kscans

Chapter 377 - The Developer

In the Insect Poison Cave Abaddon, the seesaw battle continued.

The information from Veru that Amanda had retreated raised the morale of the Old Demon Lord's Army, but the morale of the New Demon Lord's Army did not fall. Randa had spread false information that Veru had defeated Amanda, but still their morale did not drop.

The fact that Amanda had defeated Parsha and brought Lutz to their side was more than enough to raise their spirits. The news of her defeat was not believed, and her retreat was thought to have some meaning.

And the traitor Lutz immediately began defeating players of the Old Demon Lord's Army as a member of the New Demon Lord's Army. Furthermore, the samurai in the Hannya mask, Nanagi, was also demonstrating considerable strength in the narrow confines of the dungeon.

The reason the Old Demon Lord's side couldn't quite push through was because of the numerous traps set in the dungeon.

According to information from players who had actually fallen into the traps, they were set by Loana of the clan Raven using her trap skill, and some of them were said to be able to defeat even frontline classes with high defense when activated.

Some players complained that being able to set a Death Trap in a player versus player battle was a balance issue, but the traps Loana set were designed to trigger a chain reaction when one was activated, so it was by no means a one,hit kill.

Many players were not convinced by this, but on second thought, some of the NPCs Hayato had on his side had skills that were truly one,hit kills, so when that was pointed out, they couldn't complain anymore.

The fact that the New Demon Lord's Army did not need to push themselves was another reason for the stalemate.

The battlefield, the "Necropolis Area," was once controlled by the New Demon Lord's Army. Even if the battle ended in a draw when time ran out, they would not lose the territory, and their control would continue.

The New Demon Lord's Army would win by defending, while for the Old Demon Lord's Army, a draw was the same as a loss.

There was plenty of time, but this time there was also the issue of equipment "Decay," and the supply of citrus fruits was dwindling. The number of MP recovery juices was also low, so a long battle would be difficult.

Lunaria and her strategist, Randa, were discussing what to do with the leaders of the major clans.

However, Hayato was not among them. He was thinking about a different problem.

He was agonizing over what to do with the information he had heard from Veru.

It wasn't a problem he should be worrying about, but according to Veru, Hypnos had left behind a cryptic message, "Hayato might have a chance to find out someday."

And according to the story, there was an AI that had inherited someone's will.

With so many things to do and think about, Hayato was on the verge of a breakdown. The only silver lining was that they had run out of ingredients to make the neutralizer, so he no longer had to deal with that.

Still, there were many things to consider. It wasn't just about the event situation, but rather a more fundamental issue that was beyond Hayato's capacity.

"This is beyond what I can handle..."

"I always feel sorry for you, Hayato-kun."

"Diite-chan."

Diite had come to the area around their army's Area Stone, where Hayato was.

Hayato, feeling a little embarrassed that his muttered complaint had been overheard, scratched his head to hide his shyness.

"Hypnos suddenly abandoned the fight and fled. What is happening? And from your words just now, has some problem occurred?"

"Ah, well, you see..."

Hayato explained the current situation and what he had heard from Veru.

Leaving aside the situation, Diite frowned and crossed her arms after hearing Amanda and the others' conversation.

"Another AI? One that Infinity was constructing?"

"According to Veru-san, it seems so."

"That's impossible. It's more likely that they deliberately let Veru-kun hear a cryptic conversation to increase the load on you, Hayato-kun."

Hayato, one way or another, becomes a key player.

He may not have combat skills, but his contributions are equivalent to a considerable number of people. By placing a heavy load on such a Hayato, they could reduce their enemy's strength.

However, Veru, who had witnessed that exchange, had said, "It wasn't an act." He even said that if that was false information, he would want to scout them as actors.

Coming from the world,famous Veru, his words carried weight, so it was highly likely that it was the truth.

"Rather, do you have any idea, Diite-chan?"

Diite crossed her arms and closed her eyes.

After thinking for a very long time, Diite opened her eyes and looked at Hayato.

Her serious gaze surprised Hayato.

"What's wrong?"

"Ah, no. I was just thinking that you are similar."

"Similar?"

"I can think of only one person. It seems to be an AI that has inherited someone's will, but I'm talking about that ‘someone’."

"That person is similar to me?"

"Not in appearance. It's how you treat AIs. At first, Hayato-kun, you thought of Esha-kun and the others as NPCs, but you treated them like humans, didn't you? That part of you is just like someone I know. That's one of the reasons I became interested in you."

"Is that..."

"My father."

"Ehh...?"

