I Am Not a Robot. Beep-bop

Chapter 8: Overseer Oriana 2

“Haah…”

Ah, electricity tastes so good.

So delicious…

Haah, haah.

Powerade Zero-Calorie flavored electricity…

To make a comparison, it feels like Powerade being absorbed through my entire body.

I thought this would feel unpleasant, but it tastes so much better than expected that I can’t help but keep sighing.

The voice spilling out of my throat sounded like a girl’s, so I couldn’t quite get used to it.

However, what mattered most to me now was the sensation of devouring the mana from the gas-mask people, filling me from head to toe with a feeling close to ecstasy.

What was empty is now filling me up.

What poured out of them is completely, completely…

Overflowing within me.

“Haah… haaang…”

From the moment I opened my eyes, this metallic body had been starving with a terrible hunger.

That hunger wasn’t biological.

It was a lack of all things considered energy—electricity, mana, and everything in between.

This body’s potential and hidden power were so vast that even I, its owner, couldn’t fathom it.

But no matter how much was hidden, it would be useless without the power and energy to draw it out.

In fact, the source driving this body was so irreversibly inefficient and poorly designed that it couldn’t even cast a proper spell.

When dealing with the gas-mask people, I had to fight purely with my physical body and the martial instincts buried deep in my memories.

All the energy, capacity, battery, electricity, and mana that I’d been lacking since birth were now surging within me, ready to explode.

“Ah, my belly. So full…”

As I sat on top of one of the gas-mask people, sucking up the mana flowing from his armor and weapon, an indescribable sense of accomplishment sent shivers down my spine.

Ah, how do I even describe this feeling?

Is it like acquiring something I was never meant to have?

If it’s something like this, I might develop the tiniest hint of forgiveness for the gas-mask people stabbing me with their awls.

-Thud!-

However, did they have no intention of leaving me alone?

Sensing a strange pressure in the air, I looked up.

A person floated in the air.

It was a red-haired woman with a unique fashion sense, draping her coat over her shoulders.

Floating near her head was a metallic spirit resembling a centipede or millipede.

‘An artificial spirit, huh.’

It seemed like a spirit synthesized from earth and fire, modified with various artifacts and magic-engineering techniques.

Though this method was unfamiliar, vague memories from my second life reminded me of similar spirit modification techniques.

“Activate the prison.”

-Clank!-

At the snap of her fingers, sword-like metal structures sprouted from her body and aligned themselves in all directions.

The swords multiplied and replicated, forming a shape reminiscent of a cage or prison that surrounded the entire vicinity.

Looking closely, a sort of artificial mana field was formed between the swords.

‘If I try to escape, I’ll probably get impaled by those swords immediately.’

Even at a glance, she seemed overwhelmingly stronger than the gas-mask people.

If you asked me whether I could defeat that woman in a fight right now… honestly, I wasn’t sure.

I still didn’t know the limits of this body or how to use it effectively.

Despite absorbing a good amount of mana sparks from the gas-mask people, my battery capacity still hadn’t reached half.

-Buzz!-

The swords circling me began to rotate, slowly at first but gradually speeding up.

The woman cautiously narrowed the distance between us, her eyes sharp with vigilance.

Watching this unfold, I brushed the gas-mask person I had been sitting on to the side.

Ahem.

Normally, fighting in this situation would be the expected course of action, but let me emphasize something.

I am a rational, civilized being with ethical consciousness.

Sure, there was a time when I lived as a Demon King, but that was limited to my second life.

In my third life as a tin-can robot, forming human connections was a deeply important challenge.

That’s why I didn’t take the lives of the gas-mask people but merely incapacitated them.

I wasn’t ready to bear the karma of killing.

“Can you… hear me?”

“…Huh?”

When I opened my mouth, the woman’s eyes widened as if surprised I could speak.

“You can talk?”

I nodded in response.

At least we could communicate.

I wasn’t sure if we could write to each other, but considering I’ve lived through three lifetimes, surely I’d stumble upon a language that works.

The fact that we could speak to each other was already a significant leap forward and a good foundation for forming a relationship.

Once the woman realized I could talk, she immediately snapped her fingers again, halting the rotation of the swords in midair.

“Did you do this to all these people?”

“…..”

Once again, I simply nodded.

It irked me to have to pretend to be weak like a helpless little girl.

But regardless of my past lives, the current me was at risk of being disassembled by goblins if I ran out of battery.

There was no need to provoke someone unnecessarily, so I decided to maintain the appearance of a fragile child.

“Why did you attack these people?”

“…They tried to stab my neck.”

“Stabbed your neck?”

The woman glanced at the squirming gas-mask people, biting her lip as if overcome by frustration.

I wasn’t sure about the details, but it seemed like she was dealing with some incredibly disobedient subordinates.

“Yeah, with an awl. I wanted to talk, but they… they attacked my neck first.”

At my words, the woman’s face hardened into a frosty expression.

The thought of multiple grown adults stabbing a child’s neck without even attempting a conversation must have been shocking to her.

“Hoo, I am Ark’s First-Class Overseer, Oriana Haleson. I’ll ask you a question in that capacity. Who are you?”

“….Who…”

Who am I?

Honestly, that was what I wanted to know most.

If I pieced together the fragments of memory I had, I could say: ‘I was once human. In my second life, I reached the pinnacle as the Demon King. In my third life, as you can see, I’m a tin-can android starving for electricity while going beep-boop.’

‘Hmm, nonsense. Even I can tell that’s nonsense.’

As I hesitated in silence, Oriana Haleson pressed on with a determined expression.

“I’ll ask again, as a First-Class Overseer. Your answers will determine your treatment under my authority. If you are deemed a significant threat to Ark and the city, I will eliminate you here. However, if you are identified as a civilian or a returnee who does not endanger the city’s safety, I swear to protect you.”

Still, Oriana seemed to be a good person, unlike the gas-mask people.

Her face was filled with desperate sincerity, as though she genuinely wanted me to answer her questions properly.

Being a First-Class Overseer seemed like a high-ranking position, but she appeared to have a soft spot for children.

Well, anyone with a shred of humanity would be moved by the appearance of a young girl.

Those gas-mask bastards were the real anomaly.

However, even if I wanted to answer Oriana’s question truthfully, the situation was a bit tricky.

It felt odd to be completely honest, yet lying might create complications I wouldn’t be able to handle later.

From the sound of it, a First-Class Overseer seemed like a high-ranking official.

Fabricating some half-baked lie might backfire spectacularly and ruin the progress I’d made in forming human connections.

‘I’ll just be honest. That’s probably better.’

Oriana kept her intense gaze fixed on me, her expression showing that she wouldn’t back down without an answer.

“I don’t really… know.”

“You don’t know? You don’t even know your name?”

“Yeah. When I woke up… I was in a scrapyard. There was no one around. So I walked. As I walked, a giant monster blocked my way, so I killed it. After that, the gas-mask adults appeared. Then they stabbed and beat me.”

“…..”

Hearing my words, Oriana glared at the fallen gas-mask people with murderous intent.

I wasn’t lying, but to Oriana, I probably seemed like a pitiable, tragic young girl who had lost her memories and body.

That wasn’t surprising, considering I looked like a teenage girl, and my tin-can body aside, my delicate appearance likely evoked sympathy and a protective instinct.

Whether my appearance softened the heart of someone as high-ranking as Oriana was uncertain.

But I had spoken the truth, without embellishment.

“Your parents…?”

“…Don’t have any.”

“No… you don’t?”

If the parents of this tin-can android could be considered its creators, how would I know who they were?

Oriana looked slightly troubled upon hearing my words, then snapped her fingers as if she had made a decision.

All the floating blades in the air disappeared at once.

The artificial spirit that had been attached to Oriana’s waist also vanished, likely dismissed.

Her eyes softened as she approached me.

Gone was the faint hostility from when she first saw me, replaced by a gaze filled with gentle sympathy.

“I am Oriana Haleson, a First-Class Overseer of Ark. I will accompany you until your safety is guaranteed. If you wish to refuse, feel free to say so.”

“…..”

Pretending to be a lost young girl with amnesia in my third life was a bit disheartening, but I was grateful to have resolved the situation through dialogue rather than conflict.

“…Oh, you poor thing…”

It seemed Oriana had misunderstood something, but that might actually work better in my favor.

■

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[“Hah, hah… ugh, ugh!”]

One of the members of the Contact Unit was running frantically through the forest.

His name was Cleang Byblos.

A scion of the Byblos family, one of Ark’s wealthiest and most influential households, Cleang had led a debauched life, often interpreting his Overseer’s orders liberally and committing murders under the guise of following orders.

As a Contact Unit member, he had been sentenced to serve in what was essentially a penal force.

These units were typically composed of criminals living without regard for tomorrow.

However, Cleang’s privileged background made him an even greater threat, as he carried the impunity afforded by his family.

Cleang had committed serious crimes that even Ark’s leadership couldn’t ignore, leading to his assignment to the Contact Unit.

Normally, these units were dispatched to perilous locations where survival was uncertain—unexplored dungeons, unstable Gates, or the outskirts teeming with calamities.

But this area was relatively safe, with a secure foothold established.

Cleang enjoyed a comfortable and relatively risk-free punishment period, save for the stress of cryosleep.

There were hardly any dangerous monsters here, and the Overseers dispatched to this area had been bribed by the Byblos family to look the other way when Cleang and his subordinates committed heinous acts.

Even when their misdeeds included murder, the Overseers had swept it under the rug.

However, things started to change when Oriana, the First-Class Overseer, arrived.

While cryosleep had been mostly nominal before, Oriana strictly enforced it outside of mission times.

No amount of bribery or subtle threats could sway her.

Oriana was incorruptible, not lacking in capability but devoid of greed.

Even the Byblos family couldn’t openly pressure a First-Class Overseer.

Everything had become unbearable for Cleang.

What had been an easy and comfortable punishment turned into suffocating monotony with Oriana’s arrival.

Her unyielding stance drove Cleang to the edge of his patience.

That was why today, evading Oriana’s watchful eyes, Cleang planned to indulge his bloodlust for the first time in a long while.

His target was a girl.

She looked like the child of a vagabond or an orphan.

The imagined sweetness of her screams excited him.

But what unfolded was something he couldn’t have anticipated.

The small girl obliterated the entire Contact Unit.

Her movements were imperceptible.

What seemed like an ordinary girl turned out to be a full-body metallic android.

With elegance resembling a ballerina, the mechanical girl crushed Cleang and his subordinates.

When he tried to stab her chest with an awl, he blacked out.

When he regained consciousness, he was lying face down on the ground.

Most of the other Contact Unit members were also incapacitated, some pierced by the mechanical tentacles that emerged from the girl’s body.

Cleang had been lucky to be taken out with a simple throw.

Although his back hurt terribly, the injuries weren’t severe.

Ark’s technology and potions could heal such wounds quickly.

What troubled Cleang was everything that would happen afterward.

He and the rest of the Contact Unit, having attacked the mechanical girl without attempting dialogue, would undoubtedly face severe punishment.

If Oriana, who didn’t tolerate excuses, got involved, they might undergo brainwashing or have their brains dissected, exposing all of Cleang’s past crimes.

In the worst-case scenario, even the Byblos family that had shielded him might face consequences.

The family had always protected him, but if he caused irreparable damage to their reputation, they might abandon him entirely.

Even being assigned to the Contact Unit had already been a precarious situation for him.

If trouble arose here as well, Cleang would truly be at the end of his rope.

“Damn it, that would be worse than death…!”

So Cleang chose to flee.

His decision wasn’t entirely reckless.

He hoped to fabricate an excuse.

The Contact Unit didn’t always move together.

They often roamed the forest widely to hunt monsters.

By fleeing before Oriana’s arrival, Cleang intended to claim that he hadn’t participated in the attack on the girl, instead engaging in reconnaissance.

Of course, he wasn’t optimistic that this excuse would work.

Oriana could track the Contact Unit members’ locations, and the white-haired mechanical girl might recognize him.

“No, with Rust Rain disrupting tracking signals, I can claim the malfunction as an excuse. And there’s no way that kid can recognize me with everyone wearing the same gas mask.”

This was his only option.

There was no alternative.

Cleang ran and ran, desperate to escape.

“Huff, huff, huff…”

After a long run, Cleang arrived at a massive junkyard.

Unbeknownst to him, this was the place where the mechanical girl had first opened her eyes.

The junkyard was a dumping ground for Ark’s discarded machinery and waste.

“There’s no other way… Huff, huff… I’ll just stay hidden here until… huh?”

-Thud!-

As Cleang caught his breath atop a pile of scrap metal, the heap he sat on seemed to shift.

-Thud!-

-Thud!-

[What… what the hell…?]

Cleang didn’t know it, but many of Ark’s elites harbored a peculiar hobby of raising monsters.

The problem was, monsters couldn’t be tamed.

They bore an inherent hatred and hostility toward humans.

Those who attempted to domesticate monsters often wasted money before having to dispose of them.

The disposal site for such creatures?

This very junkyard.

And sometimes…

-Growl!-

A surviving monster would evolve amidst the heaps of scrap.

[….]

It was huge.

Cleang realized that the scrap heap he had been sitting on was actually the tail of a creature.

As the monster fully revealed itself, it took on the form of a dragon.

This dragon had adorned itself with scraps and discarded materials from the junkyard.

Apparently, someone had tried to raise a dragon egg, only for Ark’s leadership to intervene and dispose of it.

But the creature had survived and adapted to the junkyard environment.

Instead of brilliant scales, it was armored in scrap metal and plastic.

But that didn’t make it any less dangerous.

A dragon was still a dragon.

[…Oh, shit. Goddamn it…!]