SWNOVELXO Chapter 266: α (15)
Another day has passed.
【Northeast 16 Lower Levels
Neurotic Curse Mage Suppression (Priority 2/Instant Execution)
It appears that an upper-level resident lured and betrayed the Curse Mage, targeting his unique property.
The con artist who triggered the incident is currently gravely injured.
The Curse Mage side is causing chaos, claiming they will kill all associated with the perpetrator and make him feel the pain of being left alone in the world. With 60% of the residents in the city’s outskirts already dead, swift resolution is required before the massacre continues.】
【West 11 Middle Levels
Contract-Related Fraud (Priority 3/Free Action)
Visiting sales scams targeting the common folk are rampant.
They deceive by offering good products at a very cheap price, but when the transaction occurs, they present a contract document made up of 42,000 characters in Braille. This magic contract holds an unfair curse, and if someone declares, “I agree to all of the above,” they end up having vital body parts collateralized.
Originally, curse magic activated only on specific targets loathed by the caster, but it seems that the newly emerged mages have realized how to materialize curses based on consent.
So far, these scammers have operated solely in the upper levels, but they are now expanding their business into the middle levels, requiring the intervention of a Mage Commander before the damage grows larger.】
【East 09 All Waters
Wanted Notice (Priority 1/Arrest)
Name: ●●● Volume 1320 Eyes 5 Tentacles 8 Blue Yellow
A thief has fled with a first-grade magic book from the eastern palace.
Prioritize apprehending him before this information spreads to the public.
At the same time, he is a rare unique magic user, so he must be brought back alive for analysis.】
【(South) Southwest 663 Upper Levels
Announcement (Priority None/Data Ignore)
Research Institute inside a southern hemisphere iceberg.
Unidentified luminescent body reported near the surface ice zone.】
Today, incidents and accidents keep pouring in from various places.
At this point, let me explain my working style.
I am a Great Mage-level entity based on Golemology, so due to the nature of my primary spellcasting, my main body hardly moves at all.
[This is my telecommuting setup.]
My head and heart cause the spells, while my body stays at home.
It’s a modern work method where I possess a golem on the ground and commute to work as my consciousness flits about.
After overlaying my consciousness on a suitable golem, I usually head out to the field with the automated dolls set with various action protocols.
Golems.
Anyway, nowadays, you can’t do business without this concept.
[Shall we handle the urgent matters quickly?]
And I also felt quite proud of living in the age of golems.
I was born with a special talent for handling golems, and there were no issues utilizing that skill.
By riding on good-quality devices, I could experience various forms of bodies such as birds, sharks, and occasionally even insects or other fantastic creatures.
[So that’s why our boss changes his body every day, huh?]
The correlation between experience and the soul.
Thoughts on that theme flowed through my mind.
But I quickly bundled up those distracting thoughts.
It was time to get to work.
Lowering my consciousness level toward the main body and activating specific magic, I felt my usual senses return.
I was imitating the form of an Alphauri, yet the material quality was closer to being rigid rather than flexible—this was a replica of this planet’s ruler…
A humanoid golem.
[Done.]
The body moved smoothly.
I completed the basic checks and immediately started with the high-priority tasks.
【East 09 All Waters Wanted Notice (Priority 1/Arrest)】
The first thing of the day is to catch the fleeing thief, but it shouldn’t take long.
[Let’s see… the last confirmed location was around here, right…?]
My area of responsibility, with the title of the First Mage Commander, extends 80% into the Northern Hemisphere.
At the same time, the limits of the detection magic I can deploy are roughly in line with that.
Today’s task was easy.
After waiting for a moment, something snagged on the end of the magic laid out in the waters like a net.
It was the characteristic magic power of a creature that deserved to be punished for stealing someone else’s belongings.
…
A few hours later.
Inside the warm water of the planet’s northern area.
Clang, clang, clang.
Noisy sounds echoed from all directions.
A room with a flat bottom aimed at neatly stacking items into a rectangular structure.
And oddly, there wasn’t a single drop of water in this dry environment.
Oh, it’s here.
Already that time?
I told you we should make the windows bigger in the storage. Because of that damn airtightness, time flies by and we don’t even notice.
As mentioned just now, this place is a storage.
What is stored? Naturally, it was the planet’s specialty: golems.
A hall for researchers, lined with manual labor dolls for military, agricultural, and other purposes.
[By the way, didn’t that lowly lizard golem cost a commoner two and a half months’ worth of work just to buy a single tail…?]
But the problem is the price.
They conduct magic transference well.
They have good elasticity.
And durability too.
Golems are advanced machines made from such dream materials, so there’s no way they wouldn’t be worth something.
[I understand, but still, feeling it psychologically, it’s a bit expensive.]
The total price of the golems in this storage equaled a staggering 15 years’ budget of the state.
So the managers kept the interior of the building in the best possible environment to utilize these resources as long as they could.
