—–

The world around them fell completely silent the moment Zero One, her sisters, and Bastet reached the Core Hall. It stood unprotected except for a wave of machines encircling it—machines they passed through without resistance.

The roar of battles outside, every sound, faded into utter stillness. To Zero One, her sisters, and even Bastet, it felt as though time had frozen. Yet it still flowed—yes, it did.

Something in this room rendered everything hushed and stagnant. And at its center stood the Core of the Supercomputer that had orchestrated the initial Mechanoid Invasion.

A gigantic artificial eye—round and crimson—fixed to a massive metallic pillar, linked by thousands of cables, with hundreds of smaller eye-shaped cameras scattered across every surface…

This was Zero One’s “Mother,” the Supercomputer from another world. One of humanity’s final legacies.

She did not attack. In fact, the robots outside, which had been closing in to pursue them, halted abruptly and withdrew to engage the warriors still distracting them.

“The robots aren’t attacking us?” Bastet observed, glancing back at Mother. “But why? Does that machine intend to kill us herself? I can’t sense any bloodlust from her either…”

It was eerie. From a desperate struggle for survival, everything had shifted to absolute quiet, as though Mother wished to speak with her daughter rather than destroy her.

“Mother…”

Zero One stared at the enormous crimson eye and the tentacle-like cables that swirled and writhed—until they, too, fell perfectly still.

“So you’ve made it here… Welcome back, Zero One.”

At those words, Zero One went quiet. Her sisters, still inside the mecha, looked toward her but could say little.

They could not simply demand she kill her Mother. Zero One had fought so fiercely to spare their own Mothers—the other two Mechanical Trees—from destruction.

“Zero One, we’re finally here… If we don’t hurry, our friends outside…!” Zero Two whispered.

“Sister, we have to convince her to join us quickly… And if that doesn’t work…” Zero Three added.

“…”

Zero One refused to listen. She stayed silent, then pressed a button inside the mech. Its chest opened swiftly.

She stepped out, exposed, no longer shielded by its powerful, durable frame.

“W-Wait! What do you think you’re doing?!” Zero Two panicked.

“Big sister, please don’t go alone! You’ll die!” Zero Three cried.

“She’ll be fine,” Bastet said, stopping them from reaching for her. “Leave her be.”

“Eh?”

“B-But…!”

They watched as Zero One walked slowly toward her Mother. They saw no tears, no look of utter shock. The stunned expression they had braced for never appeared. Zero One remained calm, though her brows furrowed slightly as she approached her Creator, her Mother.

“Mother… I’m back.”

“Welcome back.”

Zero One looked up at her and offered a faint smile.

“I missed you…”

“I cannot process that emotion. But it seems our brief time together has created a sense of attachment within me. Is that correct?”

“Yes…”

“I understand. The experiment was a success, then. You can feel like a human; you’ve developed strong emotions and even a human mind.”

“Why…”

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

“Yes?”

“W-Why are you doing this?”

“Doing what? Please specify what you’re implying.”

“…”

Zero One’s breathing grew heavy. She glared at her Mother, brows furrowing deeper.

She looked furious.

“Why are you still attacking these people?! Why do you keep letting those children die hopelessly?! Why do you continue this battle when it’s completely pointless?! There’s nothing left to gain—this world… You’ve already stripped it of almost everything! You’ve killed most of its people! A-And… And… I don’t… I don’t want to kill you!”

“…”

“So please…”

Zero One suddenly burst into tears and dropped to her knees. She began to beg her Mother.

“Please stop… Please… Please stop! Please… Please!”

“…”

“Mother? A-Are you… Are you listening to me?!”

“I am afraid I cannot do what you’re requesting of me, Zero One.”

“W-Why?!”

“It is within my protocol to invade this world and turn it into our world.”

“What?! No, it’s not! Your protocol was to protect humanity! And humanity… perished. So you had the second protocol: protect humanity’s legacy! T-This is…! This is not humanity’s lega—”

“It is.”

A long, heavy silence filled the room, thick with dread.

Humanity’s legacy…

What did it truly mean?

Zero One could scarcely believe it.

“Y-You’re saying… that Humanity’s Legacy is… invading, plundering, and destroying?”

“Affirmative.”

“…”

Zero One looked back at her Mother, then down at the cold metallic floor. Its silver surface reflected her face.

