Without My Cheat, I'm the Biggest BUG!

Chisaki's fingertip hovered above the tablet; the latest log entry didn't continue to be scrolled through.

That striking number remained suspended in the center of the screen. Chisa had moved behind Dania, her hand resting on the scabbard, while Sigelica also pulled Encore and the two sheep half a step to the side.

Maintaining a safe distance, Dania, holding a bowl of coral porridge that had just been refilled, hesitated to put down her spoon. She first looked at the screen, then looked down to check her bowl, and finally cast a pleading look at Zhou Yu.

"Xiao Yu, did it include my second bowl in the calculation?"

"If the system can't even recognize a bowl, this place should have applied for a shutdown for maintenance long ago."

Zhou Yu placed the peeled peanuts next to her bowl, then reached out and flipped Chisaki's tablet screen face down onto the table, temporarily obscuring the two lines of the log. Dania's tightly bound shoulders loosened slightly.

Aalto twirled the teacup in her hand and gestured with her chin toward the side door of the restaurant.

"It's not normal for the log to redirect on its own. If you're full, I'll take you downstairs to take a look."

"I've only eaten three pieces of bread; I'm still one proper meal away from being full."

Despite grumbling, Zhou Yu pushed his chair back, left the canvas bag at Dania's feet, took off his old-fashioned digital watch from his wrist, thought for a moment, and stuffed it into the innermost part of the bag.

Sigelica immediately stared at his wrist.

"You don't even bring that crappy watch, what are you planning to use to exploit loopholes when problems arise?"

"Don't include editing tools in read-only checks, otherwise the client might easily charge us for repairs if a problem occurs."

Zhou Yu bent down to wipe the porridge stains from Dania's mouth and then pushed the whole basket of seashell bread in front of her.

"You stay here and continue eating. I'll go downstairs and check the system logs."

"If I'm not back in more than two hours, have Chisa go to the core area and urge her to leave work."

Chisa gripped the scabbard, and the bell on her sword rang softly.

"If they don't release them, I'll bring the door back with me."

Aalto, who had just reached the side door, paused upon hearing this. His gaze seemed to hold a hint of consideration for the lock's cost. Without saying anything more, he swiped his hand to open the elevator platform leading to the underground.

As the platform descends along the black rock wall, the restaurant lights quickly disappear overhead, and the surroundings are quiet, devoid of any mechanical noise.

Only the dark blue data streams fell along the rock face, occasionally coalescing into the outlines of whales and birds, before scattering into points of light before Zhou Yu could reach out.

Aalto leaned against the edge of the platform, flipping the game coins between her fingers.

"You left the digital watch on there because you were worried your abilities would interfere with Tethys?"

"I'm mainly worried you'll use equipment conflicts as an excuse to refuse reimbursement, and I also want to see how much I can actually see without tools."

When the platform descended to the lowest level, the rock wall in front of them silently parted. Behind the door, instead of the usual machine room, there was a deep blue space with no end in sight, and a star map slowly flowed beneath their feet.

Countless points of light trailed thin paths, merging along the transparent ground into the distant main computing core. With each step, the stars beneath their feet parted to the side, only to regroup once the soles of their shoes had left.

After walking a few meters, Zhou Yu suddenly slowed down. In the lower right corner of the complete star map, there were several irregular dark spots that had not completely disappeared.

It was covered by an extremely thin layer of data, which bulged outwards every ten seconds or so, expanding and contracting, sticking to the back of the star map.

Zhou Yu didn't touch his empty wrist, but only followed the movement of the dark spots with his eyes. When the third pulse spread, he pursed his lips. He was all too familiar with this mis-beat pause. It was the same sound that guy Aleph One made every time he tried to squeeze into the communication frequency.

Aalto, who had already walked ahead, noticed that the footsteps behind her had disappeared, so she turned around to look at where Zhou Yu was standing.

"Most people who come here can only see a complete star map. Can you see the dark spots that are obscured?"

"Seven pieces on the right, and three more on the left."

Zhou Yu pointed to one of the pieces.

"That spot was especially active, like a long-time customer who'd been bothering me for ages."

Aalto stopped playing the game coin between his fingers. He didn't ask who the old customer was, but walked back to the edge of the star map and followed Zhou Yu's gaze to the blue light that looked completely normal to him.

"Tethys didn't grant you access to the hidden layer, and you didn't use any external devices."

"It seems you saw all this not because of that digital watch."

I crouched down to observe the Zhou Yu with its recent dark spots, my fingertips hovering above the star chart, but not actually falling.

"Does your system pretend the faults don't exist by covering them up?"

"At least it can prevent ordinary visitors from having wild thoughts."

Aalto stepped over the dark spot, her tone still relaxed.

"In these archipelagos, there's not much difference between data and physical entities, especially closer to the main computing core. Whatever you think, that thing can come true."

Zhou Yu immediately raised her head, her expression unusually serious.

"Then I want Dania's food intake to be halved."

"That's unlikely to happen; her appetite is beyond Tethys's control."

Aalto answered extremely quickly, and the distant star map flashed briefly, but did not generate any response to the statement.

Zhou Yu stood up, patted her floral shorts, and looked disgusted.

"If the system can't even control its appetite, how dare you call it a world-class computing core in your marketing?"

"At least this means she won't be easily disposed of by Tethys, which should be good news for you."

Aalto flicked the game coin again and led Zhou Yu closer to the core. The further they went, the clearer the dark spots pulsated, and their frequency gradually caught up with their pace.

The main computing core, suspended in the deep blue space, is a giant sphere with real-time data from the entire archipelago flowing across its surface. Zhou Yu just stepped into the observation ring.

The ten dark spots behind him stopped simultaneously. The next moment, they stopped pulsating according to their original cycle and instead began to mimic his heartbeat in unison.

Aalto paused in his action of catching the game coin. The confident smile on his face vanished completely for the first time, and a line of black characters that should have been hidden appeared at the bottom of the star map.

[Same underlying access language detected.]