Chapter 404: His Desire To Chase Excitement Meant Starting Trouble
To be honest, both Steven and Nian knew perfectly well that in Terra—a world where even surviving another day was a challenge—talking about "political correctness" was basically just something you did for fun.
If anyone really dared to go out there and shout "Infected lives matter!", people wouldn't think they were being righteous or progressive—they'd just think the person has oripathy and the originum has grown inside their brain. After all, in this world, oppression against the Infected was an undeniable fact, practically accepted by every nation as the default.
If someone publicly voiced such dangerous opinions, they wouldn't just get "banned for a week" like in Steven's previous world.
The entire world itself would come down on them.
Only a tiny handful of people ever dared to speak up about such things—people like Patriot or Talulah.
So, after trading ideas with perfect tacit understanding, Steven and Nian decisively deleted every hint of political-correctness-style content from the script. The movie already had more than enough elements going on; it didn't need that stuff.
Of course, the remaining script still needed polish, and there were definitely more things that had to be added later.
"Talking with you today really got my creativity going. I need to write all of this down right away. So I'll leave the hiring part to you, okay? As for the rest of the script… we can review it next time."
Clinging onto the moment with clear reluctance, Nian saw Steve off. To her, meeting someone like Steve—someone who genuinely shared her passions—was unbelievably rare. Most people in this world couldn't understand art at all, yet they still dared to criticize her work.
Meanwhile, stepping out of that strange pocket dimension-like space, Steven also felt a twinge of reluctance. He rarely met someone who was so easy to talk to and shared the same bizarre hobbies. If it weren't so late, he could've spent the entire night chatting with her about setting lore.
After all, he had tons of weird ideas swirling in his head—like "The Weight-Loss Journey of the Heavy Orca" or "The Miraculous Revival of the One-Legged Horse Girl." Those were exactly the kinds of things he wanted to see in a movie.
But cooling down a bit wasn't bad either. There was still plenty of time. He could build those ideas with Nian step by step.
Smiling in relaxed satisfaction, Steven walked toward his room while plotting out how to make an even more entertaining script.
But when he opened his door, he froze for a moment—
Because a young girl was quietly sitting on the edge of his bed, waiting for him.
The girl also had snow-white hair, but unlike a certain shameless vampire—who had probably tossed her dignity and bottom line somewhere off a ship's bridge—this one had a pair of adorable, twitchy ears on top of her head that instantly gave away her identity.
"Aren't you the type who does nothing but sleep unless you're already asleep? What's wrong? New place keeps you awake, so you decided to cling to your bed instead?"
Steven gave a glance at the window—its frame clearly mangled and forced open from the outside—and immediately understood how she got in.
All thanks to Warfarin and her habit of pulling "midnight ambushes," most of his windows were already as loose as if they weren't even attached.
"It's not that I'm clinging to the bed," the girl—Centaurea—answered softly. "It's just… this is the first time in my life I've ever left Kazimierz. It's a little hard to get used to."
Shifting slightly, Centaurea scooted to the side and patted the empty space beside her, her golden eyes shimmering with a small, expectant glow as she looked toward the doorway where Steven stood.
Steven, for his part, didn't bother with shyness or hesitation. He sat down naturally beside her, even reaching over to pull the window fully open so that moonlight spilled gently into the room.
"So you couldn't sleep and decided to talk to me, instead of, say, planning a midnight attack on me?"
"Well what else would I be doing? What, are you feeling disappointed now?"
Centaurea leaned in like the very picture of a cute girl-next-door, resting her head on Steven's shoulder. Tilting her small face upward, she gazed into his eyes with her golden pupils.
"Well, saying I'm not disappointed would be a lie," Steven chuckled. "But I am glad you came to talk. The night is long—having a beautiful girl to keep me company isn't exactly something I'd complain about."
With a shrug, he reached behind him and—like performing a magic trick—produced a bottle of fine liquor and two glasses from his inventory. He poured them right in front of her.
"You know, I've always wondered—someone who managed to idle away in Kazimierz without a care in the world… wasn't that supposed to be your ideal lifestyle? So why did you suddenly decide to travel with me? Just so you know, this trip won't be peaceful at all."
Handing her one of the glasses, Steven offered the warning quietly. Getting into trouble wasn't something he avoided—if anything, his desire to chase excitement meant starting trouble. Centaurea had to know this, and yet she still followed him. That alone made him curious.
"You have to understand, most Kurantas were born with the instinct to run freely. The only reason we end up living the way you saw… is because life forced us to."
"So wanting to leave Kazimierz and see a wider sky and broader lands—there's nothing strange about that."
"And also—"
Centaurea took the glass, downed the drink in one go, and then, cheeks faintly pink under the influence, turned her face toward him.
"Traveling together with someone you like… someone you feel comfortable around… don't you think that's a perfectly romantic thing to do?"
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Note: Character Illustration is in this Google Drive:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1iuyfwNVFHzIi9H4rWNT_lAm7jTSiah_M
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