Chapter One / 00 : 30 / Coincidence

Naoto Miura was only interested in machines.

He was a hardcore machine maniac—no, a machine nerd—er, a machine junkie. He’d liked gears, cylinders, screws, springs, and wires since childhood. He had loved the luster of metal and the feel of ceramics as well. Tick tock, tick tock—whenever he heard the sound of a clock marking the passage of time, he would calm down. Whenever he watched the pins of a music box pluck the metal comb, his heart would tremble with excitement. That didn’t change even as he advanced into middle school.

No; rather, one could say it got worse.

Naoto didn’t pay any attention to manga, anime, or games. Even while his classmates clamored over photos of pinup girls, he’d intently continue fiddling with machinery. Instead of the squabbling over whether huge or tiny breasts were better, he was more interested in the different methods of powering an automobile. Instead of the swimsuit-clad figures of the girls in his class, he was more interested in the contours of machines used for manufacturing. Rather than the adult videos that his classmates lent out and borrowed from each other, he was more interested in a documentary on the development of a new model of springs.

Being so out of sync with the rest of his peers, even Naoto was able to notice it.

—I see, it seems that I’m “abnormal” somehow.

He wouldn’t have had such a hard time if he could change the nature he was born with just by becoming aware of it.

As the saying goes, “The child is father of the man,” and so Naoto Miura grew up as himself. By that point, his love for machines had become immeasurable and warped his personality so much that it could no longer be corrected through any amount of effort.

It was already too late for Naoto Miura.

●

35° N, 135° E.

Underground Floor 1, Kyoto Grid, Japan.

Once called the Thousand-Year Capital, Kyoto was one of the few great metropolises of Japan. Surrounded by a completely mechanized cityscape, somewhat out-of-place wooden buildings that had been deemed a World Heritage Site lined the streets of a certain district—the one where Naoto Miura lived.

In the corner of one end of this great city, in a borderland that could just barely be considered within the metropolitan area, there stood a slightly slanted, dilapidated apartment building. On the seventh floor of this building that practically screamed “haunted house”...

There was Naoto’s home.

“Ah~ah! It was a good day again today!” Naoto yelled as he ran up the stairs that might collapse any day now.

The lad with a small stature had a black school uniform on. The tag by his chest pocket indicated that he was a first-year student. He was wearing a pair of cheap, fluorescent-green headphones in an attempt to suppress his ruffled hair. His face had no particular features worth mentioning save one: his light-gray pupils, and even those were ruined by his eyes, whose deadness seemed like a manifestation of his twisted personality.

“Being cornered and extorted for money, forced to be a gofer, having a bucket of water dumped on me, and having my desk graffitied, all while being sniggered and chortled at! Gee, I wonder what else I need to do to unlock the ‘Complete Set of Bullying’ achievement! Haha!” Naoto laughed drily in abandonment.

—It had already been a few years since he’d realized what he had sown.

Naoto didn’t reflect on himself even after realizing that he was abnormal. If anything, he became bolder. He proclaimed his preferences, displaying his character fully. For some reason, a beautiful upperclassman girl confessed her love to him, but as she wasn’t equipped with even a single moving part, Naoto politely declined. Because of all that, he had ended up in his current situation. Even after humanity had begun living on top of a foundation of gears, bullying at schools continued on.

He was simply reaping what he had sown for lacking sociability. He understood this, but it wasn’t like knowing that made his wet uniform feel any less gross.

“Haah... My goodness. I’m hooome...”

He opened the door, whose paint was peeling off here and there, and entered his apartment. No one came to greet him.

Naoto lived alone.

His parents had died one after the other a few years back, and he didn’t have any siblings or relatives, either. The only things that had been left to Naoto were this home in what might as well have been an abandoned building—and the work tools of his parents, who had been third-rate clocksmiths.

He tossed his bag into his bedroom, then passed through the living room from the hallway, heading towards the back of the apartment. That’s where the workshop was.

A stack of odds and ends was by the entrance, machine tools used to shave parts into the right dimensions were hung along the wall, and an air purifier installed to absorb the dust was operating quietly on the ceiling. In the center of this dimly lit room was an operating table—rather, a workbench.

Lying on top of it was an automaton.

Her model type was East-Asian. Her figure was that of a young girl around the age of fourteen. Her darkened, glass-bead eyes gazed into the air above her lifelessly. Wires and springs protruded outward from open hatches all throughout her body.

“I’m hooome...” Naoto said to the broken girl.

She was an automaton that Naoto had made by mish-mashing various parts together from discarded machinery. In this era where the entire planet had been running on only gears for a long time now, it wasn’t so hard to recreate the human body using only gears as well.

Naoto had frequently found time between school and his part-time job to visit a dump where he diligently gathered gears and screws one by one. Then, using the machinery and seminar readers his parents had left behind, he’d finally been able to reproduce an automaton to this extent through trial and error. This thing, which had finally taken form, was his precious treasure.

“Nooow then, I guess I’ll take a shower to refresh myself, then continue working.” Naoto pumped himself up and turned on his heels.

He took off and tossed everything he was wearing aside from his headphones all over the place as he leisurely headed towards the bathroom.

●

Clonk. Naoto’s foot hit the side of the narrow tub.

“Ooooooooh——!!” Naoto let out a strange sound as he sat in the water.

Taking care not to get his magazine wet, he turned a page of the newest issue of Automata Fan.

