“Of all times… Now?”
Spirito said while grinding her teeth, and holding the aching wound on her left thigh.
As she said, the timing could not be worse. They could not go after Liebe with Zero Division running around.
Even Ace, who was standing closest to Ina, understood their situation.
“Qualia, you should not give chase to Liebe at present time. Getting through the current situation takes precedence.”
“That’s right. We should let Liebe be for now! We don’t even know if we can leave this building in the first place.”
Spirito agreed with Ace.
They could not spare the manpower to go after Liebe. Qualia also understood all too well which task took precedence.
“Analyzing situation.”
But Qualia calculated. They were calculations towards the optimal future, that were not there when he was Shutdown. He was not just thinking about getting through this, but also the world after they did.
He then looked at the still unconscious Ina, and stated his decision.
“It is judged that there is a need to make contact with Liebe quickly.”
But he reached the opposite decision of Ace and Spirito’s.
He looked at Spirito, who had a puzzled expression on her face, and explained without being prompted to.
“There is a chance that Liebe will take enormous offensive action if he learns of Ina’s condition. There is a chance that many vital activities will stop if he does.”
“…That’s true. If Liebe knew…”
Spirito closed her eyes as she recalled the fear propagated by Quiet Ghost. The beheadings performed by using Stealth and the unblockable guillotine. Even Clearance could not fight it.
“That possibility is visible in the unusual pattern of Liebe appearing, when he hasn’t done so all this time. And such offensive action would turn Liebe back into a threat.”
“Qualia, please explain. What do you mean?”
Qualia closed his mouth for a moment. It took time to load, because there was something he could still not understand, as an artificial intelligence.
But what came from his thoughts as a human was a worry.
“…Liebe’s threat level went down due to contact with Ina… But if he begins to take offensive action again, he might go back to his course of action as a threat… There is a chance that the result of the contact with Ina will be rendered null…”
“And there would be no going back.”
“Affirmative.”
Said Qualia, as Lobelia added to his thoughts.
He was on his way back from a lunatic to a kind older brother, but if his thirst for revenge was given fuel again, he might not ever return. He would wander this world as an immortal ghost that spread death and destruction.
“Qualia, you said three o’clock, forty-nine kilometers, correct?”
Lobelia thought back to what Qualia detected. He responded with ‘affirmative’, and Lobelia put her hand on her chin as she thought.
“…People live in that area. But knights might not go there.”
“What do you mean?”
“That village is being used by the Fair Skies Church as a base.”
“So their believers live there?”
“Yes. That’s why knights commanded by the king’s faction don’t really go there. Uncle Kernel might go there anyway, but it would take time.”
“And the offensive knights of the queen’s faction are out on a campaign…”
“So there’s no one there to protect them.”
“And if Liebe finds out that they are people affiliated with the Fair Skies Church, there is a high chance that he will take excessive offensive action.”
No one had good thoughts about the Truly Wonderful Fair Skies Church.
But still, leaving people to be slaughtered without helping them went against the beliefs of Hello World.
Most importantly, Liebe saw people of the Fair Skies Church as enemies. He hated them for beheading him and hurting his sister more than anything else.
It was very possible that he would let hatred take over and slaughter everyone.
That would mean that not only would those lives not come back, but neither would Liebe’s heart.
“But Qualia, if you chase two rabbits, you’ll end up with neither. That means people can’t solve two things at the same time like that.”
But the artificial intelligence was in a vortex of death. They were surrounded by assassins looking to trample over their ‘tasty’.
Even if Spirito’s pure strength surpassed his own, and Ace excelled at controlling a space, he could not leave these four people and run off somewhere.
Two important tasks laid in front of him, and as long as he was human, he only had the performance power to deal with one at the time.
As long as he was human.
“Request understanding. Qualia has to promptly eliminate Zero Division, and make contact with Liebe. Qualia calculated the optimal solution for that reason.”
And then, he activated it.
“Qualia will validate two of the functions of the humanoid combat android Shutdown.
Type SHUTDOWN Process 0,1%”
The return mechanism near his heart flashed red.
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