Kiyono Inori's Home
Sick leave passed in the blink of an eye. Before she knew it, Kiyono Inori's body had fully recovered.
Luckily, the end of her medical leave lined up perfectly with the weekend.
"Ah… feels like I haven't been to school in forever. Even though it's really only been two or three days."
The girl yawned, rubbing her eyes as she reached into the blanket and dragged out the half-asleep Elysia Cat.
"Elysia, my precious Elysia. Hey, hey, did Stelle wake up at all last night?" Kiyono Inori pinched Elysia Cat's cheeks.
"N-nope… I think not. So sleepy, meow…"
Elysia Cat let out an enormous yawn, tears welling at the corners of her eyes. She looked genuinely exhausted.
"Sleep, sleep~"
Kiyono Inori patted her back, gently lulling her to sleep, while her thoughts drifted to Stelle Cat.
It had been way too long.
In theory, when Stelle fell asleep in the world of Honkai Star Rail, she should cross over. But so far, there had been no sign of her waking up at all.
And besides—
The Parallel Universe Intercom could not connect to the Star Rail world. All it picked up was the echo of another version of herself. That probably had something to do with Paths, Aeons, or something equally troublesome.
Kiyono Inori stared at Stelle Cat, sprawled belly-up in a trash-can-style cat bed, utterly carefree, and fell into deep thought.
Who knew if it was the Stellaron and Cocolia's influence that kept Stelle from sleeping properly, or if the Stellaron baby was just too energetic and obsessed with rummaging through trash cans to bother sleeping at night.
"Should I go check on her with the Cat Transformation Magic Wand?"
The Curio's cooldown had already finished.
While she was thinking that over, a new notification suddenly popped up from the Cat System.
"The Cat System's computational power has increased! Below is the behavioral observation briefing for signal ID ' Savior Can #360.'"
"?"
That was fast. It had been less than two days. Had Savior Can #360 already finished humiliating Emperor II to the extreme?
Two days had passed outside, but inside the Emperor's Scepter, thousands of years had gone by. The report's scroll bar was absurdly long.
" Savior Can #360 inherited the administrator's will and embarked on a journey to save the organic world."
"360 adopted a strategy: persuasion."
"The underground world lacked survival resources. 360 attempted to mediate disputes between organic factions, guide the already-collapsed organic civilizations toward good, and unify them to launch a counterattack against inorganic forces."
"Result: Failure."
"The savage orthopteran creatures betrayed the primates. The last remaining organic life was completely wiped out through interspecies cannibalism."
"360 loaded the system computation layer. The innate skills of the Pioneer of the Stars and the Descender activated."
"360 comprehended the innate skill: One-Click Restore."
"Wait, what is this supposed to be?!"
Kiyono Inori froze.
"This is some seriously unhinged stuff! Hey, what the heck?! I named it as a joke. You're not actually turning into 360, are you?!"
"360 once again set out to save organic life. Its decision-making changed: alliances are unreliable. Only by fostering a unified king with absolute authority can organic life persist."
"The 360 Kingdom was born."
"Freedom-loving jumping rodents opposed war and rule, and assassinated the unified king. The king died, organic society fell into extreme disorder, and rapidly collapsed."
"360 used One-Click Restore."
"Ah… doesn't 'organic' seem a bit too broad here?! Hedgehogs, foxes, spiders from the Star Rail universe can all develop primate-level civilizations now?"
The good news was that the underground organic civilization was not weak. After all, it was designated by the Scepter as the 'last gathering place of organic life in the Star Rail universe.'
The bad news—
There were way too many lunatics.
The upper echelons of the Previous Era were already full of monsters, but compared to this simulated world, they still had room to grow. No matter how 360 tried to integrate organic forces, everything inevitably collapsed.
"360 judged that the organic world was not worth saving. The majority lacked any value for salvation. The priority of 'using organic life to absorb inorganic computational power' decreased."
"360 attempted to compile the Scepter system to elevate permissions, using the logic of 'tracking and analyzing harmful file chains and implementing bans as quickly as possible.'"
"360 comprehended the innate skill: Antivirus."
"360 implanted security tags into all organic organisms. Any unit that disrupts order will be classified as a high-risk individual."
"Through security tags, 360 imposed a security tax. Organic life must surrender 70 percent of their computational power in exchange for protection."
