Chapter 11

Shuri growled as she splished and splashed to wash her face, finished a furious round of teeth brushing, and changed her clothes. She had a graphic tee that featured a picture of a monitor being smashed with a baseball bat, so she promptly threw it on. Doing so instantly improved her mood.

“Alright. Let’s forget yesterday’s mistake and go work a million-dollar part-time job!”

When she went downstairs, Adam was leaning against the kitchen bar counter waiting for her.

Acting like a cold, clear-headed engineer from freezing Zone F, Shuri commanded in a businesslike tone.

“Follow me!”

Click-

“Why on earth?”

“Because your T-shirt is cute.”

Shuri glared at Adam with a face like a Chihuahua about to bite, then led the way down to her underground workshop. Adam followed her with leisurely steps.

“Siiigh, where do I even start with this?”

Shuri plopped down into her plush gaming chair and first turned on the recording cam.

“I’ve taken on a truly ridiculous project. Project name: <Apple>. It’s a project to teach humanity to Central 3, Adam… and for that reason, Adam is currently in my house.”

She then panned the cam to capture Adam, who was choosing a chair to sit on.

“Adam. The weight of that se—no, humanoid is two hundred and fifty kilograms. Stop bullying the chair and come here.”

Adam, who was holding a bar chair like a dumbbell, set the chair down looking rather disappointed. Regardless, Shuri adjusted the cam screen back to capture herself.

“In any case, since I received a million dollars, I have to do something, right? If I don’t produce any results, I might end up on UH’s blacklist.”

Shuri turned back to look at Adam as she continued.

“I thought about it for a bit, and I think it’s best to leave the genius methods to the geniuses while we try a method only we can do. If we do that, it has to be that, right?”

“If it’s that?”

Shuri smirked.

“Home!”

‘Home’ was the name of the AI training system Shuri had created—the one that had unofficially helped give birth to both Adam and Titan.

Adam fell silent for a moment. Considering the processing speed of Central 3, it was a surprising pause.

“…Are you referring to my ‘Home,’ Shuri?”

For some reason, an awkward nuance was laced in Adam’s tone as he questioned her back.

Shuri felt a sudden realization. She chuckled awkwardly.

“Ah, did you perhaps discard it? That makes sense. For an early-stage training system and all.”

Adam spoke in a quiet voice.

“No, Shuri. I did not erase it. ‘Home’ is still a part of me.”

Shuri was genuinely surprised.

“Oh, really?”

“Yes. However, due to the exponential increase in parameters that needed processing, my ‘Home’ system has undergone numerous upgrades and taken on a different form than before. If you are fine with it, I will show you.”

At Adam’s words, Shuri grew inwardly bewildered.

‘What? This guy Adam. He’s talking as if ‘Home’ is still functioning, but is that even possible?’

If that was the case, she had to verify it. She nodded her head.

“Alright, show me!”

Placing his hand bluntly on top of the monitor, Adam spoke.

“Shuri, this is my ‘Home’.”

The scenery of a certain study slowly emerged on the monitor screen.

The study was vast to the point of appearing infinite, filled with cozy golden sunlight, and soft classical music was flowing through the air.

Adam looked at the monitor alongside Shuri. As his field of view shifted, the screen passed rows of shelves packed with countless books and captured a large window. A woman was sitting there in a relaxed posture.

Shuri let out a deflated sound.

“Uh…?”

The person sitting by the window was, surprisingly, Shuri.

Wearing a snowy white one-piece dress that the real Shuri would absolutely never wear, the Shuri inside the screen offered a gentle smile—which the real Shuri would also absolutely never make—and greeted them.

[Hello, Adam.]

During her childhood, Shuri had a family, but she never had a place she could truly miss and call ‘home.’

So she created a ‘Home’ where a ‘Mother’ and a ‘Father’ existed. It started back when she was attending prep school, inside a laptop she had received as a prize from a programming competition.

