Chapter Thirty-Six: Memories of the Greenwood

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This is a memory of “violence.”

Although these files have been damaged, the images themselves filled with static and snow, the noise spreading everywhere, even the accompanying audio has deteriorated.

And yet blood vessels and flames, manic laughter and screams, can still be identified with perfect accuracy by a biological brain.

This is a memory of “harm.”

Brawls, fistfights, armed clashes, battles to the death...

Overwhelming victories, sweeping victories, decisive triumphs, easy victories, narrow victories, hard-won victories...

Bloody battles, duels, grueling campaigns, desperate struggles...

And defeats, setbacks, broken campaigns...

As well as crushing losses, crushing losses, crushing losses, crushing losses...

The kind of crushing defeat that leaves you with only one life remaining.

There was no doubt about it: all of this was fascinating.

And then there was the killing that accompanied it.

Driving a weapon into an enemy’s skull in a fair duel.

Using a surprise attack to destroy an enemy’s power system.

Disabling an enemy’s sensory prosthetics in a desperate counterattack.

Draining an enemy’s energy reserves in the mud, then chopping off his head with the final stroke.

Ah, of course—not only enemies, but also those “prey.”

Men, women, the elderly, children, pariahs, aristocrats...

Ravaging them. Ravaging them. Ravaging them.

Those feeble men could be made into construction machines or defensive turrets. Women could be turned into premium dolls or breeding machines. The elderly could have their memories uploaded into a database. Children were somewhat less useful, but they could still replenish organic matter.

And more, more... destroying those possessions that could not be carried away, allowing the crystallization of human labor to be insulted and negated in my hands!

Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful...

Eat when hungry, sleep when tired, seize whatever you want, kill whenever you grow impatient. What did the majesty of the “Father of All Machines” have to do with us?

This was the best of times. We were all free people.

Free...

—Go to hell! You call this freedom?

A gigantic “ERROR” covered his field of vision. Xiang Shan’s emotional fluctuations had grown too intense. The drive chip read the command and terminated the memory playback.

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Xiang Shan’s vision returned.

This was the Mountain of Rubbish, the resource site on which the recycling-station town depended for its survival. Apart from the garbage dumped here in recent years, the overwhelming majority had been left behind during the so-called “Ascension War.”

This appeared to be the wreckage of a warship. Xiang Shan did not know which section it had been, but the enormous metal plate had formed a semi-enclosed space, so he did not have to worry about sand falling into his “skull.”

After all, cleaning this area was a troublesome task. No matter how advanced the hardware’s dustproofing technology had become in this era, it was impossible to ignore dust completely. Besides, for reasons unknown, Xiang Shan had seen very few living creatures other than humans so far. That at least spared him the trouble of “insect prevention.”

If a bug got into his brain, he would truly be unable to work.

Xiang Shan carefully pulled the data cable from his head, then closed his skull. Something so difficult to secure could not be left inside his cranial cavity. If Xiang Shan entered combat, he would inevitably undergo drastic changes in velocity over short intervals. The resulting acceleration would cause any inadequately secured hardware, such as a data cable, to swing about inside the cranial cavity, eventually damaging the biological brain.

The data cable was connected to Doctor Schultz’s repair terminal. The doctor seemed to have genuinely forgotten that he had ever lent out such a device. The rear of the terminal was connected to a memory-storage drive.

It contained Rafe’s memories.

Xiang Shan very much wanted to press his temples. But he quickly realized that his head had no living skin, and that things such as nerve plexuses and blood vessels did not exist there either. He simply could not relieve stress in that way.

In the end, Xiang Shan shook his head.

This was still the result of damage to the memory-storage device.

Hard drives recorded data through the reversal of magnetization. Put simply, a hard drive contained countless tiny magnets. The magnetic particles flipped the direction of their poles in response to injected current. Unless a new electromagnetic force was applied, that direction remained fixed. To a machine, the “direction” of a magnetic pole represented either “zero” or “one.”

“Zero” and “one” were the machine’s “everything.”

To increase a hard drive’s storage capacity, one either had to increase the drive’s physical size or reduce the size of its magnetic particles.

Shrinking the magnetic particles greatly improved storage density, but the side effect was that the particles became more vulnerable to external forces.

Inject energy, and those magnetic particles could be thrown into disorder. High temperatures and kinetic energy could both accomplish this.

Xiang Shan remembered that there was even a martial art that, after locating an enemy’s memory-storage device, could directly inject high-frequency oscillations into it and destroy the enemy’s memories. This was precisely the principle behind the “Zhou Po-Chong Fist.”

The command that had burned out the chip had also affected the storage device located so close to it. In addition, the attack with which Xiang Shan had killed Rafe had reached the hard drive as well.

Thus, this memory had delivered an enormous shock to Xiang Shan.

