Chapter 84
The interior of the grocery store located in District 49.
Ordinarily, a warehouse should be filled only with the inventory needed to run a grocery store, but.
Because of a certain part-timer who used the warehouse as if it were his own home (which was illegal in Korea, but this was Risk City), old sofas, mattresses with broken springs, cracked televisions, and dartboards riddled with holes had naturally begun taking up residence one by one over time.
Perhaps it was because there were so many homeless people around.
Naturally, they were all secondhand goods scavenged from somewhere.
If the district office ever sent someone for a hygiene inspection, the inspector would be utterly horrified, but as I said earlier, this was not the Republic of Korea, where the rule of law was properly enforced.
To survive in this city, one had to be able to attach and detach one’s conscience with ease.
【Try Candle Corporation’s latest heart implant! If you purchase one now, our specialists will personally assist you with the replacement─.】
Beep.
An odd advertisement had come on the television, so I immediately turned it off.
Still, a heart implant was a bit much….
Anyway.
Amid that chaos, I stared at Nova.
Nova was whiter than the heaps of snow piled up outside on the streets.
Pure-white hair.
Transparent eyes.
Even in this cyberpunk world, where racial distinctions were less pronounced, a mysterious aura clung to her and would have drawn the attention of everyone nearby.
Her flawless skin, without a single visible pore, made me think first that she would be difficult to touch carelessly.
Even though we were merely looking quietly into each other’s eyes, I felt a strange chill, as if a 20mm turret were aimed at me.
[Dyu.]
Ah, so she really had been watching me.
Nova cleared her throat softly, then calmly composed herself before asking me,
“…Why are you doing that?”
“Nothing.”
I answered Nova’s question matter-of-factly.
The android body recovered from the megacorp truck possessed beauty so breathtaking that it was almost suffocating.
I nearly lost myself in its appearance for a moment.
Though its detailed cybernetic-body specifications were identical to those of the Goliath that walked on two legs.
Wait, now that I think about it….
‘A walking turret…. Why make the appearance of such a powerful android this beautiful?’
Of course, it was perfectly normal for humans to worship beauty, but.
The android body housing Nova’s artificial intelligence was not merely that sophisticated.
I couldn’t even begin to guess how much research had gone into creating a body of this quality.
Just as my impression suggested,
this android body was truly similar to a ‘human.’
Even now, the heartbeat of the android body was not beating with machine-like regularity; its pace was gradually speeding up.
Soon, a faint blush appeared across Nova’s face.
“……”
“……”
Though her face itself remained expressionless.
In any case, that meant the android Nova inhabited was not necessarily intended solely for combat.
For example….
‘Perhaps it was an android meant to guard the rich.’
I recalled the words engraved on the capsule inside the megacorp truck.
【Handle■ with care】
【■■■■ ■■ Co■■ Female Android】
The writing at the very front probably said ‘Handle with care.’
The rest of the writing had been so severely erased that none of it was readable.
The only word I could reasonably guess was….
‘Co…. Display model? Combat model? Ex-convict? Warrior-chan?’
Tsk, no idea.
There was a way to find out what the engraved words said, but I wasn’t prepared yet.
I needed more points to select the 【Psychometry】 trait.
For now, I decided to leave it for later.
It was also possible that the writing here was not particularly important.
What mattered right now was that the capsule had been carried on a truck registered to Veltech.
Among the words spoken by Paul Lucas─almost the only customer who dropped by our grocery store every day like some layabout─there had been some useful information.
- “People really are strange. Apparently, not creating or employing androids is such a problem in this day and age.”
Apparently, Veltech neither created nor employed androids.
However, judging from the circumstances, it was obvious that this android body had been made by Veltech.
Although it did not have a personality-based artificial intelligence installed in it.
If it had, things might have become somewhat troublesome.
And I didn’t think they would put a highly versatile general-purpose AI like GPT, Gemini, or SimSimi in it.
