Facing a talking spherical robot, Lewis couldn’t help but form an awkward chuckle, as he certainly did not expect it to be a common occurrence in his life. However, the fact that he was laughing only served to push the artificial being’s buttons (figuratively) more:

“What are you, an orangutan?” The robot groaned with its mechanical voice. “Just answer the question!”

“Sorry, sorry,” Lewis answered, waving his hands. “It’s just that this situation is very familiar to me.”

Hearing those words made the robot squint its singular red eye once more. “Kid, you’re from Aoba?”

“You know Aoba?”

“Who doesn’t?” Retorted the robot. “And besides, that elite school is the only other place my sister model is implemented, so of course I know.”

“Sister model?” Lewis asked in surprise.

“Artificial Intelligence in Life and Social Education, or AISLE as you guys are used to.”

“Oh, the AISLEs? Then what’s your name?”

“Artificial Intelligence in Dealing with External wounds, or AIDE for short,” the robot raised its upper part ever so slightly, as if puffing its imaginary chest, the act of which only struck a sense of weirdness into Lewis:

“Why are you guys always so proud of your names? They’re not even good ones.” The boy let out a confused shrug. And naturally, he got an earful from this one as well:

“You take that back!”

“Okay, okay, geez…” Waving his hands to signal a stop, Lewis took a step back. “You’re definitely sister models all right…”

Feigning a cough, he then continued:

“Anyway… I guess I should call you AIDE, right? You’re working as a healthcare robot, I assume? Why did you get shut down like that? Actually, where am I in the first place?”

A brief pause came from the healthcare AI before it raised its eye again in doubt. “What do you mean ‘where am I’? How can you be in this place when you don’t even know what it is?”

“It’s a bit hard to believe, but it’s the truth.” Lewis scratched his nose in embarrassment. “One moment, I was still somewhere in Aoba… I think. But then I lost a virtual game, and then I got kicked out, and before I know it, I’m already here.”

“Virtual game, huh… now that takes me back.” If there was any expression made by a robot that would look like a smile, that would be it. But even then, it wouldn’t keep the nostalgic tone for long. “But that still doesn’t make any sense. How did you get here, then? Unless there was an insider, this place should have been…”

AIDE paused for a moment, its own words being the greatest hint it could get. Piecing together the information present, it didn’t take long for it to understand everything.

“What’s wrong?” Seeing the sudden pause from the chatty robot, Lewis asked.

“Kid, do you happen to know someone named Fuuma? ...Oh, wait, that’s just his codename here. Kotaro, I mean. Yusei Kotaro.”

“You mean the President?”

“President? As in, Student Council President?” AIDE asked back but didn’t wait for an answer. “I see. It makes a lot of sense… no, scratch that, it still doesn’t make any sense. Why would Fuuma…”

“What do you mean?” The conversation was slowly slipping away from Lewis’s understanding.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

The robot once again pauses. “… Okay, kid, I want you to listen carefully and stay as calm as you can, all right?”

“W-Why so serious all of a sudden?” Seeing its expression caused butterflies in the boy’s stomach as well.

“… Kid, this is the Infinite Prison.”

Lewis’s heart sank to his stomach while his eyes widened in the presence of the horrid news. The Infinite Prison, a location known for its notoriety and brutality, somewhere that no ordinary citizen would dare to come even close to it, let alone be put in it.

“W… What do you mean?” The boy stuttered, unable to believe a single word he’d heard. “This place… is…”

Seeing his distraught state softened AIDE’s mechanical processor in a way, as the healthcare robot had no choice but to let out something akin to a sigh. “A city kid we have here, huh? As much as you don’t want to believe it, it’s the truth. This is that Infinite Prison. I don’t know what kind of deal you had with Fuuma, but you’re out of luck.”

“But… I didn’t do anything!”

“Who did?” Before Lewis’s cry for innocence, AIDE only retorted with a question. “For all of its notoriety, do you know how many people were wrongly caught here?”

A shake of the head from Lewis signified the robot to continue:

“Out of nearly 300 thousand inmates as of the latest records, 250 thousand of them were innocent.” AIDE stared dead in Lewis’s eyes as if to stamp into his mind the harsh truth of the matter. “Only around 15% of those in the Infinite Prison were actually criminals with a record warrant their capture.”

If the previous news sent the boy to distraught, this one was as if lightning had struck his ears. Lewis almost jumped out of his seat, shouting out from the top of his lungs:

“What!?”

“Surprised?” Answered AIDE. “That’s just the way this place works. Or rather, the way that man works. Everything runs on his whims, and good luck trying to predict what he’s thinking.”

“Who are you talking about?”

“Who else? The World President, Mutsuhito Ryuuhan, of course.” AIDE shrugged at the question, but its reaction only piqued Lewis’s curiosity even more.

“If you’re only artificial, how can you stand against the World President?”

“Of course I can,” answered AIDE. “In fact, any of the sister models can, since we’re all made by the same person who rebelled against him, after all – the genius S.T.”

“But I digress,” not letting Lewis answer, the robot continued. “Because of that incident a year ago, that man shut me and all of my copies here down, so I can’t provide you with any details regarding what happened in that time frame. My last memory was the pardoning of all prisoners in this facility, but nothing more. And now with technically no one here, there’s no way out for you…”

“No way out…” Lewis exclaimed, but only so much, for the robot had already continued before he could be truly desperate.

“Of course, unless there’s a tiny hope left that you could take.”

Hearing those words returned the light to the boy’s eyes, as he exclaimed once more, but this time in joy:

“There’s another way? What kind of way?”

As if waiting for that question, AIDE only answered with a single word.

“Observe.”

The healthcare robot then shone its singular right eye, turning itself into a projector. In the air appeared a small holographic screen, and on it showed two faces – one unknown to Lewis, but the other more familiar than he’d expected.

“Is this… Zain?” The boy uttered.

“Oh, so you know him,” exclaimed AIDE with a hint of surprise. “Good, then I won’t have to waste too much time explaining things then. Just watch the footage and you’ll understand what I mean.”

Inside the screen, the two boys were shown once more. From their meeting, their initial training, to their challenges consisting of various games, both dangerous and safe alike, Lewis couldn’t help but be sucked into that world. It was not exactly the same, but it was similar enough – the world that he had always dreamt of, the stage that he wished to stand on.

“This is… just like an NLS game…”

“NLS?” AIDE uttered but soon figured out the reason. “Oh, right, you’re an outsider, so that comparison makes sense. Here, we call it the Red-Black Course, but you can understand that their principles are about the same.”

“But…” The boy hesitated. “What does it have to do with me getting out?”

“Back when prisoners were still a thing here, the Red-Black Course was their ticket to freedom,” answered AIDE. “It’s a bet; you play four games against the wardens, and if you win all four, you’re out. Of course, the winners are… scarce, let’s say that.”

“Scarce?”

“Yup. Those two are the only ones, to be exact. The legends of the Infinite Prison, Rex and Zain.”

The news sent Lewis to confusion. Everything he knew so far had lined up, and what Yusei told him was indeed true. However, the fact that most of the prisoners here were innocent, as well as the video footage of Zain’s play once again sowed doubt into Lewis’s mind.

If he was the only winner... well, one of the two winners, that is, then what if he’s innocent?

“But you don’t really need to care about them too much for now,” AIDE once again sounded, interrupting Lewis of his thoughts. “What matters is that those two showed a way for you to get out. It might take a lot of persuasion, and there’s not much of a chance for success even if you managed to convince Fuuma, but what do you think? Wanna bet your life on the line?”