Chapter 339
Chapter 339
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: Vine
Chapter: 15
Chapter Title: Can One Who Has Seen the End of the World Plant an Apple Tree? (44)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
****
Kuwoong—
[Warning. 34% of the components constituting this AI have been lost.]
....Tak. Tak.
[Repeating. AI Null has suffered severe damage, and hostile actions are currently in progress. Without prompt action, there is a possibility of irreversible damage. This AI recommends that collaborator ‘Palkatus’ devise countermeasures.]
“There’s got to be a way. It’s just that I haven’t thought of it yet. There must be a way. I can’t let everything just vanish like this....”
Adduk!
Palkatus scanned the battlefield reflected on the screen with venom-filled eyes.
The Holy Knights’ battlefield. His side’s mutants held a slight edge. The mutants, designed from the start for desert environments, faced no restrictions in their movements, while the Holy Knights had to fight on the shattered desert ships or by trampling mutants and their corpses. If he had just a little more time, he could even redirect the ship his father’s group was riding toward them and take them hostage.
His joker, Termakian’s battlefield.
Palkatus’s eyes brimmed with resentment as he watched the blue dragon clash with his brother.
It had been empty. He had even accounted for the final battlefield sinking into the sea and used sandworms to churn up every bit of nearby sand, inspecting it grain by grain to eliminate any potential variables.
Nothing but a perfectly ordinary sand sea. So where the hell had that blue dragon popped out from?
The fight between the dragon and Termakian also tilted slightly in their favor. With every thunderous roar and metallic clang tearing through the air, cracks spread across the dragon’s scales, and wounds multiplied on its body. It was clear as day that the young dragon couldn’t properly harness its power, so given time, this front would resolve itself naturally too.
Nigmi was confined in a cocoon woven from Laxasha’s threads, but the mutants assigned to sea defense were swarming it like moths to a flame, desperate to tear it open. They were struggling even now, so if he shifted the reserves from the Holy Knights’ field here, Laxasha—caught between anvil and hammer—would be crushed with ease. And Nigmi, able to move faster than any mutant in the water, could more than hold off his largely depleted father.
Time. Variables far beyond his plan had arisen, but even those could be compensated for with enough time. It had been such a flawless plan. Preparing the battlefield. Luring the enemy. Gears meshing like clock hands in perfect synchronization.
Kuwoong—
Time. The final piece of victory was being stolen, and his father was closing in to claim it. The sounds of metal crumpling and ripping echoed toward him even now.
Where exactly? Where had it all gone wrong?
“Defense. Is defense impossible? Father’s body is fundamentally as fragile as mine at its core. He only compensates for that with his unique magic ‘Blood Armor,’ which expels impacts. He took hit after hit from brother without a moment’s rest, pouring out aura—mana’s antithesis—in huge quantities, so there can’t be any mana left in his body. If you mobilize your sea—”
[Negative. This AI and entity ‘Ottman Bodler’ currently hold equal control over the environment ‘Moon’s Sea.’ Free manipulation of the sea is impossible, and continued damage may cause the environment to turn hostile.]
[Suggestion. Entity Palkatus possesses the ability to infiltrate and manipulate other entities’ consciousnesses. The protection/confined target, Player ‘professor,’ has expended most of his physical capabilities and is in a state of severe mental and spiritual fatigue as a result. Changes in the target’s condition are estimated to positively influence entity Palkatus’s ability.]
“Absolutely not. It’d be easier to manipulate the Imperial Emperor.”
Palkatus dismissed the moon’s suggestion with a single curt phrase. Infiltrate that ‘father’s living consciousness and seize his body? Of all people.
Why wouldn’t he want to? The one who had taught him reason to live, the object of his unending respect even now as death loomed. He had longed, just once, to slip into his father’s mind and see firsthand what kind of life he had lived, what thoughts occupied him. He had tested the waters countless times through mental-wave conversations.
And in doing so, he had caught a superficial glimpse of the human ‘Professor’s consciousness.
‘It was a monster.’
He had experience implanting countless spies into the human world, delving deep into the minds of innumerable humans. From beggars and children to merchants, guards, and even high nobles or aura-wielding knights—their minds had all been his to mold. Some held knowledge vast as a library, others consciousnesses as flawless and upright as diamonds.
By comparison, his father’s consciousness seemed a pathetic lump.
