Chapter 27: This is Absolute Fiction!
"Your puppet would absolutely cry if it knew what you were planning to do with it!"
Leon leaned forward, a wide, teasing grin spreading across his face as he stared down at the petite Herta puppet. He genuinely found it hard to fathom how the esteemed genius could spout such utterly scandalous remarks without so much as a twitch in her porcelain expression. Was this the true nature of a genius? The unbothered pragmatism of a top-tier scientist? His preconceived notions about the intellectual elite were shattering by the second.
"Is there a problem with my proposal?" The puppet tilted its head, its synthetic joints whirring faintly. "Could it be... you possess some sort of psychological barrier?"
"Don't worry," she continued, her tone as flat and clinical as a medical report. "I have never given a Herta puppet to anyone else. The one I prepare for you will be entirely pristine. Completely clean."
She delivered these stunning lines with chilling calmness. Since Leon was only speaking to a remote-controlled doll, he had no way of reading the real Herta's actual emotional state.
Light years away, tucked safely within her private sanctuary, the real Herta was currently sporting a tremendously smug smirk. To render an actual Masked Fool speechless and flustered? She considered that a monumental personal victory.
Of course, the bizarre research proposal she had pitched earlier was entirely serious. That was the most terrifying part.
Leon sighed heavily, pressing a hand against his chest as if wounded. "Fine. Since you have put it so eloquently, I suppose I will reluctantly agree to your terms." He shot the puppet a wicked wink. "Just remember to have a brand-new, mint-condition model ready for me when I leave."
He layered his voice with a thick coat of feigned heartbreak, playing the victim to perfection.
"It truly was not my original intention," Leon added, shaking his head tragically. "But since you practically begged, it would be downright heartless of me to refuse a lady's request."
The puppet stared at him in dead silence.
"Could you at least wipe that disgusting smirk off your face while saying that?" Herta's voice crackled through the doll's speakers, a hint of genuine irritation finally bleeding through. "And for the record, the puppet standing in front of you right now is not the one you get! My consciousness is currently occupying this chassis! Keep your hands to yourself!"
Having reached her absolute limit with his thick-skinned antics, the puppet materialized her massive diamond hammer out of thin air. With a swift, practiced motion, she swung it upward, bringing the heavy crystal down on Leon's head with a resounding thud.
"Hey! Where is your sportsmanship?" Leon rubbed his head, completely unfazed by the blow. "Didn't we just agree you were giving me a puppet?"
Before the doll could retract her weapon, Leon's hand shot out like lightning. He snatched the diamond hammer right out of her mechanical grip and, defying all laws of physics and spatial geometry, casually stuffed the massive weapon into his pocket.
[System: Credits +100,000,000]
Leon chuckled inwardly. Herta was absurdly wealthy. The fact that every single disposable puppet came pre-equipped with a solid diamond hammer worth a hundred million credits was staggering. Though, if Asta were here, the pink-haired lead researcher would probably just wave her hand and offer to buy him ten more without blinking an eye.
"I said I would prepare a new one for you! I never said you could lay a finger on the one I am currently operating!" Herta snapped, her synthetic eyes narrowing. Then, a sudden realization clicked into place. "You... your real target is actually me, isn't it?"
The genius finally caught on. Whether this Masked Fool was purely chasing amusement or harboring deeper, more convoluted motives, his ultimate objective was clearly her actual self, not just some mass-produced toy.
She analyzed him through the puppet's visual sensors. This guy was far more complex than she had initially calculated. But then again, what else should she expect from an anomaly capable of drawing the simultaneous gazes of Nous, Fuli, Aha, and Nanook within the Simulated Universe?
"Uh, hey? Is anyone actually paying attention out there?" Stelle's deadpan voice suddenly echoed from the monitoring console. "I'm pretty sure I just bumped into an Aeon."
Leon and Herta instantly dropped their bickering. They turned their attention toward the massive display screens simultaneously.
Deep within the digital expanse of the Simulated Universe, Stelle, currently cloaked in the simulated identity of Akivili, and Caelus, operating as a standard Trailblazer, had finally triggered their first major cosmic encounter.
On the monitor, the digital sky bled into a deep, heavy amber, humming with a low frequency that felt like the physical weight of twilight pressing down on the world. Countless fragments of raw copper ore, jagged ambers, and shimmering opals surged upward, steaming and swirling through the dense atmosphere.
Standing monolithic between the shattered earth and the glowing heavens was a colossal figure, grasping a hammer so massive it seemed to anchor reality itself.
"Qlipoth. The Aeon of Preservation," Herta breathed, her synthetic eyes lighting up with intense academic fervor.
While it was not quite as mind-bending as Leon summoning four Aeons simultaneously, Stelle and Caelus's current run was proving to be incredibly special. By using the simulated disguise of the fallen Akivili, they had successfully baited out a genuine reaction from another god.
"The Aeon of Trailblaze returns from the grave, and naturally, the old friends come out to say hello," Leon remarked, crossing his arms with an amused grin.
"Oh?" The puppet raised a delicate, articulated eyebrow. "You actually know the history between them?"
Detailed lore regarding the interpersonal relationships of the Aeons was highly classified, definitely not something the average galactic citizen could just look up on the interstellar net.
"Of course I do." Leon puffed out his chest, radiating absolute, unearned confidence. "Picture this. The Amber Lord is out there, sweating bricks, building a massive cosmic wall to block out universal disasters. And then, along comes Akivili, driving a literal dump truck straight through the fresh masonry, yelling something about wanting to connect all worlds."
He chuckled, gesturing wildly with his hands. "The Amber Lord looks down, sees the hole isn't too massive, just barely wide enough for a train to squeeze through, so he just pinches his nose and decides to tolerate the property damage."
Inside the simulation, Stelle stared up at the towering, faceless entity of rock and crystal. "...Speaking of which," her voice drifted through the comms, laced with genuine philosophical confusion, "does the Amber Lord even have a nose to pinch?"
"Where on earth did you dig up this garbage unofficial history?" The Herta puppet stared at Leon, completely expressionless. "Did you spend your weekend drinking with the Enigmata's Fictionologists?"
She had genuinely braced herself for some explosive, universe-shattering secret, only to be fed a cartoonish anecdote about a dump truck. She sighed internally. He truly was a Masked Fool through and through.
Leon ignored her judgment, fully committing to his one-man play. He deepened his voice to a gravelly rumble. "Amber Lord: Endure it. Just endure it. A small gap is fine. Even a great city wall needs a gate. Besides, the other guy is an Aeon too. Not worth starting a galactic war over a little scratch."
Leon then spun around, pitching his voice into a hyperactive, cheerful yell. "Meanwhile, Akivili is on the other side shouting: Hey, hey, hey, Stone Head! You wanna come out and play with us? Aha is here too! Hahahahaha!"
Dropping his shoulders, Leon reverted to the gravelly voice, rubbing his temples in mock exhaustion. "Amber Lord: Endure it... that chaotic little brat Aha is over there too. Just keep building. Endure it..."
"I see," Caelus muttered from inside the simulation, his tone completely serious. "So this is essentially a tragic tale about a delinquent street-racer Akivili driving the Astral Express and doing a hit-and-run on the wall built by the ultimate Civil Engineering Bro, Qlipoth."
The male Trailblazer nodded in deep epiphany. His hands instinctively patted his pockets, desperately searching for his notebook to record this vital piece of lore. Unfortunately, his physical notepad had not digitized into the Simulated Universe with him.
"What kind of brain-rotting Fictionologist nonsense is this?!" Herta threw her puppet's hands up in the air, utterly speechless. It was bad enough that Leon was spouting this garbage, but watching Stelle and Caelus instantly tune into the exact same idiotic wavelength was enough to make her processors ache.
"I can personally testify to this! Everything he just said is one hundred percent historically accurate!"
A sudden, boisterous voice shattered the heavy atmosphere of the simulation. Aha materialized right beside Stelle and Caelus, popping into existence as if he had literally sniffed out the sheer absurdity of the conversation from across the cosmos.
Herta: ᗜ‸ᗜ
The puppet's face contorted into a flat, deadpan expression that perfectly mirrored Silver Wolf's signature look of done-with-everything apathy.
The simulated Aha had actually manifested just to verify a joke? Herta did not even know how to process the data anymore. The sheer ridiculousness of the situation was breaking her carefully coded parameters.
"Akivili! Oh, my dear Akivili!" Aha threw his arms wide, greeting Stelle and Caelus with overwhelming, theatrical enthusiasm. "Long time no see! I missed you so, so much!"
In the blink of an eye, the Aeon of Elation's joyous demeanor shattered. His mask flipped to one of deep, agonizing grief. "I am so sad," he wailed, his voice cracking. "Why? Why did you have to die?!" He buried his face in his hands, sobbing with such raw, visceral pain that it felt entirely genuine.
"You have been fallen for far too long! The universe has lost its Order!"
Then, without missing a single beat, Aha dropped his hands and started clapping furiously. A manic, delighted grin stretched across his face. The whiplash of his sudden emotional shift sent a violent shudder down everyone's spines.
"And then, everything started to become chaotic! Which is exactly what I wanted!" Aha threw his head back and cackled, the sound echoing like shattering glass against the amber sky.
He lunged forward as if to embrace the Trailblazers, only to stop short, his shoulders slumping in sudden depression. "I want to hug you so badly... but alas, unfortunately, I am merely a string of equations trapped inside a computer."
He stared at his own hands, blinking. Then, his mood flipped yet again. "Oh, wait. That actually sounds pretty cool." He scratched the back of his head, grinning like an idiot.
Herta: ᗜ‸ᗜ
'You really do not need to keep emphasizing that you are just data,'Herta thought, her mechanical joints locking in sheer frustration.'I am definitely patching this ridiculous bug in the next Simulated Universe update!'
This was not the first time the simulated Aha had broken the fourth wall to acknowledge his digital existence. No matter how many times Herta and the other geniuses rewrote his core code, the Aeon of Elation would inevitably figure out he was just a string of data within minutes of spawning.
"But seriously, I have to apologize to you. I really do!" Aha suddenly stood up straight, placing a hand over his heart. His tone dropped into one of solemn, heavy guilt. "I hid on your Express for an entire year. A whole year! And I did it just so I could blow it up, along with half of your beloved Nameless."
He bowed deeply, a picture of perfect contrition. "I just could not help myself. I am so sorry."
Stelle stared at the bowing god for a long moment. Then, she casually waved her hand, dismissing the apology with unmatched generosity. "No need to apologize. It was not my train that got blown up anyway."
Outside the simulation, Herta's fingers were flying across her holographic keyboard, frantically logging the newly revealed lore. "Wait. Is that actually true? Aha once sneaked onto the Astral Express, hid there for a full year, and then blew it up while Akivili wasn't paying attention?"
"Oh, it is entirely true," Leon confirmed, leaning against the console with a knowing smirk. "Though, from what I heard, Akivili actually knew he was hiding there the whole time... and might have even helped him rig the explosives."
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