The arrogance of a prophet, you could also call it a trait common to transmigrators who knew the plot.
The bigger the cheat, the more obvious it became.
The people of Natlan felt that Flynn had already done far too much for them. Protecting him was only natural, and if sacrifices had to be made, then so be it. After all, even without him, they still would have had to fight the Abyss, and with fewer supplies, the death toll would only have been worse.
Flynn, however, saw it differently.
On the timeline where I never helped you, you might all have lived long enough to see the war won. If I come here and help, only for you to die protecting me, then damn it, I'd have been better off never coming at all.
And so, unable to argue him out of it, his friends in Natlan had no choice but to go along with his wishes. Those with the skills prepared all sorts of useful little tools for him.
Then his friends escorted him and Escoffier to Natlan's border.
Someone had suggested arranging a few real experts to accompany them all the way to their destination after reporting it to the Wayob, but Flynn and Escoffier had both refused.
And after that, the two of them reached the harbor, missed the passenger ship, and ended up running into this smuggling vessel instead...
...
Back to the present.
That was also why Flynn had no intention of returning to Natlan right now.
There was no point.
Even if he ignored every problem that already existed, and every problem that might arise, and even if everything unfolded in the most ideal direction possible, what then?
Suppose Mavuika, a human who was neither a god nor a Dragon Sovereign, took the half of the Pyro Authority in Flynn's possession, then extracted the other half from the divine throne and successfully fused the two inside herself, becoming a "complete god" on the level of a complete dragon.
Even then, it would still only be speculation.
No one had ever truly confirmed which was stronger, a complete dragon or a higher archon. The common belief was merely that the two were roughly comparable.
Could Mavuika defeat Gosoythoth alone?
Maybe.
But it would not be certain. There would still be risk.
And do not start talking about how adding the power of Death would make it stable. Leaving aside the fact that this was all still idealized theory, even if Ronova really did open a back door for them, or the Six Heroes awakened at lightning speed, who would be there afterward to exploit the loophole and take the fatal consequence of wielding Death's power in the Captain's place?
The original ending, at the very least, had been close to a true happy ending.
If his interference only made things worse, then what was even the point of transmigrating?
So it was better to play it safe for now.
His cheat had fully activated at last. He could spend some time growing stronger, boil the Abyss like a frog in warm water, keep the overall situation stable for the next few years, and then, when he had more trump cards in hand or when the Traveler finally arrived, deliver an even more complete happy ending in one stroke.
That was Flynn's plan.
"Oh, right, Flynn. Earlier you mentioned something about a bad-luck constitution... was that really true?"
On the other side, after the excitement faded a little, Escoffier recalled what he had said before.
He had already explained it somewhat, but she still did not fully understand.
Mainly because he had made it sound so serious, as if he would run into trouble wherever he went. Yet when she thought back carefully, nothing especially strange seemed to have happened during those months in Natlan.
They had only left Natlan recently, and nothing unusual had happened on the road either.
Except for boarding this ship.
"It was true. The Masters of the Night-Wind helped set up a ritual for me. It was pretty complicated, but it worked well enough. It temporarily blocked off most of the bad luck."
Flynn explained.
When he had first arrived in Natlan, misfortune still clung to him often. The World Seed's power could always respond in time and keep that bad luck from truly landing on him, but some people still noticed that something was off.
By then, he had already begun to stand out and attract attention, so one of the priests from the Masters of the Night-Wind had come to him on their own initiative and tried to help.
At first, it had done nothing.
Flynn had thought that was perfectly normal. He simply did not want to reject their goodwill.
But the other side refused to give up and started calling in more help.
And so it escalated step by step, from human priests to non-human ones, like the great elder of the Iktomisaurs, then to spell specialists from other tribes, and in the end even Citlali and Mavuika were brought in.
But somehow, they really did make it work.
According to the explanation Citlali and Mavuika later gave him as the one directly involved, the ritual had drawn in a projection of the Night Kingdom, used the Wayob as its foundation, and with the Pyro Archon's power, pried open the force of the Night Kingdom long enough to place a kind of concealment on Flynn.
And at the time, it really had worked.
The intensity of his bad luck dropped, and the frequency with which it descended lessened as well. It still was not enough to fully free the World Seed's power, but together, the two effects had given Flynn more than half a year of normal life.
But...
Something's not right.
Flynn suddenly sensed the inconsistency.
At first he had thought nothing of it, but just now he had seen with his own eyes how Teyvat's planetary will had completely masked the force of rejection.
For a being on the scale and level of a planetary will, doing that had still cost a great deal, so much so that the already weakened Teyvat had been forced back into slumber.
True, the world had already been born by then, and the strength of the rejection had surged dramatically...
But back in Natlan, a group of priests and one ruling Archon had managed something similar by borrowing the ley line power of an entire nation.
And the most interesting part was that afterward, although they had clearly spent a lot, all they seemed to need was some rest to recover.
Was that really normal?