I Am Not a Robot. Beep-bop

Chapter 85: Meeting Gaia Was the Worst 3

“This, there are so many people here! Go help your master right now!”

“Executive Director Alice knew that we could not stand against a calamity with a first-class risk level.”

“Sabrina, the executive director ordered us to ignore all of your opinions.”

Even as Sabrina was dragged away by the dolls, she clenched her teeth.

It had been less than an hour since she met Alice.

The inexplicable sense of familiarity and goodwill was one thing, but leaving behind someone who claimed they would save her by fighting such a grotesque calamity alone was something she couldn’t do.

‘Damn it! If only I had even a fraction of my strength left…!’

In truth, the fact that Sabrina was still alive was a miracle in itself.

She had endured years of experiments under Earnest Rail that were tantamount to torture, without proper sleep or meals.

Even for a noble of baron rank, it was surprising she had survived.

‘Will she make it back alive? If Alice doesn’t return…’

Sabrina glanced at the undead girls, laughing and babbling without a care, unable to comprehend the situation.

“Kyaahahaha! Faster! Fasterrr!”

“Soft!”

“Teacheeerrr, when will teacher get heeere~?”

“Piggyback ride! Yay!”

“Squish-squish feels gooood~”

Sabrina had already been betrayed by the demons.

No, rather, the demons considered her the traitor.

Returning to the Demon Territory was out of the question.

If Alice didn’t come back, the only option would be to smuggle herself and the children into Ark.

“Damn it! This is freaking hopeless…!”

However, the thought of heading to Ark with the children and the dolls, illegal weapons created by Ark itself, made her head spin.

She couldn’t see any viable solution.

So please, Alice.

Come back alive.

Without you, I can’t do anything here…!

-BOOM!

“Huh?”

At that moment, Sabrina felt a massive wave that stirred her heart and soul.

“This is…”

Sabrina was a relatively young noble.

However, nobles inherently possessed various duties and commands etched into their souls, including certain abilities like powers.

Among them was…

“D…emon King…?”

Loyalty to the Demon King.

Of course, its form varied.

But Sabrina now felt a nostalgic sense of connection to the long-dormant Demon King.

“No way…”

Sabrina looked toward the crumbling underground where Alice was.

No, it couldn’t be.

The Demon King disappeared over a thousand years ago.

There’s no way the Demon King could suddenly…

“Uuuugh, why isn’t teacher coming!”

“Yeah! Let me go!”

“If Teacher Alice doesn’t come, we’re not going anywhere!”

The undead girls being carried by the dolls suddenly seemed to sense the ominous energy from the wave and began to resist.

“Executive Director ordered us to transport you. If you don’t comply, we will use for—”

“Nooo, I don’t wanna! I’m staying with Teacheeeer!!!”

“Squishy!”

Though their resistance was just a matter of exerting their strength, the dolls, masterpieces of Earnest Rail’s weaponry, were unable to overpower the undead girls’ physical force.

The dolls were baffled.

They had anticipated some level of disobedience from the undead girls, but for fifty dolls to fail to subdue just twenty girls was beyond calculation.

Meanwhile, the northern supply base of Earnest Rail was collapsing entirely, down to its foundations.

There was no time to delay, but Sabrina had already pried herself free from the doll carrying her and leapt toward the crumbling ground.

“…!”

“Entity, Sabrina. Escape!”

‘Yeah, damn it. If I don’t leave here with Alice, surviving this place is pointless for me anyway…!’

There was no choice to make.

“Waaaaah!”

“That sister is running too!”

“Let’s go toooo!”

The undead girls also drew their guns and blades, rushing toward the collapsing ground.

Some of the girls, sensing the grave situation, activated bio-suits that covered their entire bodies, completing their combat readiness.

“……”

“…What should we do?”

“Decision, impossible.”

“Protective targets have fled…”

“Sigh…”

The dolls had no choice but to reactivate their anti-mana barriers.

“We are going to protect the targets.”

“If this was going to happen, we should have fought the Executive Director from the start.”

“Agreed.”