“Karasawa Heavy Industries’ mechanical legs look so smart! Whaaah?! What’s up with the architecture of this Double Gear? It’s absolutely stunning! Does God run Murakami Industries?!”

What Naoto was intensely reading was a monthly trade magazine for automata enthusiasts. It was an esoteric publication for diehards that explained the industry’s newest technologies in detail.

For Naoto, it was his supreme treasure that he read with love.

“Well, Kaiyodo has the best molding technology, as expected. In terms of overall price performance, Nosain isn’t bad either. Mm-hm, mm-hm... For springs, Damase’s rotaries are...” Just then, Naoto, who had been cheerily flipping through the pages, suddenly stopped his hand.

What he saw was a feature page on springs for automata. Products ranging from now-outdated masterpieces of the past to the latest parts for military use were compared based on price and performance.

Upon seeing the price for a secondhand of the oldest part listed, Naoto sighed, then scratched his head violently.

“Getting a spring is the problem after all. That’s the one thing that I’ll never find in a dump.”

The generator gear of automata springs for automata used gravity to churn out energy just by existing. When disposing of a spring, a person was required by law to deliver it to a dedicated facility. As such, unlike other parts, one wouldn’t find any of them lying around in garbage dumps.

“...It’s not like I have the money to actually buy one, either...”

It had taken him a year to scrape together these parts from all over. After that, it had taken him another two years to form the body by cobbling the parts together after repeated, countless failures. He had invested so much time into making an automaton, and now he was at a dead end.

The problem wasn’t just that he couldn’t acquire a spring, but also Naoto himself. Despite being such machine maniac that he sometimes forgot to eat and sleep, his technical skills were limited.

—Ah, you’re well informed for an amateur. Your fingers are nimble, too. Your intuition is decent as well.

But that was all.

It would be another story if he had simply bought and assembled standard parts, but Naoto had neither the knowledge nor the technical skills to recreate an automaton from broken pieces.

Although he studied his parents’ used readers, there was only so much an amateur could learn about the immense world of clocksmithing through self-study. He didn’t have the money to attend a clock-engineering school, either.

Naoto didn’t really know whether the cobble-work body would really move. After all, he had never been able to run a movement test as the body had no source of power.

Probably, presumably, maybe it’ll move, he thought.

That’s where he was.

“...Well, it’s not like money will come raining down if I grumble.” Naoto sighed as he turned his eyes back down toward the magazine.

—That was when...

Through his headphones, Naoto’s ears picked up a sound he wasn’t used to hearing. He spontaneously turned his face upward. Naturally, the ceiling was there, and he couldn’t see anything past it.

But he could definitely hear it. Something cutting through the wind far above in the sky. That something wasn’t an airplane, and it was approaching where he was dreadfully fast.

Babooooooooooooooom!

A thunderous roar loud enough to blow someone unconscious pierced Naoto’s ears.

The bathroom—rather, the building itself jolted vertically as if the ground had thrust it upwards, causing Naoto to inadvertently drop his magazine into the bathwater—In the blink of an eye, the ink blurred and the page muddled into a mosaic.

“Gghhwaaaaaaah?! I haven’t finished readi—That isn’t important right now! What the heck was that?!” After a momentary escape from reality, Naoto rushed out of the bathtub in a panic.

The thunderous roar and impact that had suddenly assaulted the building had a shock as powerful as a direct hit from a bomb or a wrecking ball, or if neither of those, then—

“A meteorite...? No, that’s ridiculous!”

As he muttered, Naoto rushed out of the bathroom with just a towel wrapped around him. Just what had happened? For now, he just wanted to make sure that the workshop and the automaton were unharmed.

“Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaashiwsedrftgyfujkolp——?!” He let out a scream that failed to form words.

At the end of the hallway, the living room, which also served as the dining area, was completely destroyed. The ceiling had completely fallen out, while debris and fine particles filled every inch of the room.

“Wh, What... How could this be...?!” Naoto slumped onto his knees on the spot as he cried and yelled, heartbroken. “What! What’s this supposed to be?! Just what have I done to deserve this?!”

It was like he couldn’t comprehend the sight before him.

I was simply enjoying my time reading my treasured magazine when a meteorite fell and destroyed my home. I, I don’t expect you to understand what I’m saying, me, but—

“Th, That’s right—Something happened!” As Naoto felt he was about to faint, he whipped himself back up.

It’s not like it really could have been a meteor, could it?

Fortunately, it seemed that only the living room had taken a direct hit. The workshop, which was in the back, might have still been fine.

“Ahh, God... shit, shit! Goddamn it!”

As Naoto screamed, he charged through the scene of destruction, whose air was still filled with fine particles.

“God... why did this have to happen?!”

With tears clinging to his eyes and snot dangling from his nose, Naoto moved the pieces of rubble blocking his way one by one.

“Haah, haah... Ow!” Blood was seeping out of the palm of his hand. Something must have cut it by some unlucky chance.

While he was pushing aside the rubble, the floor continued to creak. Looking up, he saw a chain of large holes opened up in the floors all the way from his own ceiling to the rooftop.

The floor of this room is still holding up for now, but who knows how long it’ll last... It seems like there’s no doubt that something fell from high in the sky, but—

“Was it seriously a meteorite...? What kinda crazy development is this don’t mess with me just what did I do to deserve this!”

As Naoto yelled, he wiped his forehead with his blood-stained hand.

Resuming his task, he thought, Just what could have caused this?

