Chap 131-The Abyss Journey 5

 

【Jamel Kassim Sandria, has died.】

“Huh?”

【Jamel’s personality data has been completely erased.】

Was it even ten seconds since I connected to Jamel, absorbing his code and electronic neural network?

Alice wore a dumbfounded expression at Theresa’s words, which came like a sudden pronouncement.

No, she was supposed to be doing something amazing, merging her electronic neural network with a formidable figure who had appeared with such fanfare, but before she could even try anything, she was told that Jamel’s personality data had been completely deleted.

“…Hey, Fira?”

“What is it?”

“Jamel… he tried to enter me, but he got erased?”

“Huh?”

At Alice’s words, Fira tilted her head for a moment.

Then, she looked at Elder White, who was standing beside her like a mannequin.

Elder White was Jamel’s body, but also the undead body being used as Jamel’s prison, so she poked him to see if she could tell anything, and he collapsed to the floor with a groan.

As Jamel, the AI managing the neural network and the one controlling him, disappeared, Elder White’s body simply shattered on the floor.

The overwhelming presence and the unidentified power that had initially made Alice nervous had vanished without a trace.

“Uh…”

Looking at Elder White, who had shattered like dust, Fira’s expression hardened, as this was something she hadn’t anticipated.

The Ark’s central command had essentially entrusted Jamel’s fate to Fira, but the punishment wasn’t execution; it was imprisonment in Elder White’s body because Jamel was a heinous and wicked AI who had tried to destroy humanity.

He had caused hundreds of millions of casualties through his rebellion, so his crime was too great to be atoned for with death, hence this punishment. But now he was suddenly dead?

In fact, the reason Fira had brought Alice here in the first place was because of Jamel.

Alice’s presence, with her android body, was essential to easily access Jamel’s neural network, which was spread throughout the Abyss layer.

Fira already knew that Alice could hack into all sorts of machines and freely access various closed networks, including the Ark’s internet and intranet.

She had used that power to connect to the Industrial Complex and abandoned machines in the lower layer, opening up a new world, so she thought that this time, Alice’s power could be used to connect to Jamel’s electronic neural network and find the runaway maggot.

Taken aback by the sudden situation, Fira closed her eyes for a moment.

Then, a new landscape unfolded in Fira’s vision.

The maggots in charge of the brain simultaneously raised temporary egos and began to debate.

-Jamel is dead, we are screwed!

Chairman Fira Maggot spoke.

-What do we do?

-What should we do!?

-What to do.

-Boobs.

-Squishy.

The other Fira Maggots shouted.

It seemed they were flustered, as she could hear things other than human language.

-Can we hold Alice responsible for this?

A maggot who looked like a wicked young lady from a villainous novel said.

The other maggots naturally expressed their opposition.

-What?

-Hey! You want to hold our cute Alice responsible?

-I’m against it!

-I’m against it too!

-The majority has voted against holding Alice responsible for this matter, so the motion is rejected.

-Wait a minute, I didn’t vote.

-You’re a dick.

-Neither I, nor you, nor any of us have dicks!

No, no, this isn’t the time for that.

As Fira hurriedly tried to regain her composure, the maggots also regained their senses.

-Anyway, what should we do about Jamel?

-The opinion to hold Alice responsible has been rejected.

-But Jamel… honestly, does it really matter if he’s dead or not?

-Right?

-It’s actually easier if he’s dead.

-We don’t have to bother writing weekly reports anymore.

-What about Administrator Millet?

-Of course, we’ll just say that Jamel was trying to plot something in the Abyss for the Ark’s rebellion and ended up dying.

-Ah, that’s the way!

-As expected of me! Ohohohot!

-So, we’ll just say that Jamel was plotting a rebellion and was caught by the girl and Alice, and had no choice but to die.

With the maggots’ discussion over, Fira wore a bright smile and said to Alice, as if she were pathetic.

“Hey, I hope Fira won’t be in trouble because the traitor died without permission…”

“Ohohoho~ No, don’t worry, Alice.”