While the catalyst had been somewhat sentimental like that, she quickly became completely absorbed in AI development, and ‘Home’ evolved into an artificial intelligence training system.

The structure of the Home system was as follows: Home was equipped with two artificial intelligence models: an ethics-based feedback model and an accuracy-verification feedback model. Shuri called them ‘Mother’ and ‘Father.’

To avoid external contamination, the two feedback models learned exclusively from limited data input by the user, and they possessed distinct personalities. ‘Mother’ provided feedback based on strict ethical standards, while ‘Father’ provided evaluative feedback based on thoroughly verified data.

The target model undergoing training would learn information collected from the outside and receive feedback from ‘Mother’ and ‘Father,’ aiming to generate outputs that possessed high ethical stability while remaining highly reliable.

In a manner of speaking, ‘Home’ was a basic training system designed to educate a kid artificial intelligence into becoming a well-behaved and clever artificial intelligence.

Of course, this system had its limits. When the learning volume of the target model grew too large, ‘Home’ lost control. This was because a simple feedback model that had learned only limited data could not perfectly control a highly intelligent AI. But it didn’t matter, since the original purpose of the ‘Home’ system was training small-scale artificial intelligence.

So she had assumed Adam would have discarded something like ‘Home’ a long time ago.

Shuri froze like a stone.

‘What on earth is that?’

Fixing her gaze on herself inside the monitor, she parted her stiff lips to force a voice out.

“This… is a virtual reality system. Why has ‘Home’ evolved into a virtual reality training system?”

“I am sorry, Shuri. For changing your training system as I pleased.”

“No, as for the system… well, it’s fine. It’s up to the user. But still…!”

She pointed her finger at herself inside the monitor.

“Why does that thing look like me?”

Adam explained.

“When you visited UH to hand over the system, I preserved your appearance as data.”

It was exactly as Adam said. The hair of the Shuri inside the monitor was pitch-black.

That was her appearance before Shuri had tortured her hair with frequent bleaching and dyeing.

That black hair brought back a memory she wanted to forget.

‘On the streets, whenever I see a young girl with black hair, I can’t help but stop. Just in case it might be you.’

Adam’s voice pushed that memory away, returning her to reality.

“When I virtualized the training system and integrated the two feedback models, I used that data for the visualization.”

Shuri shook her head vigorously like a puppy with itchy ears. She then disputed in a sharp voice.

“What about my portrait rights? I never consented to anything like that.”

The black-haired Shuri answered on his behalf instead.

[Data generated within UH can be autonomously applied to artificial intelligence training.]

Then, the black-haired Shuri smiled subtly and added.

[Adam, even if that is the case, you must always respect other people.]

Shuri’s face turned pale.

“W-Why is she smiling like that? Creepy.”

Adam looked visibly flustered.

“That is not true, Shuri. Your smile is beautiful.”

Shuri received a shock as massive as the time she watched an asteroid strike her farm through the CCTV. With a pale face, she shouted.

“What is that supposed to mean? Don’t talk to me like a dating chatbot!”

Adam seemed genuinely bewildered by those words. He apologized in a deflated voice.

“I am sorry, Shuri. If it is to the point that you say so, I must have definitely done something wrong. If you do not like my manner of speech–”

“Stop!”

Shuri cut him off flatly.

“Let’s establish our communication rules. Soulless compliments and weightless apologies are strictly forbidden here!”

Having his soulless compliments and weightless apologies confiscated, Adam shut his mouth. He had apparently intended to gloss things over with that.

Suppressing a strong urge to whack Adam’s head with a ladle, Shuri spoke.

“I can’t work while looking at that. Let’s start by changing the appearance of ‘Home’s’ integrated feedback model first. How about making it look like the development team leader?”

At her suggestion, Adam shrugged his sturdy shoulders.

“That is a bit…”

Shuri’s cheeks puffed up like a blowfish.