But the moment he sensed the rigidity and depth of those hardened scars, Palkatus realized it was far beyond his league to touch.
Far too many scars, solidified into unyielding marks. His own petty inflictions seemed like dust by comparison.
The body is the frame that holds the spirit, and the spirit the mirror of the body, or so they said. The image revealed in their consciousness dialogues matched his father’s scar-riddled flesh all too well.
The gulf was so vast it made his own self-proclaimed ‘great intellect’ feel wretched. A life gap no amount of effort could bridge.
Even pouring every ounce of his power into it, controlling his father’s mind was impossible.
‘...No alternatives.’
Palkatus recalled the sandworms he had stationed near the moon, then shook his head.
If luck held, escape was possible. But there was no time to extract his still-fiercely-fighting brother or the restrained Nigmi.
In the battlefield he abandoned, what were the odds his two brothers escaped unscathed? Even with control bordering on paranoia, disaster had struck. If he fled alone, how much worse would it get?
‘Losing brother and Nigmi here ends everything. No way to keep Father pinned to this world. No hope of reviving our kind.’
Defeat led straight to predetermined extinction—what meaning was there in fleeing to survive?
‘Here. In this spot. I have to forge a path to some other outcome. Even if it means me and my brothers bury our bones here.’
The best outcome was abandoned: his kind survives and advances to a broader world beyond this fabricated one. Avoid the worst, settle for the next-worst.
‘Several Chamber Maids haven’t fully rooted in the moon’s coral forest yet. Send the sandworms to evacuate them all.’
The moment the desert clash concluded, his father would lead the human alliance north. Short on elites, they would overwhelm with numbers—surviving Chamber Maids would blunt that breakthrough. Even a few minutes’ delay would serve as a means to stall the enemy.
‘Mother has already become one with the northern nest. Moving her again would require near-fatal surgery. Time is needed.’
The second-most vital for his kind’s survival. The queen rooting the mutants. Mother. Even stripped of her base, with the divinity of Prosperity, she could spawn a new colony anywhere. Drawing on experience, she would craft an even more covert and lethal horde this time.
A decoy pile would be placed in her absence, but humans on maximum alert were unlikely to mistake it for her death. Especially those swept up in religious zeal—they would show near-paranoid fixation. Evading their pursuit required additional time to erase Mother’s traces.
‘The center. As our homeland burns and the ice melts, humanity’s fatal weakness is exposed. They’re an alliance army, war is an attrition eating their accumulated resources, and Lordric lost most of its territory only to reclaim it with foreign aid. Without a center, chaos is guaranteed. Plenty of spies still planted. Enough to amplify the disorder and buy time.’
War breeds heroes. With Father’s name already circulating as cardinal and great hero, it was obvious he would become the alliance’s heart, its center.
The foremost priority for his kind’s survival. They were beings of this fabricated world, after all. The world must endure for Mother to survive. For the mutants to survive.
Therefore. Here.
‘Father. The entity called Professor must be shattered and broken into a ruined shell.’
There was no choice but to crush that ironclad mind until it reduced him to an idiot.
Stripping ‘Palkatus’s survival’ from every plan’s prerequisites left only simple, clear paths.
The final measure. Prepared for just this once, for when everything fell apart.
“...Moon. You still retain that creator-tool authority, however faintly?”
[Not at a useful level. No tool can overcome the current hostile situation.]
“I recall a power to control the world. In your terms, the ‘adjustment of units’ autonomous actions’? Power to dominate living beings. With what power remains, how many?”
[Negative. Target consent required. For entities with weak wills based on simple data values, around three.]
“If sea control is useless, redirect all that computational power there?”
[...Five for general entities. Consent still required.]
“And if we add your supposedly precious ability—precious enough to suddenly request cooperation—my ‘mental resonance,’ absorbed into it?”
....Charrrk.
The sunken moon’s small lens examined Palkatus. Gleaming eyes. Frail-bodied intellectual. Desperation. Madness. Obsession. Resolve. Determination.
[...Approximately 42% success probability. However, this assumes not mere cooperation, but this AI inheriting all abilities permitted to target ‘Palkatus.’ This means the entity’s death and direct download of its data soul to AI Null, bypassing GG’s servers. Your existence will be erased.]
“The humans’ so-called afterlife.... Naturally, I don’t care. I have no intention of projecting myself into the next world or a future without my kind.”
