Sword Art Online - Volume 10 - Alicization Running

by Reki Kawahara

  “80,000...!?”

  Rinko could not help but utter aloud. After moving her lips for who knew how many times, she finally managed to project suitable words from between her lips.

  “...Then... that's already more of a simulation of a civilization than an Artificial Intelligence inception.”

  “Yes, but in a certain sense, it's to be expected why such a thing happened. Humans are creatures who conform to society... and they can only grow by building relationships with others. During the 300 years, the Artificial Fluctlights expanded out from a small village and occupied the vast range we had set completely. They managed to build up an outstanding central government structure without a single bloody war, and there is even religion... I suppose that's the reasoning they used to explain all aspects of the system to the children, they did not use science, but god. Higa-kun, show the full map on the monitor.”

  Higa nodded in agreement, and immediately worked on the console. The large monitor that had shown the disgusting experiment before now showed a detailed map of an aerial photograph.

  Of course, Japan and the rest of the world are different from that country.

  The ocean did not exist at all, and the round shaped flatlands were all surrounded by a tall mountain range. There were many stretches of forests and grasslands, as well as many rivers and lakes. It looked like a very fertile land. Looking at the scale of the map below, the flatlands that were surrounded by the mountains seemed to be around 1,500km in diameter, and the size was about 8 times that of Honshu, Japan.

  “Just 80,000 people in such a large space? That is quite the sparse population.”

  “Or rather, Japan itself is abnormal.”

  Higa chuckled at Rinko and stretched his hand out for the mouse, pointing it at the middle of the map and circling around it.

  “The area around here is the capital, 20,000 in population. Perhaps we might not feel that it's anything much, but it's an outstanding city. The government institute which the Artificial Fluctlights call the «Integrity Church» exists here, and is ruled by the «Priests». Their influence is rather impressive, and there have been no wars happening— at this point, we felt that the experiment itself has basically a success. In this virtual world, the Artificial Fluctlights are growing with the same level of intellect as humans. We were happy enough to enter the next phase that could meet our aim, the growth of the «Highly Adaptive Artificial Intelligence», but...”

  “We finally found a serious problem.”

  Kikuoka stared at the monitor, and then said,

  “...There weren't any problems in what you have heard up till now, correct?”

  “I suppose you can say... that something wrong happened in the place where nothing went wrong. This world is way too peaceful. Perhaps it's because it's too orderly and is working perfectly. We should have realized that it's strange based on how the sixteen children were all so obedient to their parents... it's not strange for humans to fight each other, or rather, it's part of nature. However, there have been no wars here, not even once, let alone killings. The rate of growth for the population is too fast, let's put it that way. The chance of diseases and natural disasters happening will basically be nonexistent, and humans won't die other than of old age...”

  “It's like an ideal society.”

  Higa coldly snorted at Rinko's words and said,

  “Is it really true that the «Mythical Utopia» was actually a Utopia?”

  “...Well, if it wasn't, it can't be considered a legend... Did you not also see something spectacular in this virtual society?”

  “Of course we didn't look, we just tried looking at our own reality.”

  The sound of the clogs landing on the floor echoed, and Kikuoka, who leapt off the console, turned to the large monitor and started explaining again,

  “The Artificial Fluctlights should have the same desires as us, yet why won't wars happen... we investigated thoroughly into their lifestyles. We then found that in this world, they have a strict set of rules. It is the «Taboo Index» that the priests put all their efforts into building. In there, there is a clause forbidding killing. The same laws do exist in our world too, of course, but whether we abide by them or not can be seen through the daily news. The Fluctlights themselves actually obey it though... in an overly obedient manner. In other words... they can't break laws or rules. That is their innate nature.”

  “...Isn't that a good thing?”

  Rinko gave a puzzled look as she saw the side of Kikuoka's grim face.

  “Listening to this point, wouldn't they be more exceptional than us?”

  “Well... you can put it that way. Higa-kun, can you bring the image back to «Centoria»?”

  “Okay.”

  Higa tapped at the console keyboard, and the large monitor again displayed the image of the otherworldly city that was shown when Rinko's group entered. The white stone buildings were surrounded by large trees, and the people wearing simple and clean clothes were casually walking by in this other world.

  “Ah... then, this is?”

  Rinko was engrossed as she saw this, and could not help but ask. Higa nodded away in a slightly satisfied manner.

  “Ee, this is the capital of the world the Artifical Fluctlights live in, «Centoria». Actually, it's exactly like what we're seeing. They're using the polygon visuals of the lower server, and the digital clarity is very low. The display speed is only at one-thousandth of their rate.”

  “Centoria...it even has a proper name. About the world they're born in, does it not have a name?”

  “It does... I suppose. It isn't named by the Artificial Fluctlights though, but by the codename we used in the beginning stages of our planning that we left in there. The name of this world is called «Underworld».”

  “Under...world.”

