"The results of her examination are in."
As the Intellitron curiously looked around the ship, the frog standing in front of Sora spoke with a hint of helplessness.
"Those researchers clearly anticipated being wiped out, so they deleted all their research data well in advance."
Sora frowned. "So...?"
"Meaning we have no idea why this thing was sitting at the center of their server."
The frog spread his hands. "Those guys deleted all the detailed records a long time ago. But judging by her current state..."
He paused.
"She's probably not that different from Rappa."
Rappa?
Sora glanced over at Rappa, who was currently engaged in a rather unusual exchange with the Intellitron.
"Greetings, I am the Dazzling Ninja, AKA Rappa! May I ask Your Excellency's name?"
"AKA? Dazzling Ninja?!"
An extraordinarily lifelike look of confusion appeared on the Intellitron's face at Rappa's introduction.
"Indeed, Your Excellency. I sense the bonds of ninja between us!"
Rappa's expression immediately turned solemn.
"Please join me in spreading the name of ninja throughout the cosmos!"
Sora's mouth twitched.
Bonds? What the hell?
Were the two of them going to spend seven hundred episodes loving and fighting each other next?
Naruto! Sasuke!
Realizing how badly his thoughts had wandered, Sora hurriedly shook his head and threw the nonsense out of his mind.
"So technically, she counts as another creation of Dr. Primitive's followers?"
Two creations of Dr. Primitive's followers joining the Galaxy Rangers, then turning around to hunt down their creators...
Good grief. Anyone who didn't know better might think Sora had crossed over into some Kamen Rider world.
"She wasn't created by them. You can tell from this."
The frog showed Sora an unusual component.
Compared with all the other pristine parts, this one looked old and worn. There were even faint traces of blood on it.
"What's that?"
Sora was puzzled.
How could anyone tell from one battered component that the machine hadn't been built by those researchers?
"This is part of what the Intelligentsia Guild calls the 'Scepter' system—a massive cluster of inorganic biomimetic neurons."
The frog then rattled off a whole string of technical terms.
Microscopic particle fluctuations, macroscopic matter annihilation...
Basically, there seemed to be nothing the Scepter system couldn't encompass.
And the being who had created this immensely powerful system was a name renowned throughout the cosmos—
Mechanical Emperor Rubert II.
Compared with the first emperor, a mechanical life-form that had awakened within a broken-down computer in a scrap heap, Rubert II—with his body of flesh and blood—had been even more brutal.
Unspeakable mechanical megastructures. Self-iterating difference engines. Unfeeling metal executing the Anti-Organic Equation through pure slaughter.
It could be said that Rubert II was the key figure who had truly spread the Anti-Organic Equation—the equation responsible for countless deaths—throughout the cosmos.
Before his fall, Rubert II created the Scepter system.
"Supposedly, he intended to use the Scepter system to extend his consciousness throughout the cosmos, probing those parts of the universe that remained unknowable until he reached the Knowledge Singularity."
Once the Scepter system was operating at full capacity, combined with Rubert II's own intellect...
Within the region of space covered by the Scepter system, Rubert II might truly have been able to trace all knowledge back to its source.
And once he reached the source of knowledge, he would gain the means to control everything.
"Put simply, he meant to crown himself as something akin to an AEON."
Unlike an AEON, who could freely exert THEIR influence throughout the cosmos, however, a self-crowned Rubert II would only have been able to affect the Mechanical Nebula covered by the Scepter system.
Nor would he possess anything like an AEON's Path for other living beings to walk.
After successfully crowning himself, Rubert II would have become a unique kind of "god."
"Unfortunately, he failed. Right on the eve of his coronation."
There was both relief and regret in the frog's voice.
He was relieved that Rubert II had failed to crown himself, yet regretted never learning what would have happened if he had succeeded.
And inside the Intellitron now serving as the storage node for every piece of data in this place was a component that had once formed part of Rubert II's Scepter system.
"Come to think of it, that's strange. Most of the Scepter system was seized and sealed away by the Intelligentsia Guild and the IPC."
Yet somehow, these followers had gotten their hands on a piece of it.
And they had even gone so far as to build an Intellitron body specifically for it.
"Wait. If this thing was once part of the inorganic neural cluster Rubert II created..."
Sora suddenly realized something.
"Could the reason they built a body for this piece of the Scepter system have been to..."
"Resurrect Rubert II?"
The frog froze at the suggestion.
His first reaction was that it was absurd.
Who in the cosmos didn't know how vicious Rubert II had been?
