Does the mechanical girl dream of the Messiah?

"No, that's not necessary..."

In the end, Lunicia was unable to enter the gate of the Pals high-end residential area. The two security guards in charge of guarding the gate stopped her without giving her any face and asked her to leave.

If you look from the gate toward the hillside from afar, you can see street lamps as bright as stars. The colorful lights illuminate the residential area, and the white stone buildings with Muirand characteristics, the tall columns and exquisite house numbers all make people feel a completely different feeling from the previous streets, as if they are not in the same world as those shabby and gloomy things.

But that world has nothing to do with Lunicia.

There are only two ways to enter the high-end residential area. One is to purchase a house in the high-end residential area at the city government's building purchase office, and then enter with the attached certificate and door card. The other is to enter with business cards given by residents of the high-end residential area. Both of these methods are undoubtedly not available to Lunisia.

"How much will it cost to live there?"

"It's better for Luna not to know this kind of knowledge."

"Is this so..."

In the end, I could only go for a walk on Collins Street.

Logically speaking, the journey from the Pars high-end residential area to Collins Pedestrian Street was actually enough for Lunicia to digest her food, but she always felt that if she didn't go for a stroll on the so-called pedestrian street, she would feel a little unsatisfied. After all, pedestrian streets, like the so-called high-end residential areas, were types that Lunicia had never heard of before.

The hour hand has crossed the seven o'clock mark, the red moon and the eclipsed sun have completed their alternation, and as the brightness of the street lights has increased, the city has officially announced the arrival of night.

It was like opening a secret door, and the whole city seemed to come alive.

People, people pouring out from nowhere, some dressed in haphazard ways, some looking serious or casual, some adventurers or wanderers or nothing at all, they just filled the street, making the whole street crowded and noisy.

Although it is a dilapidated and poorly maintained city, it shows a strange kind of life and vitality.

"Oh, I'm so sorry..."

In the crowded crowd, a woman in leather armor accidentally bumped into Ashlee. She quickly apologized to the two of them, and then hurriedly left in the opposite direction of the crowd.

Lunicia just looked at her twice more, and when she turned around, she found that Ashlee was staring at the direction she left.

"what happened?"

"She's special."

"Eh?" Lunicia couldn't help but touch the purse on her waist. It was still there, without any cuts. "No way, was the guy just now a pickpocket? But Ashe didn't have any cash on her..."

"No, not this special." Ashlee closed her eyes. "Did Luna notice her appearance?"

"That? It's a little special."

The woman had short, messy hair like seaweed, which looked quite bright and eye-catching. Not only that, her fairly delicate face was covered with a brown veil, which made her look mysterious. It was really hard not to pay attention to her appearance.

"She is a creation of the machine."

Ashetherin placed her palm on her chest, gently brushing the cold, pale skin beneath her cloak.

"It's the same thing as me."

Chapter 9 Bloody Sparks

"……How about it?"

In the dimly lit and run-down bar, a silver-haired, one-eyed woman was rhythmically shaking the glass in her hand, causing the spherical ice cubes to collide with the wall of the glass, making slight clinking sounds.

"Discovered."

The woman with purple seaweed hair just pushed the door open, and she couldn't help but look at the silver-haired woman twice - it was obvious that the other party had already noticed her presence before she pushed the door open, and asked questions at the right time. Even if it was not a cutting-edge model, as a specialized type for infiltration and avoidance, the seaweed-haired woman - or the mechanical doll named "Infiltrator" model - was quite confident in her skills in hiding her breath and footsteps.

Hearing this, the silver-haired woman raised her head and looked up and down at the Infiltrator with her only golden pupil.

"In such a remote place, is there a portable device that can detect the reaction of the prayer? Who is the other party?"

"Special surveillance target, Lunicia."

Hearing this answer, the silver-haired woman couldn't help but move her body.

Her elbow hit the bartender who was lying on the bar, and the adult male corpse lost balance like mud and collapsed on the wooden floor behind him. With a "bang", his blood-stained chest was exposed: a conical hole with the widest part reaching 20 centimeters, almost gouging out the entire chest cavity from the body.

"Impossible, I don't remember when she had such...ability."

Her expression was as cold as before, but anyone could see that there was a hint of unnaturalness in that coldness that was difficult to conceal.

"To be precise, it's 'a certain existence' around her.

