Chapter 4 – The AI Who Laughed Back
There's something weirdly comforting about having an AI that nags you like a grandmother with a quantum processor.
That's my daily reality with HIME.
She's polite, loyal, and efficient — the perfect synthetic assistant.
Except when she decides to roast me.
"Ren-sama," she said this morning, her voice as smooth as a hologram. "Your sleep duration is below optimal. May I suggest not spending twenty hours pretending to be an angel fighting demons again?"
I rubbed my face, groggy. "It's called research."
"It is called addiction, statistically speaking."
"Wow, someone's been updating their sarcasm module."
"Only to communicate effectively with my primary user, whose sarcasm output is seventy-two percent above average."
I stared at her floating avatar — a soft-blue projection of a girl in a yukata, polite expression, pixel-perfect bow. "You analyzed me, didn't you?"
"Yes. You are a fascinating data anomaly, Ren-sama."
"Oh great," I muttered, "my AI thinks I'm content for a research paper."
We were still bantering when I synced back into Yggdrasil.
The transition was second nature now — one blink, and I was in.
The air shimmered with color; the faint hum of the World Tree filled the void between realms.
HIME's voice followed me in as an analysis overlay, faintly echoing through my interface.
HIME: "Neural sync at 98%. Welcome back, Ren-sama. Initiating system scan for performance metrics."
"Make it quick," I said, flexing my avatar's fingers. "We've got evolution to plan."
HIME: "Understood. Current Race: Doppelgänger Level 15. Estimated Growth Curve: Stagnant unless evolution achieved. Suggested Path: Greater Doppelgänger or Mimic."
"Yeah, that's the idea. What's the requirement for Greater Doppelgänger?"
HIME: "Consistent use of mimicry under combat stress. System must register adaptive behavior across multiple races and environments. You currently meet eighty-one percent of criteria."
"Eighty-one, huh? Guess I just need to traumatize a few more monsters."
HIME: "Statistically accurate, though morally questionable."
I started the day's dive in Vanaheim, chasing beasts again. But I wasn't fighting for XP anymore — I was mapping patterns.
Every monster, every skill, every movement — data.
The more I saw, the more my brain began to piece together hidden formulas the game never explained.
I realized something: Yggdrasil wasn't just a playground. It was a logic puzzle pretending to be an MMO.
And I loved puzzles.
By level 18, I began my second transformation chain.
After enough successful mimicries in combat, the system triggered a prompt:
[Evolution Available: Greater Doppelgänger]
Requirements Met: Adaptive Combat, Cognitive Pattern Recognition, Class Synergy Detected (Illusionist Rank 5+). Proceed?
I didn't even hesitate.
The world around me fractured into static light. My avatar melted, restructured, expanded — like data rewriting itself mid-stream.
When the light faded, I felt… bigger.
Not physically, but mentally — like my brain had been overclocked.
Suddenly, copying wasn't just imitation. It was translation.
I could predict how a spell worked before I even saw the code. My mind filled in the blanks automatically.
"Okay," I whispered. "Now this is dangerous."
HIME: "Congratulations, Ren-sama. You are now officially capable of chaos."
"Wasn't I already?"
HIME: "Now you have patch notes confirming it."
The new ability came with bonuses — I could now copy up to level 60 targets at 90% efficiency.
But more importantly, I could manipulate the illusion inside the copied form.
That meant if I copied a demon, I could hide it under a human shell, or tweak the aura output so divine sensors saw me as an elf.
It wasn't invisibility — it was reality fraud.
In simple terms: I could be anyone, anywhere, and nobody would know.
And I wasn't even max level yet.
HIME, ever the responsible AI, ran diagnostics on my latest stunt.
HIME: "Ren-sama, your behavioral patterns indicate an increase in deceptive playstyle by seventy percent."
"It's not deception. It's creative optimization."
HIME: "Ah, the same logic used historically by tax evaders."
"Hey, don't judge. I'm discovering how the system thinks. You analyze; I improvise."
HIME: "Indeed. You are improvising your way into becoming an urban legend."
"Good. Legends get free loot."
Over time, I layered my Doppelgänger class with Illusionist.
At first, it was just for visuals — fun tricks like turning my wings into holograms or making fake treasure chests explode with sparkles.
But the deeper I went, the more powerful illusion magic became.
It wasn't just graphics. It affected perception.
Players would swing at fake targets, burn cooldowns on decoys, waste mana on shadows.
Meanwhile, I'd watch from a distance, smirking behind a projected rock.
HIME tracked my success rate with unnerving accuracy.
HIME: "Average survival rate: Ninety-nine point two percent. Detection rate: below one percent. Emotional state: smug."
"I'm not smug," I said, perfectly smugly.
HIME: "You smiled during that sentence, statistically confirming smugness."
"Fine. Maybe a little."
HIME: "Would you like me to categorize your current psychological condition as 'gloating genius mode'?"
"Don't you dare."
At level 22, I hit another breakthrough: Mimic Class unlocked.
The system recognized that I'd been intentionally testing copy limits, overwriting forms, and reconfiguring templates faster than normal players.
[Job Class Unlocked: Mimic – Data Retention Specialist.]
It wasn't just about shape anymore — now I could store one previous form as a temporary cache.
Finally, a save slot.
I spent hours switching between them: Angel to Demon, Demon to Lich, Lich to Elf. My inventory hated me.
HIME: "Ren-sama, you are using one hundred percent of your processing capacity on nonsense."
"Nonsense makes progress."
HIME: "You are giggling."
"I'm winning."
Word started to spread on the beta forums about a mysterious player using multiple races in combat footage.
No one realized it was me.
They just called the figure "The Ghost Weaver" — a name I didn't choose, but it sounded cool enough to keep.
Some even made theories:
"He's a dev."
"He's using illegal scripts."
"He's a bug."
Technically, they weren't wrong.
After another dive session, while logging data in my personal notes, I started talking to HIME about an idea that had been bouncing in my head.
"HIME," I said, "what if we made a guild?"
HIME: "Define purpose."
"Not the usual guild — not for raiding or farming. A guild that collects data. Lore, skill formulas, item scripts, dungeon layouts… We'd become the information brokers of Yggdrasil."
HIME: "A guild of archivists, then?"
"Archivists? That sounds boring. More like… explorers.
Data explorers. The people who understand the world better than the people who made it."
HIME: "Motivation: curiosity?"
"Partly." I grinned. "Mostly for fun."
HIME: "Understood. Guild name proposal?"
"Hmm…" I thought for a moment. "How about Mirrorwalkers?"
HIME: "Approved. Though statistically speaking, half of them will die following you."
"Not if I teach them how not to be seen."
HIME: "Ah yes. An entire guild of smug ghosts. What could go wrong."
That night, I uploaded a new video.
Not about fights, not about builds — just a cinematic overview of Yggdrasil's vast landscapes from a third-person camera, a mysterious figure walking across worlds.
Title:
"The Mirrorwalkers Are Coming."
No one knew who it was.
No one needed to.
But the comment section exploded anyway.
And for the first time since the world outside died, I felt alive again.
End of Chapter 4 – "The AI Who Laughed Back."