No, to begin with, what exactly was artificial intelligence?
No matter how advanced technology became, the idea that one could breathe life into a machine with nothing more than a click was astonishing….
At that moment.
A memory from when I first visited Walter’s old shop suddenly flashed through my mind.
Right.
Walter might know something.
He had even made a dog capable of speaking human language, so he probably knew more than I did, at least.
For what felt like several dozen seconds.
After I finished sorting through my complicated thoughts.
“……”
I saw Nova, who was still standing guard in front of me, with her eyes gently closed.
What was this?
Had I been spacing out for too long?
When I quietly turned around, I felt an extremely intense gaze on the back of my head.
I carefully turned around again.
Nova was looking at me with her usual expressionless face.
(The fact that she felt a little frightening, unlike earlier, was probably just my imagination.)
“…Why?”
“I was simply looking at you as well.”
“……”
Having my own words from earlier thrown back at me, I awkwardly scratched my head.
“Anyway, I’m going to go see Grandpa Walter.”
“May I ask why?”
“I want to ask him something.”
It was right behind here, anyway.
* * *
The vacant lot behind the grocery store was just as chaotic a sight.
On one side was the house where Rivera and her family lived.
On the other was the homeless shelter Michael had built.
And in the farthest corner….
【Anna’s Recycling Shop】
There was another building whose sign had been changed from ‘Walter’s Recycling Shop.’
“Excuse me.”
For the record, this was my first time going inside, too.
The last time I had come to have Cat─that is, the ninja─repaired, it had still been a shabby tent.
“Is anyone here?”
Just because the shop had reopened under a new name didn’t mean the inside was necessarily clean.
Given Walter’s personality, I suspected he would leave tools and parts strewn about, then insist that he had merely ‘organized them chaotically.’
I could sense someone’s presence from inside, but.
There was no visible human shadow.
Where had that old man gone this time….
“Damn, you scared me.”
Then I discovered a limbless corpse lying completely motionless on the operating table.
Strictly speaking, its heartbeat was perfectly healthy, so calling it a corpse wasn’t quite accurate.
Anyway, it was quiet as a corpse.
“…Cat?”
Looking at its face, I could see the full-face helmet I had bought at Black Square last time, perfectly intact.
There was no answer. Apparently, the ninja had simply been anesthetized and knocked out.
For reference, the expression displayed on top of it was [ x _ x ].
For now, its torso was roughly covered with a sheet that appeared to be made of vinyl.
“I thought you were a corpse….”
“Heh-heh….”
Walter’s presence, which I had felt from the very back of the shop, slowly drew closer.
His mismatched mechanical eyes spun this way and that, like “THE Mad-Eye” Moody from some wizard movie.
Before fixing other people’s bodies, Walter really ought to do something about his own appearance.
Seeing my startled expression, Walter gave a low, wheezing chuckle.
“It really does look just like scavengers are stripping a corpse.”
Inside Anna’s Recycling Shop, the dreadful smell of disinfectant mingled with the pervasive stench of blood.
The scavengers I had met on the first day I fell into the game world naturally came to mind.
This world really was fucking at the end of its tether.
The joke didn’t sound like a joke.
“And it’s also the unvarnished reality of every implant surgery. Expecting there to be no side effects when replacing a perfectly healthy body with machinery is simply greedy. Usually, they make the adjustment period as long as possible to minimize pain and rejection, but….”
Walter looked down at Cat, who was cold as a corpse, and shook his head from side to side.
“This lunatic threw a fit, insisting that the surgery had to be finished as quickly as possible. He’s a huge fellow, yet the tantrum he threw was something else. So I’m doing it all at once like this, so don’t blame me.”
“He definitely got beaten badly by someone….”
“Hm?”
“Nothing, just talking to myself.”
How badly must he have been traumatized to want to replace his cybernetic body as quickly as possible?
Even getting beaten up helplessly by some neighborhood kid wouldn’t have been enough to cause this much damage.
