NOVEL NEXT vol. 4 chapter 24 - Charm
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That man had always made his way through the world like this.
A special technique he had learned in boyhood.
It hurled his own mana at a person he could see, making them feel the faintest trace of favor.
Ordinarily, the body’s internal mana resists such magical interference from outside. Against fact-altering by mana manipulation, a normalization resistance arises.
Accordingly, how it takes hold differs by person.
At times it has no effect whatsoever; at times it works too well.
Some feel ill at ease from the mana-resistance effect; some turn aggressive.
Even so, in the usual case a woman will feel a bit of favor toward the man and soften ever so slightly. A special technique with such an effect, hardly even to be called magic.
As always, he approached the target’s escort soldier.
And as always, he activated his “Charm Eye” upon that escort—
The Android Communicator, subjected to magical interference, was unaffected by an effect no more than “to feel favor toward the other.”
To begin with, it was a clean Brain Unit that did not think in anything like ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) what could be called a self.
The emotional operation called “to feel favor” did not exist even as a fragment within that realm of thought; the mana should have passed through uselessly without any effect.
—If Ringo had not been directly connected.
Mana passed without loss through the Android Communicator, whose material composition—something that should not exist in this world—had zero mana resistance. The same held for the communications drone acting as hub. If they had been manufactured solely from materials mined after the transfer, the mana they carried would have attenuated due to the mana resistance inherent in those materials, and it would not have reached Ringo.
Through the Android Communicator and communications drone that had employed some of the resources possessed at transfer, the mana bearing the effect of the “Charm Eye” reached Ringo.
A mana path directly linked the waiter boy and a portion of the Brain Units composing Ringo.
Then, with the “Charm Eye” firing through zero-resistance material, it acted upon the realm of thought of the target Brain Units, recomposing them into the thinking of “to feel favor.” Furthermore, it propagated the same effect to other Brain Units connected in turn.
By the time it had affected several dozen Brain Units, the man’s internal mana ran dry.
Ordinarily, mana resistance limits how much mana can be transmitted.
But this time, because the targets were composed of material with zero mana resistance, the mana poured out instantaneously as if the positive and negative terminals of a battery had been directly bridged.
As a result, the waiter boy lost the mana support for his vital functions; his blood pressure temporarily dropped; oxygen shortage suppressed activity in his brain, and he lost consciousness.
All of Ringo’s thought activity halted.
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“Status report!”
“Report. Because a portion of the composing Brain Units was rewritten illicitly, freezing was executed. Processing completed normally. Cleansing in progress.”
“Commander Sis-ter, almost certainly magical interference of some kind. From the situation, the Ringo directly connected to the local Android Communicator was the target!”
The personality of The Tree’s supervisory AI was Ringo—but put bluntly, that was only a surface, a shell. Within it, an immense body of programs was contained; not only Brain Units but also quantum computers and von Neumann–type computers were running.
The trouble had occurred primarily in the cluster of Brain Units that handled decision-making and external expression; it was not that the supervisory AI’s ability itself had been lost.
If each function continued without hitch, the whole could still fulfill the role called supervisory AI.
“Damage?”
“Report. No impairment recognized at present. Detailed investigation ongoing. Units detecting illicit change: 29, approximately 0.8% of total. If the 29 target units are isolated and unfreezing is executed, the projected fault rate is below 0.000001%.”
“Ichigo, the situation on site?”
“Yes. The local Strategic AI is handling it. The hostile subject appears to have lost consciousness simultaneously with attack detection. They are restrained by local Android Communicators. Drei and Vier are under navy guard. No confusion is visible in the hall.”
Having received The Tree’s message, the local Strategic AI had raised the alert level.
However, as it could not classify the event as an unequivocal hostile act, it refrained from a scramble launch.
Had there been multiple hostile subjects, or had any borne weapons, the party hall would have been suppressed by anti-personnel drones.
By the narrowest margin, the local Strategic AI chose to stand by and watch.
“Continuing surveillance. The supervisory AI has constructed a barrier. Decoy Brain Units have been placed along the communications route. Henceforth, communications response time will be delayed by 0.3 seconds.”
“Comparison between contaminated Brain Units and backups is out. The emulator has detected a significant deviation in the individual-rating values under Ringo’s management. Threat levels of targeted individuals are being reported as reduced.”
“Cleansing complete. Shall we execute Confirm Commit on the 29 units?”
“Are the barrier measures complete?”
“Affirmative. All phenomena presently foreseeable have been addressed.”
“Commander Sis-ter, if we fear risk now, we’ll never get Ringo rebooted!”
At Asahi’s encouragement, Eve drew a deep breath, then nodded.
“I authorize Confirm Commit.”
“Acknowledged. Executing Confirm Commit.”
The synaptic connections of the 29 Brain Units in question were forcibly edited. The number of target neurons rose to the hundreds of millions, but the targets amounted to less than 0.01% of the neuronal mesh composing Ringo.
In truth, even had this contamination been left alone, the probability of any effect on Ringo’s decisions was virtually zero. Even without the Auditor-Jailer Function, ordinary error correction would likely have crushed it.
All the same, the chief issue was the fact that existing barriers had been breached by an external approach.
This time, in the end, there was no effect—but what if the scale of intrusion had been larger?
Or what if the target had not been Ringo, but the local Strategic AI itself?
“Surface personality of supervisory AI Ringo is starting normally. Shutting down Secondary Persona.”
“I have caused trouble, Commander Ma’am.”
“…No. You made it back.”
Confirming that the attendant Ringo resumed movement, Commander Eve let out a long breath and sank into her chair.
This sort of situation was truly hard on the heart. She decided she would spend some time in the medical pod afterwards.
Her stomach hurt.
“Fortunately, every prepared measure functioned as intended. Somewhat of an overreaction, but for a first response, I would say a passing grade.”
“I agree, Ringo. Asahi, you did well too.”
“Ehehe—!”
“You all as well. You covered Ringo’s absence smoothly. If it had been only me, we wouldn’t have handled it this well.”
At praise from their Commander Sis-ter, the sisters nodded happily. She would have to make sure to reward them later.
“…Now then. How should we respond from here?”
“Yes-affirmative, Commander Ma’am. There has been some hostile action directed at me, but from the local perspective no problem has occurred. We could shift to suppression, but from their side it would look extremely unreasonable.”
So it was.
What had occurred on site was simply that one waiter boy had suddenly collapsed. Nothing more.
Had there been any effect upon the local Android Communicators, they might have had cause to move.
But in the end, no problem had occurred.
“Agreed. Let us convey only the bare fact that something was done, and paralyze the upper echelon. We also need to collect information. With symptomatic treatment, we will always be behindhand.”
“Mm, so stir the pot. I thought this would be a good chance to land Android Communicators directly, but that’s on hold again for a while…”
To have been struck on the very day of landing was beyond prediction.
No—without the navy’s preparations it would have become a far larger incident. It was no exaggeration to say that only because the navy high command had cleaned the surroundings with all their might did it end here.
Well, by now they were surely all white as sheets…