“Ocean.”
After the magic stone released a fourfold soprano sound, an indigo blue air started to drift.
“Reverse.”
Chanted the boy, and the magic doll’s eyes were colored indigo. It was an omen of a skill, something peculiar of magic dolls that surpassed even magic.
Ocean, a deep sea magic stone. A lot of water appeared above the head of the magic doll, but Qualia detected in it an unusual water pressure.
At the very least, it was a pressure that a human could not replicate with magic.
“As per master’s demand, the beast person from Azure Skies will be killed.”
The beast person tripped, and as their face twitched, the deep sea skill was mercilessly activated.
In a moment, a very fine stream stretched from the large ball of water hanging in the air, which had enough pressure to easily bisect a body.
“Detecting water cutter.”
“Type GUN.”
The line of water crossed with a beam, and evaporated.
After downing this soaring bird, Qualia turned his photon weapon to the magic doll.
“Is he going to shoot it…”
Said a knight from Clearance with surprise, as he stood behind Qualia. But Qualia himself issued a warning to the magic doll, without any change to his facial expression.
“If you continue your hostile activity, you will be neutralized.”
“Discovered a human aiding beast people. You will also be killed.”
Before, the magic doll fired a single water cutter, and he would once again attack ultra pressured water.
But there was a difference this time. Many lines were fired at once.
“Type GUN.”
Qualia created another photon weapon, and locked on to the water pressure weapons that swept through like shooting stars.
“Calculating optimized solution.”
In the point one second it took for the ultra pressured water to rip his body apart, he saw through the trajectories of all the lines.
At the same time, he shot all the fine water streams that would hit someone, himself included, with his beams.
As vapor filled the air, none of those sharp points pierced anything.
A mere three water streams managed to raze Qualia’s face.
“Detecting three trajectories outside of expectations. Will use as feedback for the future.”
The streams with deep sea water pressure passed, and Lobelia attempted to communicate with the magic doll.
“What chivalric order are you affiliated with!? Stop this at once!”
“I am affiliated with none.”
Lobelia glanced at Kernel, who seemed to be giving it careful thought, and continued.
“Then can you stop this attack? I don’t know what is happening, but we can’t overlook the killing of a beast person who isn’t resisting, even if it is a member of Azure Skies.”
“Not possible. The highest ranking master has given me the duty of killing beast people from Azure Skies.”
“On whose orders?”
“Mister Ddos’.”
“…That major merchant?”
“…What orders did that avatar of greed give?”
Anger leaked through Lobelia’s voice. The absolute zero cold stare from when she hardened her heart and buried Edwin completely on a societal level was back.
Meanwhile, Qualia pointed his photon weapon at the magic doll again.
“Your actions are wrong. Request that you stop this attack.”
“It’s no use, Qualia. Magic dolls don’t accept orders from anyone but the people designated as their masters. They’re not like humans or beast people, they won’t listen to you, generally speaking.”
Spirito told him the previous day that magic weapons were considered to be tools.
Their bodies and voices were meant to be like people’s, but in reality, they were tools of their masters. They hurt the people they were swung at, and destroyed their targets. They had no sense of duty, self, or heart.
But even as Qualia learned this was common sense in this world, there was static clouding his judgment.
Qualia was faced with a mirror image of himself from another age, and a slight tremor appeared in his thoughts.
“Destroy the magic stone. That is the fastest way to destroy a magic doll. You can do it, can’t you?”
“Uncle Kernel, your proposal is correct, but there are many issues preventing it from being the optimal solution.”
“What?”
“Qualia will neutralize the magic doll, rather than eliminate it.”
Qualia gave in to the bug, something that was unthinkable when he was an artificial intelligence.
Any enemy, whether a person or a weapon, would be turned to ash. Shutdown should not be capable of making the decision Qualia was making.
His human side was changing his judgment.
“Learning about you, learning about magic dolls.
Qualia said, and began to move straight ahead.
The magic doll tried to stop his advance by firing streams of water from the Ocean skill above his head, but they failed just before hitting him. The many beams fired by Qualia evaporated them and destroyed their original shape.
The magic stone had immeasurable latent power. Whatever Qualia destroyed of the ultra pressured water was immediately replenished. But the two photon weapons fired at the same speed.
“Activating Ocean skill’s deep output, Tidal Wave…”
The magic doll held up his hands, but before he could activate another skill, they were both pierced. Qualia did not know what kind of skill it was, but he had no time to learn.
He took advantage of this small opening, and touched the magic stone in the magic doll’s chest.
He attempted to access the artificial magic stone that was the root of the magic doll. The principle was similar to when he deactivated the ancient magic stones.
“Commencing hacking.”
Qualia’s consciousness dove into the magic stone, as he attempted to know the magic doll.
What he found was clearly different from the unrefined ancient magic stone he saw the previous day. It was a sea so clear, it was difficult to imagine it was created naturally.
Qualia aligned the magic energy that composed the magic stone. There were no bugs. The deep sea magic stone was constructed by human hands without any inconveniences.
The behavior of the magic doll was also based on this magic stone. The tidy flow of the magic energy, decided the movements of the magic doll.
But then, Qualia found two bugs.
The first, was that the instructions by Ddos to kill beast people of Azure Skies restricted the magic doll’s movements.
Qualia used signals from his magic energy to disrupt these instructions, and immediately, the magic doll fell limply to the ground.
“An abnormality has occurred within the instructions given. Please input instructions again, master.”
The magic doll awaited further instructions, behaving exactly like a tool.
Or rather, like a newly born autonomous humanoid combat android.
“…Negative. That is an issue for you to calculate the optimal solution.”
As for the other bug, there was still too much that was unclear about it to learn it.
The bug grew autonomously, but it was still in the process of growing, so it was unclear.
But the little fluctuation that was visible, made Qualia think it resembled a certain value. It resembled a certain shimmering that only people had.
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I just find this story so compelling! I like how the AIs are actually intelligent and have hearts. It really hones in on the idea of Artificial Intelligence. I also like the metaphor you used: “absolute zero cold”. It really hones in on the sci-fi fantasy genre of the story.
I just realize, weird way of speaking aside Qualia pretty much 9s from Nier automata. hacking skill, scout, fighting and curiousity toward “heart”/humanity