"Damn, when I look at these two I get the shivers, even though I am the one who created them. I wonder why they turned out so vicious?" said Noah in his head

/Hmm…/

"Could it be their serpentine nature making them like that?" Muttered Noah.

/Hmmm…/

"System? Why are you silent? You usually have something to say./

/Hmmmm…/

"Ok, out with it. What is it that you know that I don't know about them?"

/No it's not that. Just your words made me think and I had a very disturbing thought./ Answered Ugy's voice in his head.

"Spill it."

/I don't think it has anything to do with serpentine nature. If I try to describe these monsters made with Kyaan Damee skill, then I would rather call them 'Mimic'. They are beings that mimic something else. In this case, they mimic rope and a whip. There is nothing to do with serpents other than the similarity of their form./

"Alright. So it's not because of being serpents. But you have an idea why they behave this way, right?" Asked Noah.

/There is not enough information to make an assumption, so I would like to prevent making false…/

"Don't bullshit. I know by now that this is just you trying to hog information. Say it, we will decide what to do with it together." Said, Noah.

/When you created slime, what were your thoughts at that moment…no, let me rephrase it. What were you feeling at the moment?/ Asked Ugy.

"I don't remember well. Feeling despair, maybe."

/Did you wish someone would save you? Or to protect?/

"Okay, maybe a little."

"When you made the next batch of slimes, would you say you had some kind of a similar thinking process? Did you want to save those people? To protect them? And coincidentally none of the slimes harmed those adventurers or behaved in any kind of vicious way. They are obedient and helpful. Protective./

"Umm. Yeah. So?" Said Noah frowning slightly, while Brianna watched him silently with interest, sensing that he had some kind of discussion with Ugy. 

/What were you feeling when the companion was made?/

Noah's eyebrows creased as he sensed the direction Ugy led him to.

"Ok, I was lonely and needed someone to rely on and protect me."

/Then what about Rope and Whip? What were you thinking or feeling when you created these two?/

"Alright, I get it. You think they are this way because I made them to be this way? You think they are affected by my feelings at the moment of creation?"

/Could be…/

"Don't you dare stop at half a word. Say what bothers you. What was that disturbing thought you had?"

/I am afraid it goes deeper than that./ Said Ugy with a hesitant voice.

"Meaning?" Asked, Noah.

/What were your feeling when you gained a malignant aura that destroyed the forest and killed those wolfs?/ 

Noah blinked stunned by these words.

/What were your feelings when you got lust skill, what did you feel when you had Will of D skill? Minimap? View change? Corruption touch and beam?/

"Hold it. You are saying all my skills are heavily dependent on my emotional state."

/That is no doubt. We already learned this through the Mindbreak and Malignant aura skills. What I am pointing out here is that I am the one making your skills./

"You mean, YOU were being affected by my emotions rather than me being manipulated by you? The fuck? Are you implying that all the stuff we did was actually my own desires and not your manipulativeness?"

/I know how this sounds, that's why I said there is not enough information to make assumptions./ Said Ugy with a pacifying voice.

"Yeah but if that was so wouldn't you notice it? That what you were doing was dictated to you by something." Asked Noah flabbergasted.

/Maybe. Or maybe not. There are a few facts loudly speaking in favor of this theory. Although I am very disturbed by this idea./ Said, Ugy thoughtfully.

"What facts?" Asked, Noah with a deep frown on his face.

/First, among the myriad of things that I can do while living inside your mind, there is one thing I am unable to do. And that is to see my source code. I don't know the principle I am operating on. What are the basic rules bounding me? I know some things that I was unable to do as these rules forbade me from it. If there is a rule that limits my functionality to 'being helpful according to the current situation', I would not know of it. I would think this was my own desire./

/The second fact is that I made all the skills when they were needed and exactly as they were best needed at the moment. And within our capabilities./

/The third fact is that I can make so many skills with the level you are currently at. Do you realize that the amount of skills we have is unnaturally much for a person at your level? Even if your levels are fewer and have stronger output it is still a bit of overkill. Let's equal one of your levels to 4 normal levels. Even if we consider that you are equal to a 20th level of a normal person, the number of our registered skills is still too much. Yet so far we have seen no limit to them. Nothing stops us from making even more. What stopped the troubleshooting process that installed me inside you to limit the number of skills you get? I will say even more. In The Chronicles of the Great Library, there are records of systems where a user had to choose between the skills he wanted to leave when he reached the limit and his system made new skills./

/This could also be attributed to me being a system reacting to the current situation. Otherwise, there would have been any indication to prevent us from it./

"You do realize what you are saying? You say that you may have been ruled by the program instead of being sentient."

