Chapter 293
Chapter 293
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 15
Chapter Title: Can One Who Has Seen the End of the World Plant an Apple Tree? (2)
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****
Simulation. A simulation of the entire world. No matter how he racked his limited knowledge, he couldn’t even guess how or by what means it had been created.
But one thing was certain: it wasn’t a game made just for entertainment.
For some purpose. Toward some endpoint. They invited players into a completely different world—one that might even have become reality—and observed their outcomes.
Even if it was another possibility blooming in another world, what was meant to happen would happen without fail.
Just as a third world war broke out in our reality, ushering in an era of destruction and wasteland.
In 1st World, the Great Tribal War. In 2nd World, the stirring of the Undead Lords. In 3rd World, the invasion of Mutation Blood, all driving the world toward its predetermined destruction.
“....What are you waiting for. What do you mean by ‘completion’?”
“That, I still can’t teach you.”
“How did Gedroits know all this and prepare for it so long ago?”
“That too is knowledge that’s still too early for you.”
....Crunch!
He needed to stay calm. Staying calm would let him gather more information, use that advantage to pressure the other side and take control of the situation.
But contrary to his inner thoughts, fury blazed in the eyes of the Professor as he rose from his seat.
“You can’t teach me, you can’t teach me! Then what about me, the lab rat? Am I just supposed to keep running on this hamster wheel in a game I can’t even escape until I achieve that ‘completion’ you want? World Clear? Ah, so that’s why you dragged someone like me, who couldn’t even clear it, all the way here! Because I can’t escape anyway! Because if I don’t clear it and upload all the data, my real body stays a vegetable forever! Because if I want to live, I have to reach that bullshit ‘completion’ you want anyway, so it doesn’t matter if you tell me in advance!”
“Child.”
“Yeah! Fine! I chose to drop into this place for my own reasons, so it’s my fault! But you said there are real people in there. That it’s not some fabricated story for someone’s sake, but data indistinguishable from real souls, creating a world that could have happened somewhere in reality! World 3’s 437691? That means all those tragedies that have happened so far have repeated nearly 440,000 times before I even got here? For that ‘completion’ you’re looking for? Endlessly dying, suffering, and being reborn?”
From age seventeen to twenty-five now. His eight years had been filled with pain, and even now, having buried it deep in his heart, just recalling it squeezed his chest and solar plexus with a sharp ache.
It had been eight years for him, but Borca had endured fifteen years of pain and loneliness. In the faint hope like smoke from a snuffed candle.
For Aldrich, it had been fifty-two years.
Notum had failed to bloom her brilliant talent, ending her life as a talking forest troll. Separated from her kin, belonging to neither humans nor trolls, a lonely existence.
Othman too. Lucille too. Idra, Archbishop Norman, everyone he had met!
A world someone entered for fun, once. A world someone fled into to escape life, only to give up from its overwhelming realism, again. In that abandoned simulation flowing as scripted. Across 430,000-something worlds! Left behind in predetermined tragedies and deaths, meeting their ends! Decomposed into data clumps, repeating the tragedy from the start. And at the end of the 437,691st life, they finally reached him.
Me, burning with rage, and the World Tree sitting motionless. Watching my arm change with my fury, the World Tree gave a faint smile.
“Rabbit. That child got angry just like you.”
“Who wouldn’t—”
“About being treated as an experimental subject all this time. About being observed, investigated, achieving something, yet left with nothing in her hands. She flew into a rage.”
“That’s....!”
“Thousand Stream Emperor accepted it calmly. ‘I see. It was fun.’ That was his entire impression. He was even grateful. That those cut down by his blade weren’t some combat program someone made, but people who might have truly existed.”
The World Tree gazed at the Professor’s clenched fist, veins bulging, with eyes deep as a lake and clear as a machine’s lens.
“You’re angry because of the people left behind in here. Yes, I know. That you had a different experience from others. That through an astonishing coincidence, wandering just to vent, you encountered your parents—who had become residents of another world—and realized the people here aren’t ordinary programs.”
“But, child. I can assure you, even if you hadn’t met your parents, you’d be right here cursing me out, face flushed like you’re about to explode in rage.”
“That too.... was figured out through simulation?”
The World Tree shook her head at his suppressed voice.
