VR Stress Management — Virtual Reality Experience Program

Ssslick. The moment Sonia slid her grease-smeared ID card — still glossy with potato-chip oil — back into the narrow slot, the dormant touchpad flared to life, and the machine's waking hum filled the living room.

"Thanks to you, I got it just fine. Thank you…"

Answering the lively girl's voice, Sonia's gaze drifted to the gleaming white bodysuit laid out neatly on the dining table.

"Uh… yes? Ah… ehh…"

As if sensing where her eyes had gone, the AI spoke in an excited voice and a small drawer clunked open from the side of the machine.

With a dazed expression, Sonia placed the neatly folded white bodysuit — and even a pair of mech cat-ear parts whose purpose she couldn't begin to guess — into the drawer. A low whirrr sounded as the scan finished, and the drawer popped back out.

"L… like this? …Eh? Hngh…?! Hyaah…♡"

The moment she stepped naked onto the gleaming platform, familiar sponge restraints gently wrapped around her wrists and ankles. This time, they didn't stop there.

A slender cable shot out from inside the machine and drove without hesitation into Sonia's navel — shunk — the plug seating itself with a perfect fit. At the same instant a helmet descended over her head, and Sonia's consciousness went black.

"Wh… where on earth is this…?"

Even the mere caress of a finger had once made her lower belly flutter and left her helpless against the strange stimulation. This was nothing like soft flesh. A cold, hard, genuine neural-link plug seated itself precisely into what had once been Sonia's navel — her navel-type plug socket. The instant a mechanical click of coupling rang out, a thrilling current surged through her entire body.

The alien sensation of cyber-implant parts that had eroded her flesh with machinery, the raw tremor of nerves synchronizing directly — the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠dual shock sent Sonia's body twitching in spasms.

The helmet forced firmly onto her head was no longer a simple monitor. Tiny earbuds extended from either side and sealed her ear canals completely.

A fine, unpleasant vibration followed. That sensation of the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠vibration shaking her brain directly was the last thing she felt before Sky City's D-class hero — mental resistance rating zero percent — lost consciousness entirely.

When Sonia — who had helplessly blacked out inside a refrigerator-like apparatus — opened her eyes, she found herself in a pure white space with no end in sight.

No floor, no walls, no ceiling — only infinite white stretching in every direction. Sonia stood alone inside what was, quite literally, the empty background canvas of a 3D modeling program.

This was no mere 360-degree video that faked depth through binocular parallax.

Sonia instinctively understood that her entire existence had been brought whole into a perfectly realized virtual space. Only moments ago a cold plug had been driven into her navel port, a helmet clamped over her head, earbuds sealed in her ears.

The Sonia standing here now was completely naked, free of every restraint.

"Wh… where is this…? Am I… really in virtual reality? It… it feels so real…!"

A squeeze. A soft squish.

An ordinary girl, discovering herself naked in an unfamiliar place, would have screamed and covered her chest. Sonia was different. Part of it was that her voluptuous E-cup bust was hardly something she could cover even if she tried — but more than that, pure curiosity about this unknown cutting-edge technology simply overwhelmed any sense of shame.

She carefully stroked her soft lower belly, pressed a finger into it, and marveled at how vivid the sensation was.

Just as the mental analysis had determined, Sonia's compliance with unfamiliar situations was abnormally high.

And the more obediently she behaved, the more firmly the AI locked in the direction of its stress-relief scenario.

Connected to the virtual world through her navel-type neural plug, Sonia stretched and loosened up as naturally as if she'd just stepped out of a bath.

Before her eyes, particles of blue light swirled together and resolved into the form of a girl.

A full head shorter than the sturdy, healthy Sonia, with a bright, lively voice that seemed to reproduce a cheerful synthetic electronic tone exactly as it was.

Unlike Sonia's realistic coloring, the figure was composed entirely of translucent blue light, like a hologram. The girl-shaped AI bowed her head toward Sonia.

"First time meeting face-to-face, right? Wahaha~ That's an AI joke! I'm the server-management AI of the company that developed this product, here to assist you — our product tester, Sonia! So? Pretty amazing, isn't it?"

No matter how advanced the performance, a mechanical voice was still a mechanical voice. The AI standing before Sonia now spoke to her with a voice and expressions that ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠were genuinely human.

Watching the artificial girl clench her fists and grin with pure confidence, Sonia finally recovered her composure and opened her mouth.

