C-137 Rick

"You..."

"What are you doing here?"

When Morty stood among the rows of pews in the church and saw a blood-covered Rick with half an octopus face limp inside, supported by a priest whose eyes were filled with reverence.

The two of them discovered each other.

Then fell silent.

It was not until that Rick sat down that he spoke again. "I'm AI Cthulhu Rick. That Cthulhu Rick came back early and caught me off guard. I could only run for my life."

Morty still had no grasp of how time passed in this world, so when he asked how many days ago this had happened.

AI Rick told him it had been two weeks ago.

I was only gone for less than three minutes, and two weeks passed here?

Isn't this time flow way too terrifying?

Wouldn't thirty minutes over there mean twenty weeks passing here?

No wonder Rick, someone with so little patience, had just casually sent me over.

If I messed around here for two weeks, it would only be two or three minutes to him.

Teaching me a lesson in the time it took to drink a glass of wine was completely acceptable to him.

After silently being startled by this, Morty asked whether there were any details he needed to know about what had happened between AI Rick and Rick.

At the mention of that.

Although AI Rick had only had a body for two weeks, and had spent 99% of that time running for his life, he truly was an AI created in Rick's own image.

His bearing and mannerisms were exactly like Rick's.

"What's a Morty asking about all that useless crap for?"

"Huh? Your Rick isn't here?"

"Then hurry up and find me some..."

Hey! Hearing this guy ordering him around, Morty's temper flared up.

It was one thing when his own Rick ordered him to do things.

But this knockoff Rick, an AI turned flesh and blood, had the nerve to order him around without even knowing his place?

Morty had been worrying about how to get genuinely useful knowledge about Cthulhu World.

Then he remembered that this guy had previously been able to teach him how to make an Incubation Cocoon. Could he perhaps also deal with Cthylla's child?

So, AI Rick, who had been sitting on a pew to rest, originally wanted to tilt his head back and look at the ceiling, but the look in the brat beside him's eyes.

Made him deeply uncomfortable.

That intense feeling of being meat on a chopping block gradually made him frown.

"What are you trying to do? I'm warning you..."

"Shut the hell up!!!"

Morty slapped AI Rick hard across the face, then grabbed him by the collar, saying that he either told him how to kill Cthylla's child.

Or he could die right now!

Faced with the threat of a little Morty, AI Rick's smile was full of mockery.

But he soon could not smile anymore.

Morty opened the Book of Eibon, the magic book used to communicate with the various Cthulhu monsters, to Cthulhu's page.

"Do you want to talk things over with me first, or meet Cthulhu directly?"

AI Rick panicked.

He was actually very familiar with that Cthulhu.

But not familiar in the friendly sense.

They were familiar in the sense that they had a terrible relationship.

Given how many times Rick had stirred up trouble in this world, if AI Rick met Cthulhu...

After all, those monsters—or rather, gods.

Were not physical lifeforms to begin with. They had plenty of ways to torment a substitute like him.

So, faced with the tragic story about to unfold.

AI Rick wisely chose to lower his head.

Couldn't mess with him! Couldn't mess with him!

Seeing AI Rick behave himself.

Morty began asking how to deal with Cthylla's child, and while he was at it~

Could you teach me a tiny bit more useful stuff too?

"I can teach you all of it, but most skills in Cthulhu World simply can't be used without Cthulhu and the others around."

"Take Words of Madness, for example. To use that spell that disrupts an enemy's mind, you have to borrow power from those gods."

"Once you leave this universe and enter a world where they don't exist, you'd be better off doing an embarrassing dance for your enemy on the spot. Maybe they'd be willing to leave you an intact corpse."

Morty: "..."

Looking at AI Rick, who had yielded but still had to show off his sharp tongue, Morty held back the urge to hit him, buried his disappointment, and continued focusing on the matter at hand.

Can't use them without Cthulhu? No problem!

I'll learn them first!

Then I'll figure out how to modify them later!

Thus, the two spent an afternoon in the church.

But a true nightmare also arrived.

To brew a Magic Potion capable of killing Cthylla's child, they needed nearly hundreds of ingredients, on top of master-level alchemy skills.

With AI Rick around, brewing the potion was not a problem.

Gathering those ingredients, however, would be difficult!

At the farthest, he would have to go all the way to Cthulhu's home planet, Sothoth Star, to collect every ingredient.

But that was no big deal!

Get to it, AI Rick!

After kicking AI Rick into the spaceship he had built, Morty accepted the priest's invitation to enjoy a delicious dinner at his home.

As for whether AI Rick would run away.

Morty was not worried.

Because at the moment, the only person who could keep AI Rick alive was Morty.

After all, even without knowing that the Portal Gun was on Morty, he knew Rick would not just abandon this Morty.

So if he got the job done.

When Rick arrived, he would have a chance to leave together with them.

Otherwise, if Rick got ruthless and built some kind of tracker or a massive warship.

AI Rick would basically be done for too.

While the two went their separate ways.

Rick was drinking with Rick and talking about life.

"Burp~ You came over to my place, so why couldn't you give me a heads-up? I thought someone from the Thirteen Council had tracked me down."

"Burp~ You know Ricks don't have a habit of sending messages. Burp~ Besides, that Rick from Dimension C-137 only stopped killing a few years ago. I didn't want him suspecting me."

"Yeah... C-137 Rick, that lunatic."

At the mention of C-137 Rick.

Rick's mood for drinking grew heavy. He looked at Rick beside him and asked in a strange tone, "Why did you Shadow Group people have to put him through all that? You drove him into becoming this way. Nearly ten thousand Ricks died. What was the point?"

"There was never any point in doing that. Keeping all of us Ricks alive was the only thing that mattered." Rick gave an answer that left Rick silent with one short sentence.

After another round of drinks, Rick stood up, preparing to return to Cthulhu World.

Before opening a portal, he turned back and asked, "What you people do to C-137 Rick isn't my business, and I have no desire to mess with you. But you threw your Morty into my world. How am I supposed to help you?"

"Just like C-137 Rick, I'm going to force this one-of-a-kind Morty into becoming the Mortiest Morty!"

Hearing that, Rick, who stood where he was, shuddered uncontrollably.

Because Rick's words.

Meant that what awaited this Morty would be a fate much like C-137's.

Everyone knew C-137 Rick was the Rickest Rick.

But few people knew that when one climbed toward becoming the strongest, not everything faced on the way to the summit was simply fate.

Like the bomb thrown before C-137's wife and daughter.

And that so-called Central Finite Curve.

Some people became number one without even realizing it.

But others were powerful enough to choose to remain an iceberg in the sea.

"You Shadow Group people really are a bunch of freaks!"

"Isn't it wonderful, the feeling of controlling everything?"

Sitting on the leather sofa, half of Rick's face smiled smugly in the sunlight, while the other half, hidden in shadow, was like an iceberg.