Chapter 128 – To The Royal Treasury – part two
… It’s getting boring. This secret passage is quite long, and all I can do here is killing those half-baked super robots that aren’t worth taming… Let’s do something to pass time.
“Yamada, tell me a joke.” I told my familiar, who seemed to start panicking as soon as I said that, “Don’t start moving crazily like that while I’m holding you.” I hit his handle on a wall to help him calm down.
After it stopped moving wildly, it ended up saying that it was too unreasonable for me to make a request like that all of a sudden, “Just what is our relationship, again?” I asked him while dismantling another golem.
He seemed to remember his place, as after a small pause, Yamada sent a joke saying, ‘what’s does an AI and a citizen living under a dictatorship have in common?’ with the answer being, ‘both have no human rights and are under heavy surveillance.’
… It wasn’t wrong, but this joke was annoying. More importantly though, “You’re aware that you’re an AI?” I asked him, though he didn’t answer, “Did you learn about it once you were tamed? I wonder if it’s to make you properly behave, differently from the normal monsters in the wild.”
… He says he learned about it in order to soothe his master loneliness… Hmph! As if I’m lonely!
I hit Yamada against the wall before saying, “I’m not lonely, I just play solo!” I like playing by myself, and I can talk to Yuu and Maria if I want to, I’m not lonely… Sure, I can’t really make friends on my own, and I have a hard time keeping up with ‘ordinary’ conversations, but it’s fine for me to be by myself in an MMO, the designers surely made the game in a way that could allow people to play by themselves if they wanted to.
“Okay, enough of that. Your turn now, Kageyama.” I told my other familiar, who was clearly troubled by this order, “But of course you have to say a joke too, everyone has to, actually.” They all seemed to panic now… Why weren’t they expecting it? It’s not like Yamada would be the sole sacrifice or something.
Kageyama then said, ‘What are the similarities between AIs and candy?’ are they all going to go with riddles? ‘Both are disposable’ was his answer… It made sense, but it felt like a copy of Yamada’s riddle.
“Alright, your turn now, Azabu. And by the way, the one that tells the least interesting joke will go through a punishment, alright?” I told them to see if they would put a bit more effort into this. They obviously weren’t happy with it, but I told them that, “No complaints will be accepted.”
They understood that they have no choice, so Azabu told a riddle too, ‘What are the similarities between AIs and livestock?’ with the answer being, ‘neither can go against the wills of the humans.’
“Wow, you’re all pretty self-deprecating, alright.” I told them. It’s true that they’re programmed to obey me though, but it’s interesting that they’re self-aware of it, “Are any of you dissatisfied with the way things are right now?” I ended up asking them… I got no answer though, “Why are you all suddenly silent?” I asked.
It felt like they were all trying their best to not make eye contact with me, even though they didn’t even have eyes… Was this some sort of camaraderie? Did they become friends while I was offline or something? That’s not a bad thing, I suppose.
Though it makes me curious, “What about Hanako and Takeo? How do you feel about them?” When I asked that, my original familiars seemed to shiver in fear, while Hanako and Takeo seemed to run away giggling. I wonder what caused all that.
Well, they’re not going to run far from me either way, and none of them will cause serious trouble for each other regardless, because after all, “I am your master, just remember that. You cannot disobey me, and you must be always ready to fight for me. Keep that in your heads.”
After that, I continued wasting time while chatting with my familiars as I explored this basement.
