The Weight of Distant Wars
The party, attended by prominent figures from various nations, was a resounding success. The reactions from those who had watched me race in person were so positive that I struggled a little to keep up with all the conversations, but thanks to my artificially controlled facial expression program, I managed without issue.
I was holding a glass of wine and taking a brief moment to catch my breath when an elderly man in a stylish, flamboyant suit approached me with a warm, hearty laugh.
“Ah, yes… just a little.”
The old man nodded and stroked his magnificent mustache.
“The game?”
“Ah!”
The only game I had played during my travels where I made a guild with people I knew was that one. “Then are you, by any chance, SwordEater?”
I was surprised. I had expected SwordEater to be older, but he was far older than I had imagined. The elegant, mustached elder standing before me with that warm laugh was none other than the chairman of Deus Operation Company, a fairly large corporation in Kensus.
“It’s been a long time. Have you been well? And the others?”
Despite the wrinkles that came with age, he proudly showed off his robust physique.
“Oh my, thank you. So the people who wanted to see me run in person were all of you?”
“I’m glad you enjoyed it.”
“Hehe, I wanted to promote the Mares at the racetrack, so I played a little trick.”
SwordEater—or rather, Mr. Deus—found a quiet corner with me and we continued our friendly conversation. He took out a cigarette case from his pocket, placed one between his lips, and handed the entire case to me.
“Wow, isn’t this the brand that’s impossible to get even with money?”
The nine cigarettes inside the case were each wrapped in decorative paper adorned with gold dust, silver dust, and pigments ground from various gemstones, intricately depicting the Sun God. Their bright golden hue made it obvious that these were the most famous and expensive cigarettes from Ryuzan.
“This is the one they call the Sun God’s Blessing… Even my sister couldn’t get her hands on it because production is so low. I’ll enjoy it, thank you.”
“Here.”
I quietly cast a spell and produced a small flame at my fingertip. Mr. Deus’s eyes widened slightly at the flickering spark.
“It’s just a simple parlor trick.”
He lit his cigarette, then I lit mine. Even though I usually preferred sweet chocolate-flavored cigarettes, this one gave me immense satisfaction with its rich, profound taste. I exhaled the white smoke that stimulated my taste sensors and murmured.
“Mmm~ It really lives up to its reputation.”
“I see.”
To me, it felt like both the complex flavors and the deep intensity at the same time. It was probably because my artificial brain analyzed and transmitted the signals from my taste sensors. While I was wondering why such a difference existed based on gender, Mr. Deus continued.
“Oh my, is that so?”
Mr. Deus stroked his mustache and gave a sly smile. It seemed he had learned several sensitive, unspeakable details that were supposed to remain hidden from the public. I made a slightly troubled expression.
“That’s awkward. The business rights contract included a confidentiality clause.”
He confidently assured me that information shared among club members would never be leaked to outsiders. Since each of them held significant positions, there were many sensitive matters involved.
“Of course. I’d be happy to.”
At Mr. Deus’s request, we stood close together and took a picture. He looked at the photo with satisfaction, said his goodbyes, and left the party venue.
After the party continued for some time and finally came to a peaceful end, I sat down with Jardin in my private room at the racetrack.
“Haa~ I’m exhausted.”
“Hahaha! You were the star of the party, so of course you’re tired. And after showing off such an amazing race, your popularity must have exploded.”
He seemed to think I was tired for those reasons, but in truth, the orgy I had after the race had been far more exhausting.
“You must be in a good mood after winning money, right?”
“Nah, I bet everything on you, so the dividends weren’t much.”
“What about Dahgon?”
“He was drinking over there and then went off somewhere with a woman he just met?”
“With Isabel? Then it should be fine.”
“You’re okay with him embracing another woman?”
“It’s not like Isabel is a stranger, and I haven’t been able to satisfy him much lately, so I have to accept it.”
In fact, for the past two months I had only been able to relieve him once a week at most. It was impressive that he had held out until now.
“But you’re saying that even though you have women you’re seeing, Jardin?”
“Well… I didn’t realize you’d be this busy. Still, it’s not a deep relationship. We just meet to satisfy each other’s sexual desires.”
