This time, I was the one struck speechless.
When my expression stiffened, the administrator drew their head back with an expression that said they realized their mistake.
The administrator pressed down their billowing hair with one hand and waited for my answer.
How did an administrator of the Galactic Trading Post know the Rabbit Butler and Cat Butler?
Until now, I had believed that closing a Trial caused its NPCs to disappear as well.
Since the Trial’s meteorite vanished, I had assumed everything associated with it vanished in turn.
But… when I thought about it, the butlers in Clean3 had been NPCs outside the specifications.
They had asked me about an interstellar account and requested the code for Interstellar Communication.
They had already been using Akasha’s civilization.
It was entirely possible that they existed outside the Trial.
I also knew of a case in which an NPC from a closed Trial was still alive.
‘Because I saw the Delusional Researcher from DZD in PTB.’
If closing a Trial did not make the NPCs disappear completely….
And if they could exist outside it….
Smiley, the researcher siblings, Edel, the fire-dragon twins, the Creatures….
They, too, might exist somewhere in the universe.
Of course, the possibility was slim.
I did not even know what conditions had to be met for them to emerge from a Trial.
Still, what mattered was that the possibility was not zero percent.
Every farewell had always left me…