"Stellaron?" Hearing Gallagher point the source back to something like this, Mr. Yang couldn't help feeling puzzled.
"Penacony is freely accessible, a well-connected interstellar hub. There doesn't seem to be any sign of contamination either, so how could it be related to a Stellaron?"
"What you said is completely correct," Gallagher first affirmed Mr. Yang's statement, but then continued, "So why don't you guess what that means?"
"You're lying again!" Stelle answered instantly.
"..."
Gallagher had no choice but to pause and glance at Stelle. As they interacted more, he gradually discovered one thing: every one of these juniors from the Astral Express was a talent.
One silly girl, one nervous girl, and one girl who seemed to have completely failed to realize how serious things were.
Though the last one was on such good terms with the Knights of Beauty, it was understandable that she failed to realize the seriousness of the situation.
Judging by the way things were, she was probably a very doted-on child normally, too.
Gallagher suddenly wanted to know what Mikhail would think after seeing this scene with his own eyes.
That old man might be very happy. In his eyes, these were certainly all excellent younger generations full of vitality.
"Beautiful dreams don't just appear out of nowhere." After sighing, Gallagher looked at Stelle and said, "If we compare the Memokeep Realm to an ocean, then creating a dreamscape is like filling the raging sea with earth to build land."
"To accomplish such a feat, unless a Memokeeper or a mysterious Emanator takes action, there is only one way, and that is to use a Stellaron."
"And this isn't something that can be settled by simply making a wish. You must possess a considerable degree of knowledge, along with a great deal of time and manpower, to make it so seamless."
As Gallagher explained the difficulties of constructing a dreamscape, the expressions of everyone in the Astral Express group became somewhat subtle.
Immediately afterward, everyone turned their heads in unison and looked toward Nero, who had just broken free from the embrace of the Eight Million Gods not far away.
"W-What is it?" Nero asked in confusion.
Everyone in the Astral Express group shook their heads, then said nothing and turned back to look at Gallagher.
Things should indeed be as difficult and complicated as Gallagher had said, but Nero always had to be excluded from common sense.
He might really be able to create a dreamscape just by making a wish...
"At this point, you should understand, right?" Gallagher continued, "The current Festival Planet is the disaster of Asdana's Stellaron."
"The Festival Planet... is the disaster of the Stellaron?" March looked down at the ground beneath her feet, her expression turning astonished.
"If that's the case, then the disaster of the Stellaron isn't a problem at all." July said, "It's been managed so well that it even became a money-burning pit and tourist destination like Epsilon."
"Huh?" March's eyes lit up when she heard that. "Right, isn't there anything dangerous about this?"
Gallagher sighed and looked at the two identical little girls. "That is precisely the problem."
"The story has to begin a long time ago. After the Watchmaker and his group liberated the Frontier Prison, they were at a loss as to how to build Penacony from nothing, while internal and external troubles came one after another. It was then that someone set their sights on the Stellaron."
"This Stellaron had originally fallen onto Asdana during the war years. At the time, under the Nameless' call, people gave up on the idea of becoming tainted by this kind of power. But there were always people with ulterior motives secretly waiting for an opportunity."
"The turning point came after Ternan's sacrifice. With two Nameless companions passing away one after another, the Watchmaker had no choice but to head to the front line of development. And this journey gave his opponents an opportunity."
"By the time the family representatives from the Montor Galaxy responded to the Watchmaker's call and arrived, the Stellaron had already been activated by someone and seeped into the original shared dreamscape."
"The Family happened to possess the knowledge to seal the Stellaron?" Himeko asked.
"More than that!" Gallagher said. "They knew far more about the Stellaron than ordinary people did. They quickly helped Mikhail quell the internal unrest, then joined the construction of Penacony in the name of Harmony."
"That was the Third Era known as the Age of Dream Chasing. The Watchmaker, kept in the dark, sent invitations to the entire universe, setting off the craze known as the Land of Dreams."
"However, there was one problem. The Stellaron had never been sealed at all. It had merely changed the form in which it existed in the dream."
Gallagher looked at March and July. "So, little girls, think carefully. What is the price of constructing and maintaining such a gigantic beautiful dream?"
"Life. Magnificent death is built upon spiritual death. The poisonous wine called happiness flows through the dreamscape, causing people to become immersed in it, their minds slowly flowing toward the same end, ultimately becoming the placenta of the beautiful dream."
"I see." Standing to the side, Tiriandes said, "You're saying that confusion, laziness, cowardice... these weaknesses found everywhere in human nature were nurtured and amplified by the Family, turning Penacony into another prison, one far more unbreakable than the one in the past."
Gallagher nodded.
"But that's not all."
The girl's voice suddenly sounded. Silver Wolf's projection instantly appeared beside Nero and casually said, "If it were only indulging in dreams and forgetting reality, things wouldn't be that serious. Hmm... after all, that would just mean they themselves were unwilling to wake up."
This invisible emperor of Punklorde glanced at her gaming partner who had disappeared and then reappeared, and continued, "If it's only guidance, things still wouldn't be that serious."
"The most terrifying thing is having a pair of hands pushing from behind. The followers of Harmony are very good at influencing other people's minds."
"I found a piece of information you might be interested in. Do you know about the Dreammaster? I heard that guy can simultaneously be the 107,336 people in this place."
Silver Wolf tapped her head with her finger. "The erasure of individuality, distortion of the mind, blurred thoughts, the difference between a consciousness cluster and the unification of consciousness is still quite large."
Gallagher nodded again. He knew that this suddenly appearing little girl was also a member of the Stellaron Hunters.
"We discovered it too late. By then, the Family already had eyes and ears everywhere, and the opposition was quickly controlled and driven out."
"With nowhere else to turn, I had no choice but to use mysterious power to hide in this chaotic Memokeep Realm, then spend several years creating a meme in the dream for our use..."
"Sleepie... That is its real name. Ordinary people cannot fall asleep again within a dream, so we had a chance to exploit this loophole."
"So that's why... no wonder Misha called that meme Sleepie." Stelle pondered.
On the other side, Nero became excited instead. His eyes lit up as he stared at Silver Wolf and asked somewhat excitedly, "What you said is true?"
"That Dreammaster can do the work of 107,336 people at the same time... No, I mean, he can simultaneously be the 107,336 people in this place?"
"Of course." Silver Wolf smiled. "I saw it with my own eyes. Hmm... at least I personally saw him say it to that woman called Acheron."
"Great!" Nero said. "I hope he's a bad person!"
Silver Wolf: "Huh?"