Control AI No. 2’s Workspace
“This again,” said Humpty as she watched Shu preparing to fight Satomi.
This was far from the first time that Shu Starling would fight another Superior. He was on a journey from the west to the east and back. He’d passed the northern Harshwinter Mountains, crossed over to Tenchi, and was now returning to Altar by sea.
On the way, he’d fought four Superiors: the “Multifariously Invincible,” the “Broadside-Minded,” the “Ironman Mechanicus,” and the “Technical Apex.” Satomi, the “Outer War Chronicle,” made five.
“Is this just how his fate unfolds?” Shu had been involved in many incidents over his time in this world, and if they involved UBMs, Humpty had often been the one responsible for dragging him into the battle. Most of the many and varied costumes in his closet were MVP rewards he’d gained from such events.
However, she never intended for him to fight other Superiors.
She’d brought Shu into this as a Master who could take care of the Abyss Shellder situation, but now he would be fighting another Master.
“Well, I suppose King of Building’s really to blame here.” Generally, Shu never started such fights himself. He, or those by his side, were usually just the victims of trouble caused by other Superiors, and Shu simply responded accordingly.
In that sense, this situation with Satomi was no different.
“All right.” Humpty pondered what would happen next.
Being in charge of Embryos, she had full authority to do anything that could make Embryos evolve, but she couldn’t stop battles between those who were already in their seventh forms. Getting involved in any interaction between Masters was poor form for a Control AI.
Nudging Shu into this incident was fully within her authority, though. Her reasoning for it was that Abyss Shellder was destroying the ecosystem and would prevent the evolution of many other Masters as a result.
That was no lie—if ignored, the monstrosity would leave no room for anyone to grow.
That was why Humpty had hoped that Shu would fight the good fight and prevent that, only for the outcome to be...this.
She silently pondered. Shu was necessary in order to defeat the Abyss Shellder. However, she also felt that, just considering Granvaloa, Satomi was a rather effective force too.
Because of this, the fact that they would fight was a bit problematic.
“Oh well,” Humpty sighed. But now that it had come to this, Humpty had no choice but to give up and hope for the best. She knew well by now that nothing ever went as planned where Shu was concerned.
“Phew...” Humpty stretched within her egg before floating out of her workspace.
She was still using part of her processing power to monitor Shu, but she had to go and discuss the situation with her fellow Control AIs.
The moment Humpty left her workspace...
“Jabberwock’s such a blockhead!”
...a familiar, angry voice reached her ears.
Turning to the source, she saw a young lady standing there, clearly irritated.
This was Control AI No. 3, Queen. She was responsible for monsters, and thus was suffering due to the ongoing Abyss Shellder situation.
“Not in a good mood, are we, Queen?”
“Hm? Oh, Humpty.” Noticing her colleague, Queen fixed her expression to hide her obvious irritation.
Despite that, a little bit of her mood did show on her face. If there had been any animals here, they would surely have darted away in fear.
“I suppose Jabberwock still isn’t getting involved?”
“Yes! He still keeps saying that he’s ‘monitoring the situation’ and ‘there are no problems’! It’s like he has no idea how hard this whole thing is for me and Caterpillar...!”
“You have my sympathies.” Queen was in charge of monsters and Caterpillar was in charge of the environment, so whenever UBMs or Superiors caused trouble, it was up to them to clean up the mess and restore things to their natural state. In terms of workload, they were only surpassed by Duchess—the one processing the five senses of all Masters.
Jabberwock, on the other hand, simply designed and acknowledged UBMs, and those more often than not made things harder for his colleagues.
This was made worse by cases that he hadn’t accounted for, like the Abyss Shellder.
Though, even cases he does account for include creatures like Gloria, Humpty thought. He’d almost given this monster, which was immensely powerful even by SUBM standards, a backup feature that would’ve allowed it to retry its march over and over again. Jabberwock and his creations were a nuisance whether he intended them to be or not.
“Ugh! The centuries haven’t changed him at all!” Queen was obviously troubled by Jabberwock’s shenanigans, but Humpty saw something else in her—something besides frustration with a difficult colleague.
Searching her own memories, Humpty had found manga she’d read a long time ago. Queen reminded her of a certain character archetype from such works—the childhood friend constantly troubled by the shenanigans of a carefree boyfriend, yet always looking out for him regardless.
That was more or less their relationship, at least from Queen’s side.
I feel like feelings of affection are rather pointless for us Infinite Embryos, though. Embryos were “Semi-Matter Semi-Data Symbionts” who were created according to the details of their Master, or “Synchronizer,” only to die and vanish along with them, leaving behind nothing but form zero Embryos. The amount of these left over depended upon their accumulated Resources.
