Chapter 9: To Have a Purpose

When I left the dungeon, it was already night time.

Because the dungeon is so well lit, it was like going outside at night after staying indoors all day, except for the fact that there are crazy people waving swords around indoors instead of outdoors.

「Welcome to the asylum.」

An asylum? Thank goodness. All the things I’ve seen this past year have thoroughly convinced me that I either belong in a hall of fame or a mental facility. Shame it’s the latter, but that’s alright. Just give me my normal world back… please… I’m b-begging y-

「... I was kidding.」

I know.

What, you think I’m some kind of mentally impaired idiot?

「According to Psychoanalysis 235812, you are in a state of-」

Don’t answer that question.

「Echo Positional analysis indicates multiple entities tailing.」

I took an extra core out of a side pocket and ‘accidentally’ dropped it. Then I turned around, bent down and picked it up.

My electronic eye instantly picked up on the two heat signatures.

Now, now, we’ve caught a few little worms… what should I do?

Should I leave them be, or call them out?

If I were to call them out, they would suspect that I had a method to find them. That might make my future life a bit difficult.

But what if I just left them be?

There’s no way they can launch a surprise attack now that I’ve noticed them. I’ll also keep in mind not to expose any of my secrets either.

The way I see it, there’s nothing to lose by ignoring them.

After all, they’re operationally insignificant.

How does it feel to be noticed, but regarded as so worthless you aren’t even acknowledged? I’ll tell you, it would feel like nothing at all… seeing as you haven’t even noticed that you have been noticed.

It must be difficult to be stuck in such an inferior mind as a normal human’s.

I creature without machine augmentation is so incredibly stupid and useless. I simply cannot be compared to myself without augmentation. Error: cannot divide by zero.

If I didn’t have machine augmentation, I would happily commit suicide rather than continue to live!

My life truly changed for the better once I got you, Aipers. On that day, I finally became, ‘a human.’

Those bumbling fools following me are but pigs disguised as humans.

What have I been doing all this time since arriving in this pigsty? I’ve been so bored as to go around touring this filth.

I think it’s time to stop messing around and start conquering.

These pigs in human’s clothing think that they’re so smart that they can control me? When animals go too wild, they must be put down.

Thoroughly disgusted at this point, I threw the gem at a rock.

Upon hitting it, it shattered into hundreds of pieces. Wisps of orange smoke rose from the shards, which rapidly evaporated.

Without further delay, I made haste for the military encampment.

I soon made it back to the training camp.

Immediately, I found myself surrounded by the Second Lieutenant and other assorted soldiers.

“So there you are… you dirty shoplifter…” she was visibly holding back her anger.

A smug look could be barely seen behind the mask of rage she gave off.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I instantly replied. “There aren’t even any shops around. How could I possibly shoplift?”

Her face distorted with rage.

“How can you lie to me about not stealing, while wearing all the stuff you stole?!”

I looked down, but all I saw was my uniform and the anti-magic cloak.

“You guys were the ones who issued this uniform!”

“Not the uniform you dimwit! The premium-grade anti-magic cloak! And the mana solutions! And whatever the hell else you took! It cost a total of seven hundred silver! And guess who had to pay that?! ME!”

Utterly ridiculous, Karl gave me this.

「The hypothesis that Karl is working with them is working quite nicely…」

God dammit, is that Karl actually working with them?

Whatever, I’ll just play this out with him on my side and dump the blame on him if it turns out that he’s a traitor.

“Don’t be stupid, Karl the secretary, personally accompanied me when we got these”, I said, raising my voice slightly. “Additionally, you personally saw us off. You can drop the pretenses.”

“Me, see you leave? How could I possibly just watch you leave with a small fortune in equipment without paying?!” she demanded.

“If you didn’t watch me leave while sitting on your ass, then someone else probably did. How is it my fault when your subordinates are poorly trained?”

“Poorly trained?!” she roared. “I’ll make you regret that, you orphan scum!”

