Chapter 1 Perturabo
This is the thirtieth thousand years since Jesus died.
The Milky Way, Olympia, Lokos, under the cliffs of Phygia.
Deep in the dense forest, inaccessible.
The smooth silver-plated copper plate is placed into the dark box, the dark box is placed into the dark box, and the indoor lighting is adjusted to the optimal light and dark ratio.
"A long time ago, in the Europa region of Ancient Terra, a craftsman invented daguerreotype photography..."
Someone was whispering to himself, debugging the machine.
Within the frame of the ancient shooting technique, a reluctant boy is pushed into the camera, with a faint anger burning in his ice-like blue eyes.
If this flame can break through the shackles of idealism, it will surely ignite the dense spiky green leaves around him and the fence surrounding the wooden house.
"Photography? You won't succeed." The boy's teeth rubbed against each other.
"Oh." Outside the scope of the camera, a cold male voice sounded at the same time as the collision of panels inside the camera obscura. "You think I care?"
The boy was determined to resist.
He stepped across the thorny vegetation, stepping barefoot on the gravel and dry earth. His skin was not tough enough to be damaged by foreign objects, and the short grass scratched his ankles, but it was not enough to scare him.
"Damn it." A low grunt.
Another man appeared in the camera. He was tall and thin, with messy black hair. He was wearing black clothes and black trousers that were different from the local loose bright robes and were tied tightly to his limbs with straps of the same color.
He held the boy's shoulders forcefully. An inexplicable energy restrained the boy's actions.
A string of ice crystals formed on the grass, the cold air climbed into the camera obscura, and the daguerreotype began to operate.
“I had to record this extremely important moment, and this camera was the only prop I could make with my bare hands. The inhuman boy falling from the cliff...it was really amazing for the camera to capture such a wonderful scene. Something rare for thousands of years.”
The man explained coldly, it was difficult to read any valid information from his face.
The boy could not help but associate the malicious vortex of stars staring at him from the sky with this nameless man, even if his logic could not make any assumptions that could be recognized by his proud rationality.
He forced himself not to look at the man's hateful mean face and ignore the cold hands on his shoulders.
The camera re-captured the boy's face, which was stubborn and cold, like an unforged iron stone.
"I..." A short syllable came out of the boy's mouth, and the remaining words were swallowed up by pride.
The man asked: "You don't like it?"
The boy was unwilling to answer. Any question that reflected his vulnerability made him feel that a part of himself was being forced to be exposed—the part he hated the most.
The corners of the man's mouth lifted up briefly and never dropped.
The long exposure requirements of daguerreotype photography made him decide to remain still, but this did not prevent him from speaking. It was too easy for him to say anything.
"If you can't answer, I will think that you like daguerreotypes." There was a unique arrogance in his tone. This disgusted the boy.
Arrogant.
The boy chewed the word with disdain.
He hates this man.
The only reason why he can currently endure his evil deeds is that he cannot defeat the opponent in terms of strength.
"I still haven't got your answer." The man said lightly. "What? You suddenly can't understand what I said?"
The tip of his tongue suddenly curled up with a fine hiss, combined with a caressing breath. The boy easily recognized that this was one of the more ancient languages on the planet, and the semantics were consistent with the previous question.
Before he had time to be proud of his knowledge, the man came to the next language without stopping, crisp, fast, combined with countless accents, like an iron wire hitting two blades tuning fork.
The boy frowned. He understood, but he didn't understand how anyone else could understand such an ancient language - he thought something must be wrong.
The man's fingers were as cold as cold iron. The boy began to find the scenery around him abominable.
The towering cliffs are abominable, the shrubs and gorse are abominable, the dark green olive leaves are abominable.
He originally didn’t hate the planet he was on now, but the man changed him on his own.
In the sky, the gaze of the star vortex was ignored by him as usual. Then came the third language. Too much tongue snapping and an upturned coda make it frivolous. Then there is the fourth one. The fifth type.
