as if by doing so, they can remain forever in the beautiful, nascent stage of Penacony."
"It's truly a shame that they can't even forget their cosplay mentality while in a dream."
Noldrei's initial points were quite well-made, even analyzing Penacony's future. But his final summary left everyone feeling rather awkward. In his words, Penacony's value was further degraded, and now the people in charge were nothing more than clowns playing dress-up.
What could be more ridiculous?
They sang beautiful hymns to Penacony, but in the eyes of an outsider, they were just clowns chasing the shadows of the past.
Black Swan didn't care how Noldrei evaluated Penacony. She was only here to find a way to get these people to search for the Clockmaker's Legacy as soon as possible.
"I understand your intentions now," Noldrei continued through Stelle. "Your presence here proves that my course of action is correct. Only by destroying Penacony will the ugly truth about those people be revealed, and only then will the Clockmaker's true legacy surface."
Stelle's expression turned serious. "The more you oppose me, the more it proves I'm right!"
Although that wasn't exactly what Noldrei meant, it was more or less the gist of it.