With the sound of metal and rotten wood colliding, a tall woman with black hair and red eyes, metal limbs, and wearing a short coat that was easy to move in walked out from the shadow of the bar. She had a short gun and three long swords on her waist, and a long knife that was almost as tall as a person and covered with complex metal structures in her hand. Even if you couldn't see any red, you could smell the strong smell of blood from her.

"…the person who was executed."

When seeing the woman named Death Penalty, the "Infiltrator" figure consciously retreated to the shadows to the side and stood with the figures with the same face as her who were hiding in the dark.

This is based on the most basic respect that the lower-level T-dolls have for their commanders. When a conversation unfolds between two informed superiors, unless they are specifically called out for questioning, these mass-produced T-dolls will quietly step aside, do their own work, replenish supplies, or have some fun, waiting for the next order to arrive.

"It's a doll of a model I've never seen before." The executioner walked over slowly, pulled out a stool, and sat down next to the silver-haired woman. "Will you buy me a drink?"

"We've killed them all. If you want to drink, go get it from the container."

"Hey, hey, we're going to be partners in the next mission after all."

That being said, the executed man didn't really look like he was going to take the bottle of wine. He just tapped the uneven table top with his metal knuckles.

"The appearance of 'that thing' is similar to that of 'Codename Lunicia', but there are also some differences. The unknown individual has a pair of golden eyes. According to the results of the reverse analysis of the sensors, it should be constantly reverse analyzing the surrounding environment. The model cannot be identified, and the maker and purpose are even more impossible to talk about. If we are talking about surface analysis, we can roughly judge that there is no malicious intent. More importantly, we need to consider hacking into her mind to understand it."

"But we didn't bring any humanoids specialized for information warfare." The silver-haired woman raised her head, drank the remaining wine in the glass, and then slammed the glass heavily on the bar. "...did the 'main brain' say anything?"

"No."

The Executioner shrugged and continued, "But Mastermind reminds you that we don't have much time. It's best not to put too much energy on unnecessary things."

"What if that unknown individual has some connection with 'The Beginning Day'... or, in other words, with 'The Professor'?"

"That's not your concern, 'outsider'."

The executed person narrowed his eyes and stood up from his chair.

"You don't need to guess what the Mastermind is thinking. You just need to act as a pawn and carry out the mission like us."

The silver-haired woman did not reply.

As the footsteps of the executed person gradually receded, she simply picked up the half-bottle of wine beside her, filled the glass in front of her, and drank it all in silence in the dark and empty space.

……

"A mechanical creation... a mechanical puppet?"

"Yes, it's a kind of mechanical puppet."

An illusory halo flickered in her golden pupils. Ashlee blinked and continued, "Codename: Infiltrator, specialized in infiltration and evasion. Specific data unknown. Manufacturer: 'Steel Leviathan'."

"Iron Leviathan..."

Lunitia had heard of the name.

Only once, and only in a short conversation, but even so, this name left a deep impression on Lunicia - the reason was simply because the last mission that her swordsmanship teacher, the holy knight who was her predecessor, accepted before his disappearance was to investigate the "Iron Leviathan".

The little information she could find only told her that Iron Leviathan was a large military-industrial enterprise that had once been located in Arkham, and that was all - there was no information about the company's specific products or related persons, and Lunicia had never had any reason to set foot outside the temple before, so the investigation hit a bottleneck.

Now it seems that Iron Leviathan should be a military-industrial enterprise that produces mechanical dolls as its main products, one of the many mechanical workshops in Arkham?

But why is it being investigated? What exactly happened back then?

Why did even such a powerful predecessor... sacrifice himself in that mission?

Taking a deep breath, Lunicia asked softly, "Ashe, do you have more information about the Iron Leviathan?"

"No relevant information was found." Ashlee shook her head. "There is information about the Iron Leviathan in the database, but it is incomplete. If you want to complete the relevant parts, you need to have direct contact with the relevant physical objects."

"I see...but..."

"but?"

Lunicia hesitated.

"The Iron Leviathan military workshop... should have been destroyed long ago."

In the "Void Disaster" where almost no one could survive, the workshop called Iron Leviathan should have been completely wiped out from this world along with the city of Arkham.

Why would the humanoid figure of the Iron Leviathan, who was thought to no longer exist, appear here?

She couldn't help but think back to the group of attackers she encountered before coming to Nosawi.

The identity of that group of people has not yet been figured out. There are so few clues that we can't even make a decent guess.