“Hehe, it’s fine. It’s my fault for not being able to see you often. Once the business really starts running properly, it’ll operate smoothly even without me. Then I’ll have time again.”
Once the vice president and the management team, along with the racetrack’s systems, were properly established, my direct workload would decrease significantly unless something major came up.
Feeling the mental fatigue that had accumulated throughout the long, eventful day, I stretched and stood up, beginning to remove the dress I was wearing. With the help of my tail, I easily slipped off the party dress that exposed the entire upper part of my chest.
“Now your parasitic tentacle tail even helps you get dressed? That’s impressive.”
“The more it grows, the smarter it becomes.”
“Maybe because I only see it occasionally, but every time I look, the growth is really noticeable. It’s almost a meter long now, isn’t it?”
“To be precise, it’s about one meter and ten centimeters.”
The tail that had hung the dress on the hanger wriggled a few times before neatly folding it—albeit a bit clumsily—and placing it on the table.
“Whoa~ It even folds clothes? What a clever little thing.”
“Last time when I was working, it even picked up my coffee cup and helped me drink.”
When I stood in front of the vanity, the tail pulled the chair over, curled up into a round cushion, and offered itself as a seat. I sat on the kind tail, removed the ornaments from my tied-up hair, and asked.
“By the way, are you staying the night?”
“Won’t you be too tired?”
“Mmm~ It’s been a while since I took care of your sexual desires, Jardin, and my parasitic tentacle tail needs feeding too. How about it?”
As I looked at his reflection in the mirror, my tail swayed gently, expressing its anticipation. Our eyes met and he smiled.
“Oh my, how generous. Want to shower together?”
“Let’s do that.”
We helped each other undress and spent a deep night together, washing our bodies in the shower attached to the private room.
Early the next morning. Jardin, who had enjoyed intense sex until late the previous night, was snoring soundly in bed. I woke up first, washed up briefly, lit a cigarette, and was checking today’s schedule when a call came from Maria.
-Maria? What’s going on at this early hour?
-Elisha, come to the Central City Hall right now.
-What on earth… Understood. I’ll be right there.
I was about to ask what the matter was, but when I saw Maria’s unusually stiff and serious expression, I immediately replied that I would come at once. Normally I would do my own makeup, but since it was urgent, I rang the call bell to summon the maids.
“Lady Elisha, you called?”
“I need to head out immediately, so please help me get ready.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
With the help of two maids, I quickly prepared myself. Jardin, apparently woken by the commotion, rubbed his eyes and asked.
“What’s going on so early in the morning? Is something wrong?”
“I don’t know the details, but it seems like something serious has happened. I have to go straight to Central City Hall, so you rest.”
“Ugh, you’re always working so hard. Hang in there.”
“Thank you. Let’s go.”
“Yes. I’ve already contacted the security team in advance.”
Dressed in a black skirt suit, with my long silver hair neatly tied up and full makeup complete, I left the room. When I reached the first-floor lobby, the waiting security guards fell in behind me and opened the door of the waiting vehicle.
As the car sped through Eden’s gates toward Central City Hall, I contacted the vice president.
-Something urgent has come up and I’m heading to Central City Hall. Please adjust today’s schedule accordingly.
-Understood.
The vehicle raced swiftly along the early morning main road and soon arrived at Central City Hall. I opened the door to Maria’s office and stepped inside.
“Maria, what’s going on that made you look so serious?”
“You’re here, Elisha. Sit down first.”
I pulled up a chair in front of her desk and sat. Maria spoke first.
“This is news brought by Earthlings who arrived via Ryuzan just a short while ago.”
“Earthlings came?”
“They’re resting in the guest room right now. Anyway, the news they brought is quite serious.”
“Tell me.”
“War has broken out on Earth.”
“Ah… so it finally…”
It was something I had half-expected, so the feeling was more one of resignation that the inevitable had finally happened.
“The Japanese Empire declared war on Korea and immediately began hostilities.”
Maria handed me a document containing the information. Both I and my family had not been overly worried despite the rumors of war because Korea’s military power was formidable. Yet, shockingly, shortly after the war began, Korea had lost the northern region above Seoul and was pushed into a defensive position. They were barely holding on with an absolute defense line centered around the World Tree.
