Extroot with config files linked to the original overlay

I'd like to be able to link the /overlay/upper/etc/config directory to the original config directory on the overlay partition. With that I could keep config files in one place and fall back to the internal memory in case something happens with the memory stick.

I tried doing this on my already working extrooted router (ln -s /overlay-boot/upper/etc/config /overlay/upper/etc/config) but it won't boot correctly. I assume that the router is trying to fetch configurations while /overlay-boot is yet to be mounted, making the link unusable.

Is there any way to achieve this? If that is true would someone be kind enough to post some basic steps on how to do it? Thanks for reading.