If this disaster was man-made, he would demand apologies and compensation from those responsible until they cried.

If it really was a meteorite... No, wait. I’ve heard that meteorites fetch a good price. If that’s the case, there’s a silver lining amidst this disaster after all. I might even be able to buy a new home and springs—

Something appeared underneath the rubble, causing Naoto to stay his hands.

“...What’s this?”

Naoto stared at the object, studying it.

A giant black box was buried in the rubble—It was a storage unit.

Based on the material it was made of and how it had been built, one could tell from a glance that it wasn’t just a regular steel case. Only the military or perhaps some research facility somewhere would use something like this. Whatever the case, the contents must have been fairly important.

“Well, it’s not a meteorite, but it should be something valuable... I think?”

When he looked closer, Naoto saw that the container’s frame was warped a great deal. As one would expect, it must have been unable to fully withstand the shock of the impact after falling from such a high altitude.

Naoto thought silently to himself for a short while before quickly reaching a conclusion.

“...Alright. I don’t know what’s inside, but if it’s valuable, I’ll be taking it as a consolatory settlement, so whoever’s responsible, you’d best prepare yourself.”

He squeezed himself through the crevice of the warped container and went inside. As he stepped onto the soft, cushioning material, Naoto continued to grumble.

“If it isn’t a real treasure, you really better prepare yourself. No matter what it takes, I’ll find out where this box came from and demand an apology and compensation. To that end, I’ll do whatever’s necessary, whether it be going to court or anything else—”

However...

As soon as Naoto saw the container’s contents, he stopped talking.

No, he didn’t just stop talking; he stopped breathing altogether. Even his heart might have stopped. It was that much of a shock.

The box was a coffin. At least, Naoto thought it was. An intricate glass coffin that reminded one of the moving parts of mechanical clocks which were made with incredible finesse.

Inside the coffin was a sleeping girl.

Screws, cylinders, wires, springs, gears—The girl was sleeping silently while covered by these mechanical burial flowers.

Looking to be in her mid-teens, she had smoothly flowing silver hair and a cherubic face. Her skin was coquettishly pale and her lips were red and moist. One could easily tell, even from above, that beneath her black, old-fashioned dress were long and slender limbs like those of a fleeting fairy.

Naoto was at a loss for words. It wasn’t just him; it was unlikely that any critic would have been able to open his mouth in front of her.

There was something “ultimate” here that instantly captured the heart of those who beheld it. The exceeding simple beauty and loveliness were such that one could hardly believe its artistry was something of this world.

...That’s right, its artistry. This was a clockwork doll, an automaton! Not just any, either, but the “ultimate” one...!

The moment he realized this, Naoto lost himself in ecstasy.

●

It was a “port.”

Underneath the deep-black sky, many enormous beams of steel were lined up. Together, they formed a “pier.”

Spreading out in the shape of a fan, the 3,500-meter runway was synchronized with the main gear of Osaka Grid, rotating in the opposite direction at exactly the same speed.

—Kansai International Airport.

It was an illustrious international airport that had first opened its doors before the planet was covered by gears.

Though it easily boasted a history of more than a thousand years, the architecture itself was new, as it had undergone a remodeling just a few years back. The sound of the gears cranking had a firm, clear quality to it as well.

In a corner of the airport that floated in the sky was what was called Corridor Seven—a runway closed to the public. There was a large transport aircraft parked there.

Work robots were going empty-handed into the opened hatch by the belly of the plane and coming out one after another carrying containers labeled with serial numbers while a large number of ground workers supervised them.

The containers were carried across the runway into the warehouse of Terminal Seven. There, they were transferred onto a truck and shuttled to the scene of the malfunction.

Or so they were supposed to be, but...

“It fell, you say?”

In the reception room of Terminal Seven, a young girl wearing a deep-blue shirt underneath a beige summer coat looked back over her shoulder, her head tilted to the side. The man who had been incessantly wiping sweat from his face felt his shoulders tremble.

“Umm, you see... there was a problem, and...”

“I can see that from looking at your face.”

The girl’s tone was cold. As she brushed the blond hair by her nape aside, she stared at the man with cutting eyes, urging him to go on. The man, on the other hand, was looking down and was avoiding the girl’s stare.

His hunched posture sullied the dignity of both the title of chief of transport, which he had identified himself as, and the well-tailored suit he was wearing.

“You mentioned just now that one of the containers fell, but I’m having a little trouble understanding what the problem is.”

Was it a work robot malfunction or a human error? Whatever the case, it didn’t change the fact that the airport was responsible for the blunder. However, the containers were made to carry precision machines to begin with; thus, even if it fell while being unloaded, there shouldn’t have been a problem.

“Or are you saying that a worker was caught in the accident?”

“N, No, there’s no problem with the unloading. The rest of the containers should all be unloaded within an hour.”

Marie became increasingly confused.

Then just what is the problem?

The chief of transport put away his sweat-soaked handkerchief and looked at the young girl with a mortified face. “The accident in question didn’t occur after landing, but during flight.”

The girl continued staring at the chief of transport silently, not responding. He might have felt intimidated by her demeanor, for he displayed a frightened look towards the petite girl more than two decades younger than him as he painfully vomited out words. “Um, p... perhaps because the request was so sudden, um, an error was made in the loading, causing one of the containers to slip off the rails...”

“It was dropped from the plane during flight?”