“A mechanical legion? The Earth dimension strictly prohibits not only artificial intelligence but also android production.”
“Android production is simple once you have the factories. The real problem is the program that operates those androids.”
“Artificial intelligence?”
“A completely new, high-performance artificial intelligence written in a programming language that cannot be analyzed on Earth. It suddenly appeared—an AI that Eden has researched and improved countless times.”
“How on earth…”
At that moment, the door suddenly opened and Elisa entered with a hardened expression.
“I’ll explain that part.”
“Elisa.”
“I analyzed the chip from the mechanical soldiers they brought. It was identical to the early high-grade artificial intelligence.”
“How could that be there?”
The early high-grade artificial intelligence was now an obsolete model that would only exist in Eden’s data archives. How could it have appeared in the Earth dimension?
“Miss. When you were on Earth, you suddenly said something strange appeared in your field of vision, right?”
“Ah, that did happen.”
“I don’t know exactly what occurred, but I believe you were in a hacked state at the time.”
“Hacked? Our systems use a completely different language, so they’re incompatible with Earth’s dimension.”
“At that time, I had developed a compatibility program to connect to the internet. The language was automatically converted and connected through that program. So theoretically, data copying was possible. We did have firewall and security programs in place, so it’s strange that it was breached. Unless some suspicious program was installed…”
“Ah…”
An involuntary exclamation escaped me. A suspicious program. Those words triggered a memory. It was such a trivial thing that the data fragment was tiny.
“When I was using the internet on Earth, something asked me to install it, so I did without thinking. Could that have been the cause?”
“…The probability is very high. Sigh… I should have educated you not to install anything randomly. This is my fault for being careless.”
“No, it’s my fault for installing it without thinking.”
“Both of you, stop. Rather than assigning blame, solving the Earth dimension problem comes first. Since it’s now confirmed that the origin of the artificial intelligence is the Eden dimension, we have a responsibility to help with the war. First, we need to gather everyone.”
Maria called both Kyubey and Uriel. Uriel, who arrived first, sat silently and waited. Kyubey, who arrived later, entered with a glossy face and immediately complained.
“It is morning, not dawn. Please sit down quickly.”
“I’ll explain briefly then.”
Confirming that all of Eden’s high-ranking officials were gathered, Maria explained the current situation. Upon hearing that the artificial intelligence used in the androids deployed in the Earth dimension war originated from Eden, Uriel immediately turned to look at me.
“I’m sorry, sister.”
“Yes. We had already received very generous understanding regarding artificial intelligence and androids, but now that this has happened, even with ten mouths we would have nothing to say.”
Elisa interjected.
“Since we were hit by a virus, we should repay them with a virus. The target was the old-model artificial intelligence I developed anyway. Compared to the new models with strong self-protection functions, the old model’s security is practically paper.”
Uriel asked as Elisa confidently thumped her chest.
“I’m confident I can easily break through security made at Earth’s level. Anyway, getting back to the point, the old-model artificial intelligence has a built-in wireless update function. Updates starting with a specific code are set to be accepted unconditionally. If we embed a virus in one of those and spread it, they’ll be neutralized in an instant.”
“Kyubey, don’t make such a hasty decision. We should think about it more…”
Maria, who had been trying to stop Kyubey from deciding on the spot, met her eyes. Her cheeks flushed and she fidgeted with her legs.
“Ugh, that look is so unfair. Fine. Then we’ll go with that countermeasure for the androids. Now let’s decide on the items to send with the delegation as an apology.”
Kyubey whined that she wasn’t interested, and Uriel stood up, saying she had to go handle the dimensional gate. Maria, looking as if her head hurt from their reactions, clutched her forehead and spoke in a tired voice.
“Thank you for your hard work.”
After the two left, the office grew quiet. Maria let out a long sigh.
“Come on… Cheer up, Maria. It just means they trust you that much.”
“Haa… Let’s decide among ourselves then.”
And so, Elisa, Maria, and I discussed the Earth dimension problem among the three of us.