To be honest, Sora had seen plenty of crowns before.
But he had never seen one sitting on a rabbit's head.
And this was no ordinary crown. Even at a glance, Sora could see the extraordinarily refined mechanical craftsmanship that had gone into it.
The gemstones set into it were crystal clear as well, obviously worth a fortune.
In other words, this wasn't some random crown. It had genuine significance.
With that thought, Sora leaned closer to the rabbit crouching in front of them with its paws over its head.
"Could this little guy actually be one of the people of this planet?"
The universe was vast, after all, and stranger things existed. Humanoids certainly weren't the only forms of intelligent life beneath the stars.
Take the Bai Ze, for example. Their planet was home to only one species.
Perhaps the unusual ecosystem of this planet had led rabbits to establish its civilization.
It sounded unbelievable, but right now, it was the most reasonable explanation.
Whether because it heard Sora or because it realized none of them seemed hostile, the rabbit finally recovered from its earlier terror.
"Squeak, squeak, squeak!"
(You scared me to death! This prince thought I was going to die here!)
Once the words were translated for him, Sora raised an eyebrow at the rabbit's declaration of identity.
"A prince?"
Had this planet already established a monarchy?
"Squeak?!"
(You can understand me?!)
Hearing Sora mutter to himself, the rabbit stared at him in utter astonishment.
"You can understand me. Isn't it only natural that I can understand you too?"
If anything, Sora was the confused one.
This universe had advanced technology like Synesthesia Beacons that could even translate homophones.
Sure, the things had completely stolen the translator job Sora had originally wanted to do, but their effectiveness was undeniable.
Communication throughout the universe wasn't much of a problem because of them.
Besides, what kind of logic said only you were allowed to understand us while we weren't allowed to understand you?
There wasn't any one-sided rule like that in the entire universe.
But as Sora puzzled over it, Rappa asked from beside him, "Lord Red Flash, what are you muttering to yourself about?"
"To myself?!"
Sora froze for a moment before something clicked.
"You can't understand what he's saying?"
He pointed at the rabbit in front of them, asking whether Rappa could make out its words.
Rappa shook her head.
All she could hear were the rabbit's incessant squeaks. She couldn't understand a single thing beyond that.
If Sora was asking her this, then did that mean he really could understand what the rabbit was saying?
"As expected of the Red Flash! To think you've already mastered the art of spirit communication to such a degree!"
Rappa immediately looked at Sora with admiration.
"Looks like my ninja training still isn't good enough. From now on, I'll train twice as hard until I can reach Lord Red Flash's level!"
"Uh... I don't think this is something you can get through training."
Sora felt a little helpless.
This ability of his seemed closer to something his cheat had given him back then.
At first, he hadn't been able to understand those alien scripts either. Later, though, they had simply begun converting themselves into words he could understand.
Hopefully Rappa wouldn't get too discouraged when she failed to cultivate this ability.
With Rappa's confusion settled, Sora turned his attention back to the little rabbit.
Since he was apparently the only one who could communicate with it, gathering information would have to fall to him.
After the two sides talked for a while, Sora finally understood both the little fellow's identity and the current state of the planet.
His name was Mochi Wowoya.
He was the prince of this planet.
And the reason he had come here was...
"I came here to welcome the Primitive Gods."
According to Mochi Wowoya, the Primitive Gods would descend upon them roughly every four hundred cycles of day and night.
As the leader of the Wowoya people, he was required to travel to the surface to welcome the gods' arrival.
"The gods are all pure white. Each of them possesses all kinds of divine powers, and whenever they descend, the surface of the planet falls into extreme cold."
The more Sora listened, the more familiar the description sounded.
"Don't tell me those so-called gods are the followers we wiped out earlier?"
Those followers could only keep their bodies from spontaneously combusting under low-temperature conditions, and only then could they use their special abilities.
As for every one of them being pure white, that might simply be because the research uniforms they wore were white.
Every trait Mochi had described matched them.
If it really was those people, then things were getting interesting.
"You're saying these gods helped you establish civilization, build cities, and even construct a temple?"
But weren't Dr. Primitive's followers supposed to be following in his footsteps, trying to make everything in the universe undergo atavistic regression?
Why would they do something completely contrary to that?
"No idea."
Rappa spread her hands. How would she know?
And Sheila was even less likely to know.
She had already deleted all her data. There was no way she could have information about this planet.
That meant the only people they could get answers from were the planet's inhabitants.
"Can I take a look at what those Primitive Gods built for you?"
They might be able to find relevant records among the creations left behind by Dr. Primitive's followers.
