Alice in the Land of Steam

Chapter 1001: An answer you don’t want to get?

Is Alice the girl's royalty?
Metien looked at the golden-haired maid in the crowd with a complicated look. She didn't have the temperament of a young queen. Thinking back to when she first met Alice, she really regarded her as the messenger sent by the goddess to save Tianxin Church. She even persuaded her brother to take her in when she first arrived in the other world. But later, after having more contact with the golden-haired maid, especially after often hearing some inexplicable words from her, she naturally gave up this idea.

From then on, although Alice herself showed incredible qualities in many aspects, such as the magical SLP game console and cartridges, her familiarity with historical figures on Earth, and the occasional inconsistencies in her memory, the pink-haired girl no longer associated her with the goddess, but just thought that this brave man from another world was a little weird.

But who would have thought that at the end of the journey, everything seemed to be back to the starting point.

The longer someone is in contact with Alice, the more they can understand the feeling of surprise and doubt. This is the case with Metien, and she believes that her brother must be the same. However, Lingge is a person who goes with the flow. Maybe it is not appropriate to say this about her brother, but the pink-haired girl thinks so. He accepts all kinds of accidents and changes in life very quickly. Therefore, after his father's death, he made the decision to give up his studies and inherit the church without hesitation. When Themis in the celestial world revealed Alice's true identity, he was able to calm down quickly and raise questions.

Looking back now, his reaction seemed like something he had planned for a long time and he finally waited for the right moment.

Perhaps it's because there's precedent.

Sister Saint Shallia has always believed that at the beginning of creation, the goddess only created fourteen young queens, symbolizing the two poles of chaos and order in the universe. However, the fifteenth young queen had already appeared, and that was Tiantis, who claimed to be the real queen. In this case, the appearance of Alice, who symbolized the fantasy queen, did not seem strange.

Reality and fantasy, chaos and order, this magical correspondence is truly thought-provoking.

The girl who calls herself Themis from Heaven has always been very secretive about the current condition of the goddess, which seems to be related to these two young royal powers that should not exist.

"..."Metien turned his head slightly and glanced at the nun next to him.

Sister Livia, who was once a test subject of artificial kingship and later voluntarily gave up her status as the Son of God, noticed her gaze and perhaps also sensed the girl's hesitation and confusion. She pursed her lips slightly, then took a step forward and said in a voice that only they could hear: "Whatever you want to do, I will support you, Master Metien."

Her sea-blue eyes were full of encouragement and respect. The pink-haired girl seemed to understand, but she didn't really understand why Miss Livia treated her differently from others. Sometimes she looked at her with the same eyes as she looked at the goddess statue in Tianxin Church, and now she even addressed her directly with honorifics. But she was just a little believer under the goddess's gaze. Was she really worthy of her support?

If it was Lingge, he might have the qualifications. Although the young man himself was reluctant to admit it, Metien always felt that he was the one who truly inherited his father's beliefs.

To be comforted is to have faith.

The girl silently repeated the words her father had always said when he was alive, and she seemed to have a new understanding of it. She mustered up her courage again, looked up at the Celestial Themis floating in the air, and met her cold gaze without fear. When everyone else was silent for various reasons, she asked, "Now that everyone has agreed, can you tell us the answer, Miss Celestial Themis?"

“The answer is: No.”

Unexpectedly, Themis of the Celestial Realm rejected the request, and the reason was very simple: "The authentication process has not yet been completed. The highest authority can only be unlocked after obtaining the permission of all administrators."

Obtain the consent of all administrators? However, hadn't all the young queens present, including Alice whose origins were still unclear, already agreed to the consent?
Could it be that those who were not present should also be counted? But they are enemies, will they really agree to allow it?
Metien couldn't help but open his eyes wide when he thought of this. The next moment, Themis from the Celestial Realm had already raised her left hand into the air. The huge steel gauntlet contrasted with the petite silver-haired girl, giving people a visual impact. Her voice, which was flat, seemed to become serious. "The main system has authorized us to continue the authentication process. We will now start to remotely connect to the administrators who are not present and send them authentication requests."

