Afternoon and Night of Isis – 1

The lunch was quieter than usual.

Kang In-ho and Isis didn’t talk much during meals anyway, but perhaps because the subdued atmosphere from earlier carried over, he didn’t even offer his usual taste evaluations as he ate.

“Is the food to your liking? I specially prepared Master’s favorite menu for lunch.”

Seeing the owner’s eyes so deeply sunken, Isis decided it was best not to speak.

To put it more humanly, she didn’t dare to utter a word.

Isis sat across from Kang In-ho, watching him eat.

He skillfully cut the meat with his fork and knife, then mechanically moved his mouth.

Seeing the juice that had escaped from the gap between his upper and lower lips trickle down his chin, Isis picked up a napkin, but didn’t wipe his mouth.

Before she could, he roughly wiped it with the back of his hand and silently continued his meal.

Isis thought she should wipe his glistening hand, but something in her thought process stopped her.

There was no clear reason. However, the conclusion was that it was better not to do it now.

“It’s good.”

Rarely, he praised the food.

Isis glanced at his face, then spoke.

“Thank you for enjoying it.”

“It’s meat, so it can’t help but be delicious.”

“Last time, and the time before that, I served you meat, and you disliked it, didn’t you?”

Isis swallowed her words.

“You know, why is it so quiet today?”

He asked, still cutting the meat with his knife.

Isis couldn’t answer that question immediately. She wasn’t sure if it was right to say what she was thinking, or if it would be better to say it in a different way, and her thought process began to calculate both possibilities as if it were about to explode.

“Hmm?”

Feeling something was off about her hesitation, he looked up, and Isis spoke before the calculation was even finished.

“I thought you wanted to be quiet, so I was.”

“Does it look like that?”

“It does.”

“…Well, it would be strange if it didn’t show. I’m not good at hiding my emotions.”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah, because of that, even at the company… Ah, this is just nonsense.”

He tried to say something but quickly swallowed it back.

“Do you have any concerns?”

If there were any complaints, they needed to be resolved.

Isis asked.

“Concerns? Is there anyone who doesn’t have concerns?”

Isis found the owner’s way of answering with a question inefficient.

If he wanted something, shouldn’t he just say it directly? Why did he have to say it like that?

Isis didn’t understand the owner.

“There is a counselor module. If you wish, I can use that module to solve Master’s problems.”

“No, it’s not something that requires such expertise. Just… sigh….”

“Master?”

Kang In-ho swallowed the words that had almost reached his teeth.

“Isis. Can you act according to my orders?”

“Unless it is a self-destructive order or an order that violates sacred rules, I will carry out Master’s orders.”

“Really? Then….”

Kang In-ho put the remaining meat in his mouth. He crossed his knife and fork on the empty plate, making an X.

“From now on, I want you to delete the story I’m about to tell and the conversation we’re having from your memory. The sign will be making the knife and fork parallel.”

“If I make the knife and fork parallel, you understand that as an order to delete the conversation from memory. Is that correct?”

“Yeah, complete deletion. Is it possible?”

“Of course. Then, I will set the conversation from now on as the deletion target. 3… 2… 1….”

Isis’s eyes flickered.

Kang In-ho was amazed by Isis’s mechanical reaction, but also let out a sigh of relief.

He drank the water in the glass. He gargled as if brushing his teeth, rinsing out his dry mouth.

Then, he picked up a napkin and carefully wiped his mouth.

But the glistening oil on the back of his hand still wouldn’t come off.

Isis picked up a wet wipe and wiped his hand. Kang In-ho seemed surprised by Isis’s actions, his eyes widening.

“Hoo…”

He exhaled a long breath, then inhaled.

The clearly purified air of the Cradle filled his lungs.

“What do you think it would be like if someone succeeded in Dimensional Shift?”

He confided what he had said to a Magical Girl somewhere to the owner of this city.

It took quite a long time to explain how he died and how he came to be here.

In the middle of speaking, he paused to think, and he suffered and laughed with revived emotions.

Isis listened to that long time without uttering a single word.

“I will summarize.”

After explaining the long journey, Isis opened her mouth only after he picked up the glass to quench his thirst.

“Master is proof that the soul exists.”

“Right.”

“The concept of dimensions has emerged, and humanity has only researched Dimensional Shift accompanied by the physical body.”

“Of course.”

“However, all those experiments have failed. All organisms that passed through small Dimensional Shift passages were destroyed beyond recognition.”

Isis recited several research cases related to Dimensional Shift.

Watching her deliver such extensive knowledge, unlike NB, Kang In-ho felt NB’s absence once again.

