Chapter 299
I could immediately tell why this place was the “Exhibition Hall”. Had it always been like this, or had Prezen Meredith remodeled it in a short amount of time?
Either way… it was artistic.
The end of the stairs, fitting for the innermost part of Mirror Castle, sparkled with mirrors.
Mirrors in all directions - up, down, left, right, and diagonal - reflected each other, creating an infinitely multiplying image.
Surrounded by tens of thousands, no, hundreds of thousands of others like me in the vast space, I walked amidst the endlessly distorted cosmic colors of magenta and silver-white.
No matter how much I walked, there was no end. Even if I passed one mirror, tens of thousands of other mirrors would simply reflect my image again.
Among all those radiating optical metallized glasses, the ones with actual substance were few.
“No. Probably… just one.”
How was I supposed to find the real one among hundreds of thousands of illusions created by that exquisite technique?
If there was a noticeable difference, it might be one thing, but since it reflected my actual appearance exactly, I could never find anything strange just by looking.
When I frowned, hundreds of thousands of me immediately followed suit without the slightest error. When I raised my hand, they raised theirs, and when I shook my head in frustration, they shook theirs.
It was a sight that felt a bit creepy and overwhelming.
Was there an exit in this colossal artwork?
“There must be.”
This was an Exhibition Hall, and I was a spectator, after all.
Just as I had done on the way here, I didn’t lose my composure and calmly organized my thoughts.
If it was too identical to distinguish what was real, then conversely, I had to find the one that wasn’t identical.
If there were no real one, there must at least be a fake.
Out of tens of thousands of mirror images, at least one of them wouldn’t be a mirror.
Pushing my exhausted body, I jumped around like crazy in place. I did a somersault, stood on my hands, and while I was at it, even did burpees.
Even while thinking to myself what kind of nonsense this was, I didn’t forget to scan my surroundings with my sharply honed superhuman senses, like spreading a net.
How long did I keep at it? Had I barely checked a tenth of the hundreds of thousands?
“…”
I caught something.
A movement in the mirror failed to follow me in time. It was a minute difference, truly about 0.5 seconds.
My gaze was drawn to one spot.
Over there.
If asked if I was certain, I couldn’t be. It was more likely that my exhausted body, unable to find its bearings amidst the raging pain and hormones, had made a mistake.
Nevertheless, after some thought, I boldly aimed the muzzle of the tech rifle I was carrying at the mirror bearing my image.
What would happen if I shot?
It would be fortunate if the mirror broke, but what if it reflected or ricocheted? Could I guarantee my safety?
The me in the mirror could also be seen placing a finger on the trigger, aiming at me.
That finger, unlike mine, wasn’t trembling.
BANG――――!
With an ear-piercing gunshot, the mirror shattered into pieces. At the same time, the figure behind it that had been mimicking me revealed itself, dodging the bullet in a distinctly different form.
Perhaps the rude artwork testing the spectator came to an end here, as the hundreds of thousands of reflected mirror images also blurred and turned off.
Before I knew it, I was in the middle of a vast spherical room.
As I looked up, protruding crystals soared like stars, drawing an Archimedean spiral, and as I looked down, a dizzying abyss beneath the transparent Floor/Ground welcomed me.
Ahead, an artwork I had seen before was suspended in midair.
The title of the artwork was 'Self-Portrait'.
Its size looked to be double what it was before.
A human form, wrapped tightly in featureless clothing and unidentifiable, came to mind. Even its face was erased and empty, like that of a ghost or phantom.
It was a bizarre assailant that would have felt truly terrifying in a situation like this if the colors and lines used hadn’t been vivid and bright.
Beneath it, Prezen Meredith offered a greeting, just like when we first met.
“Welcome. This is the Exhibition Hall.”
Even though it hadn’t actually been that long since we last met, so much had happened that it felt like we were reuniting after several days.
Prezen Meredith had the same consistently frail voice and a stiff tone that made it impossible to read his inner thoughts.
Even with things having reached this point, he still didn’t reveal his true colors.
Despite going from a mediocre noble artist to the family head of the Meredith Family, and perhaps the mastermind behind all these terrorist incidents - a rare arch-villain who joined hands with an autonomous artificial intelligence - he still treated me with the same polite respect.
What on earth was his ulterior motive? Was he really connected to the Meredith Family or an autonomous Artificial Intelligence? What was the true goal he had hidden from us and from Phantom Thief Zodiac…?
There was so much I wanted to ask. But in the end, only one sentence popped out.
“Where is Alexandra?”
“Ah, you came all the way here because of Young Lady Schneider? It must have been a perilous journey… I apologize. Miss Alexandra Amadeus Schneider is right here. I have kept her safely stored.”
