Ever since BS Rita started painting the world fragnts as puzzle pieces, players constantly gathered around her whenever she appeared on the ship.
But most of the ti, nobody could tell which world she was currently working on just by looking at the races sitting nearby.
Partly because too many people ca to watch.
But more importantly, because most worlds and most races had never survived until the end.
Ever since Rita began designing the massive puzzle draft, the little robot that used to follow Nivalis everywhere and attend classes with her had stopped leaving BS Rita's shoulder entirely.
anwhile, Deceitful Bloom loved holding the enormous blueprint covered in puzzle outlines and densely packed world nas, studying it over and over.
Rita suddenly paused mid-stroke.
Then she frowned in annoyance.
"I missed a world."
Deceitful Bloom replied imdiately,
"You didn't. I checked it several tis already. Nothing's missing."
Rita turned toward B80 and smiled.
"The Scrap Zone is missing."
B80's tiny dot eyes widened larger and larger as it murmured blankly,
"The Scrap Zone."
That was the endpoint of The chanoids.
And the place where she had first taken B80 away.
"Exactly."
Rita looked at it softly.
"Why shouldn't your world be included? Of course it should."
"We visited the Scrap Zone in every tiline looking for you..."
She looked regretfully at the three worlds she had already finished painting.
Then she took the blueprint from Deceitful Bloom's hands and said,
"There's still ti to adjust it."
"I was already regretting that there were only 9,999 puzzle pieces anyway. I even had to enlarge so sections slightly."
"But now... ten thousand is perfect."
Then her gaze froze on the blueprint.
Her heartbeat skipped.
And she could clearly feel the breathing of the Deceitful Bloom beside her slowing ever so slightly as well.
B80 raised both fists high into the air excitedly.
"The Scrap Zone! The Scrap Zone!"
Rita had long grown accustod to B80's emotions.
She knew those reactions ca from calculations telling it that happiness was the correct response.
But they were so realistic that she often forgot B80 was not truly alive.
She repeated softly,
"Yeah. The Scrap Zone."
A faint smile and a quiet sigh colored Deceitful Bloom's voice.
"I almost forgot."
"It never even occurred to that The chanoids are actually one of the countless races too."
At that mont, every voice on the deck vanished.
The wind disappeared.
So did the distant sounds of conversation.
Ti had been stopped.
Only Rita and Deceitful Bloom remained unaffected.
But neither of them spoke.
Both were still lost in their own spiraling thoughts.
After a long while, Deceitful Bloom finally spoke first.
"I should've realized sooner..."
"You noticed sothing strange, didn't you?"
"You suspect B80?"
Rita answered quietly,
"I suspect all of The chanoids."
Pruning tilines that lacked enough Brilliance felt too subjective.
Like judging whether a story was good or bad.
Living beings with emotions could never evaluate things that cleanly.
Yet every ti the bell rang, entire tilines were cut away with perfect precision.
Like deleting faulty programs.
Or erasing redundant code according to so hidden algorithm.
That kind of chanical behavior...
That almost computational logic...
It was difficult not to connect it to sothing.
And more importantly...
Who else could monitor players constantly at close range?
Naturally, the other beings inside the ga.
NPCs.
Anyone who participated in Divine Ga saw them constantly.
They always seed to have existed there already.
As though they were simply part of the world itself.
Like furniture in a house.
Or paintings hanging on walls.
They craved living beings and Soul Fire with obsessive hunger.
And when they looked at players, it resembled lower lifeforms gazing at beings from a higher dinsion.
Only today, when she suddenly wanted to create a world piece for B80, did she feel as though she had awakened from a nightmare.
A thought flashed through her mind:
Why couldn't it be The chanoids?
Players like them acted as participants inside the ga.
Then who exactly were The chanoids, the ones acting as NPCs?
Still, Rita did not deny Deceitful Bloom's guess.
Because she truly did suspect B80 too.
Back when Y128 ca to BS, it had struggled for a long ti trying to locate her because it was unable to connect to the BS network without permission.
But when Rita traveled through tilines with B80, B80 could freely connect to every network in every world regardless of what form those networks took.
Rita slowly explained all her suspicions before finally asking,
"A long ti ago, when I first t B80, it said The chanoids were created by gods."
"I'm not questioning whether that statent was true."
"I want to know the history as you understand it."
Deceitful Bloom's fingers brushed slowly across the lower right corner of the painting, passing over one familiar world after another.
Her expression grew increasingly grave.
"As far back as I can rember, everyone already said The chanoids were created by so god."
"Even Divine Ga itself said so."
"But who exactly created them?"
"There was never a clear answer."
"The factory that produces them is located not far from Foolishness's Toy Palace."
"As long as enough resources and materials are supplied, new chanoids appear automatically."
She let out a bitter laugh.
"The great strike was ridiculous, wasn't it?"
"But precisely because we never truly regarded them as important, we tolerated them from such a superior position."
"After all, if we wanted to, we could crush them at any ti."
"That's why the Scrap Zone exists."
The more she spoke, the more obvious her frustration and realization beca.
Once the answer appeared, every clue suddenly seed painfully obvious in hindsight.
"They were always special."
"They appeared weak, but they never completely went extinct in any era."
"At the end of every era, we gods would sleep for an extrely long ti."
"We only awakened again when the first world entered Divine Ga."
"And every ti a new era began..."
"All the chanoids abandoned in the Scrap Zone during the previous era disappeared."
"As though they had been automatically cleaned up."
Rita lifted B80 from her shoulder and held it before her eyes, studying it carefully.
"Yeah..."
"Who would ever suspect the NPCs?"
"But then why did L12187777 awaken a divine talent because of ?"
"Are there many chanoids like that?"
"Occasionally one appears each era."
Deceitful Bloom paused before continuing.
"One awakened because of once too."
"...But when I woke up in the next era, I couldn't find it anymore."
Rita asked heavily,
"Was it assassinated by... you know who?"
"...No."
Deceitful Bloom calmly changed the subject.
"The little robot was still there when we buried her."
Then she asked,
"So are you still adding the Scrap Zone into the painting?"
"Yes."
Rita nodded.
"Now I definitely have to."
"If they're truly one of the countless races, then the painting would be incomplete without The chanoids."
Deceitful Bloom agreed.
But sothing else concerned her more.
"It ford a contract with you, didn't it?"
"Should I help stage sothing with you soti?"
"We could break the contract without openly turning against each other."
"No need."
Rita gently placed B80 back onto her shoulder.
"If contracts are connections and restraints, then those connections work both ways."
"We'll leave it as it is for now."
Then she suddenly noticed Deceitful Bloom staring at her.
The Vineborne had been watching her silently for quite so ti now.
Rita could not help asking,
"Why are you staring at like that?"
Deceitful Bloom asked quietly,
"Why aren't you upset?"
"Why aren't you angry?"
"It lied to you."
Rita: "???"
The Vineborne's tone sounded calm and composed.
But sohow, Rita could still hear the faint trace of accusation hidden underneath.
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