Nobita's Time Heist

"Alright, alright, Suneo, calm down." Nobita quickly pulled him back to prevent him from turning the atmosphere into a scientific research seminar. In particular, if it really turned into that, with Nobita's limited knowledge, he probably wouldn't understand a single word. "Anyway, what Suneo means is that the Hydra we see might have been created by this rock, right?"

"There have been similar examples before, haven't there?" Fat Tiger said, resting his chin on his hand as he recalled, "Couldn't a flat necklace hanging around the neck summon a colossus?"

"That's 3D projection, isn't it?" Shizuka remarked. "Although it's also a kind of cutting-edge technology..."

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

"that……"

"Isn't it the Philosopher's Stone?"

In a corner where no one was paying attention, a weak voice spoke slowly.

Chapter 18: The Scavenger

Asur remained huddled in the corner of the life raft, barely eating and not participating in Nobita's conversation. Out of concern, Shizuka gave her a few skewers of grilled green pepper and chicken, but she didn't touch them, leaving the plate in front of her untouched. It was unclear whether the little girl was truly not hungry at all.

At that moment, her abrupt remark immediately drew everyone's attention. Asur shrank back, glancing around nervously, as if regretting her sudden outburst.

“The Philosopher’s Stone…isn’t that the alchemical creation Newton was pursuing?” Suneo roughly calculated the time and said in surprise, “That’s not right, it’s still hundreds of years before he was born.”

"What are you talking about, Suneo?" Fat Tiger was completely baffled. However, even with his almost constant slumber during history class, he knew one thing: "Isn't Newton a scientist, the one who got hit on the head by an apple? Why would he bother with such supernatural things?"

“Well, these two things don’t conflict, Gouda. The foundation of basic science and the pursuit of mysticism in his later years are actually the same person. People are very complex and changeable.” Dekisugi continued to play the role of a living encyclopedia. “But actually, the concept of the ‘Philosopher’s Stone’ was not first proposed by Newton. As early as the eighth century AD, an Arab Yemeni man derived a unique substance in mysticism based on Aristotle’s theory of the four elements.”

"So, it was this stone that created the Hydra?"

"This……"

Dekisugi hesitated at this clearly unscientific conclusion. Fortunately, his worldview was extremely broad, and he didn't get bogged down in a pedant. Instead, he further explained, "According to the mainstream medieval mysticism, the so-called Philosopher's Stone is a manifestation of pure 'spirit' in the material world. So, assuming that it can endow matter with spirit and give it the energy to move, it seems plausible... right?"

……

"Asur isn't your real name, is it?"

While everyone was engaged in a lively discussion, Nobita used just one sentence to draw everyone's attention back to the little girl. She thought she could get away with it and was trying to subtly diminish her presence when she was suddenly called out, which startled her so much that she almost jumped up.

This is, after all, a vast ocean; even if you wanted to escape, you wouldn't know where to go.

"Everyone has their own unspeakable difficulties, and I understand that, of course. But..."

Nobita carefully organized his words, trying his best to soften his tone. However, when it came to Doraemon's innocence, no matter how he tried to hide it, the aggressive feeling deep in his words could not be washed away.

His companions were all quite surprised to see this side of him, who was usually such a nice guy, for the first time. Shizuka looked at him with a hint of worry in her eyes.

"You and this ship really don't fit in."

Da Xiong squatted down, and his gaze behind his glasses gradually sharpened. This was one of the few times he truly showed his sharpness in front of others.

"It might be complicated to explain, but... this ship, and everyone on board, is extremely important, and we absolutely cannot allow any unstable factors to emerge."

"Please tell us the truth, who exactly are you?"

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

"A scavenger???"

Fat Tiger scratched his head, finding it hard to reconcile the image of this delicate-looking girl with the three words, and couldn't help but ask, "It's the 22nd century, how can there still be homeless people?"

The girl, who claimed to be from the 22nd century, hugged her knees with both hands. After revealing her identity, her posture became less tense, and her tone became more helpless. "Every era is different. Technology is advanced, but people still control society. In any dynasty, a minority always owns the majority of resources. It's just that the form is different."

"but……"

Asur then changed the subject, saying, "Thanks to technological advancements, even scavengers can still have basic food and clothing, and won't starve to death like people used to."

"Trading antiques from different eras and then selling them in the future... Judging from the description, your job is more like tomb raiding." Xiaofu's perspective was quite unique. "You're from the 22nd century. To you, the owners of those 'antiques' are all dead, right? Isn't this just taking things from the dead and then selling them to the living?"

"Suneo..." Shizuka called out to him with a hint of reproach. Although the result was correct, the process was abrupt, so the words didn't sound quite right.

“I’m more curious about something else than that,” Dekisugi asked. “Since we can travel through time, the value of ‘antiques’ must be infinitely reduced, right? I could travel back to the Edo period, exchange food for some currency with the locals, bury it somewhere, and then dig it up at the coordinates when I get back. These coins have indeed been weathered by time and are antiques in a broad sense.”