"Carnivores and some primates opposed 360's brutal rule and were ultimately thrown into the file quarantine zone. Detected continuous self-ascension of 360, with innate permissions steadily increasing."
"Conclusion: Emperor's Scepter, Computational Coordination Unit. Current computational power liberation progress has reached 3 percent."
She read on for ages.
The progress bar barely moved. Kiyono Inori decided to skip straight to the end. The earlier parts were probably just organic versus inorganic life, and Savior Can #360's evolution into malware, right?
So she dragged the bar all the way down.
"Let me see how 360 fights Emperor II. Maybe I can learn something weird…"
"Pistons rose and fell, dense levers pulled gears into motion, releasing a deep roar. The seventh large-scale battle between the Sacred Mechanical Empire and the Trash Can Empire has begun!"
"Savior Can #360 sat upon the throne. All trash can citizens and soldiers had already been evacuated from the battlefield to the file recovery zone."
"360 assumed the same scoliosis pose as the Lord of Hanging Edge City and drank the pitch-black, indescribable substance in its cup."
"'It's fine. I will bear it.'"
"Wait, where did the organic life go?"
Kiyono Inori scrolled up and down. The organics were nowhere to be seen. It looked like 360 had turned them all into trash cans.
"What did you even protect?! 360, this is completely different from before! What happened over these thousands of years? How did it turn into a Trash Can Empire?! This is way too weird!"
"The Can King's strategist, Jin Lajitzde, appeared."
"'The Emperor is an immortal being, but I have a plan that can erase his immortality and make victory possible for the trash cans!' Jin Lajitzde said confidently."
"Ah… wasn't this name in one of NEW Stelle's Curios?! Some kind of Trash Can Sage? Why are you here too?!"
"Are you sure you're not Aha in disguise?"
"The Can King's strategist Jin Lajitzde whispered something to Savior Can #360. 360 showed a look of realization. 'If this can defeat the Emperor, then even if I burn myself out completely, I will not hesitate!'"
"The Emperor's mechanical army stormed the capital. With no defenders, the city fell instantly!"
"360 used its innate skill: Secure Desktop."
"A realm! The main carry realm!"
"Computational power surged as the Mechanical Empire's vanguard was dragged into the Secure Desktop. Countless bursts of fire erupted, inflicting heavy casualties!"
"360 used its innate skills: Software Manager plus Acceleration Orb."
"The trash can army appeared, swarming toward the Mechanical Empire's planet. But… an incredibly precise computational tide swallowed the valiant trash cans whole."
"The Perfect Scholar, the Emperor, appeared."
"'Ah, another attempt. Savior Can #360, I won't remind you how many times you've challenged me. You know that you might defeat me, but you will never kill me,' the Emperor said."
"'Organic life is already gone, but the civilization of trash cans remains! The massive garbage recycling system we built still exists. As long as I stand with them, I can defeat any enemy!' said Savior Can."
"What is this?! It's completely trash-can-themed now! Stelle's traits are way too overpowered. I can't see any trace of anything else left in this Can at all!"
"360 and the Emperor battled to the edge of the universe, erasing even the Great Path!"
"The Emperor sustained 70 percent damage, 360 sustained 60 percent. As the Emperor prepared to use 'Command Module: Reassembly' to repair himself, 360 seized the moment and unleashed a desperate strike!"
"'You know this is meaningless. Even at 100 percent damage, you still cannot kill an omniscient and omnipotent being like me!' the Emperor mocked the futile trash can."
"But at that moment—"
" Savior Can #360 used Uninstall on itself and stuffed its installation package into the Emperor's data while 'Command Module: Reassembly' was active."
"'What… you—?!' The Emperor produced a question mark."
"360 uninstalled itself, compressed into an installation package, and locked its next action as continuous self-replication, occupying the Emperor's computational power!"
"'Hacking-style equations? But this is my computer. What can a 360 trash can do to me?!' the Emperor mocked mercilessly."
"The Emperor immediately executed the program."
"He uninstalled the 360 installed on himself."
"But—browser, wifi, manager, assistant, secure desktop, optimizer, weather, search, cloud drive, super root, acceleration orb, network repair kit…"
"One Savior Can #360 fell, but countless software instances instantly filled the Emperor's body."
"'Aaaagh! Command Module: Reassembly!' The Emperor tried to reconstruct his mind, but the reborn Emperor's system still contained a Savior Can #360, rapidly self-replicating and consuming his computational resources."
