In the Sirclay manor in Aramsus, I was eating.
Usually Novem cooked, but today the [Foul-Mouthed Automaton] had refused to give the ground — I’ll be cooking.
She seemed to be burning with rivalry against Novem, but it was unhinged.
This junk-maid… the moment she’d come to the manor, she’d tried to attack Novem.
She’d grabbed a broom nearby and started to swing it down on Novem — I’d stopped her, but —
“And? How is the painstakingly-prepared meal made for the spineless chicken-bastard?”
Chicken-bastard apparently meant me.
It seemed spineless was added because I wasn’t in the same high state as when she’d first met me.
“No, it’s good. Better than I thought, but—”
“But? But, what? Chicken-bastard, complaining about my cooking? Now, do say it. I shall use the complaint to prepare a still better meal tomorrow.”
I looked at the spread.
Presentation good.
Taste fine. In fact, good.
That an automaton could do this much — honestly hadn’t expected it.
”…There’s a different plate count between mine and the others?”
I had one extra dish.
The junk-maid sniffed at me.
“What are you saying. I added a dish for my master, the chicken-bastard. I kept within the given budget — no problem, surely?”
There’s a problem.
“Listen — this is Miranda-san’s manor. We’re freeloaders!”
Miranda-san, eating with us:
“Oh, don’t worry about it. How about you become master of the house instead?”
Miranda-san — light-green hair, green eyes — was looking at me.
You could see her mischief plainly.
Clearly enjoying herself.
I’d thought of her as cat-like, and after the dungeon her personality had taken even more of that turn.
I looked at Novem — brown hair done into a side-tail.
Novem hadn’t noticed my glance.
She ate, and —
“It’s a touch under-seasoned for Lord Lyle’s tastes.”
Said it.
Aria sighed.
Red-haired Aria looked at me with her violet eyes.
“Stop her properly, would you.”
The reason Aria was exasperated was the junk-maid.
After all, this junk-maid —
“Mm! So this is the rumored ‘bride-bullying’ I have in my data! Some dissatisfaction with my cooking? I’ve balanced the nutrition, perfected the flavor, you know.”
— picks fights with Novem.
For whatever reason, against Novem alone she beams out something close to hostility.
From the blue Jewel at my neck — a voice only I could hear: the Fourth.
The Fourth Walt — [Marcus Walt] — was a man with long blue hair side-parted seven-to-three, wearing glasses.
In the Jewel, all of them appear as their thirties-selves.
The Fourth’s defining feature was — the glasses — not just that.
“Honestly, what a weird automaton. Picking fights with Novem-chan — what is she thinking… oi, stop her quickly, Lyle.”
The Fourth gets very loud about women.
Or rather, about the treatment of women.
“Hey — junk-maid, enough. Why do you go at Novem so hard?”
Told off by the Fourth, I tried to stop her.
But surprisingly Novem —
“Lord Lyle, junk-maid is too cruel. She’s a new companion — we should really give her a proper name.”
So kind, Novem…
By contrast —
“Pitying the enemy… that slack will be your undoing. I, having been manufactured as a one-of-a-kind highest-grade model masterpiece, will not extend mercy to a foe—”
The junk-maid started reeling off nonsense again. Miranda-san:
“So junk-maid it stays, then?”
”…Chicken-bastard. With upturned eyes I’m begging you, hurry up and decide a name befitting me.”
Not the way you ask people for things.
But this one was only foul-mouthed; when it came to me she went all-out. I’d heard she’d taken a lot of the household work off Novem’s plate.
”…Watching those twin-tails move, I had an idea.”
She bit instantly.
“Ho! Lust for these twin-tails — you have an eye! My creators came to actual blows over black bob versus golden twin-tails. As expected, twin-tails reigns supreme!”
“Your movement is kind of jiggly — so, [Poyo-Poyo]—”
I’d just gotten that out, and her ordinarily expressive face went blank.
And one person was clutching her stomach, holding in laughter — Shannon.
She’d been the meek, blind young lady before, but with Miranda-san being that, the little sister turned out to be quite the operator too.
“Naming sense is terrible.”
Shannon broke into a guffaw. Miranda-san reached out a hand.
She grabbed Shannon’s head with her left hand and squeezed.
A crunch-crunch sound.
“O-onee-sama, that hurts! It hurts so much!”
“Saying it cute won’t save you, Shannon. Poyo-Poyo finally got a name — how rude of you.”
Aria was holding her mouth.
Only Novem was eating while seriously thinking through something.
”…Chicken-bastard. I’ll accept a change of name right now, you know?”
So said Poyo-Poyo. I shook my head.
“No changes, Poyo-Poyo.”
From the Jewel, a furious voice — the Fourth —
“Even for you that’s too much! Be kind to girls!”
(This guy — definitely got worked over by his wife.)
From the ancestors’ words and behaviors, I was guessing the Fourth was a hen-pecked husband.
This Fourth who’s so loud about women, in House Walt’s history, served as head longer than anyone.
After the Third had been killed in battle in his thirties, he’d taken the title in his teens.
From there he’d mostly worked the domestic side, I’d heard.