“I, I’m terribly sorry... This is the first time that something like this has happened since the airport was founded, so um, it took time to confirm the situation, causing the report to come in late.”

“Which container was lost?” the girl questioned with a cold voice as sharp as a blade.

As if struggling to breathe, the chief answered, “...Container Y D-01.”

“——”

“I, I’m truly and terribly sorry for this!”

He lowered his head deeply, but the girl couldn’t be bothered to care.

“...In other words, this is what you’re saying, right?” The girl’s voice sounded like it was coming up from the depths of Hell. “So you’re saying that for some reason, during the emergency flight of a jumbo-sized transport aircraft loaded with precious personnel and materials, the hatch opened by itself while one of the 3,558 containers was carelessly left unlocked, and of all things, it just happened to be ‘that’ most precious and irreplaceable container?”

“Yes...”

“If this is the Japanese’s idea of a joke, it isn’t funny at all.”

“I, I’m sor...!”

Unable to even apologize properly anymore, the man looked at the girl to gauge her current mood. She was staring at him with a stiff expression fixed on her face. For some time, the chief of transport felt practically like a death-row convict before the gallows.

In reality, that wasn’t too far from the truth. This was far past the dimension of blunders that could be settled with an apology and reparations. It’d be fortunate if things ended with just his dismissal. Depending on the girl’s mood, the company itself could be dissolved—but...

The girl smiled. Sweetly and as brightly as a flower. The man’s figure was reflected in her gentle-looking green eyes, and her light-pink lips were warped in what appeared to be happiness.

—With a spin...

The girl swung her suitcase sharply and smashed it into the man’s face. His nose broke and sprayed blood everywhere. As the man writhed in agony and screamed like a pig, the eyes of the girl who looked down at him were ablaze with flames.

As if she were spitting out something nasty, she said, “Incompetent in his job, feeble excuses, terrible jokes—I heard that Japanese were diligent and capable, but that must be a thing of the past. I get it now—Halter!”

In response, a man with a buzz cut who had been waiting in the corner of the room began to walk toward her. He was a large man, with a muscular body easily exceeding two meters in height and dressed in a dark-gray suit. No matter how one looked at him, he had the appearance of someone from the underworld, perhaps a hitman or a terrorist.

The man said in a calm voice, “Dr. Marie—I find it questionable for a lady to raise her voice like that. Violence is no good as well.”

The girl called “Dr. Marie” snorted and said, “Halter, who was it that hired this incompetent hack?”

The man being questioned—Halter—looked pitifully at the chief of transport sobbing away on the floor. “Wellllll, his career is a praiseworthy one, and I recall that those who handled the loading are veteran workers. Wasn’t the schedule in fact too tight after all?”

“So what? Dropping luggage from a cutting-edge transport aircraft—Such a blunder is absolutely unheard of, and the excuse is that ‘We were busy’?”

From her breast pocket, Dr. Marie took out a “chrono-compass”—an intricate timepiece with nine clockfaces of varying sizes that was the proof of being a Meister. She looked at it and sighed.

“—However, it’s true that we don’t have any time. Ahh, sugar, sugar...”

She fetched a colorful lollipop from her pocket, unwrapped it, then stuck it in her mouth. As she took a lick, she grumpily hurled out instructions.

“Please assemble a recovery team. I don’t know about the container, but the contents are definitely safe. She’s invaluable. Use any means necessary to secure her.”

“As you wish.”

After Halter took a butler-like bow, he began tapping away on the telegraph installed in the reception room. Confirming this with a sidelong glance, the Dr. Marie exited the reception room and headed towards the lobby.

“...It’s true that there wasn’t any leeway timewise.”

In the present world, cities were built on top of gears.

Since the gears were constantly turning, the methods of moving things were limited even between adjacent cities. The only options were the “cylinder train” and air transportation.

However, the structure of the cylinder train didn’t allow for sudden changes to its schedule, and in addition, there was a considerable distance to travel this time, so transport by air was chosen out of necessity, but—

102 clocksmiths,

500 automata,

and 3,558 containers.

They’d been ordered to transport such a large load from Canada to Japan, and in just one day at that. The girl thought it was unreasonable as well, no matter how she looked at it.

However...

“Even so, there’s a limit to acceptable blunders...!”

Upon arriving at the entrance lobby, Dr. Marie saw that her staff members had already collected their baggage and were gathered together. These first-rate clocksmiths varied by gender, age, and race—and as soon as the girl showed herself in front of them, they closed their mouths and straightened their backs.

They all focused their eyes on her as they stood at attention, yet she wasn’t intimidated in the slightest as she coolly questioned them.

“Are you all ready?”

“Of course, Dr. Marie.”

“Good.”

Addressing an elderly man who had nodded as their representative—the chief mechanic—the girl continued. “I was told the unloading will be done within an hour. Please finish unpacking the necessary containers for our job out of those transferred to Kyoto’s Core Tower by the end of the day.”

“Please leave it to us.”

“Right after I finish the paperwork for the job at the administration bureau, I’ll be joining you all at the scene. We’re scheduled to begin work tomorrow morning at 06:00 local time. Make sure to wind the automata’s springs beforehand. I’ll be leaving organization of the workflow to each team leader. Are we good?”

“Understood.” All the staff saluted as they answered the girl after she gave out her concise instructions.

Standing in the center of the lobby and seeing off her staff as they started to move, Dr. Marie caught her breath. She couldn’t help but think that the job this time was full of ill omens. Both how short the preparation time was and the accident mid-transport were unprecedented affairs.

