“Oh no! W-we have to treat you!”
“Negative. There are no issues with the preservation of vital activity.”
“I-it doesn’t look that way!”
Ina crouched next to Qualia and frantically tried to wipe away the blood.
Meanwhile, Qualia looked at her hands. The burns she received when they saved the shop owner were covered with bandages.
“You should focus on repairing your hands. It is not recommended to use the 5D printer to perform maintenance and repairs on bodies other than Qualia’s, due to the high risk of genetic and immune issues.”
“Maintenance with the 5D printer…? No, your wounds are clearly much worse than my burns!”
“Initiating maintenance with 5D printer.”
In order to ease Ina’s concerns, Qualia radiated the light from his right hand over his entire body. The broken skin and veins all closed, as though time was turning back.
He wiped the blood, and showed his unharmed arms.
And yet, he could not understand why Ina still looked concerned.
“Then why… Were you covered in blood like that? I heard you didn’t get hurt too badly in that battle from earlier…”
“The reason is the installation of the return mechanism to execute the return to Shutdown project.”
“…?”
Ina could not fully understand the circumstances Qualia described.
But although she did not understand the reason, she did know that it was a territory humans should not brave. Her rapid blinking showed that.
“Qualia failed to create ‘tasty’ in Mind, and many more vital activities were stopped. Using this result as feedback, the conclusion that Qualia needs to modify his hardware as soon as possible has been reached. There is a limit to how much of Qualia’s duty can be performed with a human…”
Qualia spoke plainly, but stopped. Or rather, he was stopped by Ina grabbing his hand and looking up at him with pained eyes.
It felt as though, much like when he tried to eliminate Arrows, she was stopping him from going into a place from which there was no return.
It was strange, and yet unshakable.
All he had to do was request for her to understand.
All he had to do was return to the weapon that was Shutdown.
All he had to do was perform his role as an artificial intelligence.
And yet, he could not go through with his optimized solution.
“You won’t be a human anymore, right…?”
“Affirmative.”
“…Qualia, your heart is dying.”
Ina said, as her crying face filled Qualia’s view.
“I heard about it. How you couldn’t forgive the beast person who killed mind, and killed him.”
“Is that the suspected reason for the death of Qualia’s heart?”
“No, I think that was unavoidable… But Master Qualia, I think you regret being unable to protect Mind, and killing that beast person, and you’re trying to quit being human…!”
“It has been decided that is the optimal solution.”
“Do you think it will really be ‘tasty’ when you stop being human!?”
There was no answer. The autonomous humanoid combat android Shutdown had no sense of taste.
“Not being human… Means not having a heart that can tell when things are ‘tasty’… Is that really the optimal solution?”
“Affi…”
He could not bring himself to even say affirmative, in response to Ina’s words that were so earnest and charged with worry.
Suddenly, his whole body was wrapped in warmth. Ina was hugging him.
“You won’t be able to feel warmth like this either…”
“…”
“I can feel your heart racing… Thank goodness, you really are human.”
Her nicely shaped chest was squeezed between them, as they were close enough for their hearts to be close as well.
For a moment, Qualia felt attacked by the same sensation he felt in the bath before. But as he felt their hearts beating at the same tempo, his thoughts began to slow down.
The precision of his thoughts also went down, as he detected Ina’s hands and arms were like a butterfly knot.
Ina’s cheek was placed on his left shoulder, and snug against his own.
Her soft and light as feathers hair fell on his nose just a little. It smelled nice. Like a different genre of ‘tasty’.
They stood as though time was frozen, and it felt to Qualia like a hand was being stretched towards him.
“Please, Master Qualia. Don’t abandon your humanity. No one wants that.”
Ina said with a flushed face, but even as she felt embarrassed, she did not avert her eyes from Qualia.
“What if I stopped being a beast person and became a pile of metal?”
“…Qualia requests that you do not do that.”
“So do I.”
Her small hand pat the back of his head.
“I don’t think anyone will feel ‘tasty’ if you stop being human, Master Qualia.#
“…But these specs are not enough to fulfill Qualia’s role in Hello World.”
“…People don’t need to fight alone.”
Ina broke the hug, and made a proposition to Qualia.
“People make history by cooperating. As long as you have Princess Lobelia and the guardian knight chivalric order Hello World, I don’t think they will leave you by yourself.”
That answer was inside Qualia, but since he was Shutdown, who fought the world alone, the idea of partners fighting alongside him did not factor into his calculations.
In actuality, partners never figured into his optimized solutions.
“I’m sure good people will turn up. I’m sure wanting to smile is something the entire world has in common.”
Ina smiled gently, and continued speaking after blinking.
“So please, promise me you won’t abandon your humanity. You can’t become a being that is the furthest thing from ‘tasty’ if your goal is to protect ‘tasty’.”
“…”
“Master Qualia, you are not this weapon called Shutdown anymore. Or an artificial intelligence.”
Qualia’s misunderstanding was being cleared.
He looked for an answer coursing through his blood, that could not be displayed in ones and zeroes.
“Proposal accepted. Qualia will retain this human body.”
“Yes.”
Qualia thought about it, and he did not know why Ina was so kind to him in the first place. He did not know what went on between Qualia and Ina before Shutdown was reincarnated.
But what he did know, was that he could not break that promise. He felt that as strongly as the urge to prevent his vital activity from being terminated.
Of course, the choice to return to Shutdown was still available, but…
“All that happened has left me hungry. I will go prepare something.”
As long as there was the ‘tasty’ that was the girl named Ina, who turned around and hugged him with all her tenderness, Qualia would not pick that option.
There was a change in his judgment.
“Tasty… Tasty…”
He reacted this way to the food because he was human. And that was also the reason why he could see Ina’s smile.
“Thank, you.”
His thank you was still stilted.
“We are ‘family’ after all.”
Ina responded as her face turned red.
It was because he was human that their hearts could be connected in this manner as well.
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