Must You Become a Superintelligence?

Is there no other way besides dying… Such a question was meaningless. Prezen Meredith had probably examined every single possibility. And this was the result that came out of it.

I sighed and opened my mouth.

This was the only thing that came out.

“Must you go so far as to become a superintelligence?”

Prezen asked back.

“Why did it have to be me?”

“…What do you mean?”

“Casey, Eggsy… and countless other brothers died in test tubes. In a murky, maddening self-consciousness where they even forgot who they were, with their previously known selves remaining only as fragmented shards of a briefly glimpsed mirror…”

He said this while bringing his finger to the transparent Mirror Wall of the secret vault in Mirror Castle.

“What was so special about me that I was the only one to survive? There was a time when I believed there had to be an inevitable reason. Not anymore. Now I know that I was just incredibly lucky, that I merely was fortunate enough to accidentally overcome a probability of one in tens of millions.”

“…”

“It would be a relief if it were purely luck. But luck is not the only thing that made me who I am today. There were too many sacrifices. If they hadn’t died first, I wouldn’t exist either. I am the last survivor standing atop a mountain of corpses piled up in the name of Meredith.”

Prezen Meredith admitted.

“It might be better not to become a superintelligence. With this ability, I might be able to enjoy the free life I want in this body as much as I please, without becoming a weapon for a Megacorp and without having to worry much about the pursuit of the Dusk Watch.”

A convenient future that seemed reachable just by stretching out a hand was right before my eyes.

But we had shared a similar conversation before.

I remembered Prezen’s answer from back then.

Because of that, I could somehow guess the conclusion he would reach.

“It is such a… pleasant daydream. Just dreaming about it is enough to make all my Time Slip away.”

He spoke with a bitter smile.

A daydream is a daydream because it does not come true. That was what he meant.

“If my own life were the only thing I had to take care of, I would have done so without hesitation. But it is not. The weight of the lives I carry and have stained my hands with is far too great and heavy… a feather-like life, strolling as if flying above the clouds, does not suit me.”

“…”

“Some might argue that this is exactly why I should value this life even more. But it cannot be helped. There are things that cannot be done without doing this, things that are only possible in the territory of a superintelligence.”

He seemed to be waiting for me to ask what that was, so when I asked, Prezen pointed at himself with a long, milky-white finger and said.

“When I become a superintelligence… I will make sure that something like this, which we went through, never happens again. I will stop any of them from committing the same acts against my kin. As long as I am watching, a second or third Meredith can never be created. Never!”

A truly powerful will could be felt from that declaration.

“As I said, there is no reason why I survived. But… yes. Why would I need such a grand reason? One only needs to decide one’s own reason for living. And I have decided mine. I have lived for this moment, and this is where I land. As the family head, shouldn’t I be there for the annihilation of my family?”

He had found the answer to the metaphysical dilemma he had carried for so long. That was why there was no hesitation.

“This current transitional state cannot be maintained for long anyway. Aside from anything else, it is impossible for the body to endure it. How could a mere human body contain a power approaching that of a god? Whether to die and become a god, or to give up that possibility and live on as a human, it was something I had to decide eventually anyway.”

Prezen’s words were true. Why hadn’t I noticed?

His body, which had pretended to be fine, was gradually breaking down from the overload.

It was not the physical condition of an ordinary raver, but something worse: trembling hands, eyes losing their light.

Perhaps he had been forcing himself to endure it until now, as I could see him shivering, struggling even to keep his body standing.

“Will you give me your answer?”

Prezen Meredith asked resolutely, with his own end right before his eyes.

I gritted my teeth. I pulled out from my waist the thing I hadn’t wanted to draw and gripped it tightly.

I took a deep breath and aimed my pistol. With both hands, I took precise aim at Prezen’s head.

My answer must have been clearly conveyed.

Prezen spread his arms as if relieved and spoke in a comfortable voice.

“You must have truly suffered many hardships because of me and my family, so I am only sorry to entrust you with such a difficult task once again.”

“As long as you know. Who in the world just dumps something on someone who’s offering to help, and not just anything, but their own death?”

A soft giggling sound.

“I knew from the first time I saw you that you were the kind of audience I had been waiting for.”

“Really? I had no idea.”

“I knew. They call it an artist’s intuition. That intuition is at work this time as well.”

Without even needing to ask how it was at work, Prezen smiled gently and said.

“You were the best audience I have ever met. My intuition tells me so.”

I muttered in disbelief.

“That’s an obvious fact anyone would know, even without intuition.”

What kind of audience in the world would go this far for a mere artist?

Prezen chuckled once again, at whatever he found so funny.

Even if we weren’t like Boya and Ziqi, who understood each other’s inner thoughts just by listening to the sound of the geomungo, in that moment, the artist and the audience might have connected on some level.

“…”

“…”

He and I simultaneously realized that we had both finished our preparations.

