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- [Startup]
- Contract invalid. Connection failed.
- Confirming cessation of Master Attendant’s vitals. Reason: unknown.
- Confirming Master Attendant’s position: error.
- Startup negated.
- There was a time when I wouldn’t go anywhere or do anything without an order from Master Attendant.
- I’d stay on standby, waiting for him to start an operation.
- I didn’t need to think, nor did I need to stress.
- But at that moment, my killed Master Attendant no longer told me what I needed to do.
- This was a bit of a hassle for me.
- My mechanical body lags and creaks if I don’t move for a while.
- I didn’t know what to do next. To me, there was no need for a machine to act on its own.
- I was still a machine back then.
- And machines need to be activated before they can start working.
- I heard an unfamiliar voice and a flurry of footsteps draw near.
- “Yep. Find the safe and take the gem."
- The owner of that voice noticed me and approached me.
- “Oh? What’s this?"
- He was a red-haired, lavishly dressed food soul. His human companion, on the other hand, was dressed like a thief.
- "Oh, that’s his food soul. He hardly talks to others and only listens to his Master Attendant. Now that his Master Attendant is dead, he’s just a pile of scrap metal."
- "You sure know a lot. If I hadn't known you were a thief, I’d have thought you were a detective.
- "Thanks for the compliment--I got it, let's go."
- I stared at him, motionless.
- He reached out and touched my arm, my face, my eyepatch, and my mechanical wings.
- My eyes followed his hand, but every other part of my body stayed still.
- "Wait. I want to take him with us."
- He lowered his hand and sized me up in interest.
- "Now that his owner is dead, I wonder: is he a scrap machine, or a wonderful toy? -- Sit, food soul."
- Command received. Source: food soul.
- Confirm command: ‘sit’.
- Target action retrieved. Execute.
- Even though that person wasn’t my master attendant, he gave me an order. I sat down obediently.
- He gave me a few more commands, such as lie down, stand up, turn around, and jump.
- After making sure I’d follow through with each one, he gave one that made the thief watching in amusement go pale.
- --Kill his thief companion and hand the Azure Stone over.
- As he escaped, the thief spat curses at Spaghetti for betraying him while begging me to spare him.
- But I’ve already been ordered to kill him.
- I don’t get to choose between conflicting commands. The first command always takes priority. And the first command was given by that red-haired food soul.
- I killed the thief and gave him the gem.
- His excitement was reminiscent of a child on Christmas Eve, but with a dash of lunacy in the mix.
- "Hahahaha, what a good toy! Tell me your name and come with me. I’ll be sure to make the best use out of you!"
- Amidst his disturbing laughter, I calmly stated my name.
- "I am...B-52."
- [Change]
- My body...is lagging. My arms and wings can’t function properly.
- My nimble opponent covered up his tracks so well, there were times I couldn’t detect his oncoming sneak attack. By the time I spun around to defend myself, it was too late.
- My mechanical wings creaked in protest as I flew. I gave up on flying and chose to walk back to the villa Spaghetti--the red-haired food soul who took me away--lived in.
- In the hustle of this prosperous town, no one will pay attention to me and my lagginess.
- The sound of a carriage approaching in the distance immediately dispersed the crowd on the street, leaving me and a little girl who tripped in the middle of the road.
- "Save her! Won’t somebody save her?"
- A voice cried out for help.
- Before I'd realized it, I spread my wings and flew to the girl in the middle of the road, carrying her into the air. Without an order.
- The carriage barely passed under our feet.
- The danger had passed, but it was then my barely-functioning mechanical wings stopped functioning altogether. I hugged the girl as we fell.
- Judging that the girl in my arms took priority, I leaned back and let myself cushion her fall.
- The impact made my vision flash white. My blue flames dissipated and my right arm dropped to the ground limply.
- Decision confirmation--why save her?
- Searching for command… Command = false.
- --I have to save her.
- After I heard that cry, my body broke through the system’s control.
- "...-san, Nii-san!"
- Something pulled me back to reality. A tender voice echoed in my ear.
- "Nii-san, are you okay?"
- "...I’m fine."
- The girl climbed off of me. I pushed off the ground and slowly got up, trying to move my mechanical wings. They creaked in protest again.
- "Thank you, Nii-san... Are your wings broken?"
- The girl clutched my broken right arm and looked up at me.
- "Nii-san’s wings look just like those clocks Papa makes...Nii-san, why don’t you let Papa fix it for you!”
- As things stand, I won’t have enough strength to defend myself if I run into something on the way back.
- I just saved her. She said that she can help me repair my parts.
- It can’t hurt to try.
- "Nii-san?"
- "Alright, take me there."
- [Dreams and Reality]
- The girl took me to her house.
- Her father was a well-known clocksmith in town. He thought the reason my mechanical wing was malfunctioning was because saving his daughter piled even more damage onto its already near-broken self. He was exuberant, although I didn’t know if it was out of gratefulness to me or if it was out of interest in my mechanical wings.
