Warm applause erupted from the audience below, especially in the new student section.
Many young faces showed expressions of recognition and excitement.
Kuchiba Chisa’s speech had touched the deep resonance in the hearts of many Resonator students.
However, the expression on Noah’s face in the front row gradually froze.
He listened to every sentence and every word from Kuchiba Chisa.
The meaning represented by these words was far too familiar to him.
This was absolutely not something the Kuchiba Chisa from after the start of the 3.0 main storyline rescued by Rover from the Sonoro Sphere and returning to the academy would say!
This was clearly the kind of speech content that Kuchiba Chisa would have given twenty years ago, when she first left her hometown where Resonators faced severe discrimination and entered Startorch Academy for the first time.
The time point was twenty years ago!
It was as if a cold bolt of lightning had split open the fog.
All the details he had vaguely felt were off before, yet had been ignored or forcibly rationalized away by him, now instantly connected in this moment and exploded loudly in his mind.
He could not search for the Sonoro Sphere in Honami City not because of insufficient permissions.
Kuchiba Chisa and Rover treated each other like complete strangers not because of some disguise, nor because of some plot change.
It was he himself who had made a massive mistake by jumping to conclusions!
He had taken it for granted that he had crossed over into the game’s 3.0 main storyline, assuming Rover was returning to campus.
But what if… Rover was actually here for the very first time, infiltrating Startorch Academy in the capacity of a student?
What if right now was not the 3.0 storyline at all…
But instead…
Twenty years ago?!
“Gulp.”
Noah heard the sound of himself swallowing saliva, barely audible amid the surrounding applause.
A chill shot up his spine straight to the back of his head, making his scalp tingle and his limbs turn ice-cold.
On stage, Kuchiba Chisa had already bowed and stepped down, returning to her seat.
The applause gradually subsided.
The host’s voice rang out once more, carrying out the closing procedures of the ceremony.
But Noah could no longer hear anything.
His brain was operating at full speed, overturning all previous assumptions and reconstructing the timeline.
He recalled the segment of Lahai-Roi’s independence history that Rover had mentioned earlier.
Twenty years ago… Rover infiltrating Startorch Academy… Why?
To conduct an in-depth investigation into the Void Matter Magnetic Storms?
To make contact with the Spacetrek Collective and the Lahai-Roi Council?
To reopen the old accounts of Lahai-Roi’s independence?
Or was there some other, deeper purpose?
Noah once again began regretting that he had not cleared the story before pulling for characters.
He also had no idea whether these plot points even existed in the game…
But even if he had cleared the story, it probably would not have helped much.
After all, he was a classic XP player who only watched scenes with beautiful girls when clearing the story and frantically skipped everything else in life.
He had never paid any attention to plot details.
That being said, since Kuchiba Chisa was now a brand-new freshman who had just enrolled…
That meant the incident where she later fell into the Sonoro Sphere in Honami City had not yet happened.
He, this traverser carrying a useless Great Villain System, a person who should not have existed at this point in time.
Not only had he mixed in, but he had also become Rover’s classmate and research assistant…
Confusion, shock, and a trace of dread toward an unknown fate intertwined together.
He could even feel that his breathing was somewhat irregular at this moment, and his heartbeat was pounding heavily inside his chest.
Until a warm hand gently covered the back of his slightly clenched hand resting on his knee.
Noah trembled violently, almost as if he had been electrocuted, and turned his head.
It was Rover.
She had at some point turned slightly sideways, facing him.
Her golden pupils calmly gazed at him.
There was no probing, no questioning only a trace of almost soothing gentleness.
“Are you feeling unwell?”
She asked in a low voice, soft enough that only the two of them could hear.
“Your face looks a bit pale.”
Her palm was very warm.
The heat transmitted over, strangely steadying a trace of his wildly chaotic emotions.
“N-No… I’m fine.”
Noah forced himself to pull out a somewhat stiff smile.
His voice was dry.
“Maybe… there are too many people in here.
The air is a bit stuffy.”
Rover looked at him for two seconds.
In those eyes that seemed capable of seeing through everything, some emotion seemed to flash by extremely quickly.
But she did not press further.
She only gave a soft “Mm” and withdrew her hand.
“The ceremony is almost over.
Let’s go outside and get some fresh air later.”
She sat upright again, her gaze turning toward the podium, as if the action just now had merely been ordinary concern between classmates.
But Noah knew that the violent emotional fluctuation he had experienced in that instant had definitely been noticed by her.
However, he quickly forced himself to calm down.
It was twenty years ago.
This realization was like a massive boulder thrown into the lake of his heart, stirring up towering waves.
But right now, he had to make the water surface return to calm as quickly as possible.
Crossing over to a timeline twenty years earlier… what did that mean?
It meant that many future plot points he knew had not yet occurred.
But it also meant that he knew almost nothing about what had specifically happened during these twenty years.
The game plot had only glossed over it in passing.
It meant danger, but it also meant… opportunity?
The system had thrown him to this point in time.
It could not possibly have been just to let him sightsee and travel.
Noah’s gaze involuntarily drifted once more toward Kuchiba Chisa not far away, then used his peripheral vision to glance at Rover beside him, whose expression remained calm.
One was an ordinary junior schoolmate whom he pitied quite a bit and who would encounter misfortune in the future.
And he himself a intruder who knew part of the future, a variable bound by the Great Villain System.
The Startorch Academy of twenty years ago…
These waters were probably much deeper and much murkier than he had previously imagined.
Inside the report hall, the host’s voice announcing the end of the ceremony rang out.
Students began standing up one after another, conversing in low voices as they left.
Noah picked up his leather bag and stood up along with the flow of people, feeling his steps somewhat unsteady.
The amount of information was too great.
He needed time to digest it.
At this moment, the system prompt sound that had been silent for a long time in his mind suddenly rang out again:
[Detection of major cognitive update from the host.
Timeline coordinates have been calibrated.]
[Warning: The current worldline contains traces of high-dimensional interference and unobserved variables.
The historical process may deviate from the host’s existing knowledge.
Please proceed with caution.]
[New side mission has been triggered: Observe and Record Lahai-Roi.]
[Mission Content: Record key figures, events, and environmental information at the current point in time to improve this system’s database.]
[Mission Reward: Evaluated based on the completeness, accuracy, and value of the recorded information.]
[Failure Penalty: None.]
Noah: “…”
This final warning and mission that the system had added did not put him at ease in the slightest.
Instead, it made the string in his heart stretch even tighter.
High-dimensional interference traces?
Unobserved variables?
The historical process may have deviations?
What the hell was all this?!
Could it be that the existence of the Lahai-Roi Council, as well as Lahai-Roi’s independence, were manifestations of high-dimensional interference and historical deviation?
This mission reward was the usual empty promise as always.
Fortunately, there was no mission penalty, so he was not in a hurry to complete it.
Anyway, exchange student life was still long.
He could slowly collect this information.
Thinking this, Noah subconsciously looked at Rover, who was walking half a step beside him.
She was slightly lowering her head, seemingly checking information on her terminal.
Her side profile was still calm and breathtakingly beautiful.
It was impossible to tell that just one day ago, she had still been that all-powerful leader of the Black Shores.
Beneath this seemingly peaceful academy daily life, how many undercurrents that he had not yet detected were surging?
Noah pinched the space between his eyebrows.
It seemed that the exchange student life over the next year would be far from as simple and comfortable as the “hug the thigh and eat soft rice” he had initially envisioned.
…
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