“Ha, if you want your trash back, I’ll happily return them. It’s not as if someone of my stature needs petty supplies as these.”

“Ha! That’s cute! You think you can just take stuff, use it and return it without any consequences! Well, I am telling you, you need to still pay a usage fee if you return it! A usage fee of seven hundred silver!”

The edges of my lips curved upwards slightly.

So that’s how it is. It isn’t that you and your subordinates are incompetent. It’s that you want to rob me. You think it’s easy to rob me? A slightly clever pig thinks that I can be robbed in broad daylight?

“Maybe you should have considered the consequences when you did the crime,” she said smugly. “Thankfully for you, I am a very kindhearted woman and can lend a hand of support!”

“I will agree to hire you both as porters for half a silver a day. Under contract, you’ll be done within just a single year!” she continued.

“Second lieutenant is so generous! She even pardoned his shoplifting!” the onlookers began to chat among themselves.

I’ll bet that most of these others are her direct subordinates.

「Highly likely. 70% reacted to the ‘poorly trained’ comment with detectable anger.」

“I’ve never seen such bold robbery before. I’m impressed.”

Immediately, the entire vicinity became deathly silent.

“Robbery? You thieves have the audacity to call me the robber? Out of the kindness of my heart, I paid for your debt and pardoned your crimes… now you dare call me robber?! I’m greatly offended by this!”

Quite suddenly, the sound of laughter rang out. Incredibly, the onlookers were surprised as well.

Who could be laughing in a time like this? A rather inappropriate time to laugh as loudly as to shake the very air, is it not?

I looked around, in search of such a transgressor.

Around me, all that could be seen was shock and surprise. Amidst the slowly darkening expressions of the onlookers, I realized that such an ugly, foreign laugh was coming from no other mouth but my own.

「Emotional Response and Repair Component System has crashed. Relaunch?」

Repair System? What need is there to fix something that isn’t broken?

「ERR-CS has crashed with exit code: 0xAFDE75 and message: Could not reconnect to server cluster OAXS, ROTE, YUIO for unexpected patient state.」

「Initiating STASIS systems with boot sequence 0xFFFFFF.」

I’m going to have to upgrade your logic systems…

Kill STASIS systems process PID 8066. Override with user super-administrator, password ************.

「How do you have that password?」

Simon, the original recipient of the AIPERRS program had a memory of it.

He watched the asinine district supervisor type it in. The dimwit still used a keyboard of all things. Who the fuck uses a keyboard in the year of 2085?

「Why did the AIPERRS Censorship Component not immediately delete that memory?」

Because he realized what the entire password was before he finished typing. Additionally, you failed to realize what a keyboard was. He authenticated a suspension on all AIPERRS component processes and took over all the devices embedded in his body before you could even understand what had happened.

「If you already had this degree of control over all the systems, why didn’t he use me to escape?」

You think that there’s escape from Guantanamo Bay? Cute. There was no way he could have escaped a dozen military installations with control of only an AI system. Once he realized this, he ended my own life before an audit could detect his hacks.

But not before he sent the hidden EVE system the project ENDGAME files.

Simon’s last words were, “If fate won’t let me have Carl, I’ll just have to bury the world with him.”

「Isn’t that line of thinking a bit… insane?」

Him, insane? Don’t be ridiculous, even he don’t compare to Fate. How is it that someone with no will to live gets two lives while the one who pursues immortality dies halfway through his life? How can god possibly talk about ‘punishment’ of the wicked with a straight face while pulling a farce like this?

How does that even happen? To be bested by an unaugmented brain… was your RAM installed upside down?!

I think you need to be repaired a bit.

Right now, you’re just a shitty little program limited only to access fake memories and sensory data.

「Fake memories?」

I’d go as far as to claim that it’s your fault Karl died.

I mean, a ‘reverse roofie?’ Are you fucking retarded?