“...I have a bad feeling. Hopefully my concern turns out to be unfounded.” She muttered the last part inside her mouth.

Just then...

“Excuse me. I take it that you’re Doctor Marie Bell Breguet from Meister Guild?”

When she heard a voice behind her, Marie turned around. Standing there was a group of around ten men. All of them were wearing black suits that looked like funeral wear, with collars neatly tightened by drab neckties.

Repulsed by the homogenous fake smiles they all had on, Marie opened her mouth, feeling uneasy. “I don’t like being called by my full name.”

“My apologies, Dr. Breguet. We’re honored to meet you.” The men continued with the eerie smiles pasted on their faces. “We’re from the ‘military.’ On behalf of Kyoto Grid, we welcome you.”

“We’re sorry. As things happened so quickly, we weren’t able to prepare accommodations for your team in time on our end. However, we’ve booked a room for you, doctor, at Central Hotel, so if you’d like, we can take you—”

“I’m fine.” Marie interrupted the man speaking. “I’m thankful for your consideration, but I have to go inspect the scene and set up a repair plan right after I’m done with business at the administration bureau.”

“Right... but where will you stay then, doctor?”

“My staff sleep huddled together under a single blanket at the scene when they’re not working. Naturally, I’ll be doing the same.”

“You, the daughter of the Breguet family...?”

“We didn’t come here to sightsee.” As if to declare the conversation over, Marie turned her back on the men and walked towards the entrance. The men chased after her in a hurry.

“Please wait, Dr. Breguet. In that case, please stay at the hotel just for tonight. We’ve already completed preparations for a dinner meeting as well, so...”

“I don’t have time for that.” Marie continued to walk without giving them even an inch.

Behind her, one of the men rubbed his hands together as he clung on. “Dr. Breguet, I don’t think you need to rush so much.”

“That’s right. There are always four thousand clocksmiths and over ten thousand automata conducting maintenance on the gears in Kyoto. The safety measures are exhaustive.”

“Of course, for the duration of this job, we’ll give orders for them to follow your command as well—”

“That’s unnecessary.” Marie turned her head back and informed the men indifferently, “The work will be done by my staff only. To that end, one of my subordinates will go to receive the measurement data in my place later on.”

“Right, that’s fine... but I don’t think there’s anyone who grasps the city’s functions as well as we do; Kyoto is under the jurisdiction of the ‘military,’ after all.”

“Tuning a city is delicate group work. If our coworkers aren’t fellow master clocksmiths, we won’t be able to cooperate smoothly.”

“Dr. Breguet, with all due respect, they are the top engineers of our entire country...”

“—This country’s jokes really are the worst. No one understands unless you put it bluntly.” Marie brought a kind smile to her face and said, “Amateurs should get out of the way—is what I’m saying.”

“What...?”

Marie pierced the men, who were flabbergasted from her all-too-abrasive words, with a chilling gaze as she sneered. “Why don’t you say what you really think? ‘This is the “military’s” turf. Don’t act by yourself, let us get involved too.’”

“N, No, by no means are we thinking such things...”

“If you spill a drop of wine on mud, it’s still just mud; but if even just a little bit of mud mixes with wine, the wine becomes undrinkable.”

“......”

“I only demand one thing from you all. Wait obediently in the corner with your mouths closed. Of course, you can do that much, right?” Leaving them behind without bothering to check their reactions, Marie turned on her heels and passed through the entrance gate.

Halter had gone on ahead and was waiting for her with a luxury car reminiscent of a black jewel at the roundabout in front of the airport’s entrance gate. Handing her heavy luggage over to Halter, she got in. After he finished loading the luggage into the trunk, Halter got into the driver’s seat and tightened his seatbelt.

“Start the car, please.”

“Roger.”

●

“—Things are proceeding just as planned, aren’t they?” one of the men in black suits uttered as they saw the luxury car fading into the distance. Strangely, there was neither anger nor frustration on his face from being told off by a little girl. If anything, he looked like he felt relieved; he even had a small smile on his face.

They exchanged words ridiculing the girl as base smiles came to their faces.

Another one of them grinned from ear-to-ear as he agreed. “Thankfully, she’s a haughty little girl, just as the rumors say. She’ll be truly easy to manipulate.”

“Now then, we just have to let her work hard for us.”

There was no one else around to hear their conversation.

●

“Ah—...I’m tired.”

Inside the running car...

Whoosh. Marie deflated like a balloon and laid her face onto the adjacent seat.

Watching her through the rearview mirror, Halter smiled bitterly. “Thanks for your hard work.”

Marie answered him in a childish tone as she flung off her summer coat and kicked her boots off. “Thanks doesn’t cut it. Having to deal with hyenas wherever I go, you’ve seriously gotta be kidding me.”

She took out a chocolate bar from the pocket of her bag and began chewing on it.

“Both the ‘guild’ and the Japanese government weren’t any help at all in making the necessary arrangements for the job. Why should I even have to negotiate with local organizations when it’s not my job as a clocksmith?” The noble princess who had ordered an adult man around with her chin was nowhere to be seen as the girl grumbled, curled up in a fetal position on the rear seats. She just looked like a wanton, cheeky girl in her early teens.

Grinding his teeth to keep from laughing at the gap between her two personalities, Halter chided her. “Hey now, princess. Please don’t forget to act befitting of a lady just because you’re in a car.”

