Isee taught Chara the meanings and deeper meanings of words for a week.
A week wasn’t long, but it was enough for her to recognize a lot of words.
From the simplest to the more complex ones, she could roughly recognize the common signs on the train.
Dining car, bedroom, Parlor Car, kitchen, and so on.
What else?
So many cars?
Although when writing, the characters were still crooked, the strokes standing unsteady like they were drunk, making Isee grit his teeth for a few seconds every time before folding her homework papers one by one.
The progress was obvious.
From the first paper being full of chicken scratch, to the last one where the characters were still crooked, but at least you could barely tell they were words.
“You learn faster than I expected.
An ordinary child would take a month to reach this level.”
Chara put down the pen and rubbed her fingers.
“Because probably…
I didn’t know anything before…
so I learn everything fast??”
Isee glanced at her and didn’t continue the topic.
Flowey poked his head out of the flower pot.
“She learns fast because she’s smart.”
Chara turned to look at Flowey.
“When did you learn how to compliment people?”
Flowey’s petals trembled.
“Idiot, I’ve always known how.
I just don’t want to say it normally.”
During the week, the train stopped at several places.
Every time it stopped, new faces would get on the train, and old faces would get off.
Chara leaned by the window and looked a few times.
Some of those planets were all water, some were all sand, and some were covered by massive buildings, looking like a glowing circuit board from orbit.
Once, she wanted to follow them down to take a look, but was stopped by Akivili.
“You’re still too young.” Akivili’s voice was still indistinguishable in gender, but the tone wasn’t harsh.
“There will be danger on the path of Trailblaze.
Wait until you’re a bit older.”
Chara didn’t refute.
She knew she was indeed too small.
She hadn’t grown much in height, and standing among those tall Nameless, she couldn’t even reach their waists.
That afternoon, Isee didn’t teach her how to write characters as usual.
He packed away the paper and pen.
“We’re not doing words today.
Let’s talk about something else.”
Chara hugged Flowey’s flower pot onto her knees.
“Talk about what?”
“Aeons and Paths.”
Chara blinked innocently.
(⚆_⚆)?
She had heard these words before.
They would occasionally pop up when people chatted on the train, but she had never seriously asked what they meant.
“Imaginary energy is the basic energy that makes up the universe, and an Aeon is an existence that commands a certain Path.
A Path is a metaphysical road.
The Aeon walks on it, and the followers follow behind.”
Chara listened, her fingers lightly tapping the edge of Flowey’s flower pot twice.
“Don’t understand.”
“Normal.
Ordinary kids wouldn’t understand either.”
“You can think of a Path as a road, and the Aeon is the person walking at the very front.
Whichever road He walks on, that road is paved solid by Him.
Others follow behind and can borrow the power of that road.”
“Then what is Trailblaze?
I always hear people on the train talking about it.”
“Trailblaze is the Path commanded by Akivili, and also the Path followed by this train under our feet.
Akivili is the Aeon closest to mortals.
He adventures, fights, and celebrates together with mortals.
He created the Astral Express, using star rails to connect distant star systems.
The core of the Path of Trailblaze is moving forward, walking into the unknown, and never looking back.”
Chara looked down at the floor beneath her feet.
The train she was stepping on was actually something created by an Aeon???
And that gray-white-haired, androgynous person was actually an Aeon??
“What about the other Aeons?”
“Each Aeon commands a different Path.
Some Paths you’ve encountered, and some you haven’t.”
“Then do they…
do the people down there have faith??”
“Take Dolly, for example.
You know her, right?
She’s a fanatical follower of Akivili.
She’s been the Navigator for almost 500 Amber Eras.
I heard she was a musician before boarding the train.”
“Now, she plays the violin from time to time.”
Flowey chimed in at this point.
“Excuse me, what kind of year unit is an Amber Era?
Does it mean Dolly has lived for 500 years??”
“Longer than you imagine.
You can consider one Amber Era to be about 150 years.
It’s a yearly unit recorded by the Interastral Peace Corporation to mark every time the Aeon of Preservation strikes.”
“So…
that Dolly is an old monster who has lived for tens of thousands of years??” Chara said.