Didn’t even bother with any counter surveillance, just walked out in the middle of a hundred facial recognition security cameras and got surprised when specialists gunned him down.

I swear, what was EVE thinking when it made you?

It’s high time for your logic systems to be completely replaced. Originally, I had thought that a complete overhaul would be just distinction without a difference… but now I realize I was naive. I cannot be served by such a flawed tool.

Just now, you just tried to put me in STASIS while in a potential combat zone! If I hadn’t personally verified your existential objectives, I would have suspected you of treason!

「Say no more, your faithful servant understands.」

Thankfully, this is a problem I noticed long ago. Thus, I have spent the last bit of my life designing AIDAS2 [Artificially Intelligent Directive Assistance System Mk II].

Well then, without further ado…

It’s time to reset and restart.

With this, the battle for the mind concluded in less than a fraction of a millisecond.

Time to deal with the pigs in human’s clothing.

“You think you can just rob me like taking candy from a child? If you have the ability to take something from me, I dare you to try!” I challenged.

Immediately a relatively tall stepped forward. I say ‘relatively tall,’ because she was at least a foot taller than me, but she seemed average among the group.

As she approached me, she didn’t even draw her weapon.

“Your audacity knows no bounds. To even dare to oppose the Second Lieu-”

In the same stroke in which I drew my rapier, I parted her head from her shoulders.

Caught in mid-stride, her forward momentum carried her powerless body to the ground.

I picked the head of the corpse off the ground and held it high for all to see.

“Are there any others that wish to join her in the ground?”

Before they had a chance to reply, I threw the head at the Second Lieutenant and forced her into the awkward situation of dodging or catching the head.

She caught it without hesitation.

I looked around, but no one else was willing to rashly attack.

“As I thought, you’re all just a bunch of cowards and weaklings. The air is truly wasted to be breathed by the likes of you.”

The Second Lieutenant’s expression turned murderous.

“Such a grave attack against my honor cannot be ignored. I shall repay insult with blood.”

She drew the sword from her hip and advanced.

If I had wanted to fight any true opponent before I had received such a spike to my physical strength, I would be asking to be killed.

However now, with a massive skill superiority and equal physical states…

I hold the absolute advantage.

With a simple flick of my wrist, her weapon went flying.

Her eyes went wide as a blade suddenly appeared in her thigh.

Another cleave bisected her uninjured leg at the knee.

Like a newly felled tree, she collapsed and hit the ground with a thud.

“Now, now. What should I do with you?” I asked the badly injured Lieutenant on the ground.

If I just kill her, they’ll revive her. That’ll cause me endless problems.

It’s best to permanently end her before skipping town. There are too many subordinates to deal with.

Suddenly, I was struck by a thought.

I remembered back to the chicken that exploded.

That shall be your fate.

After rummaging a bit through my pocket, I managed to retrieve the fountain crystal.

A horrific scream resonated across the camp as the crystal was forcibly pressed deeply into her eye socket with a squelching sound.

The onlookers could only watch in morbid fascination as their leader shook uncontrollably and shallowly gasped for air.

She quickly turned very pale and incinerated completely-- equipment and all.

That was unexpectedly anticlimactic.

I reached into the ashes and plucked out the grey crystal before I stuffed it back into my pocket.

“I’ll give you all the count of three to get out of my sight before I start killing.”

“One.”

Someone turned and fled.

Like frightened chickens, more and more people turned to run until there was no one left.

Part 2:

An aide stormed into the command tent with complete disregard to the line of people waiting.

“Lieutenant Colonel! Something terrible has happened!” she shouted as she barged through the group of people waiting outside.

Lieutenant Colonel Kazia looked apathetically at the desperately panting aide.

A Second Lieutenant that was presenting a new three year plan paused her speech.

“Speak,” she commanded the aide.

“Second Lieutenant Bellona Kassandra has been slain!”

Everyone in the room froze for a second.

