---o---
When did the influence of the players' madness start affecting people other than me and Stelle?
Wende held the shivering Pom-Pom in his arms, stroking its small belly for warmth as he pondered this internally.
"Um... are you guys... okay?"
March 7th tiptoed over to the trio, her hands clasped behind her back. She leaned over and asked with great concern.
"Mmm... fine for now..." Welt's muffled voice replied.
"Then about the Xianzhou today..."
"I'll report this to General Jing Yuan..."
The large zongzi shifted, then pulled out a phone...
It wasn't that they didn't want to go—though they really didn't—but this soul-piercing chill was simply unbearable. He wasn't this cold even when he ran naked across the Siberian tundra back in the day!
"Hmm... how strange... Why don't we feel the slightest bit of cold?"
Himeko furrowed her elegant brows, looking at the three "zongzi" with a puzzled expression.
"By the way, is Stelle not up yet?"
March suddenly realized someone was missing and hurried to the door of Stelle's room.
The three zongzi exchanged glances, then decided to follow her to see.
"Beep..."
March unlocked and opened Stelle's door directly with her fingerprint. Seeing Stelle still deep in slumber, she let out a sigh of relief.
"It's fine... she just overslept."
Wiping away non-existent sweat from her forehead, March waved at the three zongzi at the door, signaling that all was well.
"Ngh... what happened?"
Stelle propped herself up, rubbing her drowsy eyes as she looked blankly at March beside her.
"I see. It seems only we and Pom-Pom have been affected."
Seeing that Stelle was unharmed, Dan Heng began to analyze the cause of their shared chill.
"Could it be that you three were cursed by some kind of cosmic fairy?" March's imagination ran wild.
"How could such a thing possibly exist..." Dan Heng shook his head.
"Perhaps it's the prank of a certain Aeon?" Himeko suggested, raising a hand to her chin. If it was that Aeon of Elation, it wouldn't be entirely out of the question, would it?
"Mmm... Sister Himeko's analysis is not without reason."
Wende nodded. He couldn't very well say it was because the players in reality were going crazy, could he? It was better to find a scapegoat first...
"For Them to take an interest in the Astral Express... isn't all that strange."
Welt also found the explanation quite plausible.
"But why only us and Pom-Pom?" Dan Heng raised a new question.
"Well... perhaps They just want to see us rack our brains trying to figure it out, only to come up with nothing?" After further deep thought, Himeko offered an even more reasonable explanation.
"Huh? Who's 'They'?"
Stelle, having just gotten dressed, walked out with a confused look.
"Oh, a certain Aeon with a wicked sense of humor who once blew up the Express for fun," Dan Heng explained to her.
"Oh."
Stelle nodded vaguely, then picked up her phone and started playing a game.
"Hmm?"
Stelle's eyes fell on a familiar avatar in her game's friend request list, and another that had mysteriously appeared in her phone's contacts. She was momentarily lost in thought.
The chill came on quickly and left just as fast. By noon, the three men and one Pom-Pom had finally shed their thick "zongzi skins," liberating themselves from the cumbersome layers of clothing.
"Although I don't know what happened, this almost seems like a warning to us."
Stretching his somewhat stiff limbs, Welt continued to speculate.
"What makes you say that?" Himeko's lips curved into a slight smile as she watched Welt doing something akin to broadcast calisthenics.
"It's simple. The cold appeared right when we were planning to go to the Xianzhou today."
Welt pushed up his glasses, his expression serious.
Watching Welt continue to guess, Wende felt rather helpless, but he had his own questions.
That eye in my dream... what was it?
"Crunch, crunch... So, are we still going to the Xianzhou?" March asked Welt while munching on a snack.
"We're going. Since the cold is gone, we'll head out shortly. However, just in case, we'll check into a hotel first."
"Okay..."
The group heading out for the Trailblaze Mission had no objections. Only Himeko sighed with a bit of emotion; she would be guarding the Astral Express alone with Pom-Pom again...
"It's settled then, Sister Himeko! We're off~"
"Alright, see you later."
---o---
"WTF! Check your mail, check your mail! My wife Silver Wolf sent you 10 bottles of fuel!"
Kakaya, who was streaming games to fill her airtime, had just opened her in-game mailbox when she discovered ten bottles of Trailblaze Power. Looking at the sender... it was from Silver Wolf.
Furthermore, after claiming the fuel sent by Silver Wolf, Herta would send you a text message, summoning you to her office and saying she had something interesting to show you.
[What's this, a new game?]
[More exciting than a new game!]
[Obey me! Let me test it!]
[Lady Herta, please no!]
[A bunch of drama queens...]
Kakaya decisively followed the message's instructions to Herta's office. After their conversation, Herta would give her a videotape.
[Option 1: Why a videotape?]
[Option 2: Can't you just send it to me in a message?]
[Option 3: What century are you from, you old fossil?]
Kakaya, ever the contrarian, decisively chose option three. The screen went black, Pom-Pom slowly walked past, and then Kakaya found herself back on the Express, the videotape still in her inventory.
Upon clicking the videotape, this advanced piece of tech from the space station automatically projected the recorded footage. It even had a small speaker to play the audio. And so...
"My game accounts... my game accounts... eighty-six of them... and ten were newly leveled... gone... they're all gone!"
Silver Wolf's tearful voice emerged from the projection. Then, under the watchful eyes of Kakaya and her entire audience, the projected Silver Wolf began to roll back and forth on the ground, crying and screaming... she only calmed down after eating a mouthful of food that had fallen on the floor.
And with that, this dangerous Stellaron Hunter, the young hacker with the most potential to become a legend, Miss Silver Wolf who had faced off against two members of the Genius Society and retreated unscathed both times...
...suffered a complete social death in another dimension. Her actions and voice were promptly turned into emoji packs and phone ringtones...
---o---
"Hiss..."
Stelle sucked in a sharp breath as she watched the recording of Silver Wolf's major meltdown on her phone...
Then, she forwarded it to the "Astral Express Family" group chat.