[Northeast 16, Lower Level
Suppression of the Neurotic Curse Caster (Priority 2 / Summary Execution)
It appears that one of the upper-class residents lured the curse caster in with the intent of seizing his personal assets, only to betray him afterward.
The swindler responsible for triggering the incident is currently in critical condition.
The curse sorcerer has gone on a rampage, vowing to kill everyone associated with the perpetrator and leave him alone to suffer in this world. With 60% of the city's lower-tier residents already dead, the situation must be resolved immediately before the massacre spreads any further.]
[West 11 Mid Level
Contract-related fraud (Priority 3 / Free action)
Door-to-door sales scams targeting commoners are rampant.
The perpetrators pose as merchants offering quality goods at exceptionally low prices, but once a transaction is underway, they present their victims with a fragile contract containing 42,000 characters. The magical contract is laced with unfair curses, meaning that anyone who completes the transaction by declaring, "I agree to all the above terms," risks having their vital organs seized as collateral.
Originally, curse magic could only be cast upon specific targets whom the caster personally despised, but the mages involved in these incidents appear to have discovered a way to materialize curses through the target's consent.
Until now, these swindlers have confined their activities to the upper levels, but recently they have expanded their operations into the middle-layer waters. Intervention by an authority of Magic Master rank is therefore required before the damage becomes more severe.]
[East 09 Entire Water Area
Wanted (Priority 1 / Capture)
Name ●●● Volume 1320 Eyes 5 Tentacles 8 Blue Yellow
A robber has fled the Eastern Palace with a Class-1 grimoire.
Suppress the target with the highest priority before this information reaches the public.
The target also possesses rare unique magic. Be sure to bring them back alive for analysis.]
[South 663 Upper Level
Notice (No priority / Ignore data)
Southern Hemisphere iceberg interior research facility.
Report of an unidentified luminescent object detected near the surface ice floe area.]
Incidents and accidents were pouring in from all over the planet today as well.
At this point, I suppose I should explain how I work.
I possess arch mage-level intellect specializing in weapon golem research, and because of the nature of the spells I primarily use, my physical body hardly moves at all.
[This is what you call working from home.]
I leave the head and chest responsible for casting spells resting peacefully at home. The latest approach to work is to send my consciousness elsewhere, possess a golem in the field, and report for duty that way. Once I transfer my consciousness into a suitable golem, I usually head out accompanied by automated dolls whose behavioral guidelines I have programmed in advance.
Golems.
In this day and age, nothing gets done without them.
[Shall I start by taking care of the urgent matters?]
I also took a certain amount of pride in living in the age of golems.
I had always possessed a natural talent for handling them and had never had any difficulty making use of that gift. Whenever I entered a particularly well-made machine, I could experience the bodies of all sorts of fascinating creatures—birds, sharks, and sometimes even insects or imaginary beings.
[Is that why our boss changes bodies every day?]
The correlation between experience and the soul.
A vague thought on the subject drifted through my mind, but I quickly pushed the fleeting contemplation aside.
Now was the time to work.
I lowered the consciousness remaining in my main body and activated a specific spell.
Then, as always, sensation returned.
Its appearance was modeled after the Alphaurians, though the material itself was far more rigid than flexible.
An imitation of this planet's ruling species...
A humanoid golem.
[There we go.]
The body moved smoothly.
After completing a brief inspection, I immediately turned to the highest-priority assignment.
[East 09, Entire Waters - Most Wanted (Priority 1 / Capture Alive)]
My first task of the day was to capture the fugitive robber, but it shouldn't take long.
[Let's see. The last confirmed location was somewhere around here...]
As the First Magic Master, my assigned jurisdiction encompassed 80% of the Northern Hemisphere.
Naturally, the range of the detection magic I could deploy roughly matched that territory.
Today's work was easy.
After only a short wait, something set off the magical net I had spread throughout the water.
It was the unmistakable magical signature of a criminal who had been duly condemned for forcibly stealing another person's property.
.
.
.
Several hours later.
Inside the warm-water zone at the northernmost edge of the planet.
—Clank, clank, clank.
Metallic noise echoed from every direction.
The room had a flat, square floor designed so that objects could be stacked neatly upon it. Stranger still, the entire place was completely dry, without so much as a single drop of water.
Oh, it's here.
Is it already that time?
That's why I told you to make the windows in the storage room bigger. The damn place is so airtight that all four sides are sealed off. A whole day can pass in here and you don't even feel it.
As mentioned earlier, this was a storage facility.
And what did they store here?
Naturally, the planet's specialty.
Golems.
Military models, agricultural models, and labor dolls designed for every conceivable purpose stood lined up throughout this vast research hall.
[Come to think of it, even that insignificant lizard golem costs an ordinary citizen about two and a half months' wages just for one tail...]
The problem, of course, was the price.
Excellent magical conductivity.
Good elasticity.
And, on top of that, basic durability.
A golem was a cutting-edge machine built without hesitation from materials possessing all those dreamlike qualities, so naturally neither its value nor its quality could possibly be low.
