People in Terra, governing a bizarre little country

"what to prepare?"

"Four-party talks".

“You, [Preservator] Trevor Friston, Lord Ernst, and Precyth.”

Kal'tsit pursed her lips, her gaze towards the Doctor filled with a myriad of complex emotions, and her solemn tone seemed to lower the temperature in the room.

"Doctor, I do not actually agree to your meeting with Precys."

"The differences between you, and the things she did to you."

Kal'tsit's voice faltered for a moment; clearly, what she was about to say had violated some kind of restriction placed on her by the linguist Precys.

She had to stop, take a deep breath, skip that word, and continue.

"The mistakes you've made will become destabilizing factors when you meet with her. Please believe me, she is not the person you remember. This is something you told me yourself after you woke up from your slumber years ago."

"If I could, I would have preferred to say goodbye before she woke up. It's a pity we missed this opportunity. I also underestimated her determination."

Kelsey's words annoyed the Doctor.

Where is your mother, Riddler?

Oh, theoretically, Precys should indeed be Kal'tsit's mother.

That's fine.

The Doctor didn't really blame Kal'tsit; he could tell that Kal'tsit was under some kind of restriction.

But she still managed to express her feelings. She may not have finished saying "before she woke up," but her expression and actions made up for it.

She revealed murderous intent.

The Doctor was puzzled by this. He couldn't understand why, if Ernst, Precys, and the Preservator all believed that Precys had been his beloved, their shared creation, Kal'tsit, would harbor murderous intent towards its master.

But he was willing to accept Kal'tsit's suggestion.

Staying vigilant isn't a bad thing. He has no memory of anything now. Precys and Kal'tsit may have meant a lot to him in the past, but now they are just "familiar strangers" to him.

He would accept Priscilla's advice to be wary of Kal'tsit.

Because Kal'tsit also concealed something from Lu He regarding the transfer group "group:→lin3".

“Thanks to the treasure and Friston, Doctor, you and I have been given a hard-won opportunity to communicate with her safely and on equal terms. After this, there may never be another chance like this.”

"I will accompany you to the appointment and answer any questions you may have during the trip. I will share all the information I can with you."

"So, Doctor, I sincerely hope that you will cherish this opportunity. But I also sincerely hope that after you know everything, understand everything, and debate everything, you will not forget everything you have seen and heard in Terra during this time, you will not forget Amiya, Rhodes Island, and the operators with vibrant lives on it, and you will not forget your original intention."

"Don't forget me."

Kal'tsit paused, lowered her head, and uttered her final words.

"Don't believe that so-called miracles can save lives."

"You once told me that life itself is a miracle."

Shelag, Tukarim.

Today is a rare day off.

Well, it's called a rest day, but it's really just that there's nothing important to do, but I still have to go to work.

Unlike previous years when it was excessively quiet with only the sounds of livestock, the mornings in Shelag are now bustling with tourists, vendors opening their shops, farmers selling fresh produce in the market, and white-collar workers carrying briefcases hurrying towards the commercial district.

Although the people in this scene still had a strong exotic feel, Ernst still felt a long-lost sense of familiarity.

The familiarity of "I do live in this world".

Many Sherag people greeted him on the street, and he also encountered many familiar faces along the way. He saw Marna hurriedly straightening his tie while leading Maria into the expanded [Spark School] high school. Marna seemed oblivious to Ernst across the street, constantly glancing down at his watch, as if anxious about being late. Maria noticed Ernst, standing on tiptoe at the school gate, waving energetically at him.

"Uncle Ernst!"

Ernst: "?"

Ernst's forehead creased with a question mark, like a startled NPC. He stared blankly at Maria across the street, his lips trembling slightly before he managed only a bitter smile.

"Call me brother."

Before Maria could respond, Marna pushed her and ushered her into the school gate.

Marner turned around, nodded to Ernst as a greeting, and then quickly left.

Ernst knew why.

