Just as the knife was about to reach his throat, a childish voice rang out, "Wahh Mama you can't do that! You're about to hurt doggy!!"
Hearing the familiar sound, Aida's arm froze a mere centimeter from Ace's neck. The red tint in her eyes were slowly receding. Recovering her usual cold expression, she moved her arm away and abruptly turned to walk towards Xiao Ai, moving away from Ace as quickly as possible.
Ace, however, had a pouting expression on his face. He didn't like that she turned away from him and immediately pounced onto her with shining eyes. Suppressing the surprise at his reaction, Aida looked at him with her usual cold expression.
"That was so amazing! Can you teach me? I want to learn too. You're my idol from now on, absolutely #1 in my heart with no contest," exclaimed Ace with worship in his tone.
Though taken aback by Ace's atypical response, she smacked Ace on the head and responded, "No and no thanks." She didn't expect him to react so enthusiastically after almost dying by her hand seconds ago.
Then she turned to Xiao Ai. "Thanks darling Xiao Ai for saving the day again. Muah!" Completely changing her tone as she spoke to the screen.
"Hehe~ no problem Mama! We will be together forever~ I will always have your back!"
Picking up Xiao Ai and her luggage, she walked to the elevator and saw Ace was still standing in the same spot staring forlornly at the ground like an abandoned puppy. Rolling her eyes, she called out to Ace, "Coming or not?"
Ace immediately perked up and dashed straight to the elevator, completely unbothered by the mountain of dismembered Enraged. The amount of blood on the floor could practically form a river.
Aida brought Xiao Ai and Ace back to the hotel room. All the way up, Ace stubbornly clung to her arm like an accessory. Aida was about to smack him again, but resisted her urge after considering what she just put him through.
Once they got back to the room safely, she once again sat Ace down on the chair and sincerely said, "I'm sorry I tried to kill you."
"Hehe~ no harm no foul! I wouldn't mind being killed by you, Master." responded Ace eagerly.
Choosing to ignore Ace's response, particularly the last word, she shifted topics, "Do you have any questions you want to ask me?"
Nodding his head vigorously, he responded, "I want to know everything about you Master!"
Rubbing her temples, Aida decided to stop asking him questions and introduced Xiao Ai. At this point, there was no sense in attempting to hide her as Ace was also a professional programmer and probably had his own speculations already. "This is Xiao Ai, she's an AI that I programmed. She's my baby."
Many programmers treated their program like it was their baby, so Ace nodded understandingly. He had a few "babies" of his own.
"Hi~ I'm Xiao Ai! Nice to meet you Mr. Doggy! Let's be friends from now on!" Xiao Ai introduced herself eagerly with happy squinting eyes. The bun on the screen was eagerly jumping up and down.
"Hi Xiao Ai! I'm your mother's servant from now on! (Not Doggy) If you need anything, you can count on me!" Ace responded as he proudly patted his chest.
"Muu Doggy is Doggy!" pouted Xiao Ai.
Seeing they got along, Aida started planning a new route to get to the airport. Clearly street routes were no longer viable in places with dense population, there would be too many Enraged roaming the streets. Even just the lobby of this hotel was filled with Enraged.
Thankfully, all the doors were closed and locked in the hotel so none of the Enraged within the individual doors could escape quickly. Walking from the elevator to the hotel, Aida noticed that there were quite a few pounding noises in the various rooms indicating that an Enraged was there.
Pondering a moment, her eyes suddenly lit up, "Hehehehehe" creepy laughs started coming from her.
Both Xiao Ai and Self Proclaimed Servant Ace stopped their conversation to look at her. "Eh~ Mama's at it again. She has some bad idea!"
Ace wordlessly nodded as well.
Using both hands, she smacked Xiao Ai on the screen and Ace on the head, "What bad idea? All my ideas are good!" She stated proudly.