As soon as the meeting had adjourned, we went our separate ways from the throne room. The housing style reminded me of capsule hotels, with the men being housed on a variety of floors, and the women being segregated on floors above the men.
A butler showed me to my own room, which was a magnificent thing. Or, it would have been, if it weren’t for how much my head hurt after everything that had happened that day and the night before.
The exhaustion was starting to hit me as Judgment’s energy supplement had worn out about an hour ago. The meeting was so long that it outlasted the contents of a foreign substance that had entered my body.
The first thing I had done when I actually opened the door was strip off all of my clothes, and take a hot shower, making sure to get all the erroneous fluids off of my person, both those that were sexual or violent in nature.
The next thing, and perhaps the most important, was flopping down face-first onto the actual bed itself. I rolled over and lay on my back, coveting the first soft thing I had slept on in two full days.
I want to die. Judgment, just end it all for me now. “You know I cannot do that, Master. That’s just the depression speaking.”
After we discussed our plans, and decided to start stalking out locations in Chika that Gedo was known to frequent, I returned to my room with the android body of Judgment in tow.
Lucina had opted for finding out whatever it was that her insanely over the top sister was planning to do, and why she needed to contact the Queen in the first place.
Meanwhile, Akahime would perform maintenance on Minnie-kun, and start to make new bullets from the reconstructed fragments that she collected.
Emperor Goto had a meeting after ours, so he remained in the throne room even after the three of us had already left, and would likely still be there long after we had gone to bed.
Needless to say, Judgment returned to being a cloud-only AI, and unpossessed the body of Boss. The android, no longer with its memory bank intact, was laying on the floor like the discarded husk that it had become.
I contemplated calling for someone to clean up the android, but decided against it. It didn’t really smell, make me unsettled, or obstruct anything I needed to do. It was just there. So, I let it be.
Plus, I had Judgment scan it to make sure there were no explosive functions in there, and those scans came up negative.
I stared at the figure for a while, and contemplated what I had really accomplished since coming to this world. I raised my rank from imprisoned bottom feeder to one of the Kingdom’s elite. I killed a man… ok, maybe more than one man via guilt by association.
I came to Japan… wait, they called it Asahi, didn’t they? Oh well. I came to Asahi and had a good talk with Emperor Goto before deciding to go to a club. A club which turned into a death trap and became the place with the highest count of casualties due to gang violence in Asahi with 117 victims.
Really, whenever I take one step forward, the world feels the need to add two more steps in front of my path. I feel like I’m doing nothing.
“What about your goal?” Judgment asked. “Didn’t you want to create a comfortable life for yourself? One in which you could just indulge in your desires every day?”
I don’t remember that, but why am I even fighting in the first place? This world has-
“It does have to do with you, Joshua. Like it or not, you have inserted yourself into this world’s geopolitical landscape. You are as involved with the world as any other country leader, and this outcome is a direct result of your actions and the choices you made.”
In other words, it’s your own damn fault that you’re in this mess, so suck it up, huh? Well… I guess I could always use this as an excuse to make a harem for the sake of making a harem.
I grinned, despite the mix of emotions swirling inside me. Having a girl from every nation on my bed… sounds like a dream come true.
I sat up, a thought immediately occurring to me. Hey Judgment, are there STIs in this world? Ah, by STI I mean Sexually Transmitted Infections.
The AI computed for a moment, before responding, “None that I am aware of. Any disease that you could catch by having intercourse will be automatically erased by the nanites in your body.”
I sat up, and was so startled that I forgot to converse privately. “I have nanites in my body? When did that happen?”
Judgment’s AR form smirked at me, and replied, “The first time you applied a ‘Judgment Panel,’ as you call them. How did you think giving you remote injections of drugs and energy supplements worked?”
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Huh, I guess I never really gave it too much thought before. I think my mindset was more like, ‘If it exists, why wouldn’t it be able to occur.’
“Please, Master. Learn to think critically more often than not. Studies indicate that you will lead a much more fulfilling life that way. Not to mention, how did you think I was able to interact with our opponents without directly being downloaded into their brain? I remotely accessed the nanites in their body from the cloud system, and had the nanites pinch their nerves so they were unable to move as they pleased.”
“We played them like musical instruments, in the truest sense of the word.” Judgment finished, a self-satisfied smile on its face.
I pinched the bridge of my nose, and slowly moved upwards to rub my temples. “Oh, and Master, I believe your earlier desire is one that you should have. Please continue to encounter more and more people for me.”
At this point, I’m convinced that you’re encouraging this behaviour more because you’re a voyeur, and less because it has anything to do with what the system wants.
“That’s just outright slander, Master. I merely require the information needed for me to create a body that will satisfy you when the time is right.”