- I sat on a chair and silently waited for the clocksmith to replace the damaged parts.
- "Nii-san, your wings look really broken. Doesn't it hurt?"
- "No."
- "Really? Nii-san is just like a clock. When he’s hurt, he can't feel it at all. Lucky! It always hurts when I trip and fall.”
- "..."
- The clocksmitch’s voice rang out from behind me, breaking the silence caused by my aloofness.
- "Stupid child. Living humans aren’t clocks. Of course it hurts. Nii-san is actually in a lot of pain,but he just doesn’t want to make you worried. That’s why he won’t admit it."
- False. It’s just as that girl said. It doesn’t hurt.
- How can a machine feel pain?
- But I kept quiet.
- The conversation continued, but my memory started to blur.
- "Not everyone starts crying and wailing when they get a little scrape like you.”
- "Hey! No fair, Papa! I don’t cry! I didn't shed a single tear when I tripped today!"
- The girl jumped up and made a face at her father. I couldn’t hear what they said afterward, but they both laughed.
- She pinched the corners of my mouth, trying to make me smile...
- A shrill scream woke me up from my memories.
- I was no longer in a shop full of clocks, but a beautifully decorated merchant's house. The bodies on the ground were still warm.
- My task was to get rid of the merchant and bring the Azure Stone back to Nevrast.
- The merchant's wife had a food soul who wasn’t very suited to battle.
- However, they dealt a heavy blow to me before dissipating.
- I didn't notice it while I was fighting. It was only when I caught the merchant's daughter that I realized my parts were broken.
- She thought she could escape my killing spree by hiding under that bed.
- I expected her to put up a fight, but she seemed to be afraid of my flames. Her stiff body was shivering.
- I don't understand. Why would I remember something like that while carrying out my task?
- Was it because of the terrified girl in front of me?
- Or because I discovered my mechanical wings had failed again after I caught her?
- There’s a force inside me stopping me from taking her life.
- Perhaps it’s this same force that just decided to remind me of the past.
- This never happened before. I was shaken.
- Unable to make a decision, unable to move.
- I didn’t chase the girl when she broke away from me.
- Gazing in the direction she fled, I thought "Spaghetti doesn’t need to know about this.”
- The sizzling azure flames were out of control. I lost too much soul power. Fire, licking the rug, formed a circle around me.
- A girl whose face I couldn’t make out appeared behind me. When I turned toward her, her face began morphing into those of others.
- A man, a woman, an old lady, a kid...
- Finally, it morphed into the face of that girl I saved. She clutched my arm.
- “Nii-san, you can’t hurt because you’re not human.”
- Then it morphed into my deceased Master Attendant. His voice was filled with disappointment.
- “You’re not even a food soul. You’re just a war machine.”
- No...I’m not...I want to be human, I want to feel pain, I WANT TO BE HUMAN!
- I don't know what I’m screaming about, nor do I know why I’m struggling.
- Something’s not right, but I can’t tell what.
- Her face was still morphing. A mixture of voices lingered in my ear.
- In this chaos, I heard a familiar roar.
- - B-52...B-52 Cocktail! Wake the hell up!
- [Answer]
- I woke up from my sleep. As soon as I opened my eyes and saw Spaghetti, I knew it was just a dream.
- Why did I have that dream?
- Why did I say something like that in that dream?
- I didn’t know nor did I have time to think about it before Spaghetti exploded in anger.
- "You dare disobey my orders! Do you have any idea of what you just did?!"
- "..."
- "Aren’t you going to explain why you let that girl go?!"
- "..."
- Spaghetti lifted his chin and peered at me with contempt.
- "You’re my toy, and toys should listen to their owner’s orders! Unless you want to be abandoned and crushed like worthless garbage!"
- What Spaghetti meant by “crushing” was death.
- Death is the disappearance of biological activity.
- Most people will experience great pain in the process of dying.
- Pain...
- Is that proof of being a "person"?
- "Spaghetti, do you feel pain?"
- "Hah? Trying to change the topic, are you?”
- "No."
- I watched Spaghetti get more and more impatient, yet the words that left my mouth put a surprised look on his face.
- "I want to understand how humans feel. Death, pain..."
- I wanted to confirm that I wasn’t a machine, but a living, breathing food soul. A conscious, human--food soul.
- A food soul who can feel pain, as the father of that girl said.
- I couldn't describe the look on Spaghetti’s face, nor could I describe my uncertainty.
- But that didn't stop me from speaking out about my doubts. I wanted to understand the feelings that told humans they were alive - including pain.
- "You want to know? Okay, fine, then get crushed like worthless garbage!"
- After Spaghetti left, I set off for the Catacombs.
- He told me this was where I’d find my answer before he left.
- The Catacombs are treacherous.
- Battling with fallen angels is different from battling with food souls.
