Of course, he had also seen how Welt passed his Core to another young woman — a remarkable girl in her own right, one who had learned a great deal and brought to completion the Moonlight Throne they had once only dread of building.
As for now — had he not noticed Einstein and the others' consciousnesses making their way directly toward the Core, he would not have wished to et her here, not at a ti like this.
"I know," Einstein said with a nod, then slowly raised her hand and extended it toward Joyce, just as she always had. "In that case — would you like to co see Welt with ? Or rather... Joachim."
"He has always treasured the na he inherited from you."
"I know." Joyce nodded. He hadn't anticipated how much pressure passing the Core to Joachim would place on the boy's shoulders — how heavy a burden that simple act would beco.
He had watched it all from within the Core. But knowing didn't make facing Joachim any easier.
"He's done remarkably well," Einstein said, gazing into the distance. There was no need to go searching — given the current situation, Joyce had most likely drawn all of them into his dream, so everyone ought to be here sowhere.
"Though he does push himself too hard sotis."
"...He was never a natural-born Herrscher. At the ti, I had no other choice. I passed him the Core, but I never imagined he'd place that much pressure on himself."
Joyce let out a quiet sigh. There had been no alternative back then — but watching from within the Core as Welt carried his na and struggled onward beneath its weight had been genuinely painful.
If only he had managed to hold on a little longer, perhaps things wouldn't have ended the way they did. But regret, unfortunately, has no redy.
"Special delivery, right to your door~!" A voice rang out from sowhere in the distance. Irene launched herself sideways in a single bound, crossed the gap in an instant, and touched down lightly beside the two of them — then slid Welt and Bronya off her shoulders and set them down.
"Looks like you two are already getting acquainted." Irene dusted off her hands, glanced between the pair, and nodded. "Things are going more smoothly than I expected. Ah — Mr. Joyce, don't mind , you two go ahead and talk."
"Allow to make an introduction." Einstein gestured toward Irene. "This is Miss Irene — currently an A-Rank Valkyrie at Schicksal's St. Freya Academy, parenthetical: defector, and the Herrscher of Death for this generation."
"What's with the 'parenthetical: defector'?" Irene shot Einstein a look of pure exasperation. If you're going to introduce soone, do it properly — no need for editorial comntary. It wasn't like there were subtitles floating in the air.
"I'm not wrong, am I?" Einstein shrugged. "In Schicksal's official records, the Hyperion is categorized as a defector vessel, after all."
Irene rolled her eyes at Einstein. Even if that was technically accurate, this was hardly the mont for that kind of remark.
"I'm sorry..." Joyce scratched his head — this was just how Einstein was. "Einstein has always had a taste for small jokes."
Then Joyce turned to Irene and extended his hand warmly. "Miss Irene — I suppose this is our first eting. I am Welt Joyce, the very first Herrscher of Reason."
"Hello, hello — I've heard so much about you~" Irene shook Joyce's hand with a cheerful little wave. "I'm Irene, the Herrscher of Death for this era. The Valkyrie title is just background noise at this point — I have a lot of them. The na is what matters."
"Miss Irene is quite a fascinating person," Joyce said with a smile. But as he looked at her, sothing in her presence gave him pause — a flicker of uncertainty crossed his face. She didn't feel like a simple Herrscher.
From Joyce's perspective, Irene's aura was a layered blend of several entirely different presences. One of them, in particular, made his heart clench in a way he couldn't quite explain.
Irene released his hand, gave Welt a small push forward, waved to the group, then kicked off from the ground and leaped away into the distance.
"Call when you're done chatting~"
Watching Irene bound away, Joyce turned his gaze to Welt — visibly tense, fidgeting like a child called to the principal's office.
Joyce looked at him for a mont, then smiled and spoke.
"It's been a long ti, Joachim. I never imagined — the boy I knew has grown up so much."
When he had passed the Herrscher Core to Joachim back then, Joachim had still been a child with a trace of boyish softness in his face. Now he even had a beard.
"Joyce..." Pushed forward by Irene, Welt barely registered her bounding away. He opened his mouth, stared at Joyce, and then fell silent for a long mont — before, in the warmth of Joyce's smile, he slowly spoke.
