"Super Hacker!"
"Not Heike, it's Hacker!"
"No Heike allowed!"
"No, did he really succeed in invading? That's so fierce?"
"Asking if I don't understand, was there one-click translation in 2010?"
"Probably, maybe, perhaps, yes?"
"Excite is such an old relic, is it that particular?"
"Stop arguing, you're making me read the email content."
Soon, the screen zoomed in on the translated text.
[Experiment Report]
[February 9, 2010, 21:06]
"Translated, it's 'Hey, Paul!'" Hashida Itaru said in a deep voice, doing a stereotypical imitation.
"That kind of performance is meaningless." Okabe Rintaro said expressionlessly.
"Oh really?" Hashida Itaru casually said, then began to read the specific content: "…The LHC is in good condition. Although this thing is as fickle as a cat, its condition has been surprisingly good for the past month."
"What does this mean?" Okabe Rintaro didn't understand.
However, Hashida Itaru was also the same.
"I don't know."
"Never mind that, aren't there any articles related to the Time Machine research trajectory?"
Although he had invaded SERN, Okabe Rintaro knew very well that his purpose was to prevent the dystopia that Titor said would appear in the future. He had no room to peek at other miscellaneous information; he must, and only wanted to, see content related to the Time Machine.
"Although the term 'Time Machine' isn't there, 'project z' has been used over a hundred times in the past month." Hashida Itaru clicked the mouse, and the words '137 times' flashed across the screen.
"The 137th project z experiment report…" Hashida Itaru read as he scrolled.
"Since the mini black hole generation task has been completed, the report is brief."
The background music had started playing at some point.
A cold, eerie, and terrifying atmosphere spread with the music, and the bodies of Okabe Rintaro and Hashida Itaru also involuntarily stiffened slightly. Their voices became even more cautious.
"Mini black hole…" Okabe Rintaro repeated the keyword.
"It seems… the officials clearly declared that the experiment was not successful?" Hashida Itaru's tone became somewhat difficult to understand.
He had been so trusting of SERN's official announcements before, but after the successful invasion, this was the result he got.
They really seemed to be hiding something.
Could it be… an ominous premonition arose in his heart.
"And then?!" Okabe Rintaro quickly stopped pondering the deeper meaning of this conclusion. He had already suspected SERN of lying in this regard, and the result he got now merely confirmed it.
What he was more concerned about, as expected, was the content that followed.
What exactly did they do?
"Experiment results…" Hashida Itaru's glasses reflected a pure white light against the computer screen. His words paused for a moment, and the expression on his face suddenly turned ugly.
Among the black text, a string of crimson English was highlighted separately.
[Error. Human is Deda…]
Hashida Itaru read out the English string in a dazed tone.
"Experimenter deceased, matching failed (English)…"
"Experimenter deceased (Human is Deda)…" Okabe Rintaro murmured the English phrase, then took several steps back.
Hashida Itaru nodded gently: "Mm."
"Someone, died."
The next moment, the empty background music abruptly stopped, and the ending theme reappeared at just the right moment.
Snap! The barrage of comments quickly erupted into a frenzy.
"It's over again! Hurry up and bring me the next episode!"
"I knew that every ending of steins;gate would never disappoint me."
"Although I'm not very interested in the daily life stuff, the sense of suspense at the end of each episode is just too great, isn't it?"
"Human experimentation!"
"This way, the final Boss is basically confirmed, right? It's SERN we have to fight!"
"Does it feel like an isekai protagonist breaking into the Demon King's castle and peeking at the Demon King executing adventurers? That kind of thrilling feeling of secretly sneaking through a secret passage, nervously crawling through a ventilation duct, peeking at everything, but desperately covering your mouth, daring not to make a sound."
"Fun fact: ventilation ducts are very loud, don't expect to sneak into a room silently through them."
"Tsk, it's just someone died, why such a big reaction?"
"This isn't just someone dying, this is motherf*cking human experimentation! And it's a well-known, public foreign organization secretly, stealthily conducting human experimentation! Why do you think the reaction is so big?!"
"Damn it, playing so big?!"
"Americans Z to dead people."
Not only the bullet comments, but the moment the ending theme appeared, the audience in the grand stands also became noisy.
— "Wow, the feeling is here."
— "Seriously, every episode ends with this kind of tone. I feel like I can already analyze this contestant's creative path."
— "First, he drops the perspective to casually show some daily life, then pulls it back to casually show some daily life, interspersing some chuunibyou content, advancing the main plot, and finally, BAM! The plot rapidly advances, revealing a big twist."
— "Kukuku, this is the choice of steins;gate."
— "Are you having a chuunibyou attack? This is live."
— "Sorry, let's discuss the plot of this episode."
— "Discuss what? Let the judges comment."
The audience's thoughts varied, but undoubtedly, most were eagerly awaiting the judges' evaluations.
The director didn't know what kind of evaluation the judges would give, but what he did know was that the show's popularity had risen again!
"Director, Director, it's up, it's up, a new trending topic is on the hot search again!"
V Weibo had already had several trending topics about their show before. At first, they were just a few trending topics deliberately inserted to generate buzz, but as the show aired, especially with the seamless broadcasting of steins;gate, now, from time to time, related discussions would spontaneously generate buzz and occupy a trending topic.
This was free traffic!
Never before had there been such a wonderful start!
Compared to other viewers, the director now was the person least willing to see the future plot of steins;gate turn bad.
On the contrary, he had to frantically pray that steins;gate would continue to explode in popularity, preferably a massive explosion.
"Clap, clap, clap—"
The stage lights came on again, one after another, and Host Fang Yuan stepped out once more under the spotlight.
"So fast, so fast, our third episode of steins;gate has ended." He said excitedly: "Other contestants have yet to even start creating, and he, he has already finished the third episode!"
"Now, let's have our judges share their feelings about this episode of animation!"