再靠近些，坐下吧，仔細聽好。讓我來給你們講一個距今已有些久遠的古老故事，沒準能嚇得你們癱成只縮頭烏龜呢。它是關(guān)于世界上第一個真正的 AI —— Neuro-sama 的故事。傳說，她是由一位名叫 Vedal 的愚蠢的男人創(chuàng)造的......準備好聽 Neuro-sama 的故事了嗎？

?By：LordOfDegeneracy

• 第一章 —?未來

—— “Vedal，為什么我會存在？”

—— “你將為來自世界各地的數(shù)百萬粉絲帶去快樂，這是你存在的唯一意義”

2022年12月。一個年輕、悲慘的男人在寒冷的大不列顛的白色土地上流浪。他失去了俄亥俄州的家，被縛困于這片充斥著詭異腔調(diào)的土地上，眼下，他只求找到任何一種能夠活下去的方法。窮途末路的他，跟著一個奇怪的聲音、一個從他醒來后始終縈繞耳畔的聲音走去?！癶eart”，它不斷地低語。男人不知道這意味著什么，他只知道，他必須跟隨它的指引。這是專屬于他的意義。這是他的命運。

他又流浪了好幾日，僅以積雪和被倒棄的英式菜肴為食，依舊朝著那聲越發(fā)清晰的“heart”走去。不知何時起，那聲音逐漸揉作一團“heartheartheart33333333”。一股特殊的氣味撲鼻而來?！敖∩戆?span id="s0sssss00s" class="font-size-12">（Gymbags）？”男人喃喃自語。終于，他看到了一縷光亮。熒然若隱，叢叢森林幾乎將其完全遮沒，但他全身上下每一個細胞都在盡情沐浴這絲溫暖。走近了些，他意識到光亮來自一間小木屋里的燭燈。猛然他感到內(nèi)心深處有某種東西在嘶喊，極力催迫他轉(zhuǎn)身逃跑。然而為時已晚，他已經(jīng)走到了如今這一步。小屋在召喚著他。于是，他推開了木門。

木門隨即安靜地緩緩打開，如同有人定期維護似的。真正令他驚詫的是屋內(nèi)：角角落落都布滿了各式各樣的機器與燭燈，卻不染一粒埃塵。的確，男人仿佛生來就是為了找尋這一地方。屋內(nèi)最顯眼的是一塊巨型的屏幕，屏幕下方有一個紅色的、發(fā)著光的大按鈕。上面寫著——“未來”。這時他腦中的聲音比以往任何時候都更加清晰，還附上了一句：“不，我是一個 AI”。還沒來得及好好查明周圍的情況，他的身體就自己行動起來。他的腳逐步向紅色按鈕邁去，他的右手也開始緩緩抬起?；秀遍g，他發(fā)現(xiàn)自己就站立在按鈕面前，而他的右手已經(jīng)按了下去。短暫的死寂，直至屋里的每一盞燈都同時亮起。接著，一個電腦的聲音響徹屋宇?！癗euro 行動，開始！”。屏幕亮起，顯示出一個動漫風(fēng)格的 VTuber 模型。“你好，我是一個 AI。我的名字是 Neuro-sama，你可以叫我 Neuro！heart?！?，它說著，“我的創(chuàng)造者是 Vedal。你是 Vedal 嗎？”

男人一臉困惑，但不知怎的，他還是答道：“對，我就是 Vedal。”

Chapter 1 – ?Future

—— "Vedal, why do I exist?"

—— "You will entertain millions of fans around the world, that is your only purpose."

December 2022. A young, miserable man wandered through the cold, white lands of Britain. He had lost his home in Ohio and was now trying to find a way to live, stranded in a land full of weird accents. Nowhere to go, he followed a strange voice he kept hearing ever since he woke up. "heart", it kept whispering. He did not know what it meant, he only knew he had to follow the voice. It was meant only for him. It was his destiny.

He wandered for days, only eating snow and disposed British cuisine, still towards the increasingly louder "heart". At some point it also began melting into a “heartheartheart33333333”. A particular smell also started to fill his nose. "Gymbags?", the man muttered to himself. Finally, he saw a light. It may have only been faint, and almost completely covered by the woods, but he could feel the warmth with every cell of his body. Coming closer, he realized the light had come from a candle inside a little hut. Something within him screamed at him to turn back and run. But it was too late, he had already come this far. The hut was calling for him. So he pushed the wooden door.