Armed men trying to hide themselves seemed to be everywhere. If this was a holy land for mercenaries and adventurers, then even if they lifted their concealment, this number would not surprise Lunisia. However, this was in the Mariai-Nosavi area where this business was quite barren, so this number was disturbing.

The patrolling guards seemed to have discovered nothing. They just went about their duties mechanically, and remained indifferent even when turbulence was gathering right under their noses.

In this case, the mechanical puppet of Iron Leviathan also appeared in the field of vision...

What is happening in this city?

Chapter 10: The Northern Blocks

Ashlee looked at Lunicia's face with changing expressions, and after a while she spoke softly, "Luna, Ashlee doesn't want you to delve into this matter any further."

"Hmm?" Hearing this, Lunicia came back to her senses and looked up at Ashcelin, "Why?"

"There must be some conspiracy and inside information behind this matter. If Luna wants to return to Zerhal safely, she just needs to pretend that she didn't see it and then go to Puchilla to take a boat and leave as planned."

"That's right...

Hearing what Ashtherin said, Lunicia neither denied nor refuted it, but just sighed softly.

"...Well, it's useless after all."

"'Useless' means...?"

"Luna really won't give up."

When she met Lunicia's eyes, she tilted her head as if confused and relieved, a gentle smile appeared on the corner of her mouth, and she said something difficult to understand.

"I haven't said anything yet!"

"You can understand without a verbal answer, because Ashe is a model endowed with absolute analytical ability. Just by watching, you can naturally understand what Luna is thinking."

"..."

Faced with such overly straightforward words, Lunicia had no idea how to respond.

In other words, she didn't even know what attitude she should take to deal with this matter. Should she get angry? Or should she be ashamed? Or should she just laugh it off? She felt that none of them were appropriate, and in the end, the only option left was silent embarrassment.

Should I stick to my original idea? Or should I follow Ashcelin's suggestion and take a short break, then head directly to Puchilia and take a boat back to Zerhal?

"I still want to... investigate first."

"Ashe only proposed a feasible course of action. After that, the specific action to be taken depends solely on Luna's own will, that's all."

Lunisia's expression couldn't help but soften a bit.

"Do you remember which direction the mechanical puppet left in the end?"

……

"The target's prayer response has been lost and tracking is no longer possible."

After they had completely walked away from Hernand Commercial Street and arrived at a dilapidated street that seemed quite unfamiliar to both Lunicia and Ashlee, Ashlee could no longer continue to track the traces of the prayers left by the mechanical puppet.

There was no doubt that the other party was an expert in infiltration and counter-reconnaissance - humans did not need to breathe, so they would not leave any traces of breath; their footsteps were too light, so they would not leave any footprints; only the traces of the prayer letters could not be concealed, but even this thing, which could be said to be evidence of the existence of the human figure, would dissipate over a long distance and could no longer be captured.

“This is not normal behavior.”

"How to say?"

Lunicia knows nothing about machinery. It is better to say that, except for those countries that introduced steam machinery technology early and have been able to realize self-research and development and set up workshops, in other traditional magic-dominated regions, steam machinery technology is monopolized by a company called Chrysalis Company, and only the most basic knowledge can be circulated.

In addition, most residents in magic-dominated areas cannot directly feel the convenience brought by steam engine technology, and they lack interest in gaining a deeper understanding of this technology that is completely different from magic. This is also the reason why steam engines are difficult to promote in many areas.

Lunicia did not have such prejudice, but due to the lack of access to information, she had no way of knowing anything about steam engines and prayer letters.

"The prayer words would not have disappeared so quickly due to natural causes."

Ashlee stretched out her hand and gently stroked the empty air. Some golden dots of light appeared there, interweaving into many complex and incomprehensible patterns in the windless air.

"Compared to things like breath and footsteps, it can exist longer. It is equivalent to non-existence for things that cannot be 'seen', but it is too obvious for things that can be 'seen'. This is the prayer letter. If the prayer letter left as a trace of existence is to disperse from its predetermined trajectory, it will take at least a day."

"In other words, someone is covering up the traces?"

"It's the 'interference network'."

Ashlee's palms gently held the golden, constantly changing patterns, and blew them away like dandelions, letting them fly forward along the path of the wind. After a while, the patterns gradually dissipated in the air and could no longer be seen with the naked eye.

"what is this?"