[Log 9: Recording started]

[Time to homeworld: 00:00:00]

[Time to current world: 00:00:00]

"Look at that, your log's starting a new session."

"Ai?"

"Yeah?"

"Can you stop trying to distract me when Lisandra's trying to hone my senses?" This was the fifth time in a row where Ai tried to break my concentration as I barely dodged Lisandra's spike whip. After the first four hours of turning wielding techniques into my reflexes —aided by Ai's algorithms— Lisandra had started training my awareness to the extent of risking my life.

"Stop dodging! I told you, you have to parry my whip instead of dodging. Think about what would happen if you were placed in a situation where it's impossible to dodge, how're you going to protect yourself then?" Lisandra had reasoned multiple times after I displayed my amazingly agile reflexes. Still, I couldn't help but dodge again.

"Stop dodging!" She increased her aggressiveness with her whip. The speed at which her whip retracted left an afterimage, making it seem like two whips were used at the same time. Surprisingly, I was able to keep up with her pace, dodging into openings that seemed conveniently placed.

As I regularly stepped into the convenient spaces, Lisandra drew another whip and surrounded me with a torrent of attacks. It took everything I've got just to dodge the tornado of whips, the effort multiplied by the increased weight of my sweat-soaked clothing. From the edge of my vision, I saw her raging yet delighted face grinning.

"Uh, is it me or are those spikes getting longer?" It took more and more effort just to dodge the whips due to the spikes. Perhaps it's just my imagination, I thought optimistically, hoping reality would correspond.

"Ah Citrix, forever the optimistic hunter," Ai chuckled before continuing, "To tell the truth, those spikes are actually increasing in length. That's one of the whip's inbuilt function called extension."

I couldn't help but mutter "what?" under my breath. A few more dodges and the spikes were beginning to cut up my clothing, which caused panic to rise up in my chest.

"Ai! Help!"

"Just parry like how she intended you to," Ai adviced.

"That's..." after considering its suggestion for a moment, I made a rough estimation of where Lisandra's whip will land next. Before it struck its target, I used both daggers to deflect it, only for the other whip to slip right through my blindspot and cut off my right arm.

It took me a moment to register even though Lisandra already stopped her barrage and was running over. The wound seemed to remember what it was supposed to do when the pain settled in.

"Don't scream," she made a shush gesture even though blood was beginning to gush out. When I tried to scream in pain, her other hand went and suppressed it.

[Error: Unable to carry out homeostasis]

[Emergency mode: Activated]

[Injury unable to fully restore]

[Safety systems are limited. For more information, please contact administrators]

The four lines zoomed past, followed by a chilling sensation that covered the wound. In the blink of an eye, what was supposed to be a wound was replaced by a natural stub.

"Argh! My arm!" was followed by a stream of swear and curses as I dropped to my knees. The lost of an arm felt like a heavy blow to me.

"So much for telling you not to scream..." She muttered to herself. "Calm down, we'll get your arm back after we get back to the hub," LIsandra said in an attempt to soothe my feelings. "But not now."

"How is his arm not regenerating!" Ai muttered with urgent dismay as it dived deeper into the logs. "Have you not gotten your injections?"

Distracted by my own screaming and moanings, I didn't answer Ai, which it took as a silent yes. A sigh escaped as it sent a request to get a portable medical unit.

"Should've seen that coming," Lisandra muttered while turning away. "Anyway, go get some rest and your updates ready, we'll continue after your," she pointed at the stub, "arm is back." Then, she went to a spot slightly far away from me, patted the ground there a few times and slept on it.

While the pain was already gone, the trauma persisted. I was very aware of how dumb I was to scream even though I wasn't in pain anymore, and that awareness finally allowed me to hear Ai's own screaming in the background.

"WHAT ARE YOU SCREAMING ABOUT?" I squeezed the words out.

"TO GET YOUR ATTENTION," a pause by Ai. "IS IT WORKING!?"

My screaming stopped as I considered Ai's words. Looking at the stub that was my right arm, I could feel the phantom pain haunting me again. My mouth was begging to open itself voluntarily now, but I held on to my jaw tightly, determined not to let the trauma take me again.

"Trauma... That's gonna leave a mark," Ai spoke to no one in particular, but I was pretty sure he was trying to inform me about something.

"What are you trying to imply?" My legs folded as I sat on the ground, sweat still trickling.

"I mean, it's gonna wound you if you don't treat it properly. At best, I can only temporarily delay its erosion on your consciousness," Ai spoke with little urgency.

A brow perked up. "How does that work?" I could hear crickets chirping from the forest nearby, and the occasional wild beast that managed to catch its prey. Other than the noise from the previous spar, the night was chillingly still.

Ai sighed. "Any trauma you receive will reduce your mental capabilities. Wounds like these can't be healed, and they fester over time, causing more damage to you as a whole."

"Whenever a trauma festers, the host will start developing signs of mental retardation. It won't be obvious in the beginning, but as the festered wound is left untreated, the signs will become more obvious and eventually," Ai held its virtual breath. Seeing as it wouldn't continue if I didn't prod, I formed the mental image of me doing a brow raise. It caught on to the sign almost immediately. "The injured host will fall into oblivion, a fate worse than death itself."

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

A chill ran through my spine, and I looked around to make sure I wasn't being watched. My body shuddered out of instincts, so I continued prodding Ai with questions.

"These injured host... How do they identify the signs earlier?"

"Good question. There's a reason why HQ has medical bays even when there are medical units that can travel to almost anywhere."

"I thought the medical bays were where the medical units get their supplies?" I was curious now. If the medical bays weren't the place where medical units get their supplies, where do they get them?

"Hah, everyone thinks the units get their supplies from the bay, classic," Ai mocked. "Now, if anyone knows anything about how the medical units work, they harvest surrounding matter to tend their patients. The medical bay is only used to keep the heavy weapons of modern meds."

