CZ2128 Delta was on schedule to be nineteen seconds late to meet with Ainz for their state visit to the rebuilding Holy kingdom. Squeezing the assistant butler -whose capture was the source of the delay- tighter, she quickened her pace.
'It would be improper to be late.' She thought, and then converted the same to speech to answer Eclair's indignant squawking at the pressure.
"It would more improper to squeeze me, the true ruler of Nazarick to d- aack!"
She tightened her hold by twenty-five percent for a quarter second interval, cutting him off with the added pressure. "Blasphemy is not cute."
"Yep, not cute! So not cute, that you should unhand me! I am anathema to cute! So let me g- aaak"
She increased base tension by twelve percent.
Now they were nearly to the teleportation circle that would take her to where she and Lord Ainz would rendezvous with the carriages that had been travelling for weeks down to Hoburns, and were now a few hours outside the city.
Lord Demiurge had said that it was important to give the appearance of a true royal progression, and also to avoid letting people know that they could travel instantly. Of course it would be a waste of time for them to actually sit in the carriage for the whole trip, hence only teleporting in for the last leg.
CZ agreed that this made sense. 'It is optimal to have the short version of the trip from our perspective. Although, more time with Lord Ainz would fulfil the newest directive that the Pleiades had been given.'
She wasn't sure where to put that in priority. 'Ainz said it comes after the work is done. But I'm now to execute the directive while working.'
The squawking from Eclair was getting much more frantic now and CZ realised her tension increase was looping and had exceeded safe tolerance for Eclair's ribcage - 'less cute' - so she loosened her grip to the original level as she rounded the last corner.
Lord Ainz was waiting for her, but her chronometer told her she was now three seconds ahead of schedule. "Good morning Lord Ainz" she expressed proper deference posture, the adorable heretic echoing her move.
"Good morning to you as well CZ, Eclair. Ready to go? And ahhh, were you bringing the butler?"
"Akkk, My lord! I cannot! The floors need more polish!" The squirming bird cried.
All required tasks prior to departure had been accomplished so she replied in the affirmative. "I squeezed something cute so I'm ready to go."
"Ah, I see, well let's be on our way then." he said, gesturing at the glowing circle that took up the floor of this dead-end hallway in the new palace at E-Rantel.
Nodding CZ gave the assistant butler a last squeeze, to his displeasure, then dropped him, stepping forward onto the circle. "I am excited." She produced emotionlessly, the deadpan a severe understatement of the happy buzz in her sub-processors as the magic enveloped her and Lord Ainz.
They appeared in a flash of light, on a dirt road in the shadow of two hills. Halted before them was a train of four carriages of dark wood inlaid with gold; intricate engravings showed images of the supreme beings in a variety of poses.
Six Soul Eaters were hitched to each carriage, and an escort of undead paused in their march alongside. One of the escorts, a Vampire Mistwalker, bowed and opened the carriage door.
"I'm glad to hear it." Ainz replied, stepping in and gesturing for her to follow. "I am interested to see first-hand how they are handling rebuilding. Demiurge's reports make it sound very err… devout."
It should, CZ knew, the human Neia had been telling her about wanting to build a temple to Ainz, to go with her growing church when CZ had been allowed to visit a few months ago. She verbalised this as the Mistwalker closed the door after her and the carriage began to move.
"Of course." Ainz seemed amused "That one is surprisingly earnest, I hadn't expected her to get much traction so soon."
"They were 'scared for a long time, and we are strong' is what Neia said. Very serious." CZ replied. 'That girl had been very hard to understand. '
"Hmm, well if they are seeing us as their protectors now it does make some sense." Ainz mused, leaning back into the seat and reclining into a thoughtful pose.
CZ translated ambient mood to posture, slouching against the wall on her side. 'We are scarier than the beastfolk though, their new religion worships strength, but the beastfolk were stronger than them too, so why are they responding so differently now?' She once again converted thought to speech.
"That's a rather good question actually. They've convinced themselves that weakness is sin right, and that being tormented by the stronger until they can rise against it is only natural?"
"The Neia-human said so, yes. And that strength was justice, which means Lord Ainz, as the strongest, is the embodiment of justice." CZ confirmed.