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To Alice, now living her third life in an android body, magic was akin to a deadly poison.

As an unnatural being, she had no mana to control, and even when she tried to grasp it, it slipped through her fingers.

While it was possible to use the residual energy in her body instead of mana, Alice’s current fuel efficiency was so poor that drawing a single magical formula could render her a useless tin can.

But now, things were different.

Earnest Rail’s underground facilities were collapsing entirely due to Gaia, releasing all the current and energy sustaining them.

For other humans, the environment was fatal, with oversaturated mana and electric sparks making it impossible to breathe, but for Alice, there had never been a more ecstatic and joyous moment.

Ah, mana.

You’re listening to me.

To my gestures.

To my commands, following me completely!

This was proof of my former omnipotence.

Proof that I was once the Demon King.

The power I once wielded to freely indulge in my dreams and romance, to shape the world as I desired, was now by my side.

But moments of omnipotence were fleeting.

Alice knew this all too well.

Theresa, even now, must have been working to support Alice by stabilizing the rampant energy and assisting with the computational load of the magical formulas, her capacity nearly at its breaking point.

If Theresa had been a human instead of an auxiliary personality, her head would have literally exploded.

To wield such grand magic through mana required it to flow through the brain’s blood vessels, the heart, the entire nervous system, and the spine.

Even as a tin-can android, Alice’s entire body groaned under the strain, and she felt a ridiculous amount of pain.

‘Hahaha! My head is boiling hot! It feels like it’s on fire!!’

Still, she laughed.

It had been so long since she felt this way.

She had briefly regained the magic and omnipotence she thought she had lost forever!

In that sense, thank you, Gaia.

Thank you for driving me to this point.

For chasing me here to the bitter end!

For making this tin body of mine feel the threat of death—thank you so much!

【Liquefied Breath】

An enormous breath, mixing molten metal, current, and mana, tore through Gaia’s body.

The massive molten metal pierced Gaia, anchoring her to the walls like a spider’s web, immobilizing her.

【Dragonia Shock】

Branches that tried to strike Alice from her blind spots were shattered by an invisible shockwave.

From the broken branches, crimson sap poured out as if it were blood.

【Earth Slayer】

A massive tectonic upheaval, only usable by the Demon King, caused stones from the earth’s crust to spear upward, suspending Gaia mid-air.

【Catacomb Barrier】

This is your grave, Gaia.

When Gaia, her body ravaged by the continuous magic, opened her eyes, a cube-shaped mana barrier had formed around her.

Mana, as both life force and energy, could have been absorbed by Gaia in her prime, but now she struggled even to reconstruct her own body.

【Gluttony Barrier】

A spell that imbues all mana connected to oneself with the property of gluttony.

Alice’s very existence as the former Demon King was defined by absorbing all life force and energy without distinction.

Gaia, too, seemed to sense the mana connected to her and paused for a moment.

Gaia’s avatar was composed entirely of mana and life force.

It could be described as being similar to demons, whose bodies are made of mana.

And 【Gluttony Barrier】 was a spell akin to a natural predator that would drain all of Gaia’s life force and mana.

【“N-Nooo…!”】

“Goodbye, Gaia!”

[“Ah, ah… Aaaaah… Aaaaaaah—!!!”]

As Alice waved her hand with a faint smile, Gaia’s face twisted in grief and rage.

How had she found it?

How had she recovered it?

She had thought she could finally have it, only to see it slip away before her eyes once more.

Ah, it was so cruel.

Too cruel.

Why was this happening to her?!

It had been so hard to come this far!

She just wanted to find her!

To meet her!

All she had desired was a small sliver of affection, and yet, why did this betrayal cut so deep?

Ah, it was unbearably cruel!!

[“Aaah… Aaah… Aaahhh… Aliceeeee!!!”]

“I hate obsessive tags.”

At the same time, Alice slowly clenched her hand, and all the magic binding and immobilizing Gaia adhered to her body at once.

[“Kyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah—!!!”]

The magic imbued with gluttony drained her life force.

The body she was trying to reconstruct rotted and crumbled once more, and the countless branches she extended vanished in an instant.

