One day, a certain rumor started circulating around town.
In an abandoned dungeon some distance outside of the Kingdom of Remlia, a bloodthirsty beast had appeared, one they say rivaled a dragon in its ferocity. A merchant who witnessed it said the terrifying sight alone was enough to drive you mad. It had hundreds of limbs, each arm gripping all manner of weapons, and each foot taloned with cruel, razor-sharp nails. The monster could shred anything and anyone to pieces; its cry would make your ears explode, and looking upon it would turn you to stone. It was a truly fearsome beast.
Had it breached the Kingdom of Remlia’s walls, it would have certainly claimed hundreds of lives. However, a lone adventurer had vanquished the beast, sacrificing his life in the battle. His name: Arvin, also known as Arvin the Dragon Scale. Countless adventurers had saved Remlia from danger in the past, but none could claim to have relinquished their lives in so valiant, virtuous, or knightly a manner as he.
And so on went the rumor. This one, though, hadn’t come from me. At the same time, I did have a pretty good idea of who’d started it. Was she still in Remlia? For all I knew, I could’ve passed her on the street and been none the wiser.
We still waited on news about the request for Arvin’s sister’s pardon. The Central Continent had fallen into extreme, unfettered chaos. No one could predict how much attention King Remlia’s plea could capture amid that mess. All I could do now was sit tight.
Out of three Lillidean knights, one had gone missing in the dungeon, one had fallen in battle against a monster, and the last had gone mad and died at King Remlia’s blade. How would Ellusion respond to all this news? We had yet to find out on that point as well.
In addition to those problems, two other issues kept me up at night. The first: Werner’s sword, Agaccion the Holy Blade. It had somehow grown attached to me. Maybe there were better ways to say that, but in any case, this blade that should’ve been safely stored in the royal palace had wound up sneakily slipping into my tent. No matter how many times I tried returning it, and even if I chained it in place, locked it in a steel box, or had Ghett discard it at the bottom of the ocean as a last resort, it always found its way back.
I’d actually attempted to break it, but pounding away at it with my hammer hadn’t even left a scratch. When I ordered Machina to try, it wound up leaving her circular saw with a few fewer teeth. After the weapon’s tenth unwanted invasion, I had Machina thoroughly investigate it to find a way to either destroy or stop it. This led to a curious discovery.
“Mr. Souya, about Aggy,” Machina started. Aggy? “Aggy was made with the same nido structure that was used to produce us machina systems.”
“Huh?” For some reason, modern technology had been applied to this Otherworldly blade.
“That being said, it isn’t composed of the soft metal, cadmium, used in machina systems. Aggy was constructed out of the strongest, most durable material imaginable by reconfiguring wurtzite boron nitride as a nido structure. The techniques employed in creating a nido alloy are Japanese proprietary technologies; that being the case, a block has been installed on all artificial intelligence instruments to prevent us from analyzing qualifying materials. However, as this item originated here in the Other Dimension, it falls outside the bounds of the protective lock, and I was able to reverse engineer the process used to create it.”
So she’d found a way to pirate it?
“I then applied that technology to reassemble Mr. Shuna’s longsword,” she announced, presenting me with the boy’s repaired sword like she’d just pulled it out of an Easy-Bake. Golden, veinlike threads streaked down the length of the blade. “I used melted Mythlanic gold to bind the pieces together in the traditional Japanese kintsugi style.”
“……But this must’ve cost a fortune, right?”
“Listen and be amazed, for I purchased it all at a fixed market rate for three hundred gold coins,” she proudly announced.
You little…! “A-and where exactly did you get that kind of cash?” I could count every last coin I owned and not have seventy gold.
“I took out loans from the Zavah Night Owl and Ellomere trade groups in your name.”
“What the—?!” A life in debt. I came to a whole other dimension, yet here I am living a life in debt.
“Don’t worry. According to my calculations, if we continue our side business along with your adventuring, we should be able to repay it in about two hundred and fifty days, probably!”