- Fallen angels obey their killing instinct without mercy or hesitation.
- As they group up and fire attack after attack, my flames will run out sooner or later.
- I’m almost certain that I will die there.
- Outside the Catacombs, there was a food soul who tried to stop me from looking for certain death.
- But I refused.
- Only pain can give me the answer I need.
- And pain...did give me the answer.
- The battle was tireless. My skin constantly tore fresh wounds.
- Even as I overexerted myself and burned through all my soul power...I couldn’t give up without reaching my goal.
- My wish, my reality, my existence...
- I have to prove that I can feel pain too. The same kind of pain humans feel.
- I’m a living, breathing food soul too!
- A pain I’ve never felt before seared through my body as I dealt out attack after attack.
- At that moment, I wanted to go back and say to that girl “I can hurt too. I’m just like you.”
- But perhaps it was too late.
- It hurts, everything hurts.
- Can't move.
- I lay on the ground, surrounded by an unrelenting mob of fallen angels.
- I knew no one was coming to save me.
- I could feel my soul power dissipating.
- But I wasn’t sad. On the contrary, I felt relieved.
- Because I knew I was a living, breathing food soul. A living, breathing--“person”.
- [B-52 Cocktail]
- B-52 was no ordinary food soul when he was born.
- His master attendant was an airship designer who wanted to summon an assistant but summoned a machine instead.
- Yes, a machine, as his master attendant called him.
- One who couldn’t act or draw conclusions on his own, who could only do the tasks he’d been given.
- Of course, there was an exception--battle.
- In a today plagued by fallen angels, not just the land, but even the sky and the ocean were occupied by them.
- B-52, known to others as a bomber, did an outstanding job in airship escorts and was even called the perfect war machine by a pilot on the airship.
- Food souls have a sense of self when they’re summoned.
- Although they’re more or less influenced by their master attendants and learn new things in the process, they all know from the very start what kind of existences they are.
- As he interacted with his Master Attendant and other humans, B-52 “corrected” the perceptions in his mind. He no longer considered himself a “food soul” but a cold, numb, and inexhaustible “machine”.
- But B-52’s master attendant wasn’t always on an airship. When drawing design drafts at home, he’d put B-52 on standby in the library, only letting him run some errands every now and then.
- Someone commissioned a private airship design from his master attendant. The front of the airship would be adorned with a sculpture of a "beautiful bride", and the necklace on her chest would be inlaid with a beautiful blue gem.
- Therefore, the Azure Stone was kept at the home of B-52’s master attendant.
- The Azure Stone was a cursed gem. Its previous owners had all fallen prey to ill fates.
- But a gorgeous 10,000-carat gem will always have its suitors.
- Little did they know, however, that the curse wasn’t real. It was just a legend some food soul intentionally created by combining a few coincidences.
- Every few years, the food soul would hand off the Azure Stone before killing the owner and taking it back.
- B-52’s master attendant was one of his unlucky victims.
- But it was this that kickstarted B-52’s shift from a machine to a “human”.
- When his master attendant died, B-52 was still a machine that required orders to do anything.
- Over time, as B-52 performed more and more tasks, he witnessed more and more sadness and joy.
- As more human emotions gradually surrounded him, he began to think about the rationality of orders.
- He didn’t refuse the orders given to him, but the first seeds had already taken root and would sprout at any moment.
- B-52 didn’t know if it was the Azure Stone that caused his master attendant’s death.
- He didn’t realize it at first.
- It wasn’t until the second time he went to take the gem back that he started to connect the dots.
- And when he performed the same task for the third time, he let a girl go.
- Did B-52 not want to kill Spaghetti and avenge his master attendant?
- He didn’t know.
- Before he had free will, Spaghetti’s orders gave him his thoughts and existence.
- This internal conflict sped up the development of his critical thinking and transformation.
- Why didn’t he kill Spaghetti immediately after everything was laid bare? Because the pull of his wish--the first wish he’d ever had--was so intense it took up all his focus. The thought hadn’t even crossed his mind at that time.
- The truth was, B-52 wasn’t actually numb to pain but thought of himself as a machine. That belief sealed the feeling off.
- What made him feel pain, in the end, was not death, but his desire finally breaking the seal.
- He was convinced that pain could tell him whether he truly was a machine or not.
- By chasing death, he confirmed that he wasn’t a cold, numb, inexhaustible “machine”.
- In the Catacombs, B-52 could feel his consciousness slipping away.
- Just as everything was about to go dark, he heard a voice.
- "Phew, just in time. Good thing he’s not gone yet... Brownie, hurry and pick him up! We’ll treat him when we get back, but for now--retreat!"
- (T/N: In case it isn’t clear, the one speaking at the end is Napoleon Cake.)
- (T/N 2: The last segment of Brownie’s backstory will continue where this left off.)
- [Translated by stardustedangst on Tumblr/SnowflakeBerrystar on Reddit]
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