"Did I do it? Did I live up to it?"
"Why are you even asking?" Joyce laughed and clapped Welt on the shoulder. "You did. You more than did — better than I ever managed."
"You've been protecting this world all this ti, Joachim. Even at the cost of burning away your own life. And now — you are Welt."
"...Yeah." The sound that ca out of Welt was like the last breath squeezed from sowhere deep in his throat. But the mont it left him, it was as if the weight he'd been carrying simply... dissolved. He felt lighter — so, so much lighter.
He had not betrayed Joyce's faith in him. He had not failed the charge Joyce had entrusted to him. He had not dishonored the na of Welt. He had not let Joyce down.
"I told you — you've done well. You just never had enough faith in yourself." Einstein smiled, then turned to look at Joyce. "Although it seems like Joyce knows quite a bit more than we expected."
"Joyce — when did your mory begin? And how much do you actually know?"
From the few things Joyce had let slip just now, Einstein had already gathered that he was far from ignorant of what had been happening outside. At the very least, he knew sothing of Welt's situation.
"A great deal. From my death, to passing the Core to Welt — I know many of the things he's done since then." Joyce gave a small nod. "I could never do anything about any of it. But I could watch. I've watched every effort you've made, right up until now."
"Then why didn't you co out?" Einstein looked at Joyce steadily, her expression unreadable — but her words pressed forward without rcy. "Why didn't you tell us you were in there? If Miss Irene hadn't told us, how long were you planning to stay hidden?"
"You owe us a proper explanation — not just a breezy 'I'm dead' like it ans nothing. We've all missed you."
"It's like I said, Einstein — I'm dead." Joyce pressed his lips together. "I can barely maintain a presence outside for any length of ti. I didn't want to give you false hope. I didn't want to put you through the pain of losing all over again."
He had thought about it — about telling Einstein and the others that he was still here, still watching. But every ti he ca close to reaching Welt in a dream, he pulled back at the last mont.
He was afraid Joachim would dismiss it as just a dream. Worse — he feared Joachim might take it as a sign that he hadn't done enough, that the reason he was dreaming such things was because he was falling short, and that it would pile even more pressure onto shoulders already carrying far too much.
And he was afraid that even if Joachim believed it and told Einstein and Tesla — even they couldn't resurrect the dead. After all, he was only a thread of consciousness trapped inside a Herrscher Core.
The mont he stepped outside, he might simply dissolve. And when that hope curdled into sothing false, what pain would Einstein and the others have to endure then? So Joyce had kept silent. He hadn't dared to say a word.
Einstein looked at him, and her expression softened — just a fraction. She patted his shoulder. "And you would have gone on like this forever? Trapped inside the Core until even the dream fades away?"
"Yes." Joyce nodded, though he forced a lightness into his voice, spreading his hands wide with a practiced casualness. "Though 'trapped' isn't quite right, either. This is a world of dreams, after all. It's actually... rather free."
"So what you're saying, Mr. Joyce," Bronya said, watching him carefully, "is that you actually want to co out — you just didn't dare, because you were afraid such a thin thread of consciousness would dissolve the mont it left. Is that right?"
"More or less." Joyce looked toward Bronya and nodded. "I'm probably a little more fragile than you imagine. I'm still afraid of goodbyes."
"Then that settles it. Now — as much as I'd rather not be the one to say this — with Miss Irene here, resurrection is genuinely within our reach."
Einstein glanced toward Irene, who was standing at a distance and appeared to be paying absolutely no attention to any of this. "We have a DNA sample you left behind. As the Herrscher of Death, all Miss Irene needs is a little ti to construct a body from it."
"And if you're worried about your consciousness dissolving, we have the Herrscher of Sentience and Fenghuang Down — two of the finest consciousness-stabilization assets available — standing by to escort you safely through."
"So you have no reason to refuse anymore, do you?"
At Einstein's words, Joyce's gaze drifted instinctively toward Irene. He watched her for a long mont before finally looking back at Einstein.
"But... why? Why co and find ?"
"So many questions." Einstein raised her hand and rapped him smartly on the head. "I don't rember you being this full of questions before."
Joyce rubbed his head and looked at her. "Just curious, that's all."
