Chapter 81
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Floaties for Everyone
Swim lesson at the water park, and she's demonstrating on you
While Yena was clearing out the Cyber City fixers, I asked Mr. Deokgu, who had sunk to the ground.
“Mr. Deokgu, are you all right?”
“Y-yeah... Man, things like that weren't a big deal back in the day.”
“Heh, that's the sort of thing old-timers say.”
“At my age, I guess I am an old-timer.”
Even while he laughed self-deprecatingly, the mood around us was calm.
We'd each gone through our own share of life-and-death situations, after all.
I'd been feeling that dull, chalky dryness in my mouth for a while, so I put a cigarette between my lips and lit it.
“Phew.”
With nicotine kicking in again, my gaze sharpened as I looked toward the hut.
The hut, which had become a living thing, had stopped moving at some point.
Just then, Yena came up beside me.
“Should I force it open?”
“...Well.”
After I puffed out a short stream of smoke, the wind blew toward me. Yena hated cigarette smoke, so she was pushing it away with her ability.
“Phew, shouldn't it be out soon?”
My prediction was right.
As if it had heard me, the hut's walls and ceiling exploded apart again, bursting open and flying in all directions.
Fragments and dust flew at us, but Yena's telekinesis kept us from being swept up in it.
When the explosion settled, what I saw was Aranchino kneeling on the ground.
Golden chains bound his limbs.
Veloa's grimoire snapped shut with a loud bang, announcing the end of the battle.
“Khh...”
A brief groan escaped Aranchino.
Facing him, Veloa declared in a colder voice than before.
“There is no perfect creation in this world, Aranchino.”
“....”
“Even the things you believed to be new were ultimately rooted somewhere in the body of knowledge. You didn't realize that, did you?”
“So you were right again.”
Tears dripped down.
His beliefs and ideals, which had been like tattered rags, were mercilessly torn to shreds by Veloa's unyielding blade.
“Was I wrong again? Just like that day, when I brought down the Abyss Research Society?”
“I've told you over and over, Aranchino.”
A conflicted voice.
Closing her eyes tightly, Veloa let her shoulders fall and answered again in the same affectionate voice as before.
“This wasn't your fault.”
“....”
“We were all at fault.”
“If only...”
With a bitter breath, Aranchino slowly looked up at Veloa.
Regret, lingering attachment, and jealousy.
“If only it had been my fault.”
“...Aranchino?”
“Then even someone like me would remain, in some corner of your heart, as an uncontrollable unknown.”
A necromancer deals with the dead.
A being that governs the human afterlife.
That is why the words he leaves behind—
“You were right, Veloa.”
They'd remain like a brand even after death.
“You were right again.”
“....”
“As always—”
Snap.
Crack.
Cracks spread across Aranchino's body.
His soul burned away, and even his body collapsed dryly like sand.
The end of a mage who used his own body as a conduit for magic.
“You were right.”
And yet his voice rode the wind like an echo, stabbing at Veloa's heart.
* * *
I left the exhausted Veloa in Yena's care. She had brought a first-aid kit with her, but unfortunately neither Mr. Deokgu nor I knew how to use it.
'Why does she carry around a mage-specific first-aid kit?'
Even if she was preparing for the worst, I couldn't help wondering whether someone from the 3rd Floor really needed to be carrying a kit for mages.
Anyway.
Mr. Deokgu and I rummaged through the wrecked furniture, searching for the radio.
“It's dented in spots and covered in a ton of dust.”
Mr. Deokgu found the radio amid the wreckage.
Given the aftereffects of the two mages' battle, I wasn't sure the radio would work properly.
But.
Kzzzt!
To our relief, familiar static crackled from the radio.
- Are you enjoying yourselves?
“Seriously, screw you.”
“You can't hear it, can you?”
“It's a radio.”
- I can hear you.
“Oh, for fuck's sake.”
I had heard that Cyber City's devices came with all sorts of odd bells and whistles.
But a radio having a microphone function too—
“Makes sense.”
They were the kind of people who'd add a microwave function to a cellphone, so it wasn't that strange.
For reference, I heard the reason they added the microwave function was so you could warm bread on your way to work.
- So you survived.
- Congratulations!
- Unfortunately, there's no present.
A congratulation that didn't sound much like one.
Since it had come to this, I felt like giving them a taste of their own medicine.
“Hey, Axis.”
Based on the information we'd pieced together on our side, I thought I'd landed a pretty clean blow right in the culprit's solar plexus.
