While the distant orphanage was thrown into chaos by Sin's thoughtless remark, Lin Wei on the other side was also stunned by the sudden turn of events.
"What's going on?"
One second he was in the warm bear cave, draped in a thick "bearskin coat," with a mindset that could even be described as playful, ready to fully experience the feeling of "survival in the wild." The next second...
"It seems... I'm back where I started?"
The scenery that met his eyes was identical to when he first landed in this world and opened his eyes. Lin Wei's face instantly turned ugly.
The warm, thick "bearskin coat" with its unprocessed, rich, bloody smell had vanished without a trace. Dressed in summer shorts, Lin Wei was no different from being naked in the extreme cold of the far north. The bone-chilling wind felt as if it could extinguish any impatient flame in an instant.
"..."
Lin Wei's lips didn't stay pale for long. He raised his hand and looked at his fingers, which were red from the cold. Some knuckles even had a purplish-red tinge, showing signs of frostbite. Lin Wei couldn't help but frown again, feeling that the unexpected situation and predicament before him were tricky.
"Dr. Schrodinger, are you still there?" Lin Wei asked calmly. In this sudden turn of events, he first had to determine whether his only current companion and guide had also met with an accident. This was very important for him to assess the kind of predicament he was facing.
"Yes, I'm still here."
Schrodinger's calm and reassuring voice came smoothly from the "beacon" in his pocket. "It seems something has changed, but now doesn't seem to be the time for idle chatter."
"Yes, I know. I just wanted to confirm if you were still here."
Schrodinger was still by his side; he wasn't completely alone and helpless. Lin Wei couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief. "Next, I need to verify another thing..."
As his words fell, Lin Wei once again ran towards the dense forest. This time, he didn't make a torch or look for a fire source but ran straight towards the destination he had already locked onto.
SWISH!
Kicking away the thick snow, at the foot of a mound where several tall red pines grew, a low cave entrance suddenly appeared before Lin Wei. He bent down and stepped in. As expected, a fat brown bear was sleeping soundly in the depths of the cave. It seemed to have heard the sound made by the uninvited guest who had suddenly barged in, as its furry ears twitched.
"..."
Without waiting for this familiar brown bear to open its eyes, Lin Wei emotionlessly drew his blade and cut off its massive head. The warm bear blood once again filled the narrow cave.
"Doctor, we're in big trouble." Lin Wei said in a calm tone, as if the "big trouble" he was talking about had nothing to do with him.
"The good news is, we might not have to participate in a 'world-shaking event' like the Second Honkai Eruption as we initially expected..." Lin Wei even had the mind to make a boring joke, a faint smile on his lips, but there was no hint of amusement in his eyes.
"The bad news is, we seem to be stuck in a 'time loop' predicament, and..." Lin Wei raised his hand, which was almost numb from the cold, and clenched his fist forcefully.
"And, a piece of bad news that should be bad news is that my body doesn't seem to cycle with this world's cycle but develops linearly according to the original time track. You see, after exploring the snowfield twice, the frostbite on my hands has become more and more obvious."
"Indeed, this bear that came back to life—of course, it's dead again now—is probably the best proof of the 'time loop.' Also, if you need some optimistic comfort, I'd say this might be the first clue you've found in two world bubbles. Congratulations." Schrodinger told a dry joke in a deadpan voice.
"In a spiraling time loop, maintaining the linearity of one's own physical time is indeed a characteristic with both advantages and disadvantages. Looking at you now, it seems the disadvantages are more prominent."
"Advantages and disadvantages? Heh, the situation I've opened up in this world will be reset by the loop, but the trauma my body suffers in the process will carry over to the next loop, making my starting point even lower. If I'm not careful, I'll fall into a complete vicious cycle."
Lin Wei drew his blade again, but unlike his previous fine-tuned operation, this time he dismembered the bear's corpse in a rough manner. He spoke of terrible things, but his tone showed no trace of irritability or panic. "Unfortunately, I've been in such a vicious cycle almost from the very beginning..."
"Is that so?" Schrodinger replied. "Your awareness of crisis is surprisingly sharp, even a bit paranoid."
"So what? Scaring myself and it turning out to be a false alarm in the end is still better than danger and enemies getting close without me realizing it."