Even though several hundred Amber Eras had passed since the last Anti-Organic Wars, Rubert II's influence remained to this day.
Many planets still forbade machinery from being equipped with intelligent modules.
Many civilizations would rather return to primitive ways than deal with machines.
Even the Xianzhou Alliance, one of the most renowned powers in the cosmos, had once regarded such machines with extreme caution.
You only had to look at the aurumatons, sealed beneath multiple talismans whenever they weren't in use, to see that.
So when Sora suddenly suggested that someone might be trying to resurrect Rubert II, of course it sounded absurd.
But on second thought...
It wasn't impossible.
"This place was researching the atavism of machine intelligence. And if you're talking about the most famous Intellitrons in the cosmos..."
The answer immediately came to mind.
"The two Mechanical Emperors."
Those two were simply unavoidable whenever the Intellitron species came up.
Rubert I had awakened as an old, broken-down computer and had not left behind anything particularly famous.
Rubert II, however, was different.
After his fall, both the Guild and the IPC had scrambled to study the Scepter system he left behind.
The Anti-Organic Wars had left such a deep mark that their influence could still be glimpsed even now.
So was it really so strange that someone might try to recreate Rubert II's intelligence module through atavism?
"Now that you put it that way... it actually does make sense."
The frog's expression shifted slightly as he looked at the Intellitron.
Atavistic experiments. Rubert II. Self-Coronation. Perfect organisms.
Taken together, those keywords put the odds at sixty or seventy percent, even if they weren't as high as eighty or ninety.
The frog immediately started cursing.
"Those dumb fucks really were insane. What kind of idiots would dare mess around with Rubert II?"
Everyone else went out of their way to avoid anything connected to Rubert II.
Yet here were people who knew exactly who he was and still tried to resurrect him.
What else could you call them but idiots?
"Dr. Primitive's followers really are so stupid they might as well not have brains!"
With that remark, the frog went back to examining the Intellitron's test results.
If Rubert II truly had revived, he was more than capable of dragging the entire cosmos back into the abyss of war.
The Galaxy Rangers had to prepare for every possibility.
He might not have been the strongest, but his intelligence had unquestionably ranked among the very best.
They couldn't let those idiots have died for nothing!
The frog walked away.
Sora, who had been speaking with him, understood the gravity of the situation as well.
"The Anti-Organic Wars... That already sounds like trouble."
Sora remained where he was, silently watching the Intellitron converse with Rappa.
Her appearance had a few feminine characteristics.
Golden metal plates formed her hair, while her blue eyes lent her a faint air of intelligence.
As she listened to Rappa, she would nod one moment and shake her head the next.
No one looking at her could possibly imagine that something capable of causing enormous harm to the cosmos might be hidden inside that Intellitron body.
Sora certainly wouldn't have guessed.
Yet reality was often that bizarre.
The more impossible something seemed, the more likely it was to happen.
At this point, even Sora had no idea how he should treat her.
"Man... What a mess."
Sora sighed helplessly and shook his head.
He had somehow ended up here, then somehow gotten dragged into the possible resurrection of Mechanical Emperor Rubert II.
This was way too much trouble.
Fortunately, the ship itself seemed to sense Sora's gloom.
Before long, it brought him a drink to help him unwind.
"Fudgin' hell, this is my first time ridin' in a fancy ship like this!"
Just as Sora was trying to relax, someone suddenly sat down beside him.
It was Boothill.
"Hey, brother. Got any Malt Juice over here?"
Boothill flashed Sora a handsome grin full of sharklike teeth.
Sora did have some beer.
He wasn't particularly fond of the stuff himself, so he hadn't stocked much.
Still, satisfying Boothill's request was easy enough.
"Ahhh... Nothin' beats a swig of Malt Juice after gettin' the blood pumpin'."
Boothill let out a contented sigh. Then he hooked an arm around Sora's shoulders and pulled him closer.
"Brother, why the long face? Somethin' botherin' you, just tell me."
"It's nothing. Nothing worth making a big deal out of."
"Hey, hey, hey. Now you're treatin' me like a stranger. We're all Rangers here. Ain't helpin' each other what we're supposed to do?"
Boothill grew a little sentimental as he continued.
"That dumb frog told me your ship came all the way from the Land of Rebirth."
The Land of Rebirth was several hundred light-years from the space station targeted in this operation.
"After what you did, I'm callin' you my friend, brother."
Crossing such an enormous distance specifically to take part in this operation...
That alone was enough for Boothill to acknowledge Sora.
"Oh, come on..."
