Chapter Fifty-Four: The World of Trajectories

As a half-hearted fan of the Trails series, Hao Ren had a deep impression of this city! Yet, this must be his own dimensional space, no doubt about it, and the streets were filled with unfamiliar faces, all bustling about...

Could this be what Saeko meant when she said Saya had caused trouble?

“Master…” Hao Ren felt his sleeve tugged and turned to see Saya, eyes brimming with tears, along with the other girls.

“What on earth happened? Saya, don’t cry. Whatever it is, I’m here. Did you use ‘Trails Zero’ as the blueprint for this space? And who are all these strangers?” Hao Ren reached out to wipe the tears from Saya’s face.

Saya flung herself into Hao Ren’s arms and, between sobs, explained what had happened.

One hour earlier, in the dimensional space.

Bored to tears, Saya had been playing Hao Ren’s PFP, using his save file to start a second playthrough of ‘Trails Zero.’

As she admired the game’s unique worldview, its wondrous orbment technology, and the blend of cultures in the architecture, a wild idea struck her: could she transform the entire space into the Trails world? If she succeeded, could she produce “Septium” and “Orbments” herself? Maybe this could help Hao Ren somehow?

Saya, having access to Hao Ren’s LP points, felt a surge of excitement and began remodeling the space, using the PFP as her guide.

“This transformation will consume a portion of LP points and a scenario card. The space will generate the Crossbell Autonomous State from ‘Trails Zero,’ ordinary human NPCs, and wild monsters. Once remodeling is complete, an ecological cycle system will be generated, and wild monsters won’t invade land with human buildings for now. Do you wish to proceed?” The voice sounded like the main system.

The main system itself chimed in, so this transformation was clearly no small matter.

Normally, she should have consulted Hao Ren before making such a decision—he was, after all, the master of this space. But increasingly feeling useless, Saya was desperate to prove herself: “I’m useful too!”

“Yes!” Saya knew this might mean losing her only chance to see her parents again, but she gritted her teeth and answered resolutely.

Then…

All the other girls were transported to Saya’s side to witness the transformation of the entire space.

Hao Ren’s wallet shrank as if leaking, dropping from over 2718 points to just 218 in an instant, and the floating ‘Highschool of the Dead’ scenario card dissolved into fragments.

“…” Saya.

She had messed up! So much for only spending a portion of the LP points!

Realizing she’d caused trouble, Saya burst into tears.

“Don’t worry, don’t worry, money’s just money, we’ll earn more. Silly girl, your eyes are all swollen from crying. Come, let your master disinfect them for you with some saliva.” Hardly two serious words before the harassment began—truly Hao Ren.

But Saya didn’t react as she usually did, pushing Hao Ren away and blushing before calling him a pervert. Instead, she lifted her face slightly, removed her glasses, and closed her eyes.

This unmistakable request for a kiss was obvious to Hao Ren. What sort of twisted logic led Saya to associate licking away tears with kissing?

Looking at the delectable Saya, Hao Ren wanted so badly to be true to his desires—kiss her eyes, her lips, caress her body, carry her to the bedroom and have his way.

Unfortunately, such a sequence only worked in a one-on-one setting. The eyes of the onlookers made Hao Ren’s skin prickle, especially Saeko’s gaze, which felt like it could pierce him through.

“All right, all right, the money’s spent and can’t be refunded. Let’s see what changes the space has undergone—after all, we spent 2500 points.” Unable to kiss in front of everyone, Hao Ren opted to pinch Saya’s cheek.

Saya’s plaintive gaze drifted over again.

“Main system! Are you still there?”

“This is Main System Avatar 10086. Player ‘Black Flame Dragon’ has the right to consult information.”

“Why is there an avatar of the main system in my space?”

“Player ‘Black Flame Dragon’ recently ranked first in the New Player Potential List, so a main system avatar has been dispatched to provide a certain level of assistance.”

Hao Ren slapped his forehead. He’d nearly forgotten that aliens were watching this setup. Well, there was never much privacy in instances anyway; having extra surveillance in his private space didn’t matter as long as they didn’t record him having sex.

“So, can you tell me why the space underwent such drastic changes, and why so many LP points were consumed?”

“Summoned entity ‘Saya Takashiro’ issued a command to remodel the space based on the PFP save file. Due to the abundance of save files for ‘Trails Zero’ and ‘Trails Azure’ in the player’s PFP, the generated space was overly detailed, resulting in excessive LP point consumption. Additionally, to make the space as realistic as an instance, a ‘Highschool of the Dead’ scenario card was consumed.”

Hao Ren was a pure “save-or-die type”—the combined save files for the two games approached 100 MB, with saves for every stage, chest, dungeon, fishing spot, boss fight, and so on. Simply loading and flipping through them took nearly a minute.

In the end, this mess was his own doing.

“So, my space is now an extra instance?” Hao Ren felt the scenario card had been spent rather abruptly; there must be more to it.

“Items in the dimensional space can be freely produced and used, but only by the space’s master, their summoned entities, and NPCs within the space. They cannot be traded in the main system space, nor used in the real world.”

“Are there any other special features?” Since he had the right to consult, he might as well ask.

“All humans in the dimensional space are ordinary NPCs; special characters like ‘Joshua’ or ‘Estelle’ cannot be generated. The player may summon an ordinary NPC from the Trails universe for 1 LP point each. Moreover, if other instance NPCs or uncontracted summoned entities consent, they can be transferred into the dimensional space for 1 LP point per person, but will not be able to leave the dimensional space.”

“Do I still have control over the space? For example, if someone rebels or does something improper, can I erase them?”

This was Hao Ren’s real concern.

“If you or your summoned entities are threatened, you may unconditionally erase the offender—humans only.”

Damn, just as he was about to exploit a loophole to kill monsters and farm Septium, the main system cut him off—no loopholes here.

Hao Ren, you idiot, look to your right. Do you see her? The tall, slender beauty with water-blue hair who casually spits out ice crystals—she’s the result of you exploiting loopholes, dear!