- - - - - - - - Great Hall - - - - - - - -
“Hmm?”
I gathered some ropes from around the mansion to tie the maid up when I noticed some papers scattered on the ground near where our battle took place.
“What is this?” I picked up the papers and inspected their contents.
“This… is me?” on it, we're drawings of the design of my body. On the next paper, a mysterious sphere inside my head with circuits connecting to my entire body like nerve systems. The letters describing the parts were written in a different language compared to the books in the library. Surprisingly, I can still read it very clearly. It must be that infamous language magic every casual isekai protagonists have.
“Hmm, from what I’ve tried, there are no pain receptors in my body. It seems like these nerve-system-like things are only for transmitting information to the ‘artificial muscles’, which I can only describe as pure magic. Seriously, there are no actuators to move it, just an axis of rotation.”
I flipped through the pages to glean more information.
“Looks like the typical brain and heart arrangement, glad to know my internals are familiar. But, where does my energy come from? Certainly not from food, indicated by the lack of a digestive system.” I searched through more pages to try to find my answer.
“Hmm, this looks familiar.” On one of the pages, I found a swirling pattern made of a metal that I'm oh so familiar with. “Seriously? Mithril? At Least the AI’s back home tried to be original with the name. Well, the classic is still the best, I guess. Anyway, this swirling pattern… wireless charging? How curious, I can't wait to be able to learn magic.”
As I looked at another page, I made another crucial discovery. “Oh, so the table back at the workshop was charging me, so that chant the disgusting rag did back then is to activate it? Good thing I didn't try to escape alone.”
In the end, the knowledge I gained from the blueprints only increased my awareness of the dire nature of my predicament. It was not all bad news though…
“If I stay here, there will be a low chance of me gaining my freedom. They would just need to keep the table, and I would be powerless to escape, literally. Well, it was worth a shot trying to persuade the prince. But, this new opportunity seems astronomically better; a spy trying to gather information about me. If they tried so hard just for information, I wonder what they would do with the real thing? Even if the fate of imprisonment is present on both sides, I will gladly take the side that actually wants me. And, since they have the blueprints, they can probably make the table too.”
- - - - - - - - Wine cellar - Basement - - - - - - - -
In a dimly lit room, surrounded by wooden barrels filled with wine. Two figures sat on a chair separated by a wooden table. One of them had his wooden arms crossed, and no expression could be expressed through his rigid, wooden face. The other was a normal human maid, sleeping. Her expression shows that she’s sleeping peacefully despite being tied up to her chair and the table in a weird setup.
Her left arm, legs, and body are tied to the chair, while her right arm is tied towards the tabletop. An unusual arrangement for a captive.
The time passed silently with the two figures unmoving. Until, one of them groaned.
“Mmhp” the groan, however, was muffled by the cloth tied to her mouth.
Confused, the maid’s eyes slowly open to see her surroundings. At first, she saw the dimly lit room she’s in. Then, she saw the table and the wooden chair facing her. But, when her eyes regained their focus, she realized that it was not a chair facing her, but a wooden doll. Her eyes could be seen fully opening, indicating a sense of shock coursing through her mind.
‘That’s the artifact I'm supposed to search for!’ the maid thought. ‘Oh right, I got into a fight with it because I thought it was someone else, and I lost? If only my last attack connected and shut it down. It’s also more capable compared to the intel I received, did they already modify it? But how did it make a complex move like that? Such fluidity and human likeness, I’ve never seen anything like it from a magi tech. Maybe a human was controlling it? Dammit, I was so close to getting out of here with crucial information, too. Erunica was right, I am too greedy.’
“Did you have a great sleep?” a monotone robotic voice sounded. ‘It talks like a human too.’ the maid thought.
“Please tap the table with your finger if you understand what I'm saying. It will be problematic if you have brain damage after all I've done.” With a clear sign of confusion, the maid taps her finger on the table.
“Alright, looks like you can understand what I'm saying.” The maid saw the ‘artifact’ in front of her, looked to the side, and mumbled something. However, thanks to her superior hearing, she was able to make out what It said. ‘Language won’t be a problem, huh. How amusing.’ It chuckled.
“Okay, have you calmed down now? Can we talk peacefully? Tap on the table twenty times if you can.”
The maid didn’t respond for a second, as if considering whether to go along with the abnormal request or not. But, after thinking about it, she decided to play along and tapped her finger twenty times.
“Good, I will release the cloth tied to your mouth. If I hear any incantations, an explosion magic trap will spring in from four different directions. So, please don’t try anything.”
‘I guess I can't escape yet. I wonder if I can gather information from it… Or the human behind it, I guess?’ The maid complies and stays put as the artifact unites the cloth. She took a breath of fresh air after the cloth was untied. ‘Hmm, how should I go about this? Feigning ignorance? Seems logical.’
“What are you?”
The artifact looked up from untying the cloth from her mouth. “I think you already knew the gist of it, spy.”
‘Well, it was worth a shot at. Let’s find out what it wants first.’
“What do you want from me?”
If the artifact had a mouth, he would be grinning. “Simple, take me with you.”
“What?” The maid failed to keep a straight face and accidentally leaked her thoughts. After some time passed, she rebooted her brain and tried to process the information. She did, but failed in the end. What’s left is just a question that she had no brain power left to stop from saying it out loud. “What do you mean?”
“I will go where you are going. Presumably, it would be to where the one who sent you here, right? If they want the blueprints for my body, then wouldn’t it be better to have the real thing instead?”
