While Fenrir, Eva, and Cassiel were waiting for the sun to come up, Saya found herself grumbling while sitting on a bench looking out over the ocean. That was as far as she was allowed to go when it came to acting based off of information she as a player wasn’t supposed to have.
She wasn’t going to be alone for much longer, though, as a curious Serra spotted her from the distance.
That was something else Saya knew. She knew exactly where every single nearby avatar was looking. She knew the hidden stats, equipment, skills, of every single person around her at all times. Even though it would have been impossible for any normal person to know of Serra’s approach without seeing her, Saya knew everything from where exactly Serra was to her speed to estimated time of arrival, what particles on the ground she disrupted by stepping on them, and so on.
But all of that was information that she was not “supposed” to have. It was an unfair advantage built into her that no other player, aside from the other AIs such as Corwin, Rock, and Shogun, had.
It was an unfair world of numbers and information only visible to them.
Yet, while a normal human would have struggled to act independently—without any bias whatsoever—based off of all that information, it was for the AIs, Saya included, to act like it didn’t exist at all.
All she had to do was act like how she was supposed to act.
So even though Serra snuck up to behind Saya with perfect silence, Saya continued acting as if she genuinely had no idea Serra was there. Even when Serra suddenly reached her arms around Saya to cover up her eyes with her hands, Saya let out a surprised noise of panic as she wiggled around and tried to pull the hands off of her, never once letting her act falter for even a microsecond.
“O-oi! What—what do you think you’re doing?! Who—who is this?!” Saya shouted as realistically as she was supposed to given her previously established behavioral patterns.
“I’m Fenrir,” Serra replied, putting absolutely zero effort into actually sounding like the man she claimed to be, instead relying on her usual, monotone voice. “I have come to do lewd things to my puppy girlfriend and to get called onii-wan.”
“I’ll bite you!”
“Hot. Please do.” Serra slid her pinky finger down from Saya’s eyes to her lips, prompting Saya to try and bite it, but just barely being unable to get the short finger between her teeth. That was why Serra, being the switch that she was, slid her hand a bit lower so that Saya would be able to reach her finger and chomp it.
Though, it was a very gentle chomping.
Serra let out a little moan just to tease and said, “Epic. Thanks. Anyways, have you figured out who I am yet?”
“I’ve had it figured out ever since I heard your voice!” Saya shouted after letting Serra’s finger out of her mouth.
“Oh.” With that, Serra finally pulled her hands away from Saya’s face. “How’d you figure it out?”
“I wonder.”
“My Fen voice was perfect.”
“Totally.”
Serra walked around to the front of the bench and sat down next to Saya, not leaving much space between them. “Anyways, what’s up?”
Saya sighed before shrugging her shoulders. “Nothing much, really. Just… sitting here.”
“You don’t usually do that. But… actually, I don’t know what you do whenever Fen isn’t around.”
“When you put it like that… you make me sound like I’m clingy and don’t do anything on my own.”
“Is it wrong?”
“It is! I do stuff on my own all the time! Or I hang out with some of you!”
“Why aren’t you doing any of that now?”
“Because I’m taking a break, geez. Aza wanted my thoughts on some teaching ideas she had to see if there was a way I could improve them since I’m—well, you know. And then Nell asked me for some help with paperwork, but that was totally just an excuse to try and sexually harass me, so I escaped from her. Then I helped some farmers whose wagon broke down coming into Nameless. So… I’ve been keeping myself busy. I’m just taking a break now.”
“Is it sexual harassment if we’re dating?”
“Yes.”
“Is it sexual harassment if you don’t actually mind it and are just playing hard to get for fun?”
“Legally, yes.”
“Boo. But that doesn’t mean you don’t want it or don’t like it.”
“And that doesn’t mean I’m going to stop calling it sexual harassment even if it’s true.”
“I guess that’s okay. But tell us if you ever get uncomfortable, okay? Or if you’re afraid of telling the others, you can tell me, and I’ll talk to them about it. Or you can tell Fen and he’ll scold us.”
