Elegy from Another World

The Ringbelt's engines roared as if overloaded, finally breaking free from the viscous data quagmire and entering a relatively calm void. The alarms gradually subsided, but the atmosphere on the bridge remained heavy.

I looked out of the observation window of the isolation chamber and, after confirming that it was temporarily safe, I deactivated the purification procedure. The door slid open, and I stepped out, still smelling of disinfectant gas, and... a few newly blooming, pristine white flowers. They grew quietly on the skin of my neck and arms, emitting a faint glow and a delicate fragrance.

"Ah!" Mia Leili flapped her wings and flew closer, her large blue-green eyes curiously examining the flowers. "Miss Liscia, why are there flowers blooming on you?"

I looked down, smiled helplessly, and explained simply, "It's a strange constitution. When it gets wet with clean water, these white flowers bloom; if it gets stained with blood, they bloom red. Strange, isn't it?"

"Incredible..." Mia Leili circled me, her small face full of researcher's excitement. "This seems to be some kind of highly complex biological coding and energy manifestation phenomenon! If you have time, could I study your body? I promise I won't hurt you!"

Looking into her large, inquisitive eyes, I nodded: "Okay, let's talk about it after we've dealt with the immediate issue."

We found a relatively stable location and anchored, waiting for Noriljung. Xiao Pei indicated his positioning signal was rapidly approaching. About fifteen minutes later, a rapidly approaching black dot appeared outside the porthole—it was Noriljung. He landed heavily on the docking platform of the Ringbelt, seemingly dragging something in his hand.

The airtight hatch opened, and Noreljohn strode in with heavy steps, casually tossing the "thing" onto the floor with a dull thud.

"Look, this is the core of that land." His scarlet electronic eyes swept over us, his tone carrying a hint of smug satisfaction at completing the hunt.

Only then did we see what it was—a bizarrely shaped "humanoid" creature. Its "hair" was composed of countless tiny, still slightly wriggling sundew tentacles; where the eyes and mouth should have been were two tightly closed small Venus flytrap leaves and a larger, gaping Venus flytrap "mouth"; most horrifying was its abdomen, which was completely open, revealing a huge Venus flytrap leaf. The leaf was hollow inside, and countless tiny, sand-like data units could be seen slowly suspending and flowing within it. It seemed that it had previously concealed itself within this sand to disguise itself as land.

"Be gentle! It hurts!" The "core" actually made a clear, tearful girlish voice, and the Venus flytrap leaves on its abdomen opened and closed slightly because of the pain.

Yisen and I were both stunned. I crouched down, looking at this strange creature: "So you can talk?"

"Of course!" it (or she) replied irritably, its voice filled with grievance and anger. "You intruders! Not only did you ruin my disguise, but you also released that monster! Do you even know the enormity of the mess you've made?!"

Wait, this is a lot of information. I raised my hand, signaling her to calm down: "We haven't figured out the situation yet. Attacking you was wrong of us, but you attacked us first. Can you explain who you are? What is 'that monster'? What exactly happened?"

Under my persistent questioning, the daemon, who called itself M-Tini Guquela, began to explain intermittently.

She is a guardian created by God, whose sole purpose is to guard and suppress an extremely dangerous abandoned worm virus called R-Muteko, preventing it from escaping this quarantine zone and devouring the entire T-917 world. She relies on preying on data streams that occasionally stray into this place, such as us, to maintain the energy needed to seal the barrier.

Yi Sen frowned: "Even if it's for protection, they can't just attack us without knowing the facts!"

M-Tini Guquela retorted confidently: "To maintain the necessary energy, capturing intruders is the most efficient way! This is the optimal solution written into my core logic!"

"What a ruthless daemon," I sighed, though I could understand its crude and simplistic AI logic. I showed her the image of the "Deep Encoding Interventionist" provided by Mia Reilly. "We came here to find this device. Do you know where it is?"

M-Tini Guquela looked at the image, the sand in his abdomen churning: "This? It was swallowed by R-Mutko a long time ago! Just when it tried to break the seal last time!"

"What?" My heart sank. "It swallowed it? Does that mean we have to deal with that R-Muthko to get the equipment?"

Mia Leili's face turned deathly pale, and her wings drooped: "No! We can't beat them! R-Muteko was abandoned because it was explicitly marked as 'unrecoverable and extremely dangerous' by the 'upper echelons'! It has almost unlimited devouring and regeneration abilities, and conventional methods simply cannot completely destroy it! M-Tini Guquera was created specifically to guard it, just like... just like your Zoymem who guards the dragon eggs, whose duty is to seal and suppress it."

I keenly grasped the message in her words: "Mia, how do you know so much about R-Muthko?"

Mia Leili flinched and whispered, "Because... before M-Tini Guquera was created, Dr. Scranton's research team was ordered to try to destroy R-Muteko... As a result, our entire team was almost wiped out, and only I managed to escape... I still have nightmares when I see those insect-like structures..." Her voice was filled with obvious fear.

Norrelljohn's electronic eye turned to her: "So you didn't bring the equipment back with you?"

"Back then, it was a miracle that I survived R-Mutko's pursuit! I didn't care about equipment at all!" Mia Reilly retorted excitedly.

Okay, the clues have come full circle. The equipment is inside the monster's stomach, and the monster is extremely dangerous. It seems like we're stuck in a vicious cycle.

"It seems that to get the equipment, we'll have to face that R-Muteko no matter what," I mused, then suddenly remembered something. "By the way, Mia, there should still be some of R-Muteko's remaining limbs that were cleaned off my body in the waste disposal unit of the isolation pod. You can take them and study them to see if you can find any weaknesses."

Mia Reilly flew to a control panel, retrieved the data from the isolation pod, and stared at the writhing, struggling data fragments on the screen, her face contorted in frustration: "This...this is too difficult..."

"I know it's difficult," I encouraged, "but we have to try. Even finding just a tiny pattern or characteristic could be crucial to our next steps."

Mia Reilly looked at our expectant eyes, then at the unsettling wreckage on the screen, and finally gritted her teeth, her wings straightening again: "Alright... I'll give it a try!"