As Lin Wei spoke, he swung his blade and cut off the brown bear's four limbs, then roughly separated the fur from the bearskin, wrapped it around himself, and turned to leave the bear cave without looking back, snorting coldly. "Although the last loop happened the moment I stepped out of the bear cave, I refuse to believe this insignificant bear is the key factor causing the time loop!"
If time resets the moment I step out of this bear cave, then I can only blame my bad luck for having randomly targeted a prey that happens to be the "destiny core" of this world.
Thinking about such strange things, Lin Wei had already successfully walked out of the bear cave and continued for several dozen meters without any accidents.
Seeing this, Lin Wei sighed in relief, then his expression turned serious. With a single slash, he easily felled a tall red pine. The cursed blade swung with unstoppable force, capable of splitting mountains and cracking rocks. Cutting through the wood was as easy as a hot knife through butter. In just a few seconds, he had chopped a section of log into a pile of moderately sized pieces of wood.
"Is this your way of verifying your hypothesis? It's quite risky," Schrodinger said.
"If an accident occurs during an experiment, it's best not to repeat the exact same actions before the specific cause has been identified. And you are doing just that. Lin Wei, you seem a bit impatient." Her tone was as calm as ever, making it impossible to tell if she was just stating a fact she saw or making some kind of criticism.
"Impatient? Maybe. But who has the time to investigate and analyze everything in an orderly manner?" Lin Wei picked up a handful of wood and walked towards the bear cave.
"You can see it too, I'm about to freeze. So I can only use the most direct method to verify my hypothesis. Only in this way can I get what I need most right now: food and warmth, before I completely lose the ability to move."
As he spoke, Lin Wei had already returned to the bear cave. Near the cave entrance where it was relatively well-ventilated, he arranged the handful of wood into a rough shape, then pulled out the Judgment Pistol and fired a shot at the center with a BANG.
The spark from the muzzle flashed and disappeared, landing in the woodpile like gasoline and bursting into a roaring flame with a BOOM.
"Ha, Divine Keys are so useful!" Lin Wei smiled. The orange warmth of the flames made him feel very comfortable. He casually grabbed a few pieces of skinned bear meat, cut them into small pieces, skewered them on a specially chosen branch, and placed them where the flames could just lick them.
Then he sat down by the fire on the bearskin, frowning at the flames in silence.
"You seem to be always thinking," Schrodinger said.
"Not thinking, worrying. I don't know how the time loop mechanism works, whether it automatically resets at a specific time, or is randomly triggered at an uncertain time, or some other stranger, more complex mechanism," Lin Wei shook his head and said.
"I have no idea and can't do anything about it right now, so I can only race against time while I can still move. And before these few pieces of bloody bear meat are cooked and in my stomach, all my efforts could be reset at any time."
As he spoke, he seemed to be amused by himself and let out a chuckle. "Just hunting, and it can be considered an effort... heh, I'm really regressing. If Yae Sakura wakes up and sees me in this pathetic state..." He shook his head, unwilling to think further.
"It seems you have other companions... forget it, that's not my concern," Schrodinger said.
"To be frank, Lin Wei, if even this level of accident can be called a 'predicament,' then I'm afraid you won't be able to walk in the Sea of Quanta for very long."
"Is that so? I also know it shouldn't be, but that's the reality," Lin Wei said.
"To be honest, before I came to this world bubble, I had just fought a mutually destructive final battle with Schicksal. My stamina, energy, and everything else were severely overdrawn. Then, not long after entering the Sea of Quanta, I suddenly encountered a strange old acquaintance. To deal with its attack, or rather, the aftershocks of its attack, my already severely depleted Stigma power was almost completely overdrawn. Even Yae Sakura, who exists as a Stigma consciousness, fell into a deep sleep because of it..."
Speaking of this "past event" that had only been a few hours for him, Lin Wei smiled wryly and helplessly. "I'm already at the end of my rope. I should have found a safe place to rest. But now... hehe, this is probably what they call 'the last straw that breaks the camel's back,' right?"
Sometimes he couldn't help but marvel that this series of events was probably the so-called "patch after a major battle."
Although he wasn't at the point of being completely crushed yet, Lin Wei could clearly feel that if another accident were to happen, he might really be completely crushed by this "straw"...
"I see. That's quite a difficult journey," Schrodinger concluded.