Sora then told Boothill what had happened aboard his ship.
Boothill listened with mounting disbelief.
"You're sayin' your ship flew here all by itself?"
"Someone was probably controlling it. But whoever it was should've been burned to charcoal by now."
"Nope. I've been here the whole time."
"?!"
Sora snapped his gaze toward the source of the voice.
The Intellitron was smiling at him.
"I'm the one who called you here..."
She smiled and waved one hand.
At the same time, the autonomous robot beside Sora that had been serving his drinks made exactly the same motion.
"I've always, always been watching you."
For some reason, the moment she said that, a chill ran through Sora.
What the hell kind of yandere is this?!
...
The universe stretched out in every direction, vast and boundlessly dark, while the faint glimmer of the stars seemed like dreams forever beyond reach.
And within those endless depths, a lone figure walked through space.
Compared with the universe, he was no more than a grain of sand in an ocean.
Yet what he was doing could send unimaginable tremors throughout the cosmos.
He was the enemy the Galaxy Rangers continued to hunt even now—
Dr. Primitive.
He wore a battered trench coat with a distinctly technological texture, its hem trembling faintly in the vacuum of space.
Slowly, he raised both arms.
His hands gently closed around empty space as though conversing with some invisible force of the universe.
In an instant, threads of gravitational light coiled around his fingertips like silver serpents, gathering into a dim gravitational vortex.
His gaze was intent and profound as he stared into its core.
"This is the place."
Dr. Primitive surveyed his surroundings as though searching for something.
Could he truly find anything in this endless sea of stars?
The answer was yes.
After reconstructing the surrounding gravitational waves at a particular frequency, a tiny metal object appeared in the space before him.
"Finally. The Self-Coronation data Rubert II stored away."
A note of pleasure entered Dr. Primitive's voice as his objective came within reach.
If the Intelligentsia Guild knew what he had just found, they would probably be astonished.
Everyone knew that Rubert II's Self-Coronation using the Scepter system had failed.
The killing machines spanning the cosmos, perfectly executing the Anti-Organic Equation, had shut down completely after losing their controller.
The Empire's pistons were removed. Its difference engines were dismantled. Its neural "Scepter" system was divided into multiple pieces.
Throughout all of this, the emperor himself had shown no response at all.
That alone proved that, at the final moment of Self-Coronation, the emperor had undergone an unimaginable aberration.
And the data hidden within those special gravitational waves contained details of that aberration.
"If I can regress the Self-Coronation data all the way back to zero through atavism, I should be able to glimpse the root of the Imaginary."
The Scepter system used for Self-Coronation was modeled on NOUS's thought process.
Just as Rubert II had hoped.
If his Self-Coronation had succeeded, then throughout the region of space covered by the Scepter system, he would have existed almost like an AEON.
So if the Self-Coronation data could be regressed all the way back into nothingness, perhaps the Scepter system could be used to simulate NOUS's thought process in reverse and deduce the origin of AEONS.
"In this respect, Rubert II, you truly were more talented than I am."
Rubert II had not been a member of the Genius Society.
And the reason for his awakening had been the Anti-Organic Equation left behind by the first emperor.
Yet by continually refining and improving the first emperor's equation, he had somehow managed to glimpse one corner of the origin of AEONS.
That alone was enough to earn Dr. Primitive's respect.
"Then let me see what you witnessed, Rubert II, when you perceived the universe through NOUS's thought process."
Dr. Primitive began reading the data from the drive and immersed his consciousness in it, experiencing it firsthand.
Only by experiencing it in the form of an inorganic life-form could he understand the changes and sensations brought about by Self-Coronation.
The data preserved on the drive was incomplete.
Fragmentary though it was, for a member of the Genius Society like Dr. Primitive, it was still enough to infer the general course of events.
In that instant, he felt the vastness of the universe.
He heard pistons roaring.
He saw difference engines turning...
And when all of that receded, he once again found himself facing the laws of physics every scientist would encounter.
Those laws could manifest differently under different circumstances.
But there was one thing that had remained unchanged since time immemorial—
SHING!
Just as the crowned Rubert II was about to glimpse the ultimate truth of all things, about to perceive the world from NOUS's perspective—
A scalpel drew a streak of light across the universe.
And that gleam did not exist solely within the sensations recorded in the data.
The same light flashed beside Dr. Primitive.
The radiance along the blade and the angle of the slash were identical to what Rubert II had experienced in the records.
There was no question about it.
The person swinging that scalpel at Dr. Primitive was the same person who had swung it at Rubert II.
A perfect angle, capable of killing its target in the shortest possible time.
The mixed virus carried on the blade offered no salvation to either organic or inorganic life.
And its wielder's true identity was—
"I've heard much about you, Polka Kakamond."
Just as the scalpel was about to fall upon Dr. Primitive, the blade stopped.
More accurately, it could descend no farther.
Gravitational waves condensed to near solidity had completely immobilized both the blade and its owner in the middle of space.
Before Dr. Primitive, where moments ago there had been nothing but boundless darkness, now stood a woman dressed in a candy-red gown.
Her true identity was Genius Society #4, the "Lord of Silence"—
Polka Kakamond.
"Hunter of geniuses. Undertaker of knowledge. One who seeks to keep all things forever submerged in chaos..."
Dr. Primitive looked at the figure caught within his gravitational waves and recited, word by word, how others described her.
After all, she was well known throughout the Genius Society for hunting its members.
"I've always wanted to meet you, though I would have preferred it not to be now."
Dr. Primitive had long been curious about her.
But at present, he had more important things to do.
"Chaos and the unknown will bring the universe to FINALITY ahead of time. What you hold is the key that opens the door to chaos and the unknown."
Even while captured, Polka Kakamond showed no trace of panic.
She merely looked quietly at Dr. Primitive and warned him of the danger inherent in what he was doing.
"Only the perfect model of the future proclaimed by NOUS through 'Instants' can lead the entire universe toward a perfect future."
Once the chaos and uncertainty brought about by reaching the Knowledge Singularity entered the equation, that perfect future would be severely destabilized.
That was precisely why she continued pursuing and hunting the geniuses of the Genius Society.
Even though every one of them had been invited into it by NOUS.
After hearing Polka Kakamond's warning, Dr. Primitive silently looked at the data drive in his hand.
She was indeed correct.
Although Dr. Primitive had only immersed himself in the records just now to lure out and capture the Lord of Silence before him...
If he had not truly immersed himself in the experience, she would certainly have noticed the flaw.
So moments ago, he really had experienced everything Rubert II felt during Self-Coronation.
The sensation was indeed extraordinary.
It was as though he knew everything, understood everything, and could even perceive the future through data analysis...
Within that brief span, he had already sensed that the apes who fancied themselves normally intelligent had once again gotten themselves tangled up with the Rangers he had encountered while amusing himself.
He had also sensed a large-scale search for someone underway on a new planet hundreds of light-years away.
Everything seemed to fall effortlessly within his grasp.
For that brief period, he had gained the higher-dimensional perspective of an AEON.
That alone demonstrated just how dangerous this data was.
Digging deeper into it could indeed have an enormous impact on the entire universe.
But...
"Isn't the pursuit of science precisely the process of exploring the unknown and finding within it the path toward perfection?"
Dr. Primitive smiled.
As for how many sacrifices might occur while exploring the unknown?
How great an impact might it have?
What did any of that have to do with him?
"Polka Kakamond, if you've already concluded that a perfect future must exist and regard NOUS's calculations as supreme..."
Dr. Primitive tightened his grip on the Self-Coronation data Rubert II had left behind.
"Then how is using myself to explore the unknown and using atavism to create perfection any different?"
Polka Kakamond often said:
"The calculations of Nous are beyond dispute."
She would even turn her scalpel on numerous colleagues within the Genius Society for the sake of those words.
Then wasn't that fundamentally the same as Dr. Primitive pursuing a more perfect result and future through atavistic experiments across the universe?
"You and I are both people who continue forward for the sake of the paths we each believe in. Our intellects are not so different."
So Polka Kakamond would understand perfectly well that he could never give up Rubert II's data.
Because the two of them were the same.
Polka Kakamond could not give up hunting geniuses, just as Dr. Primitive could not give up his atavistic experiments.
"I came here for one purpose only—to capture you."
That was right.
Any researcher should calculate every possible experimental outcome before beginning one.
And there was only one reason Dr. Primitive had hurriedly begun experimenting in the middle of space immediately after obtaining Rubert II's data.
It was to capture Polka Kakamond.
Because he knew the Lord of Silence would never spare anyone who tried to obtain the Self-Coronation data.
So he had turned her own intentions against her, capturing her at the very instant she moved to finish him off.
"Simple gravitational waves like these won't hold me for very long."
Now that everything was out in the open, Polka Kakamond had no reason to conceal her intentions either.
"The moment I break free, I will hunt you to the ends of the universe."
"We can discuss that once you've escaped, my dear Lord of Silence."
