"Ms. Herta… are you sure you're all right?"
Inside the Herta Space Station, Asta stood frozen in place, watching in alarm as one of Herta's puppets spun its head in full circles.
Literally—its body remained still, while the head rotated like a gyroscope.
Thankfully, it was only one of the puppets.
If it had been the real Herta, Asta would already be calling for medical assistance.
Even a genius could die from that kind of neck twist!
The puppet suddenly stopped, then turned its unblinking gaze toward her.
After a pause, it began circling around her slowly, as if… studying her.
"Eh?"
Asta blinked.
Was she being inspected?
Did she spill coffee on her uniform again?
"Ahem. Asta, can you understand me?"
After a long silence, the puppet finally spoke—its tone oddly detached.
"Of course I can," Asta replied, still confused.
"I might not be a 'genius,' but I'm not stupid. I can understand plain speech just fine."
She had no idea what "Herta" was trying to do.
"Forget it," the puppet muttered. "Whether you understand or not doesn't really matter…"
It gave up on conversation entirely.
The truth was, the mind behind the puppet couldn't understand her anyway— he didn't have a Synesthetic Beacon to translate the local language.
Still, one thing was certain:
This really was the Herta Space Station.
Good. He'd achieved contact.
All that was left was to log the coordinates.
When long-range transfer became possible, he could pay a personal visit.
The puppet—driven by Su Ran—began wandering through the station's halls.
Asta, worried, followed behind.
The longer she watched, the stranger things became.
Why was Herta walking into dead ends?
How could the owner of the entire station… get lost?
And if the puppet was malfunctioning, why didn't "Herta" just switch to another body?
Something felt very wrong.
She quietly pulled out her communicator and sent a message.
Asta: Ms. Herta, are you currently on the Space Station?
Herta: [Auto-reply] "I'm busy and won't be in contact for a while."
Asta's heart sank.
So the real Herta wasn't online.
Then who—or what—was controlling this puppet?
The intruder eventually found Herta's personal office, a restricted area no one entered without her direct approval.
Yet the door slid open easily.
Well, of course it did—this was one of her puppets.
The security system didn't even question it.
The room was quiet, spotless— and contained another dormant Herta puppet.
"Mm… I really am gorgeous," the active puppet said, admiring the one inside.
Asta's eye twitched.
That vanity…
Okay, maybe it was Herta after all.
Su Ran—using the puppet—glanced around the office.
His attention landed on the glowing console at the back of the room.
The Simulated Universe.
It wasn't complete yet, but it was functional.
And as an outsider, he couldn't resist tinkering with it.
With a quick mental command, the puppet linked directly to the system.
The genius didn't care about rewriting Aeons— those were mysteries even he wouldn't touch— but adding new "monsters" or tweaking mechanics?
That, he could do.
He began typing lines of code.
Asta watched helplessly as "Herta" tampered with the sacred simulation.
He added a harmless white blob creature— no attack power, no defense, just a floating mascot.
An Easter egg, basically.
But if a player attacked it… the entire simulation would reset.
Then he added a random event—
"Chrono-Bomb: triggers timeline collapse, restarts the run."
Asta could only stare.
Should she stop her?
What if this wasn't Herta at all?
Before she could act, a gentle tap landed on her shoulder.
She turned— and froze.
The real Herta puppet that had been sitting idle in the corner… was now standing.
"Oh no…"
That meant the one modifying the simulation wasn't Herta.
Asta opened her mouth to shout, but the real Herta raised a finger to her lips.
"Shh."
The true genius had been observing quietly.
Whoever was hijacking her puppet wasn't sabotaging anything— in fact, they were fixing bugs.
And rather efficiently, at that.
If anything, this mysterious visitor was improving the Simulated Universe.
So Herta decided to let them continue.
For a while, it was fine.
Until the edits grew… excessive.
The data streams ballooned, entire planetary systems spawning in seconds.
Procedural galaxies, mechanical plagues, swarming insectoid civilizations— this was no longer "modding."
This was a full-scale cosmic rewrite.
"What in the…"
Even Herta was stunned.
She and three other geniuses had built this system together, and yet in half an hour, this stranger had done more than all of them combined.
The data didn't lie— the simulation's memory usage was skyrocketing.
Even Screwllum, monitoring from another terminal, sent a worried inquiry.
[Alert: anomalous expansion detected in the Simulated Universe.
Source: Herta-user authorization.]
They'd all noticed.
"Ms. Herta," Asta whispered nervously, "are you seriously just going to let them keep changing your Simulated Universe?!"
"Why not?" Herta replied dryly.
"They just recreated the Swarm Disaster and the Mechanical Crisis.
Saves me the effort."
Asta: "…"
It was true— the improvements were… impressive.
And Herta, for all her arrogance, wasn't above using another's work.
Still, when the simulation finally reached critical memory load, the intruder stopped typing.
"Your Simulated Universe has too many bugs," the hijacked puppet said flatly.
Herta crossed her arms.
"Who are you?"
Whoever could infiltrate her network, control one of her puppets, and alter her systems without tripping a single alarm— was dangerous.
If he hadn't been helpful, she would've already erased him.
"Anyway," the voice continued, "I don't have time to chat.
Still have to finish translating your language.
I'll log off for now— keep the puppet, I might come back later."
And with that, the puppet went still.
The room fell silent.
Only the hum of the servers remained.
Herta exhaled slowly.
"A self-learning intruder who improves my code…
Interesting."
Asta, pale and trembling, whispered:
"So… what now?"
Herta smiled faintly.
"Now?"
"Now I wait."
Her eyes gleamed with curiosity.
"Someone who fixes my bugs for free?"
"That's a kind of genius I wouldn't mind meeting."
~~--------------------------------------
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