Volume 8 - CH 133.1

Identity

Translated by boilpoil

Edited by boilpoil

Artificial intelligence.

When Xü Beijin said the phrase, he found that he was calmer than he thought he would be.

In a sense, he… can be described as an artificial intelligence, but he is not willing to acknowledge that.

Just as he said, he believes himself to be human.

Or at least, he would never identify as NE. That is the biggest difference between NE and himself.

NE says, “I do not understand why you believe that.”

An artificial intelligence is certainly capable of mimicking ‘confusion.’

But the fact that he is mimicking means that, he is unable to calculate, via his own logical programming, why Xü Beijin thinks that way.

The current development of artificial intelligence is on a level far beyond what the humans stuck in the Tower could picture.

They’ve all been left behind by the times, and they will be unable to catch up; it is obvious.

Xü Beijin doesn’t want to talk about that with NE much.

It’s like that since the beginning. He and NE are on opposing sides. They are against each other. They are like cat and dog…

While NE, still looking at him with that blank, unnatural, and unpractised ‘genuine’ confusion, says, “because you’re my——”

“Your parts which you have abandoned.”

Xü Beijin finishes the sentence for him.

For a moment, he finds himself confused a little as well.

Huh. He is actually capable of facing this fact. He could actually——Really——

Talk about this without a deep self-loathing.

All Tower residents have their quirks or strangeness, either in their physical form or in their mental state, but not Xü Beijin.

That is because, he himself is the defect.

He is the culmination of some… strange combination of coincidences, which granted him the most special identity in this game, but at the same time, has also become the nightmare that has haunted him all these years.

When humans were first sent into this game, they were sorted into two factions.

The game labels them ‘Tower residents’ and ‘Outsiders.’

The outsiders employed the term ‘Missiontakers’ for themselves, though, thinking they were the only players – humans – in this game.

They believe they’ve become trapped, and need to resolve the Tower residents’ Nightmares, solve them, gather True Ends, and possibly escape from the Tower eventually.

But in fact, the Tower residents are also ‘players,’ and have adopted the label of ‘Actors,’ in consideration of the fact that they needed to Act as the ‘Tower residents’ in-game.

The game’s background describes all of them as post-apocalyptic survivors who entered a tall tower to prolong their existence. They are the last survivors of the world in that setting.

And the Tower had a management in the form of an artificial intelligence – story-wise, just like the others, it also had a name, a designation whose digits are far too difficult to use in everyday life, but for simplicity’s sake, and to distinguish it from ‘NE,’ it can be called ‘Iro.’

Iro is also, technically, a resident of the Tower, which means, it has its own Nightmare.

In the setting of the game, after a long time of managing and protecting the inhabitants, the Tower’s manager had an issue.

The Outsiders entering the Tower residents’ Nightmares and helping relieve them of the trauma from the Apocalypse, is a risky business.

Basically, if they failed, then both the Outsiders and Tower residents who have gone insane would be thrown out from the Tower——exiled into the grey fog.

Because they’re insane, Iro has the protect the other human survivors as the manager, and so will naturally keep the aggressive, insane people away.

However, as time went on, there are fewer and fewer living people in the Tower, while the number of mad people continued to increase outside in the grey fog.

So as a result, the artificial intelligence Iro has decided that the danger in the grey fog outside the Tower is now beyond what is an acceptable limit for the humans still remaining in the Tower can handle.

Therefore, it chose to lock the exit of the Tower, in order to prevent any survivors from stepping into the dangerous grey fog. All the remaining survivors can only stay in the safe, but sealed off Tower.

All in the name of executing its duty.

But the humans——The remaining survivors of the Apocalypse, had other opinions.

They’ve known their companions are disappearing over time, but now, the manager of the Tower has even forbidden them from leaving the Tower to look for their missing fellow humans.

The dangers that the AI warns them about weren’t enough to deter the survivors——They all knew the post-Apocalyptic world to be dangerous. It’s always been so.

But the humans who entered the Tower were looking for a safe shelter, and not looking to be come a prisoner in the ‘safe’ Tower.

This fuelled an unprecedented conflict and resistance movement against Iro.

The survivors want the freedom to leave, but the artificial intelligence refuses them time and again.

Humans found that unfathomable, that the AI is refusing human command, the command of those who created it.

This made the survivors conclude that their reliable, trustworthy AI must have some bug somehow.

Therefore, they have decided to utilise a ‘sleep state’ Iro has——Or is it better to call it ‘standby mode’?

Regardless, when Iro was asleep, the crafty outsiders have realised that they could actually enter its own Nightmare to check on the ‘insane’ people who it labelled ‘dangerous.’

The artificial intelligence’s Nightmare is the mad people of the grey fog. How? Because its duty is to protect the Tower and the survivors of the Apocalypse within.

That is the ultimate guiding principle etched into every line of its code. It is its duty.

And it is those madmen inside the grey fog that threatens that core objective the most, so they have become Iro’s Nightmare.

When the survivors enter Iro’s Nightmare and understands what is actually going on, there is a choice for them to make——And that, is the backstory, game content, and ending of the game named ‘Escape.’

Would the survivors’ choice be to stop the ‘rogue’ AI and escape the Tower? Or will they decide to place their trust in the AI, and give up on the hopelessly insane companions, and forever remain in the safe Tower?

The right to that choice is in everyone’s hands, everyone who survived the Apocalypse. They are the ones to make the ultimate choice——A choice for their own future.

That is the whole of the game ‘Escape’s content and plot.

Unfortunately… neither the Tower residents nor the Missiontakers have ever realised that that is how this game is supposed to be played.

They know they’re trapped inside of a game, but they also haven’t realised… that it’s a game! A video game!

A video game that has an ending, achieved through the players’ cooperative efforts!

Humans, of course, have never actually managed to pull off such a cooperative effort.

In this game, their choice was – to fight for only themselves.

Even though the choice was for everyone to make.