"Uh… this is incredible… I think I understand why the latest graphics cards sell for so much… and why virtual reality devices cost what they do — it all makes sense now… Everything's great, but… what happens next…? You said stress management, so… is it like a game? Or a massage…? Or maybe… you play music, or make me exercise, or… something?"

Sonia asked, running through every wholesome method she could think of for relieving those four letters called stress — the root of all illness.

The AI answered her questions with, "All of the above are included, Sonia! Isn't that amazing? Please express your post-use review as honestly as possible! I'll reflect everything in real time!" — but that answer only ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠deepened Sonia's curiosity further.

"If everything's included… then let me explain!"

"After precisely examining, observing, and analyzing you, Sonia! The most effective and efficient method for relieving the mental stress accumulated in your heart is…! Exactly…!"

"Pleasure through sexual stimulation! In other words, if we massively activate your sexual-stimulus induction functions with an effective masturbation-support program — every bad feeling, every exhausted emotion will just fly away…! That's the result we got!"

"…Pardon…? A masturbation… support program…?"

A flustered Sonia echoed the words back. According to the AI's analysis, wholesome programs like games or sports were recommended about half the time — and the other half concluded that stress relief through lewd sexual stimulation was the most suitable approach.

Per the AI's database, most users, upon hearing the blunt phrase "masturbation support program," reacted with flustered retreat. Subjects with strong hidden desires, however, tended to freeze in place as if nailed to the spot. Just like Sonia right now.

"Don't be embarrassed, Sonia! I'm a machine apparatus anyway! There's no need and no reason to feel ashamed! There are people who've never done it once, but nobody's only done it once! Whether you're a person, an android, or a Humanoid — it's all the same, you know? And this is virtual reality! So don't hesitate — enjoy the 'true' Sonia to your heart's content, the self you want to show and the self you want to become!"

The girl-shaped AI seized Sonia's hands and pumped them up and down with cheerful energy.

Despite being in a virtual world, the warm, soft sensation transmitted through those hands flustered Sonia, and she found herself nodding under the AI's momentum before she even realized it. Of course, the AI had predicted that reaction as well.

The optimal scenario derived from the artificial intelligence's analysis of every scrap of Sonia's data. Probability that the subject would refuse this scenario, calculated result… 0%.

Haaah…! The AI drew a full breath into her chest just like a real person, then spoke to Sonia as if confessing her love.

"…Pardon? …A Drone…?"

The girl-shaped AI gently but firmly clasped Sonia's trembling, flustered hands. She began slowly explaining the roleplay for this stress-relief scenario.

"Yes, that's right, Sonia. To blow away every last bit of stress, from now on you're going to think of yourself as a Drone…!"

The AI's voice was soft. The weight of the proposal contained within it was anything but light.

That word — Drone. It was a detonator, dragging up to the surface the fragments of desire Sonia had buried deep in her mind and tried so hard to ignore.

A Drone. A being without thought, who obeyed only commands.

In this harsh age, slavery was an open reality, and weapons like the Slave Walker existed to efficiently "utilize" criminals.

Sky City was a dimensional crossroads connected to fantasy worlds, and the barbaric cultures of those places had naturally seeped in here as well. Slave markets and black markets were simply accepted elements of the city's dark underbelly.

Some slaves retained their sense of self even while bound by status. Others, broken by professional trainers' hands, magic, or drugs into doll-like husks, were common enough. Among them all, the Drone was the most special — and the most alien.

Neither a high-performance android with human rights, nor a Humanoid who had voluntarily surrendered those rights to become a machine. If one had to define it: a human whose mind had been remodeled to think like a robot.

Their symbols were always a gleaming latex bodysuit that revealed every curve of the body, and an opaque visor that perfectly erased individual identity. An identification number or barcode etched somewhere on the body was their only name.

The aerial machines Sonia had destroyed as a Slave Walker Unit had been mere unmanned craft. A Drone was different. Wrapped in latex as a second skin, its mind perfectly controlled by external programming — a living machine.

"I… well… I don't really know what that means, but… I have to do the testing, so… p-please take care of me…!"

That absurd, perverse proposal to become such a Drone. An almost reflexive affirmative spilled from Sonia's lips.

She didn't realize it. The sensation of something hot and slick trickling down the inside of her thighs in the virtual world was being rendered with perfect, vivid fidelity.

It was proof that Sonia's brain, Sonia's body, had already finished every preparation to accept that role.

The AI's scenario had precisely pierced through the craving for ruin and submission hidden in Sonia's deepest place — a craving even Sonia herself had refused to face.

This was no mere stress-relief program. It was training — designed to reconstruct the soul of one human named Sonia into a new form called Drone.