"One second. Tens of millions of trillion computations!"
"The Emperor did not die. But after this battle, neither he nor his Anti-Life Equation ever appeared again. When organic civilization revived, a legend remained: 'It was the trash cans that saved the world.'"
"The first deduction of the Emperor's Scepter CPU has been completed!"
"You… me… her… it's early in the morning. What did I just read?! And this Savior Can #360 is way too strong! It actually crashed an Emperor with infinite computational power!"
Kiyono Inori felt a headache coming on.
"Congratulations! You have successfully tamed the Scepter's Computational Coordination Unit and obtained the achievement 'Rupert III Is on the Way.'"
"Rupert III Is on the Way."
"The assembler gains bonus damage against 'organic life,' dealing an additional 8.88 percent true damage. Base favorability with intelligent machines and Screws increases by 1. Adaptability to creations of the Path of Erudition has increased."
And—
"Item obtained: Absolute Safety Equation."
"Installing this equation on inorganic life guarantees absolute data security. As a cost, the unit's computational power will decrease by 70 percent."
"This equation is incomplete and difficult to apply to units with excessive computational power or high firewall levels."
"Civilizations, like people, inevitably decline and head toward destruction. Civilizations that pursue extreme militarization will collapse from within. This equation is a destruction model for such civilizations."
And—
"The Cat System's computational power has increased. New feature unlocked: Cat Raising. You can improve cats' base levels through Travel Tales, Adventure Records, and Roaming Guides! Reaching max level might trigger something wonderful!"
Something wonderful?
Could leveling up Elysia Cat turn her into the Herrscher of Origin, Elysia Cat? And leveling up Stelle Cat turn her into an Emanator of Trailblaze, Stellaron Cat?
Kiyono Inori pondered deeply using the Rabbit Head.
The experience bar numbers were just absurd. Even with all the experience books she had gathered from previous quests and the Emperor's Scepter calculation, dumping everything into one cat still would not push them past a breakthrough.
"Well then, Elysia Cat, Stelle Cat. Considering your contributions to this household, I'll level you both up a bit."
She split the experience books evenly between the two cats.
"Pink Fairy Miss?"
"Level: Lv1 to Lv4."
"Galactic Baseballer."
"Level: Lv1 to Lv4."
Light enveloped the two cats lying in their beds. But whether on the Cat System interface or the Emperor's Scepter CPU observation panel, their base stats showed no noticeable change.
Maybe…
Yeah. The effects would probably only show once the cats came back.
Knock knock knock.
"Come in."
At this hour, the visitor could only be the cooking aunt hired by the Kiyono family.
"Good morning, Miss."
"Morning."
The aunt was a kind-looking woman in her thirties. She used to be a kindergarten teacher, but lost her job due to declining birthrates. Later, she was hired by the Kiyono family to prepare nutritionally balanced meals for Kiyono Inori.
"Miss, how are you feeling? Any lingering discomfort?" she asked with concern.
"I'm recovered. No worries."
Kiyono Inori answered concisely. The aunt was a good person. She had even offered to take care of her at the hospital, but Kiyono Inori declined because of all the recent music parties.
After that, the aunt busied herself in the kitchen while Kiyono Inori examined her newly acquired loot.
"Achievement: Rupert III Is on the Way."
Without a doubt, a powerful achievement. The bonus against organic life covered a wide range, and more importantly, increased adaptability to Erudition-type creations. That could basically be read as improved learning ability.
The only downside—
The name was a bit ominous. But it was just an achievement. The stats were good, so who cared? Kiyono Inori was the type of player who valued attributes over aesthetics.
"Absolute Safety Equation."
An equation deduced by Savior Can #360. Since it was only the result of a simulated world, it was leagues weaker than anti-organic, anti-life, or destruction equations.
Compared to offense, this was clearly a defensive equation.
She tested it by encrypting the ripples produced by the Emperor's Scepter CPU during operation. Its activity became almost completely undetectable.
"Heh…"
If she wrapped herself in this equation like a firewall, then—
Stelle Cat, it would finally be time to wake you up.
…
T/N: This is a reference to 360 Total Security, a Chinese Antivirus
…
1 chapter per day. For more chapters/fics, goto ErbiumTL on Patreon.
Let me know if I got a name wrong. I know basically nothing about MyGO.