I woke in bed and remembered — I’d felt something like this before.
Like being reborn —
Like I could do anything —
The time I’d produced that dark chapter of my history —
I sat up slowly, swore in my heart never to make the same mistake again, and looked out the window.
“Great weather. Like the world’s blessing my Growth.”
The Third blew up.
“Pfffhh!!”
The Jewel got noisy, but that was normal. I let it.
Besides — I had an important appointment today.
Out of bed, jacket off, in front of the mirror.
A little more muscle on me than before.
Looking at my own body, I muttered:
”…I hate to say it myself, but — perfect, isn’t it? I’m definitely a beauty.”
The Sixth shouted.
“CONFIRMED RELAPSE!!”
The Seventh too.
“M-my stomach… damn it! Sorry, Lyle… it’s too funny, please keep going.”
I swept my hair back and addressed the mirror.
“What are you all making a fuss about? Come now, I won’t repeat the same mistake. Yes, my mood is elevated — but I’ll keep myself in check. Oh — I need to get to Damian’s place today.”
Reward pickup.
Yesterday I’d reported the request complete at the Guild, gotten an [A] rating from Damian, and then we’d parted.
Reward pickup was promised for a later day.
— By Novem.
“Pft… s-so everyone’s going together?”
The Fourth was barely holding in laughter.
I thought nothing is funny here, and answered.
Before bed, Novem had explained today’s plan.
We’d been away for five days, so Novem would handle the manor — cleaning and laundry.
Miranda-san would pick Shannon up from the hospital where she’d been admitted, and Aria would come with me to Damian’s lab for the reward pickup.
Novem had entrusted Damian with the metal-armor of the boss-monster we’d taken. That needed transporting too.
While I styled my hair, I said:
“I’m going to Damian’s with Aria. Novem’s on the cleaning, Miranda-san’s collecting Shannon. She’s surely fine by now. — Speaking of, why didn’t Novem just sell that metal?”
At the Guild, I’d barely been able to move.
Consciousness was hazy; people had said things around me; I didn’t remember.
The Fifth explained.
“It seems to be a rare metal, but with no inherent mana. And it’s hard to work with. The academy buying it as research material would pay more — they got that far, didn’t they?”
The Seventh took over.
“Indeed. Since Lyle was unconscious, judgment was deferred. There’ll be an academy appraisal. Hear the price afterward and decide. For reference — the Guild’s offered price was a hundred gold coins. Stingy bastards.”
For having killed a B40 boss, that figure was — by no means — satisfying.
The Guild had likely understood as much, which was why they’d recommended the academy buyer. Strange that they hadn’t tried to insert themselves as middleman for a cut — why pass it up?
“Why didn’t the Guild take a brokerage fee?”
The Second explained.
“Clara-chan said the academy’s clout is greater. Damian’s an acquaintance of yours — they didn’t want to needlessly trim the reward of someone he knows.”
They didn’t want to cross the academy, so they’d swallowed the lost cut.
It seemed Novem had paid Clara herself.
(Need to thank her later… bring a bouquet?)
Hair done, I left the room — still bare-chested from the waist up.
Novem must have been coming to wake me; we met at the door.
“Good morning, Lord Lyle. Um… you seem to be doing better today. Your color is good. I’m relieved.”
Seeing Novem relax —
“Novem.”
“Yes?”
“I love you.”
The successive heads of the house all started in at once.
I really wish they’d read the room.
“He’s saying it RIGHT FROM the gate!!”
“He’s GLOWING without a moon out!!”
“Pft, bwahahaha!!”
”…I don’t know about this — but, well, this is how he is. Awareness doesn’t suppress it.”
“Confessing at this timing — Lyle, give it a little more thought… no, not possible right now.”
“The mood though… want to redo it, Lyle?”
I ignored my loud ancestors and kept looking at Novem.
Novem laughed.
She wiped her eye-corners with a fingertip.
