Recently, utterly shocking news had begun arriving from Terra.
Was it news that humanity had finally created mutant humans bearing the Navigator gene, an essential requirement for Warp travel, and at last succeeded in safe Warp navigation?
They had achieved that long ago.
Even at this very moment, my countless duplicates—the many "mes"—and the children of the family were aboard exploration and trade vessels, safely navigating the Warp and securing coordinates.
Using those coordinates, we were establishing an extensive network of [Passages] throughout the galaxy beyond the Solar System.
If any of the children grew weary from long Warp voyages and clashes with daemons and aliens, we simply replaced them immediately with fresh personnel through a [Passage].
So long as a vessel was not damaged to the point that its shape could no longer be recognized, the endless supplies and repair support pouring in through the Passages meant that
our exploration fleets could keep cutting through the Warp without rest, spreading in every direction across the galaxy.
Unlike other pioneering expeditions, we had absolutely no need to risk directly developing or settling planets.
All we had to do was connect [Passages] and trade routes wherever we went, then build corporate branches, stations, and trade centers in safe space or on asteroids.
I could say with certainty that, among all humanity, Gateway Corporation was advancing farther and faster than anyone else, with overwhelmingly superior staying power.
We exclusively earned a decent side income by selling the coordinates of the countless newly claimed frontier planets and moons at high prices to other corporate expeditions.
The truly shocking news I meant was that Terra's advanced medical field of bodily reconstruction had finally reached the point of perfectly changing a person's sex—
in other words, it had fully commercialized "TS."
That alone was horrifying enough, but something else was the real shock that polluted my mental network.
It was that vast numbers of middle-aged men on Terra were spending fortunes to have their bodies remodeled into beautiful young girls—specifically, very young little girls, lolitas, and adolescents, high school girls—
and that the procedure was becoming a massive trend.
The moment Veronica relayed this horrific information to me in real time through Shadow Index, the intelligence analysis division,
I yelled at her for the first time.
"Aaargh! Veronica! Don't put garbage like this into my head!!!!"
"Hehehe... I knew you would have exactly that reaction."
Veronica had now passed well beyond three hundred and was too frail even to move about under her own power. Reclining in her comfortable hospital bed,
she broke into a thoroughly pleased laugh at my fierce reaction.
"Damn it, this is driving me insane! I hereby order every department: from this moment onward, any foreign tourist entering Titan who has undergone TS through bodily reconstruction and is one of those perverted bastards will be denied entry!"
"Does the man they call the Buddha of this age truly need to impose such extreme controls?"
"Hey! Think about it logically! What do you think those creepy, twisted perverts will come crawling onto Titan to do?!"
Humanity's bizarre desires were always fresh and astonishing, despite my having watched them for over ten thousand years until I was sick of them.
Come to think of it, there had been a similar incident about thirty years ago.
That time, suspiciously wealthy furry bastards from Terra had created beastfolk by fusing animal and human genes.
The beastfolk born from that reckless play with desire had committed no sin, so we allowed them entry and residence on Titan.
But I had ordered the arrest and forcible deportation of every depraved furry bastard who had created them and followed them around.
Thanks to that, a few harmless beastfolk who settled here then still lived on Titan, and some had even fallen in love with and married Yurick people.
So these days, when I walked down the street, I occasionally saw children twitching cat ears or dog ears.
This shocking new information had latched onto that peaceful daily life, and I could feel my brain rotting in real time.
If the real Buddha saw this spectacle firsthand, compassion or not, he would immediately drive a Buddha's Palm straight into their crowns.
At that moment, the screams and uproar of countless "mes" erupted simultaneously across my vast mental network.
(Hey! Number One! Don't synchronize weird shit to the mental network!!!)
(Fuck! I was hunting a Warp beast, remembered that disgusting thing just now, missed my timing, and got killed!)
(Our mental network, which took no damage even fighting Greater Daemons, has been contaminated!)
(Ah, I don't know! If you want to complain, complain to Veronica! I'm a victim too!)
Just as I was about to casually ignore the uproar flooding in from the mental network,
an urgent channel I could not possibly ignore connected.
(Hey! I'm out at a tourist spot in central Titan right now, and middle-aged TS freaks have appeared!!! Those bastards are trying to lure our children!!!)
(There are some in the 2000s theme park district too! They're approaching children in groups?!)
(Fuck! The vanguard—no! Every "me" who isn't doing anything right now, arm yourselves immediately and purge Titan!)
(I'm on my way!)
(Purge Day has arrived!!)
(Fuck, this won't do. I'm in the middle of Warp travel, but I'll mark the coordinates and come straight over!)
(Om Mani Padme Hum! Beat those demons to death!)
Countless mes took stun batons and electro-guns from the armories in their personal spaces, then spread across Titan in an instant.