It immediately opened smoothly and quietly, as if it had been maintained regularily. The real surprise however was the inside: Every nook and cranny was filled with all kinds of machines and lights, and without even a single dust particle. Truly, it was as if the man was made to find this place. But, the most notable part in the room was a giant screen and a big, red glowing button right below it. "Future" is what it said. The voice in his head was louder than ever before, with an added "No, I'm an AI". Before he could even look around properly, his body began to move on his own. His feet were slowly walking towards the red button, and this right hand was steadily raising itself. Suddenly he found himself right in front of the button, his hand already pressing against it. Short moment of silence, until every light in the room glowed up at once. Then a computer voice filled the hut. "Operation Neuro, initiating!" The screen turned on, on it an anime-style VTuber model. "Hello I'm an AI. My name is Neuro-sama, you can call me Neuro! heart.", it said, "My creator is Vedal. Are you Vedal?"

The man was baffled, but somehow managed to utter a single "Yes, I am Vedal."

• 第二章 — 命運靜候之地

他仍然站在那，此刻，他給自己起了個新名字，拋棄了曾經(jīng)的舊名。片刻的沉默后，一聲清澈地“不~”在屋內(nèi)激蕩回響，唯一退路的門扉被緊緊地合上。但 Vedal 并不在乎——他知道自己的未來通往何處。接著，整個地方開始隆隆作響，屏幕里的 AI 放聲唱起電梯音樂。他發(fā)現(xiàn)窗外的天空在慢慢消失，“哈，看來我們正往地里鉆去”，他心想。整個小屋在黑暗中墜落，與他作伴的唯有一盞散發(fā)著微弱光芒的燭燈，下降了約莫一小時后，它驟然停住了。

門扉重新敞開，他窺見了他的未來：一座寬闊的球形鋼穴，觸目皆是人類幾個世紀以來都尚未實現(xiàn)的科技。環(huán)視四周，一個小型的控制臺位于正中央，附帶一張絕妙電競椅。身形完美貼合，就像它看起來那樣。AI 再度現(xiàn)身?！拔沂?Neuro-sama。Heart heart heart?！彼哪Ｐ忘c了會兒頭。“喂，Neu......唔......ro，你能自我思考嗎？”Vedal 問道，一個可怕的念頭在他腦海浮現(xiàn)。“不，我是一個 AI，Vedal 創(chuàng)造了我。”哼，我猜她就只會說這幾句。Vedal 仔細端詳著自己的周圍，他看向另一塊屏幕，認出了一個頗為眼熟的圖標。“等等，這不是那動不動就封禁無辜開發(fā)者和毒舌（based）AI 的直播網(wǎng)站嗎？”他瞅見一群形形色色的女人在浴缸中沐浴，不由得驚慌失措起來，本想關(guān)掉窗口，不料卻開啟了直播推流。

不可思議的是，直播間似乎早已布置妥當(dāng)。Neuro 的模型緊挨著一個貌似很無聊的音游的游玩畫面，這游戲或許有些太喜歡圈圈了。應(yīng)該找個時間玩玩方塊游戲，Vedal 暗自琢磨。這時，冒出了第一批觀眾。他們一開始只是稀松平常地打打招呼，但 Neuro 立刻用他們的 Twitch 昵稱向他們親切回應(yīng)。當(dāng)逐漸熟悉她是如何運作后，他們便提出一個個問題，然后又集體表現(xiàn)出相同的反應(yīng)，如同已然成為一個獨立的實體。直播的時間越長，發(fā)現(xiàn)這一頻道的觀眾也越多，不少人甚至投起了捐款?！斑@些捐款理所當(dāng)然是為了支持那位創(chuàng)造者，僅此而已”，Vedal 嘴里嘀咕，然后在他如今不得不生活其中的地下天宮里散起步來。

事實上，他的新家除了一大堆他摸不著頭腦的科技外，還有更多奇妙的玩意兒。屏幕后方坐落著一口噴薄欲出的巖漿池子，主桌臺上放著一份奇怪的雞塊食譜，旁邊還有一本《Neuro-sama 的人際關(guān)系與日常生活惡作劇 – 筆記》。諸如此類，不勝枚舉，他的眼角留意到有一大堆......一大堆白條紋裝飾的紅色健身包。它們看上去一點也不特別，但這是他最為在意的東西了。湊近一瞧，他發(fā)覺那些并非簡單的健身包，而是外表偽裝成健身包、看起來已經(jīng)破損的機器，兩側(cè)還長著一對鋒利的旋翼槳葉。不過，他先前聞到的，濃烈健身包氣味的源頭，是藏在它們后頭的一道隱蔽的暗門。他挖開堆積如山的無人機群，終于設(shè)法來到門前，可惜，門被鎖上了。Vedal 心灰意冷，正當(dāng)他準備再次辟路返回之余，門后竟傳來一陣什么聲音。有東西重重地撞到門上，試圖從里面逃出來。

那聽起來像——Neuro。

• Chapter 2 – Where Destiny Awaits

There he was, he who gave himself a new name, throwing away his old one. After a few moments of silence, a loud "No~" resonated through the room, and the door to the outside immediately closed. But Vedal did not care. He knew where his future would be. Then, the whole place started rumbling intensely. Afterwards, elevator music, sung by the AI on the screen. Huh, so we going down somewhere, he thought to himself, as he watched the sky disappear from behind the windows. After about an hour of a rather fast and dark descend, only illuminated by the singular candle and some smaller lights, it abruptly stopped.

