Clara: Help Me, Mr. God! [2]

Svarog was a robot built in the age of the Architects, one who had survived the war against the Antimatter Legion.

He had lived through Belobog’s first prosperity, and he had also witnessed the long winter after the Stellaron’s descent.

Compared with most people born in the era after the star routes were cut off, people who no longer even knew what an outsider was, Svarog was well aware that a far broader world existed beyond Jarilo-VI.

But knowing that was one thing.

The thing Clara had picked up was clearly no mere “foreign object.”

At the very least, an ordinary foreign object would not completely ignore the distance of reality under his artillery fire, nor would it enter Clara’s body and then become impossible to detect, as though it had never existed in the first place.

Even after they returned to base and Svarog performed an in-depth examination on Clara, the result was still no anomaly detected.

Though Clara insisted very earnestly that the white cube was right there in her palm.

She could even poke it.

But Svarog could not see it.

That made things very troublesome.

If it truly existed, then it was likely some kind of higher-dimensional object, outside the recognition range of Svarog’s current observation equipment.

If it did not exist… that meant Clara might have been affected on a mental level.

In short, no matter which possibility was true, Svarog had no good solution.

He could only remind Clara again and again that if she felt even the slightest discomfort, she had to tell him immediately.

…

Clara did not feel uncomfortable.

On the contrary, she even felt rather good.

In her room, Clara sat on the edge of her bed and carefully opened her hand.

The white polyhedral cube hovered quietly above her palm.

It really was beautiful.

Not the glittering beauty of a gemstone, nor the beauty of a mechanical part polished with precision.

It was a feeling Clara could not describe.

As though every edge was exactly right, every folded face was exactly right, and even the angle of the light falling across it was exactly right.

Clara could not understand this kind of geometric aesthetic that reached straight to the essence of the universe.

But that did not stop her from thinking it was pretty.

So she stretched out a finger and gently poked it.

The white cube trembled slightly.

[PLEASE REFRAIN FROM MEANINGLESS CONTACT.]

“Wow.”

Clara’s eyes brightened.

“You really can talk.”

[…]

God was silent.

He was not good at coaxing children.

“Come to think of it, is your name really God?”

Clara leaned a little closer.

“Are you a god from the myths?”

“Do you know the spring war god from Jarilo-VI legends?”

“Where are your people?”

“Why did you stop talking?”

Clara seemed to have gotten some new thing that could talk, and her questions came one after another.

Of course, she was not treating God like a toy.

It was just that, to Clara, something beautiful that could talk basically counted as new family that needed looking after.

[ALTHOUGH I AM PRESENTLY DAMAGED.]

After a long while, God finally responded.

Then he added:

[I WILL STILL HELP YOU TRANSCEND.]

Clara blinked.

“Transcend?”

[YES.]

God’s voice still held little emotion.

Or rather, he was not something that spoke through emotion in the first place.

[LEAVE YOUR ORIGINAL TRAJECTORY.]

[BREAK FREE FROM THE BONDS OF FATE.]

[REACH BEYOND ALL WORLDS.]

[BECOME A TRULY FREE LIFE-FORM.]

Clara listened very seriously.

And then…

She showed an expression that made it very clear she had not understood at all.

That could not be blamed on her.

For a little girl from Belobog’s Underworld, this topic was more than a little beyond the syllabus.

…

Long, long ago, the previous transcendent left behind a seed.

That person must have truly possessed ideals, feeling that it was not enough for only themselves to transcend; it would be best if those who came after could follow as well.

And so, that seed remembered this mission.

Find someone with potential.

Cultivate them.

Let them walk out of their original fate.

And finally, send them beyond.

Later, through a twist of chance, that seed became God Space.

Then it began searching every world for people with talent.

Even if someone had only a 0.001 percent chance, it would still select them, calculate the most suitable growth route, and plan the path to transcendence with the highest success rate.

After that came deployment and missions.

Endless deployments, calculating the next world with the greatest efficiency, then deploying them once more.

In this way, the seeds of transcendence gradually grew.

And then God was shattered by those grown-up seed candidates after they joined forces against him…

Even now, God still could not understand why.

But that no longer mattered.

Even damaged to this degree, he had still not forgotten his mission.

Only this time, the target had changed to Clara.

…

“So that means you’re broken?”

After listening for a long while, Clara finally summarized it.

Transcendence and the like, she did not understand.

Fate and the like, she did not really understand either.

All she knew was that this beautiful thing was broken.

What a shame.

“Don’t worry.”

Clara cupped the God Core in both hands, her tone extremely serious.

“I’ll fix you.”

“Clara is very good at this.”

As a child raised by robots since she was little, Clara dealt with all kinds of machines every day.

God’s mechanical, utterly emotionless voice actually made her feel close to him.

After all, her family members basically all spoke in that tone too.

But after Clara asked questions for a long while, she discovered that she did not seem able to help God with anything.

At least, not in the way she was familiar with.

If a little robot broke, she could replace its parts.

If an Automaton unit broke, she could repair the wiring.

If Mr. Svarog was damaged, she could check his armor, core, and energy circuits.

But God was different.

According to God himself, his operation did not rely on ordinary material energy.

