Chapter 271 Chapter 271: The Commander's Duty
Sinking into the deep sea, a feeling of submergence swept over his entire body, and after a brief darkness, Renji's vision cleared, and he found himself back in the blood-red world of the tainted old era.
Entering Dream Zero for the second time, Renji now had much more experience than he did at first, especially since this time he came prepared, bringing with him the brand that could "log in to the main account."
Renji did not rush to use the brand to summon the *Bright Leftover Woman*, thinking what if it had a time limit? It was safest to wait until he was in front of the witch to use it.
Another thing, Renji hadn't forgotten the agreement with "Control Number One(CN. 1)", He had 86 determine their location, and then the cool sea-blue motorcycle came online again. Renji sped towards the coordinates where he had logged off last time.
Since both logins were through the Black Fire Gang's dream anchors, the coordinates weren't far apart. When Renji arrived, to his delight, he could see a team of machine servants wandering and patrolling the area from afar.
"It has to be the soldiers from Cn. One," Renji thought with relief.
He had been genuinely worried that the machine servants might have disappeared or something might have happened to them.
It's not that Control Number One could help with the upcoming battle, but after knowing the identities and experiences of these machine servants, Renji didn't want to see them get hurt again.
"Control Number One!"
Riding the motorcycle from a distance, Renji waved to the leading "control machine" despite having only been three days apart, Renji quite missed this first machine servant he had encountered.
*Buzz buzz!*
The motorcycle below him deliberately grunted twice, as if protesting. Renji quickly patted the motorcycle's head a few times, saying 86 was the first, and the motorcycle calmed down.
Twenty meters, fifteen meters, ten meters.
Renji's happy expression gradually faded because he noticed something was off. Control Number One did not respond to his wave, and even seemed to ignore him completely, only turning its head to look at him coldly after he crossed a certain safety distance.
[Detecting abnormal approach, conducting target scan... Scan complete, confirming target identity as... unauthorized dream entrant]
[Warning, please do not approach further]
[Warning, for your own safety, it is recommended that you immediately disconnect from the dream]
[Warning....]
[Warn....]
Finally, the machine servant displayed signs of overload, unable to find an answer, and for the first time, actively asked Renji a question.
[Control Number One? The system cannot retrieve any related vocabulary. Is this my code?]
"It's not a code; it's your name."
[Name?]
"See, you've even forgotten your own name and still say you're not malfunctioning."
[But Control Number One just performed a self-check, and all components and systems are normal] The machine servant unconsciously accepted the setting of 'Control Number One' but was still a bit hesitant about Renji's words.
But Renji found this amusing.
"Control Number One, let me ask you, what is a malfunction? It's something you can't detect yourself, that's what a malfunction is. It's like our human amnesia. If you remember everything, can it still be called amnesia?"
"If you don't believe me, ask your counterpart next to you, 86, am I right?"
After Renji spoke, the machine servant looked at 86, and 86 obediently nodded to her theoretically younger sisters.
[Confirmed tone. We are all the commander's home-serve machines, ah, control machines]
86, as a counterpart, obviously had a great deal of persuasive power in front of Control Number One. Seeing her counterpart confirm it, Control Number One fully believed the fact of her malfunction and thus accepted the setting of Renji as the "commander"
The combination of Control Number One and the commander was online again, and this time, Renji did not use any external cheat methods like "inserting a USB".
Instead, it was more like a bad uncle deceiving a naive little girl.
But.
'This seems to further prove that Control Number One really is different now, something more, perhaps called humanity, or maybe... heart?'
[Commander, I don't think we have the power to subdue the witch. For commander's safety, Control Number One requests you to terminate the action. Your duty is to command us in battle; you need not go to the frontline]
Seeing the machine servant actually concerned about him, Renji smiled and then, on a whim, placed his hand on Control Number One's head, rubbing it as he spoke:
"Do you think the title of commander is just for you to call me by without reason?"
"A mere witch, for the great me, is easy to annihilate."
"Lastly, Control Number One, I need to correct one more mistake for you. My duty as a commander is not to command you in battle but to ensure that one day, you no longer need to fight."