-48- The Mechanical Kingdom

Lowering the car window, Yvette sat in the driver's seat, gazing quietly at the puppet girl standing slightly below. Her dark red eyes held neither sorrow nor joy, nor any intention of giving a response.

For a moment, an awkward silence hung in the air. The puppet girl waited a beat, then spoke again with a slightly unpolished tone, "Um... kind lady, could you please give me a ride?"

"Answer me a few questions, and I will agree." Yvette's voice was cold and steady, betraying no emotion.

Her silence just now had actually been an attempt to hack the girl, but unexpectedly, the girl possessed no receiving ports. Whether they were disabled or broken, they did not afford Yvette an opportunity to breach her system.

That left only verbal communication. She had no idea what attitude this mechanical puppet—which seemingly possessed self-awareness—held toward humans.

"Okay," the puppet girl nodded readily.

"Where are the human survivors?" Yvette asked.

"Humans? Weren't they extinct a long time ago? Where would there be any survivors?" The puppet girl looked puzzled. "Didn't you know this?"

"I was previously on a very remote island, completely isolated from the world," Yvette chose to tell a partial truth.

"I see." The puppet girl believed her without a shred of doubt.

Observing the puppet girl's natural expression, Yvette narrowed her eyes, unable to tell whether the other party was exceptionally skilled at hiding her emotions or simply hadn't noticed that a living person was right in front of her.

She decided to test her further: "What do you think I am?"

"Another robot, of course," the puppet girl replied matter-of-factly, even carrying a hint of "does that even need to be asked?"

"Don't you think I look a lot like a human?"

"Aren't you pretty much like me?" The puppet girl tilted her head, studying Yvette closely for a few moments before saying, "Well, you do look a bit like one. How amazing! I wish I could look that much like one too."

Judging by her tone, looking like a human was actually a good thing? Yvette felt a flicker of doubt in her heart, but she had no intention of admitting it directly.

It seemed that the mechanical puppets were currently forging a brand-new civilization; exposing her human identity would only invite unnecessary trouble.

She asked again, "Why are you called the Machine Clan? And what about the name mechanical puppets?"

"Isn't that our ancient designation?" The puppet girl tilted her head to the other side in confusion. "Call it whatever you like."

"You said you came from the Silver Mirror Continent. How did you cross the ocean?"

"I prayed to the gods at the sanctuary, and the gods commanded the emissaries of the Rending Sky Kingdom to send me to the Black Tide Continent."

"Gods... which one?"

"The great God of Machines, of course. How could you not even know this? Have you never received an oracle?" A note of skepticism crept into the puppet girl's tone.

"...The island where I was is much too remote."

"Oh, you poor, pitiful lady." A touch of pity entered the puppet girl's voice. "It doesn't matter, though. With my help, you will soon return to the embrace of the gods."

"...Next question, introduce yourself."

"My name is Ice Rain. I am a citizen of the Vault Kingdom and a free traveler."

"The Vault Kingdom? Is that your country?"

"Yes." Ice Rain nodded.

"Are there other countries?"

"As far as I currently know, there are only the Black Tide Kingdom, the Cinder Trace Kingdom, and the Rending Sky Kingdom. This is my first time leaving the Silver Mirror Continent, so I don't know much about other places."

Hearing this, Yvette fell silent, plunging into deep thought.

The Black Tide Kingdom, the Cinder Trace Kingdom, the Rending Sky Kingdom, alongside the Vault Kingdom to which this puppet girl named Ice Rain belonged—these names clearly derived from the origin civilization's Black Tide Corporation, Cinder Trace Chemicals, Rending Sky Group, and Vault Technology.

Unlike the other four megacorporations, these four entities all had business operations involving mechanical puppets, magitech combat androids, or mind cores, with Vault Technology and Rending Sky Group being the strongest, followed by Black Tide Corporation and Cinder Trace Chemicals.

Could it be that after the apocalypse, the mechanical puppets left behind by the four megacorporations developed sentience over the long passage of time and constructed social bonds through their respective manufacturing companies?

In a sense, was this the "national identity" of the Machine Clan?

Wait, it might not necessarily have been after the apocalypse...