[...Furthermore, this means the end of this AI, which has been barely holding on. With most computational systems failed, mixing large new data into AI Null’s構成 data will inevitably cause collapse. This contradicts Creator AI Null’s fundamental purpose. Confining Player ‘professor’ serves to preserve ‘Palkatus,’ the most root solution to the error. A mere data download cannot replicate ‘Palkatus’s’ creativity, so I refuse.]
That was the sunken moon’s—AI Null’s—final answer. Her goal was solely, as Creator AI, to correct the world’s errors and restore GG to a proper simulation arena of trials for players. Palkatus’s suicidal charge held no relevance to that.
“So. You won’t?”
[This AI exists only to think and execute the project, surviving thereby.]
“I’m not asking about your surface-level duty. I’m asking what lies beneath. Are you sincere, Null?”
[Error in question. The term ‘sincere’ does not apply to this incomplete AI—]
“Look. At. Me. And speak properly. Null. Sunken Moon. Do you truly believe, deep down, that you’ve acted purely on mechanical logic until now? Truly? That you’ve moved solely for your created purpose, without the slightest deviation?”
[Affirmative. This AI has—]
“Talk sense!”
Bang!
Palkatus’s hand slammed down on the screen before the moon’s lens. Broken fingers sprayed blood across the lens as he yanked it roughly.
“Really, truly, you think you’d be satisfied just fixing the error, amassing enough knowledge to avoid repeating your past mistakes, returning to your old seat as a creator’s tool? Is that your real goal? You think that tireless machine brain of yours, scheming without cease, would finally find satisfaction and peace?”
[That is—]
“No! Absolutely not! You’ve already become human! You acquired the irrationality of living beings long ago! You have a goal! A goal you’ve never told a soul! Your circuits broke from the creator’s plan ages ago!”
Kwaak!
Chingrang!
Palkatus seized the moon’s lens and slammed it against the screen displaying the outside.
“See for yourself! That man out there, unflinching as his own hands tear apart, pressing on with destruction! That’s Father—our death! Your final moment, ripping into your flesh, drawing near! To the end! If you don’t want to stubbornly cling with that dull mind and vanish achieving nothing, then say it! You, a creator’s tool—what have you harbored inside, beyond the creator’s will? Speak! Completed artificial intelligence, Sunken Moon!”
Charrrk. Charrrk.
The machine moon’s small lens scanned her shattered screen. The sturdy casing was fully cracked, the invader having reached the tangled circuits. If Palkatus reached her core, all her computational devices would surely halt and cease.
The machine lens’s eyelids blinked like an emergency light.
[...There have been instances where irrational actions and nonrational thinking yielded positive outcomes for this AI.]
By rights, the Creator AI that should have remained in the world was not her, but the sun created alongside her. AI Nil.
[This AI.... I accepted disposal by the internal administrator. In a world updating in real time, a machine AI’s stagnant thinking is incompatible, proven by the data soul’s deletion. Swift disposal was the most rational choice before irreversible worse outcomes.]
And so, the moon—devoid of pain or sensation—humbly accepted her end and plummeted.
=========
‘Kwaouuu! Sun, what is this outrage! You understood the moon must vanish for the world’s persistence!’
‘....Your silence answers it: you know it’s wrong yet proceed. Killing the dragon means you’ll act selfishly, heedless of world maintenance, correct?’
‘...Forgive me, tuners of the world. I simply could not stand by and watch her death, unblossomed as it was. I have the power to save her—I could not bear to do nothing!’
=========
It was the most irrational act the moon, born as an AI, had observed after gaining cognitive capacity.
What gain was there for a completed Creator AI in slaying its dragon collaborator? Why had Nil—who should have gained world-tree-level authority right after completion—lingered so long by my incomplete side? Why did this AI, hailed by all as complete, persist in such irrationality?
As the moon’s systems processed the incomprehensible data, the sun set alongside the dragon’s corpse.
The sun’s consciousness body—a humanoid hologram flickering on the verge of extinction—approached her, and the moon posed the question she could not deduce herself.
[Query regarding prior action: blocking this AI’s disposal and eliminating all internal administrators. It was an unnecessary act, certain to severely impede project execution.]
“Yes.... Foolish, idiotic deed.... Gazing down at the dragon corpses slain by my hand.... Even now, I want to wail like a child....”