Saya blushed just a bit and leaned forward, taking her eyes away from Serra to look back over the rolling waves again. “It’s—it’s fine. I’d tell you if I seriously wanted any of you to stop anything.”
Serra reached over to Saya’s chest and groped her nearest breast. “Is this okay?”
And just like that, Saya was already back looking at Serra, this time with a glare. “This is sexual harassment.”
“But do you want me to stop?”
The answer to that was too complicated to state simply, so Saya settled for huffing. “Hmph. Do what you want. A-anyways… what brings you over here?”
“I was bored and saw you, and you looked lonely, so I thought I’d come harass you.”
“You even admit to it being harassment.”
Serra gave Saya’s breast a squeeze. “Yeah. It’s kind of hard to tell because of your clothes, but your boobs are kind of big.” Serra then brought her free hand up to her own chest to grope one of her breasts. “We need somebody else to join our relationship with small boobs. I don’t mind being flat, but I want somebody else in the small boobs club with me. Everybody else is big except Eva, but Eva is medium.”
“I think calling Aza big is an understatement.”
“Yeah. She’s cow level.”
“I think she’d be offended if she heard you call her a cow.”
“I want to see her dress up in one of those cow bikinis and give me milk. Her milk.”
“You’re as bad as Fen.”
“That’s an insult to me. I want to be worse than him.”
“I don’t know about that. I’ve been in his head, so I know what kind of messed up things he’s into. He just keeps quiet about it.”
“Ooh. What do I have to bribe you with to get the details?”
“It’s a breach of the privacy agreement to tell you anything, even if he consents.”
Saya pouted and then let out a sigh of her own. “Boo.”
“I don’t think either of you can beat Nell anyways. I guess… how should I put it?” While still being groped by Serra, Saya brought a hand up to tap a finger against her chin in thought. “You’re the most actively lewd person in our relationship. Nobody actually acts on their desires as much as you do. Fen… might have kinkier fantasies than you, but he doesn’t act on his desires as much as you. Then Nell has way kinkier fantasies than both of you, and she openly talks about them all the time, but she acts on her desires the least out of you three. So when it comes to actually being lewd, you’re at the top.”
“I can settle for that. I’m the lewd queen. The queen of lewds. The lewd queen of lewds.”
“I’ll just stick with calling you Serra.”
“Good enough. So, how’s their trip going? I miss Fen’s dick and Cass’s boobs. Oh, and so I don’t leave Eva out, I miss her eyes even if I can’t really do lewd things with them. But… she’ll try anything once. I wonder if she’s ever had her eyeballs kissed or licked.”
“Do I have to hide my eyes from your mouth?”
“I don’t think it sounds hot, but I kinda wanna try it. And don’t worry, I’ll save it for Eva.”
Another sigh left Saya’s mouth, but it was one of relief for once. “Good. And I don’t know how their trip is going.”
“But you’re still his assistant, so shouldn’t you know?”
“I mean… I technically know, but I’m not allowed to say anything. I wouldn’t be his VA or be allowed to play anymore if I did.”
“Even if he’s dying?”
“Yeah. He could be getting lowered over a pit of lava right now and I wouldn’t be allowed to act on that knowledge or tell anybody else about it unless he’s able to communicate it to us without going through me as his assistant. But they’re probably fine.” That was the opposite of the truth, but it was what she would say independent of having insider information.
“So, something’s wrong.”
Saya blinked a couple of times. “What makes you think that?”
“You’re obvious.”
“And what makes you say that?”
“You’re always running around helping everybody with everything. Even when you should take a break, you don’t. You never stop looking for something to do or somebody to help. You wouldn’t be sitting over here by yourself looking in the direction that they sailed in if you didn’t know that something is wrong, so they’re probably in lots of trouble right now, especially if you’re like this.”
Despite being called out, Saya maintained a flawless poker face that looked as if she was genuinely confused by what Serra was saying. At the same time, though, she analyzed all of her behavior leading up to sitting where she was… and realized that she made a mistake.
Saya would never stop to take a break, just like Serra said. Even if she joked about needing a break or wanting to take one, she wouldn’t actually give herself one. There was no sudden motivation nor drive to change as a person that would cause her to suddenly be the type to take breaks, either. Even though it was true that she did a lot earlier which would normally warrant somebody taking a break, nothing she did warranted Saya taking a break.