Divine skill, we just knew it without needing any conversation.

It was a certainty clearer than anything else in the world.

He closed his eyes, and I pulled the trigger with my eyes wide open.

BANG―――――!

A short, intense gunshot. The recoil kicked the muzzle up and pushed the gun slide back.

Even without the microchip, everything looked like it was in slow motion.

The bullet pierced his forehead, scattering blue electrolyte. It irreparably shattered the storage device that made up the raver’s consciousness and memories.

Prezen Meredith collapsed and fell limply, like a doll with its strings cut.

A certain death.

It was my doing.

With a single bullet, I killed the Family Head of Meredith. I killed an Artificial Intelligence on the verge of ascension. Or rather, I shattered its birdcage.

When I first arrived here at Mirror Castle, I couldn’t have even imagined things would turn out like this.

“…What the!”

“Kill him - uh!”

“He’s already dead! The target is dead!”

The stopped world gradually awakened.

The most powerful artificial intelligence in Dusk City met its death, and all the people under its influence began to move, alive once again.

Security Department 5, Mili-Tech, and the belatedly arrived Watch Annihilation Squad… the three armed groups kept each other in check while examining Prezen’s corpse and me, the one who killed him.

Even though they had suffered a semi-forced full-body paralysis by Prezen, I thought they would have grasped what happened, but it seemed that wasn’t the case either.

As if their sight and hearing had been blocked, or as if they had completely lost consciousness, they couldn’t even guess the events that had occurred in the frozen world, the history between Prezen and me.

What happened? How did you kill him? Is he definitely dead? Could he have already succeeded in the leap to a super artificial intelligence? No, there are no signs of that…

It was noisy all around. I felt like I understood again why Prezen had stopped them.

Feeling somewhat despondent, I lifted my head high. Mili-Tech was trying to subdue me first, Security Department 5 was standing by, and the Watch Annihilation Squad was trying to stop them. Normally, it would have been a serious matter of life and death, but right now, it all felt futile.

What happened to Prezen?

What lay at the end of his death? The leap he aimed for? Or failure?

The surrounding situation slowly began to settle down. Security Department 5, having failed its objective achievement, seemed to be gradually backing off, and Mili-Tech, though they didn’t do it themselves, seemed satisfied that Prezen was killed anyway.

The Annihilation Squad closely confirmed Prezen’s death and seemed to consider me - the one who prevented, or rather, appeared to have prevented the advent of a super artificial intelligence - as a key witness or collaborator. It was a good thing for me, even though I didn’t feel much satisfaction from it.

“…I wonder if he succeeded.”

If he succeeded, what would he be doing right now?

At my abrupt soliloquy, the Annihilation Squad member who was there to supervise me looked at me through his shielded helmet mask.

I thought he would say something. So I was preparing to answer politely without offending him, but…

“Yes.”

“…?”

“I succeeded.”

It took me a few seconds to understand what that meant.

The voice was different, and the body was different, but that blunt tone hadn’t gone anywhere.

When I belatedly opened my eyes wide and looked at him, the Annihilation Squad member was bringing his index finger to the mouth area of his helmet.

“Shh. Just continue with what you were saying.”

“…”

It seemed there were circumstances where I shouldn’t openly recognize him.

I continued talking as if muttering to myself in a trembling voice.

“Telling me to kill you… was it to use the Annihilation Squad?”

“Yes. That seemed like the most effective way to keep my promise. If you become the hero who stopped the birth of a demon, wouldn’t they safely escort you and send you home? There’s also no harm in establishing a good relationship with the Dusk Watch.”

The promise was to help us safely escape Mirror Castle.

Since I had kept my promise, it was now his turn to keep his.

The context fit perfectly.

There was no doubt. The one controlling that body was not a person from the Annihilation Squad.

“…Why like this?”

“I realized it a bit late, but… I can no longer freely intervene in the physical world like before. Hmm… I made a promise, you see. I had no choice but to do it. There were such circumstances. Having broken free from my restrictions, I ended up trapped in new ones. It’s an irony, isn’t it?”

A promise? What promise? I had a mountain of things I wanted to ask, but unfortunately, whenever I tried to say something, the Annihilation Squad member invariably brought his index finger to his mouth.

He shook his head side to side, as if to say he couldn’t speak.

“Even now, I am using a bit of a loophole. If it weren’t for what needed to be done right now, talking to you like this would have originally been impossible.”

“What needed to be done?”

“There is an item I must deliver to you.”

Saying so, the Annihilation Squad member abruptly held out his hand.

I reflexively accepted its contents, but as soon as I confirmed its identity, I was so shocked that a shrill scream almost slipped out.

Startled, I almost dropped it before barely catching it again.

Pinched between my fingers was a small, old-fashioned data drive.

…It was the very storage device that contained the FAIV Virus!