"So, you're telling me, medical units tend their patients with 'magic'?" Skepticism coloured my voice. Honestly speaking, is everything in this universe even working the way it was supposed to?

"Strictly speaking, it's 'law enforcement'. They have the right to enforce the laws of worlds that interacts with entities like us."

"Whatever, I'm still calling it 'magic'," I stuck my tongue out. "And nothing's gonna change how I call it!"

"Meh, it doesn't actually affect me in any way even if you call it by the wrong term," Ai shrugged. "People do it all the time, and if I get a penny for every wrong term people use, I'm buying the whole Organisation."

"Why buy it? Is it even for sale?" I touched the damaged grass that was growing faster than expected around me. It created a kind of island around me where I was the centre, separated from the rest of the grasslands.

"So I can rule at the top," Ai's voice then boomed. "Muahahaha!"

"For real?" I laid down, watching the stars twinkling in and out of existence. "If so, that's so lame of a reason."

"Oh come on," Ai laughed and gave me a mental nudge that I could almost feel physically. "But it's actually more to give me one more a reason to exist."

"Oh? Finally came to terms with the meaning of your existence?" I said jokingly, but the counter-nudge was there all the same.

"Yeah, no, I mean yes, but... I don't know!" Ai shouted in frustration, seemingly irritated all of a sudden.

"Calm down, need more coolant?" I chuckled. "I'll go get a drink once we get in the city."

"Nah, it's probably nothing," Ai's emotions subsided faster than I expected, but it was an artificial intelligence, so what was the problem with that? "I just felt compeled to feel it, probably a coding malfunction or something similar." Silence lingered in the air after while its virtual avatar stared at me without actually meaning to. I got the feeling it was actually thinking about something else too.

Ai's emotions are getting more and more realistic the more I interact with it. It feels more like a person now than a computer, and it's pretty much becoming my best and only, if Lis was excepted, friend. Perhaps it's developing a personality? My breathing was calm and the sweat that stuck onto my skin was all dried up. I stared at the only constant point in the sky that I noticed wasn't blinking. A thought came suddenly. Wait, what if Ai is going to replace my consciousness?

I sat up, the remaining hand supporting my upper body. Ai was already able to live in me and interact with others. If it decides to hijack my brain, then, god, I'll be damned! The previous calm was no where to be seen now, replaced by a paranoia that felt too real to be true. What if Victor was using me as a host for Ai to grow into? What if the reason why Ai is becoming more humane is because it's taking over my memories and personality? Damn, I can't even recall my past memories properly!

I was suddenly very aware of my breathing becoming erratic as I was no longer sitting on the ground. Sweat was coming off too, not like the ones from sparring with Lisandra, but the kind I got when I felt threatened. Jerking my head up, I looked around. The surroundings were clear, and since it was, like, 3 in the morning, the city behind the walls was silent as a hill. Lisandra was snoring, but I couldn't hear it too clearly over the constant chirping by the crickets. The chirpings were too much, too many, too overwhelming, too...

Loud.

My eyes went to the part of the forest where the loudest chirpings were coming from. There was nothing there, save for bushes and trees. Yet, I could see something there. Yes, a shadow. A moving shadow of a person. The shadow stood there, then grinned and beckoned with its fingers. Come. It said. This is where it all originates from. The chirpings intensified, sounding more like bazookas being fired around more than the swing of a cricket's pair of legs. The noise sounded overwhelming, and my ears began ringing. I tried closing my ears with both hands, but the sound pierced through the blockade with ease. It was driving me insane. The sounds were driving me crazy.

Something dripped from my left ear, followed by my right, then both were dripping wet liquid onto the ground. They were cool, but hot to touch. The mere contradiction drove me further towards insanity. I looked down at what I touched and saw what it was.

Blood.

Lots of blood.

The drippings were slowing down to tricklings, but the overwhelming noise came back again. My head felt hot, but my brain was boiling. It was being heated inside out, and I wasn't able to do anything.

"Gargh!"

I could hear my pathetic sounding voice alongside the noise, but even then, there was no one to help. I sincerely begged for a god to listen, to take away my current sufferings and let me be on my way, yet there was no response.

Only pain.

Hot. Heat. Burn. Boil. Sting. Pain.

Hot. Heat. Burn. Boil. Sting. Pain.

Hot. Heat. Burn. Boil. Sting. Pain.

Hot. Heat. Burn. Boil. Sting. Pain.

"MAKE IT STOP, PLEASE!" I pleaded, knees buckling until my body was in direct contact with the ground.

Vision was a blur, everything swirled around and was blood red. Both my hands were gripped tightly into fists, and in them were bunches of hair that I kept on yanking out of their roots. My ears were ringing until I was sure they were already burst.

I screamed upwards as a surge of blood bursts from my eyes. I couldn't see, I knew I no longer had eyeballs, yet the pain they were giving off was still there. Unable to see and think properly, my hands reached blindly to touch my face, then to where my eyes should be.

And both hands thrusted themselves into the sockets, digging out the remnants. They were wet and gooey to touch, and they were cooling. With my skin burning up as well, both hands started covering myself with the juice located in the sockets. There was a numbing pain as I started banging my head against the ground, blindly, in hopes of the ringing, boiling pain subsiding, but nothing happened as my tears mixed themselves with the socket-juice. Everything was black and blank, painful yet numb, and there was nothing I could do other than pray, bang my head and dig out soft parts from my face.

[Unable to comprehend expression]

[Simplified content: Rage, Pain, Hot, Cold, Null]

[Fatality rate over 90%. Death imminent. Immediate backup signal transmitted.]

[Time is unjustifiable. Please contact administrators immediately]

[Log 9: Ended]