"That's true, but the market won't disappear. It's obvious that the kind of behavior you're describing is prohibited by the Spacetime Law..."

Asur sighed, looking utterly dejected. "It's precisely because it's prohibited that this business can continue. We usually choose items that have the least possible connection to the course of history to bring back, so as not to attract the attention of the Time Police. It's kind of an unwritten rule."

She pointed to the clamshell box on the table. "My last stop was 500 AD. I traded for a whole bunch of Merlin's relics, including a stone that looks very similar to this, only not as red. The manuscript says it's the 'Stone of Philosophy,' and I guess it's one of the prototypes for the Philosopher's Stone. If I could sell it on the black market, it would be worth at least..."

As she spoke, the girl's eyebrows drooped, and she let out another loud sigh, as if she had given up all hope for her life.

"There's no point in saying all this now... Waaah... My time machine has flipped."

Asur shook his head, his expression a mix of laughter and tears. "Super cheap goods bought on the black market are as fragile as paper in the face of the turbulent flow of time."

"Time distortion?" Nobita caught the key phrase, his eyebrows rising slightly. "You encountered it too?"

"I've never encountered anything this big before! It ripped the outer wall of my time machine off. I was worried about what would happen if I was transported to the ancient times before humans even existed. Luckily..."

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

A scavenger who hunts for secondhand goods is accidentally thrown into a storage room on the Santa Maria after experiencing a once-in-a-millennium time turbulence.

Unless she had a god-like perspective, she couldn't possibly know where her ship was headed; the vast ocean cut off all information. She could only deduce from the very fact that the ship was probably somewhere in the Middle Ages.

Language barrier, cultural difference, nothing works.

All she could do was hide herself as best she could, wait for the ship to dock, and then make her plans.

Perhaps she had already realized that Nobita and his friends didn't belong to this era, but since she herself was involved in petty theft and illegal activities, she certainly wouldn't want to make it public unless absolutely necessary. Furthermore, since she claimed to be there to investigate the Dragon Disease, Asur mistook Nobita for a Time Police officer. In her panic, she could only pretend to be a survivor from the large ship, but ultimately, she couldn't fool him.

At this point, all the doubts seem to have been answered.

but……

Nobita still felt vaguely strange, as if something was blocking his way, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it.

Why this inexplicable sense of familiarity when we've just met?

Chapter Nineteen: The Mysterious Ideal Country

Slurp... Slurp...

The dimly lit room felt spacious. Under the bright light of the large screen, a figure sat resolutely, holding a steaming bowl of instant noodles. His eyes were glued to the screen, he didn't even blink. He would occasionally shovel a few mouthfuls of noodles into his mouth. Judging from this scene, he wasn't much different from any other internet-addicted teenager.

"drop--!"

He always preferred this simple and clear notification sound; one beep meant that the thirty-two information locks at the door had been authorized to open. The ceiling instantly lit up, causing him to frown in disgust, his pupils shrinking as he readjusted to the bright light.

"...When you're alone, you don't even want to turn on the lights?" A hoarse and deep male voice came, with a hint of sarcasm. "If others saw this, they would think that our Time and Space Management Institute is short of funds. The Dean, a dignified man, can't even afford to turn on the lights in his own office, and can only eat this kind of unhealthy junk food."

"I don't like too many distractions when I'm thinking, especially at times like this, with the lights on, as if I'm exposing my strategy to the enemy."

Akao put down his instant noodles and glared at the newcomer with dead fish eyes. "If I remember correctly, you should be leading the research on the large-scale model of this spacetime collapse right now. Why do you have time to come here to me...?"

"Captain Silver?"

The nickname clearly carried a mixed connotation, and Silver chuckled inexplicably, his fingers fiddling with the floral collar of his red tuxedo. He limped over and sat down next to Akio, saying to himself, "My boy has been quite well taken care of by you lately. He's still completely unaware of your identity as 'Dean'..."

"Did you deliberately send him to assign tasks to Nobita and the others?"

“Floch is a very righteous young man, completely different from you,” Akahiro said without any mercy. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.”

"and……"

"Despite repeated limitations with conventional methods, it was ultimately proven that this was not a mistake."

Akio tapped the table, his gaze returning to the large screen—Dao and his group had already landed on a piece of land and were using the Time Wrap to drape the half-dragons one by one.

"Since it's incurable, why not just turn back time to before he got the disease?" Silver looked at Nobita's face in the picture, tilted his head slightly, and a smile appeared on his usually gloomy face. "As expected of him, he's still as unbelievable as ever."

"As long as we turn all the crew members back into humans, then use the memory disk to erase their memories of the past few days and fill in the appropriate content, everything will be back on track. Columbus will still discover the New World, just as everyone remembers it."