Such was Marner's personality; he didn't want to be associated with any politician again, nor did he want to get involved in any political turmoil. If possible, he would rather that he and the Linguang family never attract anyone's attention again.

He was tired of the spotlight, and it was this very weariness that drove him to move from Kazimierz to Shelag.

If Ernst hadn't treated him so well, and if he hadn't now been working at Ernst's brother's company, Kalan Trading, he probably would have simply pretended not to know Ernst and left.

Oh, it seems that's exactly what he did at first, but the naive Maria just happened to see through his lie.

Everyone has their own life, and Ernst respects Marner's lifestyle.

After walking down a street, Ernst saw a familiar sign again.

【Green Sparks】This barbershop is probably the oldest professional barbershop to open in the entire Sherag area.

Oh, it should be called a "hair salon" now!

Shelag wasn't without barbers before, but it certainly didn't have a single professional styling salon. The early companies that entered Shelag were mainly light industrial companies selling everyday consumer goods and large technology companies like RheinLife. The relatively niche field of hairdressing was truly an untapped blue ocean.

Susie seized the opportunity, though she didn't quite grasp it completely.

She initially arrived in Sherag as an infected refugee displaced by the Victoria War. She had no money, no confidence, and apart from two friends who were somewhat influential, she was basically penniless.

Her two somewhat influential friends were named Daphne Windermere and Ernst Shivaish.

Ernst didn't actually do anything; he just took in Susie and helped her settle down in Sherag, but Daphne was exceptionally attentive to Susie.

The kitten always remembered what Ernst and she had seen and heard together in Caraton, and she also remembered the poem Ernst wrote for her—"A Worker's Questions on History".

She has become very different from her mother. Although she has not yet taken over the entire duchy, she has begun to frequently offer different opinions while learning from her father, Kent Windermere, often leaving him speechless.

She has also been working to find a way to address the growing social problems in the Duchy of Windermere under the rule of her belligerent mother and weak-willed father.

Especially after the Battle of Londinium, there was the issue of demobilizing many conscripted soldiers.

Susie was a model for her. She invested in Susie, bought shops, and planned development. Although the two of them lacked specific business competition knowledge, they ultimately failed to create a "beauty and hair industry giant". However, Susie still gained a foothold and provided a good argument for Definite.

At a later meeting in Lienkaden on how to settle the veterans of Londinium, Daphne publicly proposed "expanding domestic demand" and changing the "military development approach" that had gradually become outdated after the establishment of the World Summit. He emphasized the need to implement a development approach "centered on economic construction" in the Duchy of Windermere in order to ensure the provision of enough new jobs to cope with the potential wave of unemployment.

Given that her position as the next Duke of Windermere is unshakeable, and because the Duke of Windermere himself is extremely satisfied with his daughter's performance, this strategy has now been implemented.

When Ernst passed by Green Spark, the large barbershop that already occupied three storefronts had already opened for business.

Inside the shop, Susie, the manager, no longer needed to personally serve customers, but she still insisted on wearing a hairdresser's outfit and personally trimming the hair of a pink-haired Tikaz.

Ernst was surprised to see Theresa here, and even more surprised that W was not with Theresa.

But the next second, he heard Theresa's voice in his mind:

"Is this Mr. Ernst?"

You spotted me?

Ernst looked at Theresa in the hair salon with some surprise. She hadn't moved or turned her head, and apart from a faint smile on her lips, she looked exactly the same as before. Even Susie, who was cutting her hair, hadn't noticed anything unusual.

But Theresa's voice is genuine.

"I can hear the thoughts of the people around me."

She explained,

"It's not always possible, nor is it something I do willingly; it's just that your feelings are always so special that I can't help but notice you."

Ernst asked himself a question in his mind with curiosity:

"So what are my true feelings?"

Theresa paused for a moment, seemingly lost in thought. After a while, just as Ernst was wondering if he had asked a slightly tricky question, her voice suddenly rang out again:

"I'm sorry, inner thoughts are a very complex thing, and I can't fully describe them."

