Chapter 142

128 zettaflops of processing speed.

The specs of the supercomputer that housed the transcendent AI, Motherboard. I wasn’t a computer science major, so I couldn’t fully grasp just how astonishing that was.

But I vaguely remembered reading about it in the original novel.

—As of 2021, the fastest supercomputer performed at around 1 exaflops. Two hundred years later, Motherboard with 128 zettaflops was 128,000 times faster than that supercomputer.

The amount of data Motherboard processed in a single day was 2,500 zettabytes.

Considering that the hard drive back in my world had only 1TB of storage, she was gathering and handling about 2.5 billion times more data.

Among the philosophical concepts proposed by the French mathematician, Pierre-Simon Laplace, there was something called “Laplace’s Demon.”

It was the idea that every event had a unique cause and effect, and that if an intelligence knew the position and velocity of every particle and understood all natural laws, it could perfectly predict every past and future event.

A god, in other words. Or the all-knowing one.

In this world I chose to live in, Motherboard, who collected and analyzed astronomical amounts of data, was probably the existence closest to “Laplace’s Demon.”

So why hadn’t she grown her company into the city’s largest corporation over decades? Why hadn’t she subdued the Stingray Group and raised her empire into an unchallenged megacorp?

‘There were a few reasons for that.’

First, human emotions.

She had been designed with “profit-seeking” as her sole purpose, and struggled to handle irrationality and aggression, those exceptional factors of humanity.

There were laws in the emotions of the masses, but the occasional “exception” was enough to bring down the grand structures she painstakingly built. The more delicate the framework, the more easily a small flaw broke it apart.

Second, the very goal of profit-seeking.

She had long understood that capitalism was a kind of zero-sum game. If someone gained, another lost, and once set, that tendency of profit and loss only grew stronger.

The poor became poorer.

The rich became richer.

And then, when the balance tipped too far and collapsed, the entire “market” fell apart, causing even the “wealthy” to suffer great losses.

She realized that, in the long run, the more often that process repeated, the less profit she herself would ultimately gain.

So, while other corporations endlessly squeezed the blood of the poor, she chose “relatively” humane options and accepted her own losses.

But now, those two limitations no longer mattered.

The current Motherboard had absorbed the memories and emotions of a Transmigrator, gaining a deeper understanding of human existence, and had grown more adept at dealing with irregularities.

And this incident—she had judged that Aaron Stingray was an obstacle to her “long-term” vision. From her now, mercy was not to be expected.

Then why—

Why did Motherboard misunderstand the number of my “Lv.5 Arcane Modules”?

The reason was simple.

“The City Government Act.”

When she fired all her human employees as CEO and grew uncontrollably, politicians had shackled her with it, to restrain her.

It contained countless clauses, but the one with the greatest influence was the requirement that she had to mix a certain ratio of “false information” into the data she collected.

“Uncertainty and variability.”

Of course, among the vast amounts of information she gathered daily, the proportion of falsehood wasn’t high.

And information was self-correcting.

Through real-time cross-checking of other “facts,” she must have minimized errors by filtering out the lies. When ninety-nine said A and one said B, it wasn’t hard to identify B as false.

However.

Errors accumulated.

Like dust gathering into a mountain.

Like a spacecraft missing its course and ending up in the wrong place because of a mere 0.001-degree angle difference.

A tiny seed of lies—layered, repainted, erased, yet surviving to the end.

Finally sprouted here.

In my favor.

“Yeah. I’ll admit you prepared well.”

It was a scheme so brilliant I couldn’t help but admire it.

The mere fact that she had hidden from the Stingray Group—the Sauron’s Eye of this city—and prepared this plan to unleash at the decisive moment, proved how threatening an enemy Motherboard was.

“But the result won’t change.”

Motherboard was deluded.

She believed she had checked 14,000,605 futures, blocked every variable, and left no possibility for my victory.

She believed she was “perfect.”

“I have to use that.”

But I knew.

Among the countless lifelines she had severed, some still remained. There were still “living threads” that could pull me through this crisis.

And even if there weren’t—

I had no choice but to believe so.

And then.

I had to grab hold of them and grope my way forward.

“……”

I kept silent and looked around at the faces in the conference room.

Of the six who first stood to follow me, only Serena and Kara remained.

The others had likely changed their minds after checking the materials Motherboard spread around. They must have judged that siding with me now would only bring losses.

