Welcome to the Most Perfect World – 3

Another week passed like that.

While Isis was away, I went to the window.

Birds chirped and flew from right to left, soaring from bottom to top.

A breeze blew, shaking the branches, and some leaves fell from the branches and began to drift around Aaru.

It was the same scenery I had seen for a week. The view outside the window was perfect, without a single deviation.

I narrowed my eyes and stared intently at it.

-Zzzt

The scenery flickered.

It was a small error that could only be noticed by looking straight at the same spot for a brief moment.

The hope I had was, as expected, reduced to despair.

This place was not a base, but a prison somewhere.

And the identity of the thing that stayed by my side every day, taking care of me, was…

“What were you doing?”

The door opened, and the gray-eyed android approached me.

With each step it took towards me, I unconsciously took a step back, but my heels hit the wall.

-Zzzt

Something that looked like a ‘window’ blocked me from behind.

“Is something wrong?”

NB, or rather, the administrator of Aaru, came to me with its usual expressionless face.

Integrated System of Identification Saving.

“No. I was just looking outside.”

“Do you want to go outside?”

What was its intention?

“Do you think I want to go outside?”

I countered the question with a question.

“I do not ‘think.’ I merely ‘judge’ using information.”

“Judge?”

“Yes. For the past few days, you have been looking outside through the window frequently. For the past four days, the average time you have spent looking outside is 4 hours, 23 minutes, and 21 seconds. With this amount of time, I can judge that you want to go outside.”

“I only looked outside when you weren’t here, so how did you know?”

“I believe you already know, but there are CCTV cameras installed in the room for your safety.”

“You were watching me with that? That’s a little creepy. It wasn’t like that before.”

“The situation has changed. This place is in the middle of Aaru. It is for your safety.”

An awkward silence followed Isis’s words.

In fact, I shouldn’t have reacted so emotionally.

The more I acted strangely, the more Isis would suspect me and increase surveillance.

I had to act as if nothing was wrong as much as possible.

Therefore, my actions just now were self-destructive.

“……”

But what my head and heart told me were different, and I tended to move according to what my heart told me.

Even when I stood before the goddess after dying unfairly, and even in front of the administrator of this city, whose intentions I couldn’t understand.

Although it had been worn down through many dimensions, seeing that I hadn’t changed much, I wondered if this was my true nature.

When I was keeping my mouth shut with anger, regret, and annoyance, Isis moved first.

Isis placed what it was carrying on the floor. Only after hearing the thud did I realize that Isis had brought something.

It was a familiar-looking board.

Brown wood with a grid pattern engraved on it. And two containers for holding something.

“Go?”

“Yes.”

“Why go all of a sudden?”

“I thought you might be bored with life here, so I got it.”

“It looks pretty good.”

“With the advancement of technology, many things have been replaced online, but things that maintain the classics still exist.”

Isis explained to me with a calm face and sat down on the chair.

“…So, you want to play?”

“If you wish.”

I sat opposite Isis. And so, Isis and I faced each other. We looked into each other’s eyes.

What was it thinking? No, did this guy even have any ‘schemes’?

An unsolvable problem swirled around in my head like a vortex.

I barely managed to hold on to my fading mind and bit my lip.

“Do you know the rules?”

A faint emotion of suspicion could be seen on its expressionless face. Or maybe that’s what I wanted to see.

“A little bit. It’s about making houses, right?”

I said confidently, grabbing the black stones.

“If that’s all you know, the explanation will be long.”

As soon as I placed a black stone, a white stone was placed immediately. Then it was my turn again.

Every time I placed a stone, Isis told me about go. I didn’t know where it got the information, but it came out smoothly without hesitation.

I couldn’t feel any of the human side I had felt from NB.

“……”

I looked down at the go board and took a long time to think.

“This side is loose. You need to reinforce it by adding stones.”

Isis’s white finger pointed to a spot on the go board.

“……”

Even though I saw it, I couldn’t read the situation.

“You have to put it here. You have to add stones here to make the house stronger.”

It even pointed out exactly where to put it. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

What was the point of playing a move that I didn’t even understand?

It was no different from looking at the answer key and copying it without knowing how to solve the problem.

“Why don’t you put it down?”

Isis asked again at my hesitation.

“Because I don’t know why I have to put it there.”

I answered Isis’s question.

“I don’t understand the meaning. Can’t I just put it here?”

“That’s your opinion.”

I put a stone in a different place than where Isis had pointed.

Isis’s brow furrowed slightly.

Was it anger, annoyance, or did it just want to look that way? I couldn’t tell.

“I think it’s right to put it here.”

“No. If you put it there, the probability of losing increases to 79%….”

“So there’s a 21% chance of winning.”

I cut off Isis as it was placing a stone and speaking.

Isis, who had been cut off, rarely closed its mouth and looked at my face.

My face reflected in its gray eyes was clearly sneering.

Looking at my face reflected like a mirror, I whispered to myself as if casting a spell.

Okay, let’s give it a try.