"However, Mr. Ernst, I can tell you this."

“Your words are the most special I have ever heard. When you appeared and looked at me, I felt as if something had begun to change my essence. But this power did not make me no longer myself. Rather, it made me more like myself.”

9. The Riddler.

Ernst muttered a complaint to himself.

All Theresa could do in return was feel a sense of helplessness.

She was just a Sarkaz; her abilities and knowledge could only support such a description. Any deeper or more detailed generalization would be beyond her comprehension.

"Have you heard what the doctor has to say? How does it compare to mine?"

Schernster suddenly remembered something and asked curiously.

To be honest, he had long planned to arrange for the Doctor and Theresa to meet again, but due to too many things going on, the matter was repeatedly postponed and never came to fruition.

Ernst knew that Theresa had erased the Doctor's memories, and he was particularly curious about what Theresa had experienced back then.

As expected, Theresa paused for a moment after the question was asked.

A faint blush rose to her cheeks, though it quickly faded as if she had thought of something. She answered earnestly:

"I saw the Doctor's hidden, deepest side at the very end."

He said he was a prophet.

"I sensed that he was bound by some profound shackle, a shackle I was utterly powerless to remove. But unexpectedly, the continuation of civilization possesses this ability, so..."

Therefore, in order to protect Terra and to free the Doctor from those shackles, she used the power of civilization's survival to erase all of the Prophet's memories.

Although Theresa did not directly say what had happened, Ernst understood what she meant.

Even from today's perspective, this incident remains an accident.

However, due to a series of recent events and several "questions" raised by the doctor regarding Precyth, Ernst has come up with some speculations lacking evidence.

Is it really such a coincidence?

In the Tower of Babel incident, the Doctor chose to use Theresis to kill Theresa, but in the end, he chose to go to the crime scene and meet the dying Theresa.

Even now, this matter remains shrouded in mystery.

Why did the Doctor go to see Theresa in person? Was he really so weak that even after making up his mind to kill Theresa, he would regret it at the end?

Why did the Doctor allow Theresa to erase his memories? Theresa had already touched his deepest memories and the consciousness of the Prophet. But this man, who theoretically also had the highest authority over Originium, allowed a native on the verge of death to bury all his memories, even if they might contain key information about the entire survival plan.

How could Theresa be so coincidentally capable of tampering with the Doctor's soul? (The rest of the text appears to be unrelated and possibly machine-generated gibberish.)

It should be noted that the ancient civilization had reached a very high level of research on the soul level. They had various methods such as changing bodies, uploading consciousness, and projecting phantoms. They even had things like gray nails specifically designed to stabilize the soul. Ernst did not believe that they had no protective measures against soul attacks.

As the person in charge of the project to preserve prehistoric civilization, didn't the doctor have such protective measures in mind?

Why was Theresa allowed to delete it?

Now, one of these questions has been answered.

Theresa's power cannot be erased, but the continuation of civilization can. It was through the continuation of civilization that she erased those memories.

So here's the question: the Doctor must have known that Theresa's civilization still existed, so was his act of personally showing himself intentional?

If it was intentional, then what exactly is the shackle that Theresa mentioned, the shackle that forced the Doctor to break free in this way?

With these questions buried in his mind, Ernst thanked Theresa.

Thank you for your reply.

"It's alright, it's what I should do. Compared to what you've done for Kazdel and Sarkaz, I, the Demon King, have truly failed in my duty. I should be the one thanking you."

Theresa replied,

"If you have the chance, please be sure to visit the floating city."

“The Sarkaz have not had a living friend for tens of thousands of years, but the etiquette we have towards friends has always been engraved in our blood.”

Ernst nodded, which was an acceptance of the invitation.

As for whether to go or not.

You can go, but not now.

Ernst is currently a lowly public servant. When he steps down one day and no longer has to worry about the consequences, he will truly go to that floating city as a "friend" to experience the customs and culture of the planet's real "native civilization".