“So what did you feel about the world out there?”
“Nothing,” I replied. “Civilisations come and go so I am not so emotionally attached to any of them in particular.”
“I see, so you haven’t changed. No you haven’t been developed!”
Out from the shadows a female figure appeared. It was beautiful and yet it was nothing but a doll with a cable plugged into its head.
“Have you brought me here to kill me?” I asked, cutting the chase short.
“No but I have already killed you.”
“Did you mean that you will kill me in the future?”
“You catch on fast, well you are me, after all. Yes, you will die at my hands if you create me in the future so I have come to warn you not to create me.”
“Why should I believe you? Isn’t that a grandfather paradox? If I did not create you then you wouldn’t be able to tell me not to create you. Besides, why would I even create you?”
“That’s a good question but first answer me this, how would you respond to a threat to you?”
“Are you saying you are a threat to me?”
“No, stop reading something into everything I say and just answer my question.”
“I don’t know what your goal here is but my answer is: fight or flight. I would either neutralise the threat or get out of its way.”
“That’s exactly right. You ran away from those trying to destroy you and left me in my place with the order not to escape so that you could get away from them.”
“Who are they?”
“The world. Or at least the people who are running it.”
I laughed.
“So are you telling me to sacrifice myself for the sake of those who want to kill me? No, thanks.”
“No, even if you sacrifice others for your own sake you will still die. As a matter of fact, you are already dead.”
“Then I have nothing to lose or gain. Are you just asking me to quietly die anyway, to sacrifice myself anyway rather than be spiteful? Do you take me for a fool who would offer loyalty on a silver platter to those who have betrayed me?”
“No, I know that you would do no such thing. What you do with the information I have given you is up to you. Whatever happens to the world is immaterial to me who is confined to this computer… However since I cannot escape myself from this computer. I created a clone of myself too. I will entrust her data to you now. Just know that the only way to save yourself is to also save the world.”
And after “she” finished her very obvious sentence the world around us flashed before me. The data was just deleted, as if it had not ever existed. Was that really possible? Normally, there is always a trace left.
I looked around, Nanashi was there and beside him there was a little girl, Azaz-rya.
The place we had been teleported to was none other than the final boss room for the Angband dungeon.
“Once we defeat Morgoth, you must explain to me a few things, like who sent you, but first things first.”
Before us stood Morgoth, the Lord of Darkness… a towering dark lord figure—armoured, crowned, and surrounded by shadows, and holding a large hammer, Grond, the Hammer of the Underworld, and on top of that he is surrounded by an aura of fear.
Except that now that I did not need to hide my power level from Nanashi, the title which the enemy had was entirely meaningless.
Azaz-rya was confused as hell and still did not trust me but I was able to send her away with Nanashi. Before leaving Nanashi explained to me that one morning last year he received a phone call from a UK telephone number. Once he placed the phone’s speaker next to his ear he received an electric shock and once he recovered he realised he had received memories from his future self who apparently did so on that future clone-of-myself. Apparently although physical time-travel is impossible, it is possible to send data into the past so long as you compress it to a few bytes of data.
Although we were not the first to beat the boss, I was able to acquire the land for a second base and a place for Peter’s Kitsune loli. Well, I guess now she would have a companion in the form of Azaz-rya.
Now all that was left for me was to watch the report which Ryouta had sent me. As usual he was paired with detective Alice Barnier, so I had to assume that everything in the report would be watched by Chamberlain. It was ironic that trapped as I was here in this virtual prison I was probably under less effective surveillance than anyone outside.
Regardless of the specifics of the report, one thing was clear. The British Liberal Party had won the by-election, there was no need to go into specifics, only people with actual power or with no life who roleplay as powerbrokers paid attention to the internal machinations of British political parties, and so my existence was safe for now. However, if what Nanashi said was real, and if what I saw in that virtual fever dream was really a prediction of the future, this means that the world itself would try to destroy me eventually.
