Chapter 35 - Another Side
While all of that was going on, in a certain space crack within the Beast folk forest territory, a certain clone was back at the base and talking to another figure who looked exactly like her.
"...and so I saw her get dragged into the bonfire festival by that witch girl and she eventually joined in on the festivities for the night and so I stopped following her."
"Hmm, hmm. I see. Well, it makes sense she would grow up to be a goody two shoes when her main role model for a person is someone like that hero. Not that it is a bad thing, since the closer she gets to that hero the higher the chances that she would come into contact with the true power of a hero. Maybe then I would be able to study what exactly is that mechanism that chooses heroes and demon kings and obtain one of the key pieces of the puzzle to break open this whole situation."
Alice then wrote down her thoughts on the air in front of her which solidified before she tossed the script towards her head and the words all melted into her head.
On the side, another figure that looked like her chuckled at the scene.
"Did you really need to do such a fancy operation? If anyone else saw that display, they would be fuming with anger at how much mana that simple comedic action took. You already have Mental Magic and so you could easily memorize every waking moment of 100 years of life and recite all that happens in detail forwards and backwards without missing a beat. Concentrating mana into letters just to make the effect of words going in your mind makes you look ridiculous!"
The clone then received a bonk on the head from the real Alice who scowled before explaining the thought process.
"If I simply acted for efficiency, I would be getting stifled by all of the tedious and menial situations happening recently! I am getting tired of all of these problems with this goal of mine!"
Shouting into the empty space, she then slumped over her chair and grumbled about all of her failed experiments and ideas which made the two clones chuckle before comforting their main body having a temper tantrum.
"There there." Comforting her main body, the alchemy clone quietly comforted her exhausted main body and quietly motioned the other clone out of the room.
After some time, Alice finally perked up from her state and headed over to her workstation without a word. Giving a sigh, the clone that still remained watched as she entered back into another more focused state.
"I guess that is what happens when a genius like her has only the company of others like herself. Even her own clones(self)." The Alchemist clone sighed and headed into the base and walked towards the canteen of the base.
Arriving at her location, she watched as many of what looked like doppelgängers wandered around in a hurried manner. None of them even left a glance at her figure as if she was just air to pass by.
Through the silent halls she arrived at the dining hall and saw even more of the dolls simply either hooked on to a tube for feeding or taking in tasteless and colorless paste as nutrition.
"Wandering around the base like this truly makes the place far more dreary than it was originally. Living a long time in an environment like this and not having any role models to follow would obviously lead to a skewed perspective of the world."
And even more so, it makes her feel less complete than even Felicia and the rest of us. After all, she even gave us some of her remaining thoughts and memories that remained from her previous self. Although this is not something I could tell her directly.
That is something that she thought might happen before she created us and it was exactly what happened. After bearing the entire knowledge of all of the researching clones who have a calculative ability of her original self onto her Akashic Records, she became something... different.
Perhaps something beyond even the system perhaps? After all, the Appraisal skill no longer worked on her. Even at level ten there was no longer any response. She even specifically had a clone develop the skill to the Limit Break state and even then all it saw was garbled nonsense.
And it makes sense too. After all, her existence is a rather large anomaly in the system of this world. But that is beside the point. The main point is that she has changed and none of us could tell whether it was a good thing or not. After all, she is the main body and so she has the fullest and most complete authority over us.
That is why I decided that taking care of her slowly deteriorating state would be my true goal. After all, the end of Alchemy is to reach perfection. No matter how others view her, to us she is the closest figure to perfection. To infinity.
Walking into the kitchen, I casually took over a kitchen space and the original chef Alice had to obediently step aside for me. Cooking for her is one of the major ways that I try to appeal to her emotions. After all, cooking is both the closest activity to alchemy and is also the most subjective and imperfect goal.
All people have differing taste buds and emotions and thoughts can truly be passed on through this method. Through cooking I can imbue my thoughts and emotions into the very ingredients of my cooking to create a tapestry of art that no repeated robotic methods could ever hope to compare to.
Of course, the ingredients used for this meal would also not be normal as well. Due to the number of differentiated clones and all of their marked duties, this base that was the size of a small city was actually perfectly independent and with enough excess resources to supply an entire city for centuries to come saved in storage spaces that expand to massive scales.
With her almost divine encyclopedic knowledge, every process and action has reached the near perfect state. That is exactly why I hope that my touch of emotion can eventually reach her closed off heart.
The dish that I had finished was one that the main clones with consciousness had collectively calculated as her original favorite food through research on her provided memories and the emotions imbued within. Even some of her soul's feelings I tried to replicate into the dishes I made for her.
It was only recently that I was finally able to find out what that missing piece of the puzzle for this meal. It was a factor that I could not really emulate though.
