Right.
The person sitting in front of her had lied to her too.
Back then, the only reason Rita had not pointed at Deceitful Bloom in the temple and cursed her out was because she had too much pride to lose face in front of everyone.
Instead, she had acted calm and composed, exchanged a few words with Cicada, and let it go.
Rita sighed helplessly.
"That's different."
"I think it genuinely doesn't know."
If The chanoids truly were the mastermind behind everything, then the mont she began stealing authority, the other side should have imdiately intervened to stop her.
The fact that nothing had happened ant the entity's current state was abnormal.
Sleeping?
Standby mode?
Or perhaps it was still digesting the tilines it had devoured from the previous era.
At this point, Rita found it increasingly difficult not to suspect that preserving the most Brilliant tiline each era existed for one reason:
To ensure the next era's story remained entertaining.
For example, Deceitful Bloom, who would always pay attention to Vineborne in every era.
Or Foolishness, who endlessly searched for an owner for [Foolishness Ga] every cycle.
Those gods could no longer participate directly in the ga.
But their obsessions still influenced the stories that followed.
Beacon Youwo in Graveyard of Bones and Quiet Mountain Foolishness were the sa.
Was Rita upset?
Of course she was.
Not long ago, she had even felt regretful that B80 had stayed beside her for so long without ever awakening a divine talent or gaining real emotions.
Everything it felt still began with calculation first, simulation second.
But because B80 still lacked true emotions...
Because it had followed her out of the Scrap Zone precisely because it longed for real emotions...
She could not bring herself to be angry at it.
Not to ntion she had been the one to bring it out of the Scrap Zone in the first place.
"There's no point getting angry at it," Rita said honestly.
"And getting angry at has a point?"
"...Hasn't that already been over for ages?!"
"Tell one thing and I'll stop being mad."
Rita relaxed slightly.
"What thing?"
Deceitful Bloom asked,
"What exactly did you do for in that person's Graveyard of Bones?"
Rita scratched her cheek awkwardly.
"I just... irritated her a little."
Deceitful Bloom was not that easy to fool.
She was not blind.
In fact, this was the first ti she had ever seen BS Rita look this guilty.
That rare expression made Rita seem unexpectedly alive in that mont.
The unreachable divinity surrounding her softened noticeably.
Deceitful Bloom pressed further.
"How?"
Rita avoided her gaze.
After hesitating for a mont, her eyes drifted back toward Deceitful Bloom as she muttered quickly and vaguely,
"I just told her that QM Deceitful Bloom made you cry with one sentence about how 'Starsea doesn't even have any Vineborne left, so who exactly are you still fighting for?'"
That single sentence detonated every flower on Deceitful Bloom's vines.
"........."
Deceitful Bloom snapped in embarrassnt and fury,
"Were you trying to piss off Youwo or piss off ?!"
Rita answered weakly,
"Obviously Youwo..."
Though she had not expected the anger package to co with a buy-one-get-one-free bonus.
Deceitful Bloom was apparently furious enough that her brain lagged for a few seconds before finally rembering she could defend herself.
"I didn't cry."
Rita nodded rapidly.
"...Right. It was just too hot. You sweated during the fight, that's all."
Deceitful Bloom: "..."
Before Deceitful Bloom's flowers could explode further, Rita quickly reached over and adjusted her posture and hands slightly.
"Hurry, go back to how you were sitting before. I'm ending the ti stop."
"Three, two, one!"
Deceitful Bloom could only cooperate.
To avoid B80 noticing anything strange, she could not even explode imdiately after ti resud.
She had to sit there smiling calmly instead of storming off right away.
anwhile, Rita lowered her head and returned to adjusting the blueprint in front of her.
She was trying to figure out where to place the Scrap Zone.
For a puzzle this massive, adding or removing even one piece dramatically affected the entire composition.
No wonder the arrangent had felt slightly off before.
Looking at it now, perhaps The chanoids truly could not be excluded.
Five minutes later, Deceitful Bloom suddenly spoke.
"Can you control your Flower Crown Murder?"
"It keeps drifting over here and hitting ."
Rita: "???"
She turned her head.
Flower Crown Murder really was floating around.
Like drifting willow fluff.
Swaying lazily in the wind.
But wasn't it always like that?
And besides, it was clearly Flower of Deceit's vines that kept smacking Flower Crown Murder around!
Deceitful Bloom stood up coldly.
"How irritating."
Then she walked away.
Rembering how Deceitful Bloom had held herself together for five full minutes before finally snapping made Rita want to laugh.
She watched her leave before quietly returning to her drawing.
But after sketching for only a short while, Rita suddenly sat upright.
Her eyes widened as she stared toward Deceitful Bloom, who was currently lying on a deck chair reading.
Wait a second.
Wasn't the original topic supposed to be whether Rita had been angry back then?
How had the conversation sohow turned into Deceitful Bloom getting angry instead?
As though sensing Rita's stare, Deceitful Bloom calmly rolled over on the lounge chair and turned her back toward her.
Rita: "..."
Ever since the Scrap Zone puzzle piece had been added, B80 had beco visibly happier.
Its cube head rotated every few seconds.
At one point it even changed its "hairstyle."
It replaced the antenna on top of its head with three spring-like coils.
According to B80, Fury Prayer and Winter Sea Frenzied Shark had suggested it.
"Very punk," they said.
Rita had no idea what to say about that.
But she let it do whatever it wanted.
B80, however, loved explaining its logic.
"When we stand together, you always notice Y128 first."
"Because its antenna is the cutest, right?"
Rita had never noticed herself doing that.
Now that B80 ntioned it, she actually stopped to think.
"Do I?"
"Yes!"
B80 answered imdiately.
"It's special."
"So strange."
"It hasn't been with you the longest."
"It never awakened a divine talent because of you."
"But you like it second only to ."
"So strange."
It repeated "strange" twice.
Probably using it as a positive synonym for "interesting."
But both tis, it ant the sa thing:
Its programming could not understand that particular attachnt.
Rita happened to be tired of drawing anyway.
She casually pulled over a discarded sheet of paper and sketched a sunflower in a few quick strokes.
As she colored it in, she said,
"You're right."
"I really do like Y128 second only to you, even though we haven't actually spent that much ti together."
"Because our story is complicated."
"And I like complicated stories."
"I stole its antenna once. I even killed it."
"But after going in circles, we sohow beca friends."
"It worked so hard to co find in BS, yet my first reaction was to doubt its sincerity and motives."
"For a split second, I even wanted to kill it again."
"But its reaction was just... finding interesting."
She lifted her eyes toward the distant BS light screen.
She was wondering whether she should bring Y128 aboard the ship too.
Last ti, it had said it wanted to co.
But out of the corner of her eye, she suddenly t Deceitful Bloom's gaze.
The aning in those eyes was painfully easy to read:
And you still think you have the right to criticize ?
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