“Take you with me? But then, you… you, what are you exactly?” The maid tried to respond.
The ‘artifact’ leans backwards in his chair. “I guess, an explanation is needed.”
“My name is Ardis Nittarren. As you know, I'm the artifact that you were stealing the designs for. But, in the past, I used to be fully human. Now, you might say my identity is that of a cyborg. A mechanical creation with a human mind inside piloting it. That is what this ‘artifact’ you're conversing to is. And also, you are the first person to know my true self. That Giorgi guy didn’t even know I could talk and move by my own will.”
The artifact looked up to see the maid’s expression before continuing. The maid was in a daze as expected. He continued to press on the advantage.
“Anyway, humans being human, I want to be free from my current ‘research object’ status. In short, I want to escape from here. How about it? Will you take me with you?”
A lengthy couple of seconds pass as the maid tries to sort her thoughts and formulate a response. Eventually she recovered from the daze and responded.
“Why should I trust you?”
“Why shouldn’t you? You were going to take me away anyway, given the chance, right?”
‘How did he know that? But, if I take him… argh, what should I do!’ The maid’s brain ran a thousand kilometers per second in stunned silence. Funnily enough, the other side was also having the same reaction. ‘Why is she not saying anything? Did she realize I was bluffing? What if my assumptions were wrong, and she was acting this whole time?’
A couple tense silence passed until both sides came to a desperate conclusion.
‘I need to double down and convince her!’ ‘I’ll just take him and let Erunica deal with it!’
“So-” “Fin-” … “Ah-” “Ah-” Now, a couple awkward seconds passed until one side gave in.
“Sorry, what did you want to say?” The artifact said in a less robotic and more humanlike voice.
“No, you go first!” The maid shyly looks away.
“O-okay. You see, you don’t have to take me right now. You can do it later, as long as I’m still here.”
“I see. Wait, what do you mean by ‘as long as I’m still here’?”
“That, uhh, I think I made a mistake. Actually, you are technically not the first person I chose to reveal my true self to, the prince is.”
“Huh? What prince?”
“Prince Wilhart van Alten.”
“Oh, prince… wait, are you sure it's ‘Wilhart’ van Alten?”
“Yes? I think he was the second prince or something according to what I know, is there some-no, there is definitely something very wrong about what I did isn't it?”
- - - - - - - - Wilhart van Alten - - - - - - - -
Birds chirp harmoniously among the serene greenery of the royal courtyard. The morning summer sun illuminates the white pillars on the edge of the courtyard, casting dark shadows upon the inner corridors. In the middle of it all, a pretty young looking woman sat under the shade of her little gazebo, drinking tea. If Ardis were here, his heart would explode from sheer familiarity and longing for the scene. Nonetheless, it is not from his point of view that we are talking about right now.
‘There you are, mother.’ After walking through the hallways for quite some time now, I finally arrived at my destination. ‘She always stays near brother, it's disgustingly obvious who her favorite child is.’ In the grassy field of the courtyard next to my mother, my older brother was practicing his sword. I conceal myself among the shadows of the courtyard’s pillars, patiently awaiting his completion. Deep in my heart, I wish that his next interaction with mother would subvert my expectations.
“Hiyah!” Even though he was just swinging it against air, the ground reverberated after each strike of the red-hot sword. The air was dense and hot as a result of the extensive magic training he was doing. The sword swing slices through the air faster than sound creating shockwaves, the power from it seemingly dissipated in a short distance due to the barrier in place for protection and comfort. The heat was apparent after hundreds of swings, each one creating ram pressure in the tiny surface area of the edge, heating it and the air up. The dense mana exuded from his body, channels through the earth and the air, pinning him in a fixed position to offset the insane momentum and inertia of each swing.
‘He’s pretty good with the Aetherial StasisBlade, might be the strongest with it currently. Such a shame the technique was kept exclusive to the royal family. If we trained soldiers with it, we could’ve won The Altinean War back then.’ Regrets over greedy ancestors aside, my brother's magic power receded from the environment. He seems to be done with the training and going over to talk with mother.
“Mom, I have finally completed my training.” Brother stood before mother in reverence, eyes shining like a puppy waiting to be treated.
Mother stood up from her chair, smiled and patted Brother’s hair. “I’m very proud, you’ve been training very hard all this time. I can see how much effort you put in.” she spoke in a loving tone of voice.
“Stop that, what if someone saw us!” Brother whimpered while trying to lift Mother’s hand. Curiously, he can’t, her hand glued to his head like magic.
“Oh, they’ll probably think along the lines of ‘look at her being a lovely mother again’. Or, maybe you don’t want to have a lovely mother? I’m very saddened by this revelation.” Mother acted surprised and sad with fake tears dripping from her eyes.
“Noo that's not it-” brother desperately clings to mother, earning a chuckle from her.
Noises of the bickering mother and brother faded into the background like shapes in sandy beaches against the waves. In the end, after all the complications and detail filtered out, only one resolution went inside Wilhart’s ear.
‘I knew I should've waited outside.’ Not bothering to go the long way away to avoid getting seen, I cast anti-detection magic, anti-sound propagation magic, and illusion magic on the entrance door. As if just the wind, I casually opened it and walked out of there at a normal pace, unseen and unheard of by anyone.
While wandering aimlessly through the corridors, I was stopped by a butler to receive a letter.
‘Oh, Giorgi, let’s see what he did. I'm expecting great things from that artifact I found.’
