Chapter 116: Great Rembpit Adventure (IV)

They say two heads are better than one. But right now, three Doctors and one Shapeshifter Cluster combined were proving vastly inferior to a single qualified nanny.

“Why is she still crying… how did you solve this back then?” You whispered your inquiry to Slice 0325, your eyes locked nervously on the sobbing little Amiya.

“If I could solve a crisis of this magnitude, would I still be a mere slice? What would I even need you for?!” 0325 instinctively hissed back, his internal voice cracking with panic.

Meanwhile, Tabo looked up and urgently whispered to the Shapeshifter. “We really can’t just let her keep wailing like this. Haven’t you lived for tens of thousands of years? Quick, search your archives. Think of something…”

The Shapeshifter looked equally drained, his amorphous form practically vibrating with stress. “This does not align with a hatchling’s basic instinct for concealment. I have scoured the collective network and found zero relevant experience from other Shapeshifters. I am currently in the process of urgently incubating a juvenile for live experimentation…”

A beat passed. He suddenly looked up again, his expression flat. “It failed. The new Shapeshifter hatchling appears to have been contaminated by your chaotic data. As soon as it opened its eyes, it didn’t cry or fuss; it merely pointed at another node in the Cluster and screamed, ‘Alien’.”

Tabo blinked. “…Skipping straight to fatherhood, are we?”

No, I told you to solve the problem, not spawn a second one!

Four entities who were usually all-powerful on the battlefield were now completely paralyzed by a wailing little girl. The Shapeshifter was nearly shattered into a puddle of quivering jelly by the sheer volume of the crying. He urged, “She wasn’t crying last time, but she started the exact moment she woke up this time. Think of a countermeasure, fast!”

A countermeasure? What countermeasure? The scientific method of controlled variables?

And so, little Amiya watched with wide, tear-filled eyes as two strange adults stared at her warily, treating her like an Originium explosive with a faulty timer. The older brother—the one whose voice she vaguely remembered before losing consciousness—cautiously drew a small tactical knife. With trembling hands, he sliced open his own wrist a fraction more, offering the bleeding limb to her like a peace offering!

Amiya stopped crying for a brief, stunned second. She stared up at his wrist, which was already scarred from where she had bitten him earlier. Her own tiny tooth marks were still visible on the blood scabs that hadn’t fully dried yet.

Amiya: “…”

Amiya: “—Waaaaahhhhh!!!”

She cried even more tragically, the sound echoing through the desolate ruins.

The Shapeshifter was utterly dumbfounded. He had always prided himself on perfectly mimicking human behavior, but he never expected to meet someone whose social skills were this catastrophically broken.

“Stop it! In our historical records, this method of communication is extremely rare. Do you truly possess zero experience interacting with human larvae of this age?”

Only actions even less human than the Shapeshifter’s could force the ancient Sarkaz entity to sound like the reasonable one in the room.

“—How exactly did you interact with eight or nine-year-old children back in Babel?” the Shapeshifter demanded.

“The problem is, usually I just deploy floor spikes and toxic gas grenades!” Tabo argued defensively. “Children have smaller hitboxes and are closer to the ground, so they get submerged in the AoE much more thoroughly!”

“Is that what I am asking?! Do you possess even a fundamental understanding of what it means to be a decent person?!”

“…Heat control? You guys have that kind of tactical hobby too?”

For a long, agonizing moment, the entire Shapeshifter Cluster fell into a state of absolute paralysis. Across their collective consciousness, a single memory began to loop repeatedly: Theresis’s glowing endorsement of the Doctor.

Just a few days ago, Theresis had returned to the Royal Court, his face flushed with uncharacteristic excitement as he addressed the Sarkaz elites. “I have found the beacon that will guide our direction!”

After delivering a ten-minute passionate speech expressing his deep admiration for the “true visionary,” the “like-minded ally,” and the “reformer destined to stir up a terrifying storm,” the Regent had concluded with absolute solemnity:

“Therefore, he will be our heaven-sent ally. A back that is forever worth entrusting. Who among you will go and build a rapport with him?”

Theresis, the Shapeshifter thought numbly, do the Sarkaz truly want to entrust their backs to a Terra-native Hannibal Lecter? Should we perhaps reconsider this alliance?

He knew that those fanatical Doctor-sycophants who praised the man with a straight face were the absolute worst; not a single word out of their mouths could be trusted!

…Maybe we should just let her cry for a while. She’ll run out of stamina and quiet down eventually.