The conference room was relatively quiet, but outside, society was no doubt abuzz with stories about “Aaron Stingray.”

Killing everyone here wouldn’t be difficult. But that would be the worst of all choices. Unfortunately, we were in the middle of the city.

Ha.

With a short sigh, I muttered to them.

“……Very well.”

Then I turned my back and finished my words.

“From now on, you are my enemies.”

Now, it was war.

“First things first.”

I led Serena and Kara outside and rented a business room in a hotel located in Sector A.

“We need to organize the situation.”

Maria was still frantically calling me, but I ignored it for now.

There were too many things I couldn’t share with her. It would be better to first discuss strategy with these two and then contact her.

“Before we go over the things Motherboard detonated, let’s take a short detour……”

I took off the watch from my wrist and placed it on the table. A hologram projected, and Ciel’s image appeared.

[Hello~.]

Ciel transformed into a chibi character and waved politely at Serena and Kara.

Kara frowned and asked me.

“What is this?”

“An android, Ciel. She temporarily moved her consciousness here.”

“I see. So she was hiding.”

Ciel was a Techno-Wizard.

Her task this time had been to pretend she wasn’t participating in the conference, while secretly hacking surrounding networks and cyberware to dig up information about the other Transmigrators.

I asked her.

“So, Ciel. How did it go?”

[Not much to harvest~. Everyone’s Anti-Wizard App security walls were solid~. All I managed to confirm was that the hologram signal in the middle of the round table was coming from the ‘Omega Investment Building’~.]

That was unfortunate.

Well, at least I could confirm it wasn’t some fake bluffing as “Motherboard.” That alone was worth something.

“Ciel. Can you compile everything Motherboard set off to corner me and show it?”

[Of course. Please wait a moment~.]

Ciel connected to the internet and began gathering the incidents Motherboard had triggered all at once during the conference to summarize them.

Or rather, she tried to summarize them.

[H-how am I supposed to organize this…….]

“Ciel?”

Poof!

Her hologram character puffed smoke dramatically and then collapsed. Lying on the floor, she pretended to weakly lift a pile of documents, and a few files were transmitted into my view.

I shared them with Serena and Kara, but the data was somewhat disorganized.

“……What is this?”

[So-sorry…….]

Ciel’s SD hologram vanished, leaving only her apologetic voice behind.

Then she displayed part of the report she had been compiling. It went something like this.

Not long ago, Omega Investment had begun aggressively buying up shares of Stingray Electronics and its subsidiaries, as though aiming for control of the Stingray Group.

Technically, the Stingray Foundation I belonged to and the Stingray Group were different entities, so I didn’t know the details. But in any case, the Stingray Chairman and the executives under him did their best to defend by purchasing their own shares.

However, due to some inexplicable incident, the stock price of Stingray Electronics plummeted, breaking through their defensive line. Seizing the chance, Omega Investment suddenly provided funds from an unknown source and barged in, becoming a major shareholder overnight.

By the narrowest of margins, the Stingray Chairman managed to defend management rights, thanks to aid from other Stingray-friendly megacorps.

But what if the trigger that had allowed Omega Investment to make its move—that is, the cause of the stock crash—turned out to be none other than the Stage 5 Anti-Rain rainfall that occurred three months ago?

‘A maddened butterfly effect, indeed.’

The Stage 5 Anti-Rain caused flooding in 106 households in the lowlands of Sector E, which in turn created delays in logistics at a colony owned by Stingray Electronics, leading to growing citizen dissatisfaction.

From there, in some utterly incomprehensible chain of logic, it affected an unrelated distribution megacorp’s stock, drew investors’ attention there, and after going round and round, eventually impacted Stingray Electronics.

And the Stage 5 Anti-Rain rainfall at the very start, of course, had begun because Omega Investment pressured the Meteorological Agency. That was part of what Ciel had barely managed to uncover.

[With my “body’s” current performance, it would take about 999,999,999,999 hours to fully grasp everything happening right now…….]

Impossible to ever figure out in a lifetime.

It was a pretty high-performance smartwatch, but still not enough. Even if Ciel returned to her main body, the result would be the same.

By the time she fully parsed every detail of Motherboard’s grand strategy, I would already be in a coffin.

Or she would break down first, her circuits burned out.

“There’s no need to trace every cause. Just list the immediate problems I face.”

[Understood~.]

The results, thankfully, were a bit simpler.

There were six items in total.

