After Mr. Yang finished speaking, Nero and Stelle looked around the carriage and soon found Villette in a corner, dressed in an IPC employee uniform.
He looked miserable and was clearly in a very bad mood.
Wearing a depressed expression, Villette spoke weakly before they could, "What? Here to pump me up?"
He looked at Stelle. "Your little thoughts are practically written on your forehead!"
"Let's get one thing straight. I'm just a small IPC employee that Argenti brought along, a background extra. I don't have any ideas, and I can't help you."
"Sigh... I just wanted to wait for the traffic jam to end and get home early for dinner..."
Nero looked him up and down and said, "I think he looks pretty healthy right now. He should be fine."
Cirrus added, "Mentally, he looks about the same too. Aside from having a bit more negative emotions and complaints, he's still within the range of a normal person."
Stelle glanced at Nero and curiously asked Villette, "I heard you've already joined the Beauty Aeon?"
As soon as he heard that question, Villette rolled his eyes.
"Argenti said that, didn't he?"
Seeing Stelle nod, he wasn't surprised. He could tell right away that it had to be something like that.
After another sigh, he said helplessly, "That guy... Here's what happened. Before he saved me, he said, 'Please swear first and acknowledge that the Beauty Goddess Idrila's beauty is unmatched.'"
"And I said, 'Fine, I'll swear, but can you pull me out of this hole first?' And he said no! Tell me, what kind of person is that?"
"I had no choice. My life came first, so I followed him and said, 'The, the Beauty Goddess Deilila's beauty is unmatched!'"
"Then he corrected me, 'It's Idrila, not Deilila.'"
"Who comes up with such a tongue-twisting name? I'm just an ordinary office worker. How was I supposed to know about some Beauty Aeon?"
"Of course, to stay alive, I repeated it again. The Beauty Goddess Idrila's beauty is unmatched!!"
"See..."
Villette's half-dead tone made Stelle frown. During all this, she had secretly been observing Nero's reaction.
But Nero had no reaction at all.
It seemed the kid clearly separated himself from the Beauty Aeon.
Of course, that was a good thing. After all, the one Stelle knew was Nero, not Idrila.
Still, she couldn't help saying to Villette, "Can't you be a little more positive?"
To her surprise, a trace of a cold smile appeared on the tired and numb face that looked just like those researchers on the space station.
This employee, who had spent years struggling in the IPC, looked disdainfully at this young person who clearly knew nothing of the suffering of office workers.
"Hmph, you think I want to? I've just been defeated by reality, get it?"
"Sigh... When I was a kid, I thought I'd have a protagonist's life. I really wanted to become a pilot, fly into space, and explore the universe in a grand spaceship."
"But my parents fooled me. They said if I wanted to achieve my dreams, I first had to make money, and if I wanted to make a lot of money, I had to work hard and get into the company."
"Did you make a lot of money?"
Stelle's eyes sparkled with innocent curiosity. She really knew how to hit where it hurt.
"Do I look like I did?" Villette snapped. "Would rich people work at the IPC, go on business trips, and end up swearing oaths inside caves?"
"Later, I gave up those fancy dreams of becoming a pilot and just settled into working at the company. Maybe that's the kind of life a side character should have?"
"Hey, I'm talking to you. Why do you keep looking at the kid next to you? He's good-looking, sure, but aren't you companions? Isn't looking at him all the time enough?"
"No, not really. Though I definitely can't get enough..." Stelle shook her head. After thinking for a moment, she said, "I was just thinking that everything you wanted to achieve, Nero seems to have already done."
"Huh?" Villette stared blankly at Nero.
"First of all, Nero is rich. He owns a factory, and works with the IPC, Herta Space Station, the Xianzhou Alliance, and Belobog. He's also on very good terms with Miss Topaz of the Ten Stonehearts and Miss Robin of the Family.
"Secondly, Nero is already exploring space. This is the Astral Express, the train once ridden by the Trailblaze Aeon Akivili. So what do you think us Nameless do?"
Stelle grinned at Villette, seemingly unaware of how devastating her words were to him.
Or perhaps she knew.
And she was doing it on purpose.
"Come to think of it, if you joined the Astral Express and became one of the Nameless now, wouldn't your childhood dream come true? You could quit your company job and travel with us." Nero suddenly said.
"This..."
For a brief moment, Villette really wanted to agree.
But when the words reached his lips, he looked out the window at the crimson stars and thought of the strange things he and Argenti had seen and experienced on the journey.
And he couldn't say it.
Exploring the universe would inevitably mean encountering such things.
He thought that if he were still young, he might have agreed immediately with nothing but passion.
But now, only traces of that passion remained.
He knew very well that he didn't have that kind of courage.
At the very least, he didn't have the nerve to face those strange phenomena.
Stories of the Astral Express had spread to every world connected by the star rails.
He had heard some of them.
So he knew that what he had once pursued, and what he had imagined in his mind, wasn't the same as the adventures of the Astral Express.
Because he wasn't after stirring stories.
Nor did he possess endless enthusiasm.
What he wanted was simply a free and easy adventure born from a child's imagination.
Villette stood there in a daze for a long time before finally letting out a deep sigh.
"Forget it. I lost that spirit a long time ago. If it was just flying spaceships, I'd probably happily give it a try. But the adventures you Nameless go on are a bit too exciting for me."
At this point, Villette paused before changing the subject.
"Speaking of which, Argenti's appearance did make me think about getting rich. Maybe this is the turning point of my life. Then I can fly my own ship and wander along the routes and places I want to visit."
"Hehe, look at him. Such a handsome and majestic knight. If we package him properly, he'd definitely sell well!"
"I brought up the idea to him and told him that promoting Pure Beauty and making money part of beauty itself would spread it much faster."
"It would be far more efficient than promoting it by himself. He was absolutely shocked and praised the idea repeatedly."