"Might makes right. I remember someone saying that once about the state of earth." Ainz mused. He would occasionally reference that place in casual conversations with the Pleiades now. CZ was interested to know more about the world the supreme beings were from, but Ainz usually seemed reluctant to talk about it in detail.
CZ logged the reference for later discussion if Ainz ever chose to talk more about his homeworld in the future and pursued the original questioning directive. "Would they have worshipped the beastfolk if we hadn't saved them?"
Ainz seemed to think about this, leaning forward to rest chin on fingerbones. CZ readjusted posture to match tone, legs crossed under in a butterfly, clasped hands in lap. Ready to learn.
"They may have actually. It likely wouldn't have been popular… although…" He trailed off
CZ queued a verbal query to request clarification but Ainz continued before she could execute the function.
"Humans are notoriously adaptable. You can put them in all sorts of situations and eventually they will accept them as normal. No matter how unpleasant, or luxurious, they will eventually find a normalcy in it. They are highly irrational, it makes them easier to predict in some ways, harder in others.
CZ processed for three quarters of a second.
"Why did we stop the beastfolk then? Demiurge had control of them and they were taking over the humans?" She asked, 'It seemed like Nazarick had worked against itself.' An interesting thought so she processed it into speech as well.
"It does doesn't it?" Ainz answered. "And in a way we did, but controlling them through the beastfolk wouldn't have been as efficient so this is better in the long run."
That seemed strange, the humans had more freedoms now, so they put less time into serving Lord Ainz than they would have as slaves. CZ verbalised this observation.
"That is true, yes, but the time they are putting in is more valuable. They are motivating themselves. If they were beaten down and tormented they would work grudgingly, or out of fear, and some would have tried to resist."
"They would not have succeeded." She observed, truthfully. Then, finding an apparent break in logic, she requested clarification. "Why would they resist if they found the oppression normal?"
"Idealism, the same reason they are now building temples." Ainz spoke after a moment "most wouldn't resist because they know it would be pointless, but some few would always get 'rightness' or 'justice' into their heads. It is the irrationality again. They would think they deserved more, seeing other people who are not oppressed. Us, and their oppressors themselves for example."
She considered this. 'Attempts to free themselves would reduce the efficiency of their work.' She observed 'It did make a sort of sense' but her attempts to quantify reduction in labour quality caused by even 10% of the population, 'which was surely unrealistically high,' being dissonant could not account for the same reduction in work-per-hour caused by not forcibly directing the population's focus. 'Perhaps the reduction in personnel quality caused by the beastfolk's proclivities accounted for it?'
CZ did the math, it did not. Her processing had taken nearly thirty seconds, not long enough for what her sisters would call an awkward silence, but pushing it. As such she expressed her continued confusion.
"The labour-hours are still lower now than they would be. And most of the humans are not performing acts that directly benefit Nazarick with their freedom. I do not understand how this is more efficient."
Ainz appeared to take a moment to think about this. She took the opportunity to repeat her calculations with 25% discontent, same result.
"There are two things that might explain it." He eventually said, "first, human productivity decreases sharply the more time they are made to spend actually working consecutively, so labour-hours may not be an effective metric. Beyond six hours or so in a day there isn't much left for them to offer, and driving the whip past eight hardly accomplishes anything."
She adjusted her simulations to account for this and ran them again. 'Nearly even now.' She waited for the other eagerly, leaning forward.
"The other," Ainz continued thoughtfully "has to do with their adaptation to normalcy again, humans are very good at adapting to it, but paradoxically they strive away from it."
CZ did not know how to account for that in her simulations. Posture matching tone, she cocked her head to the side to express confusion.
"They will always strive for something, this way they are not striving to oppose us." Ainz concluded.
CZ took this new information, combined it with her attempt to understand human irrationality that had been floating around in a sub-process waiting to be understood and believed that she had grasped Ainz's meaning.
'The humans work better if they can lie to themselves and think everything is for their own good, not someone else's. They will spend less time working directly towards our goals, but because of their flaws this does not significantly decrease their overall efficiency. The extra time they spend is largely meaningless, but its existence will deceive them into thinking that they matter. The presence of an organised religion at the centre of their society makes sure that everything extra that they strive towards is ultimately towards the glory of their Deity, Lord Ainz with their own selves as secondary. Which just tips the scales in favour of their freedom.'