“By the way, this girl — really zero upkeep cost? She just drains your mana? If there’s overhead, it’ll be a pain. A regular servant might be better.”
Loud about money too.
He’d done well on the finances side too, I’d heard, but in practice he nags about how money’s spent.
If you had to choose between money and women, this man would choose money.
That said, with his wife, he was apparently weak.
The Fifth — the Fourth’s son — said:
“Oi, weren’t you saying be kind to girls? Anyway, the outside’s a girl but the inside’s iron or something, no?”
The Fourth —
“Oh, right… but Poyo-Poyo is too much.”
So even Poyo-Poyo was too cruel, apparently.
The expressionless Poyo-Poyo (provisional) muttered at me about a change.
“Master, think about it a little more? With that nothing-packed brain of yours, please come up with a name for me. I’ll cherish it — if it’s a proper name, I’ll cherish it…”
Scary. This automaton is very scary.
“O-oi, that’s a bit scary, stop it. Fine. I’ll think about it. Give me a little more time.”
The smiling, tiresome junk-maid said:
“As expected, chicken-bastard is weak to a girl’s pressure!”
I smiled back.
“Skin’s a girl, inside’s something else, no? Face reality.”
Furious now:
“What are you saying? I, the highest-rank special model, am incapable of nothing. If I willed it, the desires of a man could even—”
Novem cut in.
“We’re eating, Poyo-Poyo-san.”
Junk-maid bit her handkerchief in frustration.
“Th-this woman—”
Meals at the Sirclay manor had gotten lively, but lately they were exhausting.
“And so I ended up here.”
The library.
A place to stockpile knowledge — and today again I was reading alongside Clara.
We were on terms of reading and occasionally chatting.
We’d taken a job together once, from Damian — a professor renowned even in Aramsus.
A support specialist, but a skilled adventurer — Clara.
Navy hair cut around the shoulders, but it stuck out wildly — must have cut it herself.
She liked reading at the library — high probability of finding her if you came.
These days I’d ask her what books were interesting, and sometimes we’d just talk.
“That’s how it is. The junk-maid wants a name, she keeps fighting with Novem.”
“Strange. Fighting with Novem-san — as in, as maids?”
I didn’t really know either.
After all, that junk-maid… was broken.
She didn’t remember important things, and her manner of speaking to me, in particular, was awful.
“According to her she’s identified me as an enemy or something.”
“For an ancient automaton, that she moves at all is impressive. — Ah, speaking of.”
Clara, remembering something, told me:
“At the academy, Damian’s gotten automatons moving. He’s actually activated three of them and is observing them.”
Damian was the man of the hour in Aramsus right now.
To activate and control ancient automatons — that much had to be impressive.
Hearing this:
“Why is mine the one like that… won’t he trade me one.”
Clara:
“She works, doesn’t she? Some problem?”
“Manner of speech, that area? Otherwise perfect. Cleaning, laundry, cooking — all of it.”
Truly perfect — which made the speech the one thing I wished she’d handle.
“Well — please give up. I’ve heard it’s a kind of contract, and the method to sever the link is unknown, so it’ll be that way for life.”
“Don’t make me remember bad things…”
The automaton’s contract required one’s own blood as catalyst.
But I, freshly-Grown and elevated, had kissed the automaton and activated her.
(Was that the problem? But she said herself she was broken.)
“Speaking of —”
Clara looked at me.
“Mm?”
“A bother. Limiting Skill use to clear the dungeon’s B30, and so on.”
Last dungeon run, we’d taken down the B40 boss with six.
A floor normally tackled with fifty adventurers.
We’d produced that result, sure — and in response the ancestors had laid down a condition: clear B30 without Skills.
Their judgment: my base ability was overwhelmingly insufficient. So they’d suspended all of my Jewel Skills.
That meant we — by our own strength — had to clear Aramsus’s dungeon’s B30.
Easy to say. But the scale is normally a 20–30 person party.
“Personal circumstances. Relying entirely on Skills is risky when mana runs out.”
I gave the reason the ancestors had given, and Clara looked a little surprised.
”…I’d thought Lyle-san would, without noticing, eventually make a big mistake. I’ll have to revise my evaluation.”
“H-harsh.”
When I said that, I thought Clara smiled a little.
“Call on me if anything comes up. Lyle-san pays well — no loss in hearing the offer.”
A mercenary thing to say — but for us adventurers, money mattered.
We risked danger for it.
If we lived on the money earned that way, we had to be firm about that side.
In any case, I’d ended up carrying enough that I now needed to earn for two women and an automaton.
(Honestly, what to do.)
If I just increased numbers, clearing was easy.
But on the last Damian job, I’d embarrassed myself.
(Carried back to the Guild on Novem’s back, my reputation… pretty low.)
Right — at the very end, my body had stopped moving, and the other adventurers had seen me in a sorry state.
So my personal credibility was low.
While I wanted to gather numbers, my mediocre standing in Aramsus was holding me back.
(Steady base-building it is, after all.)
The reason I’d been able to grow so fast, the reason I’d produced results — was the Jewel and the Skills of the recorded heads of house.
Without them, real trouble.
(I need a way to break through the dungeon’s B30.)
Thinking on it, I read at the library and stockpiled what knowledge I could.