Chapter 1733: with translation of chapter title

NO. 347: That's quite a life

There are said to be three people in the world who look exactly like you—this is a classic rumor that Aomo has heard several times from time travelers.

Named: Aomo. Also "time traveler" is a generic term, not a specific name, so it's not included.

He also once tried to verify the truth at Bi Ze's place, but the version there jumped from three to seven, more than doubling.

Named: Bi Ze. Also "the latter" refers to the previous item, not a name.

From a data processing standpoint, this claim is not without feasibility.

After all, you can treat reality as a massive game. In Earth OL, each account's face customization is highly free, offering tens of thousands of initial face models and many more adjustment options, creating tens of billions of individual existences—given such a base, it's not that unlikely for a few accounts' face data to clash with someone else's.

The term Earth OL could be considered a game name; per the rules, we translate its meaning unless it's a person's name. Since Earth is already English and OL is an abbreviation, we keep it as Earth OL.

Also "account" is a generic term, not a name.

Just as among the stand‑ins of some public figures, there are both those who have undergone extensive cosmetic surgery and those who are rare but genuinely natural look‑alikes.

But then again.

The face‑customization freedom in Earth OL is so high that even postnatal growth environment and life experience can likewise affect one's appearance.

If you want to talk about being identical in this situation, it would be more realistic to suppose that the data were synchronized in the womb with a sibling.

Similarity is possible, but the odds of being exactly alike are so slim they can almost be considered nonexistent—and this is even without considering personality, just looking at appearance.

But this is merely a discussion about real humans, not Digimon.

Human appearance is difficult to achieve high consistency under natural conditions, but Digimon can easily do so.

Although the postnatal growth environment and life experience also affect appearance in Digimon, those sharing the same name can still find a model specimen without any shortage.

Model specimen, meaning appearance and personality are completely consistent, essentially like mafia clones among Digimon.

This is the corrective effect of data verification on the entire Digimon.

The Digital World was born from network data; the moment Digimon born in the Digital World become aware of the question "Who am I?", they are bound by the concept contained in their name.

For example, Witchmon/Witch Beast's name is exactly Witch/Witch+mon/Beast, and thus all Witchmon appear as witch-like in appearance and personality, a direct manifestation of 'stereotype' and 'labeling'.

The freedom allowed between individuals is merely the difference under the "witch" label, i. e., the inclusion of all imaginable styles and personalities of witches in the entire network data.

Fortunately, with the rapid development of the Internet and the continual evolution of human literary creation, many noun labels including "witch" have been substantially expanded by actual data, making them vast and diverse; thus, Digimon of ancient labels like Witchmon have also seen multiple reforms in their freedom, truly having reaped the benefits of the times.

By contrast, certain Digimon named after demon gods such as Baal Beast and Beelzebub Beast, due to the precise fixation of their concepts themselves, although also commonly used in literary creation and online discussion, are far less varied and colorful than the "witch" concept's myriad blossoms.

Therefore, Baal Beast. X often feels constrained, oppressed, and cramped because of this.

But leaving aside his various attempts for freedom, the current focus is obviously not that noble king who is busy with something unknown and had previously neglected Bi Ze; rather, given the widespread existence of the Digital Copy Beast situation among Digimon, the number of Adult-level Witchmon is actually not small.

In other words, the possibility of mistaken identity is extremely high.

Especially since the timing is a bit premature when this group of fallen angels and undead-type Digimon are becoming tense.

Even before the Witchmon had appeared and spoken a word, they had already begun joint visual tracking—contrarily, this was not out of rational judgment but an unconscious stress response.

And the next second everything returned to normal; a kind of collective reset that could make little Aomo wonder whether he had received erroneous puppet messages made that stress response seem unrelated to judgment and thought.

It simply had a hint of horror.

In that rock band, the howling demon beast, the female demon beast chatting with guests, and the several vampire beasts at the split bars all worked naturally and uninterrupted during the reset, while little Aomo's mind first conjured images of ghosts manipulating people like puppets in a performance.

The puppets carry out their habitual actions and interactions from life, but when certain stimuli appear they collectively react or even black out, and upon restarting they feel nothing—such scenes are also found in textbooks, which also indicate the corresponding countermeasures.

To little Aomo, this was not really a horror plot; he just felt it might be a trouble.

"Do you have anything you want to tell me?" he asked the Witchmon pulling at her cloak after sitting at an edge sofa, also relaying to the floating waiter the words he had written down after checking the address in Kantor: "Two cups of the Corpse Spirit special, one guide."

"Two cups of the Corpse Spirit special, one guide, okay,"

One claw grabbed the pen, one paw seized the notepad of the little demon beast, which while repeating the words drew a shorthand line on the notepad with astonishing dexterity, then immediately flew away.

Also, at the moment it left and the entire digital metal private room immediately resealed, little Aomo heard through the puppet his partner Digimon's displeased response:

"I don't know those guys, and they don't know me either." the Witchmon, piloting the entire flying broom higher to avoid being obstructed by the sofa and table, turned her head to look at the black cat that had flown from her scarf down onto the sofa to lie down.

"What do you want me to say?"

"These words will only bring two possibilities: one, your Digimon core will appear even more unique; two, the person behind this bar knows you."

Aomo, having retracted his two fingers, glanced at the black cat lying beside him, then looked up at the Witchmon displaying her pointed black boots and overly narrow skirt hem to him, asking: "Do you have any enemies?"

"Surely there are many." the pair of black boots that looked utterly lacking in freedom gave a slight sway.

"Where is there a Digimon who has reached Ultimate without any enemies?"

"How many are alive?"

"One."

"Baal Beast. X?"

"You know full well you're asking."

"It seems your standard for judging enemies is still quite high."

"You wouldn't go so far as to consider those trainers enemies, would you?"

"You need to have a rough sense of the extent of hostility in mind."

"Heh, as for my Ultimate self, I don't care—anyway, whoever comes, I'll kill them."

"But your Ultimate data truly does not live up to the height of those words."

"Partner, do you want to start an argument?"

"Just being factual," little Aomo said calmly, "I used to think we would only have a work-related cooperation, so there was no need to worry about your past or the troubles you originally carried; but now things are different from before."

"But I also don't feel that my past has any trouble."

How long have you stayed in the Hei'an region?

Who knows? Does time even mean anything in this place? There's not even a normal daytime.

There should be some subjective sense of time, like if you simply counted by days, would you think to use thousands or tens of thousands as the unit?

I don't know; it feels like it wouldn't be less than ten thousand, but anything higher is beyond conception.

Being able to last in the Hei'an region to this time unit, saying there's no trouble would be hard to justify.

What? How does the partner judge the standard of trouble?

Having conflicts with over thirty living Digimon in the area, including bodily harm you don't consider up to battle standards, or… you having clashed with one of the Seven Demon Kings.

"Oh," the fingertip covered by a large glove tapped the chin, the Witchmon thoughtfully sighed, "then that indeed counts as trouble."

"Speak more clearly—are you agreeing with my standard, or lamenting that your past is troublesome?"

"The latter, huh."

"The former or the latter? Or..."

Aomo asked, watching the witch beast slowly descend from above, and simply cut off his words in one go.

"Both, huh."

"... That's quite a life."

"(End of chapter)"