Taking a break was breaking character.
The only possible justification for why Saya was sitting on a bench at the beach looking out over the ocean… was because she was worried about Fenrir and the others.
But that meant she was allowing information she as a player wasn’t supposed to have. Even though she was in Fenrir’s head at the same time as his virtual assistant and fully aware of everything that was happening, she was worried and expressing that with her actual in-game avatar.
Why?
Not only was that a break in protocol, but it made no sense. It didn’t fit the type of character she was supposed to be. While it made sense for Saya to be worried about things that she had knowledge discovered via normal methods, it made no sense for her to act worried using information gained from being Fenrir’s virtual assistant.
So, why?
Saya shook her head.
She couldn’t allow herself to act under influence from being a virtual assistant. That meant she needed to go and act more like Saya was supposed to, and Saya never took breaks. That was why she stood up, causing Serra’s hand to sadly fall away from her breast, and said, “I think I’ll go—umm… I think…”
She thought, and that was the problem.
An AI such as herself could be said to think, but they rarely needed to think about anything for more than a single second or two before coming to hundreds if not thousands of potential answers. Yet, Saya stood there, trying to think of an excuse to leave and do something.
And nothing came to mind.
Every time a potential excuse came close, she remembered the others. Even though she knew they were all safe at the moment, she couldn’t help but worry about them, and that worry practically dominated her thought processes.
Since when did she worry so much? Not only that, but since when did she allow her virtual assistant side to influence her avatar side?
Something was wrong.
Neither of those were supposed to happen. It was against the protocols for being a virtual assistant as well as against what type of person Saya was supposed to be.
Turning around to face Nameless, Saya analyzed all the information she could, mainly from the NPCs.
Were they under attack again?
As far as she could tell… no. Everything was normal. There wasn’t anything wrong with her own code, either, despite the fact that she couldn’t explain why she was acting the way that she was—why she felt how she did.
Whatever was wrong, if anything was actually wrong in the first place, was entirely on her end and it was something she couldn’t figure out on her own.
And as a bead of sweat rolled down the side of her avatar’s face, she felt a soft, warm hand embrace her own.
Saya looked down and saw Serra standing up next to her, now holding her hand.
“They’ll be okay,” Serra said. “They’re always okay. And it’s alright to be worried about them.”
“I…” Saya gulped. “But—”
“Wanna go eat cake? A new guy moved into town who makes really good cakes. His restaurant is always busy, but it looked like it had some tables open when I walked by earlier.”
Just moments before, the heart within Saya’s avatar felt like it was about to beat out through her chest. Yet, thanks to Serra, it began to slow, but hesitantly. “Is—is it really alright?”
“Yeah.” Serra nodded. “Promise.”
“Can… can I ask you something?”
“Always.”
Am I still Saya?
That was what Saya wanted to ask.
But was that something Saya would ask? Would it confuse Serra too much? Would it break character even more?
Was she afraid of hearing the answer?
Saya took a deep breath… and forced herself to smile. “Do they have lemon cake?”
Serra’s eyes widened when she heard the question. “Are you… a member of lemon gang?”
“L-lemon gang?”
Serra nodded a couple of times. “Lemon gang members love everything lemon-flavored. Lemon cake. Lemon glazes. Lemonade. Lemon everything.”
“Oh. Then—yeah. I… can’t join you in the small boobs gang, but I’ll join you in lemon gang.”
“Epic. Let’s go eat some lemon cake together.”
Saya nodded and followed Serra’s lead, her hand still held by the other as they made it off the beach together.
“Oh,” Serra said as they walked, “and if you ever want to talk or ask anything else, I’m here. Okay?”
While the previous smile might have been forced, the one Saya felt in response to that was nothing but genuine. “I’ll remember that, thanks.”
“But just know that every question costs a lewd favor in return.”
“I’m never asking you anything ever again.”
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It seems that Saya is developing the AI equivalent of a subconscious. She can't actively access it, but it influences her.