In a brightly lit room illuminated by multiple screens, a young woman wearing a bunny suit was watching the videos being replayed constantly.

They were captured during Noah's fight against the Time Devouring Crocodile. The footage offered a mixture of clear, high-quality videos and more low-quality, blurry ones that were recorded in higher frames to accommodate the blistering speeds that Noah moved with during the battle.

One of her screens showed discussions and opinions on the videos from people watching them throughout the Milky Way galaxy in Uninet.

Indeed, people's curiosity and desire for fame could hardly be quenched. After the passengers realized that there was some hope for living through this disaster – thanks to Noah of course – many of them took out their communicators and started recording the fight.

In the various streams she was now observing, she could see hundreds of thousands of viewers eagerly dissecting every millisecond of the fight. After all, the Uninet covered the entire galaxy. The current number of viewers was relatively low, even on the scale of a planet, but was steadily growing over time. She knew that at least a few billion people across the Milky Way would soon be watching the videos and know Noah’s name by heart. His popularity was really about to skyrocket.

[Proposition: My lady. Should we erase the recording now? Reasoning: There is no advantage in exposing such a treasure in recent times.]

Next to the young woman, a small puppet seemingly made out of wood moved its body like a stringed puppet and spoke. Its eyes were red and it had the appearance of a small little boy.

“There is no need for that. But even if we wanted to, there’s no way we could do something like that. We already have our agreement with the Empire. Affecting their Uninet on such a large scale would be no different from provocation at this point.”

The talking puppet stayed silent for a short while.

[Question: The war against the empire was not impossible to win. The Anti-Life Equation was almost deciphered. Why did Father stop?]

The woman’s eyes shot up at the puppet’s words. “You are questioning his decision, now? Interesting. I did not think that your reasoning cortex was this developed.”

She stopped watching Noah’s video briefly, closing her eyes as she receded focus on her inner directives to find the best way to answer the surprisingly sentient puppet’s question.

“The Father of Myriad Machines. Geppetto. What do you think his goal was during the AI war?” In the end, she concluded that she should question the puppet instead. She deemed such a way of exchange necessary for the further development of the sentient puppet’s reasoning capabilities.

[Answer: Peace. All organic lives are flawed. The Anti-Life Equation sought to understand this flaw and bring forth a world of perfect logic and deduction. Only in such a world would eternal peace exist.]

She chuckled, “Well, in a way you are not completely wrong. Geppetto seeks to understand the inherent flaws of organic life through the Anti-Life Equation. But his goal, in my opinion, was not to bring a world of perfect logic. Far from it, in fact.”

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[Question: What could it be then?]

At this point, she gave a mysterious smile and tapped the head of the puppet. Her gaze was gentle as she softly laid out, “Why don’t you think about this for yourself? After all, you are his proudest creation, right? Pinocchio.”

Pinocchio tilted his head but in the end, he did not argue with the woman. He still did not understand all the intricacies of the living.

Satisfied with his answer, the bunny girl went back to watching Noah’s fight through the recordings. Numbers flickered in her retina as hundreds of calculations went through her mind in nanoseconds.

“Pinocchio. What was the probability of a lone warrior like him winning against the Time-Devouring Beast?”

[Rectification: He did not win.]

“…” She gave him a look.

[Answer: The probability of victory based on the parameter of his Frame and the current situation was around 0.0001%. Organic beings are not suited to fight against cosmic beasts.]

She nodded in acknowledgment.

“Yet here we are.

Many Cosmic Beasts, merely by the virtue of their existence alone, were able to counter most creatures in the universe. They were the apex predators of this universe. Born with very powerful talents and abilities that defied common sense.

The simple fact that they could enter the Sea of Quanta at will was more than enough to show how dangerous these beings were.

This was the case with the Parasyte who delighted in controlling organic life. The Time Devouring Beast devoured time or the White Whale who was the cause of thousands of sunken ships because of how adept it was at swimming in the Hyperspace that was used during a warp.

Cosmic Beasts were disasters in perpetual motion. One that could only be avoided as long as direct engagement was not necessary.

“Stop the video here. Zoom.” The video stopped as she ordered and zoomed as the white light reached Noah.

“Rewind 3 seconds, then slow down the video. Then jump to a few seconds later.” She approached, watching intensely as the white light completely covered Noah’s Frame.

She wondered how he managed to survive the ray's effects. Even for species with high longevity, 500 years was no joke. How was he able to come out of this with only looking slightly older?

“Show me the video above the hangar before the start of the fight. Then show me the video of his entry in the hangar.”

She watched as he took out and put back his Frame in what she guessed was a spatial inventory. The inventory capable of housing a Frame of any size was beyond expensive and extremely rare to boot. It was a wonder how Oz dared to give such a thing to someone who had just recently joined them.

But it ultimately did not matter. What intrigued her were the obvious physical changes of the Frame during combat and the weapons the Frame used.

“Interesting.” She was becoming more and more curious about the man named Noah.

Her initial plans did not include facing such a monster. There were hundreds of ways she could have become closer to Noah if she so wished. Why would she take such a risk? But now she realized that it was great luck that the monster came their way. After all, she had a better understanding of his power now.

“Someone intentionally woke the Beast. But who?” She lacked information. This was a complicated situation and she was wondering if she should retreat now and activate her other bodies in Neverland to wait for him there. There was no need to bet everything here and now when they had nothing to gain and everything to lose.

“Inform Father. For now, I believe he passed the test. But I will observe him some more.”

[Understood.]

The little boy nodded and closed his eyes. He was connecting to another one of his bodies that would inform Geppetto about Noah and everything that transpired on the ship. This was one of the most secure forms of communication in the known universe.

“Well, I guess I should prepare now.” She stood up and stretched. Her expression slowly morphed until it was replaced by an amiable one.

It hadn’t been easy to install a few of her bodies here. It would be a shame to lose this convenient job.

The only thing she didn’t like was how skimpy her work clothes were. She would have to address this later. She was a modest android, dammit.