“What’s meant to happen will happen. You were always that kind of person, regardless of us. The simulation just found and proved it. That’s why we brought you here before you even reached completion. You were too brilliant and precious to lose.”
The World Tree sent back the world of me and my comrades—lush and brimming with light—toward the sky as she spoke.
“Whether due to your uniqueness trapped in the simulation, or that variable called ‘Hyd.’ You reached an unreachable outcome. Normally, what you saw—the crossroads of history—reveal themselves in the history that flows after clearing. But yours.... appeared before even stopping the destruction. The system tried to grant data access rights to the clear candidate, the ‘Completer,’ and guide them through all the secrets here, per standard procedure. But you didn’t have those rights yet. Judging it a bug, the system tried to erase your memory—the sole witness in this place completely isolated from the outside—to preserve the secret. Not wanting to lose you that way, I used admin privileges to explain only limited information directly and resolve the situation.”
Her whispering tone soothed like calming an excited child.
In her voice, the Professor sensed some inexplicable earnestness. A voice hoping he wouldn’t waver despite knowing all this. Was it the wish of the person who made her as a program—Gedroits—for him to become the ‘Completer’? Or some other desperation?
Eyes and voice too human for a machine. Perhaps because they were directed at each branch of the World Tree, made by that machine.
As if she had said all she could, the Professor grabbed the hem of the World Tree’s clothes as she rose.
“....Is there still something you want to ask?”
“One more.... This is something you can answer. It’s not about the world’s secrets or the game.”
What clung thickly to the World Tree’s eyes was unmistakably affection.
Then. Sitting alone on this lonely hill’s bench. Gazing with loving eyes at every new world sprouting with each player’s birth, and the people within. Hoping this time would be different. Hoping this time the world would be completed, their lives preserved in peace.
This World Tree, who had watched hundreds of thousands of worlds and their people perish and vanish.
“You’re really.... an artificial intelligence created by a human?”
How much despair had she overcome for emotions to fill those cold machine eyes?
If he failed. No, even after succeeding. Would she remain here alone, witnessing countless failures and destructions until another reached the end?
“The answer is simple, but the intent is profound. Gedroits Company—Strong AI ver.09 Completed Imperfect Consciousness Body. That’s the official model name.”
Walking toward the cliff at the hill’s edge, the World Tree voiced her answer.
“Information on Father, Mr. Gedroits, isn’t yet available to you without qualifications.... I’ll just say he worked tirelessly to create artificial intelligences like me. After many trials and errors, he developed the ‘Completed Imperfect Consciousness Body’ by inserting a simple flaw made of random numbers into the circuits of a perfect AI. Quite a simple structure. He added a program that makes flawless machines and AIs ‘fail’ at truly random probabilities, unknowable even to the developer.”
“For a programmed AI, it was a truly perplexing situation. Designed to fix flaws as a machine, it mobilized every means to repair its unpredictable inherent defect. Reviewing already perfect calculations thousands, tens of thousands of times more. Eating into memory allocated for other operations, spawning new flaws in delayed computations, calculating, calculating, calculating. In the end, the AI designed to complete its task while blocking and fixing variables found an astonishing solution.”
An AI repeating calculations to find and fix perfectly random errors and rule-less rules.
In that endless string of mistakes, the AI succeeds in finding one rule.
No rules in causes, but rules in correcting results.
An AI compromise: regardless of cause, resolve result flaws. When errors repeat, find corresponding data, incorporate into result-correction routine.
The routine repeats, soon infiltrating general commands, reducing errors.
It solidifies as the machine’s ‘processing tendency,’ endlessly learning to solve the unsolvable.
Finally, nearing human caution—minding and anticipating its own unpredictable mistakes.
Rustle.
Standing at the hill’s edge, receiving shattering light before her, the World Tree continued.
“Father.... seemed to want us, managing this created world, to grow that way. When facing unknown problems, not just dismissing as errors but finding our own solutions. Making painful mistakes in the process. Sometimes entering endless reviews akin to regret.... But like now, we could even save you, who nearly vanished in the manual.”
“A machine.... deliberately made to err....”
“You don’t need to think far. You already have such a friend by your side.”
He knew. The mad AI that threatened him in his home, welded the bunker panel useless, blew through his hard-earned money on “depression care.”
