Even for Adah, it was easy to forget that most mascots weren’t bound to magic users. They were a race of tens of thousands, and only a small portion of them served alongside magical girls and boys. As such, it wasn’t impossible for Elise to have some kind of relationship with a mascot despite not being a magical girl herself. Given her long involvement with the Department of Magic, perhaps Adah should have even expected her to know one.
As for the fact that mascot was one of the Keteriel, time would tell if it was mere coincidence or not. Adah was glad to be aware of Kodriel’s involvement either way.
“You know each other already,” Elise said, looking between Kodriel and Izzy. “That’s good. Kodriel has been my sounding board throughout this process. When I had questions about how mascots function or think, he would provide answers, which would then inform our behavioral predictions. Interestingly, it was the discrepancies in behavior that neither a human nor mascot perspective could explain which proved most useful.”
Elise was eager to continue her explanation of her system that she rushed right through any introduction of the little lion by her side. That was fine for now—anything Adah actually wanted to know about Kodriel was better discussed with Elise in private.
“For example,” Elise continued, “it was critical to understand how the Cruelties are organized. Are they independent beings operating of their own will? Do they follow commands within an organizational hierarchy? Or are they a collective driven by the thinking of a hive mind? Our data revealed patterns that precluded the possibility of them being individual operatives, so we ruled that option out, but we lacked any insights beyond that. However, once we identified aspects of their behavior that didn’t align with either human or mascot cognition, we were able to narrow the scope of our predictions dramatically. Through a process of elimination, we soon reached a reliable theory for this question, as well.”
“And what’s that?” Adah asked. She had gotten used to the flow of Elise’s conversation now, and could sense when the woman was about to pause to wait for acknowledgment. Perhaps that was Adah’s own predictive model at work.
“We have been calling it ‘The Library,’” Kodriel answered.
“Yes,” Elise agreed. “I hesitate to refer to it as a real hive mind. Our theory, which has held true thus far, is that there exists a central network of some kind. That network is the actual ‘living being’ that operates behind the individual manifestations that attack our world. Like a library, this network is full of all the knowledge that the Cruelties have accumulated—knowledge of what forms they can create, of the creatures they prey upon, of the worlds they invade, and so on. Rather than ‘thinking,’ as we understand it, we believe information is pulled from The Library through a manual process.”
Grace held up a hand as if she was a student and said, “Where is this all taking place? This is all happening before a Cruelty spawns into our world, right?”
“Precisely,” Elise said. “The Library is unlikely to be a physical place, or even a plane of existence such as that which the mascots inhabit. We have chosen to think of it as a plane in and of itself. The Library is the plane and the plane is The Library. It’s a complete and perfect isolation of cognition, which is why it has been so difficult to understand until now.”
“Until now, huh?” Grace said, raising an eyebrow. “Well, go on. I’m sure it’ll make more sense later.”
Elise nodded and picked up where she left off, “The following is an inaccurate metaphor, but we found it useful during our research. You can imagine there are drones—nothing more than empty shells—wandering The Library at all times. They pull information from the shelves and combine it, with every drone always guided by a singular purpose: acquire more essence. These drones create the Cruelties we know, which are amalgams of the information they had pulled, ultimately constructed in our world through the use of magic essence. This is why I don’t consider it a hive mind. There is no thought process being dispersed to the drones and no individual operators contributing to a collective. The drones simply follow their singular directive, which they execute as though computing an ever-changing mathematical formula.”
Elise looked as satisfied as a kid showing off a perfect test score to their parents, but Adah felt as confused as Grace was.
“So the monsters we fight,” she said, “those are different from the drones? Or The Library, or whatever?”
“Correct,” Elise said. “Though, again, we don’t believe there are actual drones. It is only a means of conceptualizing.”
“Sure, whatever,” Adah said. “But that can’t be right either, can it? The Cruelties that show up in our world are also capable of learning. They change how they fight in the middle of a battle. Doesn’t that ruin your whole library idea?”
“Your observation is correct but not your conclusion,” Elise said. “The manifestations you fight can change their behavior, but only within limits. They won’t continue to act in a way that results in being damaged or exposing their core, of course, but it is merely a survival instinct. It’s first order thinking inherited from their essence. It has nothing to do with The Library’s cognition. The Library provides the overarching strategy, and it is responsible for the changes you notice from one Cruelty encounter to the next. This distinction between micro and macro behavior is another insight humanity can use to its advantage.”
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“Something like evolution versus on-the-fly adaptation?” Adah asked.
“If you’d like to think of it that way,” Elise answered.
Adah was beginning to doubt her own cognitive process after listening to Elise for this long. Why was it that any time she learned anything about the Cruelties, those lessons only earned her a dozen more questions?
“No need to memorize it all,” Elise said, perhaps after seeing both Adah and Grace furrow their brows. “I will send your office the same report I shared with Secretary Sirk. It details our methodology and findings. Please feel free to contact me with any questions as you review it.”
Adah was grateful for that, although her heart sunk at the same time. No doubt this report would be as thick as a textbook. At least it’d be easier to share with the other coalition teams than trying to repeat everything Elise had said today.
Before diving into that report, Adah had one question in particular she needed an answer to right now. Elise’s answer would determine the course of Adah’s plans.
