Chapter 1578 - 1574: Dong's Awakening

That smile was like a goddess's, but Ye Qiu knew the girl in front of him wasn't God, she was someone he knew.

"Dong? It's me... do you still remember me?"

Ye Qiu knew that the him of this world and the him of that world were more or less different—not just in looks, but in clothes and so on.

But it seemed his worry had been unnecessary. That girl—Dong—slowly opened her mouth, and that long‑missed voice rang out again.

"Ye Qiu.... finally.... I get to see you again."

Bean‑sized tears welled up in Dong's eyes, the moonlight flickering on the slowly falling drops, then she stretched out both arms and threw herself straight into Ye Qiu's embrace.

"Ye Qiu... Ye Qiu... Ye Qiu...!"

Dong kept repeating Ye Qiu's name. Her slender hands clung tightly to Ye Qiu's neck, she pressed her cheek against him, and Ye Qiu held this petite girl tight, finally unable to hold back his own tears.

In that world, Dong had fought side by side with Ye Qiu. The time wasn't long, but those days were carved deep into Ye Qiu's memories, days he would absolutely never forget. Through those long and grueling times, it was Dong who kept supporting him.

Dong, who had met him in that previous world that has now vanished. Since something like this could happen, then he and Fang Wushang definitely had a chance to meet again. He had to get back the person he loved most.

Since coming to this world, this was the first time Ye Qiu had felt such firm conviction.

"So? What's actually going on here?"

In the forest, Ye Qiu found a tree, and the two of them sat on its branches. He didn't immediately ask about Fang Wushang, but first asked about Dong.

Dong rested her cheek against Ye Qiu's chest, tilting her head to look up at him, her face full of confusion.

"...?"...........

"Then where exactly is this place?"

Ye Qiu explained to the just‑awakened Dong what had happened while she was asleep—the battles he'd gone through, the matter with Long Yijian, and how he'd come to this new world.

But Ye Qiu didn't mention Fang Wushang's marriage or that she was still asleep, because he really couldn't bring himself to say it. Something like that...

"Please wait a moment, okay!"

Dong closed her eyes, as if listening to some kind of sound.

"This place is..."

Suddenly she opened her eyes again and said to Ye Qiu:

"This isn't our previous world."

"This is like a backup existence of your original world. Simply put, they used the resources that created that world to build this one. Or rather, that world was just a derivative spun off from this world."

"A backup...?"

"Right. The main program clusters and data files are completely identical in format. The fact that Ye Qiu can appear here again in this form is the best proof. However, the version of the Cardinal system here is a bit old. And the game components here are entirely different things..."

"Mm..."

Ye Qiu fell into thought.

This Fairy Fantasy had gone on sale twelve months after the incident in the previous world that was known there as the VR game incident.

By then, the company that had caused all that was already destroyed, and Fairy Fantasy had only just been requested to take over the cleanup work not long before.

If this world had also absorbed everything from the previous world, then it was highly possible they directly used those resources to create a new world.

As long as they reused the existing parts that formed the backbone of the world, they could save a huge amount of time and effort. Put that way, it's no wonder Ye Qiu had been surprised that the precision of this world was about the same as the previous one.

Anyway, the previous world had been running on this world's backup system—that much Ye Qiu could understand. But——

"But… why is my personal data here..."

"Let me take a look at Ye Qiu's profile."

Dong closed her eyes again.

"...Looks like there's no mistake. This really is the character file Ye Qiu used in the upper world. The save‑file format is almost the same, so the shared skill proficiency between the two games was directly overlaid. HP and MP are in different formats, so they couldn't be inherited."

"As for items... looks like they've all been destroyed. If we leave them like this, they'll get picked up by a debug program. Ye Qiu, it'd be better if you just throw away all your items."

"I see, that explains it."

Some people might still not quite get it at this point, so to put it simply: someone used something from this world to create the previous world where Ye Qiu fought against the surging waves, and that "something" very likely had some connection to this game called Fairy Fantasy.

Ye Qiu slid his finger over the item window, selecting all his items at once.

There were probably several items in there filled with his memories of Aient City, but right now he could only set aside the sentimentality and carry out the operation. Besides, he couldn't tell their names apart anyway, and they couldn't be materialized.

Once he steeled himself and deleted them all, the only things left were standard Early Period equipment.

"What about these skill proficiencies?"

It seemed all the training he'd done in the previous world had been recorded in numbers.

"From the system's point of view, there's no problem. Compared to the game timeline it does look a bit unnatural, but as long as no human game administrator looks directly at it, it'll be fine."

"I‑I see. Mm... this really does make me a cheater now."

——Still, having a slightly stronger character is never a bad thing. Besides, Ye Qiu still had to climb that World Tree or whatever to go find Fang Wushang. He hadn't planned on seriously training this character from the start.

Also, after carefully checking the status window, he could roughly tell that character stats weren't all that important in this world. You couldn't even see things like agility or strength, and the amount HP and MP increased each level was tiny.

Even if your weapon skill proficiencies went up, all it did was increase the number of weapons you could equip—it didn't really affect their power. And of course, the biggest feature of this world was that Sword Skills simply didn't exist at all.

In short, Fairy Fantasy is an online game where a player's own movements and judgment determine their strength, heavily focused on action elements. Unlike the previous world, where even if you just stood there and let low‑level enemies keep hitting you, your HP wouldn't drop much.

The only unknown factor was "Magic," which had been excluded from the previous world. Ye Qiu noticed in his skill bar a registered skill that looked like a Guardian Elf Early Period skill: "Illusion Attribute Magic." This was the one thing Ye Qiu wasn't familiar with—apparently, he'd only understand it by trying it out or getting hit by it.