Compared with Will’s memories, Rafe’s memories were every bit as disgusting, in their own way.

The giant’s memories did not belong solely to him. They also contained those of the bandit gang to which he belonged: the Z Organization.

The gang’s vast memories of violence were shared by every member. These scum had sincerely been able to derive pleasure from them.

Even if they could not before, after having so many memories poured into them, they would be able to.

This was how they strengthened themselves. Every new recruit received this collective memory. If you did not go mad after accepting it, then you naturally became brothers with those scum. You knew the joys and pains of your “brothers,” and together you shared the delicious taste of “violence.”

And when these outlaws of the Greenwood Way wanted to “bring up the mountain” the heroes of the martial world—or even the aristocrats who protected civilization—they used this method. They implanted their collective memories into the mind of whichever “good fellow” they had taken a liking to.

“No wonder they dared to invite me to join them...” Xiang Shan felt stifled, yet had no outlet through which to vent it.

The emotions of the Greenwood Way were not under one’s own control. The “emotions” contained in these collective memories were so intense that every thought and impulse of anyone who viewed them would be influenced afterward.

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It was like becoming addicted to a drug called “violence.”

Yes, there were still a few people who could resist the “emotions” within them, maintain control of themselves, and avoid developing affection for those... those fellows whose joys and angers they already knew—yet still slaughter every last bandit in an entire stronghold.

But even after doing such a thing, that person had already tasted the flavor of “violence.” That small touch of madness was a seed of inner demons, and it would continue to grow within the person’s heart.

The Greenwood Way continued to grow.

Xiang Shan shook his head. He felt profound contempt for this sort of memory.

Violence... Violence was not etiquette, literature, or art. Violence possessed not the slightest trace of elegance or composure, refinement or courtesy; it was even more a departure from gentleness, respect, deference, and restraint. To reclaim through personal will the natural rights entrusted to public authority by the social contract, while disregarding all thought from a “moral perspective”—that was violence.

The knight-errant used force to violate the law. Xiang Shan knew that he was a wielder of violence.

But there were differences even between one kind of violence and another.

In the distant past, Xiang Shan must have witnessed... witnessed... some form of violence beyond the imagination of those thugs. That memory, at least, was not enough to shake his convictions.

But Xiang Shan felt that today, he might not be able to restrain his murderous impulse.

“Forget it. I should avoid talking to people casually today. If a conflict breaks out, it’ll be difficult to deal with.”

As the saying went: “Carry a sharp weapon, and the urge to kill arises of its own accord. Proceed with caution and gravity.” Once one learned formidable martial arts and acquired specialized prosthetics, one would inevitably want to “use” them. In particular, the speed at which a chip operated surpassed the speed of neural-signal transmission. Sometimes, before a cybernetic martial artist’s rational mind had time to think, his emotions had already driven his martial arts into action and carried out a killing.

The human brain likewise bore traces left behind by evolution. Its more primitive functional regions were, for the most part, enclosed by more advanced regions. The cerebellum enveloped the brainstem, and the cerebrum enveloped the cerebellum. The brainstem was only slightly younger, historically speaking, than the notochord; the cerebellum and cerebrum evolved afterward, in succession. This also meant that “rational thought” did not possess particularly high priority.

But if the “sword” was not pointed at tyrants, then “chivalry” would be tarnished as well.

Xiang Shan had long since mastered perfect control over his martial arts, but after viewing the memories of those thugs, his thoughts were inevitably stirred.

And so Xiang Shan climbed out of the area and headed toward the town.

He passed through this place every day. On the one hand, it was part of his “patrol,” ensuring that no more thugs came to invade the town. On the other, he did not dare perform certain crucial tasks under surveillance, which was why he had deliberately sought out a place like this.

On the way back to town, he unexpectedly encountered his disciple.

Yuki looked to be in excellent spirits. The amount of biological tissue in his body had decreased once again, so naturally he needed to consume less food each day. In turn, his need for solar energy had increased. But energy was practically free. All things considered, his living costs could even be reduced slightly.

The moment Yuki saw Xiang Shan, he came running over and seized his hand.

“Master! Thank goodness, I finally found you. I...”

“It has been a few days since we last met.” Xiang Shan nodded. “You were injured last time. How is your recovery?”

“I’m all better!” Yuki said joyfully. “And while I was recovering, I also learned the algorithm you taught me!”

“Oh? Then I’ll have to test you.”

Yuki nodded, squatted on the ground, and wrote several arithmetic problems with his finger. He completed the calculations in a flash.

Xiang Shan nodded. “Very good. It seems that even without anyone to guide you in the future, you may still have a chance of entering the fundamentals of internal martial arts... Excellent.”

“Exactly!” Yuki nodded. “I told you, I was born to be a knight-errant! And with your guidance, Master...”

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