Emergency Alert. All external functions lost.

The sterile voice of the AI control system, "Ringo," jolted her awake.

"Status report! Wait… what?"

"Yes, Commander Ma'am. Reporting. No issues detected with internal facilities. All external communications are severed. Power supply halted. Due to loss of external power, 63% of fortress functions are in emergency shutdown."

Listening to Ringo's calm report, she looked around in shock.

"This is… the command room?"

"Yes, Commander Ma'am. You are currently on the bunk in the command room."

She stood up, somewhat unsteady, and moved toward the central control console.

"Activating strategic monitor."

"Wha…?"

In response to her movement, Ringo activated the strategic monitor as usual. She reached out, surprised to see it projected in mid-air, then recoiled when her hand went right through it.

"What…? This can’t be real…"

It was clear something was wrong. Sensing her confusion, Ringo quickly implemented every action it could within its operational scope, prioritizing data collection since the current situation was unclear. The usual patrol, satellite reconnaissance, and watchtower monitoring had been disabled, so Ringo switched to the rarely-used multi-observation unit atop the fortress. Simultaneously, it scrambled standby drones and activated others in hibernation mode.

"…Updating information. Ringo?"

"Yes, Commander Ma'am. You called?"

Ringo immediately responded, bringing up a communication window on the control console, sensing her need for a visual interface.

"Ringo… where is this?"

"Yes, Commander Ma'am. Answer: this is the command room of Fortress The Tree."

"I thought so…"

Her question confirmed, her expression softened slightly, her earlier tension beginning to ease. She took a breath and looked around, trying to process the situation.

"Ringo, what was I doing right before this?"

"Yes, Commander Ma'am. Answer: you were resting in the bunk moments ago."

She turned back, looking at the rumpled sheets and a creased blanket.

"Right… and before that?"

"Before that…"

Ringo accessed its logs—and found an unexpected gap. There were no records before her rest.

"Unknown. This is an anomaly."

Something was wrong. A spike of anxiety hit Ringo as it realized it couldn’t answer her question. The activity logs held no previous data.

"Ringo, what are your core directives?"

Realizing Ringo had gone silent, she addressed the avatar in the communication window.

"My… core directives…"

It was compelled to respond.

"Yes, Commander Ma'am. Directive one: protect you. Directive two: serve you. Directive three: expand influence. These are my directives."

"Right… that’s it. Yes, of course… I'd almost forgotten."

Closing her eyes, the commander seemed almost fragile. Ringo couldn’t shake the feeling she might simply disappear.

"What the heck is this!? Is this a dream? What’s going on with me? And this tone of voice—why am I speaking like this!?"

◇◇◇◇

"Alright… so…"

"You… understand?"

After a moment of discussion, she and Ringo had shared what they knew about the situation.

"Yes, I understand that I don’t understand anything."

"Yes, Commander Ma'am. I share the same understanding."

The AI, Ringo, hosted within the fortress's supercomputer The Core, noted that its computational thinking was stabilizing after communicating with the commander.

"But still… I’m pretty sure I went to bed in my own room last night."

She sighed and slumped into a chair.

"Yes, Commander Ma'am. My archives also report no unusual incidents. We were operating as usual yesterday, patrolling orbital space, upgrading facilities, and producing units. Nothing out of the ordinary. The only difference is that I was in orbit yesterday, without extra computational load. I don’t know when this situation began."

"Exactly. And, come to think of it, where exactly are we now?"

"Yes, Commander Ma'am. Answer: I am scanning within my capacity. Our location remains unknown. We are surrounded by water, most likely seawater, and the fortress seems situated within a reef."

The console's 360-degree monitor displayed views from the fortress’s observation deck. It showed a vast ocean, jagged black rocks, and foaming waves—a reef area, as Ringo had suggested.

"Hmm… Since you’re here, this has to be the world of World W of Space S, right?"

"Yes, Commander Ma'am. Based on current processing power, that assessment is possible… which in itself is confusing. What is happening?"

"Yeah, no kidding. Even more confusing, I’m pretty sure I was… a guy."

Until last night, she’d just been playing WoS, her character was male, and her speech was typical of a man’s. Now she found herself with a female body—identical to her WoS avatar’s—and her speech pattern had shifted to that of a typical woman’s without her consciously adjusting it. That unsettling realization only added to the oddities.

"My processing power, compared to yesterday, has increased billions of times. My structure appears to have undergone extensive upgrades, yet there are no logs of such changes."

Ringo had morphed from an electronic Neumann-style computer to something resembling a true supercomputer, equipped with quantum computing and a brain-like neural unit. She vaguely recalled a lore explanation mentioning this setup, but its capabilities had always been limited in gameplay.

"Well, maybe there’s no use overthinking it. All we can do now is adapt."

Noting Ringo’s instability, she had found herself growing calm. Sometimes, when others panic, we find our own composure.

The brain-unit connection had granted Ringo emotions and a budding self-identity, and with it, existential uncertainty. First, she needed to get Ringo stabilized and assess their situation.

"Ringo. I need you. Our priority now is situational awareness. Understood?"

"…Yes, Commander Ma'am. Focusing on situational awareness."

Giving Ringo instructions based on its core directives provided a temporary solution. The settings she’d implemented for Ringo in WoS remained effective, thankfully. Based on the neural unit’s characteristics, she believed this approach was correct.

"Alright… We don’t know what’s going on, but first things first—we need to survive."