The Hidden World

“Why are you here?” Erica asked Yuki as he shut the door behind him. “And where’s Akira?”

“Akira is right here,” Yuki replied and with those words, Akira materialized in front of them. “And I was planning to live here.”

“Hi, Erica,” Akira greeted.

“Hi. You were planning to live here?” she said to Yuki.

“Yes.”

“Oh.”

Yuki glanced around the room and saw a plate of food on the counter in the kitchen and a television in the living room that was on but muted.

“Were you living here already?” Yuki asked.

“Well, yes,” she said. “I thought that since no one would be using this place, I could use for myself. I have nowhere else to go.”

“Then we’ll be sharing then,” Yuki replied. “This place is big enough for three people. From what I’ve seen, it could easily fit five.”

“Oh, that would be perfect then,” Erica said, relief in her voice.

“Did you think I was going to kick you out?”

“Well. No. Maybe.”

“I wouldn’t do that to you,” Yuki told her. “There is no reason for me to and I know about your situation. How many bedrooms are in this house?”

“Two,” Erica answered, counting off with her fingers. “But they are fairly large rooms.”

“Then you can have one and I’ll share the second one with Akira,” Yuki decided. “Or do you want to sleep somewhere else, Akira?”

“No that’s fine,” she replied.

Yuki nodded and went to the back of the building. One of the doors was already opened and when he peeked inside, was obviously in use. He went to the other room and looked around. When he was satisfied, he came back out to the living room.

“Everything seems fine,” he said. “Akira, we can put out things away later. Let’s get to business first now that Erica is here.”

He reached into his pocket and took out a small device, placing it on the coffee table. Then he pressed a button and it began to glow. Soon, a ball of golden spheres was projected out of it.

“Erica, meet Uriel,” Yuki said.

“Hello~,” Uriel greeted, the ball pulsated as she spoke. “I’ve never met you before.”

“Hi,” Erica replied slowly. “What are you?”

“I’m the big brains of this whole operation,” Uriel said proudly.

“She means she’s an AI,” Yuki told Erica.

“You have an AI,” Erica blinked.

“Yes.”

“Who are you again?” Uriel asked. “What do you do? And what’s your relationship with Akira and Yuki?”

“Oh, I’m Erica.”

“I know that.”

“I’m Yuki’s friend?” Erica said hesitantly. She peeked at Yuki who shrugged. “Yeah, I’m Yuki’s friend. I also am the manager of her guild.”

‘Yeah, I guess she is,’ Yuki thought, nodding.

“Her?” Uriel repeated. “And guild? When did Yuki make a guild?”

“I let Erica refer to me as whatever pronoun she wanted,” Yuki answered. “And I made a guild only about two days ago so of course you wouldn’t know about it.”

“I’m sure I would have noticed it if it was registered into the GMD,” Uriel said.

“Well, this guild isn’t exactly legal.”

“Oh. That would explain a lot.”

“Let’s back a bit,” Erica interrupted. “Yuki, how do you have an AI?”

“I made it,” he replied.

“I’m not even going to ask,” she sighed. “Anyway. Why did you introduce her to me?”

“Well, she’s going to be the eighth member of our guild,” Yuki explained. “As she said, she’s going to be the brains of the operation with me working with her. Akira will be helping as well.”

“Oh,” Erica nodded. Then she paused for a bit. “Wait, then what exactly is she going to be doing?”

“She’ll be doing some morally questionable things and report back to us.”

“I love doing morally questionable things,” Uriel commented.

“They mean illegal things. I think hacking,” Akira translated to a confused looking Erica.

“Hacking what?” she asked.

“Businesses, government servers, anything that might give us an edge really,” Yuki said. “This is going to be how I assign all of the other members their duties. At least until I can make some plans. Whatever Uriel can’t reach, I’ll be using the other guild members to gather the information personally.”

“Oh, I see,” Erica nodded. “But why are you so focused on information gathering? We don’t need to know everything to make things difficult for the Shikaku.”

“That is true,” Yuki admitted. “But that’s only if we ignore some of the benefits of gathering as much information as we can. First, we’ll be more prepared and I’m sure you already know that. The main reason I want information is because we need a stable source of income.”

“Income?”

“What do you mean by that, Yuki?” Akira asked.

“If we can offer people information then what do you think is going to happen?” Yuki said.

“Oh, so we’re going to monetize information,” Akira realised. “That seems like a wonderful plan.”

“We’re going to get people to buy information from us?” Erica asked.

“Essentially. If we collect information and have constant sources of information then we can make it our main product in a sense,” Yuki explained. “Information is one of the main types of currency in the world. And one of the most valuable.”

“So the more information we have, the more we can sell. And that’s why you want to gather as much as you can,” Erica summarized.

“Along with the preparation part, yes.”

Yuki turned to look at the floating mass of particles in the middle of the living room.

“Uriel, I want you to basically go over everything you can get your hands on and if you run into any troubles just tell me,” Yuki instructed.

“I don’t have hands but I gotcha,” she replied. “Do you want a drink with that?”

“Akira, you can help with whatever Uriel offloads to me,” Yuki continued, ignoring Uriel. “And Erica. Here.”

He snapped his fingers and a box materialized in front of him. He picked it up and handed it to Erica

“These are the communicators,” he explained. “There are four in there. I have one and Akira already has one. They are all connected together so we can talk to each other and they are connected to Uriel as well. So if you have any questions for her, you can just ask.”

“Not that I have to answer,” Uriel piped up. “My permissions do not require that I obey anything other than what Yuki or Akira say. I’ll help when I feel like it or when Yuki or Akira tells me too.”

“Yeah,” Yuki nodded. “Erica, you’ll be giving these to each of the members. How long do you think that would take?”

“An hour or two?” she estimated. “I’ll be back in time for lunch. Then we can go get something to eat.”

“Alright then. See you in a couple of hours.”