Mochi thought for a moment before nodding.
"For your sake, I'll take you to see them."
With that, he headed into an inconspicuous opening off to the side.
The entrance was extremely well hidden. Ordinary eyes, or even cameras, would probably have had trouble identifying it.
Beyond it stretched a long, pitch-black passage.
Following that passage would eventually lead them to the Wowoya people's underground stronghold.
As they walked, they continued discussing some basic matters.
"You said you're only taking us there for my sake?"
Sora was rather surprised.
Did he really have that much pull even in a backwater place like this?
"The Primitive Gods once delivered a divine revelation. They were able to communicate with all things, which was why they could understand our language."
The only difference was that, in those revelations, the words of the Primitive Gods had echoed directly within their hearts.
The person before him, meanwhile, was speaking aloud.
The method was different, but it still proved that Sora had to possess some connection to the Primitive Gods.
That was why Mochi had said he was doing this for Sora's sake.
Sora laughed when he heard that.
"You should've said so sooner! I'm very close with them!"
He and those researchers were close enough that he could burn them into charcoal!
"Really? Then it seems I didn't arrive too late."
Mochi breathed a sigh of relief at Sora's words.
"When I first poked my head out and saw all of you, I thought the Primitive Gods were angry."
That was why he had been trembling so badly while crouching with his paws over his head.
So the "Primitive Gods" were actually this easy to talk to. The Wowoya's historical records had seriously complicated his dealings with the gods.
"Oh? Were the other Primitive Gods that hard to deal with?"
"Of course..."
Mochi then began recounting events recorded in the history of his people.
For example, there had once been someone who tried to offer flowers, only for the flowers to be crushed underfoot.
The Wowoya who had presented them was then sentenced to death for offending life.
And there were countless cases of people being sentenced to death over similarly trivial matters.
Some had merely glanced at a Primitive God for too long while walking past, only to explode into a cloud of blood in full view of everyone.
"That's why everyone has always both revered and feared the Primitive Gods."
"You can still revere them after all that?!"
Sora was genuinely shocked by what he had just heard.
Faced with a history that brutal, powerless creatures with no means whatsoever to rebel should have felt nothing but fear.
But reverence?
How did that happen?
"Because only the Primitive Gods can stop the calamity we face."
A calamity?!
Just as Sora was wondering what he meant, the sight before him seemed to provide the answer.
Luminous stones along the cavern walls cast a faint glow over the area.
Beneath that light stood an ancient city wall, dividing the world into two equal halves like a barrier.
One side was pitch-black and steeped in the rancid stench of blood.
The other was utterly tranquil, as though peaceful years passed slowly within it.
Bloodshed and peace had been crudely divided into two distinct halves.
"And this is our settlement," Mochi said to Sora.
Sora quietly took in the scene before him.
He looked over the various buildings throughout the peaceful city, as well as the enormous temple that dominated the view.
The temple alone occupied nearly a third of the entire city.
Only the remaining two-thirds were left for the Wowoya to live in and cultivate food.
The space was cramped, but from the looks of things, they could at least remain self-sufficient.
And on the other side of the wall...
Sora looked at the countless crimson points flickering beyond it.
Those points of light were actually pupils within the eye sockets of living creatures.
Black masses writhed endlessly outside the defensive wall. Crimson eyes seemed to be standard among them, while their prominent front teeth made them look even more like rats...
They looked downright terrifying.
"These are the calamities?"
"Don't underestimate them. It's said they're the reason we were forced to move underground in the first place..."
Mochi Wowoya then explained just how terrible these calamities were.
They devoured crops, attacked the Wowoya, assaulted the temple...
They were essentially a horde of mindless beasts.
"And their numbers increase extremely quickly. Every few years, the Primitive Gods have to come and purge them again."
Ordinary Wowoya could do almost no damage to these calamities.
And if they made even the slightest mistake, the creatures would seize the opening and devour them.
That was how Mochi's parents had died.
"I watched with my own eyes as those calamities caught my parents and dragged them farther back."
Even after so much time had passed, Mochi still remembered that day.
That was why he wanted the Primitive Gods to appear as soon as possible and wipe the calamities out.
And after waiting and waiting, Sora had arrived.
Mochi looked at him with hope in his eyes.
"Great God, could I ask you to bring divine punishment down upon these calamities?"
Sora had been speaking with Sheila beside the river. Hearing Mochi, he turned his attention back to him.
"Bring divine punishment down upon these calamities?"
Sora swept his gaze over the creatures ahead.
The gray-black mass looked like a raging tide capable of swallowing peace and tranquility whole.
