Volume 2, Chapter 31 – Knows Nothing When Asked

“Crunch—”

“Crunch—”

Leaning against the wall, Anran silently watched Aila eat dinner. The scene felt strangely bizarre.

The pitch-black, sturdy pistol had a chunk bitten right off with absurd ease under Aila’s teeth.

Aila chewed a few times, then swallowed the steel.

Then she took another bite.

What incredible teeth.

Anran could not help sighing in admiration. She truly had no idea what kind of metal Aila’s teeth were made of. In front of them, a hard pistol seemed as fragile as sugarcane.

There was another thing that puzzled Anran. As a robot, Aila had no digestive system, so where exactly did all the metal she ate go?

Anran had taken part in most of Aila’s creation process, so she understood that much fairly well.

No, putting aside where the metal went after being eaten, why would Aila feel hungry in the first place as a robot?

Maybe she could understand what the word “hungry” meant, but how could she possibly experience hunger?

And why would a robot eat metal?

Ordinary robots did not have such a weird trait, did they?

It was genuinely hard to understand.

Anran scratched the back of her head. Aila was truly unfathomable.

“Crunch—”

It was not long before the barrel disappeared into Aila’s stomach. Holding the pistol by the trigger area, she rotated it and continued gnawing on the other end.

It was like eating a chicken wing: finish the big end, turn it around, then keep eating the smaller end.

While the corner of Anran’s eye twitched nonstop, Aila quickly finished off the pistol.

Rеαⅾ оո КаtRеaⅾіոɡСαfe

She still seemed somewhat unsatisfied. Turning her head, she looked at Anran with hopeful eyes. “Finished eating!”

“…”

Anran took a breath and pulled out another pistol from her backpack. They had confiscated four in total just now.

After removing the bullets, Anran handed the pistol to Aila.

Aila’s eyes lit up at once, shining with a brilliance utterly unlike her usual self. She took the pistol and could not wait to stuff it into her mouth.

Anran suddenly asked, “By the way, let me ask you something.”

“Hm?”

Aila held the gun with both hands. Even while replying, she was reluctant to move it away from her mouth.

What a foodie.

Anran silently snarked to herself and asked, “Why do you feel hungry?”

“???”

Aila looked at the pistol, then at Anran, but after a long while, she still could not come up with an answer.

Why did she feel hungry? Wasn’t that only natural?

Hungry meant hungry, and being hungry meant wanting to eat.

Aila thought Anran was very strange, so she turned her head away and ignored her.

“Crunch—”

Anran tapped her forehead with her hand. What a headache. She had no idea how Colin usually taught Aila.

“Then where do all the metals you eat go?”

Anran changed the question.

While chewing, Aila shot Anran a glance, but she still did not reply.

Rеαⅾ оո КatRеаⅾiոɡСαfе

What the heck? Now she was completely ignoring me?

Just as Anran was about to speak again, she suddenly remembered that sentence Colin had told Aila.

She had just spoken one, two… fourteen characters in total.

That was already over the ten-character limit.

“…”

Could the reason really be something that ridiculous?

Although Anran was usually very careful about that when talking to Aila, now that Aila was actually giving her the cold shoulder over it, she still found it hard to believe.

So she took out a sheet of paper and a pen, wrote down the question she had just asked, and handed it to Aila.

“Can you answer this question?” Anran said.

Aila raised her head slightly and fell into thought.

Anran watched Aila with expectant eyes. She had a premonition that if she could figure this out, she would roughly understand why Aila seemed so different from everyone else.

The pensive Aila suddenly lowered her head.

Anran’s eyes lit up. Here it comes, here it comes, the answer is—

“I don’t know,” Aila said in distress.

“Pff—”

Anran lifted her head to the sky, and for a moment, her entire figure seemed steeped in desolation.

Knows nothing when asked.

Basically, don’t ask me. I don’t know anything.

What a troublesome robot.

Since entering the game, aside from getting tricked once by the “urban management” Lennard, Anran had never been so stifled before.

Rеad οո KαtRеαdіոɡСafе

But Anran still refused to give up.

“Did it all just vanish into thin air?” she pressed on.

Aila replied in a muffled voice while chewing.

Her cheeks were puffed out. Anyone who did not know better might think she was eating buns.

But it was metal!

“What does ‘vanish into thin air’ mean?”

“…”

“‘Vanish into thin air’ means…”

Forget it.

Anran forcibly swallowed the rest of her explanation.

For the time being, she gave up on trying to fix this. Rather than trying to pry answers out of Aila, it would be better to ask Colin directly. Even if he refused, it would not be this maddening.

“Finished eating!”

Aila looked at Anran with an innocent expression.

“Here, take them, take them all!” Anran handed the remaining two guns to Aila.

As for her own sidearm, of course she could not give that away.

Focused on her food, Aila stopped paying attention to Anran.

Anran also stopped dwelling on Aila’s issue. Her gaze settled on the doorway, but her thoughts drifted far away.

The war that had broken out in Twinmoon City was still far from over. Near the city hall, the flames of battle were burning even more fiercely.

Even from several li away, Anran could still occasionally feel the house trembling slightly.

Who knew how the fighting on both sides was going by now.

Rеαⅾ оո KαtRеαⅾіոɡCаfе

If she were just a little stronger, she could have gained much more from this war. For now, she could only wait for her chance.

“You have completed the mission [Treat Colin], obtained 500 experience points, favorability with Colin +30, favorability with Eudora +30, favorability with Aila +5.” The game’s notification suddenly rang out.

(There was a bug with the names earlier; it has been fixed.)

Anran looked up and saw the doorknob begin to turn.

“Click, click—”

The door was pushed open, and Eudora, dressed in a white coat, walked out looking exhausted.

Aila, who had been eating a gun, also quietly stopped what she was doing. It seemed that compared to food, Colin’s safety still ranked first in her heart.

Anran immediately asked, “How are the boss’s injuries?”

Eudora brushed aside a strand of hair stuck to her forehead, her expression somewhat grave. “For the moment, there isn’t any major problem.”

Aila’s eyes had just widened.

Then Eudora added, “It’s just that Colin’s injuries are rather severe. He just finished surgery, and I don’t have enough medicine here. If this keeps dragging on…”

Just as expected. Anran did not feel much about it, but Aila’s eyes instantly dimmed.

Eudora sighed. She looked at Aila and reached out as if to pat her hair, but halfway through she withdrew her hand. Turning to Anran instead, she said, “The hospital where I work has plenty of medicine, but things are very chaotic outside right now…”

Anran said nothing.

“I know you’re a Mechanic.”

Anran still said nothing.

A trace of awkwardness appeared on Eudora’s face. “If you can help, I can give you all of Colin’s treasured collection. I know that this might…”

“Hidden mission triggered [Search for Medicine]…”

“Alright, I accept this mission!” Anran decided at once.