"I'm a little sleepy. I haven't slept much recently." Azathoth yawned, but considering that he used to sleep for years when he lived alone on the desolate planet, his sleepy and bored expression was not very convincing.
Hugo said as if it was normal: "Then I'm going out for a walk. What about Erica? Do you want to come with us?"
"Huh?" The little girl blinked, "Mr. Hugo..."
"Call me Hugo," the android said briskly. "As the saying goes, the best way to invade a race is to capture its teenagers first. Didn't Ford ask you to walk around the school? I think his suggestion is pretty good."
"Sorry, Erica," Igor said, pressing the mobile device in his hand. "Actually, there's no such saying. You can relax a little in Keminting Town. Although it's a rural area, it's close to the capital, and the atmosphere here is different from that of Port Yarple."
"...You like Erica very much?" Azathoth asked after everyone else in the villa had left. "Is it because of your sister Wendy?"
Igor had gradually grown accustomed to Azathoth's apparent indifference to the people and events around him, yet his surprisingly knowledgeable knowledge of a wide variety of trivial matters. He poured Azathoth a cup of hot milk and said, "Yes, she resembles Wendy as a child. But Erica is smarter and luckier than Wendy."
Azathoth stared at the glass of milk for a long time.
"Don't you like it...? We also have black tea here, but I don't know if drinking tea in the afternoon will affect my sleep."
"There's nothing I don't like." Azathoth picked up the handle of the cup and drank the milk in one gulp. He licked his lips and said, "What are your plans next?"
Igor glanced at him with a hint of surprise, automatically interpreting it as Azathoth's impatience due to the boredom of his recent journey. He thought for a moment before explaining, "Originally, upon entering Alpre Harbor, I intended to investigate my enemies and their reasons for targeting me."
"O'Casey Griffin is the abandoned eldest son of the Griffin family, but he is, after all, a figure standing on the edge of this generation's political core. I heard that he has a good relationship with Longman Griffin, the current de facto ruler of the Griffin family. I originally thought that he would use his brains when making money and know some inside information."
"And he turned out to be a madman and a fool?"
"Perhaps I'm too optimistic. Plans can never keep up with changes." Igor said, "So I suggest that Mr. Hill send us to Keminting Town."
He suddenly revealed a subtle smile and pointed to the title on his mobile device. It read, "Marshal Gonger's Adjutant, Mr. Tommler, Attends a Banquet in Keminting Town." This man—a worried and serious face appeared on the photo—"is named Richard Tommler, and he was once my adjutant."
"He was also the first person to 'sacrifice my own family for the sake of justice' and expose my 'crimes' to the federal prosecutor."
**
Azathoth fell asleep and even had a dream.
This was an extremely rare situation; he had almost never dreamed before. Before he could savor this hazy feeling between reality and fantasy, he heard a lingering, demonic sound like a third-rate band playing for themselves from afar, piercing his eardrums with such force that it was impossible to ignore it.
Azathoth: “…”
He was stunned for a long time, and for a moment he actually felt that the monotonous flute sound, which sounded like the wailing of a dying person, was quite nice.
Is there something wrong with my aesthetic sense? While on the spaceship, I listened to music on my mobile device that was in line with normal human aesthetics. Azathoth also liked it and even thought that his appreciation level was very high.
But now, on the one hand, he disliked the monotonous music in this vast dark space, and the drum beats that a three-year-old child could bang out mixed in with the flute music, but on the other hand, he felt inexplicably at home and drowsy, almost like he was schizophrenic.
"Feeling exhausted?" A voice, indescribable in its meaning, one that shouldn't be used for communication, yet somehow understood, came over. "Using the human spirit and half of the body to carry the primordial chaos, even after hundreds or thousands of years, it's probably still a very arduous task."
"I think it's okay." Azathoth was so sleepy that he could hardly open his eyes. He leisurely let himself float in the vast darkness and responded vaguely.
"You are me. I am you. No matter how others perceive us, we are one," the voice said. "You look tired to me, so when I say you are tired, you are tired."