The steel gauntlet stretched out gently, like a lion opening its claws. The three dark blue halos on the wrist expanded and expanded one after another, and spread to the end. Visible streams of magic flowed along the lines on the surface of the gauntlet, lighting them up, and finally gathered at the fingertips and emitted them in the form of beams. These beams were like brushes that shuttled through the void, from points to lines, from lines to surfaces, until they formed a huge hexagonal screen, which happened to be facing the position of the crowd, so that they could see the picture projected on the screen clearly if they raised their heads.

At first, it was just a blurry mess of characters, shaking and flickering, dazzling the eyes, but it gradually became clearer, and finally completely fixed. An extremely familiar face appeared on the screen, smiling and greeting everyone: "Hi, long time no see, everyone."

"Tantis!?"

Everyone was shocked. Some people, such as Countess Nevill, who still remembered the thrilling chase on the Indorsis Bridge, had cold eyes and took a vigilant posture, not hiding their hostility.

"Why are you so nervous?"

The fifteenth girl Wang Quan, the leader of the Witch Society, a black-haired girl who calls herself the Reality Witch, is on the other side of the screen at this moment, smiling and looking at everyone. Strangely, the background on the other side of the screen seems to be exactly the same as the control center where Ling Ge and others are located, both of which are magnificent, huge and sophisticated creation barriers. Could it be that there is another Heavenly Temple in the world?
"The rules of the Heavenly Temple prohibit fighting. I think everyone should be aware of this, so I have no intention of making an enemy of you, at least not at this moment." She glanced at Themis of the Celestial Realm across the screen and said in an intriguing tone, "I was just invited to witness a promise that was made long ago."

A promise made long ago? Everyone looked at each other, not understanding what this meant. Celestial Themis might understand, but she had no intention of explaining. She just spoke indifferently and asked the same question as before: "The main system is executing the authentication process. Control Center Administrator, Reality King Tiantis, do you agree to unlock the highest authority?"

"I agree." Tiantis answered without hesitation, and then smiled: "In addition, I also brought the certification licenses of other people. They all have their own things to do, and I don't know when they will return to Relagios, so they entrusted this matter to me. Of course, if you want to wait for them all to arrive, it's no problem, but I think I'm afraid the guests can't wait that long?"

Tiantis glanced at everyone, and seeing that they showed no objection, he gently raised his hand and snapped his fingers. Then several voices with different timbres, tones and intonations sounded one after another, all repeating four simple words: consent and permission.

Some of these voices were very familiar, such as the Witch of Fear Fei'er who had met once in the Virtual Root Swamp, or the Witch of End Time who had met unexpectedly in Professor Heinrich's secret study, or the Witch of Darkness Carabosse who had fought with the Holy Son Gabrielvia in the ruins of Guardes City; and some were relatively unfamiliar, probably other witches that had not been met yet: the Witch of Strife, the Witch of Disaster, the Witch of Plague and the Witch of Death.

According to Tiantis, while Lingge and others were obsessed with pursuing the truth, they were also secretly carrying out other activities, and did not seem to worry that what the Order Kings saw and heard in the Temple of Heaven would affect their crazy and cold Eden Project. This made Lingge feel a little uneasy. If he remembered correctly, the Iron Eden Reglagios, which Tiantis had mentioned before, was the current headquarters of the Witch Society, located on another constructed mecha, the Azure Dragon Nest Ladist.

Among the eight witches, is she the only one left at the headquarters?
"Judgment: reasonable."

Themis of the Heaven Realm said indifferently: "The authorization license has taken effect. The certification process has been completed. Now we will start to confirm: the main system authority agent has been approved; the administrator of the Heavenly Temple has been approved. The certification procedures have been met. Now we will start to unlock the highest authority of the main system and unlock all files in the database numbered from X-01 to X-099."

As soon as she finished speaking, the virtual light screens surrounding her began to flicker and shake as if they were strongly disturbed by something, stretching out geometric garbled codes, and the dark blue sea of ​​light also fluctuated. The chaotic ocean made everyone panic for a moment, thinking that they were about to be submerged by the huge tide of data.

