As Navigator Isee Sees It

"Starfield observation log: No. 13045
Time: Amber Era, year ████
Subject of observation: The Akasha star system, Ekhoya, the Land of Echoes
Beings formed out of liquid metal have built an empire ruled by a central brain, and thanks to the memory properties of the metal, this planet can condense and replay three-dimensional illusions of events from the past.
One divine fragment is treated as a treasure, said to have recorded the god who brought enlightenment to the Ekhoya people, but in my view this is nothing more than a seed that 'Elation' carelessly threw away. Poor primitive beings, they do not know that the god they worship has long been beyond saving..."
...
"Starfield observation log: No. 14089
Time: Amber Era ████
Subject of observation: The Oris star system, the planet Weiyuan
In this civilization that regards eating as beauty, the more you eat, the more resources you receive. In order to stuff in more food, stomach-expansion surgery has become a trend among the locals. Now, the more bizarre the eating broadcast, the more it can set off a wave of frenzied imitation...
I remember it now, there was once a Fool who brought the famine-stricken people of Oris a piece of meat that could never be eaten up. No surprise there, joy without limits will only turn people into wild beasts..."
...
"Starfield observation log: No. 14758
Time: Amber Era, year ████
Subject of observation: Adlivun
I saw the galactic arm collapse like fragile crystal, and the stars like a handful of ashes blown away by the wind, dying out in silence.
Like a painting from which every stain has been wiped clean, leaving only a still emptiness, a flame as brilliant as gold █ cannot be looked at directly █ cannot be described █
Golden blood █ raging fire █ destr █ uction ██ birth █ ing ███ the answer █ ap █ pears █ ? █"

From then on, the observation log stopped abruptly.
And from that day on, a crack that could never be repaired was left upon the lens, and the eyes behind that crack went completely dim as well.

"Every time he told a joke, he would always spin his ring, as though that die held a hundred thousand mischievous ideas inside it. Even on the day Akivili vanished, he was still in the mood to joke with us. He said: 'What is Akivili's most important revelation? Buy accident insurance in advance! Buy an accident insurance policy, and we should get back on the road!' But why... could he himself not manage to laugh?"
- From the joke collection "As I Have Seen", compiled by a certain Nameless

"...It is chaos, complete chaos. The day before yesterday three of the Nameless left; yesterday, five companions during the Jump fought over the position of candidate for the next Navigator, and there were several others who meant to dismantle the Express's core engine and carry it off; today, an assassination suddenly happened inside one of the carriages... In the end, the Navigator gathered the Nameless together and invited us to play a game for the brave, in order to decide the candidate for the position of the next Navigator.

Each time the die rolled, we would all receive a random game mission. Choose to save a sinking comet ship, or take a 60 percent chance at winning an enormous prize draw; three people stranded on a desert planet with supplies for only two, required to reach the destination within a time limit... At first no one cared about it, but fewer and fewer of the Nameless came back; those who broke the rules, those who lost the game, they all... they all..."
- From the journal of a certain Nameless

"...Master Isee, it was you who led the Astral Express through its hardest years. I do not know whether I can unite the Nameless the way you did, because I have neither your charisma nor your... ruthless decisiveness, but I will do my very best. If we still have a chance to meet again, please tell me what on earth you saw when we entered that star region, that made you leave the Express so resolutely... Although we traveled together for so long, sometimes I feel as though I never knew who you really were..."
- Letter from Falcon Amundsen to "Isee"

In those golden years, following in Akivili's footsteps, the Nameless were like tides stirring the universe.
They once drank strong liquor together on the ice fields of Pagaseka, and sang aloud in the meteorite belt of the Tianhui star system. They roamed and hurried on, and the silver rails were like threads of longitude and latitude, stringing together civilizations that had been separated from one another.

He always remembered the sight of Akivili's back, a back that seemed naturally able to gather the trust of all the Nameless.
"Why is it that I search for answers, and yet must always live a life without answers?"
He asked Akivili this, only because the confusion in his heart was growing larger by the day.
Akivili pointed a hand toward the far distance, a distance where there was nothing at all, and yet which seemed to be hiding every answer.

He drew every world on the Astral Chart with his own hand, and he remembered the story of each one of them.
Each time, he carried hope with him and, together with his Nameless friends, helped worlds that were in peril, and yet after the crisis passed, he always realized that worlds sunk in peace for too long would begin to chase more stimulating pleasures, indulging in decadence, exposing every kind of vice.
Until countless stars had become tiny dots upon the Astral Chart, and as they drew ever closer to the boundary of the universe, he witnessed the fall of the god of Trailblaze...
That existence which longed to cross beyond the very end of the universe and reach the place outside fate had, of all things, left behind only a small and insignificant speck of light, before vanishing from everyone's sight.

"What is this supposed to be?" He wiped the tear at the corner of his eye and laughed loudly into the endless void, laughed almost to the point of vomiting, "So he could not find the answer either, so walking on is nothing but another dead end, what a terrible joke, as terrible as a joke can be!"

The Astral Chart on the uniform is still brilliant, but the final point that gave it meaning no longer exists.

"Dolly, have you heard of the kind of shoes that 'run to wherever you are not welcome'? Look, I am wearing them right now, and that is why I had the good fortune to meet all of you."
When Isee first came aboard the Express, he performed stand-up comedy every night.
He always began with these shoes; sometimes he said they were a curse laid down by Aha, sometimes he said they were magic that could never be broken, and in short it was all the fault of these leather shoes with their stubborn temperament, which had taken him to every place that did not welcome him...

"Isee, Isee, tell us more about your running back and forth!" The Nameless at the bar counter, emboldened by drink, joined in the shouting.
Dolly gave a snort, remembering how he had turned up at her door before without so much as a greeting, planted himself on the Express and refused to leave, and pulled all sorts of pranks on the passengers, and how it was only because she took pity on him that she took him in.
"Everyone, this story is absolutely gripping! A very, very long time ago, I had just crawled out from under a green velvet blanket; one second earlier I was drinking soda, and one second later I put on these cursed shoes, and they made me run like mad, across an erupting volcano, diving down into the pitch-black deep sea, and then flying up a hundred thousand meters into the sky..."
"Do not ramble, get to the point!"
"Well, then I was taken straight down into an abyss. At first I thought it was a manure pit, it really stank so badly! In the end I found out that it was actually the mouth of an abyss, grown full of sharp teeth!"
"And then what?"
"I gathered all my companions together and threw a sun into that big mouth! It cried out: Hot hot hot hot... I am burning to death!"
"So why did you run to the Express?" Dolly seemed to catch something in this and asked out of curiosity.
"Did I not already say it, because the Express does not welcome me."
"Do you take us for fools? If you do not tell us, we will not let you off the stage!"

The young man on the stage smiled, his gaze resting on the starry sky outside the window.
"Do you all want to know that badly?" His eyes lit up once more with rays of hope. "Wait until I find the true end of the world, and then I will reveal it!"