"Alright," the culprit rubbed his hands together, "We're all family now!"
Azathoth remained indifferent to its forced buying and selling behavior, with an expression that said, "I'll just see what tricks you can come up with."
"Come on, I'll go see if there's any results from Igor."
The android Williams was assisting Igor when Azathoth walked into the study, spotting him passing by with a meter-high pile of old newspapers. He wore a pair of plain glasses, likely borrowed from Igor. Seeing Azathoth's slightly bewildered look, the android deftly nudged the frame of his glasses with the knuckle of his middle finger. "Many of Starnet's older news reports have been completely deleted. While there's a chance they could be restored, the workload is enormous. Paper documents are better preserved."
Azathoth: "This is the first time I've seen an android say something like this."
"You've only met two of them in total." The android, whose honorific vocabulary was twice as rich as Hugo's, smiled and walked around Azathoth and out. Even though the object in his hands was higher than his head and completely blocked his vision, every step he took was as steady as a rock.
There was nothing wrong with Igor's eyesight, but he had the habit of wearing glasses when he was studying paperwork. Now his glasses were taken away by Williams. Azathoth noticed that he raised his hand to support the bridge of his nose but touched nothing. When he raised his head in surprise, his eyes were a little confused.
However, the gray-haired young man quickly reacted and calmly put his hand down. "I just found something interesting. I wonder if you're interested?"
Without waiting for Azathoth to answer, he spread out a huge old newspaper on the table. Above the headline was the logo of Port Alpre.
This newspaper looked familiar. Azathoth thought for a moment and pulled out a picture from the corner of his memory: When Erica Bacon was being chased in Port Alpre, she saw a tabloid that reported the news of a crashed pirate ship. Inspired by this, she called out the true name of God. The tabloid seemed to be from the same newspaper as the one in front of her.
This is indeed a hundred years of focusing on supernatural news. I am afraid that it has reached the point where the newspaper produces and sells horror stories by itself and occupies the seats of the mental hospital all year round.
Igor had no idea what Azathoth was thinking, so he simply said, "Look, this records one of the major discoveries made by the Federation archaeological team sixteen years ago. They discovered traces of an active advanced civilization in a natural site on the capital planet, leading them to suspect that an intelligent race had once been born on this planet. However, at the time, the Federation was plagued by internal and external conflicts, and many people vehemently opposed investing resources in unnecessary human exploration. As a result, this old news item was only reported within a small circle and then no one paid any attention to it."
Azathoth raised an eyebrow: "Are the others so obedient?"
In his opinion, rebellious behavior can basically be regarded as part of human nature. Many times, people may not be determined to get to the bottom of certain truths. However, once someone else jumps out and loudly calls out "We don't want xxx", there will definitely be opponents who insist on going against it regardless of whether they are right or wrong.
What's more, exploring the history of the planet itself cannot be measured simply by right or wrong. Therefore, if some people think it is unnecessary, there must be others who regard it as the whole of life, and vice versa.
The federal government cannot write a law prohibiting academic research in this area. Archaeology is not illegal and does not cause any moral harm. Everyone still has the right to decide their own professional freedom. War and civil unrest cannot be a reason for everyone to give up.
"I've considered this question, too," Igor said seriously. He had his gray hair braided into a half-finger-long braid at the lower back of his head, making it easier to work. His head swayed as he nodded, instantly catching Azathoth's attention. He almost missed what the human was saying. "Although there were strong calls for frugality and careful preparation for war, there were still many voices in some universities who insisted on continuing the exploration."
"On this particular newspaper... and on this particular date, public opinion is divided. Since print newspapers can't offer real-time commentary, they've even opened a special column for online comments."
"But there was a particular moment after that, about two weeks later. The people who initially claimed they would persevere disappeared, the number of comments dropped significantly, and then the last few people who were interested stopped expressing their opinions in public. As a result, the news completely disappeared from people's memory."
"So the question now is, what happened in the middle?"
"You didn't know at the time?"
"My middle and high school years were both completely closed boarding schools," Igor said. "The management was very strict, and students had virtually no access to outside information."
If one has relatives living locally, occasional communication would not be difficult, but Igor obviously does not have this condition.
