Chapter 405: Finally Confirmed: Misha Is Mikhail

The video continues.

【Then... what is the cost of all this?】

Liuying fell silent for a moment and asked.

【The cost is negligible—just a personal, eternal martyrdom.】

【To sustain this paradise for all, someone must remain alone in clarity, until the end of the universe.】

Sunday turned away.

He said slowly.

【Clarity... meaning, this paradise is still a dream.】

【Entering the paradise means giving up reality, doesn't it?】

Liuying countered.

【It is not giving up, but transcending.】

【Flesh is weak. If matter is the root of spiritual suffering, we ought to overcome it.】

Sunday replied.

【But in such happiness, people never overcome suffering—and forever lose the chance to do so.】

【Put another way... this is evasion.】

Liuying did not accept Sunday's view.

【You may think so, but evasion is not shameful.】

【On the contrary, everyone carries within them the seed of evasion.】

【Don't you, Young Lady Liuying, also feel that life sleeps because people fear waking from the dream?】

【But this does not conflict with a great cause.】

【Only by acknowledging this can we understand human weakness, then embrace it, then protect it.】

Star: "Holy crap, I almost saw Seven's head glowing with holy light!"

Star: "Incredible—this guy is literally the universe's ultimate sage."

Star: "I just don't get it—why are you so selfless?"

Star: "Are you just bored out of your mind?"

March 7th: "Sacrifice one person to build a paradise."

March 7th: "You're really ruthless with yourself!"

March 7th: "But even if your wish comes true, can you really endure endless loneliness?"

Furina: "I think... by the time it gets to that point, he'd probably start doubting his own existence."

Furina: "Believing his existence has no meaning, then embracing nothingness."

Hu Tao: "If you're the only clear-headed person in the entire universe, wouldn't anyone feel life has no meaning?"

Silver Wolf: "This is a severe psychological disorder."

Silver Wolf: "Compared to him, my mental health is practically perfect."

The video continues.

【I... recognize you as a natural leader.】

【You are deeply pessimistic about humanity, yet still hold a heart of equal compassion that denies all.】

【But I am different—I live for myself.】

【In my view, humans choosing for themselves is not only natural, but their inherent right.】

【Perhaps evasion is the nature of the weak, but who counts as weak... should not be defined by others.】

【Do you, then, also consider me a weakling?】

Liuying asked sharply.

【...】

Sunday fell silent.

【I do not think so.】

Liuying added.

【Since Young Lady Liuying has stated her view, the Stellaris Express will also give our answer.】

【It's up to you, Star—just as Mr. Mikhail instructed—tell him our choice—】

Star: "What? What did Mikhail instruct us to do?"

Star: "I don't remember watching this video."

March 7th: "Of course you don't."

March 7th: "Because we never watched this video at all!"

Furina: "After all this, I almost forgot about Mikhail, the clockmaker."

Furina: "I remember... he left everyone on the train a dream bubble?"

Furina: "But there was nothing inside it."

Hu Tao: "It's not that there was nothing inside—it's that no one knows how to see what's in it."

Hu Tao: "Didn't Himeko go to find a way to open it?"

Hu Tao: "But the video never showed the outcome—it just skipped ahead."

Gui Naifen: "Don't rush, folks—this must be coming next!"

Silver Wolf: "The tension's built up this far—if you don't show it now, it's rude."

Star: "Then let's see what this anonymous elder, Mikhail, left for us!"

Stelle: "I'm getting my hopes up a little, hoping it's some super treasure that lets me become an Emanator right away!"

Stelle: "Then I could swagger across the whole universe!"

Miss Qingque: "Keep dreaming that big daydream of yours!"

Miss Qingque: "If the Watchmaker had a treasure like that, wouldn't he have already become an Emanator himself and saved Penacony?"

Stelle: "Maybe he couldn't use these treasures, and only I can?"

March 7th: "Alright, stop thinking about all this nonsense."

March 7th: "If you ask me, what the Watchmaker left us is most likely not something material at all."

Welt: "Exactly, my thoughts align with little March."

The video continues.

The scene cuts,

arriving at the Dreamscape Hotel from not long ago.