[“Alice! Alice! Aliceeeee!!!”]

She stretched out her hand toward Alice as if pleading to be saved.

Her desperate cries, repeating Alice’s name so pitifully, could evoke sympathy, even sadness.

But that was the mother of a twisted life.

A calamity that absorbs the life force of those it touches like fertilizer and regards anything other than its curiosity as insignificant.

One must not attempt to understand a calamity from a human perspective, nor should one feel sympathy for it.

【Human, finish this.】

“…….”

Alice snapped out of her thoughts at Theresa’s somewhat weary voice.

Right, she must not feel pity for that thing.

It wasn’t even Gaia’s main body, just an avatar.

Someday, they would meet again, and that time, it would come for her with greater obsession and madness.

Resolving herself, Alice clenched her fist tightly.

[“G-Kaagh—!”]

With a sound of mana being crushed, Gaia’s scream echoed.

Though Gaia’s struggling and flailing figure lingered in her mind, meetings were always sudden and fleeting.

-BOOOOOM!!!

In the air, blood sprayed like rain.

A massive flood of blood, a testament to the vast life force Gaia had absorbed, fell like a storm into the pupil below.

-SQUEEEEAK!

Mechanical tendrils embedded in the obsidian walls of the cavity flung Alice about.

Fortunately, the impact wasn’t too severe.

“Haa, haa, haa…”

Her body felt unbearably hot.

As the excitement of battle subsided, the creaking of her android body sounded deafening.

【You worked… hard, Human.】

“You worked harder than I did.”

Without Theresa, she wouldn’t have managed to complete even half of the spell calculations.

Theresa had alleviated the overload Alice was experiencing while simultaneously assisting with the spell calculation, which allowed her to briefly replicate the peak of her power as the Demon King.

【Fortunately, this cavity is rich in energy. With a bit of rest, reconstructing and repairing the damaged components won’t be difficult.】

Alice finally looked down at her body.

Her synthetic skin, including her face, was shredded to the point that barely any intact areas remained, and her arms and legs were completely crushed, exposing the inner mechanisms.

Still, it was fortunate that reconstruction was possible given time.

Once her body was rebuilt, she could recharge the internal battery, generate a magnetic field through the tendrils, and ascend.

“But Theresa.”

【Yes, what is it?】

“What exactly is in this cavity that makes it so energy-rich?”

【That is…】

Theresa’s response suddenly halted.

She had stopped to assess the situation, but Alice couldn’t shake a growing sense of unease.

She had just destroyed Gaia right in front of her.

Yet, this cavity remained saturated with twisted life force.

Why?

‘Wait… why did Earnest Rail build an underground facility here in the first place? Such a massive structure couldn’t even have an adequate power supply…’

A peculiar structure came into Alice’s view as she questioned it.

It wasn’t a remnant of Earnest Rail’s destroyed facility or debris.

It was intestines.

A conveyor belt of intestines, a grotesque factory of sinew and flesh embedded into the floor and walls of the cavity.

Alice knew exactly what it was.

The Green Factory—the name of the dungeon where she first encountered Gaia.

A biological factory dungeon that indiscriminately produced a fixed number of monsters.

That’s right.

Earnest Rail had siphoned power from the biological factory to supply his underground facility.

And the biological factory…

【Human, evade!!!】

…was the root and stem connected to Gaia’s main body, and simultaneously a fruit filled with all sorts of energy.

[“Kyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!”]

A horrifying sound echoed from the obsidian-filled cavity.

-Sssszzzzz!

The biological factory came to life.

-Thud!

As Earnest Rail’s unauthorized underground facility, powered by the factory, collapsed, the factory reclaimed its energy.

Flesh pulsated.

The intestinal mechanisms resumed operation.

But instead of producing monsters…

…it began supplying its energy to the shattered, wailing Gaia.

[“A-Alice, A-aah, ahhh, aaaaaah-!!!!”]

‘Oh, for f***’s sake.’

Alice couldn’t stop herself from cursing with genuine frustration.

A third phase was just absurd.