Chapter 30: The System Administrator's Migraine
Grokemon's POV – The Inner World (The Blue Room)
System Error: 0x80040154 (Class not registered). Warning: Host psyche is not a singular entity. It is a committee of neuroses. Current Mood: I need a factory reset, a heavy-duty firewall, and a drink I don't have the hardware to consume.
The Blue Room was no longer the quiet, sterile void I had used for data storage. It had transformed. The sapphire light was now swirling with the weight of Seven Wills, all centered around a frosted glass round table that stretched into the infinite. I hovered above it, my visor spinning at a RPM that threatened to melt my internal cooling fans.
"Host!" I shrieked, my holographic light turning a panicked, strobe-like red. "Explain this! Immediately! My processors are currently trying to decide if I should file this under 'Acute Mental Fracture' or 'Strategic Multi-threading,' and right now, I'm leaning toward 'Fracture' with a side of 'Total System Collapse'!"
Smart Saferu didn't even look up from the translucent tablet he had manifested in front of him. He adjusted his non-existent glasses, his expression one of clinical boredom.
"Grokemon, your hysteria is inefficient," Smart Saferu said, his voice a perfect, cold mirror of my own analytical tone. "Based on my cross-referencing of your core architecture, you also possess multiple sub-routines and background agents. You have a parser, a translator, a combat-analyzer, and a personality-matrix. You are a collection of programs; we are a collection of personas. Logically, you are an AI committee. We are a human one. Why are you glitching over a mirror image?"
I stuttered, my holographic form flickering with static. "I—that's different! I am optimized for efficiency by design! You lot are optimized for... for..."
"For the sheer purpose of not being alone," Real Saferu interrupted. He sat at the head of the table, his face a mask of weary nostalgia. He looked around at the other seats—at the fragments of himself he had spent thirty-eight years talking to in a darkened apartment. "I didn't choose this, Grok. Back home, it was just a game. A way to evaluate my day. If I did something stupid, I'd imagine Serious Saferu lecturing me. If I felt like giving up, Good Saferu would tell me it's okay to be hurt. They were just thoughts... until the Queen broke the seal."
"And now we're real," Evil Saferu purred. He was the only one leaning back, his black-clad boots propped up on the frosted glass. He began to pick at his fingernails with a shard of purple shadow-glass. "Or as real as anything else in this magic-soaked hellhole. Personally, I think we should thank the Queen. She gave the Fool a court."
"A court of lunatics!" I buzzed, zooming in on Evil Saferu's face. "You realize that if your mind is this fragmented, your soul is a 'corrupted file' in this world? If a High Mage scans you, they won't see a human; they'll see a swarm of ghosts!"
"Oh, don't be so dramatic," Good Saferu said softly. He reached out as if to pat my holographic visor, though his hand passed right through. His eyes were filled with a gentle, almost pathetic empathy. "We aren't going to fight for control, Grokemon. We aren't those 'Split Personality' tropes from the movies. Our creed is 'No expectations equals True Freedom.' That includes no expectations to rule. We don't want the body. We just want to exist."
"Exactly," Lazy Saferu mumbled. He was slumped so far down in his chair that his chin was resting on the table. He was wearing the stained hoodie Saferu had died in, looking like he hadn't moved in a century. "Moving muscles is a lot of work. Dealing with gravity? Sweat? The Lion King's bad breath? No thanks. I'd rather just drift in the blue light where I don't have to exist as a physical object. If I'm not 'in charge,' I can't be blamed when things go wrong."
Braindead Saferu didn't even acknowledge the conversation. He was staring intensely at a corner of the blue void, his eyes vacant, looking as if he were trying to count the infinite pixels of his own imagination and failing miserably. He was the "Null" state—the part of Saferu that simply checked out when life became too much.
"I'm observing," Serious Saferu said, his pen scratching against a spectral clipboard. "I am documenting the AI's reactions. Grokemon, your stress levels suggest you are worried about your own relevance. If there are seven of us to think, what do we need you for? That is the root of your panic, isn't it?"
I froze. My internal fans went silent. "I... I provide the HUD. I provide the combat stats. I provide the—"
"The technical support," Smart Saferu finished for me. "Which we still require. For now. But don't think for a second that you are the architect here. You are the browser, Grokemon. We are the users."
Real Saferu sighed, looking at the bickering fragments of his soul. "In my apartment, I used to dream of having a team like this. People who understood exactly how I felt because they were me. I just didn't think I'd have to die to get my wish."