[I understand that, but emotionally speaking, it still feels a little too expensive.]
The combined value of all the golems stored here amounted to the equivalent of an astonishing fifteen years of the national budget.
For that reason, the administrators always maintained the interior of the building under optimal conditions so that the materials could be preserved for as long as possible.
Not optimal conditions for living creatures, of course.
For inorganic materials like these, a dry environment at room temperature was ideal.
[Hmm.]
At this point, they're less like golems and more like nobility.
Engineers dressed in all manner of protective equipment hurried back and forth through the storage facility.
As time passed, assembly work seemed to begin somewhere nearby, and a transport golem carrying a load of pungent, acrid-smelling adhesive rolled past me.
As usual, I paid it little attention.
Captured the wanted criminal.
Subdued the curse sorcerer.
Even wiped out the large-scale contract fraud ring.
I'd worked all day without eating or resting and had only managed to come here just before clocking out to finish my final task.
How could I possibly have the energy to worry about what anyone else was doing?
[Yeah. If I fix it like this, tomorrow's operation should go a little more smoothly.]
What the technicians usually inspected was the exterior of the golems.
In other words, they repaired the outer shells responsible for most of a golem's defensive performance, lubricated the joints between its mechanisms, and cleaned its core pump.
What I modified day after day was the exact opposite.
The inside of the golem.
Behavioral protocols stored in the machine's mind, memorized spells set to activate automatically under specific conditions, and other things of that nature.
[Oh dear. The spell here has already been erased? Looks like I'll have to engrave it again.]
These magically engineered automatons could display wildly abnormal behavior due to even the smallest error in their response settings.
They weren't infants, after all.
Every day, once their assigned tasks were finished, I had to check whether any components had been damaged and whether their previous commands remained properly intact.
Only by doing so could I minimize the possibility of malfunction.
[Okay. Now I'm completely finished.]
Even so—
If I could tolerate this minor inconvenience, there was plenty to gain in return...
[Everyone, good work today! I'm heading home.]
Hahaha. Yes. Yes.
Go get some sleep, Magic Master! It's really late.
Goodbye-
Before leaving the storage room, I called out a loud farewell, and the engineers answered one after another.
With the same warm send-off as always, I closed my eyes.
When my awareness returned, the dark ceiling I saw every morning filled my vision.
For reference, my home—like the storage room from earlier—was kept completely dry by a barrier that prevented water from entering.
I liked automated dolls so much that even my own home was filled with machinery related to them.
[Golems are a wonderful culture.]
My consciousness had returned home completely, and that thought floated through my drowsy mind.
In the early days, clay dolls couldn't even follow simple commands like "plow the field" properly. They would wander off and plow somewhere completely different instead.
Now, however, golems handled all sorts of tasks with a level of skill surpassing that of most experts.
As golem technology advanced, the architectural styles of this world became increasingly extravagant and enormous in scale.
This was especially true in the upper reaches of the Southern Hemisphere—commonly known as the Southern Upper Layer—where many of the wealthy lived.
There, houses were organically linked together like a spiderweb, forming such vast residential spaces that structures resembling artificial waves had even been constructed beneath the sea.
[A residential complex that looks like sea foam...]
Someday, perhaps, I would get to see that iconic building of the Southern Hemisphere for myself.
But as a guardian of the Northern Hemisphere, I doubted that day would come anytime soon.
Still, there was no need to fixate on some distant neighborhood inhabited by the wealthy.
The standard of living enjoyed by this planet's ordinary citizens had risen to a level incomparable to the old days.
In the past, only the wealthy could afford to keep mounts.
Now, anyone could ride long steel dragons that barely cost anything to feed.
Dangerous jobs where workers once risked permanent injuries?
Leave them to the golems.
Give a single command and they'll take care of all your housework.
There are even servant golems that massage your shoulders.
What a wonderful age we live in.
I was far too sleepy to continue indulging in pointless thoughts.
Through all sorts of tricks, I'd somehow reached the point where I no longer even needed to eat.
But no matter how far civilization advanced, there was still no escaping this thing called sleep.
[Ugh, so sleepy......]
My thoughts were just beginning to blur.
Flash.
Suddenly, an image snapped into perfect focus within my visual sensors.
And at the same instant, an alien thought flashed through my mind, as though a bolt of lightning had struck my brain awake.
Wait a minute.
How... exactly have I managed to survive all the way into this era?
[?]
And why does this body of mine need sleep and organic matter like everyone else's?
Something's wrong.
Because I'm...
I mean, I'm supposed to be...
That is...
[...]
...I have absolutely no idea what kind of nonsense I was just thinking.
[Did I work too hard today?]
If only there were some kind of oil you could pour directly into your brain.
Unfortunately, this world possessed no lubricant capable of making a person think more clearly.
In the end, I couldn't understand the strange sense of déjà vu.
Even when I tried to think it through, no clear answer came.
The thoughts merely drifted around my mind like phantoms, never quite resolving into coherent sentences.