Suddenly, Yvette recalled that more than two hundred years ago, during her second exploration of the abyss base, she had seen maintenance logs left behind in the server room files, which clearly recorded that the abyss base's primary control AI, the Firefly Core, had displayed a "living" side.

In other words, instances of artificial intelligence awakening had already existed before the apocalypse!

At the time, she had suspected that the Firefly Core had mutated, but now it seemed it might truly have developed self-awareness!

Under these conditions, given that mutation factors were known to infect machinery during the apocalypse, how had these mechanical puppets managed to weather the end of the world and survive smoothly to the present day?

Was it purely luck? Coincidence?

Or perhaps, as the ultimate winners, the Machine Clan had also played some subtle role in the course of humanity's apocalypse?

...

"Hey, beautiful and kind-hearted lady, do you have any more questions?" Seeing Yvette sitting in the car with her brows tightly locked and an expression of deep contemplation, the puppet girl could not help waving her hand after waiting for several minutes.

Rousing from her musings, Yvette glanced at Ice Rain and said, "Get in the car."

"Oh! Thank you, kind friend." Ice Rain immediately climbed in, not even forgetting to fasten her seatbelt in the passenger seat.

Guided by Ice Rain, the RV started up and drove slowly in a certain direction. After advancing about two kilometers, Yvette spotted a small vehicle parked by the side of the abandoned highway.

It was a motorcycle, looking weather-beaten and covered in welding marks and patches—clearly the pieced-together product of countless discarded parts.

Although Yvette could have directly recharged the motorcycle's energy storage panels and repaired its degraded elements, she had no desire to reveal that ability. Instead, she let Ice Rain tie the motorcycle onto the roof of the RV herself.

Then she returned to the driver's seat and asked, "What is this sanctuary you mentioned? Where is it?"

"It's the place where we pray to the great God of Machines for help and guidance. Every kingdom has one," Ice Rain replied matter-of-factly. "I prayed before coming to the Black Tide Continent, and the gods said there is a kingdom nearby in this region, so I can go there for resupply as soon as I land. It's just south of the 'Ruins of Akasha City'."

"A kingdom... how many citizens does it usually have?"

"I don't know. Our Vault Kingdom has quite a few people, over a thousand," Ice Rain shook her head and said. "The other kingdoms have very few. Some only have two or three hundred people. But I don't know much about the Black Tide Continent; I only know there are believers of the gods here too, probably just a few hundred souls."

A thousand-plus? Two or three hundred?

Yvette was somewhat surprised. During her conversation just now, she had imagined the mechanical kingdoms as a rising silicon-based civilization established in the wasteland. Give them a little development time, and they would immediately sweep away mutated organisms and march into the cosmos...

And yet, a kingdom only had this many people? How was this any different from a village?

No, wasn't this actually worse than a village?

...

Driving the RV toward the nearest mechanical kingdom, they traveled about four or five miles before the silhouette of a small town composed of broken walls emerged on the horizon ahead. Among these abandoned structures, some slowly moving figures gradually became visible.

As they drew closer, they could clearly see that those shuffling figures were, without exception, crude, aging puppets. Their shells were covered in welding scars and riveted patches, magitech wires exposed in twisted snarls, their heavy energy storage panels rusted, and their joints emitting an unbearable, creaking groan. Every step radiated the sluggishness and exhaustion of something on the verge of total collapse.

"Hello, may I ask where this is?" Yvette remained in the driver's seat without rushing out, watching as Ice Rain eagerly hopped down to greet them.

Soon, an old puppet with a cracked outer shell and spiderweb-like fractures spreading across its lens approached, speaking happily through an old loudspeaker: "This is the Akasha Branch of the Black Tide Kingdom. Welcome, travelers from afar."

Sure enough, puppets bearing the Black Tide Corporation logo would use that as a bond to connect with one another, Yvette thought. She wondered if brand discrimination might arise from this—for instance, whether puppets bearing the brands of the four megacorporations were considered more noble, while off-brand puppets from small and medium enterprises were subjected to bullying.

Seeing that the number of puppets in this mechanical kingdom was also small—amounting to only a few dozen—and that their attitude was quite amicable, she judged the danger level to be low and stepped out of the car as well.

To her astonishment, the moment her feet touched the ground, she noticed that the gazes of all the puppets locked onto her firmly, unmoving, as if drawn by a magnet.