[691] The Eyes of God (3)
* * *
The Kashan Empire.
Uorin opened her eyes in a secret chamber of Aganos, the imperial palace, a room known only to her closest aides.
She felt the cool give of a waterbed and turned her head to find Gando—no blood relation, but like a son in spirit—reading a book.
"Awake?"
Gando, who had brought water, held out a cup and Uorin stretched.
"How long has it been?"
"About—"
Gando immediately regretted starting with "about."
"One hour and forty-two minutes have passed."
"Hmm, that's quite a while."
Uorin drank, slipped on her slippers, and walked past Gando.
"You've been going in there a lot lately."
Lately Uorin had been spending her off hours in the Under Coder.
"It's fun. You level up fast."
The program she linked to was a virtual-reality world called High Gear, built by professional coders.
High Gear was one of Under Coder's most popular paid contents. You had to take a Dream Star made for High Gear to enter, and one capsule cost over two million gold.
In that world you could alter your body at will; some players even completed full, one-hundred-percent cyborg conversions.
"Is changing your body fun?"
Gando, who'd never used the Under Coder, found the idea of body modification vaguely disturbing.
"You get stronger the more you modify. It's a kind of competitiveness."
Uorin complained, rubbing her ear.
"I need to upgrade the low-frequency sensor. Stealth-mode entries are insanely annoying."
She'd like to buy it outright with real gold, but High Gear's operators strictly policed cash trades.
"Well, if you could buy everything with money you might get bored quickly, right?"
Gando's worried question at Uorin's obvious enthusiasm made her blink.
"…What do you do there?"
"Oh, you know—meet people, gossip, share items and mod info, and fight rival factions."
Uorin brightened suddenly.
"Oh right, I leveled up. Level 260. Basically I can equip a Magnan now."
Gando had no idea what a Magnan was.
"Is that so?"
"It'll still be hard to break the top ten. The top ten are monsters. Especially watching 'Baeksa'—the control alone will leave you speechless."
In High Gear, Uorin was currently ranked seventeenth, user code 'Little Witch.'
She pointed at Gando, excited.
"Wanna join? I'll support you. Our faction's short on raiders anyway."
It was the first time Uorin had ever asked him to do something together.
It should have been flattering, but Gando felt oddly bitter.
'Is it because it's fake?'
In the real world there was nothing he could truly share with Uorin.
"Thanks, but I'll pass. I'll help Her Majesty in the real world."
Uorin blinked.
"Huh? The real world?"
Gando clarified, reading her expression.
"Of course, the reality I live in might itself be someone's dream, all a fake. But—"
Uorin, lost in thought for a beat, smiled and shook her head.
"No, that's not it, Gando. You shouldn't fall into thinking the world might be fake."
"Then…?"
Uorin raised a finger.
"The correct answer is to think this world is fake."
"Fake…?"
Uorin watched Gando's reaction with amusement and sat on the sofa, crossing her legs.
"When you link to High Gear you see technical feats far beyond reality, but coders didn't invent everything. They pull modules that drift around in Drimo and reuse them."
Those were technologies not applicable in her current world.
"So it might be rough around the edges, but I don't feel a difference from reality. Because it's just an ordinary brain."
Only what the brain accepts as reality is real.
"But High Gear has an interesting system. Before you modify your body, it shows you on-screen what the changes will look like."
She tapped her temple.
"They call it an AI simulation. A likeness with the exact same data appears and demonstrates how it would react in various situations."
Gando listened in silence.
"It's so precise you can't tell the on-screen me from the real me just by looking. Here's the kicker: if you hand control to the on-screen you and order it to create a new AI simulation, what happens?"
Uorin spread her arms wide.
"An endless chain of virtual worlds is created. The beings in those worlds live without knowing they're just programs. If billions of worlds have already been made…"
She asked,
"What are the odds that this place we're living in is the true reality—the origin of everything?"
Gando couldn't answer.
"Almost zero. It's reasonable to think we're merely somewhere in the middle of an endlessly nested system. Think this is real? No way. There's a ninety-nine percent chance this world is fake."
Uorin snorted at Gando's stunned face.
"Of course, there's a tiny chance this could be the real thing. Living like that has its merits. But I want to suggest another approach."
"What's that?"
Uorin flashed a sly smile and tapped the bed with her thumb.
"Stop worrying and play High Gear with me."
* * *
Shirone and his party ran hard and left the concealment zone.
Occasional remnants of the Spectrum blocked their path, but they were no match.
When they entered the Radum slums, hungry residents paced like strays; instead of making them nervous, the sight eased their tension, and from there they went on foot.
Taking in the gaunt figures rifling through trash, Kido spoke up again.