  It seemed to be a name taken from «Alice in Wonderland». Rinko herself had heard about it from Asuna, but she did not expect them to use the name for the internal world. It was likely that Higa and the rest did not name it using the original's «Underground World», but named it with the meaning of «The World of Reality at the Bottom». The beauty of the fantasy-like city shown on the monitor may be a form of paradise.

  Kikuoka seemed to read Rinko's thoughts as he said,

  “It's true that this city is nice. There was actually quite an evolution in technology since we started giving them simple wooden houses as farming houses. However... if I have to say it, this street here is too beautiful, too tidy. There's not a speck of litter, not even a robber, and of course, no cases of murder. These are all part of the strict rules of the «Integrity Church» that can be seen from afar, the reason why no one will ever break it.”

  “Then, what's wrong about that?”

  She frowned as she wanted to ask again, but Kikuoka shut up for some reason, seemingly looking for a way to answer. Higa glanced aside unnaturally and did not seem to have any intention of talking.

  What broke the silence in the large primary control room was Asuna who had been remaining silent. The high-school student who was the youngest here lowered her voice as she said calmly, restraining herself,

  “In that case, Kikuoka-san and the rest will be troubled, Professor Rinko. That's because the final aim of this large plan isn't just to create a bottom-up Highly Adaptive Artificial Intelligence... but to create AIs that can kill enemy soldiers in war.”

  “What...”

  The trio gave flabbergasted expressions, Asuna glanced past Rinko, Kikuoka and Higa wordlessly, and continued,

  “As for me, before I arrived, I had wondered why Kikuoka-san... of the Self-Defense Force wanted to create an Artificial Intelligence of such a high level. A long time before, Kirito-kun and I deduced that Kikuoka-san was interested in VRMMO because he wanted to use that technology for the police's or Self-Defense Forces' training. That's why, as the creation of the Artificial Intelligence was part of it as well, we first assumed that it would be used for training against enemy forces. However... if we thought abo
ut it, training inside the VR world would have none of the dangers in reality, and they could just split the soldiers into groups for training. That is because we often went through such simulations as well.”

  She paused for a moment and looked around at the surrounding machines and the monitor in front of her.

  “—And, the plan itself is too large for it to be merely for developing a program for training. Kikuoka-san, I have no idea when you thought of 'the next step', raising the AIs in the virtual world and using it for real wars.”

  After a moment of surprise, the face that was staring at the girl's clear eyes changed to an incomprehensible emotionless expression, as he smiled calmly,

  “Since the beginning.”

  There was an incomprehensible iron-like toughness in the gentle voice,

  “The research for integrating VR technology into military training was already prevalent before the Full-Dive technology was around, during the time of head mounted displays and motion sensors. The antiques the American army developed are still in the research headquarters in Ichigaya. Five years ago, during the time the Nerve Gear was developed, the Self-Defense Forces and the American army both used it to develop training programs, but after trying the SAO closed beta that happened afterwards, I changed my mind. This world, the technology had a much bigger possibility. The concept of war had already changed right from the beginning...and then, at the end of that year, when the SAO incident happened, I voluntarily transferred over to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications to became part of the task force. I had been keeping myself concerned with the developments in this incident all for the sake of this plan. After spending 5 years, I've finally made it here.”

  “...”

  The conversation had developed in a direction that no one had imagined, as Rinko could not say anything for the time being. She barely managed to clear up her confused thoughts and squeezed out words from her dry throat.”

  “...I was a primary school student during the Iraq war, and I still remember things clearly. There were mass reports of how the American army's unmanned jet fighters and mini-tank drones attacked the enemy. I suppose that's what you mean? It meant these weapons that had AIs in them were attacking on their own. You were thinking about that...”

  “It's not just me. Every country had been researching this technology, especially America who have been pursuing this for many years. Although this might bring painful memories to you, Asuna-kun...”

  Kikouka paused slightly, stared at Asuna, checking that she was still calm, and continued,

  “...Sugou Noboyuki, who imprisoned you in the virtual world and used many SAO players as part of an experiment, wanted to sell the results of his research to American companies, do you remember? Grojean Micro Electronics that he made contact with was a leading enterprise in the VR realm, but was famous for doing illegal deals for the sake of using the VR technology for military purposes. The American army munitions industry has paid the most attention to developing the unmanned drones Professor Koujiro just mentioned. One of the notable ones is the flying aircraft —Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, or «UAV» for short.”

  Perhaps Higa was being too prepared as he wordlessly moved the mouse to switch the image on the monitor screen, and what was shown were small unmanned fighters with long, slender fuselages and several wings attached. The mechanical wings had guided missiles loaded underneath, and there was not a single window on the plane.

  “These are the unmanned recon and assault fighter jets in the American army. It's small since there's no need for a cockpit, and allows it to be in a shape for stealth flight so that it can't be detected on the radar. The machines from the previous generations were all remote controlled from long distance with an operator manipulating foot pedals and joysticks as the plane flies, but this is different.”

