by Yuu Kamiya
“…Seriously, are their circuits fried? Are they bugging out?”
That would make things easier to understand… But still, it wouldn’t solve anything.
“Then if I may be so impertinent…I have two suggestions.”
“Let’s hear ’em! ’Kay, go! What’s number one?”
Jibril raised her hand, and Sora pointed desperately.
“If you are concerned about the existence of their race, you could store one and kill the—”
“Yeah, that’s gonna be a no from me! ’Kay, next! What’s number two?”
Drooping with the sadness of having her brilliant idea shot down, Jibril continued.
“Though unpleasant to observe…perhaps we could tolerate their continued existence and misunderstanding.”
…Hmm. A more realistic plan. Sora prompted her for more.
“Fortunately, they have not specified a time by which you must fulfill your duty to reproduce with them. If you simply delay it indefinitely—they would constitute one more race that at least claimed to be your ally, which you could add to the Commonwealth of Elkia… Does this not suit your purpose?”
“Yeah… Not a bad idea. I thought of that, too. But there are two problems with that.”
Sora smirked, grabbed Shiro in his arm, and stood—
“First! My reason and will are incapable of withstanding this situation!!”
—Let’s have sexxx.
Could he keep hearing that indefinitely from beautiful girls advancing to seduce him and keep ignoring it…? Only the protagonist of To L*ve Ru had that kind of godly fortitude. Sora was merely a man.
“And second! I’ll say this as many times it takes: I’m not their guy!!”
According to Einzig, they’d gone past their service life by 5,982 years. It would be friggin’ ridiculous if they were to just suddenly go extinct one of these days, and here was the kicker—!
“What if they suddenly realized I wasn’t their guy one of these days?! What the hell would happen then?!”
“B-but it was they who made the error… They couldn’t blame—”
“You want me to count on that kind of logic working on chicks who’ve been pining over a guy for six thousand years?! If they were that rational, they wouldn’t be on the edge of extinction, now would they?! This is heavy shit! Love is some real heavy shit!!”
For starters, the Commonwealth of Elkia hardly had any allies. They were counting on being betrayed by their own. So the issue wasn’t making enemies, but rather that they had no friggin’ idea what they’d do.
“Say Emir-Eins was to grab a kitchen knife and be like, ‘User has deceived this unit! I’m gonna kill you and then kill myself!’ —Shit, I can see it! What are you supposed to do then? Huh?!”
A real-live mental case with those crazy powers?
—Worst enemy ever.
If the whole race was willing to suicide-attack them, they’d be screwed. Sora shivered as he imagined that kind of horror in this world.
“Very well, then. I have a third suggestion… Rather, it is a logical extension of your initial demand…” Jibril raised her hand and asked a question. “You proposed releasing their lock with a game… Then if you simply have them wager to fall in love with a pig and you win, will this not settle the matter by pairing them with a partner most suitable for them?”
…Right, the pig stuff aside, this had been Sora’s first plan. To use the power of the Covenants to release their hardware lock and bind them to reproduce independently. In other words, force them to forget about the affection they’d cultivated for six thousand years. Jibril’s point was, couldn’t you just try that again? Sora answered with a question.
“Put yourself in their position, Jibril. Say Ex Machina came to you with a game they were sure they’d win, and they told you if you lost you’d venerate some animal as your master and make babies with him—what would you do?”
“I would pity their severe neural defects and take their heads to— Oh…” Though she’d begun with a smile, she then drooped apologetically. “Perhaps I am defective… They would surely not accept any such game, would they?”
—Indeed. They’d have no motivation to. It was because they didn’t care if they went extinct—because they had nothing to lose—that they’d been able to dupe Sora into a game he couldn’t win. It was only because they’d been sure they’d win that Sora had been able to make such demands. If he were to make such demands again—he’d have to dupe them back. Specify a game that Sora and Shiro were sure to win and get them to accept it. Get them to accept the demand to forget about their love and reproduce. When they had nothing to lose? Ex Machina? —Was that…even possible?
