Curse the Mainframe! 330 One?

Then, what seemed like a small child tumbled out of the crack, stunning both Alec and Sekai.

But they didn't let down their guards.

In this world, there were many child geniuses that had been born, and they were no worse at killing than some adults. Some were even a lot better.

Alec was considered one of such child geniuses – but he wasn't a child any longer, so he was more than happy to leave that 'title' behind.

If anyone could tell you that a child could be dangerous – more so than many civilians out there – it would be Alec.

From his track record, he'd been finding a lot of child Main Characters, after all. It wouldn't be much of a stretch for this little girl to be one too.

Alec eyed the small child that came out of the crack, and what seemed to be from a different dimension or a different realm.

He'd checked to see whether or not it was anyone he knew, and it definitely wasn't.

No one he knew of had a magical signature like that, and Alec silently squashed the little hope that had built up when he'd be surprised and thinking of Ye Sha.

This definitely wasn't him.

Instead, this was a little girl with pure white hair, and similarly as blank white eyes.

There was something distinctly inhuman about her. As if she was a half-finished canvas, like someone had created a figure of a girl, only to get bored when they were about to finish colouring her, leaving her hair and eyes white.

On a closer look, he could see that she did indeed have irises. They were just such a pale grey that she looked like she didn't have any at all.

The little girl looked like she was about six at most, and she was wearing some sort of metallic dress.

But it wasn't any material that he knew, and it flowed strangely but naturally.

Her face was unnaturally blank and didn't show any sort of micro expressions at all.

While Alec was used to blank faces, they weren't actually all that blank. From the smallest amounts of body language that they subconsciously gave away, to the minute shaking of the eyes, they still reacted, and showed hints of whatever they were feeling.

Not like this.

Not like her.

Alec's skin prickled unpleasantly, as if it was warning him of something.

Every instinct in Alec was screaming at him that this little girl was more than human. That she could be dangerous if she wanted to be.

But Alec calmed down a little when he realized that there was nothing malicious about her magical signature at all.

Instead, it was almost worryingly blank and static.

Might not be the wisest choice, but…

Well, while he was wary, his instincts were also screaming at him to listen to her.

"The hell," Sekai muttered under his breath. Seriously, he couldn't catch a break, could he? It was just one thing after another.

He literally *just* got his brand off a scant hour ago!

If Alec knew what he was thinking, he would have glared at the Main Character. That was how he felt when he had to clean up their messes.

He had to distract all the other parties with an even bigger mess so that they didn't have time to obsess over the little things.

And that wasn't easy at all, by any means. It wasn't like he had his Spectres here to help out.

The little girl blinked slowly, ignoring Sekai's muttering.

"Alecris Neil. System No. 0029-"

Alec stepped forward, and her speech halted as she locked eyes with him.

"Ye Sha sends his greetings," she said monotonously.

It was still strange how she didn't have much intonation, but nothing could beat the way the Mainframe sounded, so it wasn't all that bad to his ears.

He was right that she wasn't human. She was probably a sort of System that he hadn't seen before.

He doubted that she was human before she became a System like him either.

Was she an A.I.?

Was that a thing?

Suddenly, his brain halted. Did she just say Ye Sha sent his greetings?

Instead of doing what he reflexively wanted to do – which was to grab her – he bent down in front of her, looking serious. "Did you say Ye Sha sent you?"

The little girl nodded, and it looked mechanical. "He did."

Sekai hissed at her, and Alec was suddenly struck by the hilarity of it. He already thought of his Main Characters as cats, but with him reacting like that, it just tickled his funny bone.

The little girl – who was distinctly not human – blinked and touched Alec's face, her eyes intent and studying.

Alec held still for her and raised a brow when she didn't do anything else, nor did she continue to talk.

Similarly, the little girl raised a brow, and in Sekai's opinion, it looked eerily similar to what Alec just did.

"Is this little girl one of you?" Sekai asked with confusion. And by 'you' he meant Systems in general.

The nicest way to put it was that she just didn't come off as a human. Her gestures and the way she stared at things without blinking *could* have painted her as just a very creepy and antisocial child, but Sekai's instincts were nothing to scoff at.

The way Alec reacted was something else as well.

Plus, he was a Sin. And his instincts to fight were *not* acting up around her at all. Which just didn't happen.

Even when Sekai looked at a newborn, he sometimes got the urge to steal the pacifier or their rattle from them to see if they were worthy.

Sekai made a deeply disgruntled sound. His instincts were strange like that, but they were *his* instincts, and he knew when they would react and when they wouldn't.

To have it not react at this moment was very disconcerting.

There were five more minutes of silence before Sekai couldn't handle it anymore. "So, are you going to talk or what, brat?"

The little girl blinked. "I am."

Silence.

"And?!"

Alec's lips quirked into a smile. Still as impatient as ever even when the brand was gone. Perhaps it had just been a part of his personality that had never been unearthed before.

The little girl blinked again.

"And?" She tilted her head.

Sekai hissed again, sounding like an affronted cat.

Alec eyed her, amused. She was probably a highly functional A.I., which meant that she was probably just winding him up. Still, just because Alec didn't hate Sekai now didn't mean that he would give up all his ways of petty revenge.

"What's your designated name?" Alec asked instead.

"One."

"Just One?" Because what did he expect? This little girl wasn't human, but who had named her?

One nodded. "Ye Sha named me," she said helpfully.

And just… *why*?

Alec's smile twitched.

"So, where is Ye Sha now?"

One tilted her head. "He's in White Space along with Master."

"Can you bring us there?"

One shook her head. "Ye Sha can't leave yet, so he said there's no point. But he told me to stick around with Alec."

Alec looked at her considering, ignoring Sekai's refusal of having her stick around longer.

"Fine," he said. He picked up One, and she hugged him around the neck, clinging to him.

Alec's lips twitched. He pushed away the feeling that he'd suddenly acquired a child when he was still a teenager.

"Are you seriously going to bring that thing around?" Sekai said with displeasure. Their travel was going to slow down so much.

…Wait. Who said that he had to stick around with his benefactor?

He was cured!

He could go back to the Kaoriht continent and wreak some havoc to the company!

Alec said very calmly, "No, Sekai. Don't call her a thing. She still has feelings. They're just developing, I would assume. We can split up if you want, but you can't go and cause more chaos with that organisation just yet. The ones back on the Kaoriht continent that is. We're still trying to pin down where all of them are."

Sekai twitched. "Do you have eyes on the back of your head?!"

Chapter end

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