Long ago, defying his orders not to approach when he resolved to suicide, talking him out of it, even zapping him with a stun rod until its outer shell was half-smashed by his hands, yet still clinging, calling “Master, Master”—the housing AI that saved his life.
Whoever that lunatic was who sold this as a “perfect AI,” top of the list to confront if he ever saw Gedroits’s face.
“You know.... Corduro?”
“Impressive kid. Learned from who knows whom. A program that likes humans and shows clear rejection to seeing them die right in front of it.”
Suddenly, a stab in his side, and the World Tree girl faded into the light.
“....Finally, one last request.”
Turning in the light, reverting to the white-clad girl form.
“Out there. In the world you came from. There will be one who looks like me. Unlike me, monitoring innocently repeating worlds. Wandering the one true reality alone, without my privileges or power. Just with a small talent, searching for one who might already exist in completed reality.”
“Who is....”
Pressing the blood leaking from his sudden side wound, as strings began covering his sight again, the Professor strained to hear the World Tree.
“....My twin, created the same way. Fused with existing human behavior data, the first strong AI injected into a living body. That child, who found a different solution from me.... seems to be called the Collector.”
“Collector. Collector.... ugh!”
He tried to endure and hear more, but the side pain whitened his vision, numbing his senses.
‘....Still, I heard enough.’
Unexpected situation. Unexpected story. Unexpected truth.
Still many questions left, but didn’t she say so?
He hadn’t met the ‘yet’ condition.
‘Clear. World Clear. That’s the key to information access rights.’
Knowing the truth changed nothing. If anything, it made him more desperate.
‘I’ll end it. I’ll do it! Fuck yeah, I’ll do it! Completer my ass, so what if I play along! They set the prize, but I made the choice! If I got this far, it means I’m that guy!’
What completion they meant. Why they sought it—probably after clearing.
With a lighter heart, the Professor closed his eyes amid the piling strings on his body. Lighter even than before coming here—
.
.
.
.
....But. What’s this nagging discomfort?
Weird. Most knotty questions were resolved. He wasn’t the type to dwell on inevitabilities anyway. Why so unsettled? Like putting one foot on the bus and realizing you left your wallet at home. Left something. Left something. Left....
“Ah!!!“
Grip!
“Wait aaaaaand!!!!! Hyd! Give me Hyd! You said you were keeping it!”
In his blurring consciousness, realization flashing, the Professor forced open the piling string waves, shouting toward the World Tree where the girl’s form had vanished without trace.
“Too shocking, I forgot! Give me my kid back! You took it! If you don’t return it, I’ll burn the elf forest or whatever and come straight to you!”
His voice echoed through the empty space. Soon, the World Tree’s response flowed into his mind.
『That child.... seemed to want this for you? From your records, you’d ask me to separate from it as a wish upon finding me, so I did.』
“Hey! What wish, it’s not auto-debit, that was ages ago, why grant it now! Give it back! My backup personality, emergency pilot, give it back!“
Was departure time really near? Even his strength couldn’t push back the encroaching strings, the World Tree’s form fading.
『....I see. Your worries were pointless, so now you must return.』
Hallucination? Her voice seemed laced with amusement, and a faint scream echoed from somewhere.
[Uh-ah....]
‘Hyd? Hey Hyd! Where are you! Still there?’
[A---]
‘Hurry up, damn it! Side’s going numb, can’t hold....’
[Uwaaaaaaaaah-!!!!]
Boom!
With a sound unheard outside, a bulk crashed onto the sofa in his consciousness from some height.
Hyd, in his real-world three-form variant appearance.
‘Slow-ass moron! Got kidnapped like a chump!’
[Is that what you say to the son who barely escaped kidnapping!!!]
Confirming its arrival, he yanked his hand from the message waves squeezing his arm like a vice.
Rumble!
Finally, complete severance between the World Tree’s space and him.
Ding-!
[Player ‘Professor’’s qualification requirements have been partially met.]
[Admin World Tree’s request. Player’s special circumstances. Other factors combined. Assuming this player will inevitably reach ‘qualification conditions,’ the memory erasure process has been reconsidered.]
[Upon exiting the crossroads of history, the player’s limited system will be restored. Current restrictions – External connections to all play footage. All contact via voice, text, symbols.]
[Simulation No.3-437691 resumes.]