"So, even if it's not to escape the severe cold, you now need a time and place to rest, recover, and even heal your injuries, right?"
"Yes, that's about it." Lin Wei poked the fire, and sparks flew everywhere, the flames burning even more vigorously. "My original plan was also to find a place to rest for a night, then look for a densely populated area to start investigating clues about this world. But now, even such a simple goal has become somewhat difficult."
"Is that so? Then you don't have to worry too much," Schrodinger said.
"In the Sea of Quanta, although there is no concept of time in the general sense, for a world bubble born and existing in the Sea of Quanta, the basic physical constants must be stable. Although the cyclical structure of time is in a sense a stable form of existence, it must also be a stable structure with a regular pattern, not random."
Schrodinger paused to let Lin Wei understand a little before continuing. "Otherwise, a too-random 'cycle' would cause the values of real physics here to become chaotic, which would in turn lead to the accelerated disintegration of this world bubble itself and its return to the energy of the Sea of Quanta. The fact that it still maintains a basically stable physical structure itself shows that this possibility does not exist."
Now was a rare break time, and Schrodinger had time to discuss such complex content with Lin Wei.
"...So, you mean, I don't have to worry about all my efforts being wasted and returning to the starting point at an uncertain time, right?" Lin Wei said. "But the time we've stayed here this time has already clearly exceeded the last time."
He had already thought about it. If time were to suddenly reset again this time, he wouldn't play this meaningless "survival in the wild" game anymore. He might have to take more extreme measures directly...
"Two possibilities. One is that the time you entered this world bubble happened to be at the end of the last cycle. The other possibility is that the trigger for this time reset is not a fixed object, but a certain behavior of a specific person or group of people," Schrodinger said.
"Human behavior has a considerable degree of randomness, but this 'randomness' is not the randomness in the sense we just talked about, but a randomness under a certain clear pattern," she then said. "Of course, these two situations may exist alone, or they may exist at the same time."
"...Is that so? So, this world can be generous enough to grant me the chance to at least barely sleep a night here?" Lin Wei concluded. "That's really lucky..."
It was unclear whether his tone was self-deprecating or simply playful.
Schrodinger is really valuable in a different way for not being this guide, Lin Wei thought silently.
"The specific time cannot be determined. We have to wait until the specific time of the next cycle is observed to be sure," Schrodinger said calmly and objectively. "At least before that, you can still warm yourself, eat, and rest in this temporary shelter as you expected. For the normal recovery of human bodily functions, these are also indispensable components."
"Is that so? Then I'll take your word for it," Lin Wei smiled. "If there's a chance, I'll go out and investigate. I'll figure it out eventually."
After saying this, he fell silent. The meat was almost cooked, and he was very hungry now.
"So disgusting..."
After storing fat for half a year with single-minded dedication, the hibernating brown bear was extremely fatty. Even after being roasted over a large fire, not much of it could be reduced. Lin Wei just took a bite and grimaced. The taste, lacking salt and spices, was truly hard to describe.
But for now, this was all he had, so he had to make do...
"Still not strong enough," Schrodinger commented.
"Want a piece?" Lin Wei shared generously.
"...No, thank you." Schrodinger just glanced at it and declined respectfully.
"Tsk, no fun." Lin Wei pouted but didn't force her. He just stuffed the few pieces of roasted meat into his stomach as quickly as possible. Although Schrodinger had always been trustworthy, but... what if?
But fortunately, there was no "what if." Or rather, there hadn't been a "what if" so far.
"Finally, I can rest..."
With a full stomach and a warmed body, Lin Wei wrapped himself in layers of bearskin, lay down on the ground, and was immediately overcome with sleepiness. "I hope when I open my eyes, I won't be back at the starting point, standing naked in the snow like before..."
Muttering to himself in a tone that was either a prayer or a complaint, Lin Wei fell into a deep sleep.
And just as Lin Wei fell into a deep sleep, in the distant orphanage, an unexpected dispute suddenly broke out between the two Seeles.
Two strangers, each with their own troubles and predicaments.
Like two distant lines, they seemed to not know each other, but who knew if they would suddenly intersect at some point in the future, at an unexpected time
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TL Note: The new Elysia Battlesuit kinda idk, they beating the dead horse again.