My Castle received a visitor.
Honestly, I was not in the mood this time. There was no fun to be had.
This visitor was the most useless reincarnate to date. A do-nothing who leaves everything to somebody else.
"Ai, is that our target?"
"Yes, Master. There is no mistake."
The young man doing the talking had both hands shoved into the pockets of a long white coat, and the thing he was talking to was a silver cube hovering beside his face.
A red glowing orb was set into the middle of it.
The cube was about the size of two fists.
Its voice brought to mind an adult woman working a reception desk somewhere—mechanical in its delivery, yet perfectly smooth.
This young man had used the Goddess's Gift, [The Power to Have Any One Wish Granted], to obtain [a flawless partner who will never make a mistake and never betray me].
And what that came out as was this ancient weapon with an AI installed in it.
"Naming your AI 'Ai.' That is a lazy, unimaginative sense of naming and I really don't care for iiit."
I had propped an elbow on the armrest and sunk my cheek into my hand as I said it, and the master of the ancient weapon was thrown.
Nobody had addressed him. He had simply been made to overhear himself being discussed as a passing remark, and he had no idea how to react.
And in the middle of all that, I let another remark drop.
"An ancient weapon, and yet it carries a slick near-future AI. The Goddess really is nonsense, isn't she."
This reincarnate had made such an extraordinarily vague wish that the Goddess herself had been obliged to give it shape.
As a rule, once the Goddess's Gift has been bestowed on someone, the Goddess plays no part in the wish it grants.
But in the case of a vague wish like this one, it gets kicked back up to her, and she is the one who works out the specifics.
For appearances' sake, a backstory had been attached: in the ancient era civilization had risen to extraordinary heights, that civilization perished long ago, and this ancient weapon survives as a relic of it.
Tacked on in the most literal sense. In reality this ancient weapon had been produced on the spot only a few days ago.
"Hey! Don't talk about the Goddess like that!"
"Oh, so you're devoted to her, are you. Now I don't like you either."
According to the information my omniscience turns up, the Goddess had done some soul-searching over having produced a creature as thoroughly vicious as me, and had revised how she treats her reincarnates.
Though the hatred directed at her from God—the being above her—was already maxed out. Far too late for that.
"Ai, take him down! Method's up to you!"
The master of the ancient weapon had abruptly worked up some killing intent.
He had been hit where it hurt, gotten embarrassed, and simply wanted the situation to change—and yet there he stood, glaring at me with the eyes of a man driven by a grand sense of mission.
"Master, that order cannot be executed. No means of attack effective against the target can be found."
"What?! What is that supposed to mean?!"
"The target is [The Omniscient, Omnipotent, Strongest, Invincible, Absolutely Superior One]. No attack, by any being, is effective against the target."
It knew about me because the Goddess had loaded my information into the AI beforehand.
That was about the limit of what the Goddess could manage. She has half given up on ever bringing me down.
"You've got to be kidding! Then what am I supposed to do?!"
"Master, there is nothing to be done. What will you do? Please issue an order."
"No—that's what I'm asking you. Tell me what to do."
At which point I let a click of my tongue ring out across the room.
The ancient weapon and its master both turned to look at me.
"Hey. Can I just delete the pair of you now? If you're going to do something, could you get on with it? There are people standing in front of me who mean me harm and I am still, as you can see, waiting for them."
In his panic, the master of the ancient weapon effectively ignored me and put his question to the weapon instead, his voice climbing.
"Ai, okay—what are the odds we can get away?"
"Master, that is unknown. It cannot be calculated without confirming with the target. If the target states that he will not let you escape, the probability of escape is zero percent."
The master of the ancient weapon flicked a glance in my direction.
I was under no obligation to answer anything this staggeringly rude. I answered anyway.
"I'm not letting you escape. Absolutely not."
Once again the master of the ancient weapon gave me no reply and went straight back to conferring with the weapon.
"Ai, can we attack anyway? Nothing to lose."
"Yes, Master. Attacking is possible."
"And slip away while he's busy with that?"
"Master, that is impossible."
"Is there any chance at all we take him down?"
"Master, that is impossible."
"What if we don't attack? Would he go easy on us?"
"Master, your intent to attack has already been conveyed to him. If you now reverse that intent out of concern for your own safety, the probability is high that the outcome will not change."
The master of the ancient weapon deliberated in silence for a while, then made his decision.
"Enough! Ai, concentrate all firepower on the target!"
"Yes, Master."
Out in the badlands of Nation N, an enormous robot came crawling up out of the ground.
Then the armor plating over its chest folded away, pushing a gun barrel out from within, and from that barrel it fired an ultra-high-density energy beam.
Some distance from there, a set of doors covering the ground swung open.
Two nuclear missiles launched out of the opening.
And far above My Castle, beyond the sky, a weapon sitting in the planet's satellite orbit fired an enormously thick laser.
"Haaah..."
Yeah. I really don't like this guy.
I caught every one of the attacks in warp holes, and warped all of them into this room in My Castle—the throne room.
Light, heat and sound utterly beyond reason blew Ai the ancient weapon and its master out of existence.
Naturally, my pet Mofu and I were shielded by a barrier and came through without a scratch.
The room itself is kept in an indestructible state, so no matter who—other than me—brings what kind of overwhelming force to bear, it will not take so much as a mark.
The way I felt just then was like going to a fireworks festival for the atmosphere of the thing, and being cheated out of it when an accident set off every last shell at once.
Afterward, I dropped a monolith—a black mass twenty kilometers tall, cut to the shape of the country—onto Nation N, the homeland of the master of the ancient weapon.