If they ever broke through that wall, the peaceful world on the other side would probably be destroyed in an instant.
"I understand. But before that, there are still some things I need to do."
Mochi's face immediately lit up with excitement.
"Really? That's wonderful!"
He wasn't asking for anything else.
All he wanted was a promise from Sora, this Primitive God.
As long as he had that promise, he would finally be able to avenge his parents!
"If there's anything you need, please tell me. I'll do everything I can to assist you!"
Unfortunately, Sora didn't need Mochi's help with anything.
He merely asked Mochi to leave for the moment. There were some things he needed to ask Sheila privately.
Mochi understood from that that whatever came next wasn't something he was meant to be involved in.
He could only suppress his excitement for now and wait for Sora to finish whatever business he had.
Sora's reason for wanting privacy was simple.
"You're saying there's a familiar signal somewhere around here?"
Sheila nodded.
"Although the detection module in my current state doesn't have much range, I can still vaguely sense something."
As she spoke, she turned her gaze toward the temple and the deepest part of the calamity horde.
"Both of those places are giving off something that feels familiar to me."
That was exactly why Sora had wanted to speak to her alone.
Who was Sheila?
She was a mechanical life-form created by Dr. Primitive's followers using remnants of Rubert II's Scepter system.
That meant anything that felt familiar to her was either related to Dr. Primitive or to Rubert II.
Either name alone was enough to shake the entire universe.
The fewer people who knew about this, the better.
"In that case, let's see what's actually in those two places."
Just as Sora had said earlier, if either place really contained something tremendously dangerous, he could eliminate it while he was here.
Naturally, the first place they would investigate was the temple occupying two-thirds of the entire city.
After all, Sora conveniently had a prince here who could put in a word for them.
Having someone in high places made things easier, and the three of them also had unusual identities.
So without even stopping to rest, the three set out toward the temple.
Along the way, many rabbit-like creatures watched Sora and the others with a mixture of curiosity and fear.
The Primitive Gods were extremely well known among them, especially after leaving behind so many "glorious deeds" throughout the history of their people.
It would have been difficult for Sora not to attract attention.
When they arrived in front of the temple, they found Mochi waiting for them with his crown on his head.
The moment Sheila approached the temple, however, she raised her head.
"An identity authentication system just scanned us."
Sora immediately became alert.
If his guess was right, that authentication system had probably been left behind by those followers.
And none of them should have had any information stored in its database.
If it really was something they had built, that might trigger an undesirable response.
In the worst-case scenario, the three of them might even have to clash with the defensive systems here.
"If a fight really does break out, Rappa, you're good on your feet. Protect these little guys!"
Whatever happened, they couldn't let these rabbits die here for nothing.
The instant Sora finished giving the order, the enormous temple before them began shaking violently.
Sora immediately placed his hand over the Battler Grip.
Judging by the scale of this commotion, if a fight really started, the aftermath wouldn't be minor.
BEEP~ BEEP~ BEEP~~~
A mechanical chime rang rhythmically beside Sora's ears.
The "temple" before him was unfolding in an almost unbelievable display.
"Don't tell me it's about to bring out some kind of superweapon..."
With all this fanfare, it'd be embarrassing if he shot everything it deployed down in a single round.
At last, the shaking stopped.
Sora's vigilance reached its peak.
He prepared himself for an attack from the temple.
And then, at that very moment, the temple spoke.
[WELCOME, HOLDER OF THE HIGHEST AUTHORITY.]
Sora froze.
Holder of the highest authority?
He instinctively looked over at Sheila.
She seemed like the only person here who fit that description.
[NO. THE HOLDER OF THE HIGHEST AUTHORITY I AM REFERRING TO IS YOU, SORA.]
The temple appeared to be observing Sora's actions. Seeing him turn toward Sheila, it immediately issued another clarification.
Everyone went blank.
"Ohhh! As expected of the Red Flash. To think that without any of us noticing, you had already brought the other party under your control!"
Rappa spoke with complete seriousness. From her perspective, this obviously meant Sora had already conquered the other side.
"Mmm~! Do you have another Intellitron on the side?!"
Sheila reacted like a wronged wife who had just discovered her husband had someone else outside.
"No, seriously, why am I the holder of the highest authority?"
Sora was every bit as confused.
He had never even heard of this so-called "temple" before, much less visited the place.
So how had he become the holder of its highest authority?
"That doesn't make sense."
Was this a trap?
[ALL ANSWERS LIE WITHIN. ONCE YOU ENTER, YOU WILL UNDERSTAND EVERYTHING.]
