"Daddy, it's right here!"
Holding Mimi in his arms, Mr. Tachikawa pushed the door open under his daughter's enthusiastic direction, stepping into the small room.
But much to Mimi's surprise, the Digi-Egg she'd left quietly behind the door was nowhere to be seen.
"It really was right here, I'm not lying…"
Seeing her father's obvious "just as expected" expression, Mimi's lips instantly quivered, threatening tears, her face clearly declaring: If you dare accuse me of lying, I'll cry right now.
"Of course my Mimi isn't lying—how could my princess lie to Daddy?"
Faced with this situation, Mr. Tachikawa immediately chose the path of least resistance. In fact, he had long prepared an explanation for precisely this scenario.
As long as his beloved daughter didn't lie out of malice, Mr. Tachikawa preferred indulging in her fantasies rather than cruelly breaking them.
Children would have plenty of time to confront harsh reality when they grew up. Dreaming and fantasizing was a privilege exclusively reserved for their age.
"Judging from what I see here, the egg must've hatched, and now the strange creature inside has hidden somewhere."
Nodding seriously, Mr. Tachikawa watched Mimi's expression gradually shift from cloudy to sunny, silently praising his own quick thinking.
"Mimi, don't you think having breakfast together is much more important than finding that strange creature right now?"
"We're having delicious omelet rice today—plus the fried eggs you specifically asked for."
Hearing this, Mimi, who hadn't felt particularly hungry before, suddenly felt her stomach rumbling—she wanted fried eggs now.
"Since you believe me, Daddy, I'll listen to you this once."
Clutching her bunny plush tightly, Mimi's attention was successfully diverted, temporarily forgetting all about searching for that weird egg.
"But I don't want milk today. Daddy, you'll have to drink mine instead."
Mimi declared her daily pickiness, only to receive a playful grimace from her father.
"That won't do. A true princess would never be picky with food—or do you plan on becoming a dwarf someday?"
Quietly watching the Tachikawa father-and-daughter duo joking around until they finally left the room, Chen Ze—hidden beneath the bed—released a long-held breath.
Finally safe.
Through their brief conversation, Chen Ze roughly understood his current situation.
Compared to the worst-case scenario he had imagined, simply being spotted emerging from a computer by a little girl with princess syndrome was actually as good as it could possibly get.
Children might be among the most troublesome creatures on Earth, but their capacity for acceptance was also incomparable to ordinary adults.
If it had been a typical adult who found the Digi-Egg, their first instinct would likely have been panic—calling the police immediately, tossing the egg away, or locking it in a cage. None of those endings would've been good for him.
In contrast, Mimi casually bringing the Digi-Egg back to her bedroom and only telling her parents the next day was already Chen Ze's best-case scenario.
Now, his only question was: just how much had that little girl actually seen?
As Chen Ze pondered his next steps, his stomach timely made a loud rumbling noise—YukimiBotamon was hungry.
Alright, first order of business: find a way to fill my stomach.
Bouncing helplessly a few times, Chen Ze—now gradually adapting to this small, fluffy body—rolled out from beneath the bed.
Ideally, the family of three would soon leave for work and school, giving him the perfect chance to sneak out and scavenge for something to eat.
But before that, Chen Ze had another important matter to deal with.
Are those the eggshell fragments?
In a visual spectrum invisible to ordinary humans, the Digi-Egg fragments that had previously disintegrated into data hadn't truly disappeared. Instead, they still lingered around Chen Ze in a form resembling pure information.
This immediately triggered some speculation in Chen Ze's mind—certain things that had merely been settings in an anime could possess tangible, meaningful existence in this reality.
In theory, during the Fresh and In-Training stages, Digimon primarily focused on perfecting the evolution of their own bodies.
From Fresh forms possessing nothing but a head, evolving gradually into In-Training forms with primitive limbs, and then onward into Rookie-level forms with fully developed bodies.
Although these transformations were astounding, they remained within a range comprehensible to humans—essentially compressing millions of years of biological evolution into mere days or months.
However, once Digimon evolved beyond the Rookie stage into Champions, they would gain supernatural powers, abilities completely unimaginable to modern humans.
Even among Champions, stronger individuals could externalize their evolved data into weapons possessing extraordinary power.
Just look at the difference between Angemon and Deputymon—both Champion-level Digimon. Angemon wielded a formidable weapon called the "Holy Rod," while Deputymon merely had two ordinary revolvers, which were little more than decorations.
This gap was starkly evident, a clear demonstration of the disparity between powerful Champions, Ancient-species Digimon, and ordinary Digimon at this level.
Chen Ze originally believed this special ability to externalize weapons was something Digimon only developed after reaching Champion stage.
Yet now, he realized he'd misunderstood.
Casting aside his preconceived human notions, he recognized these external weapons were fundamentally extensions of the Digimon's own body, simply another manifestation of their data and evolution.
Certainly, Chen Ze acknowledged that there were anomalies among Digimon who sought to seize weapons from others, using them to greatly boost their own offensive or defensive capabilities.
But most Digimon weren't that ambitious; they simply wanted to evolve and grow stronger.
Once their evolution reached a certain limit, they naturally chose to externalize surplus data into other forms of power—this was the normal evolutionary path for Digimon.
However, prior to reaching Champion level, ordinary Digimon struggled just to meet their basic evolutionary needs, let alone trying to manifest specialized weapons.
Too bad there isn't much data left.
After realizing this, Chen Ze consciously began controlling the remaining data fragments circling around him. Yet, for a moment, he couldn't think clearly about what to transform this data into.
After all, typical Fresh-level Digimon wouldn't think so deeply; they'd instinctively transform leftover data into something comforting—like a cradle or a toy.
In fact, this instinct was precisely why the Digital World's Primary Village was filled with toys and cradles scattered everywhere.
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T/N:
Hey everyone, thanks for reading. If you're enjoying the translation, dropping some Powerstones would really help out your hardworking translator (100 stones = 1 bonus chapter, 200 = 2 chapters, and so on—easy math, right?).
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