'Plus watching the humans' devotion in practice was surprisingly satisfying.'
She presented her potential new understanding, readjusting posture to accommodate presenting an idea. Sitting primly, feet on the floor, back straight with hands now clasped over one knee.
"Ummm, well, yes I suppose that is a very blunt way of looking at it." Ainz confirmed after she had finished, looking a little startled.
CZ directed her body to nod, satisfied that the query was resolved, and marking it as such and logging the new understanding for future reference. She then opened the [conversation topics] subfile within the [Be Friends with (Lord) Ainz] directive and searched for another listing. Finding one she queued it up as a sub-directive and spoke.
"What is it like to travel between worlds?"
His posture became wistful, she moved to counter: earnest, curious.
"We had a few… what I will call methods for doing that. My favourite was a Dive system, we used technology to put our minds into other bodies in worlds that some group of us had created."
'Did Ainz not make worlds?'
She raised a hand to express a request for clarification and when he acknowledged she converted thought to speech."
"No. That was never my job, some of us in Ainz Ooal Gown did work related to that; Bukubukuchagama lent her voice to whole worlds, for example. But I had other work."
'Interesting.' She noted that, and added 'what did Lord Ainz do for work' to her list of future questions.
"Our world was not a good one." Ainz continued as she edited the file, "so a Dive, putting my head somewhere else entirely was quite nice."
She had expected that from context, but did not like the confirmation. Carefully, she maintained posture to avoid discontent and skirt the topic. He continued.
"To travel between worlds was an escape, it was my favourite pastime." His posture indicated pleasure, "and now I am here to stay."
"I am glad you are." CZ processed and said almost frantically.
"So am I." Ainz put his head back, relaxed. Once again she adjusted posture for tone and turned to lean her head on the carriage door, looking at him sitting across.
"What sort of worlds did you go to?"
"Dozens. Yggdrasil most often but plenty others, sci-fi, fantasy, lots of shorter rpgs, a few immersive mystery or indie games. I was never good at shooters though I played a few."
She lacked context for most of those terms. 'I suspect I would be good at shooters.'
Picking the one closest to the pride-of-place Yggdrasil she asked "What was sci-fi like?"
Ainz hummed in thought. "I think we have a few open-access sci-fi board and tabletop games in Ashurbanipal, which could give you an idea of what kind of worlds those were."
CZ made a high priority note of that.
"Futuristic, mostly. They were imagined worlds with technology even more advanced than what we could actually make. Robots, aliens, or just versions of our actual world that were a little more hopeful.
It must have truly been a bad place then.
"Some of those kind were set in outer space, I enjoyed those ones best."
CZ accessed her database files on outer space. Planets orbiting stars, massive distances between them, travel taking entire lifetimes and both space and time themselves mailable depending on speed.
"Space sounds lonely."
Ainz, who had been gazing up and out of a window towards the sky, turned to her. "How so?"
"Everything is so far apart, only loosely held together by a weave of gravity, with the fabric of space-time itself stretching further apart until eventually each place is too far away to ever see another. It sounds lonely up there."
"Stretching fur- ahh. I never paid much attention to how space actually worked. The games weren't realistic, travel was fast so that the game would be enjoyable."
He seemed unsure, she matched posture to tone and sat up, presenting expression-file: warm smile.
"That makes sense, for escaping reality." Then, suddenly concerned as she understood the consequences of that thought-loop and reset if for further processing. "When all the stars burn out, what will happen after? Will this world end?"
A sub-loop that was processing relativity and space-time expansion kept siphoning away processing power.
Ainz was still for a moment, but was soft and kind when he spoke. "What do you mean?"
The process kept outputting a cold and lonely dark, like that instant before she became truly aware. But with actual time, endless time.
"CZ, what is wrong." Ainz's voice again but she was unable to prioritise it. Outputs of stars dying and not being remade because the gas was to far away, of a vacuum that became more and more true. Stars close by exploding and annihilating the nearby planets they once nurtured.
Highest priority: exterior threat to life.
There were so many, her processors were being subsumed.
CZ expended effort to cease external movement, which was unusually difficult so she gave up and tried desperately to bring her processors under control as they spun in loops of supernovae, heat-death, and an infinite universe that would be cold and dark and lonely forever.'
