"Bai Ling… can you introduce him to me? The descriptions from earlier weren't very clear."
Hearing their conversation, the little penguin's interest was piqued instead.
"…Mm…"
Perlica thought for a moment, but Chen Qianyu spoke first.
"Teacher Bai Ling is a really amazing person. He wasn't born on Talos-II, and he says he likes Terra—but from the way he talks… he doesn't seem to have been born on Terra either."
Perlica turned and gave Chen Qianyu a look, enough to make Chen's expression shift slightly, before Perlica finally spoke.
"Bai Ling joined Endfield Industries a few months ago through Warfarin. He possesses a special ability to observe Originium Arts, and he understands Originium extremely deeply… but there are some things about him that remain uncertain."
He seemed not to know the Administrator, nor what the Administrator had done. He didn't even know what Talos-II was—yet if you asked him about Rhodes Island, he could answer without missing a beat.
"He doesn't feel like someone living in this era."
After their chat ended, once the little penguin confirmed the location, a meteor streaked across the sky.
A faint glow bloomed over the land.
Almost instinctively—despite her amnesia—the little penguin naturally took over every function of the protocol core.
After familiarizing herself with the operating flow and placing the drill on the ore source, she immediately set about something very important.
"…Why is it short by just a tiny bit?!"
Staring at the gap—less than a meter—the little penguin felt physically uncomfortable.
That single meter meant she couldn't take one more step.
Not long enough meant not long enough—no amount of wishing would change it!
In the end, she could only dismantle the original stake and rebuild it to barely satisfy the cable length.
From the protocol core's position to the communications station required four relay posts, and it wore the little penguin out.
Good thing there were no Groundbreakers and no Originium-infected creatures along the way—otherwise this power-routing process would've been many times more troublesome.
The moment power fed into the communications core, a message from Qin Jiangchi came through immediately.
The Hub Center had reconnected to the Di Jiang's signal. Valley No. 4 had restored contact with the Di Jiang.
Only the transmission protocol still had some issues—and the little penguin needed to go back and fix it.
As the little penguin crossed the ruined central plaza and stepped into the core zone…
She spotted him at a glance.
In the middle of the hall, a man stood focused on the main device.
It was Bai Ling.
Eyjafjalla and Eldera weren't by his side.
He was alone.
"Mr. Bai Ling."
Perlica stepped forward to greet him, while the little penguin kept staring at him, unable to shift her gaze at all—as if it had been glued in place.
There was something Perlica had said earlier that the little penguin couldn't stop thinking about:
'He doesn't feel like someone from this era.'
Don't forget—she was an amnesiac too. In this era, she was also starting over.
And before losing her memory, she seemed to have been someone very impressive. Everyone respected her once they learned who she was, but not a single person could tell her what she'd done—what, exactly, made her so "amazing."
That included the other people in Endfield Industries. All anyone could say was how shocked they were that she was still here.
"…Perlica, Administrator, Xiao Chen."
Bai Ling turned his head and greeted them naturally.
"I heard communications with the Di Jiang have been restored here."
"Mm. Once we calibrate the transmission protocol, we can return to the Di Jiang."
Honestly… compared to Terra's tech, Endfield's technological progress was glaringly obvious.
Everything was completely beyond Terra.
Bai Ling could still vaguely remember how awful Terra's comms system used to be.
"Teacher Bai Ling, what are you looking at?"
"…There's a problem in the Originium routing here. I can tell where the fault is, but I don't have the authority to repair it."
Bai Ling answered frankly, then looked at the adorable little penguin.
"And the one with the most authority here is, without question, our Administrator."
Hearing that, the little penguin pointed at herself as if to respond:
'Me?'
"Mm."
To be honest—even if this little penguin suddenly took off her mask and transformed on the spot, Bai Ling wouldn't find it strange.
She was purer than even the angels spawned by the anchor point.
She was like Originium given life—an existence that was completely unscientific.
Still half-skeptical, the little penguin reached out and lightly tapped the Hub Center's comm module twice.
Light flickered. The flawed route surfaced. The tools were already prepared—only the "puzzle pieces" remained.
With the glimmer of repair, communications fully recovered.
"Just as expected of the Administrator."
Bai Ling said it—and as more people gathered around, he quietly slipped away.
He wasn't the protagonist here, and he wasn't good at dealing with crowds. Avoiding it was better.
"Next, we return to the Di Jiang through the transmission protocol."
Perlica calibrated the Di Jiang's coordinates and looked toward the little penguin, who was standing there blankly as if searching for something, waiting for her response.
After a short moment, the little penguin turned her head and suddenly spoke.
"…Can we go back a little later?"
Perlica didn't understand what she wanted to do, but she still agreed, staying with Chen Qianyu at the Hub Center as if they had their own tasks to finish.
"Once we're back on the Di Jiang, we should be able to transfer Di Jiang permissions. So handle what you need to handle, then come back quickly."
"Mm."
After replying, the little penguin turned and left the Hub Center.
"…What is the Administrator going to do?"
Chen Qianyu stood beside Perlica, her voice thick with curiosity.
"Maybe she left something behind."
And once the little penguin ran out of the Hub Center, she began searching through the surrounding ruins for someone.
Just as Perlica had said…
She needed to speak with him alone.
But the entire Hub Center was full of busy workers. How was she supposed to find one man whose clothes weren't particularly distinctive—whose only standout feature was that his face was fairly handsome?
Lowering her head, she felt a little disappointed. She'd just turned—
Thump—
Her mask hit something, and she tipped backward slightly.
A not-particularly-thick arm caught her from behind, supporting her smoothly and naturally so she wouldn't fall.
"…What are you looking for?"
Staring at the absurdly cute little penguin in front of him, Bai Ling blanked for a moment before he spoke.
On the ground lay several bottles of drinking water—freshly pulled from a vending machine.
The little penguin paused, as if thinking what to say. In the end, she spoke a line that was neither heavy nor light:
"I'm looking for you."
-------
My : pat*eon*com/RuneA
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