| Author: Kisasaki Suzume | Original Source: Syosetu |
| Translator: Mui | English Source: Re:Library |
| Editor(s): Deximus-Maximus | |
In the desolate corridor where security was long gone, Lucella wrenched open a battered door.
First, the cleansing chamber, then some sort of parts warehouse. And then, Lucella struck gold in the third room.
“This room…”
It was a workshop of artifacts. Strictly speaking, it might have differed from what Lucella was familiar with, but the atmosphere was similar. Dull black metal shelves and desks. Countless tools with unknown purposes. Strange metal gears and screws.
There were also several displays that seemed to have once been suspended by arms but were now scattered on the floor, cracked. And the keycards… Lucella heard they were often discovered in the ruins from the era of the Human-Dragon War and even earlier.
But what caught her eye more than anything else in the room were the silver arms and legs, and silver head frames that resembled skeletal specimens. They were lined up on the shelves and hung on the walls in abundance.
It was clear what had been manufactured in this workshop. Ancient combat golems, most likely. Most of the parts were neatly arranged, yet in the room, there was only one “finished product.”
On a worktable resembling an operating table, a tall, slender woman lay… Or rather, it was a golem with that appearance.
The golems Lucella had fought earlier had appearances that were like decorative armor, but this golem clearly had a form resembling a human being.
The silver limbs were elegantly crafted with lines that clearly exceeded the requirements for combat, and from the neck up, it seemed to be covered with artificial skin or something similar, making it look almost like a living human.
She was clad in a pale peach-colored, adorable nightgown, concealing her silver body. And like a child clutching a blanket, she held onto a white robe that was too small for her, curling her body as she lay there.
Joints and seams were rusted, the surface of the armored plates worn down, and the doll no longer moved a muscle.
On the nearby desk, there remained a message, written in classical human language, resembling a letter.
This body seems to have stopped moving as well.
Mom.
The one who created me.
The final command for me was ‘Find happiness even if it’s just for yourself.’
I traced the happiness you spoke of in this ark.
The more I learned about what happiness is, the more I felt the loneliness of not having you, Mom.
The days of quietly tending the fields.
The evenings spent reading by the hearth.
I learned that happiness comes from having someone dear by your side.
I felt this every time I held your hand, now reduced to bones, and every time I went into unnecessary sleep.
Mom.
You did something cruel.
Why did you give human-like AI to a doll meant for combat?
To you who are reading this message,
Please, if it’s within your power, bring my mother back to life, assuming such technology exists.
And please, make my mother happy.
My mother knew happiness, but I believe she was only given a little of it.
She dedicated her life to fighting dragons and ended her short sixteen-year life.
She deserves to be happier.
So, I beg of you, a stranger, to grant this wish.
Along with the letter, a name tag hung around her neck.
It read, ‘Lead Researcher Jamie Hackathon’ in the archaic human script, and beside it, a picture of a cheerful girl in a lab coat was printed.
Lucella read the letter twice.
At some point, Kafal had also reconstructed her appearance, peeking over Lucella’s shoulder at the letter.
“So that child… That child was the ‘mother’…”
The bodies of the crew were lined up in the back room. Given the circumstances, it would be reasonable to assume that the entire ship had been cursed and wiped out.
In that situation, with unknown circumstances, only one girl had taken the ‘life-prolonging medicine’ and survived for a little while… but eventually died.
Leaving behind dolls that couldn’t die from the curse.
Several photos with vivid prints that looked like real scenes were displayed on the workshop wall.
Among them, what caught her eye was the ship’s interior garden in its heyday… with a beautiful pond and flower beds, and even some impressive potted plants that seemed just right for lumber. The log cabin was nowhere to be seen. It seemed that the house had been constructed later.
“Lucella, there seems to be another letter.”
“Oh, true…”
Lucella peeled the overlapping sheets and began to read the second one, which had much more white space compared to the first.
Unfortunately, they are not as intelligent as I am.
I believe they won’t pose a threat as long as you refrain from sudden actions, but if any issues arise, please issue a shutdown command.
You can change the commands from the terminal with Mother’s keycard.
The more complex a mechanism, the more fragile it was. Simple golems continued their security duties for millennia, but it seemed she was different.
Upon closer inspection, Jamie’s name tag turned out to be a structure that housed a plate resembling an adventurer’s card in a thin case.
“So this isn’t just an ordinary name tag. It’s a keycard. The exit should open with this…”
The pulled-out keycard retained a gleam that didn’t seem to have aged a day in a thousand years. All too in vain. It was all from a long-forgotten tale. In the distant past, everything had already come to an end.
Lucella, who had thought there might be something she could do, ended up here with nothing she could do.
“I don’t know much about human magic, but… the girl upstairs, can she be brought back to life?”
“It’s impossible… resurrecting the dead is the pinnacle of holy magic, in other words, a miracle of the gods… The dead from the ‘Human-Dragon War,’ whose belief system differs from the present one, cannot be resurrected with modern holy magic. Moreover… resurrection hardly succeeds if the corpse isn’t fresh. With such an ancient corpse, it’s practically…”
Lucella gazed at the lying doll.
She had just experienced firsthand how extraordinarily sturdy the ancient golems from the past were. How many years had she lived within this sealed ark after losing her “mother”?
At the end of that undoubtedly long life, she still thought of her mother. All Lucella could glean from fragmented information was just that much. But it was enough for Lucella to hold her in reverence.
Just how much had that mother cherished her daughter? How much had this daughter thought of her mother?
“I’m sorry.”
Lucella touched the cheek of the doll with a sleeping-like expression. There was no warmth, but it felt as soft as a living person’s body.
Features like shedding tears were probably beyond her capabilities. Yet there must have been days when she cried.