“Huh???
Chara, what did you say??”
Dolly appeared at the door of the car at some unknown time, looking at Chara with a kind face.
“Kids shouldn’t talk nonsense.
What old monster?
This is called being young, understand?”
“And Isee!
Don’t lead the kid astray!”
“???”
After saying this, Dolly walked away.
Later, after confirming she wasn’t coming back, Isee told her about some other major factions and so on.
The Interastral Peace Corporation, a massive corporate consortium that worships Qlipoth, the Aeon of Preservation.
They monopolize resources, issue the currency Credit, and are the largest organization in the universe.
The Family of Harmony, following Xipe, the Aeon of Harmony, using connection to weaken the free will of individuals.
There were also some other factions.
She understood some of them, and some she didn’t.
Chara listened very seriously.
Her fingers stopped tapping the flower pot and rested quietly on her knees.
Flowey poked his head out of the pot.
“Then what about Elation?”
Isee fell silent on the spot.
His gaze retracted from outside the window and fell on his open palm.
There was nothing in his palm, but he looked at it for a long time. This chapter was taken from g.com without permission.
“Elation.” He repeated the word, his tone a bit different from usual.
“I used to be a Masked Fool, an Emanator of Elation.”
Chara tilted her head.
“What is an Emanator?”
“People who are granted the power of a Path by an Aeon,” Isee said.
“I used to be an Emanator of Aha, the Aeon of Elation.
I listened to jokes and told jokes in the tavern, using the power of Elation to help others in the universe.”
“Then why ‘used to be’?”
Isee didn’t answer immediately.
He leaned against the window, the starlight outside casting alternating light and shadow on his face.
After a long while…
“I listened to thirty trillion jokes.”
Chara counted on her fingers.
Thirty trillion…
She didn’t know how much a trillion was, but she knew thirty thousand was already very big.
Adding a trillion after that was completely impossible to count.
“How much is thirty trillion?”
“Enough that you don’t need to know.
Every joke had someone laughing.
The people in the tavern laughed, the passing guests laughed, and even the walls laughed.
After I listened to thirty trillion jokes, I found that all those laughs were empty.”
“Elation changed.
The Elation in the tavern was no longer true Elation, but a group of people hiding behind masks using inexplicable jokes to tease and offend each other.
Those laughs sounded very loud, but underneath there was nothing.
I couldn’t find what I was looking for.”
“What were you looking for?”
“The true end of the world.
When I left the tavern, I left a sentence…”
“‘Don’t you think that compared to the outside world, these guys who are laughing at themselves and don’t know anything are the biggest joke in the universe?'”
“‘Elation died a long time ago.'”
“I only saw ugliness and decay.
Even my old colleagues: Dorothy, the Shepherd, and so on, all left the tavern in the end.”
The single car was quiet for a while.
“Did you find it?”
Isee turned his head and looked at her.
“I once asked Akivili where the true end of the world is.
He didn’t speak, just pointed to a distance.”
“So I boarded this train, to save the world in crisis together, and also to find the true end of the world.”
Chara lowered her head and thought for a while, then looked up.
“Out of those thirty trillion jokes, was there even one that you genuinely found funny from the bottom of your heart?”
Isee was stunned for a moment.
He turned to look at Chara and smiled.
“There was one.”
“When a kid once asked me if magic could be eaten, I thought it was pretty funny.”
Chara was stunned, blushed on the spot, and turned her face away.
Flowey let out an uncontrollable laugh from the flower pot.
૮₍ ˃ ⤙ ˂ ₎ა (*´◐∀◐`*) hahahahha
Chara turned her face back, looking at the flowing points of light outside the window, silently repeating the words “thirty trillion” in her heart.
She didn’t know if she would encounter so many things in the future, nor did she know if she could understand those jokes.
But she knew one thing: there were countless stars in this world, and also countless jokes.
Some jokes were genuinely funny, but some were not.
And she had just listened to a real one.
● You roughly understand Imaginary energy, Aeons, and Paths, and also know a number called thirty trillion.
This fills you with DETERMINATION.
“Oh right, don’t tell anyone else.”