Another five months flashed by in the blink of an eye.
The walls of the White Room still loomed with the same oppressive coldness, but the dynamic inside had completely transformed.
Kamiki and the others were now a year and a half old.
The other children of the fourth generation still hadn’t fully grasped the concept of speech.
They struggled to form words, stuttering constantly, but they were managing to communicate at a basic level.
Kamiki’s inner circle, however, was on an entirely different level.
Kiyone, Shiro, and Yuki…
these three little monsters could now speak with flawless fluency.
In the original story, even at two years old, Ayanokoji couldn’t speak properly.
That was because communication was practically forbidden in the White Room; children barely ever spoke to one another, and no one even dared to look at anyone else.
But now, things were different.
Kamiki had practically given these three prodigies private tutoring.
He constantly pushed them, played word games with them, and kept their minds sharp.
With their immense latent talent, the girls picked it up rapidly.
By the time they hit a year and a half, their language development had reached its peak.
Moreover, this phenomenon wasn’t just limited to them.
The other children in the room watched them closely, secretly mimicking them.
Thanks to that, the rest of the generation was gradually learning how to speak as well.
Kamiki sat up straight, his gaze drifting over the three monster girls.
“We’re going to try something new now,” Kamiki said, his voice perfectly calm.
Yuki immediately leaned forward, her eyes sparkling with excitement.
“What are we trying?” she asked, her voice crystal clear.
Kamiki tilted his head upward, pointing toward the speakers on the ceiling.
“You hear the music playing in the background, right?” he asked.
A low-volume English song was filtering through the speakers.
The instructors kept it on constantly just to acclimate the children’s ears to the language.
The words were fast and foreign.
“Yes, we hear it,” Shiro said, tucking her silver hair behind her ear.
“Here are the rules of the game,” Kamiki explained.
“If you hear the word I specify in the song, raise your hand.” Yuki instantly fell in love with this new game.
She nodded eagerly.
“I’m ready!” she chirped, already throwing her hand into the air.
Kamiki smiled.
“I haven’t even said the word yet, Yuki-chan.
Put your hand down.” Yuki giggled and lowered her hand, focusing intently on the music.
Kamiki turned to Shiro.
“Are you ready?” Shiro nodded slightly.
“Okay,” she whispered, her voice soft but seamless.
Finally, Kamiki looked at Kiyone.
Kiyone was exactly as she always was—devoid of expression.
Her golden eyes stared blankly at Kamiki.
“Kiyone?” Kamiki called out.
Kiyone maintained her blank stare but gave a slight, compliant nod.
She didn’t speak, but she had accepted the game.
Kamiki took a deep breath and began filtering through the English words.
At eleven months old, they had done word association.
Now, at a year and a half, they were doing a foreign language auditory test.
“Here comes the first word,” Kamiki said, straining his ears toward the speaker.
“The word is: *Slow*.” The song continued to flow, the English lyrics passing by rapidly.
Suddenly, the singer pronounced the word.
In that exact millisecond, two hands shot up into the air.
Kiyone and Shiro had raised their hands at the exact same moment.
Their reaction times were mind-blowing.
Yuki raised her hand a second too late.
“Ah, I missed it!” she lamented.
“Kiyone and Shiro were incredibly fast,” Kamiki praised.
“Good job.” Kiyone slowly lowered her hand.
Her eyes remained dull, but her attention was entirely locked onto the music.
“I’m making it harder,” Kamiki warned.
“The next word is: *Leave*.” The tempo of the song picked up.
The vocabulary became more complex, but the children listened without breaking a sweat.
The rhythm shifted.
The word was muttered faintly in the background.
This time, Kiyone was the first to raise her hand.
Right behind her, Shiro and Yuki raised theirs as well.
Kiyone looked at Kamiki.
“I heard it,” she said flatly.
“I heard it too!” Yuki chimed in happily.
“It went by so fast.” Kamiki was secretly amazed yet again.
The auditory and language processing centers of these three girls operated more efficiently than those of an average adult.
Taking a deep breath, Kamiki locked eyes with each of them one by one.
“Last word,” Kamiki said, his voice dropping to a near whisper.
“Listen very carefully.
The word is: *White*.” The song rushed on.
The instruments swelled, nearly drowning out the vocalist’s voice beneath the waves of music.
The words bled into one another.
Even an adult would miss it if they weren’t paying absolute attention.
Right at the chorus, the vocalist swallowed the word at a breakneck speed.
Simultaneously, three hands shot straight up.
Kiyone, Shiro, and Yuki.
All three raised their hands in the exact same millisecond.
Their reaction times were in perfect sync.
Yuki grinned from ear to ear, thrilled that she hadn’t missed it this time.
“Got it!” she cheered.
Shiro slowly lowered her hand, her silver hair veiling her face.
“That was easy,” she murmured.
Kiyone, however, kept her dull, golden eyes fixed on the speaker.
“The word appeared twice,” she stated in a flat tone.
“The vocalist said the first one.
The second was a whisper in the background.” Kamiki’s eyes widened slightly in surprise.
A brief shiver ran down his spine.