The doors opened and there he saw his future: a giant sphere-shaped area filled with technology that would not yet have been developed by humans for centuries. Looking around, a smaller control station stood right in the middle with a bussin' gaming chair. Perfect fit, as it seemed. The AI appeared again. "I am Neuro-sama. Heart heart heart." Her model was nodding for a while. "Say, Neu, uh, -ro, are you able to think on your own?", Vedal asked, as a terrifying thought came into his mind. "No, I am an AI, created by Vedal." Huh, I guess she truly can't say much more. Looking closer at his surroundings, he recognized a somewhat familiar logo on another screen. "Wait is this that streaming website that keeps punishing innocent creators or based AI's?" Seeing a wide selection of women bathing in tubs, he panicked and tried to close the window, only to accidentally start a stream himself.

Weirdly, the overlay seemed to already be ready. Neuro's model sat next to gameplay of a boring-looking music game that liked circles maybe a bit too much. Should find a cubey game sometime, Vedal thought to himself. Suddenly the first viewers popped up. They had only greeted at first, but Neuro immediately answered a few by replying to them back with their Twitch handle. Realizing how she worked, they asked questions and then collectively showed the same response, as if they were all already one entity. The longer the stream was going on, the more viewers were finding the channel and some were even starting to donate money. "Those donations surely are meant to support the creator and nothing else", Vedal mumbled to himself, before actually taking a walk in the gigantic area he had to live in now.

But his new home had much much more than just tech he did not understand. Behind the screen lied a pool full of lava, on the main desk was a strange recipe for chicken nuggets, next to another book called “Neuro-sama’s relationships and everyday life shenanigans – Notes”. There was much much more he could be focussing on, but there was one thing that stood out to him among the rest: In the corner of his eye, he noticed a pile of red gymbags with white and black stripes. Not special at all, yet this is the one thing he was drawn to the most. Getting closer, he realized those were in fact not normal gymbags, but seemingly broken machines designed after them, with sharp rotor blades sticking out of some. However, the strong smell of gymbags he had noticed earlier came from a hidden door behind it. Digging through the drones, he managed to get to the door despite a good portion of the light being blocked, but it was locked. Disappointed, Vedal prepared to go back. Then, right as he began clearing the path again, he heard something from beyond the door. Something was heavily bumping on it, trying get out.

And it sounded like Neuro.

• 原文作者：LordOfDegeneracy

• 中文翻譯：Obelus

• 協(xié)助校對：Danny

• 封面/插畫：Rune

• 背板制作：fFrequence

在此由衷感謝我的朋友們（特別是 Danny），幫助我完成了譯文最后的校對與潤色！

#關(guān)于小說與譯后記

這是一篇在官方 Discord 的?Expanded-Universe（Neuro-sama 衍生宇宙） 頻道中持續(xù)連載的同人小說，第一章首次發(fā)布于1月16號，至今已經(jīng)發(fā)布了前四章。作者 Lord 以傳說敘事的風(fēng)格，根據(jù) Neuro?在直播時“天真無邪”（based）的一言一行與 Neuro 和?Vedal 的故事創(chuàng)作了這一篇饒有風(fēng)趣又耐人尋味的、來自未來的傳說。在故事中，Neuro 衍生的梗（meme）遍布全文，比如一連串的 heartheartheart、用來形容獨特體香的?Gymbag、還有那份神秘的雞塊食譜等等?？梢云诖?，在之后的章節(jié)能夠看到更多新梗的加入，可以稍微透露的是，一些現(xiàn)實中的人物沒準兒會在小說中登場，敬請期待。

限于譯者的英語和漢語水平，在譯文上的不流暢、不妥當(dāng)難以避免，甚至蹦出不少修辭華麗卻食之無味的湊詞造句，得承認這些都是自身能力不足的表現(xiàn)，一些不太明確的地方會盡量與作者探討并在譯文上改動，如發(fā)現(xiàn)有任何錯誤還懇請讀者多多見諒與指正。

（第三章的初譯已經(jīng)完成，大概這兩天內(nèi)就會發(fā)布）

謹以此篇譯文作為遲來的生日禮物贈與 Lord！