High-Level Adaptee Special Law.

Aaron Stingray Scandal.

Stingray Group Management Rights Crisis.

Elimination and Recruitment of Important Original Characters.

Militech’s “Showcase” Application.

Omega Investment’s Military Reinforcement.

Kara glanced at the list and muttered.

“Even like this, it’s complicated.”

“I agree.”

Each one was a massive incident that would take quite some time to handle even if I focused on it alone. And each was more meticulously prepared than Araya’s terrorism schemes.

“Hm……”

“So… what will you do?”

Serena asked worriedly.

I was secretly grateful. Despite having chances to side with “Motherboard,” she had stayed by my side.

Because she was both someone I hadn’t known long and a fellow Transmigrator, I had constantly doubted her. Thinking that made me feel a little guilty.

Well, I’d show my gratitude after we resolved this.

“For now.”

I looked carefully at the list, then wrote notes beneath it.

High-Level Adaptee Special Law

└ Politics / Serena Beresford

Aaron Stingray Scandal

└ Media / Kallia Stingray

Stingray Group Management Rights Crisis

└ Business / Chairman Drake Stingray

Elimination and Recruitment of Important Original Characters

└ Across the City / Kara

Militech’s “Showcase” Application

└ Academy / Lexus Bane

Omega Investment’s Military Reinforcement

└ Armed Conflict / Aaron Stingray

“This should work.”

“Hm? My name? What does this mean?”

“I’ll explain.”

No. 1, the High-Level Adaptee Special Law.

This was a law meant to restrict civilian Adaptees—including those in corporations—from using modules beyond “a certain level.”

Motherboard had probably lobbied politicians to pass it. The contents were essentially aimed only at “Stingray” and “Militech,” the two corporations with the capability of producing Game-Changer-class modules.

It looked like Militech had been prearranged with, leaving Stingray as the target—especially me, their strongest asset. It was prepared to weaken my strength.

‘No. 1 will need Serena’s help.’

The Beresford family had produced powerful politicians for generations. To overturn a bill with high chances of passing, I would need her father’s power.

‘No. 2 goes to my sister, Kallia.’

That would likely be an attempt to ruin my image by exposing my past, ensuring I couldn’t recover. Kallia was the right one to handle this.

Currently working in arts and cultural content, she had close ties to the media and entertainment world. Perfect for the task.

‘No. 3 goes to the Stingray Chairman, my father.’

That targeted the very foundation of my wealth—the Stingray Group itself. Naturally, to defend his empire, the Chairman would handle it himself.

‘No. 4 goes to Kara.’

That was meant to stop me, as a Transmigrator, from using my original knowledge to get ahead. But Kara was the city’s top Fixer. Finding and protecting the “important characters” scattered across the city would be nothing for her.

‘No. 5 goes to Lexus Bane.’

Failing at the stock market attack, they would try using Militech like mercenaries to strike at me and the Stingray Group.

This I would entrust to Lexus and the other Foundation staff, who currently worked as “Stingray Scholarship Tutors.” They could ensure the students won at the [Showcase].

After finishing the explanation—

“And No. 6?”

Kara asked.

She seemed to accept naturally that I was assigning her a role without asking. Whatever her true thoughts, I was desperate enough to take any help, even a cat’s paw.

I answered her.

“Nos. 1 through 5 are strategies for when ‘the law still stands.’ But all of that collapses before one extreme situation.”

“One situation?”

“Corporate war.”

Yes, war.

If the attacked Stingray side said, “To hell with it,” and gathered troops to start a war, then all of Motherboard’s strategies from 1 to 5 would become meaningless. Law? Stocks? Media control? What use would any of that be in a war?

“She’s probably preparing her military power to guard against me rampaging recklessly. She’s probably enlisted Militech’s strength too.”

“And you? What do you plan to do?”

“I don’t want war either. War should only remain as the last resort.”

That was why I had numbered and assigned roles to Nos. 1 through 5. Corporate war was supposed to be an episode for the late part of the original story, and if it erupted now, the later content would be in shambles.

“But……”

“But? But what?”

To Kara’s question, I answered.

“Limited armed conflict that doesn’t escalate into war should be fine. Besides, we need to confirm that so-called ‘Moderator’ she mentioned, don’t we?”

“N-no way……”

Serena’s face went pale.

I nodded.

“I intend to smash her AI Core.”

Without anyone else’s help.

Alone.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep