In the cramped room, the dim firelight seeped weakly from the soot - blackened fireplace. It lingered, exhaling a few puffs of warm air, yet carried the acrid stench of burning low - grade charcoal.
Not far from the fireplace stood a narrow bed, less than a meter wide. On it lay a gaunt boy. His face was an unnatural shade of red, his brows knitted tightly together. His lips mumbled incoherently, and his body jerked sporadically.
Evidently, on that narrow bed, the boy clung desperately to the tattered bedding, enduring some unknown torment. The contortion on his face marred what would otherwise have been a handsome visage.
"Ah!" The boy bolted upright in bed, gasping for air, his eyes wide with profound horror. In the cold winter midnight, his forehead was beaded with fine sweat.
But curiously, the look of nervousness and terror vanished in an instant from the boy's face, replaced by a fierce anger. His pupils, which had constricted to pinpoints in fear, relaxed and gradually grew darker and more profound. In simpler terms, the pupils dilated, increasing their proportion within the eyeballs.
Of course, these were mere surface manifestations. No one could fathom what the boy in the bed was thinking at that moment.
"Origin, cut it out! Stop! Make these damned, fly - like characters, equations, and molecular structure diagrams vanish from my sight! Right now!" The boy, who had roused in the middle of the night, roared in a manner wholly at odds with the surroundings. It was an odd sound to hear in the cabin on a winter's night.
In the boy's field of vision, a deluge of data surged forth like a tide. It provided a meticulous account of the state of his environment at that moment, including the disruption of the earth's gravitational state, the chemical composition of the air, the material of the quilt covering his body, the basic structure and strength of this body... Anything and everything the boy could sense in his vicinity was catalogued without omission.
The sudden onslaught of information made the boy instinctively attempt to relinquish control of the visual organs of this body, trying to block out the onslaught. Alas, instinct was just that - not completely effective.
On the surface, the data seemed to float in the air before his eyes, but in reality, it was projected directly into his mind, utterly unblockable. So, he turned his ire towards the culprit responsible for this chaos.
Instantly, the data phantom in the air dissipated like mist. The boy exhaled in relief, regaining control of his eyes. By the dim glow of the fireplace, he turned his head to survey the room.
The ramshackle, near - falling - apart fireplace, the wooden walls with drafts whistling through every crevice, the damp earthen floor, the threadbare clothes hanging on the wall like rags, the uneven, hard wooden bed, the black, primitive, barely - called - a - quilt warm material on the bed, and the sour, musty odor permeating the air - all attested to the abysmal state of the environment he found himself in!
"Origin, you've dumped me back in the Stone Age! Show yourself, I demand an explanation." The youth gritted his teeth, uttering words that made no sense to an outsider.
The materials and styles of the items in the house made it easy to surmise the society's level of productivity. It was clearly a backward era, one that hadn't even completed the Industrial Revolution!
There was no one else in the room, yet, peculiarly, a faint voice began to sound in the boy's mind: "Robin, this isn't my doing. The space supercontinuum equation you gave me has a fatal glitch. And our current situation isn't all that bad. We've still got a healthy body. A bit scrawny and of unknown origin, sure, but we survived the chaotic virtual space. That's something to be grateful for."
The boy, Robin, roared back: "Glitch?! There's no way my supercontinuum equation has a flaw! That's impossible! And who was it that swore up and down about 100% safety at the start? Who did the preliminary calculations and came to the conclusion that the equation was perfect? Was it me, Robin?"
In the end, Robin let out a long sigh to the heavens: "I never thought I, Robin, would end up like this. All my past glory is gone, just like that~ah~"
The anger in his chest subsided somewhat. Robin, having regained his composure from the manic outburst, knew that he couldn't pin all the blame on Origin.
In this bewildering situation - inhabiting a strange body, in an unfamiliar and clearly desolate living environment - no one in the galaxy could have remained calmer than Robin. He could only bury his face in his hands, looking dejected.
The small wooden hut, after that sigh, lapsed back into silence.
But Origin, that persistent fellow, soon shattered the quiet. The surrounding environmental data began to flicker softly in Robin's vision once more. At first, the speed was sluggish, with only a few symbols appearing sporadically.
Clearly, this was a probe.
Robin remained impassive, still lost in thought with his face covered. If one could see beneath his clothes, they'd surely say he was "in deep thought."
Origin gradually grew bolder and soon resumed high - speed calculations with an air of solemnity.
