No one besides Fu Hua ever found out what Sirin's answer was.
It was only in these recent days that Raven felt her life was beginning to have some semblance of meaning.
To be honest, in the past…
For most ordinary people, the sacrifices made in the fight against the Honkai, the efforts of Schicksal's Valkyries, and the contributions of Anti-Entropy all felt separated from their own lives by an invisible barrier.
If things had gone as expected, according to the analysis Raven had participated in at World Serpent, the emergence of Herrschers should have become increasingly erratic, seeping into humanity like droplets into an ocean.
Without the unexpected meddling of a person from the future, the people of this era would never have connected their daily lives to the Honkai. In fact, it was more likely that…
They would have adopted the mindset of a street beggar.
'I'm already begging for a living, what does the end of the world have to do with me?'
Having lost their sense of self in industrial society and fallen into nihilism, humans would have become loyal followers of the Honkai, just as they believed in the religion fabricated by Gray Serpent.
This sense of disconnect was what Raven had felt in the world as it was originally.
But now, thanks to Noldrei, that disconnect had vanished.
In its place, things were starting to veer off in an indescribable, chaotic direction. For instance, this game in the Stigma Space that Raven was currently taking part in.
She had found some strange content in here—games ranging from moe-style works to shoujo romance, and even genres like BL, BG, harem, reverse harem, and so on.
Every single one of these games contained R-18 content. The Stigma Space even allowed for a fully immersive experience, letting players physically interact with the game's created characters.
The realism was on par with the real world, and it even faithfully recreated the visceral sensations of hormonal exchange between people.
Raven, or Natasha, had little interest in any of this.
She was just a player who had joined out of curiosity and usually just skipped past such content.
She had no desire to get into a yuri romance with pretty girls in a game, though plenty of others had tried out similar Stigma Space experiences.
The feeling was…
Natasha couldn't quite put her finger on it, but she felt like it could lead to some truly extraordinary developments.
After all, according to some parts of Project Stigma, a Stigma's will could be redesigned into a Stigma lifeform.
So, theoretically, if these strange "game characters" were given more power to interact with the real world, they could very well become more like actual humans.
Natasha wasn't too clear on the details, nor did she know how that Academy City Board Chairman planned to handle this game-like Stigma Space.
The game world built by that pair of reclusive siblings had already become an incredibly influential platform for internal communication among Stigma-related organizations.
Some groups that had yet to awaken their own Stigmata or build their own Stigma-powered battlesuits had seized the opportunity.
A cheap, publicly available Stigma Space like "Blank" allowed them to set up their own internal communication networks in the shortest time possible.
It was as if everyone was using the same game as an instant messaging app. In fact, it was even better.
Even if you were halfway across the globe, you could find your corresponding contact within this vast game world.
For example, people were brazenly posting real-world business proposals on the guild message boards of the open-world game designed by the siblings.
These bastards were giving the poor brother and sister no chance to escape reality, hunting them down from the real world into their game for some relentless torment.
Who knew that the game they had worked so hard to build within the Stigma Space would turn into this, all because of its excellent internal communication features?
That young brother-sister duo had probably never experienced the horror of being doxxed and dragged into the public spotlight like this.
Blank: "We just built a simple open-world game in the Stigma Space..."
Players: "Yeah, and it's basically our work chat now!"
Later, the Blank siblings added features like invisible walls and instance-based dungeon raids, which finally managed to corral these open-world natural disasters into specific areas.
But the in-game communication system was left as it was. They couldn't just force players to only communicate at specific times and places, could they? That would mean abandoning the greatest advantage of the Stigma Space.
This was the impression Natasha got upon arriving at the "main city." What she saw was a horde of level 1 noobs hanging around, not to play the game, but to hold meetings and communicate more conveniently.
Occasionally, these people might try one of the raids the Blank siblings put out a call for, but most of the time, they were more concerned with real-world matters.
It had the strange vibe of logging into Steam with your LinkedIn account.
Natasha happened to witness a surprising scene by the roadside. A male character was gushing at a female elf character. "So you're Kasumiko-sensei, the creator of the female protagonist in 'Otherworld Love Metronome'? You're incredible! From the seductive movements to the dialogue and even the subtle use of eye contact and distance, you've perfectly captured the character's appeal."
"You must have hired a very talented professional from the real world to help you, right?! My admiration for you is like a surging river, endless and unstoppable, like the flooding of the Yellow River, beyond all control!"
Kasumiko-sensei looked troubled. "I was asking about the plot..." she said.
A transparent quest prompt hung in front of her. Judging by the content, it was a game survey.
Natasha glanced at it. It seemed to be for some kind of isekai romance-and-raising sim. Out of curiosity, she accepted the quest, and the questionnaire appeared in her hands.
The questions were mostly about the game's plot and what kind of story developments players hoped to see next.
"The plot?! Ah, right, the plot... Er, um... I think I skipped it? But that's not important! The character you designed is absolutely brilliant! The story is completely irrelevant!"
The player had clearly struck a nerve with Kasumiko-sensei.
Her face flushed with anger. "SKIP? Then why don't you just skip your life while you're at it? This is a survey about the game's story!"
The player was thick-skinned and completely missed her fury. He continued unabated, "The highlight of your game is the character. The plot isn't very engaging for players, it's rather dull and boring, and the romance has no sense of immersion. Most people prefer the character you designed. On our private player forums, we've even categorized the 'instance' you made as being part of the 'character store' section."
Kasumigaoka Utaha broke down on the spot.
She couldn't believe that after all the effort she'd poured into crafting the plot, no one cared about it. All they cared about was the character she created, and mostly because of the related H-scenes.
To think that the tables had turned so completely!
The thought of that Sawamura Eriri soaring to new heights creating "art," while she was stuck here making eroge for points, made Kasumigaoka Utaha feel like she was about to faint.
Life's a rollercoaster, and the ups and downs come way too fast!