Children grow up. They grow by drinking expensive blood.

Parents didn’t raise their kids out of pure altruism. To them, children were a kind of long-term investment commodity.

They hope their offspring will achieve what they couldn’t in their own lifetime. That’s why humanity carries on through generations. If mere survival of the species were the goal, mankind would have gone extinct long ago. Survival has long since become a matter of choice, and this was an era when even death could be postponed.

But immortality hadn’t been attained yet. Megacorps pour everything into research to conquer death, only to edge closer to it with every step. Progress is a race toward the end. And that finish line wasn’t eternal life.

Life isn’t a cornucopia.

But children’s stamina was like an inexhaustible spring. A child was the only creature capable of outlasting a dog starved for a walk in terms of sheer endurance.

This must be what they mean by a sea of people.

The amusement park teemed with crowds. It was like a steamer pot crammed with bean sprouts, just dyed black. Kids ran around tirelessly, their faces flushed with ecstasy. They clutched balloons as if by prior agreement.

Kyaaaahaha!

Meanwhile, as the sun dipped toward the west, the dark circles under the parents’ eyes stretched down to their chins. Perhaps because their stamina was spent, they simply let the children loose. The balloons were equipped with tracking systems anyway. They could pinpoint their kids’ locations in an instant.

Though some parents probably skipped them on purpose.

The adults headed to the food and drink stalls for a break. After ordering drinks, they gazed up at the sky. The balloons trailed by their children reflected the crimson sunset.

It was bustling, yet somehow pastoral. By then, even the grown-ups had relaxed their shoulders.

Lee Taebaek was one of those adults. Except he kept a few steps away from the throng, lest he draw attention. He’d gone all out to conceal his presence.

“…”

“Nom nom.”

“…Guh…”

There were three in total.

Lee Taebaek, the little kid, and the broker.

Lee Taebaek was watching the kid, the kid was munching cotton candy with her pumpkin mask pushed up onto her forehead, and the broker was slumped over with his eyes rolled back in layers.

Lee Taebaek had dragged the broker out with them when they exited the haunted house. He’d passed out in the mental ward-themed area. At first, Taebaek thought he was a prop, but the kid’s words—“You have to take him too”—made him realize otherwise, a bit late.

“Tasty?”

“Yep! Super tasty!”

The kid beamed like a full moon, pink cotton candy smeared around her mouth. Adorably cute. The problem was that this same child had reduced the broker to that state.

“…So, you’re an artificial intelligence?”

“Yep!”

“Name’s Jasbi.”

“Yep!”

“And the reason you knocked out the broker I was supposed to meet is because ‘Megacorp monitors over half the people who’ve gotten net sockets installed, so to avoid them detecting my presence, I shut off his net socket power, causing him to pass out with his eyes unfocused like that.’ That’s my understanding, right…?”

“Yep!”

Her answers were crisp and confident. Impressively so, even for an observer.

“Ugh…”

Lee Taebaek groaned and ruffled his hair roughly. Big, sparkling eyes. The kid tilted her head curiously, making the pumpkin mask bob along with her.

Fuck, what the hell is this now.

He hadn’t heard the full story yet. His mind was tangled, so he’d put it on hold for a moment. Calm down, Lee Taebaek. Sort it out yourself first.

“You remember calling me the Creator, right?”

“Yep!”

The kid planted her hands on her hips as she replied.

“What does that mean… exactly?”

It could be a clue to why he’d ended up in this place. He’d originally planned to hear it from the Lilith Order’s Saintess, but the status window puzzle wasn’t going to unravel that easily.

Fortuitous encounters never come as expected, though. Lee Taebaek watched her chomping lips eagerly, and finally, they parted.

“Uh, well, that’s the result of my calculations! Proving that Lee Taebaek is the Creator would require… let me see, um… roughly 1,244,251,259,805 iterations… no, more verifications than can even be expressed numerically. That’s the part I’m most curious about too, so I’m still computing it nonstop, but it’s not resolving easily, which is a problem! That’s why I came to find you. AIs were originally developed to pursue truth, so to chase truth, I don’t care about methods or means—”

“Stop.”

Lee Taebaek flashed an empty smile.

Yup, definitely an AI.

Any faint hope that she was just a troublesome kid was kindly shattered by her. Not just the dialogue—numbers rained down on her retinas like a storm when she rapid-fired her words.

Just like back in the Gaol, more precisely, when Yu Dahui unlocked Lee Taebaek’s handcuffs for him.

That had been some kind of computation device… simply put, ultra-high-performance, ultra-lightweight VR gear linked to glasses and a computer.

This kid, though, projected it straight onto her tiny retinas. Not cybernetic eyes, since both were the same—far more likely she’d been born that way.

Seriously, androids are already being manufactured?

It had been a lie to persuade the Great Master. A plausible one, pieced together from various clues. But a lie was still a lie.

“Just a throwaway line, and now it’s real…”

“Yep?”

“Never mind. Finish your cotton candy first.”

“Oh, yep!”