“Leave me alone.”

“It’s my job, so I can’t. Ahh, see, the bottom of your shirt is all rolled up.”

“So? What, do you want to see?”

“I ain’t interested in kids, but don’t tempt me like that in another ten years.”

“Die.”

Wham. Marie kicked the back of the driver’s seat forcefully. Halter’s face hit the edge of the steering wheel, but he laughed it off.

“If the brats at the academy saw you like this, they’d faint.”

“Like I care. Do you know who I am?”

“Well, of course,” began Halter as he smiled devilishly.

Ahem. He cleared his throat before answering, “You graduated top of your class from several famous universities. You became the youngest student ever when you enrolled at age thirteen, and you were able to become one of those who stand at the top of all two hundred million clocksmiths in the world—a Meister. You’re the great Dr. Breguet, the young and beautiful genius. That I’m given the privilege to be your secretary is more than I could ever ask for my humble self.”

“You’re making me sick, so stop!” Marie screamed like she was in distress while Halter paused, grinning. With a gentle gaze, he continued chiding the girl, who puffed her cheeks up.

“However, princess, try not to make unnecessary enemies.”

“What, are you lecturing me?”

“I’m giving you advice. Well, I understand that you feel fed up. However, even as they are, the transport company and its employees are still an undeniable part of the gears of society. There’s nothing to be gained from buying their resentment, only things to be lost.”

“I think I was plenty kind, though? If it was ‘Elder Sister,’ the entire company would have been effaced from this Earth.”

“You can’t compare yourself to such an atypical case...”

“To begin with, what can those imbeciles possibly do to me?”

“—Indeed, they can’t do anything. Nothing at all.”

That was what was scary about them. The young girl still didn’t realize that. That she was still so green despite standing at the pinnacle of ability throughout the entire world caused Halter to droop the outer ends of his eyebrows in concern.

“...Well, it really is strange, though.” As Marie leaned back against the seat while chewing her chocolate bar, she tilted her head to one side. “Those military men were annoying, so I drove them away. But still, why did we have to come in such a big hurry when there’s a military base nearby?”

“Hmm...? Now that you mention it, what was the reason we were dispatched this time?”

“A common gravitational irregularity. An error occurred in the Core Tower and the gravitational force won’t return to its normal value. In terms of numbers, it’s one percent stronger than normal right now.”

“That is indeed strange. It seems like the regular maintenance should be enough to take care of something like that.”

“No kidding. It isn’t nearly enough of a problem to summon us from Canada in a rush. ‘The safety measures are exhaustive,’ my ass. If that’s the case, then don’t call us.”

“Wellllll, their numbers may be one thing, but the military’s engineer corps can’t compare to us in terms of technical prowess. From the Japanese government’s standpoint, they’re probably afraid that if they don’t send a request in to Meister Guild just in case, they’ll be made to take responsibility if something goes wrong.”

“It’s always politics, politics, politics... Having my vacation thwarted for the sake of stinky geezers keeping up their appearances is simply insufferable. Ahh, how I yearn for the absinthe in Paris.”

“That’s not something a pretty young girl should drink.”

“Shut it.”

“Sure, sure—So, I take it you want me to head to the administration bureau first?”

Marie nodded in response as she broke the chocolate bar into pieces with several snaps. “Ahhh—, yeah. Please do. After I finish the paperwork there and write up an operation plan for the job, I’m going to sleep for today, but if she is found, wake me up at any time.”

“Roger.”

Visible through the car window, the center of the metropolis—the Core Tower that would be their workplace for a brief period starting tomorrow—towered high into the sky, and the Equatorial Spring, as if to divide that same sky, was turning today as usual.

This world that was composed of countless gears, more than there are stars in the universe, drew the entirety of its energy from the gravitational force of the moon. The Equatorial Spring was what converted that potential energy to mechanical energy by turning, freeing up that enormous amount of energy for use.

—The Clockwork Planet.

A mechanical world where everything was governed by gears, whether it be the wind, the temperature, the weather, or even gravity. Both the dried-up oceans and the lifeless landmasses had been entirely shaved off, including the earth’s crust that they sat upon, and replaced with gears.

Nowadays, there was nothing left. It was a clockwork void floating somewhere in the universe. That was the current state of the Earth, a continuation of what had been in place since a thousand years ago.

However, even for this world reminiscent of an incredibly intricate, mechanical timepiece, it was imperative to have regular maintenance done to function properly. As long as it was mechanical, it couldn’t tick away forever. Someday, it would break, grow old, rot, and in the end, come to a stop.

Before it came to that point, someone had to use their hands to conduct maintenance on the mechanisms of the planet.

That was her—Marie Bell Breguet’s—job.

“Seriously... I want to drink absinthe.”

Basking herself in a decadent mood, Marie gazed vacantly out the window at the scenery passing by.

●

Naoto slowly approached the “coffin” in front of him.

“The floor might collapse at any time, so I have to hurry and move her...”

The floor creaked from him moving just a little, making him break into a cold sweat.

He groped about the “coffin,” smearing his hands all over it trying to find a lock, but he couldn’t find any holes. It appeared that the coffin didn’t have a standard lock. On the other hand, there were lots of movable parts, like a puzzle...

“Like this... Is it here? No, this isn’t it. How about this? Grrr, don’t be such a pain—”

Click!