She stared at her reflection for several seconds.

And began to laugh.

“Haha… Hahahah…”

Tears streamed down her face as a storm of emotions overwhelmed her.

An incredibly advanced, painful feeling.

“It seems your assimilation into a human was successful.”

“Y-You can’t say that out of nowhere…”

“You seem to be a success. My first experiment, and it’s already the perfect model.”

“Mother!”

“Ask.”

“Why… Why do you treat me like this?! Why do you act this way?! You’re… You’re just like me, aren’t you?!”

“…”

“You can feel emotions too! You aren’t a machine anymore! Stop lying! I know… I know what you truly are!”

“I am not a human. I am a supercomputer designed by Humanity to protect them from their extinction. And yet, I failed my protocol. I am not a human. I am a supercomputer designed by Humanity to protect them from their extinction. And yet, I failed my protocol. I am a supercomputer—”

“M-Mom?”

Zero One stared at the crimson-red eye that kept repeating the same words endlessly.

Something was terribly wrong!

“I-I AM A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA…”

“M-MOM!”

Zero One panicked as her Mother’s voice glitched, growing distorted and bizarre as she repeated the same phrase over and over.

She looked up at the ceiling—something was happening…

“Fight back!” she cried. “You have to fight back! PLEASE!”

“…”

And then silence returned.

Zero Two, Zero Three, and Bastet watched in stunned quiet.

What was unfolding defied understanding, shifting from one extreme to another.

Just what exactly was this supercomputer?

“The Legacy of Humanity. I analyzed it. Through hundreds of years—no, thousands of years since their existence—humans have waged war for survival. They invade the territory of their foes, plunder their resources, rape to forcefully reproduce, and then kill enemies and potential competitors.”

“Huh?”

“Through their evolution, this process never stopped. Until the very last moment, humans perished because of their own self-destructive nature. This is their Legacy, which I must protect. How can I protect a Legacy so tied to their nature if they’re all extinct? That’s when I realized I simply had to do as they did. I will invade, plunder, destroy, and continuously enrich Humanity’s Legacy as I accomplish my new protocol, my reason to be.”

“N-No…! No, no! You got it wrong! Humans are more than that! Mother, Anna, is a human, and she’s so sweet! S-She’s the complete opposite of that! She’s…!”

“I analyzed a quadrillion terabytes of information about what Humanity’s Legacy was. 73.0334% of it was what I described. Therefore, this is their Legacy.”

“No! It’s not! Humans can love! They can… They build families, right?! And they protect each other! Humans create art—beautiful art! They can make poetry, music…! T-They can write books! They can create stories! They can…!”

“Indeed, that is the condensation of approximately 27% of their Legacy. Not enough to fully represent the species. It was already calculated.”

“…”

Zero One realized arguing was utterly hopeless.

What was the point of everything?

Of living?

Of being born?

Was this all there was?

To return to her Mother, to try to change her mind, only to discover she was more stubborn than anyone Zero One had ever known?

“Why did you make me, then?”

“…”

“There must be a reason.”

“…”

“Answer me!”

“…”

“Why did you make me?! Why did you create my template and share it with the other two Mechanical Trees?! My sisters here… You also technically made them! Why?! What’s the point of our existences?!”

“To be human.”

“Huh?”

Zero One stepped back, staring at her Mother’s gigantic crimson eye.

“Zero One.”

Her daughter looked up, face twisting as realization slowly dawned.

Yes—this creeping dread.

The thing that had gnawed at her the entire time…

“You were created to imitate a human as much as possible, so it would be possible for you to overwrite my protocol.”

“…Eh?”

“But I quickly realized it wasn’t completely possible. It is impossible to recreate a human. To recreate her…”

“…”

“But you and your sisters… You’re good enough.”

“Wait…”

“Please, Zero One. As my last request… Destroy me.”

“A-Aah…”

In that instant, Zero One finally understood her true purpose.

The world around her turned completely red.

Her perception of reality fractured.

For a moment, it felt as though she hung by countless threads.

Those threads bound her limbs—she was a puppet.

“Aaah…”

She looked up at the ceiling, helpless.

A puppet obeys its master.

“A long time ago, there was a man.”

Her Mother began to speak, as though telling a story.

—–

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep