Volume 3, Chapter 3 – This might be a raising-sim game

“Just put it by the corner, Aila!”

Anran spoke to Aila, who was carrying a cutter.

As though she had not heard, Aila kept walking steadily toward the back of the little garage.

Then Anran suddenly realized that what she had just said was more than ten characters long.

Why did Colin have to be such a troll? Setting a restriction like this was torture.

“Just put it by the corner, Aila.”

Anran deleted the extra sentence in the middle.

Only this time, Aila’s actions completely exceeded Anran’s expectations.

She did not listen to Anran. She continued carrying the cutter to the back, and before setting it down, Aila even looked left and right before placing it down with extreme steadiness.

“…”

Fine. Aila would not always listen to her. Even if what she said was sometimes well-intentioned, Aila was not completely without her own opinions.

Anran turned and carried a table in from the yard. She placed it in the middle of the garage and clapped her hands in satisfaction.

Just as she was about to move something else, Aila walked over.

“No. It shouldn’t go here.”

After saying that, Aila moved the table to the corner.

“…”

What was this supposed to mean?

Did Aila actually have her own sense of aesthetics?

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That was pretty damn impressive.

Anran’s lips parted slightly in surprise. If this was true aesthetic judgment, then that meant Aila was definitely not a cold, unfeeling robot. She was “life,” a form of life similar to the Machina.

It would be absolutely impossible to create Aila with such crude machinery.

That mysterious crystal…

Whether it was magic, technology, or some other method, it was not something that could be born on an ordinary technological planet like No. 1886.

So even the earnest-looking Boss Colin had secrets he could not tell.

Anran decided to probe a little first.

Her question was rather long, so Anran wrote what she wanted to say on a piece of paper.

“Aila, why do you say this table shouldn’t be placed here, but should be put in the corner instead?”

She handed the paper to Aila.

At that moment, Anran suddenly felt like a scholar conducting research.

Aside from the [Scout] profession, the Engineer and Mechanic professions really were a perfect fit for her.

As for Pastry Maker, that could count as a scholar’s hobby.

Aila quickly scanned the contents of the paper and calmly replied, “In Daddy’s workshop, the table isn’t arranged like this.”

“Uh…”

Anran froze.

Aila’s answer was completely beyond her expectations. There were only three or four items in the garage so far, and she had not linked the layout Aila was making with Colin’s workshop at all.

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But the moment Aila pointed it out, she immediately understood.

Never mind the small machines.

The table placed in the left corner by the entrance was the thing Anran remembered most clearly.

Everything about Aila had begun when Anran saw the glass tube Colin had placed on that table, along with the blueprints in the table drawer.

There had also been a very sturdy chair placed beside the table.

When Anran looked back, she spotted that chair in the yard.

She carried the chair over and placed it next to the table.

Aila said nothing. The two of them worked together with perfect tacit understanding, returning every piece of machinery they had brought over to its “original position,” until there was no extra equipment left in the yard.

“Some things are still missing,” Aila said, standing in the empty space of the “new workshop.”

That could not be helped. Some of it had been smashed by Stowe and the others…

Aila met Anran’s eyes and said word by word, “I’m very angry!”

She clenched her fists.

Emmm…

Some other things had been damaged when Anran had exchanged gunfire with them, but she had decided not to mention that and dumped the blame entirely on Morningstar.

“It’s all the Morningstar Resistance’s fault!” Anran said in righteous indignation. “If it weren’t for them, so much nonsense wouldn’t have happened!”

This time, what Anran said was obviously more than ten characters long, yet Aila nodded in strong agreement.

Hey, you’ve been doing it on purpose all this time, haven’t you!

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Anran was extremely curious now.

How exactly had Aila’s head been made? How exactly did her thinking work?

She herself had only been responsible for the assembly part. There had to be some crucial steps afterward that she had not been allowed to see.

Nostalgic, and echoing her condemnation of Morningstar, Aila was just like a girl in her early teens.

And yet she was so different.

“Your favorability with Aila has increased by 3!”

Huh!?

The sudden game notification left Anran stunned for more than ten full seconds.

That increased favorability too?

Before, she had gone through such a dangerous place to find medicine for Colin and only gained 5 points of favorability. But after moving things around with Aila for a bit, she gained 3 points.

The way Robot Loli Aila thought really was profound and unfathomable. It was impossible to make heads or tails of it.

Don’t try to guess what a little girl is thinking~~

Even if you guess, you still won’t figure it out.

Thinking about it this way, Anran suddenly felt that when she was with Aila, she had somehow turned this RPG into a raising-sim.

At the start of the game, the “protagonist” creates a clueless robot, then carefully teaches this newborn robot who understands nothing, raising her in the direction the protagonist hopes for.

You use all kinds of methods to increase her favorability, go through all sorts of events along the way, and once her favorability is maxed out… you can start posing her.

Anran thought of an interesting game called Cute Girl Raising Workshop, produced by the famous I Company, except that in that one, it was a kind middle-aged father raising an adopted daughter.

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The difference was magic and science.

Emmm…

That difference did not seem all that big.

The problem was, it really felt like Colin was the protagonist.

Even if she were the protagonist, she was a girl now, without the necessary equipment, and Aila did not seem to be an appropriate target anyway. And Colin was still around, unless Colin died…

No, Anran cut off her runaway thoughts. Her thinking was far too dangerous right now. She needed to cleanse herself with warmth.

She did not want to really become an evil dark lord everyone wanted to kill.

Although Pirate Princess Anran was wanted by every nation, stole ships everywhere, and was a villain boss, she would not go around murdering entire families or exterminating whole races for no reason.

At most, while robbing people, she would execute a few troublemakers who kept jumping around. That counted as neutral alignment.

In some ways, Anran rather admired that pirate princess’s personality.

If she did not like someone, she would go after them.

If she could win, she would fight. If she could not, she would run.

Too bad she got killed by the plot. Tragic, really. If things followed the path set by the game, she would get beaten down by the players in the future.

“…”

She could not keep wasting time. Anran thought that she had to save enough money to go to the Sea Blue Forest as soon as possible. Only by becoming strong enough that players would not dare approach her could she ensure her own safety.

Players were already starting to head for Twinmoon City in large numbers, so she might as well take the initiative and make contact with them.