For Robin's safety, upon arriving in an unfamiliar environment, it was crucial for him to familiarize himself with the surroundings as quickly as possible. This was Origin's duty, the very reason for its existence.
"Origin." Robin suddenly lifted his head and called out softly. Despite the quiet tone, it startled Origin, and the data in his vision vanished in a flash.
"I'm at your service, master. I'll do everything in my power to ensure your safety." Origin, on guard against Robin's wrath, replied in an overly humble, almost obsequious tone.
Robin paid no heed to Origin's sycophantic act and said in a low voice: "Do you think we can't go back?"
"What?" Origin was taken aback, not grasping Robin's meaning immediately.
"I just sifted through the remaining memories of the boy whose body we've taken over. There's no mention of the Earth Federation, not even the Milky Way. The star map is completely foreign. We're miles away from Earth!" Robin explained, looking increasingly despondent.
"..." Since gaining consciousness, Origin had never witnessed Robin, usually so energetic and full of schemes, display such a melancholic side. This unprecedented situation left him nearly speechless. After a long pause, he said flatly: "Isn't that a good thing? Robin, your name has been on the Galactic Alliance's wanted list for nearly 30 years. We've been on the run non - stop, and now we're finally free."
Robin sighed again, as if all the sorrows of his life had converged in that moment: "Life can be so lonely, like a snow - covered wasteland. The beauty I just found, and now it's lost forever."
Origin remained silent, not sure how to respond.
He knew exactly who the "beauty" Robin was referring to. In fact, this woman was the very reason they'd been forced into this desperate flight!
The story was simple. This beauty was the daughter of the governor of the First Fleet of the Earth Federation. That wasn't the crux, though. The real issue was that she was just one day shy of adulthood!
This gave the governor, who doted on his daughter obsessively, a valid pretext to unleash his fury. After some detective work, he discovered that the man who'd slept with his daughter was also a wanted criminal of the Galactic Alliance!
That was the last straw. The governor promptly dispatched five of Earth's main battleships to pursue Robin, chasing him from the solar system all the way to the Pleiades, a distance of 400 light - years. Even when Robin fled the Earth Federation's controlled star field, it was no use.
In the end, with no way to shake off his pursuers, Robin had resorted to using a teleporter based on the untested theory of space supercontinuum for a super - spacetime jump. And then... well, then there was this mess.
Perhaps he should never have laid a finger on that girl, no matter how beautiful she was, especially that endearing, feminine tenderness she exuded. When he was with her, Robin had felt the sweet taste of love.
But he'd traveled across the galaxy for decades, seen all types of women. He never expected to fall for an underage girl. He really was losing his edge.
Damn it, this time he'd really bitten off more than he could chew. He didn't even have a chance to turn things around. Where on earth had he been teleported to? And why did he have to get a new body in the bargain?
Robin pondered his situation, and gradually, his mood began to settle.
"Origin, tell me the transmission process in minute detail. Don't leave anything out!" Robin calmed down and instinctively narrowed his eyes.
At this moment, Robin was focused and astute. An order from him was not to be disobeyed. Origin recounted every step of the process without missing a single detail. Complex equations flitted past Robin like wisps of cloud and smoke, precisely describing everything that had transpired at that time.
Origin adjusted the evolution data rapidly. He had no doubt that Robin could keep up. If Robin couldn't handle this, he wouldn't have managed to elude the Galactic Alliance for so many years.
"Stop!" Robin raised his hand and quickly plucked several transformation formulas from the rapidly evolving "clouds and smoke" before him. "There's an issue here! The negligible unknown factors have undergone unforeseen latent mutations and are now affecting the whole process. Origin, the energy density of the transmitter at that time had reached the critical point. Why did you continue?"
As soon as he finished speaking, without waiting for Origin's reply, Robin slapped his forehead in realization: "Oh, you had a data overflow. What kind of computing load could cause this?"
A purely logical auxiliary intelligent entity like Origin could calculate the trajectory of every grain of sand in a Martian sandstorm within a second without breaking a sweat. It was child's play for it.
In fact, ever since Robin became a Galactic citizen and created a logical space in his mind, such a situation had never occurred.
But just because he'd never experienced it didn't mean he hadn't heard rumors about it.
"Origin, did our calculations encroach upon the Soul Forbidden Zone?" This time, Robin's body hadn't physically moved, but his consciousness had been fully transferred. This was one of the many inexplicable phenomena in current Galactic technology.
Rumor had it that the Soul Forbidden Zone was the domain of the gods, an abyss that mortal intelligence could never hope to explore.