"I asked some friends who might know the answer," such as Mr. Nixon, who wished to remain anonymous. "He said most people didn't know what was going on, but no one cared because the Archon election was coming up in a few months. Sabrina Guevera was the first Omega to approach the position of Chief Archon. There were almost as many people who supported her as opposed to her, and everyone's attention was successfully diverted."
"Then," Azathoth said thoughtfully, "the Federation or the Church may have discovered something at that time. Peaceful appeals won't silence people, but the threat of force can."
Igor nodded again: "I'm afraid that many policies in recent years have..."
His next words were stuck because Azathoth couldn't help but reach out and pull the hairy gray braid.
but……
"Is this light yellow bow hairband Wendy's?"
"It's Erica's." Igor coughed, "I saw it just now and borrowed it."
"What was I just about to say..."
"Oh, some of the transfers in recent years might be related to the research on the bones in the sea. Zerg King Arthur probably discovered this many years ago, so he took advantage of people's lack of understanding of the Zerg's mimicry ability to plant a hidden needle. Even in the most dangerous moments of the war, it was never exposed... Are you planning to braid your hair? But it's probably not long enough..."
It turns out that Azathoth doesn't know how to braid pigtails at all.
If Igor combs his hair in a simple but manageable way, Azathoth can probably be included in the collection of consequences of "dads taking care of their children" in ancient Earth.
Their conversation came to an abrupt end here, and Igor spent the next hour trying to separate the tangled hair from the hair tie and racking his brains to stop Azathoth from moving as if he had seen a cat toy.
**
Later, in front of Igor, Hugo typed into the search engine: "What's going on? My boyfriend/girlfriend always plays with my hair/fingers/clothes/thighs while I'm at work."
The answer with the highest number of likes is: You want to find him/her for a job, and he/she wants to sleep with you.
“…”
The android looked at Igor meaningfully.
The young man standing opposite it calmly turned off the tablet screen and said, "I can tell you a universal rule of human behavior on the Internet: any reasonable interaction will be labeled as sexually suggestive by some people."
"But they have no target and can only talk nonsense in the virtual machine, while you can put all human imagination into action without any burden."
It was no coincidence that Azathoth, who was passing by, said in agreement: "Hugo, thank you."
"You're welcome." The android smiled reservedly, without saying that he had been lacking creative inspiration and materials recently.
**
"I want to take a look at the ruins mentioned in the previous report." Igor supported his head with one hand, looking a little tired. "Wendy said that she also felt a certain power calling her that night. I'm afraid it's not a good idea to let her carry that spine inside her. It would be better if we could solve the problem at the source."
Azathoth had no objection: "Where are the ruins?"
"I did some research on the East Nine District in the Southern Hemisphere. It's a small island that was once uninhabited, but is now used as a military training base in the capital."
"Then let's go over and take a look in the next two days." Azathoth thought of something else, "What happened to the insect corpses and bones in the sea after we left the sea that night?"
"The body was salvaged overnight without any risk of contamination, and the bones were transported to another underwater fortress. It's said that not even a scrap of debris remains on the seabed of Benoshi."
"Arthur is quite cruel." Azathoth's sigh had a feeling of 'the puppy I raised before was so fierce', and he seemed a bit condescending and indifferent.
Igor didn't agree with his attitude, but he was used to it. Hearing this, he asked, "Speaking of which, how did you deal with him?"
"What can I say to an enemy? ... But I didn't kill him completely. The Zerg's structure is quite mysterious, and it's difficult to erase their leader from a purely spiritual perspective." Azathoth thought for a moment and tried to explain. "Technically, Arthur is dead, but most of his memories, thoughts, habits, and so on will be inherited by the next Zerg Emperor. They are both different individuals and nearly identical beings. Only by relying on this continuous inheritance mechanism can we avoid the situation where the previous ruler's death will lead to the new ruler's completely contradictory ideas, causing the entire society to stagnate under contradictory orders."
"So in the past I used some, uh, more drastic measures."
Igor frowned slightly and did not ask what the "drastic measures" were.
"So how did you do it this time?"
"I locked him up." Azathoth wasn't very interested in the topic, but he still answered Igor's question seriously. "I locked him up somewhere no one else can reach him. I hope that after he's released, he can reform and become a good bug of the new era with good morals and qualities, who won't cause trouble to others."
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