But this situation only lasted for less than one tenth of a second, and soon the light screen returned to normal and stabilized again. At this time, the data flowing on the screen was no longer meaningless garbled code, but turned into traceable text. But those words still did not belong to the language of the Mirror Star World. Linger suspected that they should be Earth's words, because Alice was staring at the screens with a thoughtful look in her eyes.

"Do you recognize these words, Alice?" Ling asked.

What he didn't expect was that Alice actually shook her head: "I don't know him. But——"

The thought in her eyes turned into doubt: "It feels very familiar, as if I have seen it somewhere?"

"This is the text of Eden." A voice came slowly. Tiantis also stared at the text on the light screen with a nostalgic expression on his face: "I haven't seen it for a long time. I almost forgot it, but I didn't expect that I still remember it. You use the text of Eden to record information, which means you can't forget it either, Themis of the Celestial Realm?"

She looked at the petite silver-haired girl, who said expressionlessly, "The answer is: No. The data in the main system database is all in the form of information, and this machine just records it in the most easily understandable way. And, it will not be changed without authorization."

"If you hadn't said that last sentence, I might have believed it." The corners of Tiantis' mouth curved with a hint of playfulness. "But if I remember correctly, the main system of the so-called Heavenly Temple Control Center has always been under your full management. You are not its agent, on the contrary, you are its master. Controlling it is as easy for you as controlling your own body. It's just that you always like to impose many restrictions on yourself, whether it is the highest authority that requires the permission of all the girl kings to unlock, or the database that cannot be changed without authorization, these are rules that only apply to you. In this regard, you are really a weird person, Celestial Themis."

Ling Ge was a little surprised for a moment, and then he recalled the series of inquiries that Themis had repeatedly asked the main system to confirm whether it agreed to unlock the highest authority. This surprise became a little strange. Because according to Tiantis, the girl was like asking her brain before walking: I want to walk, do you have any objections? No objection; then she asked her hands, I want to walk, do you have any objections? No objection; then she asked her legs, I want to walk, do you have any objections? Only after all the confirmations were completed, she would take a step. She was indeed a very twisted person.

Others thought so too, and for a moment they looked at the girl with strange eyes. Alice even muttered in a low voice: "It really is artificial idiocy."

Themis of the Celestial Realm seemed to have not seen everyone's gazes, nor heard Alice's slander, and her face was still tense and expressionless. However, after Tiantis revealed the truth, her cold demeanor made people feel very deliberate, just like a child would always deliberately put on a mature look and pretend to be an adult. Even the tone of her explanation was no exception, with a hint of trying to cover up the truth: "The conclusion is: deviation. The goddess's requirements for this body are fairness and objectivity, so the restriction of some permissions is a rule set by this body based on this requirement. At the same time, it conforms to the operating logic of the main system and is the most concise and efficient model generated after repeated verification. There is no need to question it."

After saying that, as if she was afraid that Tiantis would continue to expose her disguise, she did not give everyone time to react. She turned her head to look at Metien below and said with a straight face: "The confidential files from X-01 to X-099 in the main system database have been unsealed. Based on the information recorded in these files, we can draw a conclusion and answer the questions raised by the applicant just now-"

"Ugh!"

Metien swallowed hard. She was finally going to get the most crucial answer. She felt extremely nervous, and her heart was beating non-stop in her chest. She even felt that the entire control center could hear her heartbeat, but it was just an illusion. Even Sister Livia, who was close by, did not hear her heartbeat. Instead, she looked up at the silver-haired girl in the air. Her hands on her chest had been twisted together unconsciously, and the gesture was like praying.

Lingge pursed his lips slightly, said nothing, but his eyes were particularly deep; Saint Xia Liya lowered her eyelids, not wanting others to see her thoughts; everyone held their breath, so much so that they did not notice that on the other side of the screen, Tiandis had put away the smile on his face and his expression became particularly serious.

She knew that the answer would shock these travelers who had come from across the sea of ​​stars, and might even make them doubt their own beliefs, but this was the first step toward maturity, and it was a fact that had to be accepted, because -

"My Lady Goddess," Celestial Themis spoke each word with pauses, as if emphasizing something. For a moment, it seemed as if the entire dark blue ocean had stopped breathing and became so quiet: "It has returned to the sea of ​​stars."

Give me some meow