Using the expression 'stored' for a person is meaningful.
I gripped my rifle tightly, thinking that the worst-case scenario I had imagined might have already occurred, but fortunately, it was a groundless fear.
Clunk.
A hole opened in the achromatic wall in the middle of the sphere, and Alexandra’s body, drooping like a doll, rolled down from it as if riding a slide.
I hurriedly ran over, caught her, and checked her condition; aside from being asleep as if dead, there seemed to be nothing wrong with her health.
A sigh of relief naturally escaped me. Thank goodness.
Having put out the urgent fire, I naturally felt curiosity surge within me.
“Why?”
Why did Prezen Meredith hand over such a valuable hostage so carelessly
Was it confidence that no matter what I did, I couldn’t ruin his plan? Or had he already done something to Alexandra?
My heart sank, but there was nothing I could do anyway.
Even if he had pulled some trick, I wouldn’t be able to tell just by looking, and even if I had known, it was obvious I wouldn’t even be able to touch it with my abilities, if the technique of the Meredith Family had been mobilized.
“She is perfectly fine. She has merely fallen asleep. I haven’t done anything. It seems Phantom Thief Zodiac has studied the method of putting the noble young lady into a deep sleep very diligently.”
Prezen Meredith spoke calmly, as if noticing my inner thoughts. I sighed, inwardly cursing Kali Zodiac, who was clearly a lecherous lesbian given the circumstances.
“What are you thinking?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why did you let me come all the way here?”
At my sharp question, he replied with a faint smile resembling a doll’s.
“Would an artist have any reason to stop a spectator from coming?”
This was a damn tiresome Zen dialogue. I no longer had the luxury or the mental capacity to beat around the bush like this.
I spat it out straightforwardly.
“Dusk Watch is coming.”
“…”
“They said the Meredith Family will face immediate extermination if signs of Code Black are discovered.”
Even Prezen Meredith, who had been relaxed the whole time, found it hard to react calmly to those words and remained silent for a while.
After taking about a second to gather his thoughts, he spoke.
“Eres Shore. Is he the secret agent of Dusk Watch? That’s faster than I thought…Or perhaps I should say it’s slow.”
It was an attitude that showed he indeed already knew this would happen.
Was that also the reason he didn’t try to protect the Meredith Family’s assets and the position of family head? Because it was obvious that everything would be finished by Dusk Watch anyway?
“You really were connected to an autonomous Artificial Intelligence.”
At this point, it was the undeniable truth.
At my words, Prezen Meredith shook his head.
“The expression 'connected' is insufficient.”
“Insufficient?”
Prezen Meredith answered my question with a question of his own.
“Do you know how the Meredith Family was born?”
There was no way I would know.
I wondered if he was going to explain the history of the Meredith Family, but Prezen Meredith suddenly brought up a different story.
“Or, what about the birth of a Raver? It is known to the public that the cause of a Raver’s birth cannot be revealed by existing science and technology. Among machines of the exact same form, someone remains a Raver, while someone else becomes a cold corpse, forever stillborn without breaking out of the egg. And no one knows the reason why.”
There was no need for him to kindly explain it; it was a fact I already knew. Was this an extension of the conversation we had at the Exhibition Hall back then? What more was he trying to say here?
Just as I was thinking that, Prezen Meredith spoke in a firm voice, different from before.
“It is a blatant lie.”
“…What?”
“A Raver is not born without reason or cause. A Raver is not naturally generated, but is an artificial lifeform created by design. The consciousness and ego of our race were injected from the outside, and we possessed a clear purpose from the design stage.”
It was a conspiracy theory that seemed like it would roll around in the Abyss of the Net forum.
However, the speaker saying it was Prezen Meredith.
Regardless of whether it was persuasive or not, the important thing was that he firmly believed it to be the truth.
“Did you know? The first Raver was born right here in Dusk City. Afterwards, truly suddenly, the entire race spread to Neo Tokyo, Sealed Off Shanghai, Petersburg Fortress… all over the world, just like a disease.”
“Isn’t it suspicious, the existence of Ladam and Ever, of us ravers. We spread like a virus. Just like that infamous FAIV Virus that gave birth to numerous autonomous artificial intelligences, self-awareness suddenly emerged in countless limited artificial intelligences.”
If you know of Dusk Watch, you must also know how much this city, this world, fears a superhuman artificial intelligence. Why would those in power, who vividly remember the terror of Null Seed and the tragedy that occurs when an artificial intelligence possesses an ego, allow our existence? It is certainly not because they consider us fellow humans and respect our rights.”
“The reason is that our existence is a thoroughly intended outcome, and they had a goal they wanted to achieve through us.”
“As far as I know, the first Raver was called Meredith.”