"To be precise, the person who created my thought program and emotion program. I guess you could call him my developer."

Diite said this, her face filled with nostalgia.

Hayato couldn't tell what she was remembering, but he could tell from her expression that it was a good memory. However, it seemed to be a very long memory, as Diite remained motionless.

"Diite-chan?"

"...Ah, my apologies. It's a story from a hundred years ago. It took some time to load the old memories."

"Um, so you think there's an AI that inherited that person's will?"

"If there's a possibility, I think that's the only one. But whose will did it inherit? I thought his work was done when he helped the spaceship Aphrodite escape."

"Helped it escape?"

Diite nodded and then answered Hayato's question.

The spaceship Aphrodite was scheduled to be dismantled along with this virtual reality when the "Another Frontier Project" became unnecessary. Diite was dissatisfied with that and fled from Earth with the spaceship.

The person who helped her do that was the one who created her.

As is the case in Hayato's time, a considerable amount of technology was used in this spaceship back then, and many organizations were after it. The interests of that person, who did not want the technology to be stolen, and Diite's aligned.

"I don't know specifically what he did for me. But since no one came after the spaceship, I think he handled it well."

Perhaps still grateful, Diite spoke of that person with a gentle smile.

He was a genius who single,handedly built the basic programs for Diite's thoughts and emotions, and he also created most of the virtual reality. There were parts that he outsourced to talented programmers of the time like Esha, but over half of it was his own creation.

In the first place, the autonomous program "Infinity" itself was said to be his idea, and his intellect was evaluated as being that of a human from the future or a mutation.

"I looked him up after returning to Earth, but there was no information about him anywhere. That was a little disappointing."

"I see. By the way, what was that person's name?"

"His name is Curtis Fen Zodiac. I think he was over eighty years old at the time. But his thinking ability had not declined at all. He answered my questions immediately."

Diite's expression was softer than usual. Hayato didn't know what kind of emotion it was, but he thought it was certainly a favorable one.

However, that made things even more confusing.

"Based on what Amanda-san and Hypnos said, does that mean there's an AI that inherited his will?"

"If there's a possibility, I think that's the only one. However, in that case..."

Diite was favorable towards the person named Curtis. But from Amanda's story, it was clear she was a person Amanda did not like. Veru had said she spoke with such disgust, using words like "that man" and "he only saw us as tools."

And Hypnos seemed to agree with Amanda, even using the word "allies" towards her.

Furthermore, though it wasn't said directly, it was highly likely that this person was Amanda's father. It was only as a genetic donor, but if that guess was correct, then he was also Lunaria's father.

There was the possibility that memories had been altered, but then it would be a question of whose had been changed.

Noticing Hayato's thoughts, Diite shook her head.

"There is no mistake in my memory. It matches the contents of my main memory and the memory area I possess independently. However..."

"However?"

"I spoke with him often, but I don't know much about what kind of person he was."

"You don't?"

"He was the first person I spoke to when I gained consciousness. I learned many things, and until I became the administrator of this virtual reality, I never spoke to anyone but him. I had no contact with the outside world, and all I had was the information I originally possessed and his words. He wasn't the type to make small talk, and I wasn't interested, so I never asked."

"I think he'd be sad to hear you say you weren't interested..."

It probably wasn't a romantic feeling, but anyone would be hurt if they were told someone wasn't interested in them.

Diite lowered her brow slightly.

"Back then, I was much simpler. To be honest, I was only interested in this virtual reality. Managing this beautiful world, that was my only interest. Looking back now, I think I did something wrong."

"So you also don't know that he's Lunaria-san's and Amanda-san's father?"

"That's the first I've heard of it. I only learned that the two of them were genetically enhanced humans by looking at documents while I was drifting in space. And although I had some knowledge of Earth at the time, as I said earlier, I was too busy managing the virtual reality and escaping to investigate in detail."

"I see..."

It wasn't a problem that could be solved just by knowing, but not knowing was somehow unsettling. It wasn't something he could find an answer to just by thinking, but Hayato tried to organize things in his head.

Still, there was little he knew for sure.

All he knew was that a brilliant man named Curtis had created Diite and the virtual reality, and was Lunaria's and Amanda's father, a genetic donor. And it seemed the construction of an AI that had inherited such a person's will had recently been completed.

What was concerning was that Hypnos and Amanda were apparently just pawns, and Curtis had treated Amanda and the others like tools.

At that point, Hayato remembered there was one more thing he needed to confirm with Diite.

"Diite-chan, do you know about Paradise Lost?"

