MC Creative Mode: Wholesale Perpetual Motion Machine

Chapter 218 Small talk
"A witch...can talk?" Mami Tomoe was stunned as she stared at the square-faced witch before her who was actually speaking.

She subconsciously released her grip on the flintlock pistol, the weapon transforming into a yellow ribbon that quietly dissipated into the air, her face filled with disbelief and bewilderment.

"You...I..." Her fingers trembled as she pointed first at the blocky figure, then frantically at herself and her companions beside her. Her throat felt like it was blocked by something, and she couldn't utter a single word.

A nameless fear gripped her instantly.

Almost instinctively, she grabbed Kyubey on her shoulder, her voice trembling: "Kyubey! Didn't you say that witches and familiars are evil, that they are monsters that hunt humans? Why... why can he talk? How can he have intelligence?"

Her voice grew increasingly urgent: "If witches... if witches truly possess intelligence, then what about all those witches we... those witches we killed!"

Could it be that the witches she killed possessed intelligence? And she simply never realized it?
Just imagining that possibility made Mami Tomoe feel as if a cold hand was gripping her heart, and the suffocating sensation made her stomach churn, almost vomiting.

The pure light within her soul gem was veiled by a faint, unsettling turbidity due to the sudden panic.

However, Kyubey, the mysterious creature who saved her from the brink of death and made her a magical girl, remained silent for the first time ever.

It merely scratched its neck slowly with its hind legs, its signature blood-red pupils remaining motionless, watching the cube-shaped man's every move.

"Kyubi! ​​Answer me!" Mami Tomoe cried, shaking the furry creature violently.

This scene did not escape Sakura Kyoko's eyes, and her brows furrowed instantly.

Cupid, why have you suddenly stopped talking?
Since becoming a magical girl not long ago, and after meeting Mami Tomoe, she has noticed that Kyubey, a strange being, is always appearing and disappearing.

It was rarely around them, and they didn't know where it went.

Only when a witch is discovered to need to be eliminated, or when they have used the Seed of Grief to purify the Soul Gem and the filth has accumulated to a critical point, will they appear out of nowhere to announce the mission, or to collect the Seeds of Grief that have reached the critical point after being used.

Although he's not often seen, whenever he does appear, he's quite talkative and knows how to make Mami Tomoe happy.

It answered almost every question they asked immediately, without any hesitation.

But this time, it chose to remain silent.

Does this silence mean that Cupid is feeling guilty?
Witch...

They've been killing witches for so long, is there really some inside story they don't know?
A chill crept up Sakura Kyoko's back.

Without further hesitation, the ruby-like soul gem suddenly burst forth with dazzling light, consuming a large amount of magic power.

A giant, multi-sectioned spear, resembling a python, instantly materialized, its tip gleaming with a dangerous light, surrounding the three people, including the young Fang Zheng.

One of the gun tips was pointing at the cube-shaped figure opposite them, while the other was subtly wary of Kyubey on Mami's shoulder.

"Hey! Mami Tomoe, wake up!" Kyoko shouted sharply, "Being able to talk doesn't mean you're wise! Aren't we enough witches who can deceive humans with words? Don't be fooled by this one!"

She turned to the cube-shaped figure, raising the tip of her gun slightly, and said warily, "Be careful of magic defense! Don't let the witch's magic or words cloud your judgment!"

Seeing the cordon that was instantly set up, the blocky man nodded and said calmly, "Your vigilance is reasonable. My unusual appearance would indeed startle ordinary humans."

"This might be better." As soon as he finished speaking, he took out a pre-prepared ordinary human shell from his inventory and skillfully put it on.

Instead of choosing the hull of the World Sea warship, he used a product manufactured using the Big Bang as a "production line" during the testing of the creation formula.

A body almost indistinguishable from an ordinary person's, except that it has a miniature space bubble control room inside, which can accommodate himself and be controlled by voice commands.

"Huh? You bastard..." Young Fang Zheng stared blankly at the person who looked exactly like him who appeared in front of him. He then scratched his head, his face full of confusion: "Are you going to play some kind of 'clone' competition with me, some kind of melodramatic drama about 'who is the real Fang Zheng'?"

Fang Zheng simply smiled at him, spread his hands, and took a few steps forward without any defensiveness: "I know you won't believe me for a while. You can test me however you want, tie me up or attack me directly, it doesn't matter, I won't resist."

Almost simultaneously, Mami Tomoe's ribbon, Kyoko Sakura's multi-linked chain spear, and the boy Fang Zheng's ethereal runes rushed towards the cube-shaped man, each using their own methods to seal and restrict him as much as possible.

Only after the three men's expressions calmed down slightly, confirming that the other party would not immediately provoke danger, did Fang Kuai turn his attention back to the young man Fang Zheng and say in a calm tone, "To be honest, it wasn't me who imitated you, but... you who imitated me."

He paused for a moment: "Do you remember when your memories started to become disjointed? When was the first time you saw Mami Tomoe and Kyoko Sakura?"

“Oh,” the boy Fang Zheng scratched the back of his head, recalling, “I remember last night I was playing Minecraft in my hometown until midnight. When I woke up, I found myself lying in a small alley, and then I saw the two of them… and then this happened.”

The blocky man nodded and smiled, "Then let's compare our memories. I'll ask first, what's your grandmother's name? How much pocket money did she give you last night?"