For now, I forced myself to sleep without dwelling on it any further.
For tomorrow's sake.
...And yet, it really was strange.
That single thought—
Was it some kind of germ infecting my brain cells?
From that day onward, for three entire days, the same thought surfaced every time I tried to fall asleep.
***
Day 4 of insomnia.
Ahhh! What are you doing? Can't you aim your magic properly?
My tentacle almost got blown off!
[Uh... you're right. Sorry about that. Could everyone step back a little? We'll have to put up another barrier over there anyway.]
As expected, sleep was an indispensable necessity for any rational being.
After only a few sleepless nights, I was already suffering aftereffects severe enough to interfere with my daily life.
[Anyway, even on days this exhausting, the work never ends...]
The true nature of those aftereffects was a subtle aversion to honorifics.
It was really strange.
Wasn't it only natural for someone like me, who existed for the sake of the citizens, to address the inhabitants of this planet politely?
Yet lately, using honorifics had begun to feel strangely awkward.
Uncomfortable.
Sometimes, even outright irritating.
[I'll finish early today and make sure to examine my condition afterward.]
Clink!...clatter clatter clatter.
Noise filled the air.
The mysterious sound was nothing more than a collection of pale gemstone stakes striking against one another.
The purpose of today's mission was to use those catalysts to erect a powerful new barrier.
And the reason so many mages had come all the way to this remote upper-layer ice zone to establish one was simple.
The planet Alphauri had recently encountered an ancient enemy it had nearly forgotten.
Can a few barriers like these really stop them?
[Of course. According to ■■, the ruler of this planet...]
I answered the nearby resident's question sincerely.
[They say there's no technique more effective against the Beta beings.]
'Beta beings.'
The Beta beings.
The ancient enemies who, according to history, had once driven the Alphauri people to the brink of extinction.
According to information passed down from above, the weaker inhabitants of the satellite—whom everyone had once assumed would simply wither away—had unexpectedly managed to hold off the Beta beings' invasions.
And in the face of the renewed crisis, the citizens readily offered their gratitude and loyalty to the powerful protectors defending them...
[The last attack happened on the day of the solar eclipse, so it's about time they appeared again.]
They had nearly wiped the Alphauri people from the face of the world once already.
Wouldn't doing it a second time be even easier?
Fear and hatred of the Beta beings had been carved deep into the very genes of the main planet's inhabitants.
That was why the ruling class of this era was willing to pour colossal sums—equivalent to ten years' worth of budgets—into constructing and maintaining defenses against the Beta beings' invasions.
And in return, faced with such a crisis, the citizens willingly gave their gratitude and loyalty to the powerful protectors defending them...
[Huh? Here they come.]
It happened then.
While I was lost in thought, a new signal entered my senses.
The distinctive wavelength of the Beta beings.
Kaagh!
Ugh, look at that thing. It's exactly like the stories my great-grandfather used to tell me.
I can't even look at it. It's disgusting.
The main planet's greatest enemy, a creature descending upon the upper layer, possessed such a ferocious appearance that even the faint shimmer of its distant form was enough to throw everyone into an uproar.
I, however, remained calm.
This project had an enormous budget behind it.
If I had even the slightest professional conscience, I ought to do my job properly.
[The new humans of the Beta beings are no longer fatally affected by mana burns. As usual, weaken them several times with the barrier's filtering mesh, then attack once their coordinates are fixed...]
Boom!
The enemies were falling from the sky.
To meet them, I pushed past the barrier mages and strode boldly toward the disturbance.
What came into view was the terrifying, unmistakable form unique to the Beta beings...
Kaagh!
Wait a minute.
Did they always make noises that rough?
I activated high-resolution echolocation again.
A hard shell.
An asymmetrical body.
And tiny breathing holes scattered here and there.
That was the form of the monster that had descended from the sky.
Yes.
It was exactly as I remembered it.
Not a single thing was different.
And that was precisely the problem.
[Didn't they say these things had evolved?]
The Beta beings were supposedly no longer fatally vulnerable to mana burns.
But structurally speaking, could a creature with breathing holes like those really have developed such resistance?
Why?
Why did something I'd accepted without question until yesterday suddenly feel so wrong?
[?]
I immediately activated my clairvoyance magic.
New information flooded in.
And strangely enough, inside the Beta being before me were mechanical components reproducing the movements of living organs with astonishing precision.
In other words—
That white monster wasn't alive.
It was a replica constructed from golems...
What the—
Damn it!
[A fake Beta being?!]
Keeeeee!
At that exact moment, an inexplicable, violent pain erupted from the round structure housing my thoughts.
The agony was so intense that I screamed.
The questions about my lifespan.
The growing awkwardness of honorifics.
The overwhelming sense of wrongness caused by the fake Beta being.
All of it crashed together at once, like a sealed dam finally bursting apart.
[This is crazy!]
At last, I understood what had been happening in this damned situation all along.
The continuous stimulation was {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} causing my memories to return.
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