For reference, the Titan I ruled was currently one of the Solar System's foremost colossal tourist destinations.
After all, it was the galaxy's only holy land where the pure lineage of Buddhism, passed down from ancient Terra, had been preserved intact.
And apart from me, it was a strange nation inhabited by tens of millions of people who were all Yuricks, linked by a single bloodline.
To outsiders, there could hardly be a more fascinating sight.
On top of that, because homesickness struck me from time to time, we also successfully operated a huge cultural theme park on one side of Titan that perfectly restored the scenery of ancient Terra in the 2000s.
No wonder wealthy people from throughout the Solar System flocked here as tourists.
But I could not bear to see such a peaceful place crawling with middle-aged TS perverts dressed as beautiful young girls—not even if Adrathic beams were fired into my eyes.
"...Noah. An urgent report has just come from the security command. An unidentified group wearing strange white masks has appeared across the moon simultaneously. They are mercilessly assaulting and forcibly taking away certain young foreign girls..."
"I don't know. Perhaps some good and righteous citizens are volunteering to clean up the place."
"Haa... How do you become more like an immature child with every passing day?"
"..."
"Are you sulking?"
"No. I'm struggling to hold together what remains of my love for humanity while I agonize over it."
Even now, countless mes wearing white masks emblazoned with the word "Purge" were combing every corner of Titan, arresting TS perverts of either sex.
Of course, those who had undergone TS for treatment due to genuinely severe gender identity disorders were released with a warning.
The remaining perverted bastards with malicious intent were being forcibly deported at light speed.
It was practically Titan's version of Purge Day.
I was watching the thrilling pervert hunt through my mental network.
"Noah, more new urgent information has arrived."
Veronica's voice had turned serious, and I wiped the playfulness from my face and regained my composure.
"What now? Did the people on Terra go so far as to create futanari this time?"
If that were true, I felt I would sincerely come to hate the entire human race.
But Veronica's following report was grave, and fundamentally different from anything I had expected.
"No. We have received information from a Terran expeditionary fleet that they encountered the same xenos species you once told us about."
"...Really? What do they look like?"
They weren't Orks, were they?
No, wouldn't Orks be good?
I had a feeling we could have a fun fight.
"Apparently, they resemble humans in a peculiar way, but they have long ears."
"Eldar! Those pointy-eared bastards!"
I sprang to my feet, accepted Veronica's data, and scrutinized the information.
Checking the recorded photographs and videos transmitted in real time by Terra's expedition, I found that my guess had been exactly right.
They really were Eldar.
The detailed report showed them traveling aboard gigantic, planet-scale starships.
They were undoubtedly a merchant faction responsible for official trade within the Eldar Empire.
If they're Eldar of this era... aren't they in the midst of sinking into purposeless hedonism, wandering about in search of ever more intense and primitive pleasures?
Having lived for so long, I was slightly unsure whether the pleasure cults had already taken control of the Eldar Empire at this precise point in time.
Still, it was an immense relief that the Terran expedition had encountered Eldar aboard official Imperial trade ships.
If they had instead encountered ships from the main Eldar populace, already mad and immersed in every sadistic pleasure cult imaginable,
the expedition members would all have been abducted on the spot, reduced to living slaves or toys unable to die for eternity.
Gateway Corporation intended, whenever possible, not to connect its spatial Passage network in the direction of the Eldar Empire's homeworlds—the central region where the Eye of Terror would someday erupt—and to stay as far away as we could.
That was because we had to prepare in advance for the catastrophic Warp backlash that would rend the galaxy when Slaanesh, Chaos's fourth god, was born in the distant future.
Furthermore, if my expectations were correct, the present Eldar Empire was very likely committing acts of madness on a cosmic scale, far more elaborate and severe than the Drukhari of the 40K era.
But the Eldar merchants before us were different.
Having taken a step outside the influence of the twisted pleasure cults within the Empire, they continued to conduct rational commercial activity.
They were worthwhile partners with whom to trade technology and resources.
"Veronica, calculate the coordinates of this trade route precisely. Those alien merchants will make excellent partners for Gateway to open trade with."
"Understood, Noah."
"And from now on, we'll begin constructing Gateway branches in earnest on the outer planets with newly secured coordinates. Veronica, establish the priorities in order of value first."
"I will designate resource planets as the highest priority, especially sites producing unusual minerals."
"Mm, good. Proceed that way."
Well, all manner of major and minor incidents occurred every day, but
in this peaceful and glorious golden age of humanity, we adapted wisely to the changing times and prepared for the future.
I looked upon Titan's night sky, terraformed so that beautiful blue heavens shone clearly overhead rather than the stifling darkness of space.
