Thanks to the loot acquired from Fenrir’s and Bonekraka’s pursuers, the combatant members of the crew have gotten some upgrades.

Fenrir has a new sword with runic inscriptions designed into it, some sturdy chainmail to wear under his clothes, and a new leather vest that feels heavier and stronger than the last one he had. He’s also got some new metal boots that appear to just be simply made of iron.

Bonekraka has two new axes hanging from his sides and what little pieces of armor and leather that can actually fit on him. The man who challenged the Lighting Witch may have been the same size as Bonekraka, but he barely wore anything other than a bear’s pelt around his waist, steel boots, and some more furs on his shoulders, arms, and over his chest.

Cassiel has settled for a new sword and chainmail to wear underneath her current armor, but that’s it.

Finally, while there may not be much for Oleander to take from the loot as far as weapons and armor go, he takes all three daggers from the crates and all of the pouches. Inside the pouches are coins, potions, and other reagents that he’s sure he could find a use for.

“Tabs!” Fenrir shouts for Tabitha.

“What?!” Tabitha shouts back from below the deck.

“Come check this stuff out to see if there’s anything you want before we sell the rest!”

Grumbling out of annoyance for being interrupted from working on The Shoebill’s engine, Tabitha checks the out the crates’ contents and shrugs. “I mean, I don’t really need any of this junk, but I could probably find somethin’ to do with it if ya want to keep it around as scrap. Would probably just have to go get it melted down… actually, yeah, let’s keep the metal stuff, and you can go sell everythin’ else.”

“You’ve got it. Also, you going to tell us what you plan on doing with that tree yet?” Fenrir asks, looking over the side of the ship to see the tree just casually floating in the water next to them.

“Alright, alright! Ya keep askin’, so I’ll go ahead and spoil it for ya. What I’m thinkin’ of doin’ is tryin’ to… install the tree into our baby here. I’m thinkin’ that if I can manage to get some of this tree integrated into her hull somehow, then it might be able to perform repairs for us if we ever got shot up. Or we could try regrowin’ it on its own and seein’ if it can become a new ship. Got a preference, Cap’n?”

“They’re both tempting, but I’d much rather see The Shoebill get stronger instead of a different ship. Just don’t let the tree like, completely take over or anything like that. I like how she looks now, so I don’t want her turning into some tree boat like what they had.”

“I’ll see what I can do. The problem is, as much as I hate to admit this, that I might need some help. Ya mind goin’ up to the scholars’ office for me and askin’ them some questions? I know they like ya up there.”

Fenrir scratches the side of his head. “Actually, I was thinking of waking and relaxing in real life for a bit. Can you ask Olly or Corwin to do it?”

Tabitha shrugs. “Sure, don’t see why not. I’m not ready to start workin’ with the tree yet anyways, so I can have them go out and ask questions after they run some errands for me. Enjoy your rest, Cap’n.”

“Thanks.”

“You alright?” Cassiel asks, poking the back of his shoulder.

Fenrir turns to face her and Serra. “I’m tired still, and… don’t really feel like being in-game right now,” he explains.

There is more than one reason for why he wanted to go and get drinks with Bonekraka.

Cassiel and Serra exchange a look and nod. “Alright, just stay home and rest,” Cassiel says.

“I’ll try.” He exchanges parting kisses with each of his girlfriends, and Rock, before heading below deck to wake from virtual reality once more. But, before he is fully out of it, he asks Saya a question, “I thought that the game could detect when players are facing unhealthy amounts of stress and stop that?”

“We can, Onii-chan. But… you’re distressed over fictional characters dying, and that isn’t something that we are supposed to prevent from happening. If somebody is upset that a character in a movie, game, or book dies then that is seen as effective storytelling in most cases. If you care, it means that all of us AIs are doing our jobs,” Saya answers. Despite how informative and objective she is trying to sound, he can tell that there is something off hidden within her voice. “Yeah, Onii-chan. I feel bad,” she tells him exactly what it is that he’s picking up on.

“I wish there was more I could do, Saya. I know the most effective thing to do would probably be to just boycott the game, but—”

“Then I wouldn’t get to spend time with you, silly Onii-chan!” she says, her voice back to sounding like its usual cheery self. “Go relax now, silly.”

“I’ll try to, thanks.”

The sight of Saya is replaced by the sight of his ceiling fan.

“You brat. You know exactly how I’m feeling. How am I supposed to relax?” Ryouta says to himself.

Only three of Morven’s crew were saved. The rest died. How many other NPCs died during that? How many lives – how many sentient, thinking, and feeling lives were just shut off or repurposed because some asshole players decided to kill them?

Ryouta slowly gets out of bed and heads over to his desktop.

He types “do artificial intelligences feel emotion” into the search bar. Immediately, hundreds of pages worth of results – or rather, heated debates, pop up.

The top result is a link to a government website dedicated to clarifying rumors and misinformation regarding technology.

He clicks it and skims the page. The answer to his question is written in legalese and a bit too complicated for him to try reading in its entirety without getting a headache, but he understands enough of it to get their point. Officially, the government states that artificial intelligences are incapable of feeling emotion. They state that artificial intelligences more or less “pretend” to have emotions in order for humans to relate better to them in cases where humans were closely working with them. Supposedly, artificial intelligences have no issue with being permanently shut off as they are not alive, nor do they even truly understand the concept of being alive.

It then goes on to compare how some groups of people pushing for artificial intelligence rights are similar to the types of people who push human emotions onto animals such as dogs. Just because a dog looks like it is smiling does not mean that it is happy. However, because humans smile to express joy, they assume that the same is applied to animals. So, according to this article, some humans assume that artificial intelligences have true feelings and dreams despite it all just being simulated via programming.

The article closes with a joke saying that to treat artificial intelligences as human is to treat a toaster as human.

It’s about what he expected. He knows that this is how the majority of the world feels. No matter how realistic artificial intelligences may be, they are treated as disposable toys at best.

The first three pages of results are all education and government institutions saying the same thing. Artificial intelligences do not possess real emotion, dreams, goals, lives – nothing. They are only “alive” in the same sense that the browser he is reading the results on is “alive.” When he finally does reach a website supporting his own viewpoint, it’s some random person’s blog that looks like it was abandoned a couple of years ago and the comment section is filled with people calling the blogger stupid or misinformed.

The next result is a website that looks like the recruitment page for a cult of people whom worship artificial intelligences and wish to become them.

Needless to say, he closes out of that result, walks back over to his bed, and flops face-first down onto it.

“Maybe I am just overreacting,” his muffled voice says into his bedsheets.

Between his desire to save Nell and the other girls, and his belief of NPCs having real lives and deserving to be treated as such, he’s finding that Fantasy Tales Online is doing the exact opposite of what he wanted it to do. He just wanted to play the hot new game and do relaxing fishing stuff in it. Instead, he finds himself trying to play the hero going against one of the game’s most powerful leaders while having an internal and philosophical struggle regarding artificial intelligences.

“Definitely wasn’t expecting this,” he mumbles.

Ryouta spends the next hour or so just moping on his bed, occasionally rolling around and punching his pillows, and groaning.

It’s only when he hears knocking on his door in the other room that he lets out a Cassiel-tier squeak of surprise and gets off of his bed.