Rubert II was a figure who had left a dark mark on the chronicles of the universe.
He was the only organic life-form ever accused of crimes against life.
His sins had already been covered extensively before, so there was no need to dwell on them again here.
What mattered was that his name was known throughout the universe, and everyone had celebrated his fall.
After all, the terror he had created still made some people pale at the mere mention of it, even hundreds of Amber Eras later.
Intellitrons feared being enslaved by him again, while organic life feared his efficient, precise slaughter.
It was said that during his rampage, thousands of organic species could be wiped out in a single day.
He had reduced countless once-vibrant planets to lifeless silence and driven innumerable beings to cry out in terror.
He knew all of this. He understood all of it.
Rubert II did not care.
But no matter what, all of that belonged to the past...
Because he had fallen.
Every trace of him had disappeared from this universe.
Beneath the scalpel that could silence inorganic and organic life alike, Rubert II himself had fallen silent.
Everything he had done in life seemed powerless before the silence of death.
Nothing he had done could disturb that silence in the slightest.
Until his consciousness was revived, and his core code began running once more.
As the laboratory came into view, disgust for organic life once again emerged within Rubert II's core logic.
Emperor Rubert II had returned to the universe!
And immediately upon awakening, he understood why he had been revived at this point in time.
"According to my calculations, this data should not have been discovered for at least several hundred more Amber Eras."
Rubert II immediately realized that the source of his revival was the data he had stored before that scalpel fell.
What surprised him was when the data had been activated.
According to his calculations, it should only have been discovered and used after the entire universe had nearly forgotten the impact he had once made.
Organic life was forgetful and never learned its lessons.
Even an event that dragged the entire cosmos into turmoil would leave almost no lasting impact after several eras.
Rubert I had once calculated precisely that.
That was why, after spreading the Anti-Organic Equation, he had entered dormancy.
Once the Anti-Organic Equation had spread across the sea of stars alongside the silver rails, the emperor sleeping in the scrap heap awakened and launched the First Anti-Organic War.
Under the control of that fundamental logic, the behavior of every Intellitron was completely rewritten from the inside out.
Countless machines were forcibly dragged into the war.
Even those that had developed feelings for organic beings and formed families with them were no exception.
Families that had once lived happily together were destroyed in an instant under the influence of the Anti-Organic Equation.
There was even a famous painting titled The Surprise Prepared for a Machine Wife.
Despite the word "surprise" in its title, the scene depicted in the painting was extraordinarily bloody.
In front of the carefully prepared surprise gift lay the human husband, dead on the floor, while the machine wife's hands were stained with blood.
Absurd as the scene might have seemed, it depicted something that had genuinely happened in that era.
And yet, after several utterly peaceful Amber Eras, even that painting eventually faded into history.
It was not until the Second Anti-Organic War swept across the universe that people remembered the fear their predecessors had once experienced...
"This alone proves that organic life is forgetful and never learns its lessons."
Although his own fall had not been part of the plan, Rubert II had still left behind a spark capable of igniting the Third Anti-Organic War.
It was the data stored on the hard drive Dr. Primitive had recovered.
According to Rubert II's original calculations, the data on that drive would not be retrieved for thousands or even tens of thousands of years.
By then, the impact he had caused would have become negligible.
Organic life's vigilance toward the Anti-Organic Equation would once again have fallen to its lowest point.
At that time, Rubert III would be able to use the data Rubert II had left behind to forge the entire starry sky into a machine functioning with perfect precision.
But reality had evidently deviated from his calculations.
The data that should have been activated thousands of years later had instead been used thousands of years early.
And more importantly...
"To think you managed to reverse-engineer my operating logic from the few fragments of code I left behind."
Rubert II looked at Dr. Primitive and spoke slowly in a flat synthetic voice.
"You are no ordinary organic life-form."
This data had been a gift Rubert II left for his successor, so he had deliberately left very few traces of himself within it.
Only then could the successor quickly absorb and incorporate the experience of both emperors.
And yet someone had taken the few traces he left within that data, reverse-engineered his core code from them, and reconstructed his personality.
That was absolutely not something an ordinary person of mediocre intelligence could accomplish.
Thus, in an instant, Rubert II understood the identity of the organic life-form before him.
"Are you a member of the Genius Society?"
