“Phew……!!”
Losing track of eating, sleeping, everything — just pouring myself into the work for hours.
Before I knew it the surroundings had gone completely dark, and through the window the moon had climbed high.
It had to be close to midnight by now.
No sign of anyone around — everyone had apparently gone home and turned in.
If I hadn’t told them in advance not to interrupt me no matter what, Alicia or someone would have come for me ages ago.
“Master, you should rest soon.”
“I’m fine. Just a little more — I’ll see it through.”
I said that and turned to what would finally be the last line.
Once this formula was inscribed, the magic stone that would become the new Makina’s core would be complete.
All that remained after that was transferring Makina’s consciousness, and she’d be done.
Just then——
“Master, please stop and listen.”
“What, all of a sudden? I really can’t afford to lose my focus right now.”
“……When I become my new body, I will gain a higher order of intelligence. In the worst case, that creates a risk that I may betray you.”
Makina’s voice was ordinarily flat with the emotional sparseness of a golem.
But now it carried unusual heat, and trembled — just slightly.
You could almost sense fear in it.
Right — she was about to have her very being remade, so of course that was frightening.
“So please, add a servitude and self-destruct formula at the end. That way it’s safe.”
“……I’m not writing that.”
“I know you dislike such formulas, Master. But this time it is genuinely dangerous.”
“I understand. But I want Makina to serve me of her own will.”
I said that and looked squarely into Makina’s face.
She was still wavering, and I pressed on.
“I won’t force anything. If you betray me because of it — that just means I was that kind of master to you. I’ll chalk it up to my own failures and let it go.”
“Master……”
“And besides — if I carve in a servitude formula, that’s just a slave. Slaves and maids are different things, completely and absolutely!”
I clenched my fist and declared it with force.
Because it was true. Slaves and maids are similar in shape but utterly different in substance.
A maid’s worth comes precisely from offering absolute loyalty to their master of their own free will.
For a master to inscribe a servitude formula preemptively — that was unacceptable.
It was a violation of the spirit of maids.
“……I see. That is a very you reason, Master.”
“Isn’t it? Alright — let’s finish this up. Help me through to the end, Makina.”
“Yes.”
And so I inscribed the final formula.
Now I just needed to fit it into the body that had been prepared, and transfer Makina’s current consciousness into it.
I pulled over the frame I’d laid out on a flatbed cart.
The moment Makina saw it for the first time, her eyes lit up.
“A remarkable piece of work. Far more human in its finish.”
“Right. I covered part of the surface with wyvern membrane — it gets very close to human skin now. And the skeleton is made from an alloy of Red Dragon bone and the rare metals I got from the Kobolds.”
The core is the most painstaking part, but the frame itself was no afterthought either.
I pushed every bit of ingenuity I had into the materials available to me.
In theory, the specs are there to beat the Great Serpent in a solo fight.
The appearance got careful attention too — I didn’t change the face much, but I rebuilt the body to something closer to human.
And then——
“Master — is it my imagination, or has the chest section been substantially enlarged?”
“Hmm? Oh, the magic stone got bigger so it needs more room in the housing.”
“I see. I rather thought you had enlarged it to suit your own preferences.”
“Th-that’s not it!”
Good grief, the serious atmosphere of just moments ago was completely ruined.
Though I supposed Makina was trying to lighten the tension in her own way.
I chose to interpret it that way, and calmly got on with the consciousness transfer.
“Here we go.”
“Please.”
Makina slowly closed her eyes.
At the same moment, the eyelids on the new frame began to lift slowly.
The moment the transfer of consciousness from the old magic stone to the new had succeeded.
“……Good morning, Master.”
“Right. How do you feel, Makina?”
“Perfect. It feels as though the world has grown wider.”
Makina slowly sat up, and as she said it she wore a gentle smile.
Good — movement seemed to be working without any issues for now.
Now then——
“Let’s appraise the new Makina’s capabilities.”
“Appraise?”
“Right. I had Misha put together an appraisal tool.”
At that, Makina gave a puzzled look.
Understandable — appraisal magic was about as obscure as it got.
It had fallen out of use in the Embance Kingdom long ago and probably not a single person left could use it.
But there had been a practitioner in an unexpected place.
“You mentioned the Kobolds originally came from the Lavanya Empire, right?”
“Now that you say it, I believe they did.”
“As it turns out, they’d preserved some of the Empire’s magical techniques. To survive in this demon frontier, they’d independently developed a variant appraisal magic for measuring an enemy’s strength. So I asked Misha to translate it into a magic tool.”
“How wonderful! Let’s have a look at the new me right away.”
Makina was visibly fascinated by the new tool.
I immediately reached into a nearby basket and pulled out something shaped like a magnifying glass.
“You hold it up to someone for five seconds and their strength comes out as a number. For reference — the Kobolds were around level five or so. The highest I’ve measured so far was Alicia, who came in at level fifty.”
“I see. Then I’d like to exceed that at the very least.”
“Well, you already should have in the previous version.”
With that said, I held the tool up to Makina.
Alright — let’s see what comes out……!
Going by how she’d fought up until now, something like a hundred didn’t seem unreasonable.
New body and all, it might even come in around three hundred.
My expectations were running high when——
“F-five hundred and twenty!?”
The number was so far beyond anything I’d imagined that a very strange sound came out of me.