Volume 9 - Chapter 27 – Side Story 11: The Madness of a Certain Puppet (1/2)
09-27 Side Story 11: The Madness of a Certain Puppet
A little bit before the Great Magic War.
There was a certain Magi Craftsman in Dinar Kingdom.
The Magi Craftsman announced himself as the second coming of the genius Magi Craftsman Adrianna Balbora Ceci, and other people thought it wasn’t an exaggeration.
However, it was nothing more than him having acquired –by chance– a Template Adrianna Balbora Ceci had left behind.
And the Template itself was something Adrianna herself would think to still be at an incomplete level if she saw it.
But the people of this era didn’t know that.
The fact of the matter was that Adrianna Balbora Ceci was that much of a super-genius ahead of her time.
Only once this era came finally appreciation for her ability appeared.
Using that Template, the man made an Automata.
She had not only fitting movements, speech, and thought for an Automata, but she could also feel artificial emotions.
And although it was just for show, she could breathe and also had body temperature. The result was good enough you could call her indistinguishable from a human.
“Ooh, this is magnificent.”
“His works are on a different level, aren’t they?”
The nobles lauded her and everyone wanted to possess one of his Automata.
“Silver hair and blue eyes would be good. Her body should be tall, slender, and well-proportioned, and I want the breasts to be big.”
“The hair’s got to be blonde and the eyes green, please. Have her figure be thin and the chest be moderate too.”
The nobles had their own preferences for the looks. The Magi Craftsman varied the appearance of the Automata according to the request.
“Hmm, now that it’s come to this making it’d be good if they could be enjoyed during the nights too, but…”
Eventually he met even those demands.
At any rate, this was because being approved by other people and receiving admiration were his reasons for living.
＊ ＊ ＊
During the same era there was another, different Magi Craftsman.
He, no, she was also a genius. Actually, perhaps calling her the genius would be appropriate.
However, maybe because of her talent her intentions became warped, and in her madness she focused her manufacturing towards only building Automata.
She dedicated her whole life for building the supreme Automata.
Fortunately her house was prosperous, enough so that the assets wouldn’t run out during her lifetime. She poured all of it into Automata manufacture.
Be that as it may, her first one was shoddy and had a long way to go. Its movements were slow, and it had difficulty speaking.
“Mas, ter, the tea, is, reedy.”
“Ready, you mean! How many times must I tell you!”
Every day she got irritated.
But she built ten, then twenty, and they gradually got more refined.
“Master, the meal preparations have been completed.”
Both the movements and the way of talking became non-inferior compared to humans.
Along with that, she once again became the subject of conversations.
Automata manufacture commissions began incessantly pouring in for her.
But she still wasn’t satisfied. That was because in comparison to the hers, the Automata of the Magi Craftsman who was the current talk of the town were more popular.
That is to say, Adrianna Balbora Ceci was preferred to her.
She knew that the Automata that were all the rage then were all based on the Template Adrianna had left behind.
She declined all the manufacture commissions, and she aimed for “an Automata that has strength surpassing a golem”.
That became her next goal.
And the reason behind this was that the Automata built based on the Template left behind by Adrianna Balbora Ceci were three times stronger than any human, so they could even be useful as bodyguards.
“What’s Adrianna to speak of. I’ll show everyone that I’m superior to her!”
Following her goal, the Automata she built became stronger one after another. Despite their appearance being that of a delicate woman, they boasted a strength over twice that of conventional golems.
And yet she wasn’t satisfied.
An Automata surpassing all Automata, the queen of Automata. That was her next goal.
Appearance beautiful to the utmost. Graceful bearing. And mighty enough that once she displayed it all the Automata would prostate themselves before her. Building such an Automata became her dream.
For that reason she disassembled all the Automata she had made until now for materials, and collected only the most superior components and brought them to life.
The Automata numbering over 100 were all scrapped by her.
But she accumulated the knowledge and intelligence contained in their Control Cores into one.
Without even marrying, she devoted herself to nothing but building the Automata.
One day, a regular trader brought in a second hand Magi Crystal. It was a rather old thing, and had some kind of a Control System inscribed in it.
She analyzed it.
“This is incredible! It appears to be over 600 years old, and yet as early as then there was a movement formula like this!”
It was a Magi Formula written for a ‘special’ golem. After acquiring that her research advanced greatly at once.
In addition the Magi Crystal had a purity so high obtaining a similar one in her era would be difficult, and so she decided to reuse it after using [Erase].
By the time she had reached her 60s, she finished a single Automata. It was her masterwork.
Its appearance was that of a girl in her late teens who had just reached adulthood. Its height was neither tall nor short. Its hair was golden and its eyes a deep crimson.
“You are my proud daughter. You won’t lose even to Adrianna Balbora Ceci’s golems.”
At every opportunity she told the Automata that and adored it.
The Automata behaved as she had hoped for, no, better than she had hoped for.
“Mother, the weather is fine today so shall we go for a walk?”
It even had consideration for others like a human, no, as if it was also a human. More than once a son of a noble fell in love with it at first sight and courted it.