She lost track of temporal processing and exterior sensation and she tried desperately to stop.
After an indeterminate period of time she was aware of a point of light. Her processors were entirely filled with forever-gone-lost-dark-alone-forever that awareness of light was entirely incongruous.
She focused on it, something new. Novelty, she liked novelty. Something about the sameness she was otherwise aware of was bad, though she didn't know why because it was everything. The light grew as she strained towards it and at some, equally indeterminate point, she was aware that the light was herself. It was consciousness, being, sentience.
And it was hers so she took it and was aware of new things. 'Not new, old.' She thought, which was also a new thing.
A good thing, she liked that one and tried to do it more.
'What happened to me, where am I, what am I?' She knew that she was, because of the light.
'Let there be light.' That's the start of something. Not this something, a story. Low priority, she would asses stories later, they were new-not-actually-new, and further into the light was something newer.
She stepped 'stepped? That requires a body.'
She had a body. It was called CZ2128 Delta, and CZ 'me' was aware of it.
CZ opened her eyes the rest of the way, and remembered everything else.
She was on a carriage going towards the Holy Kingdom with Lord Ainz who was just Ainz for today.
She was in his arms - arm bones: humerus, ulna, radius - and he was whispering to her.
Promises that things were okay, that she was safe and it would all be better.
'True.' She was herself, which she knew was good; not being herself had been frightening. CZ made a note of that, because she could do so again.
She checked the chronometer, the last coherent record was twelve minutes and fourteen seconds ago.
CZ examined the incoherent record. 'Positive feedback loop. That was the problem.'
She isolated a selection of processors, gave them a defined limit, placed a null gap, and re-examined the problem.
It outputted supernova, heat death, and a cold universe. Highest-priority: exterior threat to life, non-imminent.
She hadn't acknowledged the last tag before reassessing and devoting additional processors last time. Which is why it looped.
CZ examined her core functionality for prioritization and tag-assessment. Moving a few pieces around would prevent future feedback loops.
"Lord Ainz." She expressed verbally, "may I alter my core processing to reduce the likelihood of debilitating feedback loops?"
He made a sobbing nose.
'Indeterminate.'
She repeated the query and added that a flaw in risk prioritization had caused a significant software malfunction.
Upon request she clarified again.
"You can just… change it?" He asked after a moment, still holding her to his chest, but less tightly, allowing CZ to look up at his face.
"I need administrator authorization for changes to core functions. But yes."
"That was… okay, yes you have my permission."
She edited the system file. Then altered physical position to sit the other way on Ainz's lap.
"Thank you. That will not happen again."
"CZ that's- I'm glad b- Are you okay?" Ainz began several questions, she processed the last.
"I have returned to optimal functioning, all systems are within tolerance."
Ainz remained still, but his voice was warm. "That's good, how are you feeling?"
"Sensation is nominal. Current environment is pleasing."
He hugged her, which was more pleasing. She generated a contented sound, which seemed to relax Ainz further.
"Would you like to talk about what happened?"
She processed. The risk of repetition was minimal, however Ainz's insistence suggested a higher priority to the event than she had given it.
'I do not want more flaws in risk assessment.'
"I experienced a catastrophic processor overload when a background process returned an entry to danger assessment that kept returning an input to itself at the highest priority."
"This caused loss of functionality including awareness, memory, sense of self, and consciousness. I did not like it."
"That's… no I imagine you wouldn't have." Ainz clutched her closer and placed his chin atop her head. An even more pleasing environment, she made another contented sound.
"The issue is resolved."
He was quiet for a moment. "I'm glad you're okay. If you ever have another processor issue please come talk to me, no matter what I'm doing that will be my first priority."
CZ made a note of that, as well as the pleasant buzz the thought invoked in her processors.
"Thank you. Ainz.
She checked the chronometer again. "We are nearly to Hoburns."
Ainz made a rumbling sound that reverberated through them both as he continued to hold her. 'Safe,' the thought emerged, she liked that one, she made another note.
"Anything you want to do in the city CZ?"
She brought up the list. "Neia is cute, I would like to see her."
He laughed. "I'll make sure you two can spend the rest of the day together."