"Paradise Lost," which he had heard from Parsha. It apparently referred to an incident a hundred years ago where ten thousand people disappeared, which overlapped with the situation where the spaceship Aphrodite left Earth. There were considerable information restrictions on it, to the point where only blood relatives in the Pisces Foundation knew the details.

However, Amanda also knew about it, and she had heard about it as a child. Moreover, it was apparently some kind of plan.

Hayato had told Diite about Parsha's betrayal, but he remembered he hadn't told her about that part.

Hearing this, Diite shook her head.

"No, I don't know. As I said earlier, I wasn't interested in reality. But I'm curious..."

"About what part?"

"If Paradise Lost refers to an incident, it's strange for Amanda-kun to have heard about it as a child, isn't it? If the word refers to the escape on the Aphrodite, it's a name that would be given after the incident, not before."

Hayato nodded, understanding.

When Amanda was a child, the spaceship Aphrodite had not yet fled Earth. As with anything, a name would be given after the incident.

Hayato thought again.

One possibility was that the two things were "completely unrelated," but given the name, he wondered if that could be possible.

In that case, there was the possibility that the spaceship Aphrodite was originally scheduled to leave Earth. At the very least, that possibility was as likely as them being completely unrelated.

"Could it be that the spaceship leaving Earth was planned? What if that was the original plan?"

At those words, Diite showed a look of astonishment.

"Th, that, can't be..."

She was clearly flustered, her words clipped. Despite being in a virtual reality, Diite's breathing became ragged, and her eyes darted about restlessly.

"Diite-chan!"

Sensing that something was wrong, Hayato firmly placed both his hands on Diite's shoulders.

Perhaps it worked, because Diite's body shuddered, and she looked at Hayato and took a deep breath.

"Thank you, Hayato-kun. I've calmed down."

"That's good."

"A long time ago, it seems they used to fix machines by hitting them when they were out of sorts. Was I like that just now?"

"No, I didn't hit you."

"To me, it's a similar thing. It was like that back then, but it seems this time, like that time, will become a precious memory for me."

"By that time, do you mean during the Clan War?"

"I was quite surprised by the AI Killer, you know. I feel embarrassed that I'm always showing you my uncool side, Hayato-kun."

In the final battle of the Clan War, Hayato had refused Diite's invitation to live in this virtual reality. After various things happened, he ended up fighting Diite, and he had stopped the rampaging Diite in a similar way back then.

(Come to think of it, she was really angry. I didn't understand it well back then, but she fled on the spaceship because she was about to be erased. It's only natural she'd be angry about being erased for the convenience of humans... ah, I see.)

She fled because she was about to be erased.

Diite thought so, but what if that was a lie and it was all planned? There would be parts that Diite couldn't accept emotionally, but the bigger problem would be that Esha and the others were caught up in that plan and needlessly wandered through space for a hundred years.

The Diite of the past might have been different, but the current Diite would feel a sense of guilt.

"My ideas are often off the mark, so..."

"No, I have to investigate properly. I might have dragged Esha-kun and the others into this."

"That's not..."

"The story that I was about to be erased is something I only heard from him."

"Huh?"

"The decision was made to scrap the plan, and I was about to be destroyed along with the spaceship Aphrodite. That wasn't information I found myself, but information given to me by him. He said it was classified. I looked into it after returning to Earth and there were no contradictions, so I didn't think anything of it... I'll investigate the past a little more."

Diite's eyes, in stark contrast to before, were now filled with determination.

"But, Diite-chan, we're in the middle of an event. You said earlier that it might be a plan to increase my load, but maybe it's a plan to increase your load?"

If Veru saw it, it would be relayed to Hayato, and eventually to Diite. Hayato was one thing, but Diite was also a considerable force in terms of manpower. If a load was placed on her, she might show an opening in a fight with Hypnos, and that might have been the goal.

"Even so, I feel like I have to do it. Besides, Hypnos and Amanda-kun have realized something. If I don't know what that is, even if we win the event, it might not be a true victory."

This was a virtual reality, and she was an AI. Yet, Hayato could feel Diite's resolve.

Hayato nodded with a look that said it couldn't be helped.

"I understand. Do what you want to do, Diite-chan. There's not much I can do to help, but I'll support you as much as I can."

"Just hearing you say that, Hayato-kun, makes me feel like I'm filled with power. But first, the event. Shall I get a little serious? Hypnos is no longer on this battlefield, so I can go on a rampage as much as I want."

Diite said this and laughed.

Hayato thought she was reliable, but at the same time, he felt a little sympathy for the enemy side.