After a period of highly tense, entirely unproductive communication, the two useless men—dragging each other down into a spiral of incompetence—exchanged looks of deep despair.

The Shapeshifter signaled with his eyes: You’re the useless man. I am a collective entity, not a man.

Tabo’s face twisted in frustration. Don’t suddenly get pedantic about pronouns at a time like this! What’s the difference between this and reading a web novel for hundreds of chapters, only to suddenly find a typo in a name and going back to change every single instance of that character?!

Suddenly, the Shapeshifter’s eyes lit up. Just a few hundred kilometers away, his sensory network captured a distinct biological signal. An adult, female Cautus.

Adult. Female. Cautus!

Just hearing those three words carried a maternal authority that made the hearts of these one-and-a-half desperate men flutter with hope.

Half an hour later.

Atrocity, who had just been passing by with her heavy engineering hammer, paused.

Was she seeing things? She had just stepped out of her camp, and a devastatingly handsome white-haired man—who happened to perfectly match her ideal type—had practically dropped from the sky holding a crying child, begging her to teach him how to soothe a baby.

Had her grand-uncle’s aggressive matchmaking methods evolved into hiring crisis actors for scripted performances?

“Was she just stimulated by something? A child this young might have witnessed a tragedy that left a severe psychological shadow, leading to temporary aphasia, blurred memory, and communication barriers.”

Despite her professional, clinical assessment, Atrocity responsibly and carefully took the child into her arms. Moving with practiced grace, she warmed a pot of beast milk and softly hummed a traditional Cautus nursery rhyme. Within minutes, the magic worked. Amiya quieted down, her breathing evening out as she fell back into a peaceful dreamland.

The handsome white-haired youth scratched his head, offering a sheepish, highly calculated smile. Tabo had specifically pulled back his heavy tactical hood and adjusted his custom appearance just to leave a flawless first impression—or at the very least, to avoid being shot on sight as a wandering bandit.

Now, it seemed the visual effect was critically effective.

“I found this child in the ruins of a mining disaster. There was no one else left alive in that collapsed sector… You know, things like this aren’t rare in Rembpit.” The youth smoothly presented a set of forged identification papers and his travel luggage. “I’m just a wandering traveler heading to the nearest mobile city. Meeting her was purely an accident.”

Atrocity nodded softly. In the harsh lands of Rembpit, the Cautus mostly lived in tight-knit communities. Regardless of blood relation, taking in orphaned children was a tragically common occurrence.

But a young traveler who was both this handsome and this incredibly kind-hearted…

The youth offered another shy smile, his narrow, light-gray eyes perfectly reflecting her image. Atrocity swallowed hard, her heart skipping a beat. “What a coincidence… I have an engineering project to build houses in that exact direction. Why don’t we travel together?”

The youth’s face lit up with pleasant surprise. He crinkled the corners of his eyes, radiating warmth, and proactively extended his hand. “What a coincidence indeed! Then I’ll have to trouble you for the journey. My name is Manfred, and he is Ascalon.”

Shapeshifter: “…?”

Atrocity reached out, wiping her hand hard on her heavy coat to make absolutely sure it was clean of grease, before placing it gently into the youth’s palm. “It’s no trouble at all. My name is Charlotte.”

She smiled warmly. “You’ve come at the perfect time. I’ve also baked some fresh carrot pies. Would you like to try some?”

The white-haired youth nodded with a bright smile, gently picking up the sleeping Amiya, and followed Atrocity toward her warm tent. Trailing silently behind them was the Shapeshifter, who kept muttering in a low, bewildered voice, “So… physical appearances can be weaponized like this.”

You: “…Pah! This custom-skin tryhard thinks he’s got all the moves!”

0325 nodded in deep, cynical agreement. “Indeed. The Shapeshifter has a thousand forms, but he’s taking way too much advantage of his customized face. Fortunately, I am the one who truly understands the human heart better.”

—This guy is so shameless!

Just as the tragedy of you scolding yourself was about to repeat in the mental chatroom, Atrocity brought over a plate of piping hot, perfectly baked carrot pies. The rich, sweet aroma hit Tabo’s senses. Instantly, you and 0325 reached a tacit, unspoken truce. Both internal voices simultaneously projected forward, each placing a metaphorical hand on Tabo’s shoulder from either side.

You carry the social pressure yourself, buddy. But when it comes to tasting those carrot pies, we are absolutely not missing out!

[Rhodes’s Note:

Enjoying the operation so far, Doctor?

(This daily grind literally pays the landship’s rent! 🙇‍♂️):

Massive thanks for reading and supporting the operation!]