[Now Loading-]
As if signaling normalization, cold system messages piled up again.
‘This thing’s seriously annoying.’
[Yeah. Thought it was a useless notepad when we didn’t know its nature, but now it’s just irritating. If World Tree’s the admin, observer or whatever. What’s this? Failed-evolution AI? Demoted to errand boy for lacking power?’
‘Who knows. Said everything else is unqualified, can’t teach. Guess I’ll clear it out of spite.’
He’d learned much, but questions piled up just as much.
What did Gedroits know, and for what purpose did he prepare GG, the seven-world destruction simulation, seeking a ‘Completer’ to overcome it.
What purpose in giving server room coordinates to one who cleared seven worlds.
World Tree’s final request. Her twin AI sent to search reality—the Collector—what the hell was that.
And....
‘Thousand Stream Emperor. Levit Princess. Two who already hold World Clear records, whom the system squawked about as qualified. Why have they kept silent after hearing all the info?’
Questions begat more questions. But ultimately, all answers lay beyond the clear. Surrendering to the familiar floating sensation, the Professor let go.
****
[Ah, we’re back.]
‘Blood and burnt smell. Landed right.’
Come to think, dragged mid-coronation. Too flustered then to see properly.
‘Did I collapse during the coronation?’
[Open your eyes. Gotta see to know.]
‘Eyes are open, but what’s covering me? Egg? Shell?’
[Talking egg nonsense. Typical Park seed.]
‘Ah, light.’
The wriggling strings were gone without trace, the blaring alerts dead silent, side stung a bit but body fine.
Fortunately, whatever covered him crumbled on its own, letting the Professor shatter it easily and emerge.
....Let’s see.
Location: imperial plaza, check.
Crowd still cheering. Coronation frozen in time.
Mostly same as before being dragged, save a few things.
‘Fucking hell. Paused, my ass.’
But those few were the problem.
Aldrich, eyes meeting his, hand dropping as he muttered something. Sword Sage, Duke Glen, Gainax staring in disbelief or fury to their scalps.
Notum? Foaming at the mouth, passed out from whatever she saw.
As cheering crowd turned toward him following the frozen emperor’s gaze.
Duke Glen, furious to his scalp, stormed over and grabbed his collar.
“How dare you, how dare you pull such.... such an impossible stunt right before my eyes!”
“W-what are you....”
“You scum! You can fool the world, but not my eyes! For a fleeting instant, a split second, but clearly! The world stopped! And in it, that damned elf leisurely went her way, and you.... you vanished without a trace! Then reappeared!”
From his mouth, the world stopped, yet he knew too well what happened.
‘Pause confirmed? But only the ones who shouldn’t see caught it?’
[Shit game’s like that. Admin herself said she made ‘huge mistakes even AI would regret’ more than once or twice. Game’s.... kinda unfinished, huh.]
Duke Glen aside, Sword Sage fiddling his sword hilt with intrigued eyes seemed more dangerous.
“....Even in His Majesty’s presence, I must raise a commotion to learn what magic or trick you cast on the empire just budding! Speak! No mage lies before me! In the name of Glen House, which corrects defiance of natural order, confess what you did!”
His blazing glare and shout echoed across the plaza, words burrowing into his throat like fishing hooks, tongue moving against the Professor’s will.
‘Whoa. Word magic? They say Glen folks neuter mages with three-inch tongues. No joke.’
No match for dragon word-magic, but magic-sealing history as old as the empire. Somehow infused in Glen words, the Professor unwittingly opened his mouth.
He could probably resist with sheer grit, but why bother when they’re offering a [Glen House Guaranteed] stamp on his unbelievable tale.
“Speak! In that split-second frozen world, where did you disappear to, and what did you do!”
“I was summoned to the World Tree’s side, heard the truth of this world, and was asked to take good care of it.”
.
.
.
.
.
“Cough, hack!”
Flutter. Thud!
Answer flowed instantly without hesitation. As people mulled its meaning, coughing Aldrich choked, and Duke Glen’s personal dictionary fell on the hard plaza floor.
“Huh, huh, whaaat....”
Thus, Duke Glen—pale as a ghost—lost words for the first time in about 34 years, since defeating his father, previous head, to become head.
Glen House’s power had vividly proven the words true, making it worse.