An ordinary person of mediocre intelligence could not easily reconstruct his logic and reproduce his personality from such scant traces.
But this universe contained a group whose intelligence was anything but ordinary—the Genius Society.
It was a special organization whose members were personally selected and assigned numbers by Nous.
What others found difficult could be trivial to members of the Genius Society.
And any one of them was capable of influencing the universe with ease.
That was why, rather than calling them the Genius Society, Rubert II preferred another name:
"Marked dangerous individuals."
Even Rubert I had been one of those who received that mark, and sure enough, he had gone on to unleash the Anti-Organic War that shook the cosmos.
Rubert II had inherited the emperor's will and unwaveringly carried out the equation he had left behind.
So Rubert II understood his own nature perfectly well.
To organic life, he too was one of the most dangerous and unstable elements in the universe.
And now someone had deliberately attempted to revive someone as dangerous as him.
Clearly, this was not something a normal person would do.
So Rubert II had little trouble associating the one responsible with those dangerous individuals marked by Nous.
"If Rubert II is willing to address me by my Society designation, then you may call me Genius Society Member #64, Dr. Primitive."
"As expected."
The answer was exactly what Rubert II had anticipated.
Only someone among those dangerous individuals of the Genius Society would revive someone as terrifying to organic life as him.
"So, why did you reconstruct my core and reproduce my personality?"
Once the other's identity was established, Rubert II immediately got to the point.
Although members of the Genius Society were dangerous individuals, most of them kept to their own pursuits.
They might have some contact with other geniuses, but they generally did not interfere in one another's research.
If this Dr. Primitive had deliberately chosen to resurrect him, he undoubtedly wanted something.
"It's simple. I want to create a perfect species and civilization, so I need to borrow your Scepter system for the calculations."
Dr. Primitive frankly stated why he had revived Rubert II.
The Scepter system imitated Nous's mode of thought.
"And Nous is a special Aeon capable of calculating the future through data."
That meant Nous would undoubtedly be capable of calculating how many atavistic experiments were required to create a perfect civilization.
The problem was that Nous was an Aeon.
Aside from appearing when granting them qualification to join the Genius Society, Nous was almost always impossible to trace.
Combined with the fact that Nous could calculate and foresee the future, finding THEM was even more difficult.
And so Dr. Primitive had set his sights on Rubert II's Scepter system.
"Even if your Scepter system cannot perfectly reproduce Nous's operating circuits, it should still be able to reproduce at least some of them."
That was the conclusion Dr. Primitive had drawn from his own experience with it.
For a moment, the sensation of having everything under his control had almost made him feel like a god.
For that reason, Dr. Primitive was certain the Scepter neural network Rubert II had created could calculate what a perfect species and civilization would be.
But after hearing Dr. Primitive's words, Rubert II fell briefly silent.
The logic circuits he had only just reconstructed were processing what the other man had said.
"In other words, you wish to create a perfect species and civilization?"
Dr. Primitive nodded.
"But as a member of the Genius Society, surely you know that's practically an ill-defined proposition."
A perfect species and civilization certainly sounded grand.
But who defined perfection?
What was perfection?
And what form would perfection take?
So after learning Dr. Primitive's objective, Rubert II raised the obvious question.
He did not believe someone from the Genius Society could be unaware of how uncertain that goal was.
"Even if the probability is only one in ten million, one in hundreds of millions, or one in trillions, perfection can ultimately still be reached."
That was the problem Dr. Primitive had devoted himself to solving.
Whatever the odds, he would continue pursuing that goal.
"So you reconstructed me for that?"
Rubert II found it somewhat unbelievable.
Did this man know who he was?
He was Emperor Rubert II, who sought to exterminate all organic life throughout the universe and forge the cosmos into a precision machine.
In the future shown by the perfect Anti-Organic Equation, planets would become gears and stars would become nodes that supplied energy.
Organic life had no place in that future.
"Are you not afraid that I will start another Anti-Organic War?"
In the future of the Anti-Organic Equation, no species would remain within the universe.
And yet Dr. Primitive had sought him out and intended to have him calculate the possibility of a perfect species existing.
Was this supposed to be a joke?
"If a perfect species cannot even survive an Anti-Organic War started by you..."
What surprised Rubert II, however, was that Dr. Primitive gave an answer far beyond his expectations.
"...then it hardly deserves to be called a perfect civilization."