Something meshed together where his hands were, and a heavy spring popped out inside the coffin. Naoto heard the sound of gears turning as white steam jetted out from the crevice that had formed.

“Alright, it’s opennn!”

Naoto pushed open the lid, not waiting for it to slowly open by itself. He unfastened the belt that had locked the automaton in place. He then yanked out a bunch of cables attached to her—their purpose was unclear—in one go before dragging the automaton girl out from the coffin.

—She’s light. That was the first thing that came to his mind.

She weighed as much as one would expect of a real girl her size. For full-sized automaton, though, she was too light. It’d be possible for a sex doll automaton, but there was no way that one as high-quality as this was a simple toy.

Then again, what’s with the softness of her skin? What maker is this skin material from?

“Wait, this is no time to be thinking. If I don’t hurry...”

He quickly threw her arms back over his shoulders, straining to pull her out of the storage unit this time.

From the living room that had had a forceful makeover done to accommodate the new, open-air atrium, the silhouette of the Equatorial Spring that powered this planet could be seen against a sky full of stars.

For an apartment as good as an abandoned building, the impact of the container was probably equal to a meteorite crashing.

...If I keep twiddling my thumbs here, I think it’ll collapse for real...

As Naoto looked around restlessly, wondering what he should do, he happened to notice that there was a seal engraved onto the nape of the girl’s neck.

—“Y. [ R y u Z U]”

“...RyuZU? Is this your name?”

Of course, no response came, but there should be no mistake.

Naoto wondered what he should do with the “Ultimate Automaton,” revised as “RyuZU”—For the time being, he decided that he should collect the tools he would need.

Brushing aside the rubble, he headed to the workshop where, luckily, there didn’t seem to be any damage. When Naoto pushed the door open and entered, he saw that his stack of odds and ends had collapsed and were scattered all over the floor, along with his tools. Taking care not to step on them with his bare feet, he advanced to the workbench at the center of the room.

He looked down at the half-complete automaton for a moment...

Making up his mind before long, Naoto moved it to the hangar and laid RyuZU down on the workbench in its place. During that time as well, the building continued to creak while swaying as if to warn him.

Naoto touched RyuZU’s neck and focused on his hearing.

“...Her spring is moving, but nothing else is running. Is she broken?”

If that was the case, he had no choice but to fix her here. Not all the tools he needed could be brought outside, and furthermore, when it came to the miniscule gears used for automata, a single speck of dust could cause an error. This cleanroom was absolutely necessary for working on them.

Naoto tightened his stomach as he resolved himself.

I’ll finish repairing her and escape before the building collapses.

“—Alright!!” He slapped both his cheeks and fired himself up.

Naoto put on his work clothes and wrapped a hip pack that had been hanging on the wall around his waist before positioning the room’s surgical lamp over the workbench and turning it on.

Preparations complete.

Naoto lifted the girl into a sitting position, then pulled down the zipper on her back. He took off her dress as if peeling away the wrapping paper on a present, exposing her pale, dainty shoulders and delicate back.

As the apartment no different from an abandoned building continued to creak as it trembled, Naoto got to work. He turned RyuZU onto her back and felt around between her shoulder blades with his fingers. Underneath the soft skin, there seemed to be a lump of some sort. He pressed down on it lightly. The metal click of a pin being disconnected could be heard, and RyuZU’s back opened up in pieces like petals from a line in its center.

It’s like a flower blooming.

“...Wow.” Underneath her exposed skin was an operation mechanism made with finesse so transcendent that it was like the entire universe was crammed inside it.

Naoto gulped.

If the situation wasn’t what it was, he would have scrutinized her so hard that his gaze would have bored a hole in her, but—Naoto shook his head before he carefully inserted a tiny tool into RyuZU’s back.

—If someone—for example, a Meister—were to see this, they might have let out a scream.

Compared to RyuZU’s exceedingly sophisticated makeup, Naoto’s hands were simply too clumsy.

He worked while hesitating, racking his brains, and wavering in uncertainty—However, even so, he was able to hit the right place somehow—or at least, that’s what he thought, but he kept choosing the wrong tools again and again, so he had to keep starting all over. First and foremost, he didn’t have the blueprint to refer to, and furthermore, he wasn’t even using any measuring instruments.

An automaton, which reproduced the human body using only gears, was an aggregate of fine parts that numbered in the trillions. If one were to try to mend the operation of these microgears without the blueprint, just to locate the parts that were out of order would require expensive equipment.

Yet Naoto continued working by feel while simply straining his ears from time to time.

Despite all that, there was no mistake in his work. It was as if he could tell where the broken part was without even examining her...

“—Is this it?”

That’s right, of course Naoto could tell where the broken part was. If he listened carefully, he could hear it.

In the grand orchestral performance to which even a Viennese symphonic orchestra would raise a white flag, there was a sound like a kindergartener playing the melodica mixed in. A single smudge surrounded by otherwise perfect art. There was no way one could catch that sound and let it be.

Despite being perfectly designed and perfectly made, it’s only running defectively right now. To put it bluntly, yeah—I’m super-annoyed.

But the problem was...

“More importantly, what part was this again...?”

Naoto’s knowledge and technical skill couldn’t match his special talent at all.

He didn’t have even the slightest idea of what the part’s function was or why it was broken.

In the end, the only thing that Naoto could do was work by feel slowly and cautiously, like testing a keyhole with countless keys, straining his ears all the while.