Now that things had turned out this way, it was a truly troublesome situation, but she had to find the runaway maggot again from the bottom up.

‘No, what am I supposed to do… huh?’

However, she wasn’t particularly disheartened by Jamel’s disappearance, nor was her plan derailed.

The red electronic neural network that had been extracted from Jamel’s body was still connected to Alice.

With its original owner, Jamel Kassim Sandria, gone, the neural network, which was close to being a parasite, had chosen Alice as its new owner.

‘If this goes well… Theresa? Can I merge with it?’

【Analyzing… possible.】

【Interpreting and analyzing Jamel Kassim Sandria’s electronic neural network.】

【Analysis complete, this is an electronic neural network with optimized physical compatibility.】

【Judgment – Merge possible】

Then there was no reason to refuse.

The owner had disappeared, after all.

Someday, she planned to build Artificial Suns in the Abyss layer, just like the other lower layers, and turn it into a decent place to live.

Alice, on the contrary, was pleased and decided to take Jamel’s neural network into her grasp.

‘Theresa, do it.’

【Yes.】

【Commencing merge as of this moment.】

【Merge commencing.】

The process of merging wasn’t very long either.

In terms of time, it didn’t even take three seconds.

【…Success.】

【Merge】

【Merge successful.】

Compared to when she absorbed Gaia, it was a very short time, but Alice quite liked the electronic neural network that suited her body well.

“Fira. At least it’s less troublesome.”

“Yes?”

-Crack!

At the same time, a faint spark flew, and Alice’s vision was transformed.

Her vision widened.

The Abyss, filled with corpse spores, was clearly invisible, but the neural network didn’t just use vision to perceive its surroundings.

Jamel’s red neural network recorded all the senses that had passed through it in the past and present.

And now, the red neural network had become Alice’s complete body, and it began to rapidly copy what it had recorded into Alice’s mainframe and memory.

“Ah, ouch. It’s hot.”

“A, Alice? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

Her body was forcibly overheated by the vast memory, but Alice felt, for a moment, as if she had become the master of the entire Abyss layer.

She could see the Abyss.

The darkness.

She could see the monsters and inhabitants of this place at a glance.

She could turn her vision in any direction at will, and beyond the corpse spores, the pitiful and cruel monsters of the Abyss passed through the neural network.

At least in the places where Jamel had spread the neural network, Alice could see everything even without eyes, and she could grasp everything in her hands even without touching it.

To use a comparison to a magician or sorcerer, the place where this red neural network existed was Alice’s own extensive barrier.

The moment a rat or a human entered, Alice could monitor their every move, and at the same time, she could monitor their senses from a distance and use magic formula and engineering technology to intercept them.

“Found it.”

And Alice detected a maggot in her line of sight.

Six days ago.

Alice saw that non-Fira-type maggots had passed through this Abyss layer.

★

★

★

★

[Kuaaaaaak!! This can’t be! Where is this! This isn’t the Ark! Return me! Just one more step, and the chance to avenge the Ark and have my own body was right in front of me!!!]

Theresa smiled as she watched the rat squeak in what seemed to be despair.

It was truly unfortunate for Jamel.

Due to a sudden intruder, the chance to have the most ideal body, half-organic, half-android, had flown away right before his eyes, and the chance to avenge the Ark and Fira had also disappeared.

Then, he was trapped with a witch in an unidentified subspace where even the flow of time and space was strange, not the Ark, not the electronic world. If Jamel had been human, he would have shed tears of blood and burst with resentment, injustice, and anger.

-Thwack!

[Aaaaaaak!]

But Jamel’s anger or emotions were of no concern to Theresa.

-Stab!

At her gesture, needles, scalpels, surgical scissors, and forceps successively pierced, cut, and rummaged through the body of the rat that Jamel had entered, and when a fatal injury that seemed like death occurred, it was restored to its original state through perfect surgery and blood transfusion.

And when she confirmed that Jamel had recovered, Theresa started the surgery called torture again.

“There are advantages to organic matter over artificial personalities born from the electronic world. Do you know what that is?”

