["…No. Most of it was shaped by your own choices."]
["As the System, the only thing I can decide is the way you're born at the very beginning of a Life Simulation."]
["It's true that your previous parents were carefully selected by me, so you wouldn't invest unnecessary feelings into them."]
["But once the Life Simulation starts, I can't interfere."]
["Everything that happens in the Life Simulation develops according to your own decisions."]
["In the beginning, you only saw the Life Simulation as a tool for getting stronger."]
["Deep down, you didn't want to get entangled with characters outside the main storyline. Because of that, the version of you inside the simulation only focused on interacting with characters from Genshin."]
["But now… you've already started treating the Life Simulation as a world that truly exists."]
["And the you inside that world has also begun to change, forming deeper bonds with the people around him."]
"Then… is the world inside the Life Simulation actually real?"
Kael finally voiced the question that had been sitting in his heart from the very beginning.
["…That depends entirely on how the Host chooses to perceive it. Everyone inside the Life Simulation is a projection of a real person, carrying a fragment of their soul."]
["Therefore, emotions formed in the simulation will affect their soul."]
["This is why the affection those heroines have for you spills into the real world."]
["Their souls truly lived within the Life Simulation."]
["But an incomplete soul cannot retain memories."]
["They won't remember anything that happened in the Life Simulation. They can only feel the emotions their soul carries—feelings for the Host and other emotions tied to the Host."]
["So… the characters in the Life Simulation are actually the real people from the real world, just meeting me inside the world you created?"]
["Correct."]
No wonder.
After Kael's first Life Simulation ended, he had found Amber's behavior unbelievably strange.
In the real world, they had never interacted.
Yet Amber looked at him with such inexplicable affection.
So that was why.
The Amber from the simulation and the Amber from reality were the same person.
She had truly lived through everything inside the Life Simulation—but without the memories to show for it.
This explained why the feelings from the simulated world flowed into reality.
"Wait… you said everyone in the Life Simulation is a fragment of a real soul. Then every time I run a Life Simulation, their soul gets split again?"
"If I run a hundred Life Simulations, does that mean their soul gets split into a hundred pieces? Wouldn't they go insane?!"
["…Host, what are you imagining? Each simulation extracts only a minuscule fragment of the soul. You would need thousands of Life Simulations before anything close to what you described could happen."]
["If too much of the soul is missing, the person in the real world would fall unconscious—just like Amber did previously."]
["A body without a soul cannot function."]
["As for why the emotions of the simulated soul affect the real person… it's simply because their feelings for you are too strong."]
["Even a tiny shard of their soul is enough to influence the main soul."]
["Take Diluc, for example. In the first Life Simulation, he killed the Host with his own hands."]
["But after killing you, his hatred gradually faded."]
["That's why the real Diluc was never affected."]
Hearing that, Kael finally relaxed.
The System might be stingy and annoyingly cold sometimes…
But Kael believed its explanation.
Back when Kamisato Ayaka and Amber were in danger in the real world, the System had clearly been extremely anxious.
Kael didn't know why, but he could tell one thing for sure:
The System absolutely did not want anything happening to real Genshin characters.
"System… is there really no way to save Katarina?"
Now that Kael understood that people in the simulation were fragments of real souls, letting Katarina go felt even more painful.
Even if the simulated world was artificial…
The people inside it weren't data. They were real.
["Sorry, Host. There's truly nothing I can do for Katarina."]
["You must understand this: the world of Genshin is structured entirely around its central characters."]
["They are the core of this world."]
["This is why I can only draw energy from them."]
["For characters like Katarina, or the mother you had in the simulation—ordinary, unremarkable people—I cannot obtain any energy from them."]
["Naturally, I cannot provide them any help."]
["Do you remember what I told you about the conservation of Strength?"]
"Even if I'm willing to give Attribute Points?"
["Yes. Even if the Host offers Attribute Points."]
["There's no need to feel guilty. Katarina's ghost in the real world had already dispersed long ago. What you saw in the Life Simulation was only the last remaining trace of energy I captured while building that world."]
["Katarina was always destined to fade."]
Kael let out a long, heavy sigh.
"…Continue the Life Simulation."
["You stayed in that cold, pitch-black house for an entire night."]
["When dawn arrived, the door revealed the same figure you saw yesterday."]
["Katarina's Memory Remnant sat at the entrance, waiting for you with painful, desperate hope."]
["You knew Memory Remnants would repeat the same actions forever."]
["Katarina would continue waiting like this, day after day."]
["Until her last bit of energy completely dispersed."]
["You forced yourself to watch her again, reliving yesterday's agony."]
["When Katarina finally disappeared, the torment on both your body and spirit overwhelmed you, and you collapsed onto the icy floor."]
["When you woke up again, the first thing you did was look toward the doorway."]
["But this time, you didn't see Katarina."]
["Instead, lying quietly on the ground… was a doll with long gold hair."]
The System spoke in Kael's mind.
["Congratulations, Host. You have obtained the item: Katarina Doll.
Usage: an cryo-attribute weapon capable of releasing cryo skills in combat."]
Kael froze in disbelief.
Katarina… had turned into a doll?
But her soul had already dispersed.
Could a Memory Remnant truly possess a will of its own?
And judging from the description, this doll seemed similar to Amber's Baron Bunny…
Did it have its own consciousness?
Kael didn't know.
"Continue reading," he muttered under his breath.
But his hands trembled as he picked up the doll.
---
Next target 200PS :)