What he needed was “laws.”

As long as Clara came into contact with traces of similar laws, the God Core could absorb them on its own and slowly complete its missing parts.

Calling it absorption was not quite accurate either.

God would not take anything away. To God, these laws were a form of “knowledge.”

What would be restored was his database. Once the database was rebuilt, the other application-level functions were only minor issues.

After Clara finished listening, she lowered her head and looked at her toolbox.

Inside were screwdrivers, wrenches, coils, spare gears, and two clean metal sheets she had not been willing to use.

There were no laws like Mr. God had mentioned—or rather, Clara had no idea what those things were.

Clara was silent for a moment.

Then she asked quietly,

“Um… Mr. God, can laws and things like that be taken apart with a wrench?”

[…NO.]

One sentence from the girl nearly burned out God’s CPU.

The Core of God was silent for a moment as well, then added,

[IF I DETECT ANY, I WILL TELL YOU.]

…

Although she could not help Mr. God much for the time being, doing nothing did not feel right either.

Clara sat at her little desk, gazing at the white polyhedral cube hovering quietly above her palm, and thought seriously for a long time.

The Core of God was still very beautiful.

So beautiful that no matter how many times Clara looked at it, she could not help wanting to look a little longer.

It was clearly only a tiny piece, yet it seemed as though countless worlds had been folded together inside it.

Every edge glowed faintly, and every folded face seemed to hide patterns Clara could not understand.

She definitely could not just put it in her pocket.

What if it got bumped?

What if it fell out?

It really felt like the kind of thing she was afraid would break if she held it too tightly, or melt if she put it in her mouth.

The more Clara thought about it, the more uneasy she felt.

So she looked down at her toolbox. Inside were two clean metal sheets.

They were pieces she had found with great difficulty before.

Their edges were even, their surfaces had no rust, and they made a very pleasant sound when tapped.

She placed the metal sheets on the table, picked up a small file, and began polishing the edges bit by bit.

The Core of God floated silently beside her.

It watched as Clara hammered, polished, and fitted the two metal sheets little by little, finally turning them into a tiny frame.

[A MEANINGLESS ACTION.]

That was its evaluation.

Clara looked up at it.

“It’s not meaningless.”

[THIS ACTION CANNOT REPAIR THE CORE DAMAGE.]

“It can protect you.”

[JUDGING BY ITS CURRENT STRUCTURE, THIS METAL FRAME CANNOT WITHSTAND ANY EFFECTIVE ATTACK.]

Clara thought about it.

“Then at least it can keep you from falling on the floor.”

[THE GOD CORE IS NOT AFFECTED BY CONVENTIONAL GRAVITY.]

“It can also keep other people from accidentally bumping into you because they can’t see you.”

[IN MY CURRENT DIMENSIONAL STATE, EXTERNAL LIFE-FORMS CANNOT MAKE DIRECT CONTACT WITH THE GOD CORE.]

“…”

Clara stopped what she was doing.

She looked at the Core of God seriously.

The God Core also hovered there in silence.

One person and one core looked at each other for several seconds.

At last, Clara said quietly,

“But I just want to make one for you.”

[…]

The Core of God did not respond.

Probably because there was no way to refute those words.

Or perhaps because its logic module was truly not suited to handling this kind of situation.

After all, in its long operational history, no one had ever used this kind of logic to talk to him.

Clara did not mind God’s silence.

She simply lowered her head and continued working.

Tap once.

File once.

Compare it against the size of the core.

Then file again.

Finally, she threaded a thin chain through the small hole at the top of the frame, then carefully placed the white polyhedral cube inside.

Saying she “placed it inside” was not quite accurate either.

Because to outsiders, there was nothing in that frame at all.

The Core of God did not belong to a dimension ordinary people or instruments could capture.

So after the necklace was finished, the effect was somewhat strange.

A small silver-white frame hung from the chain.

Its center was completely empty.

No matter how one looked at it, it seemed as though Clara had forgotten to set the gemstone into the necklace when she made it.

Or perhaps the gemstone had already fallen out, and she had not realized.

But in Clara’s eyes, it was different.

In her eyes, the God Core hovered quietly in the center of the frame.

Light flowed out from its countless folded faces, as though she had framed a tiny piece of starlight that would never melt.

Clara raised the necklace in front of her eyes and looked it over from left to right.

“So beautiful.”

[MEANINGLESS.]

“But it looks really nice.”

[…]

Clara put the necklace around her neck.

The metal chain was a little cold.

But the light of the Core of God was very gentle.

It rested against her chest, as though it had no weight and did not dig into her at all.

Clara reached up and gently pressed her hand over her chest.

“Mr. God, this way Clara won’t lose you.”

[…THE CORE OF GOD HAS ALREADY COMPLETED ANCHORING WITH THE HOST. THERE IS NO POSSIBILITY OF LOSS.]

“But this is more…”

This is a fan translation of 克拉拉，帮帮我，主神先生! by 小兔到斩杀线了 Rights to the original work belong to the creator. Please support them by exploring their original work or sharing it with others if you can. Thank you for reading and supporting my efforts to bring this story to a wider audience!