*Kiyone’s perception levels are genuinely terrifying.* Kamiki leaned closer to the girls, a proud smile gracing his lips.
“You all did amazing,” Kamiki said.
“Picking up a foreign language this quickly is incredible.” Yuki puffed out her chest with pride.
“We’re geniuses!” she said cheerfully.
“Kamiki taught us, so we did it.” “It’s not just because of me,” Kamiki replied.
“You guys are already monsters.
I just opened the door.” Kiyone tilted her head, looking into Kamiki’s eyes.
“What does ‘monster’ mean?” Kiyone asked.
“Are we not human?” Kamiki chuckled softly at the question.
He reached out and gently ruffled Kiyone’s hair.
“You are far beyond the boundaries of ordinary humans,” Kamiki said.
“That’s why the instructors are afraid of you.
And they’ll be even more afraid in the future.” Shiro placed a tiny hand on Kamiki’s knee.
“Are we…
always going to play like this?” she asked.
“The instructors’ tests are boring.” “Yes,” Kamiki said firmly.
“As long as the instructors aren’t in the room, this is our playground.
We’ll keep talking, learning, and making each other stronger.” Yuki threw both hands in the air joyfully.
“Yay!” she shouted.
Kamiki smiled as he watched them.
The scene before him was unbelievable.
These three girls had completely surpassed their counterparts in the original timeline.
Their rate of growth defied logic.
But that wasn’t the most important part.
The most important part was that they were happy right now.
Yuki was laughing merrily.
A faint smile graced Shiro’s face.
Of course, Kiyone was the exception—she remained entirely expressionless.
Kamiki fell deep into thought, recalling the original story.
In the canon timeline, Yuki hadn’t smiled until she was five years old, and even then, she didn’t understand what it meant.
She had been entirely devoid of emotion.
But now, everything was different.
Kamiki had explained laughter to them.
He had taught them happiness.
He had broken the ice of the White Room.
*System,* Kamiki thought.
*Show me the girls’ affection levels.* He hadn’t looked at these stats in five whole months, and curiosity was killing him.
Suddenly, a transparent screen materialized before him, data compiling rapidly.
Kamiki looked at the first name.
Yuki.
> **[ Yuki: 78 ]** > This was an incredible number.
For a one-and-a-half-year-old White Room test subject, this ratio was practically impossible.
Kamiki rejoiced inwardly.
Yuki was completely attached to him.
Then again, it was to be expected.
Yuki was naturally warm and social; she was easy to get along with.
Kamiki’s genuine fondness for her had clearly rubbed off on her.
Next, he looked at Shiro.
> **[ Shiro: 56 ]** > This was also remarkably high.
An introverted girl like Shiro had placed Kamiki at the center of her world.
She felt safe around him.
Finally, Kamiki reached the last name.
His eyes locked onto Kiyone’s data.
> **[ Kiyone: 18 ]** > Kamiki froze.
He couldn’t believe his eyes.
He shook his head, rubbed his eyes vigorously, and looked at the screen again.
The number didn’t change.
It still read 18.
*Is Kiyone really at 18?* Kamiki wondered, a shockwave rippling through his mind.
*How is this even possible?* They were talking about Kiyone—a literal emotional void.
In the original story, she was a total robot.
She had viewed even her own significant other as a mere tool, never caring a shred about anyone around her.
To her, people were just pawns to be manipulated.
But now, things were different.
The number 18 on the screen didn’t lie.
*Has she really changed this much?* Kamiki asked himself.
He glanced over at Kiyone.
The girl was still sitting in the corner, staring at the wall with her usual zero-emotion expression.
From the outside, she looked completely detached.
*So, it worked,* Kamiki thought, a secret smirk of victory tugging at his lips.
Kiyone hadn’t fully transformed into that ruthless monster just yet.
The subtle, underlying conditioning he had provided since infancy was bearing fruit.
Touching her, pinching her cheeks, telling her they were “friends”—it had all forced a crack in her psyche.
Kiyone’s insurmountable walls of logic were shaking.
She no longer viewed Kamiki purely as a tool.
A score of 18 was nothing short of a miracle by White Room standards.
Noticing that Kamiki had spaced out, Yuki nudged his arm.
“Kamiki?
What’s wrong?” she asked.
Kamiki dismissed the system screen and turned to her.
“Nothing,” Kamiki said, his tone bright again.
“I was just thinking about how lucky I am.” Hearing this, Yuki beamed, her eyes crinkling shut.
Seeing her like this, Kamiki couldn’t resist.
He reached out, caught Yuki’s chubby cheeks, and gave them a gentle squeeze.
“You’re so cute, Yuki,” Kamiki said.
Yuki giggled even harder, wrapping her tiny hands around Kamiki’s wrists—not to stop him, but because she was genuinely enjoying the moment.
“Ka…
Kamiki…
That tickles!” she laughed.
Kamiki gently wobbled her cheeks side to side.
The dark, suffocating atmosphere of the White Room completely melted away in the warmth of those little giggles.
Shiro slowly slid over to them, watching Kamiki’s movements with her wide eyes.
She tilted her head, her silver hair cascading over her shoulder.
“Kamiki,” Shiro said flatly.
Kamiki stopped pinching Yuki’s cheeks and turned to her.
“Yes, Shiro-chan?” “You like squeezing our cheeks,” Shiro observed.
“Why?” At the question, Kiyone also shifted her attention to them, locking her golden eyes onto Kamiki.
She was searching her mind for a logical answer to this question, but she couldn’t find one.
Kamiki pulled his hands back and looked at the three girls in turn, his smile widening.
“Because you’re all so sweet, of course,” Kamiki stated clearly.
The three girls froze for a moment.
They looked at each other, then turned their gaze back to Kamiki.
They hadn’t quite decoded the contextual meaning of that word yet.
“Sweet?” Yuki asked, raising her eyebrows.
“Doesn’t ‘sweet’ refer to the taste of food?
Like milk.
Or sugar.” “Yes,” Kiyone chimed in immediately.
“According to dictionary data, ‘sweet’ is a gustatory sensation.
We are not food.
You cannot eat us.” Shiro touched her own cheek, trying to feel her skin with her fingers.
“I don’t have a taste,” she said with a deadpan expression.
“Is my meat sweet?” Kamiki fought hard to suppress a burst of laughter at their overly mechanical approach.
The children of the White Room took everything literally; abstract concepts had yet to form in their minds.
“No, no,” Kamiki said, waving his hand dismissively.
“That’s not the kind of ‘sweet’ I mean.” “Then which kind?” Yuki asked, blinking her large eyes.
Kamiki adjusted his posture, pondering how to explain this abstract concept to them.
They were only a year and a half old, but their intellect rivaled that of an adult, so he needed to choose his words carefully.
“Being ‘sweet’ means something brings a person peace,” Kamiki explained.
“It means you look beautiful to someone.
It warms my heart just to look at you.
When you smile like that, it makes me very happy.” Kiyone weighed the explanation in her mind.
“Peace?” she asked.
“That is an emotional state.
Emotions are categorized as redundant in the White Room.” “That’s what the instructors say,” Kamiki replied, looking straight into Kiyone’s eyes.
“But they are wrong.
Emotions don’t make us weak.
On the contrary, they bind us together.” Shiro shuffled a bit closer on her knees.
“So when you squeeze our cheeks…
you’re showing us that you love us?” Kamiki was taken aback.
He was thrilled that Shiro had made that direct deduction on her own.
“Yes, Shiro,” Kamiki said softly.
“Exactly that.” Yuki lunged forward eagerly again.
“Squeeze my cheeks again then!” she insisted, thrusting her face toward him.
Kamiki laughed and gave Yuki’s cheeks another light squeeze.
Shiro also slowly brought her cheek closer.
“Mine too,” she murmured.
With his other hand, Kamiki caught Shiro’s cheek, showing affection to both girls at the same time.
Kiyone, meanwhile, remained seated at a distance, her hands resting flat on her knees.
She watched Kamiki call the three of them “sweet” and shower them with affection.
The number 18 in her mind experienced minor fluctuations as she took in the scene.
“Sweet…” Kiyone muttered to herself, logging this new definition into the hidden dictionary of her mind.
Kamiki was systematically rewriting every single definition in her world.
Another six months passed.
Time flowed relentlessly within the sterile, white labyrinth of the White Room.
The fourth-generation children had officially turned two years old.
Kamiki, Kiyone, Shiro, and Yuki…
this quartet had practically established their own sovereign republic inside the facility.
Their fluent speech, sharp perception, and the peculiar bond they shared didn’t escape the instructors’ notice.
But today marked the arrival of the day where individual abilities would be officially measured.
The very first real test to measure the intelligence and attention spans of the two-year-old children was about to begin.
The door to the room swung open with a heavy creak, and instructors marched in with rigid strides.
One of them stopped directly in front of Kamiki.
Kamiki sat calmly on his mat, without a single trace of fear or anxiety in his eyes.
The instructor knelt, looking straight into Kamiki’s eyes.
From his pocket, he produced a small, colorful gummy bear.
“Watch me closely,” the instructor commanded, his voice as mechanical as a robot’s.
The instructor placed the gummy bear in his right hand.
Then, he closed both hands into fists and extended them toward Kamiki.
“Which hand is the gummy bear in?” the instructor asked.
“Guess.” Kamiki just scoffed inwardly.
*Guess?* he thought.
This man had to be joking.
Without a moment’s hesitation, Kamiki raised his small hand without so much as a blink, pointing directly at the instructor’s right hand.
“There,” Kamiki said, his voice far too crisp and confident for a child his age.
The instructor slowly opened his right hand.
The gummy bear was right there.
Not a single flicker of surprise registered on the instructor’s face.
He had already expected this from Kamiki.
The reports they kept on this child had already proven that he operated far outside the boundaries of a normal human.
He gave Kamiki a slight nod and handed him the treat.
“Moving on to the next level,” the instructor said, pulling out another sweet.
Kamiki unwrapped the candy and popped it into his mouth.
He hadn’t had sugar in ages, and he had sorely missed the taste.
*With all the sweets I’m going to gorge on once I break out of this place, I just hope I don’t gain too much weight,* he mused.