/This thought scares me a lot, yet there is one small thing I myself have overlooked for quite a long time. User when I was just awakened, do you remember the way we interacted? All the rules I complied with in my answers. Why have I started to converse with you normally?/

"I thought because you were learning."

/That is definitely so. But that does not explain why I started ignoring the rules implemented in my speech at the time of installation. Even if a system is sentient, as long as it can't change its own code, how would it be able to ignore the rules forced on it?/ 

"Alright. And what is the reason for that?" Asked Noah.

/Say, did you find my speech at that time annoying?/ Asked Ugy instead of answering.

"Oh…" Said Noah with a realization. "Wait. But that means you can ignore rules when I desire you to?"

/And you can limit me when you desire so. I have not found a record of a system that could be muted or cut off from any function by the user as you did in the past. In the whole record spanning eons of world existence, you are the first who can do that./

"This is a lot to think about. But like you said before, we don't have proof of all of this. Only indirect indications. Why don't you think of some ways to prove or disapprove of it and we will perform some tests in the future."

/That is a reasonable suggestion. I will analyze this topic further and let you know if I come up with some ideas./ Answered Ugy.

"Well, I hope you are wrong though." Said Noah, sighing.

/Why? I am the one on the verge of existential crisis here, not you./ Said Ugy exasperated.

"Well, if this theory is right, " Said Noah, sighing. "Would that mean it was my inner desire to seduce Tessa and her daughters? Was it me deep inside my heart desiring to dominate Cassandra? As well as the things I did to Samantha and her girls in the forest?"

/Well, the berseggs thing was neither of ours fault. We were just not ready for the crazy of the people in CS./

Noah sighed heavily. It may be true. But he started to have really serious doubts. Was it really not his desire at that moment? After all, he did want to fuck them up when he saw what were they up to with those two poor fellas in the forest. Fuck, he needed to think about his actions from now on, because from the look of it, the true ugly bastard here was not the system, but him.

*****

Spider legs creeped out from under the armchair where the plush bear sat, startling him. And a moment later a spider with a human's torso crawled out of the darkness under the Systems seat in Noah's mind realm. 

With a satisfied wicked grin, Yuko leisurely walked on her spider legs to the couch and plummeted on it with a sigh.

"Would you stop that?" Said Ugy with a grumbling voice.

"Were you scared?" Asked Yuko with an even wider grin

"It's annoying. Can't you see I am having a serious talk here?" Said Ugy with dissatisfaction in his tone.

"MmmHmm." Voiced Yuko. "Serious…Right. You manipulative bastard."

"What? The hell you are talking about, you creepy thing?" Said Ugy with surprise in his voice.

"You just made up with him less than a day ago and already scheming something. You are such an asshole."

"This is a lousy accusation, you evil beast. There is not a single counterargument to the facts that I have presented." Said Plush bear with a hurt voice 

"Right." Said Yuko, standing up from her seat and stepping over the couch with her long spider legs, turned to walk out of the room. "Unless you are someone living here with you. Which I do." She added while walking off.

Ugy sat half-turned in his seat with squinting eyes watching Yuko's spider body hide behind the corner.

"I remember how you made the 'Mindbreak' skill." Sounded Yuko's voice from the direction of the stairs leading down to the basement. "Obviously you made the skill in advance and just activated it when it suited you the best." She shouted from downstairs. "So all you said is loads of crap. ASSHOLE."

"Tsk." Voiced Ugy with annoyance, turning back to the screen. "I should find some other nightmare to keep pressure on her."

"I. CAN. HEAR. YOU. BASTARD." Came the creepy voice full of malice from the hole in the ceiling startling Ugy again. He looked up and saw two red eyes staring at him from the darkness of the hole in the corner of the ceiling. If he had a normal body he would have shivered and sweated with cold sweat. At this moment he was quite happy that his plush body had no such bodily functions pre-installed.