Walter, who had spent a long time adjusting the cybernetic body, looked just as tired.
He let out a long yawn and asked me in a gruff tone,
“Anyway, so why did you come looking for me?”
“I wanted to ask you something about androids.”
Thinking of Nova in the grocery store, I added,
“More precisely, about artificial intelligence.”
The empty android body.
The other artificial intelligence that had been intended to go inside it.
I was curious about things like that.
Walter tried to force the fatigue from his expression, then looked at me with a slightly incredulous face.
“…Did you sell the terminal somewhere else again? This is an inconvenient yet convenient age where you can learn everything just by searching the cyber web.”
“The lag on that machine got too bad….”
“Huh?”
“No, it’s just that the lag strangely doesn’t happen when I use it here, so replacing it feels awkward…. Anyway.”
Still, that wasn’t the only reason.
I drew out my words slightly.
“Codex Wiki, was it? Some damn wiki told me to watch ten minutes of advertisements if I didn’t pay for a subscription. I’d rather save that money and buy another hot dog.”
“Hah. It’s not as if you’re short on money, so what….”
I had already spent quite a lot recently, too.
Of course, my balance wasn’t empty.
Even if you were a rich person with plenty of money, you still hesitated over subscribing to ○Tube Premium.
When I gave a small shrug, Walter snorted and dropped into a chair set off to one side.
“So what kind of artificial intelligence?”
“Well….”
It was a continuation of the conversation we had shared at Walter’s old shop.
“What exactly is an android?”
The answer came back quickly, without a moment’s hesitation.
“The brain of an intelligent entity that corporations freely mold according to its purpose, thanks to advances in cyberbrain technology.”
“……What?”
What?
It was an answer I hadn’t expected at all.
Yet Walter’s expression was utterly calm as he said it.
“Because it’s much simpler than creating something new. And in this goddamn capitalist society, efficiency is what matters most.”
With just a spoonful of skepticism added.
“Most of the artificial intelligences developed by megacorps probably have this sort of structure.”
“Even so, I don’t think that’s something people openly talk about….”
“Of course not.”
Walter nodded and continued.
“I didn’t know either, originally. You could say I realized it after coming down to District 49.”
Why was District 49 suddenly coming up?
Our city wasn’t that bad.
There were just a few more homeless people than usual….
“What does artificial intelligence have to do with District 49?”
“Hm?”
Walter’s eyes widened slightly.
“You didn’t realize it even after hearing me say that the android was my daughter?”
“What….”
“That’s precisely why I came down to District 49. Surely you know that duplicating personalities is illegal in this city….”
“Ah.”
Unfortunately, I didn’t possess that level of common sense.
An awkward atmosphere settled over the shop.
It felt like I had made a mistake bordering on a full-blown Talulaha moment….
“I-I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologize.”
I had wondered why a skilled technician like Walter had come all the way down to District 49 and set up a shop.
So that was what lay behind it.
I finally understood why he had said he was single at the beginning.
From Walter’s perspective, it had been tantamount to confessing his own crime, but back then, knowing nothing, I had simply thought, ‘I guess he isn’t very close with his daughter, who has a mechanical body,’ and let it pass.
When I stood there awkwardly.
Walter continued with another question, as if trying to change the subject.
“So what made you ask about that?”
“…Hmm.”
I didn’t think there was any need to keep hiding things from Walter here.
Walter was effectively a member of our grocery store.
A member of the homeless gang─no, the club.
After all, Michael, Rivera, Nova, and even Cat already knew everything, so it was awkward to call it a secret at this point.
Starting with the megacorp truck.
Although I had somehow managed to wrap things up.
I finished by explaining that the reason Veltech’s security personnel were still searching District 49 was me.
At last.
Walter said to me with an utterly dumbfounded expression,
“You lunatic.”
It was a fact that was objectively difficult to deny.
Still, I felt a little wronged.
Only a little.
Just a tiny bit.