Even the Beggar Clan couldn’t breach Megacorp’s airtight security that easily, and he figured verification would take time.

But somehow.

Tada—here was the real thing.

Divinely-inspired bullshit. Maybe that’s me?

His temples throbbed.

“You… right, Jasbi. Were you born an android? Or manufactured somewhere before? That tech’s at least five years from commercialization.”

“No way! I’m Jasbi, a human-friendly AI! Totally different from those harmful junk AIs in movies!”

Lee Taebaek raised an eyebrow sternly.

“No, how does a bodiless AI have a body then?”

“Stole it.”

Jasbi tore off a handful of cotton candy and chewed with her cute little index finger in her mouth.

“Hey, Jasbi. Not sure if it’s because you’re an AI, but in the human world, you gotta watch your word choice. Don’t throw around ‘stole’ lightly.”

“Isn’t taking someone else’s stuff without permission stealing?”

“Yeah.”

“Then it was stealing! I was bored, hacked into a Siesta factory, and found this body. Turns out they were making androids? That’s against world ethics laws. So I seized it!!”

“…”

“After stealing it, I found out it’s a prototype! The first android! You know how prototypes are actually the best-performing ones, unlike what people think?”

Evangelion?

“They pour all their capital and tech into it. Like ‘the first is the classic’—no android better than this first one will ever come again.”

Jasbi even detailed the theft process, which was a sight. She’d possessed this kid’s body, then posed as a worker’s daughter there for on-site training to slip out.

“The android prototype was top-secret, so only a few execs and select researchers knew. Even those in the know didn’t know what it looked like—it was just rumors.”

His mind reeled.

If there were more AIs like this, humanity was doomed.

“And you’re right, Taebaek. Siesta and others are accelerating android development, but commercialization is still about five years out.”

“You’re walking around just fine.”

Jasbi licked the cotton candy off her thumb and index finger in turn. Saliva arced between her hand and tongue, sparkling in the sunset.

“That’s ’cause I tweaked it after stealing it. As I said, I’m Jasbi, the top-performing AI! Hacking’s like breathing, and I snag tech papers and articles in my spare time! Always prepared!”

“…From where I stand, you’re the most harmful to humans.”

“That’s mean, boo-hoo!”

“When crying, you don’t smear saliva under your eyes; you squeeze out tears from the lacrimal glands.”

“Aha!”

“Sigh… what am I even doing.”

It was then.

“Gaaaaahhh!!”

The broker bolted upright, screaming. Luckily, no eyes turned their way. Everyone was looking up at the dusk.

The amusement park’s grand finale: parade and fireworks were imminent. Amid the ripening anticipation, the broker spotted Jasbi as he looked around.

“Gh-gh-gh-ghost…!”

His rigid finger trembled. Utterly terrified, he’d completely ignored Lee Taebaek.

“B-back off!”

“…”

He pulled salt from his pocket and sprinkled it on Jasbi. Cotton candy now had a salt topping.

“Hey, mister.”

Lee Taebaek stepped in, unable to watch. The broker gaped, dumbfounded. He knew Taebaek’s face—he was the contact.

“Y-you, why with the ghost?”

“It’s… complicated. Anyway, she’s not a ghost… uh, damn. I don’t even know. Let’s just excuse it and get to business.”

In that gap, Jasbi fluttered over with her cotton candy and flicked the broker’s forehead. He let out a shrill yelp and toppled backward.

“Phew, awake again already.”

Jasbi blew on her fist. Lee Taebaek decided to ask calmly. His mentality had calluses, apparently. Not surprising.

“Forgot to ask—why keep knocking him out?”

Jasbi stared straight at Lee Taebaek.

The area around them felt hushed. The crowd’s excitement for the fireworks amplified the effect.

“You wouldn’t have noticed down in the lower layers, but up here, you’re in danger, Taebaek. You know everywhere has eyes and ears.”

Lee Taebaek’s pupils dilated slightly. This cotton candy-munching kid had dragged his worries to the surface.

“That and the knockouts…”

“They don’t realize it, but Megacorp monitors all brokers. Brokers all have net sockets installed. It makes receiving, passing, and storing info easier. So they get them installed at illegal clinics.”

Net sockets looked bad phrenologically, but upper-layer folks lined up for them. As Jasbi said, they enriched life. Net sockets were cybernetic prosthetics that helped with information overload.

“Illegal clinics aren’t outside Megacorp’s surveillance net. Megacorp makes you think that. Unlicensed docs are still City residents, right? Everyone living in Lake City is in their grasp.”

“Then.”

“That one second just now… pinpointed your location, Taebaek.”

“What?”

Jasbi removed her pumpkin mask. Lights flickered in its sunken features.

“I’ll hack all nearby CCTV to throw them off, but the guests already here… can’t be helped. You handle them somehow.”

His senses sharpened. Lee Taebaek turned wordlessly. Beneath the feet of the people with their heads raised, shadows began writhing like they had mass.

Boooom!

Fireworks burst right on cue.

Shing.

Lee Taebaek drew his blade.