Today, Kikuoka Seijirou found the roar of the helicopter's rotors strangely insufficient.
He wished they were louder—loud enough to scramble his thoughts and stop him from dwelling on today's experience, which still sent chills down his spine whenever he remembered it.
Better yet, he wished the noise would wake him up. Then he could open his eyes and discover that reality had only just begun, while everything that had happened before was nothing more than a dream.
"Lieutenant Colonel Kikuoka, the Ocean Turtle is in sight."
At the crew member's announcement, Kikuoka looked toward the enormous oceanic research vessel floating on the water ahead.
On the surface, it was a mothership dedicated to marine research. In reality, its interior housed research into artificial intelligence, including technology capable of reading the human soul.
Suddenly, the satellite phone carried by one of his companions began to ring.
The man answered it, and his expression shifted slightly before he passed the phone to Kikuoka.
"Mr. Kikuoka, I need you to take care of something."
Although the voice had been slightly distorted by electronic transmission, Kikuoka immediately recognized the caller.
They had actually hacked directly into the satellite communication network.
Their control over the system was terrifyingly thorough.
But Kikuoka's immediate concern wasn't the intrusion itself. The fact that this person was asking him to deal with something made him tense.
Had someone among the higher-ups refused to believe his report and foolishly attempted another probe?
Had that provoked the other party into launching a massacre?
However, after hearing the details, Kikuoka's expression turned grave.
It wasn't what he had imagined, but the implications were just as explosive.
An incurable cancer patient—someone already on the verge of death—was now undergoing an extraordinarily rapid recovery.
The caller ordered him to take immediate action and prevent the doctors from spreading the information.
Naturally, the other party had already sealed off every network channel. Preventing the doctors from talking to people offline, however, was far more troublesome.
The fact that they had asked Kikuoka to handle the matter instead of resolving it personally—by silencing the witnesses or using some similarly ruthless method—was also a piece of irresistible bait they were dangling before the government.
First had come the warning shot.
Now came the temptation.
After all, who could guarantee that they would remain free of illness and injury for their entire lives?
That was especially true for the nation's leaders. The moment they learned that such a medicine existed, they would undoubtedly do everything in their power to obtain it.
They might resort to any means necessary. Starting a war over it was not beyond the realm of possibility.
Yet none of that would work here.
The other party possessed far too much power. Force was not an option, leaving them with no choice but to curry favor.
Whatever that person wanted or intended to do, the government would make every effort to cooperate and provide it.
It was an open scheme, one everyone could see through yet no one could resist.
"Turn around. We're going back to Tokyo."
Kikuoka decided it would be best to handle this personally.
...
Deep in the mountains of Nagano Prefecture stood a secluded building.
Originally, it had only one resident: the owner of the house and the mastermind behind the SAO Incident.
Later, a woman came to find him.
She was Koujiro Rinko, the former lover of Kayaba Akihiko, the man responsible for the incident.
Rinko had originally come here intending to kill Kayaba, hoping his death would free the ten thousand people trapped inside SAO.
In the end, however, she hadn't been able to go through with it.
Instead, she had begun taking care of him.
Today, the SAO Incident had finally come to an end.
Her lover, Kayaba Akihiko, would never wake again.
The high-intensity scan had effectively cooked his brain.
He was dead—but only physically.
He was also alive, surviving within an electronic server that seemed even more fragile than a human body.
And on this same day, the house received new visitors: the mysterious people who had brought the SAO Incident to an end.
Their arrival had thrown everything Rinko believed about the world into question.
She had spent most of the past year secluded in these mountains, almost entirely cut off from the outside world.
Had technology advanced so rapidly that she could no longer recognize the world?
Could that science-fiction-like aircraft truly have been developed with present-day technology?
Yet even that wasn't the most important revelation.
While the visitors spoke with Kayaba, Rinko learned the true identity of the blonde girl accompanying them.
She was an artificial being.
Not some biologically engineered clone, but an AI-controlled android.
Her lively voice, natural manner of speaking, rich expressions, and perfectly fluid movements were indistinguishable from those of a human being. Nothing about her suggested that she was a machine.
Yet she really was an android.
The realization sent a chill through Rinko.
She even developed a frightening suspicion.
Could artificial humans like this already be living everywhere, secretly mingling with ordinary people?
"Rinko, what are you thinking about?"
The faintly electronic voice brought her back to her senses.
Her lover, who had uploaded himself into an electronic system, had asked her to compare two machines of the same type—the device known as the Medicuboid.
Rinko began comparing the data transmitted from a hospital's Medicuboid with the Medicuboid located here.
In the end, she reached a simple conclusion.
"They're identical."
"Well, this is certainly interesting."
After Kayaba spoke from within the server, the electronic equipment began humming much more loudly.
He was thinking, forcing the server to operate at high speed.
"Old man, are you sure someone didn't steal your paper documents and use them to manufacture an identical device?" 6O speculated.
The Commander had instructed her to investigate whether the Medicuboid here had ever been breached and its design data stolen.
She hadn't discovered any evidence of an intrusion.
Either the culprit possessed superior technology and had erased every trace of the breach, or the system had never been hacked in the first place.
If it was the latter, then the manufacturing data hadn't been acquired through an electronic network. It might have been obtained from physical documents instead.
"Impossible. Even if someone somehow obtained the information from my paper records, they still couldn't manufacture a Medicuboid identical to this one," Kayaba rejected the possibility.
"Why not?" Kain asked.
"Why? Because I never recorded the most critical manufacturing data on paper. Nor did I upload it to any network or store it on an electronic device."
Kain understood what he meant.
And that made the situation far more interesting.
Kayaba was saying that the most critical information existed only inside his brain, preserved solely within his memories.
In theory, that meant the ten Medicuboid units here should be the only ones in the world.
Yet other Medicuboids now existed.
Not only had they appeared three months ago, but their manufacturing technology was completely identical.
It was almost as though someone had looked directly into Kayaba's memories.
Project Alicization also required one crucial component: a new device modified from the prototype Medicuboid.
Judging by the project's current progress, Alice had already appeared. That suggested Project Alicization had begun more than six months ago.
In other words, the information inside Kayaba's brain had been stolen over half a year earlier.
The problem was that he hadn't left this place for more than a year.
If someone had truly manipulated him and extracted that information directly from his brain, the only possible suspect would be Koujiro Rinko, who had been caring for him.
Yet judging by the situation, there was no chance Rinko had done it.
There was only one way to uncover the truth.
They would have to visit a place called RATH.
It was a pyramid-like oceanic research vessel floating at sea, but its real purpose was to serve as a base for artificial-intelligence research.
Project Alicization was being conducted there.
Alice had been born there as well.
They would pay it a visit tomorrow.
Then they would learn everything.
(End of Chapter)
[Get +30 Extra Chapters On — P@tr3on "Zaelum"]
[Every 300 Power Stones = 1 Bonus Chapter Drop]
[Thanks for Reading!]