They finally reached the main hall. Emilico was, understandably, quite overwhelmed, and she kept looking left and right, her mouth wide open in shock and awe.
Just like that day, there were several dolls working at the highest parts of the hall. Just like before, there were no safety measures implemented- one wrong move and they will break just like the nameless doll did.

Mia pointed up.

“There’s a beam up there, right? If you go up on that, you’ll be able to clean the ceiling.” She smiled wide and added, some kind of painful satisfaction stinging her heart “It’s high up and fun~”

……

Theoretically, before throwing the new doll into the thicket of real work, she’d have to be toured first. However, considering the circumstances, there was no time for that, and Emilico was unceremoniously handed the soot coat and cleaning equipment and expected to help out immediately.

Considering the lack of any preparation whatsoever, she did a pretty good job at adjusting.

The highlight of that day was when they started singing the song, and the newbie sung alongside with them.

If we clean, soot accumulated tomorrow~
If soot accumulates, we clean again~
Come! Let’s work, let’s be of use!
For the sake of shadow family~

The reason why singing these verses was so fun, is because all of them, save for Emilico, had a party of delight earlier today. With the coffee filling them with incomparable energy and loyalty, there is no way they wouldn’t enjoy it, and the words flew freely from their hearts.

The blondie didn’t receive the coffee, yet it looked like not only she enjoyed singing it, she had more energy than all their team combined and even volunteered to do jobs that weren’t initially assigned to her.

...Weird kid…..

Like for example, at the very end of her shift, she volunteered to throw away the soot they gathered that day….only to fall into it and get herself all black from head to toes.

When the rest of the team saw her new form, they couldn’t stop laughing.
Laughter...wasn’t something Mia did naturally for a long time. Yet right there, she was crawling on the floor and banging her fist against the hard surface, not able to stop herself. Even Lou, who was usually so slow and emotionless couldn’t hold it in. And of course, Rosemary was giving her typical “ara ara ufufu~” treatment.

This kid….Emilico...was weird.

Waving goodbye to the blond doll, she couldn’t decide if her overall impression of the blondie was positive or negative. She expected a walking disaster, yet….

Whenever I came back to my room, I stopped being 'Mia' and became 'myself'. Or to be more precise, I became the face of my shadow-sama, rather than 'Mia from the upper floor', 'Mia the dependable' or 'Mia the friendly'. When I was with my shadow-sama, my purpose was to mimic my master and live up to her expectations, and there was no need to manifest any other personality or play any other role.

This day, just like any other, there were black soot stains all over my personal quarters. When I was absent, Sarah-sama liked to check my belongings, making sure there isn’t anything unbecoming or unworthy there.
She did it out of concern for my well-being... after all, faulty dolls are discarded.
I was grateful for her.

I sat down, looking at the table, and repeated in my mind over and over again how grateful I am for Sarah-sama’s attention.
Repeating the word “gratitude” over and over again, I carved it into my very heart and embedded it into the imaginary surface of my brain. Of course, I wasn’t sure if dolls have brains…

Suddenly, a gory scene from the other day flashed before my eyes. A scene I thought I already forgot…
Ahh, but no matter. The bottom line is...dolls most certainly have brains.