Seeing that Mami and the others remained steadfast in their opposition, Kyubey had no choice but to abandon its genius idea.
"Su Mo, I will need to carefully consider your proposal and assess its feasibility. In exchange, it is now your turn to ask a question."
In order to continue consulting with Su Mo in the future, Kyubey had no reason to break their deal. Or rather, even without this constraint, Kyubey was the type to surprisingly keep its promises.
Even in the matter of tricking magical girls, it never went back on its word. It did, in fact, grant them the opportunity to have their wishes fulfilled.
Whether it was Homura's wish to loop or Madoka's wish to become a god in the original story, even if the wish itself would disrupt the balance of the world, it never broke a contract.
Therefore, after receiving Su Mo's advice, it was prepared to answer his questions.
"My question is about the topic we didn't finish earlier," Su Mo said immediately. "Specifically, the issue of your identity."
Hearing this, Homura lowered her head, a little embarrassed. If she had known Su Mo was so dominant in front of Kyubey and wouldn't be fooled, she wouldn't have been in such a hurry to act before.
Killing one extra Kyubey was no big deal, but delaying Big Brother Su Mo's business was not good.
"My identity?" Hearing this, Kyubey tilted its head again, its tail swishing in confusion. "Didn't I tell you before? We Incubators are an alien race from beyond Earth, cultivating magical girls on this planet to combat the inevitable doom of the universe."
It felt its origins were already quite clear, with nothing to be doubtful about.
Hearing this, Su Mo shook his head. "From beyond Earth, but which galaxy, which planet specifically? Even if it's not within the observable universe, you should still have rough coordinates for your supercluster and timeline, right?"
"Furthermore, why are you fighting against the end of the universe? Since you have no emotions, you have no fear. Why would an individual who does not fear death be so obsessed with an inevitable destruction?"
"And another thing, if your Incubator race truly had such a mission since its birth, then how could you, beings without any emotion, master the technology to convert emotions into energy?"
"..."
The three questions, spoken all at once, silenced everyone present, including Kyubey.
No one had noticed these issues before. It was only when Su Mo delved into the root of the matter that they realized something was wrong.
"That's right! Even aliens should know which planet they come from, shouldn't they?" Madoka said in agreement. Even the members of the chat group, despite being from other worlds, had their own coordinates.
"Why would a machine without emotions refuse death?" Homura also realized the problem.
"That does make sense... If the Incubator race truly has no emotions, why would they specifically develop a technology for magical girls that is most suitable for us humans?" Mami also wore a pensive expression.
Just as technology developed by humans is inherently suited for humans, if the magical girl technology was really developed by the Incubator race, shouldn't the most suitable subjects be the Incubators themselves?
The series of sharp questions left even Kyubey momentarily bewildered. "Information regarding our home planet has been destroyed. I do not know where we Incubators come from," it said, carefully searching its network memory and answering one by one.
"As for fighting the end of the universe, it is the highest directive imprinted on our souls... As you said, Su Mo-kun, this directive does not seem to have been naturally generated for us Incubators. It is speculated that there is a fifty percent probability that our Incubator race was created to combat the end of the world."
Before this, Kyubey hadn't realized this problem. Or rather, its cognitive structure had subconsciously blocked it from thinking about its own will.
It was only after Su Mo pointed it out that they discovered through a self-diagnostic that they might not be an independent race after all.
Compared to natural lifeforms like humans, they were more like intelligent machines developed as tools, like computers or robots.
As for the last point...
"The probability of the Incubator race independently developing emotion conversion technology is infinitely close to zero. Combined with the previous point, the probability of the Incubator race having a creator rises to over ninety-nine percent."
"In conclusion, our Incubator race has an unknown creator. The creator bestowed upon us the technology of emotion-to-energy conversion and gave us the command to prevent the end of the world."
After countless streams of data flashed through its ruby eyes, Kyubey finally reached a conclusion. After summarizing, it nodded at Su Mo. "Thank you for your assistance, Su Mo-kun. You have allowed us to obtain new information."
"Ah!" Seeing Kyubey's incredibly placid reaction, Mami was stunned.
"Kyubey, how can you be so calm? That's news about your creator! Aren't you surprised?" she asked, unable to comprehend Kyubey's composure.
In just a few sentences, Su Mo had completely unraveled Kyubey's origins.
She asked herself, as a human, if she were to one day discover that she was a race created by a god and given a mission by her creator, she would surely be very curious about her creator and have a different perspective on her ordained mission.