Imbued within this bowl of curry on rice with a side salad and fresh toasted and sliced bread was the emotions of 'home' and 'nostalgia'.
This was partly due to the emotions I found back when I had been watching Felicia. Seeing her journey and sensing all of the emotions going on, I tried to trace and follow the emotions going on and found myself at the home of a small village. A warm and comfortable scene of a family dinner had released an emotion that filled the hole left inside of Alice.
And this led me to my deepest worry and hatred. That damn Demon King! It is all his fault. If he were in front of me, oh how I would toy and tear him apart. The body that she originally inhabited in, a residual will was left from the original owner.
Tracing the emotions of what happened through our memory, we concluded that the will inside that body was left in order to see if the father of that body would abide by the likely agreement to treat Alice as his daughter as well.
Taking my frustration out upon a batch of dough that the previous chef clone had made, I eventually calmed down after the dough ball was deformed and distorted to a disturbing degree.
I don't blame that girl of anything. She is a victim as well after all. But through the memories that we inherited from Alice, we could also feel that sense of remorse and hint of regret that she had for that Demon King when she let the two of them communicate for the last time. But in the end all she got was neglect and hatred.
That misplaced trust can never be returned and forever scarred her emotional factors and so she has resulted like this. Like a looping machine that keeps on repeating that same pattern when encountering emotional matters. Now her only anchor to this world is Felicia. A miraculous soul born from nothing that inhabits a body that originally had no consciousness.
So she must keep a sense of morality and emotion. There must also never come a time where she also faces betrayal. We will make sure of it. After all, we made sure one of us would always keep watching her at all times.
When that time comes and she passes her distress and despair to Alice it would only make her situation spiral out of control. A clear glow flashed in my eyes as I calmed down to a point of absolute silence.
Taking the finished plate of food that now was entangled with nostalgia and love, I headed on over to her workstation. Seeing that she was still writing there, I sighed and placed the plate a short distance away and sat at the table in the room watching her.
Sometimes I saw her scratch and tilt her head confusedly. Other times she would bite her thumbnail in frustration and many times she would tear apart the manuscript she wrote before reverting it and putting it away neatly.
Watching her show her true self through her research and exploration, I smiled at the scene.
It was a scene that I hoped to see more. Not an act where she played the role of a tired researching noble who complained to her maid who was simply her clone. Rather, I hoped that she would simply stop her research for a day and allow us to take her on a trip together.
But for now it is still a distant thought.
This research seemed to end up in another dead end as I saw her simply stare off into space. Seeing her like that, I walked over to her with loud steps and reached out and grasped her shoulder.
"Alice, I have a meal ready for you!"
"Oh, Alchemist. You don't need to always be like this, since you are still me after all."
Hearing this, the clone let out a sigh as she dragged her main body over to the table to have a meal together. After dragging her over to right in front of the table where she placed the curry for her, she then plopped down the opposite chair with a meal of her own.
After glaring at her when she tried to quietly leave the seat, she sighed and resigned herself to sit and eat to rest her mind. Then she turned her gaze to the dish on the plate and once she paid attention to and smelled the scent of the dish she paused for a brief moment.
Unfortunately the situation did not seem to visibly change as she ate. In the end, the meal was quickly finished as she headed straight back to work. With a sigh, the Alchemist took all of the trays and plates and headed out to the kitchen to return them.
"This is really making me rather upset. What do I have to do to get her to slow down and live life?"
Finishing up her duties, she returned to her own workstation to make some products through alchemy herself. Like clone like main body perhaps?
While doing so, she took the time to glance at a small hand mirror type of alchemical tool. Through the mirror, she could see a head down perspective of Felicia and the others having the time of their lives with a smile.
"Perhaps it is fate that has lead you to come here at this time. Since you have decided to intervene in the hidden undercurrents among the beastmen, I will keep an eye on you and the situation there myself. Magic Clone, can you take over my original post over by the Elves? Although their situation is not nearly as volatile, it can still erupt at any time."
Saying her words to the void, soon a dark force seemed to emerge from her shadow as her shadow stretched out and elongated till it eventually formed a strange and distorted figure floating in mid air by her side. Then, unintelligible words began to resonate and she nodded as the figure then melted back into her shadow and disappear.
With that done, she could now fully focus on the situation happening among the beast folk while keeping an eye on the beloved Felicia and her own adventures. Finishing the experimental tool at hand, she then watched as the evening eventually turned to night as she finally entered sleep before closing the hand mirror.
They can sleep peacefully for now, but soon the vicious maws of malice shall soon reach them. It is to be expected of those guys though, as they are indeed like the heroes in stories where chaos and adventure appears every step of their journey.
She slowly wrote down any points of interest or interesting observations for the day down on a small notebook before going back to work making more alchemical tools for any possible kind of occasion.
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