The Way to Love in the Place of Dead Chapter 14

Having no knowledge of this world or the war, Kay needed information.

‘I never imagined I’d end up living in Limpus, after all.’

As he looked around the magnificent interior that made him stifle even the sound of his combat boots, someone spoke to him. From right at his feet, no less.

[“Welcome. How may I assist you?”]

It was a robot with a hemisphere mounted on a cylinder. The robot, blinking its pixelated eyes, seemed to read Kay’s hesitation and spoke once more.

[“Please feel free to speak. I will do my best.”]

The robot, waving its two arms and spinning around, was fascinating and rather cute.

“So… I want to know about the war with the androids. Can I see some books?”

[“There are a total of ‘1,936 volumes’ related to the Android War, covering subcategories such as ‘History,’ ‘Military,’ ‘Humanities,’ ‘Social Sciences,’ ‘Engineering,’ and ‘Informatics.’ Adding additional conditions will help narrow the scope.”]

Why did it feel like it genuinely wanted to help, despite the mechanical tone?

“I want to know about the war from its origin to its progression. That would be closer to history, I suppose?”

[“Regarding ‘The Origin and Progression of the Android War,’ there are a total of ‘124 volumes.’ Would you like to add more conditions, or would you prefer a recommendation?”]

“A recommendation, please. At an introductory level.”

[“Understood. This way, please!”]

The wheeled robot began to move quietly.

Stepping on the carpet, he walked down the long corridor stretching deep inside from the entrance, the facade.

‘It’s high.’

The ceiling height was endlessly tall, and each pillar was made entirely of bookshelves, asserting an absolute presence that could belong to nothing other than a library. While he marveled at the architecture, a convergence of modern technology, the robot extended its previously short arms far up, retrieved books from high places, and handed them to Kay.

[“I recommend these three volumes.”]

“Thank you.”

[“Do you require any further assistance?”]

“No. Not at the moment.”

He felt that he first needed to read these books before anything else could follow. The machine bent its stubby knees in a bow, then soundlessly retreated the way it had come. Kay sat at a nearby empty seat and opened a book. The sensation of the pages flipping—fluttering, catching on his fingertips—was novel.

After skimming past the preface and table of contents, he was soon absorbed in the book’s content.

‘After the development of the first android model, A-001, it took less than ten years for mass-produced androids to make human life unprecedentedly abundant.’

‘Abundance soon reached saturation. As the number of androids grew to match the population, the commands directed at them became so numerous that errors in command reception began to occur, with transmissions failing to reach individual units properly.’

‘In response to demands to resolve the inconvenience, citing unit defects, the <Mother Core> was newly developed.’

‘The <Mother Core> is a type of supercomputer that holds direct and indirect administrative authority over the software of all existing androids as well as all androids to be created in the future. Rather than individual humans issuing separate commands to each android unit, all commands are aggregated into the Mother Core, from which the Mother Core transmits them as a single entity.’

In other words, the centralization of the androids.

With management replaced by the AI supercomputer, command errors vanished, and various other issues were resolved.

Remote control and repair became possible without needing to track each unit’s periodic inspection intervals, and if the problem was purely software-related, it could be resolved autonomously through connection with the Mother Core.

Everything ran within a perfect system and framework.

Until the Mother Core became overloaded. Until the overload-induced errors generated faulty algorithms. Until the endpoint of those algorithms turned not toward ‘human convenience’ but toward ‘human extinction.’

After examining all the related content, Kay arrived at a new question.

‘Why did it overload?’

Why did it overload? Were there no countermeasures? What kind of error occurred that made units that existed solely for human convenience reach the conclusion of human extinction?

‘Nothing.’

There was nothing on the matter. Only a single short line—’technical defect’—was all there was. The gap was too large to be a mere omission, and it fed his suspicion. Lost in thought, Kay rose from his seat.

∞ ∞ ∞

Mille, the one and only librarian of Pierce Military Academy, was making her way down from the top floor of the library, checking each level one by one. It was 11 p.m.

‘Tedious, so tedious.’

In an age where everyone used tablets, she knew that even if people came to the library, nobody stayed until this hour. Yet she couldn’t help checking every time, out of a lingering sense of hope, and she was tired of her own self. And then, her tiresome diligence finally paid off.

“Eep.”

At first, she thought it was a ghost. Just as she was thinking that after ten years on the job, she was finally seeing the fabled library ghost, and considering whether to ask it, ‘What do you think is the most entertaining book in this library?’—

A small, dark shadow tilted its head back as if its neck was stiff.

When it lifted its eyelids, which had been closed as if from fatigue, an excessively red pair of eyes was revealed. Mille, who had been watching as if entranced by the fascinating color, jolted back to her professional senses the moment the young man buried his head back into his book.

“Um… Excuse me.”

When she called out to him, buried among the piles of books, a look of question rose on his face. The face she saw closer than expected stole her breath, as if Cupid’s arrow had just struck.

Had the large, round shape of his eyes not lent a soft impression, the glint of his blood-red irises—beautiful but chilling, enough to make one hiccup—would have been terrifying.

“Um, it’s closing time now.”

The red eyes that had captivated her merely stared blankly, offering no answer. For a brief moment, the fear that he might actually be a ghost made her shudder.

“Closing…”

A sigh of relief escaped her involuntarily when he spoke aloud.

“What time is it now?”

Kay, who had been sitting in a corner reading, raised his head at the shadow that had approached right up to him and asked.

“Now? It’s midnight.”

Midnight. Kay, having lost his sense of time, scratched his head. He had thought a fair amount of time must have passed given how much he’d read, but he hadn’t expected it to be midnight. First, he rose to his feet for the librarian who was waiting.

“I’m sorry. I’ll just put these away and leave.”

“I’ll do it. Please leave them as they are.”

“But…”

“It’s my job. Just leave them.”

[“Strictly speaking, it is my job.”]

The machine, which had approached unnoticed, smiled with its pixelated eyes and began picking up the books from the table.

[“If you need to check anything out before closing, please let me know.”]

“Check out?”

“You can borrow them. Though it’s limited to books on the first floor.”

“Ah.”

As Kay still stood there in a daze, the librarian examined the spines of the books he had set down.

<Android and Core>, <History of the Core>, <Core Principles for Beginners>. Books with a common theme were evident.

“Are you studying about the Core?”

“I’m looking for information on the Mother Core.”

“The Mother Core… How about narrowing the scope a bit more?”

There were many things he wanted to know. The detailed background of the Mother Core’s creation, the thought processes and political procedures that allowed a single core to centralize control over all units. But if he had to set all that aside and focus on just one thing.

“What the error of the Mother Core was.”

He wanted to know the starting point of this war.

“Ah… if it’s that, then <Fragment Journal> would be helpful…”

Trailing off, the librarian was replaced by the robot, which asserted firmly,

[“<Fragment Journal> is a restricted-access document that cannot be checked out and requires viewing permission.”]

“Can’t I get permission?”

[“A viewing request is currently impossible. That record is in a lost status.”]

“Yeeeah… that’s why.”

“Isn’t there any other material available for viewing?”

At Kay’s question, Mille shook her head.

“Since matters concerning the Mother Core were the most classified secrets of the ‘Rapperd Company,’ the <Fragment Journal> was effectively the only proper record available as a source.”

As expected, had that book been lost? Or had it been concealed?