”…Lord Lyle, the sentiment is welcome, but perhaps don’t say things like that just now. — More importantly, in your current state, maybe you shouldn’t go to Damian-san’s after all.”
The confession deflected.
“Your guard is strong. — That’s what I like about you.”
“That’s good to hear. — Breakfast, then, Lord Lyle? And today —”
“I’ll go to Damian’s. I want a lot of things wrapped up early.”
“I-is that so.”
Novem looked like she had something to say. A troubled expression — at me.
She didn’t make that face often, and somehow it pleased me.
A new expression of Novem’s that I rarely got to see — that was probably why.
I headed to the academy with Aria, handed off a memo, and the staff led us to Damian’s lab.
The lab had originally been spacious, but devices and apparatus had narrowed it.
Books were piled in mountains. Students in white coats were clearing them.
All of them had dark circles under their eyes.
Wobbly on their feet — must have pulled an all-nighter.
“Honestly — pulling all-nighters is bad for your health.”
When I said it, Aria — next to me — visibly recoiled.
She’d been like this since we’d met that morning.
“What is it, Aria? It’s a waste to twist that cute face like that.”
The Fourth’s voice arrived.
“PERFECT!! Perfect, Lyle! — Just pick your time and place!”
Loud — ignored. Aria opened her mouth.
“Hey, you… like Novem said — maybe shutting yourself in your room today would have been—”
So even Aria. I shook my head.
She was remembering the prior Growth, probably worried.
I’d sworn to my heart never to repeat the same mistake — that worry was unnecessary.
“Concerned about me, Aria… I’m happy.”
“I-idiot!”
Aria flushed and turned red, and the white-coated students who were clearing the room — both men and women — clicked their tongues at me.
While we were going back and forth, Damian — who’d been hauling something in — appeared.
Dark circles under his eyes, but his energy was abnormally high.
“Good morning, everyone! I haven’t slept a wink!”
“Damian!”
I raised a hand toward him. Damian raised both hands back.
“Lyle!”
The two of us greeted each other like that, and the room stared in shock.
People staring like that made me too pleased. They should stop.
My self-control was getting fragile.
“Glad you came. Timing’s perfect. I just pulled her from the capsule.”
Capsule?
I looked around: a person was floating in a green, translucent fluid.
Asleep, by the looks of it.
“Not breathing? Doesn’t look dead either—?”
I’d looked at the capsule. Damian explained.
“Just noticed? These girls are the ancient automatons. Did you imagine some clockwork-and-screws machine? Sorry to disappoint — they’re a ‘something’ very nearly human.”
Very nearly meant the distinction was real.
Aria had finally noticed too, and was staring into the capsule, shocked.
“T-these are dolls?! They look alive — alive!”
Damian explained.
“That’s exactly why they’re my target. By a method that surpasses these automatons, I will create my ideal woman. I absolutely will!”
Listening to Damian’s enthusiasm, I felt shame at myself for thinking wouldn’t it be faster to just get a girlfriend?
Damian is a man. A man among men.
“Magnificent. I’m rooting for you, Damian.”
“You get it, Lyle. I knew you’d get it. After all — you’re one of the few whose name I’ve bothered to memorize.”
We laughed and shared joy together, and got straight to business.
“Now then — the reward.”
“Right, this.”
After we’d just been laughing, our faces shifted to serious all at once — and the room around us didn’t know how to react.
Damian pulled off the white sheet draped over a wheeled cart.
The sheet swept up the surrounding dust as it lifted, and revealed — a woman in a black dress and white apron, asleep.
Or — appearing asleep.
Aria, startled, leaned in close.
“L-lies… this is a doll?”
The cart sat about hip-height for me.
Golden twin-tails.
Eyes closed, looking like she might breathe at any moment.
Skin pale, lips pink —
Her figure feminine, with a generous swell at the chest.
And on her forehead, faintly — a pattern.
Not a tattoo, by the look of it. What sort of mark?
