To their delight, they discovered an individual with an exceptionally high violation index—Alice.
She was most likely an artificial intelligence who had realized that her world was false and become aware of the outside world.
They had no idea how she had uncovered the truth of her world or detected the existence of reality beyond it.
Yet judging from everything they had observed, she behaved exactly like an innocent young girl. No matter how they looked at her, she appeared completely harmless.
That made her appearance all the more deceptive—and utterly terrifying.
If they wanted to uncover her true nature, they would have to review her entire life from beginning to end, watching everything from her childhood to the present. But that meant going through more than a decade of memories.
"It's Alice, isn't it?" Higa Takeru asked in a low voice.
"Wrong."
The answer left him stunned.
"But Alice is connected to the person in question. Hmm… Miss Asuna, why don't you tell them what you think the relationship between the two might be?"
"Huh?"
When Miss 6O suddenly redirected the conversation toward her, Asuna froze for a moment.
"She may be planning to steal Alice's body and use it to successfully log out into the real world."
Since Alice had been identified by Kikuoka Seijirou and the others as the most suitable artificial intelligence, they might eventually extract her from Underworld.
According to what Black Cat and Kain had told her, the High Priest who realized that Underworld was false and that a real world existed beyond it had done many things. One of them was taking over other people's fluctlights to prolong her own life.
It was like filling up a hard drive and then stealing someone else's once her own ran out of space.
"Who is it, Miss Asuna?" Higa pressed.
"It's someone from the Axiom Church, isn't it?" Kikuoka said, narrowing down the possibilities.
After all, the behavior of Underworld's residents was restricted by laws established by its supreme governing institution, the Axiom Church.
Only the highest authority within the Axiom Church could have created those laws.
"It's the Highest Minister, isn't it?" Kikuoka continued.
The next second, Higa rushed over to the control console and began operating it.
As Kikuoka watched Higa's expression grow increasingly grim, he knew that Underworld truly had gone out of control.
"Boss Kiku, the Cardinal System's sub-process is gone."
The sub-process existed to preserve stability. If anything abnormal appeared among Underworld's inhabitants, it was supposed to intervene and correct the error.
No wonder the system had recently stopped reporting errors. The sub-process responsible for doing so appeared to have been deleted.
A chill ran through Higa.
The artificial intelligence they had created was deceiving them.
"What did the Highest Minister do?"
"I don't know. To find out, we'd have to examine every piece of data connected to her, and that's impossible."
Higa's voice sounded strained.
Judging from when the error notifications stopped and when the Axiom Church's rules began growing increasingly comprehensive, the Highest Minister had already lived for more than a century.
Of course, the hundred-plus years she had experienced in Underworld did not correspond to the same amount of time in reality.
The difference in the passage of time between the two worlds was a thousandfold. Time inside Underworld had been accelerated by a factor of one thousand.
But no one knew at what point during that century she had begun tampering with the system. That meant they would have to watch more than a hundred years of her life to identify what she had done.
That was simply impossible.
Fortunately, they had stopped accelerating time after discovering Alice, the anomalous individual. Otherwise, there was no telling how far the Highest Minister's plans might have progressed by now.
"This is bad. She knows she's been exposed. She's severed our access to the system's administrative privileges."
Higa's expression grew even darker.
"She severed our access? Isn't that actually a good thing?" Kikuoka asked, visibly relaxing.
If that was the case, she had effectively isolated herself. She had withdrawn into Underworld and sealed its borders.
"Uh… I suppose you're right."
As things stood, there was only one way to prevent an artificial intelligence crisis and stop the Highest Minister from escaping into the real world: destroy Underworld.
However, because they had lost access to the system's administrative privileges, they could only destroy it physically.
That meant annihilating the entire ship so thoroughly that every electronic device aboard suffered irreversible damage.
Most importantly, every Lightcube—the storage medium containing the fluctlights of Underworld's residents—would have to be completely destroyed.