Enough. the boy thought.
But the man’s provocation did not end.
Later on the daguerreotype, the man's mouth will be blurry and ridiculous. This knowledge gives the boy a little comfort in self-deception.
The sixth language. Older and more complex. From another planet that humans have ever set foot on. Even a boy must dig out the knowledge map of the language from the bottom of his memory.
The semantics have not changed. But the boy couldn't stop reinterpreting it, he couldn't admit defeat.
The seventh type.
The boy felt that the whole world was beginning to shake centered on the man's hand on his shoulder. He wavered, deciphering half of the text, and spent the rest of the time telling himself that he was indestructible steel.
The eighth type. A tonal language rich in meaning, with more meaning than structure, many function words, weak grammar, and loose logic - of course he could understand it, but...
"Enough!" the boy screamed in High Gothic. "What do you want to prove? What do you want from me?"
Anger overcame everything. He used all his strength to break free. This was the first time in his memory.
But this is also because his memory started thirty minutes ago, when he was about to climb the cliff, but he lost his footing and fell because of the laughter of the man in black next to him.
Then he was led by an unknown man to the wooden house where he lived alone, far away from the city-state in the distance, isolated from the white-gold soldiers and bronze doors, saying goodbye to the village streams and stepped reservoirs, looking at the palace in the distance The triple wall of the wall and the triple spire on the top of the tower are here to accompany him to take some damn daguerreotype photos!
Who is he? How dare he do this to me!
The response he received was the man's sudden relaxation and a contemptuous chuckle: "We finally started talking."
In the shot, the man steps across the grass and reaches out to the camera with his hand wrapped in black cloth.
The silver plate was taken out. Due to insufficient exposure time and the subject being too active, the details on the entire silver plate were blurred.
The boy discovered that before he could sarcastically, the low temperature rolled across the silver plate, and that unknown energy directly forcibly carved the photo of the two of them with the highest precision and amazing accuracy.
A trace of pleasure flashed across the man's face, which meant more provocation to the boy.
"Well, I think that's fine," he said. "You look like a bad boy, but that's not what I have to worry about. Tell me your name?"
"Perturabo," said Perturabo very quickly, "that is my name and I will not change it. I do not know its meaning but I will find it. You cannot change my name."
“What makes you think I want to change you? Just because I took you to take a photo? Oh, maybe it can’t be counted as a photo. This is what it means to be on an extremely backward planet and have no control over it. The disadvantages of engraving chips. I can probably remember the technique invented by my friend more than 30,000 years ago."
The man's smile appeared naturally on his face, downplaying his cold scrutiny.
He raised the engraved silver-plated copper plate in his hand. At this time, the boy's name had been engraved on the lower right corner of the silver plate, leaving a space.
"Perturabo, I am a fair man, so I will reward you."
I won't accept it. Perturabo thought angrily that in his conception, the man had died ten thousand times in the most painful way, but in reality, the only resistance he could do was to refuse a reward.
Waiting. Wait. He knew that his growth would be extremely rapid, that his knowledge would always come naturally to his mind, that he would be born to be extraordinary. If the man left him here, he would kill him sooner or later.
The man placed the silver plate flat in front of his eyes, looked at it, and said flatly: "You can name it for me."
"What?"
"This is it. The reward I give you." Instead of focusing on observing the boy's injustice and indignation, the man seemed to think that the silver plate in his hand was more important.
Perturabo could hardly bear the humiliation. He gave an insulting answer before pondering why the man had no name.
"Canath," he cursed, which was the High Gothic name for an organ.
The man smiled in surprise. "I won't accept it without considering changing to another one?"
"Morse." Perturabo flinched. He gave another word that had an equally bad connotation, but was much more toned down.
The man nodded, "Death?" He repeated in the eighth language he had tried before and engraved the word Morse into the gap on the silver plate.
"You can go now, Perturabo." Morse put away the silver plate and turned around grimly.
(End of this chapter)