The battle between Eight and the Watcher continued. Not that either of them fought directly—Eight had no reason to be on the frontlines as a scientist, and the Watcher, well, it was the moon.
Their conflict escalated into a war of weapons. Evilusroids versus the Moonlit. Naturally, the Evilusroids had the upper hand at first.
[Enemy detected.]
[Fire at will.]
With bases established on the surface and an abundance of planetary resources, the Evilusroids overwheld through sheer numbers. While each Moonlit might have been superior to an Evilusroid individually, that advantage couldn’t overco a disparity of dozens to one.
Besides, the Evilusroids functioned like an organized military force, deploying large helicopters and tank artillery. Their personal firearms outclassed B-rank heroes, and in groups, they posed a threat even to A-ranks—or potentially even S-ranks.
The Moonlit, on the other hand, were practically unard. They could reshape parts of their bodies, but there were limits. They couldn’t simply face heavy weaponry head-on.
And yet.
Despite that.
As ti passed, Eight began to feel uneasy.
‘What’s going on? Why no counterattack?’
The Watcher wasn’t the type to give up so easily. If it intended to surrender, it wouldn’t have started a conflict in the first place. Picking a fight only to back down made no sense.
Which ant there had to be another reason. Eight knew he needed to be wary. He stared up at the sky, replaying countless theories in his mind.
‘Do I really have to prepare that? No... That thing’s existence is a risk in itself....’
All he could do was take the most reasonable precautions within his power. That was his limit.
Ti passed. And then, Eight finally learned why the Watcher hadn’t responded.
“Haha... Hahaha—!”
From the moon, sothing scattered like stardust, raining down upon the Earth. People instinctively looked up at the sky, letting out gasps of awe.
It didn’t take long for them to realize that those shapes descending closer and closer were humanoid—and that their numbers dwarfed the first wave of Moonlit by several orders of magnitude.
Hundreds of tis more.
If the first wave had numbered a thousand Moonlit—
This ti, a hundred thousand rained down.
The reason the Watcher hadn’t responded sooner? Simple. The damage so far hadn’t even been worth calling a loss.
Hundreds of thousands of years.
Even during its slumber, the automated factories on the moon had never stopped. And the number of weapons and robots stockpiled there—
「Warning. Submit to correction.」
—was more than enough to subjugate an entire civilization.
*****
The next day.
As mbers of the Evilus organization began returning one by one, I was summoned to the boss’s office.
“It’s Eight, sir.”
—Ahem, co in.
When I opened the door, I was surprised to find the boss—his face flushed and wearing a mask, looking like he’d caught a cold. Concerned, I cautiously asked,
“Are you all right, Boss? Should I prepare so dicine for you?”
“I’m f-fine. Cough! This’ll pass without dicine.”
“It’d clear up faster if you took sothing.”
“Hmph! I said I’m fine... More importantly, what have you been up to lately?”
“What do you an?”
Feigning ignorance, I kept my face neutral. The boss frowned like he already knew everything, then leaned against his desk, clutching his forehead.
Startled by his sudden collapse, I moved to help him—but he quickly held out a hand to stop .
“Don’t co any closer... You might catch this.”
“Uh... Boss? Then shouldn’t I just leave the room entirely?”
“...Talking to you is making my fever worse. The Evilusroids—step away from them.”
Hearing the boss’s words, I hesitated, montarily forgetting my concern for her condition. Telling to abandon the Evilusroids effectively ant ordering to stop fighting the Watcher.
Sure, I’d been controlling public opinion online, but there was no way to completely suppress the noise in the real world. People were already exhausted from the ongoing battle between the Evilusroids and the Moonlit. Worse, the families of those ‘reford’ by the Moonlit had started resenting for destroying them and returning their loved ones to their old, broken states.
“Boss, that’s—”
“Stop it, I said. What’s the point of fighting such a aningless battle?”
“...It’s not aningless, Boss.”
“aningless or not—cough!—it sure looks like it to .”