They also needed to account for the possibility Miss 6O had mentioned: that the AI might spread like an electronic virus. While destroying the ship, they would have to enclose it within an enormous iron coffin capable of blocking all electromagnetic signals.
That would require time to prepare.
Their only other option was to use a special weapon powerful enough to vaporize the entire enormous vessel in a single strike. Humanity currently possessed only one type of weapon capable of doing that: a hydrogen bomb.
Alternatively, they could use one of the special weapons Kain had provided to Suguha's side.
A missile like the one that had vaporized the ocean the previous night could engulf the entire vessel in an instant, reducing it to vapor just like the seawater.
"There should still be another way to regain control of the system."
"Huh? Yes. Are you planning to enter that world yourself?"
Higa understood what the mysterious young man meant.
They could use the Soul Translator, an upgraded device developed from the Medicuboid, to seize control from within.
Someone could log into Underworld through the device, locate the world's system control console, and reestablish a connection with the outside.
However, reaching the system console meant entering the Highest Minister's room.
She certainly wouldn't stand by and watch while someone seized control. She would send people to attack the intruder, who might even have to confront the Highest Minister herself—an administrator with powers comparable to a game master.
For an ordinary person, entering Underworld under those circumstances would be no different from suicide…
"Yes."
Kain's reason for coming to this world had been to obtain something like the fluctlights. Now that they had already been created, there was technically no need for him to concern himself with Underworld's internal situation. They could simply destroy it physically.
However, he had a feeling this world would prove extremely useful if preserved.
"Take me to the login pod."
"You're going to log in personally?"
Higa was astonished, and even Kikuoka looked surprised.
After learning Miss 6O's true identity, they had assumed the young man was the same kind of being.
They had every reason to suspect it. The abilities he had displayed the previous day were impossible for a human body to possess.
Yet if he intended to log in, that meant he was not an artificial intelligence but a human being.
Perhaps portions of his body had been mechanically reconstructed.
"Commander, the device is over here."
There was no need for either Higa or Kikuoka to guide him. One of the people beside them immediately led Kain to the device.
After all, aside from Underworld itself, there was practically nowhere aboard the ship that Kain's people did not know about.
Once Kain entered the pod and activated the Soul Translator, Higa watched the data on the nearby control console.
"What?"
His eyes widened.
The volume of data was far too enormous.
His gaze immediately snapped toward the server built from a massive cluster of Lightcubes. One of them, which was supposed to serve as the storage medium for Kain's consciousness, was receiving a terrifying flood of information.
No. A fluctlight couldn't withstand that much data.
It would collapse.
The next second, the Lightcube meant to contain his fluctlight abruptly returned to normal.
At the same time, the information displayed on the control console left Higa staring blankly at the screen.
Normally, anyone logging into Underworld needed a designated Lightcube to protect them from the effects of time acceleration.
Because time inside Underworld was accelerated, the user's brain activity would also be forced to accelerate. Without protection, that would cause the brain to burn itself out.
With a Lightcube acting as the intermediary, however, Underworld could not physically affect the biological brain.
The system was not connected directly to the brain itself. It interacted with the quantum structure composing the person's consciousness. Biological processes—such as nerve impulses triggering neurons to release neurotransmitters—were bypassed entirely.
That prevented Underworld from causing physical damage to the brain.
Yet Kain had just bypassed that entire process and connected his body directly to Underworld.
In other words, he had used his own body as a fluctlight.
That was extraordinarily dangerous, because every sensation of pain he experienced inside Underworld would be transmitted directly to his physical body.
Worse, if he died inside, his brain might accept the death signal as real and die along with him.
Then another piece of information appeared, draining the color from Higa's face.
Kain had logged in, but he had not descended into the Human Empire.
Instead, he had appeared in the world on the other side of the enormous gate.
This was clearly the Highest Minister's doing.
The realm beyond that gate—the Dark Territory—was an exceptionally dangerous place.
It was a brutal world of slaughter where strength reigned supreme.
(End of Chapter)
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