“What’s wrong Raphael? Why are you grinning so creepily just because it looks like you are winning!?”
Grinning? I touched my face and I was indeed smiling smugly. The former second consul didn’t look so happy about it but nanashi looked as immovable as ever with his arms crossed, eyes half-closed and white hood on his head.
Francoise pulled Peter’s ear to get him to look away from the screen.
“Husband, no you can’t look at that!”
Lain kicked Arthur down from sixty feet in the air, by now enough of Arthur’s uniform had come apart that part of her underwear was visible.
A similar reaction came from the other women in the group except for Celestina who now was worried about Arthur. Honestly, she was better off not worrying about those idiots.
“Honestly, I don’t see what the issue is.” Opined the Farmer. “She has the body of a middle-schooler who would be interested in that? It’s like seeing my child’s body while bathing her.”
This earned him support from the domesticated men and the leers of the women. For his sake, I hoped that Arthur never heard of what he said about her body being indifferentiable from that of a middle schooler.
Arthur crawled out of a fissure in the earth which had been formed as a result of Lain kicking Arthur into the ground from the air. Lain looked down at Arthur.
“It’s clear that you can never beat me in looks, charm, wit and now even strength. Will you surrender now? Or can’t you hear me with those swollen up chibi ears? I will beat you down all the same if you don’t give up now, ma chérie. There is no way you can defeat my Dark Dragon Knight Frame! ☆”
Lain was not wasting her time while making her declaration of superiority masquerading as a request for an unequivocal surrender. She was floating in the air diagonally above Arthur but not above Rina who was watching this from the sky facing the setting sun which was just a digital mirage. In her hand she was creating a huge mass of buildings and concepts all merging into each other to use it to crush Arthur’s mind with information and her body with sheer weight.
Wait! From this angle I could see Rina’s frilly maid underwear. Maybe if I zoomed in there. I pinched on the semi-transparent screen with my index and thumb until I noticed Rina’s unemotional face staring back at me.
“Chiiiiiiii”
Maybe I was one of those domesticated men, but man she did not miss anything, domesticated by an AI no less. As I concentrated on what life choices led me to this bad end, Arthur raised one of her swords which had by now also been chipped away in places.
“SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP!”
Ouch that hurt my ears and even startled Lain who had to rebalance that mass of energy, concepts and objects in her hand so that it didn’t crush her accidentally.
“Frankly, I don’t understand my lord’s tastes for having created such an idiot as you…”
Well, sorry about your ‘lord’s’ questionable tastes but I never had any idea that they would become ‘reality.’
Arthur raised her other sword and the two swords merged into one large broadsword.
“But now I think I understand. You were created to be humbled and beaten by me!”
The sky suddenly turned pink. A transformation sequence started.
“Why!? Damnit! Why can’t I attack her!”
“You can’t attack someone or move during their transformation sequence.”
The farmer raised his non-existent glasses with his finger. Of course, Lain would know this without having to be told by a player, given that she was one of the designers of the system. I guess this was a sign that her emotions were affecting her behaviour. The funny thing about AI which I have noticed since coming here, is that the hardest thing is to make an AI which is actually perfectly rational, not that I particularly tried to be honest but that was because I knew it wouldn’t work. If it’s irrational I can control it through its irrationality at least, that was my political thinking. Now let’s see the conclusion to one of the farces which I set in motion or at least co-wrote along with the other fools trying to pull the strings of this virtual panopticon for their own ends.
Arthur’s body appeared naked as her armoured frilly hero battle armour costume glowed into existence. There was an aura around her but the most striking thing about her was that she now looked like an adult rather than a child and her face was not wholly covered and that she wore a skirt. It was a mix of her battle armour and her black sailor uniform.
Unencumbered by the transformation sequence Lain now threw the gargantuan mass of concepts of energy at the armoured knight.
“Master, I don’t think I will be able to save the students from this attack. Their personalities and identities will be scattered around into an irretrievable mass of non-sensical information.”
“It can’t be helped, this stress test must continue until it’s over. Just try your best to protect as many of them as you can.”
“As you wish, master.”
“HA HA HA HA”
Arthur stood staring as the light engulfed her and practically everything in view.