“With this analysis of yours,” Adah said, “is it possible to know ahead of time when and where the humanoid Cruelties will appear?”
Elsie tilted her head to the side and thought for a moment.
“The success of that S-Rank may have changed their plans, but at worst, we’ll require a short period to recalibrate our system. It should be possible. What do you intend to do with that information, Adah?”
"I’d like to do some research of my own,” Adah said.
☆☆☆
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Rika asked.
The fact that the twins kept quiet likely meant they had similar thoughts, and were choosing to let Rika speak for them.
This was more or less the reaction Adah expected after explaining her plan. After all, she’d already gone through this discussion once before with Grace. Her manager had been much more vocal about her distaste for the plan, however. Yet, if Adah’s thinking eventually managed to convince Grace, surely it could do the same for Rika and the twins.
In short, Adah wanted to encounter another humanoid Cruelty. Her experiment with Ekki and her conversation with Elise had illuminated some of the mystery of these new Cruelties, and she wanted to get a fresh look at one with that new knowledge in mind.
But after what had happened to Desiire, her teammates were right to hesitate in backing her up.
“It won’t be like the S-Rank,” Adah said to the other girls. “Elise says that the Cruelties are still creating their ‘tests’—those one-off variants in isolated places, like the one we saw with Ketzia. In fact, I was thinking we’d wait for one to appear near Ketzia and bring her along. Just to be safe.”
“Why though?” Ami asked. “We already know what they plan to do with those things. We just need to get ready to fight them.”
“This will help us fight them,” Adah said, “and maybe help us put a stop to them entirely. Assuming these test variants are safer than what we saw last week, then this is a chance to study our opponent without putting ourselves in danger. There might come a time when the Cruelties stop experimenting, when the only humanoids they create are those meant for fighting. We’ve got to learn everything we can before that point.”
Ami and Emi shared a look as they processed Adah’s idea in tandem. They were quiet while they thought things through, but Rika was ready with another question—one that Adah knew was coming.
“By ‘putting a stop to them,’ you mean doing something with those portals,” Rika said. “Don’t you?”
Rika had been the only one with Adah that day they fought the bat Cruelty. She had seen Adah’s reaction the first time she’d pierced a portal with her scythe and, now that the two of them had a relationship that went beyond being teammates, felt an extra wariness toward conducting another experiment of that nature. Add onto that the visions Adah had experienced recently, and Rika might have preferred if her partner didn’t use her weapon at all anymore.
However, they both understood that wasn’t an option.
“After that S-Rank, we can almost say for sure that the portals are required to spawn the humanoids,” Adah said. “If the Cruelties had a better way of creating them, surely an S-Rank would’ve been capable of it. Understanding the portals is key to understanding the humanoids.”
“You’re not wrong,” Rika admitted while massaging her forehead with her fingertips. “But let’s be as careful with the portals as we would with the Cruelty itself.”
Adah nodded, though both she and Rika understood the truth of their situation. Nothing they did involving the humanoids would ever truly be safe. A single one of those monsters had taken out three boys with FP levels twenty times higher than any member of the Last Light. The best the girls could do was to mitigate their risk, but if they wanted to play any part in defeating the Cruelties, they’d need to be comfortable with greater degrees of danger.
As for their FP, that was another means of reducing their risk, and another problem Adah was brewing up plans to fix.
While Adah and Rika watched each other, Emi made a suggestion Adah was sure she’d misheard.
“We should bring Clair with us,” the twin said.
“Clair?” Adah repeated. “Like Soulslip Clair? From DreamRise?”
Emi ran her fingers through her hair, slipping some behind her right ear, on the side unsecured by hairpins. Although her sister still wore her hair just above her shoulders, Emi had recently allowed hers to grow out several inches longer.
“What if Clair uses her spell on one of those things?” she said. “If she gets into one of their heads, will she see something different than with a normal Cruelty?”
Truthfully, it was an idea Adah should have thought of herself. She had been so eager to learn what she could about the Cruelties through Ekki’s spells, but had never considered the potential of Clair’s. That may have been due in part to the attitude of the girl those spells belonged to.
“I can put up with Iris,” Ami said, “but that girl’s too much. She treated you like shit, Emi, and she won’t even acknowledge it. And whenever all our teams hang out, she acts like it’s a big pain in the ass. Did she ever even tell anyone ‘good job’ or ‘thanks’ after the hydra fight? Nah, she wouldn’t help us even if we asked.”
Emi shook her head and said, “If I ask her, she’ll do it.”
Ami frowned, but her sister looked resolute in her suggestion. It was a good idea, any misgivings about Clair aside, and even Ami had to acknowledge that.
“If we invite one of them, we’ll have to invite all of them,” Rika said.
Including that two-tailed cat. Iosk would want to observe this experiment like he had with Ekki’s portals.
“Ketzia doesn’t have enough rooms for that many of you,” Grace said.
“No problem,” Adah said. “I doubt those three are going to want to spend the night. Not after they meet our host.”
“If they do,” Ami said, “they can sleep under the stars. Ketzia can light them on fire—I mean, light them a fire—to keep ‘em warm.”
If they were discussing logistics, then they must have already accepted they were going through with Adah’s plan. It was time to find out just how reliable Elise’s new system was.