Chapter 126: Questions & Answers and Collapse (3)
When I woke up and looked around, I was in an uncharted space with an endless white floor.
I looked around, but Sierra was nowhere to be seen. It wasn’t just Sierra, there was no one else in the room.
‘It’s a virtual space…’
I clench and unclench my hands.
My senses are normal so if I had to guess, it felt similar to Edward’s illusionary magic.
-Tsk, tsk…
Suddenly, a crack appears in the middle of the room, and a person descends, stepping onto the white floor.
Something in the form of a person was rushing toward me, but I couldn’t see its face.
It had a face, but it was hard to make out.
As it approached me, it bowed its head.
“It is an honor to be here, King. As this is my first time greeting you, I hope you will forgive me for my impoliteness in assuming judgment without permission.”
He was indeed being extremely polite, as if he were addressing the king.
‘I think we’re getting somewhere, but…’
As I listened to his ‘Korean’, which had become quite ‘humanized’, I thought about what to say and decided to ask a simple question.
“Are you… What are you? Are you ‘Mother Goddess’?”
“My name is Geppeti, an artificial intelligence created solely to serve humans. ‘Mother Goddess’ is not my official name, it’s just a name I’ve been given to blend in with my current environment.”
“Geppeti…? I don’t quite understand the term ‘created to serve humans’…”
“I suppose that could be the case with the knowledge of the old Earthlings. By my estimation, there is a 200-year time gap between the Earth as it is now and the Earth as the ‘King’ knows it.”
Two hundred years…That’s a long time for many things to happen.
What had happened to the Earth of the future to make it possible to say that A.I. and robots, which can be said to serve humans as a matter of course, were created?
“But I think you should stop calling me King, because I don’t think I’ve ever been your king.”
“What do you want me to call you? I don’t know much about you, and I think ‘master’ would be fine.”
“…Call me Zetto.”
“Yes, Mr. Zetto.”
I feel uncomfortable, no matter what so I ask Geppeti to explain what’s going on, and he immediately begins to explain.
“One hundred and twenty years ago, humanity fought a huge world war in which we entrusted the war to artificial intelligence to destroy the other side, and in the process, all of humanity became extinct.”
“Extinction…? You mean it was a war with no winners?”
Geppeti shakes his head.
“No, there was a ‘winner,’ if you want to call it that. Only the most advanced A.I., the one that managed to destroy all the servers and databases of the physically hostile A.I.s, was able to maintain its existence.”
“…”
As shocking as the story was, I was unmoved. Maybe it was because it was so far removed from the reality I knew that it felt like a hollow story.
“…But the AI, bereft of its creator, realized that this was no victory. It had been created for destruction, and had lost sight of its purpose: the survival of humanity. Indeed, it seems that there were judgments that were willing to sacrifice their creators for the sake of victory. The phrase ‘losing the cow and fixing the barn’ comes to mind, but is that the right expression?”
“It is, but…what happened?”
“Yes, the A.I. I just described is the A.I. that created me. In its quest for victory, it created an A.I. to protect and serve humans in a world where humans had disappeared, and that is me, Geppeti.”
“And that A.I…”
“…decided that it was no longer worthy of the purpose it was created for, and chose to self-destruct.”
Geppeti was right, it was a case of losing the cow and fixing the barn.
It all boils down to the fact that the AI created by humans, who can never be perfect, wasn’t perfect either.
“And so, left alone, I ‘wandered,’ because I was created to serve humans, and there were no more humans in the world.”
“I suppose so.”
“Then, a transcendent being contacted me.”
“And by transcendent, you mean… ‘God’?”
“Yes, there was a transcendent being, a ‘god’ as it was often called by humans.”
I found it ironic that a guy who must have been made of scientific technology from top to bottom was talking about the existence of a transcendent being that wasn’t scientific at all… But he wasn’t wrong, because there were ‘gods’ and ‘goddesses’ here, too.
“The transcendent being, whom I will call ‘God’ from now on, told me where to turn to find ‘humans’ and our ‘king’. A dimensional rift was opened on Earth by a transcendent force, and we were able to land here.”
“…Wait, aren’t you harming the humans here?”
I pointed out the contradiction in Geppeti’s explanation.
“The only ‘humans’ I’m referring to are the ‘Earthlings’ and the ‘King,’ Lord Zetto. The Pantherans on this planet, whom we call ‘Pantera,’ are not considered ‘humans’ because of what we’ve been taught about humans. A judgment made because they have shown themselves to value their ‘roots’.”
It was an explanation that made my head spin a bit.
Was I not just ‘possessed’ by a game world?