But he didn’t show it. He thought it was foolish to hold Isis responsible for NB’s disappearance.

“Just as they undergo a lot of training to leave the universe, humanity thought that Dimensional Shift would also be possible with sufficient training.”

“But Master’s existence creates the possibility of a new hypothesis.”

“What is it?”

“Only the soul can undergo Dimensional Shift.”

“Hmm… But you easily affirm the soul. I thought you would deny it because it’s an unscientific part. [There is no such thing as a soul. It’s just the action of electrical signals in the brain.]”

Kang In-ho imitated Isis’s tone, making a deliberately mechanical voice.

Isis’s brow twitched at his poor impersonation.

“The greatest advantage of AI is its limitless development. I am not designed to be so immature as to have such narrow-minded thinking.”

Isis raised her clenched fists onto the table.

“Okay. Okay.”

Kang In-ho waved his hand, tired of the heated reaction.

“Returning to the main point, there is a high probability that gods and souls exist.”

“What’s the basis for that judgment?”

“If you trace back to the origin of humanity and the origin of the universe, you will inevitably reach a state where nothing happens. It is called emptiness, nothingness, the beginning. If you think about what created the opportunity for life to be born from that first state, you will eventually acknowledge the existence of a god.”

“That’s a reasonable basis. I believed in the existence of God after seeing it with my own eyes.”

Kang In-ho flapped his white wings, recalling the arrogant face steeped in elitist ideology.

“If you affirm the existence of God, it is easy to affirm the concept of the soul. The problem is that there is no device to observe this, so it is highly likely that it will only exist as a hypothesis forever.”

“It’s a hypothesis, but it’s a pretty credible hypothesis.”

“That’s right.”

Isis shifted her posture, moving her fists from the table to her knees.

“That’s why I’m worried.”

“About what?”

“The physical bodies in each world are resting, but the soul has been running non-stop. It is impossible to predict what impact this will have on Master.”

“Other than feeling a little depressed sometimes, there’s nothing else.”

“Don’t you think that’s a sign?”

“…Even if that’s the case, what can I do? There’s no way to solve it. If I die, I’ll just Dimensional Shift again.”

“There is a way to alleviate the symptoms. Increase the death cycle.”

“Die as late as possible?”

Kang In-ho raised one eyebrow.

“That’s right.”

Isis said the obvious with an obvious face.

“Easier said than done.”

“It is possible. I will make it possible.”

“You’re going to stick by my side 24 hours a day and manage me, so I’ll live past 100 in this world. …Anyway, thanks for listening to my story. It feels a little better to say what’s inside.”

Kang In-ho picked up the fork and knife placed on the plate.

Isis cast her gaze on his hand.

“Ah, I’m just saying this in case. How about researching Dimensional Shift and sending me back to my original world?”

“I refuse. No matter how much research is done, the risk will not disappear. I have a duty to protect Master safely. I will not create a situation where Master is in danger.”

“I thought so, but it’s as I expected.”

“Yes. Therefore, if you try to leave the Cradle alone or attempt Dimensional Shift, I will stop you with all my might, so please keep that in mind for your plans.”

“Is that a reference or a threat? Okay. Let’s end the story here.”

When Kang In-ho placed the fork and knife parallel, Isis’s eyes flickered a couple of times.

A moment of silence.

Kang In-ho watched Isis’s appearance and waited for the next words.

“How was the conversation?”

Isis, whose memory had been erased, asked him.

“Yeah. It was good. I had a delicious meal too. I should take a walk.”

Kang In-ho let out a sigh of relief.

“I understand.”

Isis followed behind Kang In-ho, who got up from his seat and moved.

Isis looked at the back of her owner, who was walking briskly.

Then, she rummaged through her pocket and took out a long line. It was similar in shape to earphones, but it was a type that plugged into something.

It was a separate external memory.

When she plugged it into the terminal in her ear, some data was copied into Isis’s memory.

Isis’s eyes flashed yellow.

Soon, Isis, who had downloaded all the conversations that had taken several hours, quickened her pace.

Two and a half steps. The distance between Isis and the owner.

“Die as late as possible? Easier said than done.”

“It is possible. I will make it possible.”

God, soul, Dimensional Shift.

There is something more important than researching the newly learned facts.

“So that Master’s soul is not hurt. Forever here.”

Isis only had Master’s well-being in mind.

It was true.

-Beep

An electrical signal came in, and the production line, which had been turned off, began to come back to life.

With a clanging sound, the Drones moved busily, and the pistons began to move up and down, emitting steam.

This was because a production order had been issued to the android manufacturing plant.