How could Kyubey be as calm as if it knew nothing?
Faced with Mami's shock, Kyubey was a little confused.
It raised its head and asked in return, "Incubators do not have an emotion module, so naturally, we do not feel surprise. As for information about our creator, while it has a certain value, its value in saving the universe from its end is not as great as your previous proposal, Su Mo-kun, is it?"
"No, this clearly isn't a question of value, is it?" Mami shook her head and retorted. "Do you measure the value of information solely based on whether it's beneficial to solving the end of the universe?"
"Yes," Kyubey replied. "That is the meaning of our existence."
"..."
Looking at Kyubey's emotionless tone, Mami finally understood why Su Mo had said it was pretending to be human, and why he said it had no emotions.
They were truly like robots, caring for nothing but their goal. Even an animal understood emotions better than it did.
Kyubey's cute appearance, its deliberate imitation of pets—all of it was prepared for the sake of advancing its goal.
Although the goal of fighting the end of the universe didn't seem to be a problem, for some reason, knowing that Kyubey was only deliberately imitating humans suddenly gave Mami a chilling feeling.
Just then, Su Mo reached out his hand to Kyubey. "Since you're unclear about your own origins, would you mind if I took a look?"
Kyubey's speculation was the same as what Su Mo had said before, but that was just speculation, not fact.
"Hmm? Su Mo, you have a way to confirm this conjecture?" Kyubey asked. Even its own database didn't retain memories of its home planet. How could a human like Su Mo do that?
"All that has passed leaves a trace in the river of time. By following the traces, we might be able to obtain information not recorded in your database," Su Mo said.
"Time?" Kyubey was taken aback. It glanced at Homura, then looked thoughtfully at Su Mo. "If you have a way, Su Mo-kun, you can try. This information might help me solve the problem of the universe's end."
"Alright." Su Mo didn't say much more. He simply acted, grabbing Kyubey by its ears.
Treated like this, Kyubey didn't move an inch, its ruby eyes constantly observing the man before it. The next moment, Su Mo activated a time rewind.
A holographic image unfolded, and all the Kyubeys in the world, tens of thousands of them, appeared simultaneously in the projection.
"Mr. Su Mo..." Seeing this special power, Mami was stunned. Don't only magical girls have special powers? What's with Su Mo? Is he a magical boy?
Soon, she was captivated by the content displayed in the holographic projection. "There are so many Kyubeys?" Are these all part of the so-called Incubator race?
A few seconds later, she saw the truth.
As time rewound, the tens of thousands of Kyubeys merged two by two in a reverse process of asexual reproduction, halving their number. The remaining Kyubeys merged again, halving their number once more.
Aside from a few who died in various accidents, as the background images regressed step by step to primitive society, the number of Kyubeys also decreased bit by bit.
In the end, only a single Kyubey remained. It was the only intelligent lifeform to arrive on Earth in prehistoric times, before humans had even walked out of Africa.
Seeing this, Mami was shocked. "So all the other Kyubeys split off from this one?"
"Mhm." The Kyubey in Su Mo's hand nodded. "We share a collective consciousness. Our physical bodies are merely tools for communication and have no meaning."
"..." Mami shivered and said no more.
The projection before them soon changed. Time rewound further, and Kyubey left the Earth, traveling through the sea of stars, tracing back to its very first mark. It was unclear if it was millions or tens of millions of years.
Finally, in an unfamiliar star system, Kyubey's projection stopped. The time rewind slowed down, playing in slow motion.
Everyone present clearly saw an invisible vortex appear in interstellar space. Then, the physical body of this one and only Kyubey slowly disappeared, reverting to the stardust of the cosmos.
Further back, after the invisible space vortex disappeared, there was no trace of Kyubey in the entire universe.
The so-called home planet and creator never appeared from beginning to end.
Seeing this, Mami blinked, not quite understanding. "So, Kyubey was born out of thin air in this universe? With no home planet and no creator?"
"No." Kyubey itself shook its head, its gaze shifting from the holographic projection to Su Mo. "Although I don't know how you did this, Su Mo-kun, this data does indeed correspond perfectly with the remaining memories in my database."
"If there are no issues, my previous speculation was correct, with one small correction."
"I am not from another planet, but from another universe."
"That spatial vortex should be the means by which I arrived in this universe. I reconstructed my body with the matter of this universe, and only then was I able to establish a memory bank to store data."