Dr. Primitive even gave her an exceptionally gentlemanly bow.
But anyone could hear the mockery in his voice.
With that done, Dr. Primitive prepared to leave.
Before he did, however, there was one more thing he wanted to do.
"But before we part, there's something I must remind you of."
Polka Kakamond's wine-red eyes were as cold as congealed blood.
She watched Dr. Primitive in silence, showing no reaction to anything he said.
Whether she reacted or not made no difference to him.
There was only one thing he wished to tell her.
"Sserkal needed only twenty-nine days to propel her civilization forward by several thousand years."
"So how many years do you think geniuses like us could push the civilization of the entire universe forward?"
Polka Kakamond's eyes widened.
"You—!"
It was the first time she had lost her composure in front of Dr. Primitive.
Because she now understood what he intended to do.
"So you'd better hurry up and break free of those gravitational waves. Maybe you'll still make it in time to do something about it."
With that, Dr. Primitive stepped along the gravitational waves and vanished without a trace.
And the reason he had done all of this was very simple.
"The Rangers haven't managed to keep up with me in ages. I need some fresh excitement."
Only then would he have the passion to conduct his experiments.
And this peculiar habit of his often made even Dr. Primitive sigh over himself.
"How imperfect."
That was right.
Dr. Primitive, who aspired to forge a perfect civilization, also judged himself to be imperfect.
If a truly perfect organism did exist somewhere in the world, then what would it be doing right now?
Surely it would be occupied with something of tremendous importance.
Dr. Primitive let his imagination wander...
...
"I maintain a continuous record of how your weight changes over time. That's so you can always get the perfect amount of rest..."
"I've added your favorite vegetables and drinks to the list of options. That's to make sure your health never suffers!"
"I even collect the dead skin cells and hairs that fall from your body—"
Sora's expression grew increasingly horrified with every word.
"Stop, stop, stop, stop! Can you not say any more?"
She was collecting his dead skin now?!
At Sora's hurried interruption, the Intellitron gave him a puzzled look.
"But I only dispatch robots to perform routine cleaning and recycling."
Hearing that, Sora finally realized he had misunderstood.
A faint flush appeared on his face.
But compared with that, there was something else he wanted to know far more urgently.
"Are you sure the thing collecting information about me every single day is supposed to be a resurrected Rubert II?"
Sora leaned right up to the frog's ear and whispered the question, his face full of doubt.
The frog had no idea what to make of it either.
After learning what this Intellitron had been doing, he looked every bit as baffled as Sora.
"More importantly, I want to know why you didn't delete any of this data."
He eyed the Intellitron suspiciously as another question occurred to him.
"All of their confidential research data was completely erased by their own actions. None of it can be recovered."
So why could she still remember Sora's weight fluctuations, favorite vegetables, sleep schedule...
Why did she remember all these trivial things with perfect clarity?
"Because I saved them in my core."
To the frog's surprise, the Intellitron gave an exceedingly simple answer.
Normal file operations could not delete the core program.
She had actually stored those things inside her core program.
And her core was, in fact, a remnant of the Scepter system Rubert II had once created.
In other words, she had saved those things inside Rubert II's nerves.
"What the hell... You can actually do that?!"
The frog froze when he heard what she had done.
He could never have imagined that she would choose to do something like this.
No—not just him.
Even the Intelligentsia Guild and the IPC would never do something like that.
When researching the Scepter system, of course they had to preserve the integrity of its internal system components.
That meant they would never alter or delete anything from its core programs.
Yet this robot, custom-built around the Scepter system as its core, had voluntarily modified the core data and programs within the Scepter system itself.
And the reason she had altered them...
Was simply to record trivial things like someone's weight fluctuations and sleep schedule.
This was...
This was...
Who would believe something like that?
The frog certainly wouldn't have before.
Not until the evidence was sitting right in front of him.
And after examining her further, he discovered that this was far from the only thing she had done.
Everything inside the Scepter system had been altered beyond recognition.
Aside from the data she had collected, several threads were connected directly to the cameras in Sora's bedroom aboard his ship.
There were even multiple angles.
Multiple shots...
If he so much as lay down on that bed, practically everything would be visible in perfect detail.
The frog fell silent.
"W-What is it?"
Seeing him go quiet, Sora immediately had a bad feeling.
Had Rubert II actually been resurrected?
Yet to Sora's surprise, after hearing his question, the frog merely turned around and gave him a complicated look.
"It's nothing."
That did not look remotely like nothing.
If someone's threatening you, say something!
---
T/N: GULP
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