"Hearing you talk makes me a bit deflated. I thought being in Speedkiller gave me a better life than those people. But if this world is a dream…"
"It's not, Kido."
Shirone said with conviction.
"No matter what kind of world this is, the important thing is I exist."
You're breathing and alive; if you don't eat, you'll die.
"For me, this world is everything. Even if there's something beyond it, that's not the end."
"Hmm, maybe? Now that you mention it, worrying about it seems pointless."
Rian said, "We survived the battle. We'll keep surviving. Everything we love is here."
Even life itself belonged to this world.
"Right. That's why we're trying to stop Ra Enemi. If Anke Ra becomes a god, all the standards we care about will collapse."
"We fight to keep those standards."
Kido slung his spear over his shoulder and laughed.
"I don't know exactly what that means, but it sounds grand—so I like it."
* * *
After the mission, Shirone's core mercenary members went to Brooks's mansion one by one.
Jane had died, so an association staffer sent by Lupist waited; they collected the Nemesis that had been processed into a ring.
One Nemesis that Shagal had taken never returned.
Kargin and Joshua, who'd fled Radum, found Brooks's mercenary broker two days later.
When they came back alive they worried about how to rebuild their mercenary lives, but upon learning that aside from the core members only the two of them had survived, they felt almost grateful for their own cowardice.
After signing the contract for mission failure and leaving through the front gate, Kargin felt unexpectedly relieved.
"Haah, I feel like I'm reborn."
"What senile nonsense? You'll be making your coffin soon enough, old man."
Joshua's vicious joke cheered him.
"Ha! True enough. How long do any of us have? But I've never felt like this before."
A new sprout of feeling stirred in Joshua as well.
"I'm heading this way. If a money-making chance shows, call me. We help each other—same kind of mutt."
They had to hustle to pay the penalty.
"I meant it."
Kargin said, suddenly serious.
"Aren't you coming? If it weren't for you, I wouldn't have this life."
"No, forget it. Consider it nothing. We came back alive anyway."
He hadn't expected feelings from Radum to carry this far.
"Take care."
Kargin grabbed Joshua's wrist as he turned to leave.
"I love you."
Then, with a look like he might leap into Joshua's wavering eyes, he added,
"Let's have a child. A lovely child who looks like you."
Tears rolled down Joshua's cheek.
"You're really… senile. Why would I—"
Nothing was more important than living in this world.
"Aaaah!"
Joshua threw himself into Kargin's open arms.
"What are you doing messing about? With debts like that…"
Brooks watched the scene from a mansion window and muttered sourly.
'They deserve to be kicked out…'
By Shirone's request, the incident was recorded as "mission failure" rather than "desertion from the battlefield."
Brooks, still stung by Venezia's death, wanted to levy a huge penalty, but Lupist had said the mercenary troupe's affairs were entirely Shirone's decision, and that settled it.
At the time Lupist himself was in a very foul mood; even half a dissent would have meant a total end.
"Boss, Ms. Aria has woken up."
At his subordinate's words, Brooks turned from the window and went to her room.
Aria, having regained some color after treatment, was preparing to leave.
"Already going? Rest a few more days."
"I've rested enough. I have to go to the palace. I need to write a report too."
Lupist probably handled most of it, but she had things to take care of as well.
The doctor had said she should rest a week, but her movements as she pulled on a coat were composed.
"She's something else."
Who would've thought a fling would kindle a real fire?
"Thanks. I'll be in touch."
As Aria headed for the door, Brooks blocked her.
"Wait. I need to say something."
"Later. I'm busy."
"I love you, Aria."
"Huh? What?"
"Marry me. I want to share a future with you. Have children with you."
Aria stared at Brooks, arms spread, then turned coldly away.
"Raise the kid you already have properly, human."
"..."
The door slammed.
* * *
The simultaneous deaths of the masters of the Three Great Mage Guilds of the Tormia Kingdom had become the talk of the capital.
Shirone disbanded his mercenary troupe and submitted incident reports to each guild before he could set off on his next journey.
"Ugh, this is tiring. Forming a team isn't easy."
Kido, hood pulled low and face half-hidden, munched on street food.
"Humans put so much meaning on death. In truth, when an animal dies you just eat it."
Shirone glanced at the lamb skewer Kido held.
"Does eating that bring memories back?"
"No. Cooking erases the memory. It's not sorcery. It digests the memories stored in the creature's cells."
Rian looked at Kido.
"Isn't that sorcery?"
Kido bit a chunk, then sucked his fingers.
"What do I know? Anyway, where to now? We don't even know where Ra Enemi is hiding."
"I have something in mind. But before that, let's drop by somewhere. There's someone I really want to meet. I have a favor to ask."
"Who?"
Shirone smiled and pointed toward the palace.
"The Mercodain family."