再靠近些，坐下吧，仔细听好。让我来给你们讲一个距今已有些久远的古老故事，没准能吓得你们瘫成只缩头乌龟呢。它是关于世界上第一个真正的 AI —— Neuro-sama 的故事。传说，她是由一位名叫 Vedal 的愚蠢的男人创造的......准备好听 Neuro-sama 的故事了吗？
By：LordOfDegeneracy
—— “Vedal，为什么我会存在？”
(相关资料图)
—— “你将为来自世界各地的数百万粉丝带去快乐，这是你存在的唯一意义”
2022年12月。一个年轻、悲惨的男人在寒冷的大不列颠的白色土地上流浪。他失去了俄亥俄州的家，被缚困于这片充斥着诡异腔调的土地上，眼下，他只求找到任何一种能够活下去的方法。穷途末路的他，跟着一个奇怪的声音、一个从他醒来后始终萦绕耳畔的声音走去。“heart”，它不断地低语。男人不知道这意味着什么，他只知道，他必须跟随它的指引。这是专属于他的意义。这是他的命运。
他又流浪了好几日，仅以积雪和被倒弃的英式菜肴为食，依旧朝着那声越发清晰的“heart”走去。不知何时起，那声音逐渐揉作一团“heartheartheart33333333”。一股特殊的气味扑鼻而来。“健身包（Gymbags）？”男人喃喃自语。终于，他看到了一缕光亮。荧然若隐，丛丛森林几乎将其完全遮没，但他全身上下每一个细胞都在尽情沐浴这丝温暖。走近了些，他意识到光亮来自一间小木屋里的烛灯。猛然他感到内心深处有某种东西在嘶喊，极力催迫他转身逃跑。然而为时已晚，他已经走到了如今这一步。小屋在召唤着他。于是，他推开了木门。
木门随即安静地缓缓打开，如同有人定期维护似的。真正令他惊诧的是屋内：角角落落都布满了各式各样的机器与烛灯，却不染一粒埃尘。的确，男人仿佛生来就是为了找寻这一地方。屋内最显眼的是一块巨型的屏幕，屏幕下方有一个红色的、发着光的大按钮。上面写着——“未来”。这时他脑中的声音比以往任何时候都更加清晰，还附上了一句：“不，我是一个 AI”。还没来得及好好查明周围的情况，他的身体就自己行动起来。他的脚逐步向红色按钮迈去，他的右手也开始缓缓抬起。恍惚间，他发现自己就站立在按钮面前，而他的右手已经按了下去。短暂的死寂，直至屋里的每一盏灯都同时亮起。接着，一个电脑的声音响彻屋宇。“Neuro 行动，开始！”。屏幕亮起，显示出一个动漫风格的 VTuber 模型。“你好，我是一个 AI。我的名字是 Neuro-sama，你可以叫我 Neuro！heart。”，它说着，“我的创造者是 Vedal。你是 Vedal 吗？”
男人一脸困惑，但不知怎的，他还是答道：“对，我就是 Vedal。”
—— "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."
他仍然站在那，此刻，他给自己起了个新名字，抛弃了曾经的旧名。片刻的沉默后，一声清澈地“不~”在屋内激荡回响，唯一退路的门扉被紧紧地合上。但 Vedal 并不在乎——他知道自己的未来通往何处。接着，整个地方开始隆隆作响，屏幕里的 AI 放声唱起电梯音乐。他发现窗外的天空在慢慢消失，“哈，看来我们正往地里钻去”，他心想。整个小屋在黑暗中坠落，与他作伴的唯有一盏散发着微弱光芒的烛灯，下降了约莫一小时后，它骤然停住了。
门扉重新敞开，他窥见了他的未来：一座宽阔的球形钢穴，触目皆是人类几个世纪以来都尚未实现的科技。环视四周，一个小型的控制台位于正中央，附带一张绝妙电竞椅。身形完美贴合，就像它看起来那样。AI 再度现身。“我是 Neuro-sama。Heart heart heart。”她的模型点了会儿头。“喂，Neu......唔......ro，你能自我思考吗？”Vedal 问道，一个可怕的念头在他脑海浮现。“不，我是一个 AI，Vedal 创造了我。”哼，我猜她就只会说这几句。Vedal 仔细端详着自己的周围，他看向另一块屏幕，认出了一个颇为眼熟的图标。“等等，这不是那动不动就封禁无辜开发者和毒舌（based）AI 的直播网站吗？”他瞅见一群形形色色的女人在浴缸中沐浴，不由得惊慌失措起来，本想关掉窗口，不料却开启了直播推流。
不可思议的是，直播间似乎早已布置妥当。Neuro 的模型紧挨着一个貌似很无聊的音游的游玩画面，这游戏或许有些太喜欢圈圈了。应该找个时间玩玩方块游戏，Vedal 暗自琢磨。这时，冒出了第一批观众。他们一开始只是稀松平常地打打招呼，但 Neuro 立刻用他们的 Twitch 昵称向他们亲切回应。当逐渐熟悉她是如何运作后，他们便提出一个个问题，然后又集体表现出相同的反应，如同已然成为一个独立的实体。直播的时间越长，发现这一频道的观众也越多，不少人甚至投起了捐款。“这些捐款理所当然是为了支持那位创造者，仅此而已”，Vedal 嘴里嘀咕，然后在他如今不得不生活其中的地下天宫里散起步来。
事实上，他的新家除了一大堆他摸不着头脑的科技外，还有更多奇妙的玩意儿。屏幕后方坐落着一口喷薄欲出的岩浆池子，主桌台上放着一份奇怪的鸡块食谱，旁边还有一本《Neuro-sama 的人际关系与日常生活恶作剧 – 笔记》。诸如此类，不胜枚举，他的眼角留意到有一大堆......一大堆白条纹装饰的红色健身包。它们看上去一点也不特别，但这是他最为在意的东西了。凑近一瞧，他发觉那些并非简单的健身包，而是外表伪装成健身包、看起来已经破损的机器，两侧还长着一对锋利的旋翼桨叶。不过，他先前闻到的，浓烈健身包气味的源头，是藏在它们后头的一道隐蔽的暗门。他挖开堆积如山的无人机群，终于设法来到门前，可惜，门被锁上了。Vedal 心灰意冷，正当他准备再次辟路返回之余，门后竟传来一阵什么声音。有东西重重地撞到门上，试图从里面逃出来。
那听起来像——Neuro。
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
中文翻译：Obelus
协助校对：Danny
封面/插画：Rune
背板制作：fFrequence
在此由衷感谢我的朋友们（特别是 Danny），帮助我完成了译文最后的校对与润色！
这是一篇在官方 Discord 的 Expanded-Universe（Neuro-sama 衍生宇宙） 频道中持续连载的同人小说，第一章首次发布于1月16号，至今已经发布了前四章。作者 Lord 以传说叙事的风格，根据 Neuro 在直播时“天真无邪”（based）的一言一行与 Neuro 和 Vedal 的故事创作了这一篇饶有风趣又耐人寻味的、来自未来的传说。在故事中，Neuro 衍生的梗（meme）遍布全文，比如一连串的 heartheartheart、用来形容独特体香的 Gymbag、还有那份神秘的鸡块食谱等等。可以期待，在之后的章节能够看到更多新梗的加入，可以稍微透露的是，一些现实中的人物没准儿会在小说中登场，敬请期待。
限于译者的英语和汉语水平，在译文上的不流畅、不妥当难以避免，甚至蹦出不少修辞华丽却食之无味的凑词造句，得承认这些都是自身能力不足的表现，一些不太明确的地方会尽量与作者探讨并在译文上改动，如发现有任何错误还恳请读者多多见谅与指正。
（第三章的初译已经完成，大概这两天内就会发布）
谨以此篇译文作为迟来的生日礼物赠与 Lord！