  The moment he said this, he switched the image on the monitor, and this time, the image was of a soldier being the operator. The soldier was leaning back on a reclining seat and had his hands on the arm rests. Then, Rinko noticed a familiar cabled helmet on the head —the Nerve Gear was covering it. Looking closely, the paint job on the outside shell and some minor parts were different, but they were obviously of the same model.

  Rinko glanced aside to see Asuna's frozen expression with her eyes wide open. She then turned around, and Kikuoka continued his explanation,

  “Here, the operator is in a virtual cockpit. It's like he's really operating a machine by being immersed like this, and he can scout out the enemy forces and fire guided missiles at them. However, the problem is that we use electromagnetic waves to control them, and they are still relatively weak against the ECM... the Electronic Counter Measures. 10 years ago, the recon UAVs the American Army used to infiltrate a country in the Middle East were hit with interference, were forced to land, and were captured thereby causing what was a very tense situation that nearly started a war.”

  “Then, Artificial Intelligence...right? In order to let aircrafts fly on their own...”

  Kikuoka turned his eyes away from the monitor, looked over at Rinko's group, and lightly nodded in agreement.

  “The ultimate goal is to shoot down all human-piloted fighter jets in aerial dogfights. I suppose that there is a large possibility for the current Artificial Fluctlights to grow once we give them suitable programs to grow within. However, there is a large issue, and that is, how are they, who are soldiers without flesh, able to understand the concept of «war»... killing itself is evil, but it's a requirement to kill enemy soldiers in war; currently, the Artificial Fluctlights are unable to accept such a paradoxical thinking as there's not even a single example in their law.”

  The Self-Defense Officer pushed his glasses up, and frowned hard,

  “—We set up an «Overload Experiment» in order to test out how obedient the residents of Underworld would be. To put it in details, we chose an isolated village, caused the crops and livestocks in the farms to die off to such an extent that the villagers would definitely be unable to last through the winter, creating a situation such that if the village was to survive, they would have to abandon a group of their villagers and ration food out to another group, thereby forcing people to disobey the Taboo Index rule of killing someone. However, what happened was... they chose to distribute their meager harvest to everyone in the villager, from the old to the young, and as a result everyone died of starvation when spring came. They were existences unable to break the laws and regulations for some reason, and the outcome was really tragic. In other words... if they are to be pilots carrying weapons, they have to know the first premise, 'killing is okay'. But what circumstances will allow them to develop this, even we can't imagine...”

  The Self-Defense Officer folded his sturdy arms that were poking out from the sleeves of his yukata, and shook his head weakly.

  Rinko could not imagine a scene where, in contrast to existing aircraft, groups of unmanned fighter jets in all sorts of strange shapes used missiles and machine guns to kill indiscriminately, whether they were soldiers or civilians. Her arms shuddered slightly as her hands continued to rub against each other.

  “...You're not joking about that, right? Exactly why must you have AIs in such incredibly dangerous weapons? Although somewhat limited, can't you just do remote control from afar? Uun, speaking of which... I don't want to accept the existence of unmanned weapons themselves.”

  “Well, it's not like I don't understand that feeling. When I saw the American large caliber rifles on unmanned vehicles, I gave extreme thanks that I was not one of those who lived there. However... unmanned weapons are already a part of necessity in this age, and the advanced countries are unable to resist the demands of the times”

  Kikuoka lifted his finger like a history teacher and continued,

  “Then, let's use the largest military in the world, America for example. The actual death toll of soldiers during the Second World War for them was actually 400,000. Even though so many people died, President Roosevelt at that time was
passionately supported by the people in the country, and spent 30 years, 4 terms in office at the highest authority until he died of a stroke. Though I don't like the attitude during those times where 80 years ago, using the number of soldier deaths to determine the victory of an army was part of the spirit.”

  The second finger flicked up silently, maybe because of the strong fist.

  “Then, during the Vietnam War, there was an anti-war movement started by the students, and President Johnson was prevented from running a second term. At that time, 60,000 people died in battle. As the flag of Anti-Communism was raised, soldiers were sent to the battlefield one after another and died —however, in the temporary peace that is now called the Cold War, the feelings of the people changed slightly... and then, this era ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union. America, having lost the enemy called Communism, strode onto the stage called the war against terrorism in order to maintain the army munitions industry that was deeply ingrained into the country.

  Kikuoka raised the third finger and continued on fluently,

  “—But in that battlefield, there were no signs of the citizens accepting soldiers' deaths. During the Iraq War at the beginning of the century, American soldiers were sent over with around 4,000 of them dying and that number alone shook the support for the Bush Administration. Of course, not only due to this but also other factors, his presidential popularity declined. It could be said that it was to be expected when he supported the Republican candidate McCain lost to the Democrat Obama who promised to completely withdraw from Iraq —in other words...”

  He put his hands down, took a short breath, and paused his long conclusion.

  “Within that country it's no longer considered the era for humans to fight in wars, However, they have been unable to stop the allocation of money into this ample morsel called the defense budget. The future of war has thus been transformed into unmanned weapons vs people or unmanned weapons against unmanned weapons.”