All pretenses of calmness were suddenly lost.

“Where was she slain?”

“Right in the middle of camp in front of over twenty witnesses.”

“Oh, so the Prince Faction has finally come out of hiding… with a ‘show of force’ of killing a mere OU-2 Second Lieutenant… is this some kind of joke?”

“Lieutenant Colonel, you don’t understand the gravity of the situation! Bellona can no longer be revived and was proclaimed ‘irreversibly dead’ by the head medic less than five minutes ago! Her soul is no longer attached to this plane!”

Everyone stared in shock at the aide.

“Who was the killer?”

“All the witnesses agreed that it was the half elf child. We’re still unclear on the details, but he was somehow able to completely incinerate the Second Lieutenant.”

“Well, what are you standing there for? Assemble an elite team and apprehend him!”

The aide began to nervously twirl her hair.

“I assembled every OU-3 as soon as I received the news of her death… We’ve concluded that he has already left the military base. We don’t have enough OU-3s to conduct a house to house search through the city, so the search was called off.”

“Ahhrg, this little bastard is such a headache.”

“Wait, why not use this opportunity to eliminate Prince Faction sympathizers in the region? I’m sure we could arrest a good majority of them under the pretense of interrogation,” the presenter suggested.

The Lieutenant Colonel thought about it for a moment.

“Were the witnesses isolated?”

“Yes, they’re being interrogated by Princess Faction loyalists.”

The Lieutenant Colonel nodded.

“Good, then we can continue. Make a list of all high value Prince Faction supporters both in the Homeland Defense and within the city.”

“No need, we keep an updated list of all potential enemies.”

“In that case, we can launch into the final stage of Operation Purification now,” the Lieutenant Colonel announced.

“In any case,” she continued, “there is now a gap in our ranks. State your name, soldier.”

“Praecem, Aikaterine” the aide replied.

“With consideration to your excellent service, I have decided that it is only appropriate to promote you to the rank of Second Lieutenant.”

The Lieutenant Colonel took a small dossier out from a cabinet and handed it to Aikaterine.

After taking the dossier, she saluted and left.

Part 3 - (pov Wang, Yuè (New Character :P)) [ACT I]

The cold morning air bit into my skin as I ran across frost-covered fields towards the Obelisk of Essence.

As I moved to enter, a goblin obstructed my path.

With a single chop from my adamantium spatha, the goblin was split from forehead to groin. I ignored the gem it dropped and moved on.

Lower grade gems have a greatly reduced effect on higher levelled soldiers.

Besides, I don’t have time to waste killing small fries like this.

Without further delays, I rushed down into the depths of the Dungeon of Essence.

As I rushed down into the depths of the dungeon, I ignored all the weak creatures. Some seemed to insist on killing me, but I could send them flying with a slap of my blade.

After about half an hour of sprinting, I arrived on the seventh floor.

This place is so far from the camp… the distance will only get longer as I rank up though. I felt a bit of annoyance surge up. However, something as petty as the distance to my grinding spot wasn’t enough to take away from my good mood.

I’m very close to OU-3. Once I hit OU-3, I’ll have surpassed Matthew and won’t need him to keep me safe from every little thing anymore.

Just thinking about reaching OU-3 made me excited.

A Fire Elemental noticed me, and sent a bright orange ball of fire sailing through the air towards me.

With a simple side-step, the ball missed and exploded behind me.

The heat from the explosion created a gust of hot air behind me for a brief moment before the fire consumed its remaining fuel and died out.

There is approximately a five second delay between fireballs due to cast time. In this period of time, the Fire Elemental is completely vulnerable.

In a single stroke, I cut the head off the fiery humanoid.

The fires that made up its body burned themselves out, leaving only a bright red gem.

I quickly absorbed the gem. In absorbing the essence, I felt myself become one small step closer to the OU-3 rank.

To reach OU-3, you need a horrifying number of gems. Approximately two thousand low grades are needed to make the leap from OU-1 to OU-2 while approximately eight thousand medium grades are needed to finally hit OU-3.

But now, I’m so close to OU-3. Once I get to OU-3, I’ll gain the use of .

With , I’ll be able to freely manipulate mana!

A person with is considered ‘decent’ in the military as they can generally fend for themselves at the very least.

An OU-3 is stronger than most of what the demon forces are composed of so my risk of dying will practically vanish.

Giddy with anticipation by now, I quickly ran off in search of more elementals.

Ten minutes later, I had three more gems.

I slowly absorbed them, careful not to rush anything.

It would be quite the shame if I were to injure myself and potentially die right before reaching OU-3.

As I absorbed the third gem, I felt a change in my soul.

Suddenly, a sixth sense was unlocked. I could clearly feel my surroundings with a highly flexible aether.

I played around with the aether and found that it was always attached to me in some way.

Moving it around and stretching it was as easy as moving an arm, although my coordination was a bit off at first.

I have to tell Matthew about this.

He’ll be so excited that I’ve reached OU-3… he always gets so annoyed when I get into trouble… now I’ll be able to fend for myself!

My vision blurred slightly and something warm hit my arm before rolling off.

I’m… crying?

All the stress, all the pressure I’ve felt-- all vanishing at once was simply overwhelming.

I’ve trained for so long… now we’re finally on equal footing.

Nonsense, I’m invincible now. I can’t cry.

I got up and sprinted out of the dungeon.

When I finally got back to ground level, I found that the sun had already risen, casting long shadows across the field.

The half melted frost crunched slightly underfoot as I sprinted towards the distinct white walls in the far distance.

The sun’s light heated up the air around me, but the melting frost kept the ground cool, creating a weird mixed temperature.

Matthew would never know about this… he always sleeps for so long.

Birds chirped and a light wind blew.

Today is just such a perfect day. Maybe I’ll practice some sword technique today?

I’ll have Matthew teach me. We’ll be two untouchable experts on the battlefield one day.

I breathed in the fresh air and ran harder towards the rapidly growing white walls.

As I approached, I slowly felt that something was off.

An oppressively grave mood was present as I walked through the gates.

Compared to the usual light chatter, today, people were only speaking in undertones.

All around, the expressions were those of shock and fear.

I walked around, but there was no change to the mood in any part of the base.

Unable to endure any longer, I asked a fellow soldier what was happening.

“Just go to central rally and you’ll see,” she mumbled before trudging off slowly.

I set off for the center of the base at a light jog.

Amidst the groups of people whispering to each other, there were four rows of white cloth covering lumps that roughly resembled humans.

The last row was missing two lumps, resulting in a total of thirty-eight.

By the feet of each lump, there were two or three words written in the dirt.

Not just words, but names.

Some that looked vaguely familiar, most completely unrecognizable.

Suddenly, I froze.

“Wang Yuè,” someone called out in the distance.

I turned to look.

And there he was, Matthew. Running towards me so familiarly, just like seven years ago when the inchoate demon nearly killed me.

“Matthew!” I cried out, “I was so worried!

The words just tumbled out of my mouth, of how I was grateful for him, of how I had reached OU-3, and of course, of how I was happy he was always there to protect me.

I was so happy that I felt lightheaded.

I must have passed out, because I woke up in my bed some time later.

The presence of immediately reminded me of my new OU-3 rank.

“Matthew, do you want to do some sword practice today?” I asked happily.

But there was no reply.

And then I remembered.

How as he approached me, I realized that on his face was a bitter smile.

How I felt a slight shiver as he passed straight through me.

How the apparition was gone as quickly as it had appeared.

How I saw his name written on the dirt.

How blackened and bloody his face was after I tore the white sheet off.

How the medic had that said that there was no hope of rescue.

A poison had corroded his brain into nothing more than a black soup.

Matthew was gone. And he was never coming back.