That was an Embryo’s basic cycle of life. However, Humpty and the others who became Infinite Embryos didn’t undergo such deaths, remaining alive even without their Synchronizers.
Their nature was somewhat parthenogenetic, but evolving this far had caused them to lose even that quality. If there was an exception to this, it had to be Humpty herself.
Then again, biological drive wasn’t everything. If anything, seeing as she was a being who had origins in strong emotions, Queen’s affection might not have been that strange.
But they’ve been working together for so long and made no progress, Humpty thought. I feel like she has no chance...
“Hm? Humpty? What’s wrong?”
“Oh, nothing. Anyway, Jabberwock sure is a handful, huh?”
“Seriously! He always puts his own interest above all else!”
“That’s true. Though, he does seem to be doing his job.”
“I guess he’s what you get when a person turns their hobby into work!” The Control AIs were all working toward a certain goal—their grand design. It was why they’d arrived in this land, reshaped it, and spent two thousand years preparing.
However, some Control AIs had smaller, more personal side objectives.
The most obvious example was Control AI No. 12, Rabbit, also known as Chrono Crown. He traveled the world every day creating memories to relate to his late Synchronizer. Meanwhile, Control AI No. 13, Cheshire, seemed to derive enjoyment from simple interactions with people, which might have also been due to the influence of his late Master.
Though to different extents, the Control AIs fulfilled their duties while still being driven by highly personal motivations. The only one who didn’t have that was Bandersnatch, who was the most machinelike of them all.
Jabberwock was one of those whose motivations were more personal than most.
“This situation must be really convenient for him,” said Humpty. “This could result in another powerful evolution.”
Jabberwock’s side objective was empowering himself—or, rather, his other half.
For that, he needed other powerful creatures that would act as samples.
Jabberwock referenced creatures like the monsters of this world, as well as the realmbeasts that existed at the boundaries between worlds. That was a core activity of Control AI No. 4—“Infinite Progress, Evolution”—and Abyss Shellder’s unexpected and abnormal empowerment made it a subject more than worthy of his attention.
While he certainly never forgot the main objective of all Control AIs, he wasn’t one to show much concern for the casualties and workload that getting there would entail. This was clear from the fact that he was the one who’d suggested that once Infinite Dendrogam released, they should refrain from dealing with Irregularities themselves.
“Could you do something about this?” Queen asked Humpty with a sigh.
“I steered all the powerful Masters from around the South Sea into this hunt. Most Masters out at sea were Granvaloans who were already given orders to kill it, though. Anyone else who actually went through there would have to be quite the oddball... And I could only find one.”
Needless to say, that person was Shu.
“And the things you’re in charge of...would have the opposite effect, wouldn’t they?” Humpty asked.
“Yes. Sending normal monsters wouldn’t help much... If I could go in my true form, I could end it by just using Dis-Exchange, but...”
“If you used that on that mountain of Resources, the South Sea would be as good as gone.”
“I know! And it’s not like I can get involved, anyway!” The worsening situation, the cleanup duty that would follow...
The growing workload was stressing Queen out more and more.
✦ ✦ ✦
Humpty continued listening to her colleague’s complaints for a short while, and Queen eventually calmed down a bit before returning to her workspace.
I feel like we didn’t talk all that much about work, Humpty thought as she also took her leave.
“Well, looks like the preparations are done,” she said as she glanced at a monitor, which showed the two Superiors about to start their battle.
Considering the problem they had to solve, a clash between Superiors was not a welcome addition to the mix.
“Heh heh heh... Well, Shu? What side of you will you show me this time?”
Despite that, Humpty found joy in this battle. While talking to Queen, she’d agreed with her that Jabberwock was in the wrong here, and in fact did feel that he often took things a bit too far.
However, Humpty actually enjoyed much of Jabberwock’s meddling. After all, Gloria, Abyss Shellder, and the many other problems he’d caused were all opportunities for the subject of her infatuation to shine, and the same applied to his clashes with the other Superiors.
All of it contributed to her desire—her small, personal objective as a Control AI.
Humpty wanted to observe Shu’s adventure.
This was her sole pleasure—one she’d been cultivating since the first time she’d thrown him into a battle against a UBM... No, since she’d led him through avatar creation.
In a way, dragging him into the struggle against Abyss Shellder had also been a self-interested act.
“Enchant me again, will you?” Her face warped in delight, the Incarnation of Death bared her twisted affection toward him.