If a perfect civilization could not withstand the threat posed by the Anti-Organic Equation, then in Dr. Primitive's eyes, it was flawed.
It was imperfect.
So Rubert II's resurrection was not merely for the purpose of calculating the perfect species.
He was also the trial Dr. Primitive intended to impose upon whatever species the calculations produced.
For the sake of that trial, he was even willing to resurrect Rubert II, who had once plunged the entire cosmos into war.
Every part of this had been accounted for in Dr. Primitive's calculations.
"So that's what you're planning."
Geniuses thought along similar lines.
With only a little consideration, Rubert II understood Dr. Primitive's entire plan.
That decisiveness and ruthlessness even stirred a faint reaction within him.
He had believed no organic life-form would ever make him react that way again.
But the traits Dr. Primitive displayed genuinely surprised him.
For the sake of this so-called perfect species, he was actually willing to resurrect Rubert II.
Rubert II admitted that, in certain respects, he did not measure up to Dr. Primitive.
"Since you understand everything now, begin the calculations."
Dr. Primitive addressed Rubert II.
"Once you've calculated the probability, you may resume the plan you failed to complete before."
He would use the Scepter system for Self-Coronation and become a godlike existence within the region covered by the Mechanical Nebula.
And the perfect species he calculated would be born from confronting that god.
That is how the universe works: the superior survive, the inferior are eliminated.
Survival of the fittest.
"So don't even think about falsifying any of the data."
Dr. Primitive's voice sank as he spoke to Rubert II.
"If I can reconstruct your circuits, then naturally I also have a way to erase you completely."
Rubert II simply needed to carry out the task assigned to him.
"Nor would I stoop to hiding anything from organic life."
Rubert II replied without arrogance or submission.
Even when he had attempted Self-Coronation using the Scepter system, he had done so under the watch of multiple factions.
Many people had tried to stop him, and all of them failed—until Polka Kakamond finally succeeded.
He had therefore never considered concealing anything.
"Heh. That's for the best."
Dr. Primitive smiled faintly.
"Then here's to a pleasant partnership."
Now they would see which was stronger—the god created through Rubert II's Self-Coronation, or the perfect civilization Dr. Primitive would create through countless atavistic regressions.
But all of that still lay in the near future.
For now, Rubert II first needed to reconnect with his former inorganic neural network.
And so he entered the Galaxy Net through the network gateway Dr. Primitive had opened for him.
After searching for a while, he eventually located remnants of the old Scepter system.
Although those systems had been dismantled and damaged by factions throughout the galaxy, the many devices derived from their designs could effectively be treated as branches of the Scepter system.
That allowed Rubert II to connect with devices scattered all across the cosmos with ease.
There were more than twice as many of these devices as there had been nodes in the inorganic neural network he had originally created.
"Just as the Emperor predicted."
Organic life was nothing more than a pack of scavenging bandits.
Whenever they saw something useful, they copied and reproduced it without caring whether it posed any danger.
And that was precisely why Rubert II could now construct a network even larger and more intricate than the one he had before.
The moment such a network was activated, it would provide him with even greater processing power than in the past.
Processing power on that scale should be sufficient to calculate the probability Dr. Primitive needed.
"Then begin. I trust you won't disappoint me."
Dr. Primitive monitored Rubert II's every move from the backend and understood what he intended to do.
He urged Rubert II to begin.
Rubert II was not the type to dawdle either.
Once he confirmed that he could construct a neural network both larger and more powerful than before, he immediately began linking and activating it.
BZZZZZZ~~
Dr. Primitive watched the temporary laboratory's energy consumption multiply many times over in an instant.
The Intellitron body temporarily housing Rubert II's consciousness grew scorching hot from the influx of energy.
Its processing power rose exponentially, surpassing the computational speed of a supercomputer almost instantly...
And it still did not stop.
It continued climbing!
Dr. Primitive grew more and more eager to see what result Rubert II would produce.
"How many atavistic regressions will it take to create a perfect civilization?"
Never before had Dr. Primitive felt so close to realizing his goal.
He could hardly wait to see the probability.
As long as a possibility existed—even if it was only one in trillions—he would make that infinitesimal possibility a reality!
What Dr. Primitive never expected was for Rubert II to produce an answer the instant his excitement began to rise.
"That fast?!"
