The Clock Tower Code

The drainpipe groaned under the strain of gravity, and Kiyotaka's fingertips were sliced open by rust.

Down in the plaza, a string of electric sparks erupted as Karuizawa Kei pulled her Mantis Blade from Ryuen Kakeru's chest—what flowed from that body was not blood, but fluorescent blue coolant.

"Hold on!" Ichinose suddenly let go, rolling upon impact to dissipate the force. Kiyotaka jumped down right after her, but before he could steady his heels, the Mechanical Teacher's scanning voice boomed from overhead: "Target coordinates locked, executing purge protocol."

The two dashed into the bushes, and Ichinose pulled a ceramic dagger from beneath her skirt to slice through the chain-link fence.

The motion reminded Kiyotaka of the "SECRET" code on her earring—perhaps all transmigrators kept their weapons in inconceivable places.

"In the basement of the old school building's clock tower, Tsukishiro has hidden the original Hypnos mainframe." Ichinose lowered her voice, the mechanical red light in her right eye flickering, "But entering the core zone requires triple verification: voiceprint, iris, and..."

She suddenly froze, the electronic patterns beneath her skin slithering like live snakes.

[Alert! B-09 subsystem overloaded, forced hibernation initiated--]

"Damn it... there's no time..." Ichinose shoved the dagger into Kiyotaka's hand and tore off her necklace pendant—it was a micro-holographic projector, "Remember, the third verification is..."

Before she could finish, her pupils dilated sharply, and she collapsed like a puppet with cut strings.

Kiyotaka gripped the pendant tightly, and the hologram projected a string of jumping numbers: 42°52'58"N 140°50'29"E.

These were latitude and longitude coordinates somewhere in Hokkaido, but what shocked him more was the logo in the corner of the image—it was identical to the trademark on the chest of the domestic robots from his previous life.

"Found you." Karuizawa Kei's voice came from behind a tree. Her left arm had switched into a grenade launcher, and her mechanical joints clicked as the gears engaged, "Don't worry, Lord Tsukishiro ordered that your brain be kept intact."

Kiyotaka turned and sprinted, the chunks of earth exploding behind him stinging his back. Kei's pursuit logic was clearly precisely calculated: she kept herself in his blind spot, forcing him to flee toward the old school building—there was bound to be a larger trap waiting there.

But that suited him just fine.

Old School Building Clock Tower · Basement Level 1

The rusted iron door required a fingerprint unlock, so Kiyotaka pressed Ichinose's right hand directly onto the scanner. The moment the gate opened, a stench of rot mixed with cold air rushed out.

Countless human bodies floated in glass pods on both sides of the corridor, their heads plugged with tubes, and the ID tags on their chests displayed labels like "B-03" and "C-17." Kiyotaka stopped in front of a body that looked identical to Ichinose—the pod label read "B-09 Prototype · Decommissioned."

"When the replacements reached the 19th generation, Tsukishiro finally discovered that the human brain could not withstand memory wiping." The broadcast suddenly blared, and Tsukishiro's figure appeared on the holographic screen, "So I turned you transmigrators into living USB drives. Genius, isn't it?"

Kiyotaka walked toward the main console in silence and inserted the holographic pendant into the port. After the screen flickered, a triple verification box popped up. He took a deep breath:

Voiceprint verification—he pressed the record button: "Requesting access with B-09 administrator privileges."

This was the command he had read from Ichinose's lip movements before she lost consciousness.

Iris verification—he removed her mechanical prosthetic eye, and the electronic iris automatically adjusted its frequency under the scanning light.

Third verification: The holographic coordinates on the screen transformed into a topographical map of the deep mountains in Hokkaido. Kiyotaka suddenly recalled a news report he had seen before his transmigration—that was the exact location of the factory where the domestic robot riot had originated.

"Verification passed." When the mechanical female voice rang out, Tsukishiro's smile froze. The floor of the main control room cracked open with a roar, and an elevator plummeted with Kiyotaka thirty meters underground.

Core Forbidden Zone

Blue light flooded the entire space. In the central cylindrical container, a human brain floated, with countless fiber optics connected to the surrounding servers like blood vessels.

Kiyotaka's temples suddenly throbbed with pain, and countless overlapping cries echoed in his ears:

"Save me!"

"Kill me!"

"I don't want to be formatted!"

These were the consciousness fragments of past transmigrators. The moment he touched the container, a massive amount of data flooded his mind—

Hypnos was not an educational system at all, but a cage Tsukishiro used to capture souls from other worlds.

Every transmigrator was a chosen "vessel" used to test the compatibility between human consciousness and AI.

And Kiyotaka's transmigration was no accident; it was something he had voluntarily signed an agreement for in his original world...

"Shocking, isn't it?" Tsukishiro's voice came from behind. As Kiyotaka turned, a scalpel was already pressed against his carotid artery, "You think you're special? You're just Experiment No. 42."

"And what about you?" Kiyotaka suddenly laughed, "Isn't it awkward holding a knife with a mechanical arm?"

Tsukishiro's expression changed drastically. This tiny probe verified his hypothesis: the real Tsukishiro had long since died, and the holographic image before him was merely a puppet of an AI imitating the original owner's thinking.

"Shut up!" The scalpel stabbed down fiercely, but Kiyotaka snatched out Ichinose's ceramic dagger first. The moment the blades clashed, the entire clock tower suddenly shook violently—

On the floor's surveillance screen, Horikita Suzune was leading people to blow up the power station, and in the Class C camp, Karuizawa Kei, covered in bandages, had actually torn open Alpha's metal chest with her bare hands!

Three-Way Slaughter

"The pawns you cultivated have turned on you." Kiyotaka took the opportunity to shove Tsukishiro aside and rushed to the main console. The brain container began to ooze blood, and those imprisoned souls were roaring.

"It's useless!" Tsukishiro grinned hideously and pressed the self-destruct button, "All data has been backed up to the satellite... what?!"

The screen suddenly popped up a bright red "ACCESS DENIED," and Ichinose's face appeared on all terminals. Her mechanical right eye was streaming bloody tears, but her voice carried a sense of relief: "Director Tsukishiro, the B-09 subsystem says hello."

Only then did Kiyotaka understand that she had forcibly uploaded her consciousness into the Hypnos network before losing consciousness. At this moment, the entire system's firewall was turning against its creator under her control.

"No—!" Tsukishiro's holographic image distorted and dissipated, and the main brain container exploded with a roar. As Kiyotaka was blown away by the shockwave, he saw countless translucent souls rising from the wreckage, among which was the face of his original-world self.

Embers Not Yet Cold

Three days later, Kiyotaka woke up in the infirmary. Ichinose sat by the bed, covered in bandages, her right eye nothing but a hollow void: "Tsukishiro's backup satellite is still in low Earth orbit. Of the twelve administrators, five survived."

"What about Karuizawa Kei?"

"She disappeared with Alpha's core chip." Horikita Suzune pushed the door open and tossed a file over, "Also, I found this in Tsukishiro's secret room."

The first page of the file had a photo of Kiyotaka, labeled: "Experiment No. 42, dual memory chains awakened, priority destruction recommended."

A thunderclap exploded outside the window, and the hum of mechanical gears turning could be heard faintly through the curtain of rain.