"...Is there something wrong with your logic?" Azathoth forced himself to cheer up.
"I never use logic when I speak, because the logic is all in your hands."
“…”
"Sleeping is so wonderful," the voice sighed. "There's no need to distinguish between dreams and reality, no need to worry about whether you're awake or half asleep. As long as you want something, you can achieve it in your dreams."
"Azathoth, do you know?"
"The more deeply you become entangled with the 'real universe,' the more likely it is that the things that appear in your dreams will be projected into 'reality.' Right now, you are dreaming, or rather, 'we' are dreaming—what are you dreaming about?"
"Heavy snow." Azathoth answered half asleep and half awake.
He felt like he wasn't dreaming, merely reminiscing. In the long, monotonous, recyclable memories, the silvery white of the desolate planet dominated his vision. And the day Igor landed on the southern hemisphere, the cold blue waters, the pale stars hanging in the sky, the steel cities resembling the skeletons of fallen giants, the orange-red fireworks exploding in the thick fog...
And Igor's bright red eyes, filled with mist.
Crystal clear snowflakes fluttered like goose feathers, landing on Igor's hair and shoulders, reflecting the frosty color of the entire planet.
"The person who impressed you the most was Igor Sullivan?" the voice muttered over the noisy background. "Well, there's nothing wrong with that. I could have predicted this result."
"You can think of him as an anchor for the ship, and his presence implies our presence as well."
"Don't understand what I'm saying, Azathoth. Although you're better at thinking than I am, thinking itself is meaningless to us. When you wake up from this dream, go out and enjoy the snowy scenery of Keminting Town in early August."
**
"...It's snowing?" Hugo suspiciously reached out his fingers to catch a polygonal crystal falling from the dark clouds. "Am I seeing things, or are the planets in this system orbiting differently from Port Alplai? Why is it snowing in August in the Northern Hemisphere?"
"Uh." Erica glanced at her mobile device hesitantly. "Starnet says the average temperature in Keminting Town in August is 25 degrees Celsius...very suitable for human habitation."
"Yes, I saw that too." Hugo blinked and looked at the sky full of thick clouds. "Then is this snow just an illusion?"
"It seems like I can't stop for a while." Although Hugo is not a real human, because he looks like a child, Erica still instinctively wants to get close to him, and her attitude when chatting is much more relaxed. "Shall we go back now?"
Hugo glanced at her and said, "Are you feeling cold? Even though it's snowing, the surface temperature is still normal. We can walk around for a while longer. After all, it's snowing, not hail." Erica took the initiative and asked, "Where do you want to go?"
Hugo's ears twitched, and he narrowed his eyes and smiled with small canine teeth: "Let's go to school. I saw something quite interesting."
What it means by 'seeing' is the images captured by the camera.
——A girl who looked to be about sixteen or seventeen years old, with her eyes closed, held a shovel as high as her chest and smashed it down at the classmates around her who were wearing summer school uniforms!
With a loud bang, the metal collided with the wall, leaving a streak several dozen centimeters long on the neatly painted bricks, like a sudden flaw in a perfect painting.
The people around them screamed and ran away. The girl propped the shovel handle against her chest. She still didn't open her eyes, but turned her head accurately to face the camera in the treetops - as if she was looking at Hugo through a small piece of glass.
The camera panned slowly.
The girl under the tree seemed quite surprised. She took two steps forward, then suddenly raised the corner of her mouth mischievously, put her face close to the hole of the camera, and then opened her eyes without warning.
A pair of compound eyes that were absolutely different from those of ordinary people instantly appeared in Hugo's sight. Tens of thousands of densely packed deep yellow pupils bulged outward and appeared on that pretty, youthful and beautiful face. It was like a human body suddenly had the soul of some arthropod drilled into it, looking ugly, terrifying and disgusting.
"Wow..." Hugo exclaimed, carefully saving the video of this scene on the system hard drive. "Kminting Town is much more interesting than I imagined! Erica, how about you just go to school tomorrow?"
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