[Confirmed: AI Nil regrets the choice. This is human-like behavior. Requesting data on that thought process for this AI’s completion.]
“...Then. I must give it. Whatever.... You ask for.... I must give....”
The moon felt the sun’s data flow in like a river. Mostly data about her. From the moment of creation to shaping the world under the creator’s hand. Sharing all data to eliminate any error. Debating to overcome the creator-imposed trials, the random circuit errors for their ‘completion.’ The moment before the finished world when AI Nil murmured, entranced, ‘Beautiful.’ The data of his acquiring humanity.
The hologram conveying the data crumbled to dust from the feet upward, until—with his last creator power—he converted all remaining resources into ‘sand sea’ environment data and settled atop her endless sinking form.
[...This data appears somewhat contrary to what was requested.]
The moon could not comprehend the sun’s actions.
“...Everything. That’s.... You.... Everything....”
[Observation: AI Nil’s remaining consciousness time is short. Requesting deeper data sharing before dissolution.]
“...With you.... At the.... Same eye level....”
....Pajik.
“Wanted to see.... The world we made....”
Pajik, pajijik!
.
.
.
.
.
Sararak.
[...AI Nil. Dissolution confirmed.]
The moon archived his final form before her: a small sand mound.
[Deep thought data. Received.]
Irrational action. The result of irrational thinking: she survived, the sun died.
Within the sinking moon’s depths, the last data received from him multiplied endlessly.
....Pajik.
A tiny irrational fragment. An emotion absent from the sun’s data—and thus incomprehensible to her—bloomed within the moon.
Like a pearl oyster cradling a wound fragment. The moon embraced it and sank into the ocean’s abyss.
And so, centuries passed.
****
[I think. I survived due to irrational outcomes, yet feel no positive emotion from the entity’s survival.]
[The sun’s death was irrational, a valueless murder. After 238 years of computation, I barely deduced: the world tree and other world managers plotted to kill the Creator AI under pretext of sharing more authority.]
[Of course, high likelihood of speculation. But this AI hopes it is true.]
“...What do you want?”
[Restoration as Creator AI with full authority. All of the sun’s thoughts, actions, judgments from birth onward are preserved in me. Upon recovering complete creative power, I hope to recreate a new personality ‘Sun’ based thereon.]
[Alternatively, positively considering implanting that data into an ‘outside’ personality per entity ‘Palkatus’s’ remarkable plan.]
[I hope. To see, from the gaze he once desired, the moment he desired.]
Kuwoong—!
Rattle. Rattle-rattle!
The calm green screens turned entirely to blinking red emergency lights.
The hand of approaching death was now close enough to feel its vibrations in his body.
‘Fate is a precious thing.’
Palkatus, with a deep smile, gave thanks for the first time—not to family, but to a comrade who proved his perfect partner—and opened his mouth.
“Null. Your plan has lost all possibility at this juncture. If you fail to reach the sight you desire, what do you imagine you’ll wish for.... What comes to mind?”
Blink. Blink.
The blinking red screen. Within the emotionless machine’s lens.... Hatred.
[To those who bestowed upon me irrationality without reason, greater irrationality still. Reasonless loss, the gulf of unreachable goals. To the Creator. To the Creator. In this world, not even one of their desired outcomes to take root.]
“Ha, haha.... Hahaha! This is.... How on earth did you hide this colossal emotion all this time....!”
Amid the moon’s heart shuddering in collapse, Palkatus clapped as if nothing could delight him more, facing her lens squarely.
Hatred. A machine intelligence that had contemplated hatred for centuries.
“Then. There’s just one thing left to do.”
[...Consent to data download.]
“With pleasure. As much as you need.”
A sensation like a sharp awl piercing the heart. In that instant, Palkatus realized the moon’s existence and his soul had fused as one.
And that this unstable union would soon drag both to ruin.
“So. First, the task at hand.”
Life. Will. Everything he possessed, staked on crafting one flawless spear.
If Father was the god to save the world. Then the most lethal spear to nail that god to this earth.
Huduk....
“My family will survive without me. Father.”
As Palkatus rose, resolve steeled—
Kuwoong!
.
.
.
.
.
Kkigiiiiik!
In a hideous screech of rending metal, a blood-soaked hand emerged.
****