The temple seemed to notice the disbelief on Sora's face and offered that explanation.
After that single sentence, it fell completely silent.
The towering temple before them remained wide open, as though waiting for them to enter.
Sora exchanged a glance with the two women, then stepped inside.
He wanted to see exactly what bizarre thing was hidden inside this temple!
...
For a scientist, repeating the same experiment thousands of times was perfectly normal.
That was true for apprentices just beginning their research.
And it was equally true for Dr. Primitive, whose name had long since become renowned throughout the universe.
Even after conducting many atavistic experiments, he still treated every stage of the process seriously.
This time, however, what he intended to regress was something that had never before appeared in the universe.
At the center of the experiment lay several mechanical structures worn down by the passage of time.
Disassembled machinery so incomplete it barely retained its shape. Pistons so badly worn that their original appearance was almost impossible to recognize. Machines whose blades were dotted with black, congealed clots of blood...
They looked like nothing but scrap, yet every single one of them could fetch an unimaginable price across the galaxy.
Because all of them were objects created by Rubert II hundreds of Amber Eras ago.
And these were the things Dr. Primitive intended to subject to atavistic regression this time.
"Use the Scepter system as the nerves, The difference machine regained its missing components. as the base, the piston as the body, and the blades as the hands..."
By subjecting all of that to atavistic regression, perhaps he could successfully reconstruct the being who had already fallen from the universe.
"This is my first time doing something like this too."
A faint smile actually appeared on Dr. Primitive's face as he spoke.
In the past, he had always made Intellitrons return to components and humans return to apes.
He had never imagined that one day he would use atavistic regression to try to resurrect someone who had already died.
Even for him, this was a novel experience.
Truthfully, even as the inventor of atavistic experimentation, he found this undertaking rather troublesome.
But the more troublesome something was, the more geniuses like him wanted to challenge it.
Whether it raised questions of ethics or endangered every living thing in the universe meant nothing to him.
All he wanted was the joy of overcoming something difficult.
Nothing more.
"Then let us begin."
Dr. Primitive pressed the button to start the experiment.
The rapid consumption of energy immediately caused even the laboratory's lights to flicker slightly.
At that instant, particles and cells seemed to begin steadily moving backward.
Books gradually returned to trees. Steel returned to ore. Walls returned to sand and earth...
It was as though everything had been placed in reverse, continuously reverting toward an earlier state.
Amid it all, Dr. Primitive alone remained unaffected by the regression.
He quietly watched the subjects of the experiment before him—the creations Rubert II had once made.
Those creations gradually began recovering their former appearances.
The difference machine regained its missing components. The piston became sleek and gleaming with oil again, bursting with power. The blades grew razor-sharp once more, as though capable of cutting through anything that could be cut.
But that was all.
The being Dr. Primitive had hoped for did not return.
"Was my hypothesis wrong?"
Dr. Primitive had always maintained that although Rubert II had fallen, traces of his existence still remained within the things he had once created.
Rubert II had used his own consciousness to command the entire inorganic nebula.
That meant every creation he had forged back then had once borne traces of his presence.
Dr. Primitive had intended to use atavistic regression to restore those traces of Rubert II's existence and, through them, bring him back to life.
But judging from the result, the experiment had failed.
Which meant that at the final moment before Rubert II's fall, his consciousness had not been inside these components.
If it wasn't inside the components...
Where had his consciousness been?
Dr. Primitive suddenly produced a hard drive.
Looking at it, he smiled.
Some time later, the eye of an Intellitron inside the laboratory slowly lit up.
At first, the light was a friendly blue.
But after flickering twice, it turned scarlet.
It was as though the machine had cast aside a benevolent disguise and exposed its most savage and violent side to the world.
"What happened to me?"
After awakening, the Intellitron looked dazed and sluggish, almost as though it were malfunctioning.
It swept its gaze around the room and asked in confusion, "Where am I?"
Where was the nebula he had forged?
Where was the difference machine he had used for his calculations?
Where was the metal that had mercilessly slaughtered organic life for him?
Why had all of it been completely severed from him, its creator?
At that moment, he suddenly heard a human voice beside him.
"Welcome back..."
Dr. Primitive smiled and applauded as he revealed what the Intellitron had now become.
It was no longer an autonomous robot used for cleaning.
It was now...
"Rubert II."
The demon that had once unleashed the terror of the inorganic across the universe had awakened once more!
And somewhere in the universe, a computer flickering with a faint red light silently observed the entire scene.
This was a deviation that lay outside the perfect future model...
---
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