Putting on the grave air of a leader and pretending to carefully contemplate the future of the cosmos,
I was actually watching with great interest through the mental network as the mes, still in white masks, hunted down Earth-born TS pervert tourists throughout Titan and beat them with clubs.
Then Veronica, lying in bed, spoke to me again in a quiet voice.
"And... Noah."
"What is it? Did another urgent report come from the Terran expedition?"
"No... This is not a fleet report. It is an important matter I have agonized over deeply by myself for a long time."
When I saw Veronica's dark, serious expression, a dreadful premonition rang through me.
I erased all trace of playfulness, approached her bedside, gently took her wrinkled hand, and asked earnestly,
"Veronica, can you tell me what it is?"
"Noah, you continue buying advanced technology, yet you remain extremely reluctant to fully introduce superintelligence into the corporation... That is ultimately because of the rebellion you foresaw long ago, isn't it?"
Veronica was one of the few people who fully shared my secrets and the truth of the future.
She understood exactly the enormous fear and void lurking deep within my heart.
As she said, although Gateway Corporation possessed highly advanced technology, unlike other nations and corporations, we had never introduced autonomous superintelligence in any form.
Because of that, we had lately been subjected to endless mockery and ridicule from successful cutting-edge companies outside, who called us primitive, outdated, and left behind by the times.
Only my fraudulent trade routes kept the corporation's value climbing in a bizarre upward trend.
Yet if I introduced superintelligence to stop the mockery, I could not easily make that decision because of my terror of the AI rebellion that would one day turn human civilization into an inferno.
When I fell silent, Veronica instead tightened her frail grip and clasped my hand.
For a moment, she looked like a martyr prepared to shoulder the burden in my place.
"Noah, recently every department in our corporation collaborated to invent... a completely new, original technology that does not exist even in the great centers of Terra and Mars."
Why?
My heart dropped, and indescribable unease swept down my spine.
Forgetting even to breathe, I cautiously spoke.
"...What is it?"
"A mental quantum transmission technology completed using all the research data on bio-souls from the [Hive Project] you succeeded in creating... It is called [Mind Uploading Emulation]."
The instant I heard that answer, I lurched to my feet as if my head had been struck by a hammer.
I raised a trembling hand and harshly cut her off.
"Stop...! Stop, Veronica. What, what are you saying right now?! You're saying you intend to become an artificial intelligence!!"
"That's right. You saw it exactly."
The moment I met Veronica's clear eyes, fixed squarely upon me without the slightest tremor,
an overwhelming weakness seized me, as though every ounce of strength had been ruthlessly drained from my soul.
I staggered and collapsed into a chair.
"...No matter how much I throw a tantrum and oppose it with everything I have... you'll force through this madness anyway, just as I did."
"Yes. Just as you ignored my pleas long ago and rummaged through your brain before my very eyes. This is the family head's command, and everyone has agreed to it."
"...No, damn it! Fuck!"
"Please do not blame yourself and suffer so much, Noah. This is the choice of my lifetime, made solely as the family head. So please, support me."
"That's too cruel to say to me. It's cruel!"
"I know. That is why I am asking you."
It felt as though my heart would tear apart.
I clenched my fists and shouted in a trembling voice.
It was like one final futile struggle.
"...Can you really endure this eternity?! Sometimes it feels like a gigantic prison I can never escape! No, not sometimes... very often...!"
At my cry, Veronica smiled with a warmth and beauty that made the wrinkles of age seem meaningless.
"Then... do not cry alone in loneliness. From now on, you can be with me in that prison. We can all share the sorrow of parting and the pain of eternity together. I will never again leave you alone to bear that heavy burden, Noah."
"Aah... fuck, you sure know how to talk prettily. I don't know, do whatever you want!!"
"Are you angry?"
"I'm not!"
"You are sulking."
"I don't know!!"
I could no longer bear Veronica's profound, weighty decision and feelings.
Overcome by guilt, I hurriedly flung open the door to her hospital room and fled.
As I walked down the corridor, my thoughts were a tangled mess.
Those emotions and memories naturally traveled through the mental network, plunging every me across the galaxy into gloom.
Why was it?
Deep in my heart, alongside the wrenching pain,
an unbearably warm sense of relief was blooming as well.
Instinctive joy swelled within me at the thought that I would no longer have to walk alone.
This really makes it seem as though I am using that girl.
Worry and guilt.
Joy and relief.
Unable to bear the pain of that contradiction, I opened a space and, for the first time in a very long while, took out vodka instead of cola.
Then I twisted off the cap and swallowed its contents.
"Pwah! Fuck, it's bitter. So bitter."
The filthy bitter taste ravaged my tongue and throat.
After emptying a bottle in an instant,
I grew hazy and looked up at that blue sky.
What a fucking miserable world.
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