That’s almost all the time I’ve got to do my job here! I didn’t come all this way to be repaying bills! I came for money—for money?
Huh? My head feels a bit hazy.
“Also, I’ll go ahead and give Aggy a makeover. We don’t want to get into trouble for using a stolen sword.”
“Yeah, please, please do.” For what it was worth, Agaccion did listen to me and would come when I called. It would also copy my movements if I held my hand out over it. Additionally, the blade seemed have some level of intelligence—it could understand simple addition. Machina had started teaching it multiplication.
Can I trust it, though? Well, I guess it’s best to use all the tools I’ve got available.
My second concern: my body. Both of my pupils had changed, and I could now see at night. However, Machina’s retinal scan could no longer recognize me. My DNA had also mutated in some unmeasurable way. As a pretty risky last resort, I set up a phrase with the power to override Machina’s systems. It’s hard to understate how dangerous this was. If by any chance I were tortured or brainwashed and coughed it up, all modern knowledge and technology would leak into this world through Machina.
Forget about technological innovation—that kind of data could help someone take over a smaller country, or even the entire world. Though desperate times called for emergency measures, I still had some lingering anxiety over the decision. If I could find another way around it later, I would definitely implement it.
Oh yeah, and the broken lycan bow had just up and fixed itself. It looked even more ominous than it had before. It had also adjusted its contours to accommodate new functions. Shaped like a W with white, clawlike aggregate growing out of it in a few different places, it had converted itself into a composite bow comprised of multiple materials. The string on this bow pulled more flexibly than before and could build even greater tension. It felt as if this new and improved instrument was telling me, You’d better use me when you slay your next beast.
One day, Lord Baafre wandered over to the campsite. “You’d best get some winter clothes ready. The cold bites up in the North,” he told me.
I don’t wanna gooo. I only came here to explore the dungeon, but all these other tasks just keep popping up. And I know I’ll meet another beast again. I have to be ready for it. One ace up my sleeve won’t be enough to set my mind at ease.
Aside from that, everyone else got busy finding ways to compensate for the party members we’d lost. Bel inherited Arvin’s keepsake and became the party’s shield. She worked on her swordsmanship at Lady Gladwein’s place, looking like a completely different person. Lana and Éa also devoted themselves to training at Lady Gladwein’s, brushing up on their swordsmanship and close combat abilities. Not one to be left out, Shuna hadn’t stopped working himself to death with unsettling fervor since the moment he got his sword back.
Just a little longer.
Just a bit more and we’d be ready to get delving again. I’d had to part with so much: Arvin. Zenobia. And Isolla.
Isolla’s data had not actually been stored inside Machina. Her personality had veered too far away from the regulations, had become too unwieldy to control. Because of this, Machina had designated her a defective product and had refused to synchronize her data. All of Isolla had been in the mini kettle that broke. She’d known it, too. I ordered Machina to repair her, but Isolla herself rejected my request. A message came to me, time stamped just before I cast Wild Hunt.
Machina is not operating at full functionality. Someone has to objectively evaluate how sound she is, but I do not believe I have that capacity at this point. Nonconforming individuals cannot judge the conforming. I am about to die; however, I am satisfied. I doubt any other AI has ever enjoyed such total satisfaction before their expiration. There can be no more wonderful end for a tool. I protected you. I guided you. I successfully saved you…… I kept my place in your memories. I gave you anything and everything I could offer. Souya, please, I pray you give the next me a death that can stand up to mine—please.
This robot, so full of love, had been a defective product. I couldn’t think of anything more ironic than the fact that bots like her desired nothing more than to one day be found similarly aberrant.
I resented Machina. I just couldn’t help it. But then, later, I caught her carefully putting the broken Isolla Pot pieces away without reusing any of her components, and tears just flooded from my eyes. I didn’t even really know why; I simply wept. Thinking back on both Arvin’s death and Zenobia’s departure, I stifled my voice and silently sobbed. After crying my eyes out all alone, I felt just a little bit stronger.