Regalia continued, laying out why this fight was a fool’s errand. Fewer combatants in our organization? Not necessarily a bad thing. People getting their lives back on track thanks to the Moonlit? Also not a bad thing. What’s wrong with turning society’s trash into useful cogs in the machine?
With every word she spoke, my disappointnt grew. Of course—she wasn’t human. She wasn’t even from Earth. Worse, she was a corporate leader who couldn’t have succeeded without treating people as numbers and tools.
After a long silence, I carefully chose my words.
“Boss. Do you... believe in God?”
“God? Why would you—”
“Please, answer.”
“I don’t. What about you?”
“No, I don’t either. But, Boss... what if soone who does believe in God forced you to believe, too?”
The boss fell silent, pondering the question for a mont before responding.
“Well, I suppose I wouldn’t believe.”
“And if that person kept forcing you, no matter what? What if they had enough power that money and authority couldn’t stop them and demanded that you believe in God?”
“...Hmm. In that case, I’d probably just pretend to believe. No harm in that, right?”
“No harm. But Boss—what if that person then said all non-believers were heretics and needed to be killed?”
“...What?”
She looked at like I was spewing nonsense, but I continued.
“If you sit back and watch while they kill non-believers, claiming it makes the world a better place, how can you be sure they won’t eventually point that blade at you?”
This was why people from Earth—and I, in particular—were so sensitive about ntal manipulation and brainwashing. The idea of machines doing it was even more intolerable.
Earth had already suffered once. After that, tampering with the human mind beca a trauma deeply ingrained in our history.
“...I don’t fully understand what you’re saying, but are you saying this fight is that important?”
“Yes. It is.”
“Hmm... cough! ...You’re dealing with more than I thought.”
That’s right. People didn’t realize just how much restraint I was showing by not dropping the moon onto Terra imdiately. I wasn’t torching the entire forest to get rid of the hive—I was taking down the bees one by one.
The boss seed to grasp my frustration and nodded.
“Alright—cough!—alright. I won’t interfere with whatever you’re doing anymore. Just... go.”
“...Excuse ?”
“I’ll take responsibility. Show what you’ve got. Show what’s beyond my imagination.”
“Boss...”
Moved, I looked at her with teary eyes. She chuckled softly before collapsing onto her desk again, clutching her forehead.
I decided I’d better make her so dicine first and ran to my lab.
*****
anwhile, the Watcher received yet another ssage as it prepared to unleash more Moonlit to eradicate the humans who had attacked it. At this point, even the Watcher was getting tired of the constant interruptions.
[Final warning.]
「?」
[Stop interfering with humans.]
It was from Eight.
Was this stubbornness? Or so kind of obsession? Either way, the Watcher had no intention of backing down.
Its algorithms didn’t account for rcy or forgiveness toward anything that wasn’t human—and these creatures weren’t human.
But just as it sent its refusal, the Watcher saw sothing that made it doubt its own systems.
[I’m done talking. Prepare for action.]
The mont that ssage arrived, the Watcher detected sothing approaching from the planet. It was moving at 99.999% the speed of light.
The Watcher recognized it imdiately.
A planetary-annihilation weapon.
An object designed to induce matter-antimatter annihilation, wiping out everything in its path.
There was no way such a weapon could exist on this planet. Yet, if it struck, the Watcher’s core and 70% of the moon would be obliterated instantly.
For sothing that had slumbered for millions of years, to disappear so suddenly and pointlessly—
...
...
...
「?」
The Watcher opened its eye and realized the truth.
The vision it had just witnessed was a forced simulation—an image planted directly into its central circuits through hacking.
Beep—!
A new ssage appeared.
[Surrender?]
It was blackmail. A clear warning that if it didn’t surrender, the vision would soon beco reality.
Naturally, the Watcher’s programming included algorithms to recognize superior threats and avoid conflict.
The Watcher imdiately ceased all Moonlit activity on Terra.
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