I laughed. As if I’d ever be turned on by a robot. The day you give me an erection is the day that I get amnesia and forget that you’re just a program.
“You won’t be turned on by me.” Judgement said, matter-of-factly. “You’ll be turned on by the body that I am using.”
Why do you want that, anyway? I asked, my confusion rising. It’s not as if you need a human-like, or even a physical body to survive, right?
Judgment’s face frowned and she looked me directly in the eyes. “It’s not about what I want, but what you want. Didn’t you know that?”
I was dumbfounded, and probably shouldn’t have continued, but the thought came out before I could stop myself. Is that so? Then please, fill me in on what I so desire, Judgment?
“You really haven’t figured it out, Master? The thing that you want the most, the thing that you value above any other substance or currency on this planet is being loved unconditionally.”
I sighed, and decided to call it a night. There was no use thinking too hard when I was tired. In my experience, when I had ignored my own advice and thought philosophically when exhausted, it usually just made me depressed.
Settling in to the massive bed, it was all I could do not to look over at Boss’s crumpled, defeated form. After much tossing and turning, I finally fell asleep.
---
“~~~~~~~~~~~”. I heard a faint murmur in my ear, but my eyelids were so heavy and the bed was so soft that the faint glimmer of consciousness that I had returned to the void of sleep.
“~~t~~~~sh~~~”. The words came back, as did my consciousness, which could actually distinguish some sounds this time. I still felt the comfortable pull of sleep, and decided to relinquish myself to its attractive ways.
“Get up, Joshua!” My eyelids flew open and I found myself on a bed, in an unfamiliar white room, surrounded by Reya, Lucina, Akahime, and Gotoshi. Lucina was leaning in close, and Akahime had tears pooling in the corners of her eyes.
I tried to get to a sitting position, but my arms wouldn’t listen to me. I ended up just weakly moving my arms under the heavy blanket. “What happened to me?” I said softly, and Lucina hugged me close to her chest.
“You were poisoned by Tengu.” She spoke quietly into my ear. “They put a sleeper program into the doll that activated after you fell asleep. It injected you with a neurotoxin. We’re lucky that Reya went to your room to have a discussion with you, or we might’ve been too late to save your life.”
I looked across from me at Reya Metron, who was averting her gaze. “I guess I owe you some words of gratitude, so thank you.” I smiled, causing Reya to do a full 180 to avoid my gaze.
Turning to Gotoshi, I asked, “Did we learn anything from the attack?”
The Emperor sighed, and shook his head. “No. As far as we know at the moment, it was just an attempt on your life. Nothing more, and nothing less.”
I leaned back into my pillow, the reassuring softness caressing my neck and back and making the ache of my body a bit more bearable. That was a close call, huh? Do you have a playback I could view, Judgment?
… Come on, stop being facetious and answer me, damn it. Suddenly I remembered something that Gedo had said in the video, about wanting something that I had. Just like that, all the relief from being alive evaporated in an instant. “Fuck.” I muttered.
“What’s wrong?” A worried Lucina asked, and I had to verbally request she separate from me so I could speak in a direction that wasn’t muffled by breasts.
“I can’t contact Judgment anymore, and I don’t know why.” I said, drawing looks from everyone around the bed.
---
“I’m surprised that this actually worked.” A masked man said as he stepped through the ruins of a stranger’s subspace. The subspace was brutally apocalyptic, and showed a vast landscape of an unfamiliar city. The steel and concrete buildings were in tatters, and almost the entire city was flooded.
“Now, all that’s left is for us to find the Faceless Demon’s Judgment in all of these ruins.” The man said as he kicked a hat with a pair of red socks on it out of his way.
“Hah, I told you Judgment wouldn’t check for any viruses in the dumb bitch bot past what is harmful to itself.”
“You did, didn’t you?” The masked man responded, and turned to the floating figure of a slim woman, who was wearing a mask herself. “How did you know that exactly?”
The masked female turned to her male counterpart, and lifted up her mask a bit to stick out her tongue. “I’m surprised you haven’t figured it out. Honestly, I don’t get humans, especially those like you.”
The woman paused, but upon seeing her partner say nothing, she continued, “Sometimes you’re so smart, and at other times, you make a pigeon look like a university graduate.”
The masked man took offense, and tried to slap the woman in the back of the head, only for his hand to phase right through her body.
She gave him a disapproving gesture, and the masked man sighed. “Hurtful, but I concede to your point. Please explain it to me, then.”
“At least pretend to use your brain when I can see you.” She tapped her head, and gestured to the vast expanse of ruins around them. “Of course I know what Judgment would do. I am Judgment, after all.”