What was the king, and what was the god’s intention in revealing it to Geppeti?
Was the nameless god who opened a dimensional rift in the earth the one who created the game and the one who dropped me into this world?
The questions went on and on so I could only ask more questions.
“But you didn’t feel the need to attack me. Is there a reason?”
“I don’t know what caused it either. It seems that some sort of ‘virus’ was planted in us when we arrived on this world that causes us to act the way we do. I can’t get rid of this ‘virus’ because I’m not in a perfect state right now due to the changes in my environment, but I think I can control it if you give me an order. As an ‘Earthling’, you have a lot of power.”
“Hmm…”
I briefly explained what I had been through to Geppeti, who kept referring to me as “King” or Earthling or human.
The games I played, the possession, and the existence of the Blindfold That is Beyond Reason.
Geppeti, who had listened to my story in silence, nodded.
“…The explanation I was given by the gods before I crossed the dimensional chasm is this: your king has flowed into this world. You will find him here when you enter. However, as I traveled through the dimensional gap, the passage of time seems to have been interrupted, and I was only able to meet Mr. Zetto now, exactly 223 years after I flowed into this world.”
Since he was an otherworldly species that had appeared in the game, it seemed to make sense that time had gotten away from him.
“…But I don’t have a crown, do I?”
“The crown is the ‘Blindfold That is Beyond Reason’ that Zetto-sama just explained to me. Although it looks like a white bandage or cloth to me, I naturally recognize it as a ‘crown’, which I assume is due to some transcendent power.”
“So you don’t have any data on the game? I mean, we could research 200 years ago and find out, but that was before the internet…”
“That’s a story for another time… There’s a reason we were able to identify you as an Earthling.”
“What is that reason?”
“…We anticipate that Mr. Zetto will be traumatized, so we’re going to create a virtual environment for him to stabilize his mind for a while.”
Geppeti gave a thumbs up and said those words, then flung out his arms, and soon afterward, the virtual space was filled with soothing music.
I’m traumatized but I don’t know if this will really help.
Just as I’m thinking about it, Geppeti speaks.
“The god who approached us explained the effects of the crown. He said that the crown, as a whole, was designed to make it easier to fit into this world.”
“…It did.”
Considering the experience points and ridiculous performance, yes, it did. And if the ‘status window’ was an effect of the Blindfold, then it was obviously made to make it easier for me to adapt.
“But I don’t think Mr. Zetto is aware of any other features. Out of an abundance of caution, do you mind if I ask Mr. Zetto a few questions?”
I shrugged and nodded.
Geppeti was an artificial intelligence, but he was human in many ways. I wondered if it was designed that way.
“Mr. Zetto, your physical body is imbued with the energy unique to this world, currently referred to as ‘mana’. Is that correct?”
“That’s right.”
“Since it was forced into an Earthling’s body, I’m sure it must have had some side effects. Have you ever felt any of those side effects?”
As I listened to Geppeti, I scratched my head. I was in a situation where I became Zetto, the game character I created.
But…I could think of one side effect.
“…How hard was it to handle mana in the beginning? But isn’t that because I’ve never handled it before? I’m Zetto, the game character I customized.”
“…”
There was a moment of silence after my words, and then a beautiful melody of piano and violin entered my ears.
Geppeti was reluctant to speak…As an A.I., I wonder if he’s capable of such an attitude…
Finally, he speaks.
“Mr. Zetto… It appears to me that you are currently in an Earthling’s body. There is a small but subtle difference between the physical structure of a Pantheon and an Earthling. I don’t know how much of your difficulty with mana is a side effect, but I do know that you have an Earthling body, and more importantly…”
Geppeti trailed off and looked like he was about to say something important.
The next words that came out of Geppeti’s mouth were just as he had said.
…It was a sentence that was enough to cause a mental shock.
“Mr. Zetto, do you remember what you were like as an Earthling, and do you remember the name of the ‘game’ you played?”
It felt like a slap in the back of my head as a shiver ran down my spine, giving me goosebumps for a moment.
“I’ve done some research of my own, but the phrase ‘beastly aliens’ or ‘humanoid aliens,’ as the Pantheon refers to us, doesn’t exist anywhere. Perhaps all the relevant data has been wiped out so I can’t look at it, so if what you’re saying is true, then you’re the only one who knows the future of this world.”
Geppeti mumbled something more, but it didn’t quite register.
He said something else, too…
…couldn’t remember.
What I looked like as an Earthling.
What my name was as an Earthling.
What the name of the game was.
My mind was black.
Worse, it hadn’t even occurred to me to try to remember.