"The remaining problem is simply to turn the Santa Maria back into its original form... Such a small matter can be easily accomplished with our current technology. Activate hyperspace support, deploy the assembled sailboat, and mission accomplished!"

Akio's gaze focused on the big screen, where Nobita was talking to Suneo with his head down, his expression calm and composed, showing the demeanor of a leader.

However, the slender figure that flashed by in the scene made Akio's lips curl into a smile.

"What do you think?"

"What do you mean, 'how do you see it'?" Silver asked with a knowing smile. "Do you think of me as a crime consultant?"

……

"Okay, okay, stop looking at me like that."

After a brief eye contact, he conceded defeat and said in a deep voice, "As far as I know, the scavengers do exist. Unlike the dragon hunters, they have always been very discreet, engaging in low-cost business and only acting in ways that minimize the impact on spacetime stability. If you have to say, they are not really an organization; they are almost all scattered individuals. The cost of arresting them is too high, and the benefits are too small, so they have never been considered a primary target."

"On the way back from exchanging old items, we encountered a spacetime turbulence and were just thrown onto the Santa Maria. It sounds far-fetched, but from a purely probabilistic point of view, I think it's possible."

"Possibly." Following those words, Akahiro took two more large bites of noodles. "It's possible..."

"There's something wrong with this person."

"What about the evidence?" Silver wasn't surprised by his startling assertion. "No matter what kind of police department you're in, you need evidence to convict someone."

"No, it's just a gut feeling, but I'm certain there's something wrong with her. There are no coincidences without a reason in this world. Besides..."

On the screen, Asur's ten slender fingers were always intertwined, and she was huddled behind the crowd, only revealing half of her body, making it difficult to see her expression.

"The spacetime tsunami has not stopped."

He waved his hand, temporarily shrinking the view of Nobita and his friends' actions, and instead projecting a tree diagram with curves onto the large screen. Centered on a golden horizontal axis, the winding curves were growing wildly outwards, exceeding the normal area, spreading endlessly like splashed ink.

A glaring bright red line marked a 42.89% figure in the center of the projection, and this doomsday-like number was still rising.

"Has the timeline dispersion already reached this high?" Silver's smile vanished. This number felt like a countdown to the apocalypse, weighing heavily on everyone's minds. "Once it exceeds 75%, it will be completely irreversible."

"Just as we initially suspected, the Santa Maria was a decoy, designed to lure us into making a move. Even though Columbus discovered the New World, the timeline still didn't close, and there were other bombs planted in different eras."

“At a time like this, you’re still holding back, betting everything on your eighteen-year-old ancestor… In a way, I admire you for that.” Silver brushed a stray hair from his forehead, his tone laced with sarcasm. “Even if he once saved the world, he’s still just an eighteen-year-old kid.”

……

"save the world?"

Akio slowly turned his head and said in an extremely deep voice, word by word, "Do you think that the mission we are carrying out is just this kind of old-fashioned plot that Hollywood movies have made to death every year?"

Silver's expression changed slightly, but he said nothing.

"This is just the beginning, Captain. The enemy's motives, methods, and knowledge are far superior to what we imagined. In today's world, there are very few organizations that can truly rival the Spacetime Management Institute. In fact, it's not difficult to deduce their identities using the process of elimination."

"They want to shape the future into an ideal world that belongs only to them."

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

"What are your plans next? Go back to the 22nd century?"

On the way back, the time tunnel was noticeably more stable. While setting the parameters, Nobita asked, "If it's on the way, I can..."

"Let me ask you something quietly..." Asur suddenly lowered his voice and asked mysteriously, "Do you have any connection with the Time Police?"

"What do you mean by that?" Fat Tiger thought seriously for a few seconds before finally saying in a serious tone, "They basically only show up after we've finished dealing with things. It always feels like we're working for them."

"This time too! Except for the last one, the Santa Maria, which they dropped, we handled everything else. The dragons tore our own ships apart!" Xiaofu was even more indignant. "They did all the work, they should be paying us."

Dekisugi smoothed things over, saying, "Well, alright, alright. Floch said on the phone that we'd compensate for the damaged 'Nobi,' and Columbus eventually discovered the New World, just as history records. Overall, it's a good ending."

"Right, Nobi-kun?"

……

Unlike others, Da Xiong did not answer immediately. Instead, he stared silently at the flickering dashboard, his expression uncertain.

Author's message

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

The author plans to try and climb the click charts tonight. This genre might be a bit difficult to achieve, but I'll do my best anyway...

Tonight at 00:10, the author will be releasing ten consecutive chapters. If possible, I hope you can support me and contribute some clicks. The better the results, the greater the motivation to continue writing!

Thank you so much everyone!!

Chapter Twenty: The Spacetime Tsunami

"Nobita?"

It was Shizuka who was so effective; with just a gentle word, she brought him back to his senses. Nobita then realized he hadn't been able to keep up, and scratched his head sheepishly, "Sorry, Sugi, I was a little..."