Paimon pressed further, "Dunyarzad firmly believed that she had encountered you in her consciousness before, and that you were the one who enlightened her. Do you remember her back then?"
Nahida nodded. "Yes. Back then, she was overly protected by her family. No one cared about her personality or her thoughts. It was as if she was only living to delay the progression of her Eleazar."
"I only gave her a little wisdom to re-evaluate life—that she could also have a self. But now she has also..."
Lumine said, "That meant a great deal to her. You are a very kind deity."
[Nahida: This was just a small matter.]
[Ningguang: It is precisely because it is a small matter that it seems especially great. Many people think about doing great things, about saving many people at once, and look down on doing small things. But in reality, isn't it the opposite? You shouldn't neglect things just because they are small.]
[Paimon: Ningguang is really amazing.]
[Lumine: She is the leader of Liyue, after all—besides the deity, that is.]
[Ningguang: I must also exclude the adepti. To be precise, I am one of the Liyue Qixing, responsible for handling Liyue's civil affairs. Moreover, we all act under Rex Lapis's decrees.]
[Paimon: Even so, Ningguang's ability to govern a nation surpasses that of many deities, doesn't it?]
[Furina: I feel like someone is secretly talking about me.]
[Venti: I feel the same way.]
[Ei: Me too.]
[Nahida: I also... in governing a nation, I don't know how to do it either.]
Nahida lowered her head. "I still have a long way to go. I am far from qualified to be a true deity."
"At the very least, I failed to save her. If I were a qualified deity, how could I let my devout believer depart with regret on a day like the Sabzeruz Festival..."
Nahida stomped her foot in anger. "This is all the Sages' fault. Nahida doesn't need to blame herself."
Nahida said, "I am not blaming myself. This is a rational judgment of the distance between me and a qualified deity."
Paimon said, "Don't be so stubborn, Nahida. Deities are allowed to be sad too, you know."
Nahida lowered her head in silence, then said, "To prevent similar sacrifices from happening again, we must end the loop as quickly as possible."
Paimon asked, "Then what exactly should we do?"
Nahida continued, "Though this Sabzeruz Festival is under the Akasha's control, dreaming is a uniquely human ability. The Akasha cannot create dreams out of nothing."
"That is to say, within this dream, there is a main subject. This is the dream created by that person."
[Paimon: First, this person must be a native of Sumeru City, which is why they are so familiar with it.]
[Nahida: Yes, that's a good line of thinking. But the remaining range is still very broad. Moreover, even natives of Sumeru City cannot remember every single detail of the city. In fact, every consciousness inserted into this dream has participated in its construction.]
[Paimon: So what I just said was completely wrong?]
[Nahida: Though the content was somewhat incorrect, the process of elimination was right.]
Paimon asked, "Then how do we find that person?"
Nahida continued, "Since this is that person's dream, everything here also originates from the deep consciousness within their mind."
"That person can also freely change everything in the dream through imagination."
Paimon fell into thought. "Imagination... how should I understand that?"