The hand that had knocked him on the head now moved to rest gently against it. "I want to see you," Einstein said quietly. "Do I really need any other reason than that?"
"...No. You don't."
"Exactly."
From her distance, Irene watched the scene unfold, and smiled to herself. Regret that cuts to the bone — that is what forges a person anew. But if a second chance truly exists... who in the world would choose to hold onto that bone-deep regret?
When the chance to undo an old tragedy is within reach, can anyone really just let it go?
The answer, without question, is no.
What a strange ceiling.
Joyce opened his eyes lying on sothing, staring up at a clean white ceiling above him as his consciousness rapidly took hold of the body it now inhabited.
He could see clearly, but speaking was another matter. He ran a quick assessnt. The body was in better shape than he'd expected. He simply couldn't find the words — possibly because he'd forgotten, after all this ti, how it was done.
After all, it had been several decades since he'd used a real mouth to form real words. Whatever he was lying on had to be so kind of vine — he could feel the texture of it against his skin.
Had their base really relocated to the middle of a jungle? Surely not. Just recently, when he'd been observing through Bronya, things had looked perfectly normal, hadn't they?
Then Irene's face swam into his field of vision — bright smile and all, looking down at him. "Welco back. The surgery was a complete success. You're a cute girl now, by the way."
Joyce shot upright on reflex — but the mont he was sitting up, he realized Irene was joking. That particular aspect of things was quite easy to confirm for himself.
"Miss Irene, that kind of joke may not be terribly kind to a newly-minted heart." Joyce pressed a hand to his chest and shot back with the sa dry humor, while scanning his surroundings.
"Fair enough — I thought you'd react a bit more dramatically." Irene shrugged. "This is Anti-Entropy's research lab. The vines you're lying on were used to cultivate your body."
As she spoke, Irene placed a hand on Joyce's shoulder. A soft white light emanated from her palm as she ran a quick check, then nodded with satisfaction. "Mm. Exactly as I expected. You'll probably need a few days to adjust."
"You haven't really used a body in over a decade, after all. Rember to keep breathing — but you don't need to do it manually, automatic mode is fine. Oh, right — Herrschers don't technically need to breathe either."
At that, Joyce — who had, in fact, just switched to manual breathing mode upon being told about it — twitched the corner of his mouth. "Miss Irene is always so... hmm...."
"You were going to say scatterbrained, weren't you? Personally, I think being like this beats being relentlessly thodical about everything. Far more fun~" Irene said, already turning to look past Joyce at Tesla, Einstein, and Welt standing behind him.
"Alright, enough staring. Surgery was a success. If the patient's family wants to hug him or kiss him, feel free to step right up — don't let the doctor stop you. I encourage it. Truly."
"And if anyone feels like there's a third wheel in the room, I can disappear right this instant. Please, don't spare a single thought for my feelings."
"After you say all that, how is anyone supposed to stay in the mood?" Tesla, who had genuinely been brimming with emotion a mont ago, found every last drop of it deflated by Irene's comntary.
Einstein and Welt had both already braced themselves ntally beforehand, so even with Irene's interruption throwing them off, they just about managed to hold their expressions — exhaling quietly in private relief.
Whatever surging emotion they'd felt had been thoroughly dismantled by Irene's remarks. In the end, the two of them exchanged a glance and wordlessly shoved Tesla forward.
"? Why are you pushing ?" Tesla glanced back at Einstein and Welt. "I — I haven't figured out what I want to say yet..."
"We spent the better part of an hour inside that Core, Tesla, and you still haven't thought of anything?" Einstein twirled a strand of hair around her finger, smiling serenely at the utterly flustered Tesla.
"Chicken Nest Head..." Tesla ground her teeth at Einstein, then turned to face Joyce — and after a long, sputtering pause, seed to throw all dignity to the wind. "Anyway. Welco back, Joyce."
"Dr. Tesla spent all that ti building up to... just that one line?" Joyce looked at her, and for a mont, he and Einstein appeared to reach a wordless agreent.
"Goodness. And here I thought Tesla had so much she wanted to say." Einstein imdiately followed up with a well-placed jab. Caught in the crossfire between the two of them, a faint flush crept up Tesla's face.
"You two!!!"
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