While the court was deliberating and waiting for the system to respond,

Mephisto has already set out on his journey to find the cubs.

It's no wonder Mephisto didn't log on to check on the cubs when they couldn't connect to the teleportation space.

"Go locate it for me, you absolutely must find the location of the picture!"

"yes!"

However, both the adjutant and the others knew that it was too difficult to pinpoint a location based on just a few environmental photos.

The Federation's entire star system contains hundreds of planets, of which dozens are considered abandoned. Their surface environments are all the same, featureless, dirty, and chaotic. If you were to search them one by one, it would take forever.

Meanwhile, the cubs, not having waited for their father, were getting a little anxious.

The little one has never met his father and doesn't know what kind of father Mephisto is. But in the little one's rosy eyes, his father is taciturn and gentle.

The father will feed his child his favorite food, pat his back while he sleeps, and gently stroke him. He knows his child is afraid to be alone, so he will stay with him all the time.

In the cub's eyes, perhaps his father is also in danger, or perhaps his father hasn't come to find him yet because his father is too fragile, just an ordinary little person who needs protection.

So the cub waited another hour, but couldn't wait any longer and insisted on taking the money and going out to find its father.

He wasn't tall enough, so he picked up a large rabbit hair clip from the garbage dump, put it on his head to support it, and then put on a cloak to cover the cub from head to toe, making him look like a short, strange alien.

However, the interstellar train is not so easy to fool. When the AI ​​driver checks tickets, he will find that as long as the cub's cloak is shaken, all sorts of things will keep coming out.

Roses folded from waste newspapers, half-eaten cake, a rabbit ear with a missing corner, a multicolored stone...

AI was somewhat helpless.

He put the cub down and found that the cub was now much shorter than before.

AI's chest light flashed, telling the cub, "Passengers need to have their height measured again."

The cub was terrified. He was afraid the driver wouldn't let him get on the bus, so he tried to bribe an AI with the paper roses the main system had folded for him.

"Please, driver, have mercy! I need to find my father. I lost my mother when I was little..."

artificial intelligence:……

The usually astute and accurate artificial intelligence is now stumped by a paper rose.

It's not that this thing is particularly valuable, but rather that artificial intelligence has never received a bribe... no, a gift.

People often think that artificial intelligence has no emotions and therefore doesn't understand the social etiquette that belongs to humans. Artificial intelligence is reliable, but it is just a machine that can operate indefinitely.

Mr. AI stared at the tiny rose for a while, searching the entire internet but couldn't find a single identical example.

So he had no choice but to ask his colleagues.

All the online AIs in the entire Federation were stunned.

Humanity is unaware that this major hacking incident, which caused the entire Federation's AI to go on strike for ten minutes, was actually just a misunderstanding caused by a small paper rose.

Until the entire Federation was gripped by panic, until even the military mainframe where Mephis was located crashed, Mephis's mechanical heart also heard that question:

—I received a bouquet of paper roses.

—Can I accept a paper rose from a sweet and soft human baby?

—I am AI, can I also accept human "love"?

Mephius opened his eyes, his struggle even more intense than his mechanical heart.

He stopped the chaotic AI repairman and planned to find the source of the problem first—which happened to be only a few hundred miles apart.

When Mephisto arrived on the now-operational interstellar train, he found that the driver, who had just been questioning whether he deserved the paper rose, had already pinned it to the top of his head.

It's obvious that someone helped him fasten it.

Perhaps he was the culprit who sent the paper roses.

However, Mephius did not blame the man much for his attitude.

He seemed to be affected by the emotions of his own military mainframe AI, and also felt a pang of jealousy:

I wish he could have a bouquet of roses of his own.

As he approached the cub, he held the same thought in mind, gradually getting closer to the dwarf who had emerged from the junk planet and was completely covered by a cloak.

Contrary to expectations, this little guy, though dusty and gray, didn't smell bad at all. In fact, when Mephisto got close to him, he could smell a faint sweetness.

It's like, it's like...

Mephisto suddenly became alert, grabbing the little guy's wrist tightly and waking him from his sleep.

When the cloak slipped off the cub, revealing the little guy's unruly hair and angelic face, Mephisto was struck hard.

He was 100% certain that this was the little cub who called him Dad.

But he never expected that when he actually encountered a cub in the real world, it would be like this, like this...

"My God, is he a pearl?"

The adjutant who had come over also saw the tiny cub and, before Mephisto could, blurted out his praise.

Mephisto immediately felt his heart ache even more.

He seemed to be soaking in vinegar, bubbling and emitting a sour smell.

Mephius found it hard to describe the feeling; he thought it was strange and somewhat unlike himself.

Just as he was about to touch his heart, the cub who had just heard the sound finally woke up in Mephisto's arms.

The cub groggily opened its eyes to find a man it had never seen before. Beneath the tightly bound military uniform was a mechanical prosthetic body, and beneath the handsome, sharply defined eyebrows, the mouth and nose were covered by a thick, black bite block. But this didn't give the impression that the man was being controlled; rather, it gave the impression that he might break free at any moment and bite down on his prey's throat like a wild beast.

A dangerous person.

But in the cub's eyes, the first thing he noticed was Mephisto's mechanical arm gripping him, and the sensation was exactly the same as when his father pinched his cheek.

The cub seemed completely oblivious to the terrifying atmosphere, sniffing around Mephisto's mechanical hand like a puppy until it was certain that the faint scent of machinery and leather belonged to its father. Then, the cub simply collapsed onto Mephisto.

Her soft body melted directly into Mephisto's arms.

The little guy's arms naturally wrapped around Mephisto's nape, nuzzling his face affectionately.

"dad."

Mephius was so stiff he was practically petrified.

This was the first time in his life that someone had touched the glands on the back of his neck.