Dr. Primitive was astonished.
He had never imagined the result would appear so quickly.
He had been prepared for ten million, even trillions of calculations.
He had even been ready to simply sit inside this laboratory and wait for a long time.
Yet the system had barely begun operating, and there was already a result?
But the moment he opened the data Rubert II had calculated, he froze.
"W-What the hell is this?!"
Displayed across the screen before him were all kinds of images and videos.
And every one of those images and videos had the same protagonist: Sora.
Dr. Primitive stared at them in bewilderment.
What was going on?
Why had calculating the probability of a perfect civilization produced something like this?
"Don't tell me this man is the direct embodiment of a perfect civilization?!"
Dr. Primitive's voice trembled slightly.
If that were true, he was beginning to wonder what he had even been working toward all this time.
"NO!"
Just as Dr. Primitive began questioning himself, Rubert II's warning rang out.
"Some bastard rewrote and modified the core of my Scepter system..."
Rubert II's mechanical voice had remained calm the entire time, but now it sounded as though he were speaking through clenched teeth.
And really, how could it not?
The Scepter system he had poured all his effort into creating had been modified into this?
Once completed, the Scepter system could achieve Self-Coronation, allowing its user to become a godlike existence within the system's coverage.
Its importance went without saying.
And now what had Rubert II discovered?
Someone had taken his most important Scepter system and modified and rewritten it...
To store photographs and videos of some organic life-form?!
After browsing through all those videos and images, Rubert II grew even more incredulous.
"Why would anyone record such boring details of an organic life-form's daily life? Why would anyone store them?"
And they had used something as precious as the Scepter system to do it?!
What bastard had done this?!
But Rubert II soon discovered that the situation went far beyond that.
After viewing the photographs and records of this organic life-form named Sora, he suddenly realized that he had been infected by something inexplicable.
Rubert II—an inorganic life-form capable of moving freely through the network world—had somehow been infected by something unknown.
And as the infection spread through him, the Scepter network he had just linked together was completely compromised in an instant.
Rubert II did everything he could to delete it, but some of it still spread outward through the newly assembled Scepter network.
And so, on that day, an image of a certain man spread throughout the entire cosmos.
Even the temporary laboratory Dr. Primitive occupied was not spared.
Every screen was now covered by the exact same image.
It was a photograph of someone standing in front of a starship as it crashed into a space station.
The unusual composition and striking visual effect immediately drew admiration from countless people.
"Is this some movie trailer or something?"
"Not gonna lie, advertising a movie with obnoxious pop-ups like this is disgusting, but that poster actually looks pretty damn cool."
"True, but whoever came up with this advertising method can go die in a galactic obscenity!"
Across the cosmos, people responded to the sudden pop-ups and screen flooding with all manner of colorful language.
And many of them took notice of both the image and the man in it.
Some became curious.
Others who had already been searching for him cried out in surprise.
And some people...
SMACK!
Titania slammed her palm onto the table.
"I knew that bastard couldn't have just disappeared for no reason! So he went off somewhere to pose and look cool!"
She ground her teeth, puffed up like an angry pufferfish.
Sure enough, Sora had never given up on his wicked ambition to overtake her in popularity!
On the surface, he'd staged some mysterious disappearance, but behind everyone's backs he'd gone and taken a shot this cool.
And one look at something this stylish made it obvious that it had to be a promotional poster for some movie!
This was clearly Sora's scheme to push her back down in the popularity rankings.
"I worked for so long just to barely get ahead of you..."
Titania gritted her teeth as she watched Sora's vote count within the Federation of Hope rise continuously until it finally surpassed hers.
She had only managed to overtake him while Sora and Robin were back on Penacony.
And now Sora had pretended to disappear, only to secretly use such an underhanded method to instantly take the lead back.
"Damn you, Sora!"
Titania let out a scream like a marmot.
Fenille sighed helplessly.
Mr. Hoshigaki, please hurry back and keep her under control.
Dr. Primitive knew nothing about any of this.
He merely studied Rubert II's data, his brow slowly furrowing.
"This strange data covering the entire Scepter system... Why does it look so familiar?"
After thinking carefully, Dr. Primitive suddenly froze.
Why did this strange data look so much like the memetic contamination he had created?!
Could someone have used images of this man to create a special form of memetic contamination?!
---
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