Sinking into the deep sea, a feeling of submergence swept over his entire body, and after a brief darkness, Renji’s vision cleared, and he found himself back in the blood-red world of the tainted old era.
Entering Dream Zero for the second time, Renji now had much more experience than he did at first, especially since this time he came prepared, bringing with him the brand that could “log in to the main account.”
Renji did not rush to use the brand to summon the *Bright Leftover Woman*, thinking what if it had a time limit? It was safest to wait until he was in front of the witch to use it.
Another thing, Renji hadn’t forgotten the agreement with “Control Number One(CN. 1)”, He had 86 determine their location, and then the cool sea-blue motorcycle came online again. Renji sped towards the coordinates where he had logged off last time.
Since both logins were through the Black Fire Gang’s dream anchors, the coordinates weren’t far apart. When Renji arrived, to his delight, he could see a team of machine servants wandering and patrolling the area from afar.
“It has to be the soldiers from Cn. One,” Renji thought with relief.
He had been genuinely worried that the machine servants might have disappeared or something might have happened to them.
It’s not that Control Number One could help with the upcoming battle, but after knowing the identities and experiences of these machine servants, Renji didn’t want to see them get hurt again.
“Control Number One!”
Riding the motorcycle from a distance, Renji waved to the leading “control machine” despite having only been three days apart, Renji quite missed this first machine servant he had encountered.
*Buzz buzz!*
The motorcycle below him deliberately grunted twice, as if protesting. Renji quickly patted the motorcycle’s head a few times, saying 86 was the first, and the motorcycle calmed down.
Twenty meters, fifteen meters, ten meters.
Renji’s happy expression gradually faded because he noticed something was off. Control Number One did not respond to his wave, and even seemed to ignore him completely, only turning its head to look at him coldly after he crossed a certain safety distance.
[Detecting abnormal approach, conducting target scan… Scan complete, confirming target identity as… unauthorized dream entrant]
[Warning, please do not approach further]
[Warning, for your own safety, it is recommended that you immediately disconnect from the dream]
[Warning….]
[Warn….]
[…]
A series of warning sounds made Renji both frown and wonder.
Undoubtedly, the commanding machine servant in front of him was no longer Control Number One, at least it had lost the memory of Control Number One about him, so it couldn’t recognize him now.
But on the other hand, this machine servant seemed different from other machine servants within Dream Zero, because from previous dream experiences, a major characteristic of machine servants is… they do not communicate, only using commands within their own channel.
Like now, giving warnings upon detecting an approach from a stranger, and even “advising” to immediately disconnect from the dream and not stay in Dream Zero, these were not typical of machine servants.
And the most important point is, they have always been lingering in this area, which is no coincidence, indicating that perhaps the subconscious of this machine servant still contains Control Number One?
Thinking this, Renji made a decisive move, knowing from his first experience how to interact with a machine servant.
He got off the motorcycle and let 86 revert to maid form, and as expected, seeing 86, a machine servant similar to them, the control machine immediately became confused, starting constant computations to determine the reason.
Taking this opportunity, Renji successfully approached the control machine. Just as 86 was about to repeat the process and “insert a USB” again, Renji stopped her.
“How long have you been staying here?”
[Unknown identity speaker, no response provided] The control machine coldly refused to answer Renji. .
Renji didn’t mind, instead, he felt more confident. After thinking, he changed his question.
“Don’t you want to know why you have to stay here?”
After this question, the machine servant across from him fell silent for a long time before finally speaking.
[49 hours, 22 minutes, 19 seconds]
The machine servant answered Renji’s previous question, and with a quick calculation, Renji nodded. As he thought, the timing matched almost exactly with when he had logged off, indicating that this machine servant was indeed the former Control Number One.
As for why it was once
It lies in the “almost” of time. To be precise, it was two and a half days. During the few hours missing in the machine servants’ timeline, something must have happened that led to the disappearance of Control Number One.
‘It’s likely that this area encountered a Tainted Miasma disaster, leading to the annihilation of Control Number One’s troops. The newly constructed bodies in the base, though formatted and having lost their memories with me, still retained some data. That’s why they became humanized and, for some reason, continue to stand guard here.’
“Control Number One, it seems your system is malfunctioning. Have you forgotten? I am your commander. We had agreed that today was the time to set off to subdue the witch, and you were to stand by here on my command”
The amount of information in Renji’s words was obviously significant for the machine servant, and this time the opponent was silent for even longer. In the black display screen used to cover its eyes, more data streams appeared, as if it was frantically computing.
Finally, the machine servant displayed signs of overload, unable to find an answer, and for the first time, actively asked Renji a question.
[Control Number One? The system cannot retrieve any related vocabulary. Is this my code?]
“It’s not a code; it’s your name.”
[Name?]
“See, you’ve even forgotten your own name and still say you’re not malfunctioning.”
[But Control Number One just performed a self-check, and all components and systems are normal] The machine servant unconsciously accepted the setting of ‘Control Number One’ but was still a bit hesitant about Renji’s words.
But Renji found this amusing.
“Control Number One, let me ask you, what is a malfunction? It’s something you can’t detect yourself, that’s what a malfunction is. It’s like our human amnesia. If you remember everything, can it still be called amnesia?”
“If you don’t believe me, ask your counterpart next to you, 86, am I right?”
After Renji spoke, the machine servant looked at 86, and 86 obediently nodded to her theoretically younger sisters.
[Confirmed tone. We are all the commander’s home-serve machines, ah, control machines]
86, as a counterpart, obviously had a great deal of persuasive power in front of Control Number One. Seeing her counterpart confirm it, Control Number One fully believed the fact of her malfunction and thus accepted the setting of Renji as the “commander”
The combination of Control Number One and the commander was online again, and this time, Renji did not use any external cheat methods like “inserting a USB”.
Instead, it was more like a bad uncle deceiving a naive little girl.
But.
‘This seems to further prove that Control Number One really is different now, something more, perhaps called humanity, or maybe… heart?’
[Commander, I don’t think we have the power to subdue the witch. For commander’s safety, Control Number One requests you to terminate the action. Your duty is to command us in battle; you need not go to the frontline]
Seeing the machine servant actually concerned about him, Renji smiled and then, on a whim, placed his hand on Control Number One’s head, rubbing it as he spoke:
“Do you think the title of commander is just for you to call me by without reason?”
“A mere witch, for the great me, is easy to annihilate.”
“Lastly, Control Number One, I need to correct one more mistake for you. My duty as a commander is not to command you in battle but to ensure that one day, you no longer need to fight.”
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