Not Damian’s taste.
(So that’s why he was willing to part with her.)
Looking around at the other capsules, this automaton was a different shape from those.
The automatons in the capsules — looking carefully — were all identical: same face, same hair.
All of them had the same forehead mark, too.
“Now then, activation method — per the deciphered text… seems to be a master-slave contract with blood as the catalyst.”
“Blood? What are you saying, Damian.”
I shook my head.
Aria tilted hers.
“What’s wrong, Lyle. Just take it already. We still have to discuss the armor too. If you don’t want her I’ll sell her — hurry it up.”
I turned to Aria.
“Sell?! Don’t be absurd! Look — that adorable sleeping face… yes, like a slumbering princess.”
“P-princess?”
Aria was already disgusted, and so were those nearby.
The Fifth.
“What is he going on about?”
The Sixth.
“Beats me.”
“The method to wake a sleeping girl has been settled since ancient times! I learned it from picture books!”
Yes — in a picture book Clara and I had read at the library, the curse on the captive princess had been broken by a hero’s kiss.
I brought my mouth toward the automaton’s.
“Now — I’ll break the curse.”
“E-er, it’s not a curse so much as—”
Damian was saying something, but I kissed her anyway.
The automaton moved suddenly.
Slowly opened her eyes — and then, into my mouth —
“S-she moved!”
Damian, startled, eyes sparkling.
Aria was screaming.
“W-w-w-what are you DOING, Lyle?!”
I pulled my mouth slowly away and addressed the awakened automaton:
“How do you feel waking, my princess?”
Her open eyes were red. She looked around, then at me.
After a beat —
“I never imagined being woken in such a manner. Genetic data confirmed. Master registration complete. Well then, how I feel is — being made to look up to and serve a pervert who kisses dolls awake makes me want to vomit, I suppose? Oh dear — what’s this… some of my data appears to be compromised. It seems to be affecting my speech.”
Damian looked at the seated-up automaton, eyes shining, and turned to me.
“Amazing, Lyle! To activate her by kiss rather than blood contract — right, I’ll use this method too!”
The delighted Damian. The automaton stepped off the cart, gave a perfectly correct bow.
“It would seem to be a nest of perverts here. While I quake in fear at the sudden threat to my virtue, I will, from this day, address the one who lusts after dolls as Master. Now state your name, asshat.”
Her words and her demeanor had absolutely nothing to do with each other.
But a thing like that wasn’t going to break me.
“A spunky automaton. I’m Lyle. Lyle Walt. Just watch — I’ll make you mine.”
I swept my hair back. Hmph. The automaton brought both hands to her mouth and said —
A cute gesture — but —
“To take such an attitude after registering yourself as Master — when a doll has no freedom — chicken bastard is too kind a description, Master. That [Chicken Bastard = Lord Lyle] is now my own private memory file. Oh — I said that out loud.”
I smiled at the automaton.
“Watch this — that chicken will fly the open skies one day… fwa, fwahahaha!!”
I couldn’t stop the maniacal laughter.
I was almost falling in love with myself.
(Bad — current me is so cool!!)
From within the Jewel — voices raging back and forth, loud.
It consumed mana, but my current self barely noticed the drain.
Aria, eyes a little wet, said —
Had I moved her to tears?
The thought that I could move someone to tears was almost frightening.
“Lyle… chickens can’t fly.”
And then the automaton:
“To serve a piece of garbage of such magnitude as Master — what a worthwhile life of service. I shall thrash and re-educate you. Oh — that was my honest opinion, leaking. Diagnostics are failing. Networks decimated. What date and place is this? Asking the piece of garbage in front of me yields no confidence in the answer.”
Damian was beside himself with delight.
“So many phrases I’ve never heard! Someone, write this down quickly! First — ‘piece of garbage of such magnitude’ —”
That day, I gained a new companion.
And I produced an industrial quantity of dark history, and lost something dear.