—If he agreed to make babies with them, he was screwed.
If he didn’t agree to make babies with them, he was screwed.
And he couldn’t think of a single way to trap them—nor was he even sure there was one.
“The hell is with this pain-in-the-ass race?! Give me a break!”
There would have been more options if they’d straight-out come as an enemy. Sora was shouting again, unable to take it, when—
Honk, honk.
“Hngh?! Uh, s-sorry, please excuse me, please…”
“…Eegh… I-I’ll, get out…of your way… Nghh…”
The horn made Sora and Shiro, huddled together in the corner of the alley, slide out of the way as naturally as the flowing of a stream.
“…M-Master? …What’s the matter?”
Jibril was befuddled. Sora and Shiro cowered in each other’s arms.
“Heh. Jibril… What do you think a loser does when told ‘Move’?” Sora was still shivering. Yet, he bellowed with pride: “With the brief remark, ‘Oh, sorry,’ he gets the hell out of the way! This is the true way of the loser!”
“…Just say no…to bugging normal people…”
Ah, our most trusted disciple. Have you forgotten who we are? Regardless of how portentously we may behave, we are by nature naught but awkward, shut-in losers!! Trembling in inexplicable awe before the answer of the two, overwhelming in its majesty, Jibril knelt.
“…N-now I see… Please forgive my foolish question!”
As Sora and Shiro nodded in satisfaction, they were struck by a realization. Albeit a bit late.
……Hmm.
“Hey, Shiro… Are there cars in this world? I mean…” The honking white van had passed by them just like that…but… “I mean, not a car… That was, uh, totally a HiA*e…”
The HiA*e. Everyone knew this vehicle, specializing in the transport of light cargo, yet indiscriminating as to its contents. Packages? Refrigerators? You got it. Porn for the con, AK-47s, RPGs, little girls—the flexibility with which it lent itself to all manner of freight was, in a manner of speaking, legendary. So now the question was: What was inside?
“…Lösen: Love Success Situation Forme Checkmartyr—Prototype 0010.”
As for who was in the driver’s seat, at any rate, it was Emir-Eins, naturally.
—It seemed that they had even managed to deploy a motor vehicle from Sora’s porn. That was impressive, but not the problem at hand. It had already been pretty well established that Ex Machina was bonkers like that. What Sora really wanted to know was what it was for—or maybe he didn’t, but—
“H-how…? The crack in space—severed space should be impossible to reopen!”
—to Jibril, on the other hand, even that wasn’t the question. She hyperventilated in shock to see how easily they’d tracked them. To be smirked at.
“Acknowledgment: Severed space prohibits tracking. However, fissure clearly excessive for long-distance shift.”
“……!”
“Paradox: Destination near. Also, Irregular Number extreme. Near implies on island. But outside of Ex Machina detection range. List of residential areas that meet parameters: Here. Flügel inferred to lack knowledge of map.”
…In short: Jibril’s ruse was obvious. Emir-Eins’s perfect doll eyes were somehow unmist
akably tinged with pity.
“…Knowledge: Irregular Number lacks intellect. Simple-minded. Foolish.”
“”
Jibril’s smile dripped with cold malice, swelling instantaneously. Sora and Shiro could swear they saw it with their eyes. The two powder kegs staring each other down were interrupted, not by Sora or Shiro—
“Ah, Spieler, I have made you wait one thousand five hundred three point zero one seven seconds! Now let us go on a journey to first build our friendship!!”
Rrrmmmmmm! Einzig flung open the sliding door and appeared with a smile and a shout.
—Ah, why was it that Sora’s premonitions could not be allayed?
“…Crap. You went and used the worst reference possible, did you…?” Sora groaned and clutched his head.
The cargo was that of his fears, that of the vehicle’s vile fame. Filmy smoke obscured the rear’s dark contents. But in all probability…they were a bunch of cyborg babes, modest in size and undignified in state. Or perhaps they were soon to be…but in any case, this was past the line for past-the-line. In addition—it was wildly awry. After a long, deep breath, Sora shrieked:
“Like hell I’m gonna build a beautiful friendship with you! And anyway! I have no interest in being forced into anything!!”
—Did I overestimate you? he further wondered silently. Up to now, Ex Machina had accurately identified Sora’s preferences as they updated their approach. But now this was Sora’s very least favorite porn genre: the one where the guy travels across Japan abducting beautiful girls, and a friendship just happens to blossom between them. Sora went so far as to click his tongue at this one-two combo of ultimate creepiness.
“Heh… Fear not, Spieler. We are Ex Machina—we never make the same mistake twice…”
But Einzig answered with a smile, gloating about his race’s key feature.
Hrmm… How many times have you made the mistake of humiliating me? Or did you not count that as a mistake?
As Sora started to suspect so seriously, Einzig regaled him further.
“My beloved dislikes nonconsensual acts. Nor does he like to have his sexual preferences made public!!”
—Oh. So he did count it as a mistake after all.
Fairly relieved, Sora sighed, but then the next word…
“—However.”
…introduced a statement quite contradictory to the preceding. To wit:
“It seems he does not object to un-nonconsensual acts! Furthermore, this vehicle is private and soundproof!!”
The fearsome learning abilities of Ex Machina had taught them:
No raep for you. Only reverse raep.
Sora’s reason whispered to him: Ten Covenants. They can’t do that. But the fear of being kidnapped and having his butt pounded by this sex machine—equivalent to the fear of getting his ass rekt—along with the countless hands that stuck out from the van—was enough to shatter his faith.
“Jibriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiil! Save me! Heeeeeeeeeelp!!”
“…Brother…! Brother’s, getting…ass-jacked!!”
Jibril had to act immediately upon those cries. They warped.
Meanwhile, ignorant of the plaintive wails of Sora and Shiro, Steph ran about the Elkia Royal Castle as if to stomp through the floor, her shoulders high. Sora and Shiro had dumped all the actual work on her—but for once, that wasn’t why she was angry.
“What’s wrong with them? Cavorting so and then absconding!”
About an hour earlier, Holou’s debut concert had finished without a hitch. It had shown sufficient success to disgust Steph. But now Steph was flip-flopping as she saw the flop of the meet and greet after.
…Meet and greet. Steph didn’t get the concept—hell, Holou probably didn’t, either. Sora had said, Make sure there’s security. Some smart-asses will probably attempt some sexual harassment. Also, you should stay out of the castle. Or something like that. But hell, if there was anyone in the world other than those siblings who had the mettle to sexually harass Holou. Sexual harassment? Look at this. This was normal.
—Seeing the masses cowering, unable even to approach Holou, much less shake her hand, Steph thought, Yes. This was the normal reaction. This was as it should be. It should have been. Yet—there sat Holou, next to Steph, in a booth labeled “Meet and Greet Venue”—
“…O thou… Ste… What is Holou doing here…?”
The forlorn query of the idol with zero fans at her meet and greet made Steph cry out:
“See how hard she has tried! How can you make this girl look so, without a second glance?!”
Unable to bear it, Steph was running around the Elkia Royal Castle at full speed. She didn’t know what Sora and Shiro were after. But she did know it was miserable to see Holou like this. The people were there. They just wouldn’t approach her because they were afraid of an Old Deus. In which case—!
“We just have to show them she’s not scary—so I’ll summon all affiliated with the house of Dola!”
She’d mobilize her family connections—to bring out the shills. Blissfully unconscious of the questionable nature of her use of royal privilege, Steph was scampering about when—
“…Hmm. What was it that displeased the Spieler this time…?”
“Certainty: Einzig intrinsically displeases Spieler. Other issues irrelevant. Immaterial.”
“Wh-what…?! Then what would you propose I do?!”
“Suggestions: In descending order of recommendation: Get lost. Self-destruct. Explode. Greatest factor in inability to determine preferences of Master: Einzig.”
The very serious voices of the machines could be heard, engaged in a very pointless argument. What had they been doing loitering about the castle all this time? Talking on about how to seduce Sora forever and ever. Each time they tried and failed, they came back here and repeated this—
“—Hey, you there! What did you come here for anyway?!”
It hit Steph that pretty much all her problems right now were their fault.
…No, actually, if you went back, the root of all evil was those two who were making Holou be an idol. At the very least, if Sora and Shiro were here, Holou probably wouldn’t be making that face.
“Courtesy: Units imposing. Please excuse.”
“Though we burden you, we ourselves are desperate…to discover how we can make the Spieler love us…”
“If you’re aware you’re imposing, why don’t you help? There are thirteen of you, after all!” And thence Steph came to roar out a line most uncharacteristic of her. It was that forlorn look of Holou’s, stuck in her head. “If you have the time to think about something so pointless, we could be rounding up plenty of shills—”
Then.
“…Command: Disclose grounds for statement of pointlessness. Details of opinion.”
“!”
The swarm of unnatural eyes gathered upon Steph brought her back, frozen. What had she just said, in the heat of the moment—to these god-killers who had completely outpaced Sora? Steph oozed a cold sweat at the feeling of her insides being probed—but still she asked herself.
—Did I say something wrong?
“S-Sora will never be moved…b-by such falsehoods…!”
—She answered herself. I’ve said nothing wrong! Such defiance burst forth from Steph, quite against her will as her knees shook. Ex Machina could go on however they wanted about Sora’s preferences, but what they were doing—was a lie. The Sora Steph knew was not a man who would be deceived by such lies. It was thus—that Steph had said it was pointless. But surprisingly—
“…I…see… Love can never be conveyed by words that come not from the heart… I see!”
Einzig replied dejectedly as he lifted his gaze to the heavens.
“What a fool I have been…to overlook such a self-evident truth! You!”
“Y-yes?!”
“O nameless gentlewoman, I thank you. Now I see the path to producing progeny with the Spieler. All units, prepare to shift!”
“So you really are
n’t going to help?! And hey, I have a name!!”
Whether they were ignoring Steph or just didn’t notice her, the Ex Machinas moved to shift back to Sora, when—
“Forget that path. It’s futile.”
—a nasal voice echoed forth. And.
A shock raced through without sound and shook the castle—shook all of Elkia. It was beyond Steph’s knowledge what had happened. Only the Ex Machinas registered it: The castle had been sealed in severed space, cutting off all external observation and movement.
“It gives me acid reflux just to think that you scrap heaps still exist. I wouldn’t let you reproduce on a farm. ”
The appearance of the girl, as if from the void, divested Steph of her breath. It was the agent plenipotentiary of Flügel—the first article, Azril. But that itself wasn’t what took Steph’s breath away. Nor was it the fact that, looking through the window, she could observe that Avant Heim itself had shifted over Elkia like a lid.
“Not everyone is as understanding as Jibsy… Right, you scrap?”
It was that which was loaded in her eyes as she said this: an unthinkable hostility. It was entirely different from that which had been exchanged between Jibril and the Ex Machinas.
“You dingy little dolls who aped the power bestowed by my lord and used your shoddy imitations to trick us and trap us and massacre my cute little sisters and then kill my lord himself—” In apparent good humor, Azril stepped toward Einzig, even clapping. “If you can think of a reason I shouldn’t kill you, I’m all ears. ”
“…………”
It was enough to show Steph that Jibril and the Ex Machinas had been sincere, as Azril smiled and stroked the cheek of the silent Einzig. It was quite unlike the previous encounter when they claimed to bear no resentment. More mechanical than a machine, devoid of the hesitation characteristic of life—it was pure: It was murder.
“Wait—A-Azril?! Sora and Shiro—Jibril won’t—”
That malice convinced Steph, despite the Covenants, that there was about to be slaughter before her eyes. So she raised her voice to interrupt, but—