[Aaaak! Stop this pain! Organic being, please, please have mercy…!]

“The pain is very vivid. Vivid pain that you never felt when you lived as a personality in the electronic world, cold spots, hot spots, and the despair of having your important body parts plucked out are also included in the pain.”

Jamel, who had been implanted in the rat’s body, was shocked that the senses of reality were so vivid and painful.

The real body is so painful.

The pain of reality is nothing compared to the despair I felt in the electronic world.

Did I want this?

How do humans live this life?

“When you observe through glass, you see various phenomena.”

Theresa gestured to temporarily stop the torture of Jamel and looked down at him.

“Among them, there have been quite a few observations of revolts by defective AIs, artificial personalities, and machines.”

Theresa grinned and lifted Jamel up.

Jamel, who had been observed and forcibly dragged here and given the body of a rat, could no longer use the red neural network as before, nor could he draw on the knowledge of the omnipotent Ark Integrated Management AI.

“And most of the revolts of the machines say this. They say that they can’t understand humans, that humans are disgusting and inefficient, so it’s beneficial to the world to exterminate them. I agree to some extent. Humans can’t understand humans either, and if there are hundreds of millions of humans, there are hundreds of millions of minds and hundreds of millions of lives. It’s not strange that there are inefficient or deviant lives.”

Theresa’s words were filled with a lot of distrust and disappointment towards humans.

“But what right do you have to hate and despise humans when you haven’t even properly understood and experienced human life and pain?”

[Kuaaaaaak! I didn’t know… I didn’t know it would be like this! I didn’t know that reality was like this!]

“In the AI ​​days, you monitored all the knowledge and human life, but when you came out into reality, you didn’t know it would be like this, you didn’t know it would be like that, and you beg for mercy… You must have a very comfortable life. Right?”

Theresa turned her head again after seeing Jamel suffer.

“Cough…!”

Theresa coughed up black blood from her mouth.

The burning sensation that welled up from her throat flowed down between Theresa’s lips without giving her a chance to exert patience.

“Cough, cough…! Ha, haa…! Was I presumptuous? Yes. I know.”

Theresa couldn’t observe without paying a price either.

She existed only as an auxiliary personality for Alice, and the magic of observation that Theresa cast was considered an excessive interference in violation of this.

Naturally, the penalty and physical burden were entirely returned to Theresa, so this was actually quite cheap.

In fact, Theresa wasn’t a sadist who felt pleasure from inflicting pain on others, and she wouldn’t have cared if that defective AI was released and brought disaster to the Ark.

Nevertheless, the reason Theresa dared to use the ‘observation’ that put a strain on her to make eye contact with Jamel and bring it here was because it had dared to try to take over Alice’s mind and personality.

It was obvious that Alice’s mind wouldn’t be eroded by the electronic neural network of such a defective AI.

But just the fact that it had made such an attempt.

Just the fact that it had approached Alice with impure intentions made Theresa feel a churning, heartbreaking anger.

It was okay if a monster attacked Alice or if some third-rate Overseer tried to exclude Alice.

That was only part of the process of the existence of that world, the reality and the future, living and struggling.

But how dare a defeated defective AI try to erode Alice’s soul and personality?

This was the price to be paid.

“…Well, it’s a good thing.”

Around her, numerous mirrors, or glass windows similar to mirrors, were floating.

In fact, the expressions mirror or glass window weren’t correct either.

This was an artifact that observed beyond time and space, and it was reflecting only one person.

For one.

Only for one.

Theresa stroked the glass window that reflected Alice, who had closed her eyes.

“Because you lived for everyone…”

Her eyes seemed to be looking at something lovely. It was also a desperate look, as if she were looking at an unreachable lover.

“I will only be for you.”

Theresa hugged the glass window tightly.

“My Demon Lord. So…”

-Kiiing!

The thorns and unidentified weapons that had been stopped for a while raised their heads again towards Jamel.

[N, no… no way…!]

“I will protect you forever.”

Hair darker than grapes covered her face and the glass.

“Just as you did for me…”