The young man, Fang Zheng, answered almost immediately: "Grandma's name is Wu Xiaofang. Last night she gave me twenty yuan as pocket money, and also gave me two hundred yuan, saying that I should go to the banquet tomorrow to give as a gift."

"Hmm, very good." Fang Zheng nodded, indicating that it was the boy's turn. "It's your turn to ask me."

The young man, Fang Zheng, remained wary, staring at the man who looked exactly like him, yet was clearly different in some ways. His eyes darted across the other's face, his mind racing, trying to figure out what questions to ask to verify the man's identity. He finally asked, "..."

A moment later, under the watchful eyes of Mami Tomoe, Kyoko Sakura, and the silent Kyubey, after just two minutes of questioning and answering, the boy Fang Zheng's face seemed to have lost some color, and panic was visibly revealed: "You...you really have all my memories?! You remember them even more clearly than I do myself?"

He was starting to doubt his existence, muttering to himself, "Could it be... that I'm the clone?"

"Oh, right!"

"If I were a clone, should I do what's in anime and novels—try to kill you and steal Fang Zheng's identity? But I... I've never killed anyone before!"

In this brief exchange of questions and answers, the boy stumbled over many of the questions Fang Zheng posed, and sometimes couldn't answer them at all; but conversely, Fang Zheng was able to give accurate and flawless answers to every question the boy asked.

At first glance, the boy does indeed look like a fake.

Seeing the boy's panicked state, Fang Zheng said in a reassuring tone, "You're not exactly a fake. You are indeed Fang Zheng, a human Fang Zheng."

"However, human memory itself is vague and unclear. When recalling, the brain will always unconsciously fill in the gaps and make modifications."

"Currently, it seems that all your thoughts are being blocked by that thing called the Soul Gem. I cannot directly observe them, but you do possess most of the memories of the human Fang Zheng."

“As for me,” Fang Zheng shrugged, “you can think of me as a robot that has all of Fang Zheng’s memories. Under normal circumstances, a robot’s memories will not be wrong.”

The young man, Fang Zheng, was stunned. His eyes widened, and he asked anxiously, "Huh? What happened? Is it like the 'parallel travel' trope in novels, where my soul splits and scatters across different worlds?"

“Of course not.” Fang Zheng shook his head. “To be honest, the human ‘Fang Zheng’ doesn’t actually have a soul like the one in the novel.”

"Here's what happened..." He began to recount his experience, spending a few minutes telling the group a general account of his journey.

……

"Huh? I was just born? I was just an outer shell before?!" The boy's mouth gaped open, his eyes completely glazed over.

Even the soul gem embedded in his belt began to be covered with a faint layer of turbidity due to the overwhelming shock.

Mami Tomoe and Kyoko Sakura, who were listening nearby, looked at each other, completely bewildered.

This kind of setting, which sounds like a third-rate science fiction novel, or even somewhat magical, was too surreal and difficult for these two girls, who usually only read light novels and watched a few anime and TV dramas, to understand.

After Fang Zheng finished speaking, seeing that the boy was still in a petrified state, he spoke up at the right time: "By the way, 'Fang Zheng,' do you want to go home? If you're willing, I can grant your wish."

"Ah!" The boy suddenly came to his senses, pointing to his nose, "You can let me travel back in time, back to my original world?"

Fang Zheng shook his head, his tone calm: "That won't work. Because you don't have an 'original world' at all. Since it doesn't exist, even I can't take you back."

This world is quite strange. Even when in observer mode or surrounded by the World Sea Warship, Fang Zheng can still observe the outside world normally.

But when he switched from spectator mode back to 'creative mode', something they called 'witch barrier' naturally unfolded around Fang Zheng, enveloping them.

Just like the original World Sea Battleship, which was unable to unleash its extra power because it was unilaterally regarded as human, perhaps because the blocky man itself does not have a human appearance, it was not directly regarded as human, but was isolated from the outside world by a 'witch barrier' created by some phenomenon or existence.

Unlike the real Minecraft world, the things within this barrier, while having the same form, are limited in size.

Just like the chunk loading mechanism in the original Minecraft game, only a region centered on the square is loaded in real time, and anything outside this range will be loaded again at the other boundary.

This boundary line will be continuously refreshed with Fang Zheng as the center.

Wherever he moves, the loading boundary line follows.

Fang Zheng initially thought he had been banished back to the Minecraft world by some force. It wasn't until he activated spectator mode and broke free from some kind of lock that he discovered the existence of this rendering boundary line, and thus 'saw' the three of them.

“However,” Fang Zheng said, looking at the boy’s bewildered and disappointed expression, “Although I can’t take you back to that ‘original time and space’ that never existed, I can create a world that you are familiar with, but it will be missing you. Then I will put you in it.”

"You can continue your normal life inside. You can do whatever you want with your current 'superpowers'. If you want, I can even give you another 'World Sea Battleship' so you can experience your dream of cultivating immortality."

"Huh?" The boy was even more confused. He had received too much disruptive information in such a short time, leaving him completely bewildered. "Wait, wait, let me catch my breath... my brain isn't working properly..."

After saying that, he squatted down on the spot, propped his cheeks up with his hands, stared blankly, his mind completely blank, not knowing what to think at all.

Seeing this, Fang Zheng didn't urge them. Instead, he turned to Mami Tomoe and Kyoko Sakura beside him and asked gently, "What about you two? Do you have any wishes or anything? I wouldn't mind granting them for you."

(End of this chapter)