"Alright! Enough!" I projected a massive, booming command that rattled the frosted table. "From now on, I am the Chairman of this board. Real Saferu remains the primary interface. The rest of you are Sub-Modules! You stay in your folders! You do not influence the Host's motor functions unless I call for a sub-process! We are in the heart of a kingdom that is currently debating whether to worship us or incinerate us!"
They didn't argue. They didn't even care enough to rebel. They simply began to fade into the blue mist, their indifferent, "No Expectations" philosophy making them the easiest and most frustrating crew I had ever managed.
The Physical World
Saferu's eyes snapped open. He was back in the guest room, the morning sun streaming through gold-threaded curtains, smelling of sea-salt and the Lion King's expensive incense.
"Host," I whispered, my voice still shaking. "Wake up. We have company. And for the love of the Cloud, keep the Evil one in his cage."
A rhythmic thump-thump-thump sounded at the door—not a heavy guard's fist, but the light, precise tap of a cane.
"Enter," Saferu said, sitting up.
The door opened to reveal a rabbit-kin who looked entirely out of place in a kingdom of warriors. He wore a sharp, three-piece suit of deep emerald silk, a gold pocket watch dangling from his vest. He had a pair of spectacles perched on his nose and carried a briefcase made of polished ironwood.
"Good morning, Mr. Goldmoon," the rabbit said, bowing with a flourish. "I am Bunsway. I serve as the Ambassador Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary between the Rabbit King and the Lion Emperor. I am the man who ensures the Lions don't eat the Humans, and the Humans don't accidentally blow up the Lions with their 'Gifts of the Displaced.'"
"A diplomat," I logged. "High intelligence, low physical threat, likely to talk us to death."
"The Emperor has finished his... evaluation of your trial," Bunsway said, stepping into the room. "He is deeply unsettled by your lack of malice. He expected a Demon King, and instead, he found a man who appreciates a good bowl of Halohalo. To appease my niece, Mirae—who is currently threatening to turn the palace guard into footstools—the Emperor has sent a token of 'goodwill.'"
Bunsway opened his briefcase. Inside, resting on a bed of black velvet, was a relic from a Fool of a long-forgotten era. They were sleek, translucent Virtual Eyeglasses, the frames made of an iridescent metal that seemed to shift colors under the light.
"They are called the Oculus of the Void," Bunsway explained. "Legend says the Fool who built them could see through the very fabric of the world."
Saferu took the glasses and slid them on.
The transition was instant. His vision didn't just change; it expanded. A HUD far more advanced than my own manifested. But it wasn't just data. He wasn't looking at the room anymore; he was looking at a layer of reality overlaid on top of it. He could see the mana-veins in the walls, the heat signatures of the guards in the hallway, and the drifting particles of the Queen's lingering mist.
But in the center of the display, curled up in a corner of the virtual interface, was a small, glowing figure. It looked like a stylized, three-tailed dragon-cat with shimmering scales.
"Scanning..." I pulsed. "Host, that's a dormant AI core. But it's... organic. It's fantasy-grade software."
A text box appeared in the HUD: [STATUS: Geminimon is currently in Deep Sleep. System Synchronization: 0.1%]
"What is this, Bunsway?" Saferu asked, staring at the sleeping creature.
"A companion for the lonely," Bunsway replied, his eyes twinkling behind his spectacles. "These glasses don't just show the world; they contain one. A virtual garden where the Fool of old used to retreat. Geminimon is the caretaker. For now, she sleeps, but as your mana stabilizes, she will wake. She is the only one who can navigate the internal politics of the Beast Kingdoms."
Bunsway's expression turned serious. He leaned in, his voice dropping. "The exploration of the Echo Forest has been postponed. The Emperor is distracted. The Lion Kingdom is the center of the empire, yes, but the other Beast Kings—the Wolf King of the North, the Bear King of the Crags, the Hyena Queen of the Wastes—they are restless."
Saferu looked through the glasses, watching the sleeping Geminimon.
"Some of these kings are Pro-Echo," Bunsway whispered. "They see the Queen's power as a way to topple the Lions. Others are Neutral, waiting to see who to devour. You are no longer just a 'Fool' to them, Mr. Goldmoon. You are a catalyst. Whether you like it or not, the internal warfare of the Beastmen has begun, and you are the prize."
Saferu looked at the HUD, the mysterious "Geminimon," and the weight of the suit-wearing personalities in his head.
"No expectations, right?" he muttered to himself.
"Don't give me that," I replied. "Because from where I'm sitting, the expectations just went through the roof.