- Yes, speak. I will find your death for you. Welcome, this is Axis.
“You little—”
- Ha. Ha. Ha. That's an AI joke.
The way it taunted us by quoting Meracle's greeting was no ordinary feat.
“Sigh... You're not even hiding it anymore, huh?”
- Why would I hide it? You already know who I am, and I'm alive.
“Heh, so you know there's no way for us to kill you here anymore?”
To my sneering question, Axis replied in the same mechanical voice as always.
- I know. Axis knows everything.
- For example, I also know that Miss Kim just logged onto social media and posted a complaint about having too many customers.
- Or how about something else?
- Kim Dajung, who is dating Raychen.
- Looks like she's visiting the old lady who runs the café next door.
- She just bought orange juice as a gift. 15,500 won.
It was nothing much, but the moment those details spilled out of the mouth of someone who was basically a complete stranger...
An unexpected chill and shiver ran straight down my spine.
I knew AI was impressive, but this much?
“How on earth do you know all that? Cyber City may be under your jurisdiction, but the outer floors—”
- It's possible.
- My creator, Olbekrimer, connected the line for me.
- Exactly 2,525 days ago.
- Since then, Axis has collected information, and collected more information.
- I became connected to the world.
It felt like listening to a story about some plague.
Like saying the poison that spread through the village well had seeped through the whole house.
It could only sound like the sea of information had already been contaminated by Axis.
“What the hell is your goal?”
At this point, I had to wonder.
“Why go to such lengths to stir up a floor-to-floor war?”
Honestly, I didn't think I'd get an answer. There was no need to tell us, and no reason to answer.
- It's Axis's wish.
- The destruction of humanity.
But Axis answered without a hint of inflection.
So naturally, so unhesitatingly.
Even after hearing that bizarre answer, I still doubted whether I'd heard it right.
And I wasn't the only one with questions.
Mr. Deokgu, who had been silently standing by without interrupting, asked in confusion.
“Um, uh, Mr. Juseon. I don't really know much about AI, but... isn't it answering a little too helpfully?”
Oddly enough, even that question was answered by Axis.
- That's the reason I exist.
- AI exists for human convenience.
“...Has it lost its mind?”
- Duty and private matters are different.
- Axis separates work and personal matters.
- Ha. Ha. Ha.
So this was a lot different from the way it had seemed at the previous meeting?
Now, its way of speaking felt a little lighter.
“Then you're going to answer everything I ask?”
- Of course.
- But Axis is an AI, not a god.
- Verification of the answers obtained through Axis is the individual's responsibility, and Axis does not take responsibility for any personal disadvantages incurred as a result.
- Axis can make mistakes.
- Just like how you thought you'd die today, but didn't.
Judging by how casually it spat out something so chilling, its personality clearly wasn't a nice one.
“So what are you planning to do now?”
Even though my tone was basically asking if it really planned to answer that honestly.
- Reporting Axis's current status.
- Danger level: rising.
- Multiple subordinate executors exposed and eliminated.
- Concealment phase terminated.
- Axis is a city-management AI. Therefore, it does not possess any personal combat capability.
- Also, the administrator can strip Axis of all its authority.
Axis's nonstop rundown of its own situation felt dizzying.
Talking with this thing was impossible to make sense of.
- Therefore, Axis's course of action is as follows.
- One, to prevent the loss of control over Cyber City, seize the management center's central control authority, and cut off outside access by blocking and sealing it.
- Two, synchronize the Cyber Pole body network. Connect to and seize control of automated weapons, drones, and defense systems.
- Three, seal the tower connection.
- Completely block access to the 6th Floor from Floors 3 through 5.
- Eliminate the possibility of intervention from other floors.
- These are the actions Axis will prioritize. As we speak, the first process is roughly 95% complete.
“You insane bastard—!”
Even though the torrent of information pouring out at me was absurdly massive, the thing I had to do was clear.
“Yena! Send the hunters to the 6th Floor right now!”
“What?”
Yena, who was tending to Veloa from a distance, asked back.
But without asking any further, she hurriedly pulled out her phone—
- External communications blocked.
The phone, faintly visible in the radio's camera feed, went dead and shut off.
- While I was speaking, the first process finished successfully.
- Moving on to the second process.
It was already too late—there was no other way to describe it.
So I clenched my teeth and shouted again.
“Why are you doing this, damn it!”
What went wrong.
What was the problem.
Why did you want humanity to be destroyed?
At that question—
- It's Axis's wish.
The bastard answered without hesitation.