Ayako and I snuggled on the couch, eyes glued to the flickering TV. The drama… or rather the farce played out: a fat, neckless Libertian gentleman, portly with a charming smile, met a bronze-skinned Maharian woman on a blind date. Their first touch, fingers interweaving, vowed a blossoming romance. It reminded me of Leanne's whispered telltale, a forbidden spark with her father's closest friend. But soon, the gentleman's facade crumbled, his shameful actions revealing before the eyes of hers and her family, which led to a hilarious, albeit painful, upshot. Laughter bubbled in my chest, echoing the absurdity unfolding on screen.

After our hours of fun, the laughter hushed as the credits rolled, a list of names flashing across the screen. My guffaw ceased, but the sheer lunacy of the show lingered, a phantom itch I could not quite scratch. It was frivolous fun, intended to entertain, yet something about it refused to let go.

“What a fucking idiot they are,” she laughed. “I couldn’t believe marrying an old man with children from their ex’s vagina is still a thing there.”

“That also seems like a thing from the Arenia,” I added.

“Sounds like being a fucking cuck and a gold-digger is such a tradition.”

“All for a gold.”

As it was finished, we stood up and stretched our joints. Ayako then turned the TV off and grabbed her smartphone, giving it a few taps.

“I’m gonna send you a screenshot,” said Ayako. “Mind you wanna check yours.”

“Right,” I grabbed mine and opened it, multiple squares fading into my screen. But… “Which is it?”, I then asked.

“It’s in the Envoy app,” she said. “The sharp-looking letter ‘E’... with a speech circle around it.”

“The sharp-looking letter ‘E’...,” I gave a few flicks to and fro, searching for such an app…until my eyes caught it. “Is this it?”

Her focus narrowed as she leaned in, studying the screen like a codebreaker. A decisive tap, and the screen whirred to life. Gone was the sterile white, replaced by a colour of deep ocean shade. Each square pulsated with messages, crisp and clear, but the design? Pure chaos. Packed tighter than a throng of caravans, it sent my head spinning. A bright labyrinth, whispering secrets but offering no map.

“Where to even begin?” I asked.

“You see the bright rectangle on the left… with the exclamation mark on the upper left corner?” replied Ayako, her finger pointing at it. “Click on that.”

And so, I did, then the screen revealed a picture on the right side. My finger tapped on it once again, then its size stretched to a more readable extent, thankful to my eyes.

It read,

“Dear Dr. Oliver,

I bet twelve million sols for that precious crystal to be sold into my hands. If you still resist, then we’ll find a way to get that for free. Of course, we can’t do that by just planning an ordinary ‘sneaky-style robbery’ or something, but more than that.

There, I have given you two options for this:

Reply this email with a seal of approval, and I’ll arrange our meeting place.

Or

Ignore this email, and you’ll see that you’ve already lost a treasure worth even a vital organ.

Sincerely yours,

The Raiser”

After I finished my reading, I asked, “What is this supposed to mean?”

“The deal between Doctor Oliver and the Raiser,” Ayako answered. “In other words, the very reason why the destruction of Overseer and the Raiser’s deal to be correlated.”

“Where did you get this kind of information?” I asked.

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“Got it from my techy friend at my department,” she replied. “Thanks to her, she managed to snoop inside the doctor’s computer… and eventually found this.”

“So this Raiser guy…,” I looked back at my smartphone, studying the screenshot again. “He seems to look after the crystal.”

“Most likely, the same crystal that… somehow brought you here.”

“Purple crystal…,” I paused. But then, a sudden thought of a man in a purple coat back at Club Mia came across my mind. “Wait, then how about the young man in pur—”

“Shh, I know,” interrupted Ayako, her finger patting on my lips. “I can deal with him later.”

I rolled my eyes, “Then what is the point of waiting? We would have known the true identity of Raiser sooner.”

“And what’s the point of asking him the whereabouts of the source…when I already know how to find the source itself?”

“How?” I asked, then thought. It would have been much better to torture him till his last will. That will spill out his words.

“Route Tracing. My techy friend will do the job, then we’ll analyse where this Raiser could be.”

“Coming from this?” I pointed my finger at the screen.

“Yes, through an IP address. Kind of like a house address except it’s through a network. Treat your smartphone, for instance, as a person, and you send a letter through a network…. Uhh, can you try writing it?”

“How?” I asked, then Ayako guided my fingers on the icon with a mark of the pen on the centre. Tapped on it, there came a white canvas sliding from below. Tapped again, another set of letters and numbers slid from below. “So… this is how I must write.”

“Hai,” she nodded.

So I wrote, Dear Ulrich…

“Am I Ulrich?” she asked.

“No,” I shook my head, thoughts of my dear son nursing not enough slowly clouded my mind. “I… uh… I just miss my son so badly. I have not spent enough time with him during and even after the war.”

“I see… your motherly instincts must've remained solid inside your heart.”

“That is why I badly seek the stone… to return to my time where I shall fulfil my promises to the people of the motherland.”

Ayako heaved a heavy sigh and rolled her eyes, a shake of her head proved a chagrin to my heed.

“And do you know the people here now are also the same as your so-called ‘motherland’?”

“They are rather… different.”

“So what? All I heard was your rather ungrateful nonsense. Past has already been written in history, so must you wish to rewrite it?”

Rewrite? How much do I need to rewrite? Time here had already gone past, all of them were either resting in peace of heaven or enthralling in war of hell. And there came new souls, like Ayako and Ana themselves, emerging in the world. And I, who stumbled upon the future unbeknownst, was somehow cursed, all the while knowledge of the past might come to spoil my mind.

It was not enough, utterly not enough to appease my unanswered prayers.

“Should the world here might have gone to… bloody shit,” I murmured. “Be that as this time may, I would better it no less.”

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“The best intentions foster the worst things to come,” Ayako shrugged, shaking her head. “An event a thousand years ago wouldn’t have much of an impact on the world a thousand years later, if I dare say.”

“Your arguments are nigh, for the blood of my greatest forefather have proven our glorious existences.”

“Are you sure that’s only that?” Ayako heaved another heavy sigh, yet this time, she turned behind and walked into the chamber, perhaps heading to dress up for her evening duty.

But soon after, she came out, carrying a paper bag of newly-purchased clothes, “Oh, one last thing…,” then she tossed it to me, and I caught it unmistakably. “I want you to wear all that's on it… and wander around the fifth floor or, at most, nearby floors. See to it that nobody must enter Leanne—Isabelle’s apartment room until the call from my smartphone has reached. Those clothes will make of a use ”

“Alright, best to avoid her tragic demise.”

“I bet you do,” she scoffed. “That’ll prove you more glorious than your mere blood.”

Ayako retreated to her chambers, locking the door behind her. Left alone, I ripped open the bag, spilling a cascade of neatly folded wool garments onto the bed. A triumphant smile flitted across my lips. Proving glorious, I must. But a flicker of doubt lingered alongside the excitement. Agree or disagree? The decision hung heavy in the air, as heavy as the woollen warmth in my hands.