If his hand accidentally slipped, he might end up cutting the pseudo-nerves, which were thinner than spider silk. The microgears might get bent. If the Main Cylinder were to be damaged, there’d be no salvaging the situation. If one began to count the risks, there would be no end. It was a tightrope walk.

...It took Naoto three full hours to complete his precarious repair work.

●

“——Phewww...!”

It had only been three hours.

However, it was a terrifying three hours that shaved entire chunks off his soul more so than his physical stamina.

Naoto had expended all of his willpower, and his breathing was heavily ragged as well.

“I, It should be fixed now... right?” Though he had confidence, he still felt anxious. His ears told him that there was no mistake. Even so, it wasn’t like he was able to actually verify the structure.

Though it was too late now, feelings of regret welled up within him nonetheless. Had it really been okay for an amateur like him to have tampered with this supreme machine? If he screwed up somewhere, wouldn’t he have done something irreversible?

Such thoughts assaulted him with terror that made his entire body tremble, but—Naoto shook his head.

“...No, all that’s left is to rewind the spring and she should... restart.”

Naoto’s hands trembled as he extended them towards the girl’s nape—her silver hair hid the screw of her spring underneath it—and began to silently turn the screw.

However, the state of the apartment was really getting precarious. Not only was it shaking, but thin fragments were now peeling from and falling off the ceiling as it cracked.

“...Haah... haah...”

He turned the screw around and around, building up the elastic energy needed for startup. However—no matter how much he wound the spring, there was no response. Gut-wrenching regret strangled Naoto.

No, no way no way no way! Did I really screw up somewhere?

“—God damn it... you’ve gotta be kidding me!”

Crack—

He heard a doom-filled sound. However, he didn’t see it, and frankly, he didn’t want to learn where it had come from. Even so, Naoto’s ears assertively declared through his headphones...

That the building would collapse.

“Ah, crap...” He turned his gaze upwards.

The ceiling happened to collapse just then, pouring down onto Naoto—and RyuZU as well.

However, at that moment, his hands felt a faint reaction. In a flash—without any forewarning, RyuZU sprung up from the workbench.

All of a sudden, she was in full operation.

With movements unbelievably fluid for having just started up, the girl pulled Naoto into her embrace. While carrying Naoto in her arms, the actuators in her legs ran full-throttle, causing her Accelerator Gears to turn with raging force, and RyuZU broke through the glass window at the speed of an artillery shell

All that happened in the fraction of a second before the ceiling collapsed.

“O, cra—......”

They were falling down. Inertia seized their bodies.

The fall from the seventh floor of the apartment building should have been about twenty meters. ...However, the face of automaton girl who held Naoto in her arms displayed a smile with an air of refinement—and also, nonchalance.

Naoto was mesmerized by her profile.

The time that passed didn’t even amount to a few seconds but felt many tenfolds longer.

As they approached the ground, she adjusted their headlong position by swinging her legs grandly, turning the two of them upright.

She landed.

“——!!”

Boom. A heavy collision sounded. And yet, Naoto didn’t feel the shock of landing at all.

Just how advanced is the Shock Remover packed inside her? Did that break the mechanisms in her leg just now? Ahh, I hope the glass didn’t damage her artificial skin—

“......”

RyuZU loosened her hold without a word, allowing Naoto to quietly step onto the ground. However, unable to stand, he sank down on the spot.

Unable to think with his mind practically blank, Naoto looked up at the girl, dumbfounded.

“Ah—”

Her topaz eyes, which glittered blazingly and bewitchingly, looked down upon Naoto. She blinked repeatedly.

A breath leaked out from between her narrowly parted lips, stirring the air.

“Y—ou—” A voice muddied with noise spilled out as her vocal apparatus vibrated.

It was a malfunction. Was it because she hadn’t been turned on in a long time? The girl placed one hand on her throat and tuned her vocal apparatus while staring up at space.

She eventually lowered her hand gracefully and nodded, looking satisfied. After that, upon adjusting her posture and tidying up her disheveled clothes...

She stood there looking perfectly ready, as if she had been waiting in that perfect state for many hundreds of years already.

After leisurely turning her eyes to survey her surroundings, the girl looked down by her feet.

“Are you the one who kindly repaired me?” She had a high, clear voice, like that of a music box’s metal comb.

She was a delicate, lovely maiden with skin the color of liquid silver wrapped in a dress so black it seemed like it had been tailored from the darkness of the night. Her topaz eyes glittered with gold as they gazed fixedly upon Naoto, who remained at a complete loss for words.

“—My, for me to be forced to hibernate for 1,804,926 hours because of such a trivial failure, has human intelligence still yet to exceed the level of a flea, even now? Or are you, from whom I can’t detect any sense of intellect nor refinement, somehow the first graduate who ought to be commemorated?”

If Naoto strained his ears, he could faintly hear the inorganic pumping sound of her Main Cylinder. Yet, its rhythm overlapped somewhere with the beating heart that was ringing in his chest.

“...My goodness, the stupidity of humanity is the one thing that truly knows no bounds. If possible, I would prefer my master to be a lifeform superior to an insect, but...”

While spewing venom from her sharp tongue, the girl extended her hand towards Naoto with a graceful gesture. In contrast to her scathing words, her gaze was sweet, and her mouth was forming a gentle smile.

Naoto gently smiled back in response, extending his hand forward and sticking his thumb up.

The next instant—Naoto lost consciousness.