Not for living beings, but for those inanimate objects, maintaining a beneficial dry and room temperature state.
[Hmm.]
At this point, they were more like the masters, not golems.
Engineers fully equipped with safety gear busily moved around inside the storage.
As time passed, they probably started some assembly work somewhere. A transport golem loaded with a pungent adhesive was also visible.
However, I passed by them indifferently as usual.
Wanted criminal capture. Curse Mage suppression.
Not to mention, cracking down on a large-scale contract fraud group.
On this side, I had been working all day without food or breaks, only arriving here to finish my last task just before off time. Why would I look at others, right?
[Good. Now that I’ve seen to this, tomorrow should proceed a bit more easily.]
The areas the technicians attended to were usually the golems’ outer structures.
In other words, repairs on the exterior that accounted for most of their defensive capabilities, lubrication between various organs, and also, cleaning of the core pump.
And what I continuously modified daily were the inner parts of the golems, contrasting with that.
The behavior protocols that the machines needed to store in their heads or the memorization spells automatically triggered during predefined situations, etc.
[Oh no, the spell has already been erased here? I’ll need to engrave it anew.]
These magically automated dolls show extreme bizarre behaviors at the slightest mistake in their reaction settings.
These aren’t even infants.
Every time I finish work, I have to check if anything is broken and whether the previous orders are being maintained to minimize any possible malfunctions.
[Good. Now it’s completely done.]
Well, as long as I tolerate this bit of annoyance, I can gain a lot…
[Thank you for your hard work today, everyone! I’m off to go home.]
Haha, yeah. Sure.
Make sure to get some sleep. Mage Commander! It’s getting really late.
Goodbye~
Before leaving the storage.
I shouted a greeting, and the technicians responded in unison.
I closed my eyes after warmly seeing them off as usual.
When I turned my consciousness back, I saw the dark ceiling I faced every morning.
By the way, this place too was surrounded by the same barriers as the earlier storage, preventing water from coming in, maintaining a dry space.
I loved automata enough to even keep machines stored in my own home.
[Golems are a wonderful culture.]
Return home, I thought amidst the wave of drowsiness.
In the early days, the simple command to “plow the field” was executed incorrectly, and the earthen doll would end up tilling in the wrong places.
But now they handled various tasks with precision, even surpassing a typical expert’s touch.
With the advancement of golems, this world has evolved into stunning and grand architectural styles.
Especially in the wealthy upper levels of the Southern Hemisphere, they’ve created a living space that connects all their houses like a spider web, even building structures resembling artificial waves under the sea.
[A living complex that looks like foam waves… I hope to see the representative building of that Southern Hemisphere someday.]
Although as a defender of the Northern Hemisphere, it seems unlikely to happen in the near future.
Yeah. Anyway, is there really a need to just focus on the wealthy neighborhoods far away?
The quality of life for citizens on this planet has improved to a degree incomparable to the past.
Back in the day, only the rich had mounts, but now anyone can ride a long steel dragon that doesn’t require much feed.
Any unpleasant tasks with a high risk of aftereffects can just be assigned to golems.
With just a word, they handle all the household chores, and shoulder massaging servant golems have become widely available—what a wonderful time to live in.
Now, I can no longer hold off sleep due to drowsiness.
I somehow reached a state of not needing to eat anymore by various means, but this matter of sleep is hard to overcome, regardless of how times have advanced.
Ugh, I’m so sleepy…
Just as my mind started to blur.
Flash.
Suddenly, a clear image settled in my visual faculties, and a strange thought flashed through my awakened mind, as if struck by thunder.
Wait.
How am I still alive up until this age?
[?]
And why do I have to sleep and consume organic materials just like everyone else?
Something seems strange. I mean, I… So I, that is…
[…….]
…What a bizarre thought I just had.
[Did I work too hard today?]
If there were a lubricant to pour into brains, that would be great, but unfortunately, this world lacks any such “thought-enhancing oil.”
So ultimately, I couldn’t interpret this mysterious déjà vu.
Even trying to ponder it yielded no clear answers, leaving only a haze of sentences circling in my mind.
For now, without overthinking it.
To prepare for tomorrow’s tasks, I forced myself to sleep.
…But it was a strange occurrence.
This thought that had just struck me began to infect my brain cells like a pathogen.
Since that day, for an entire three days whenever I tried to fall asleep, the same thought kept intruding into my mind.
*
Day 4 of Insomnia.
Ugh! What are you doing? Can’t you cast your magic correctly?
My tentacle almost flew off!
[Uh… Sorry about that. Could everyone please move a bit further back? You’ll have to rebuild that barrier anyway.]
Indeed, sleep is an absolutely essential concept for beings with rationality.
Just a few days of restless nights, and I was already suffering from significant aftereffects affecting my daily life.
[Seriously, even on these exhausting days, the workload never stops… ]
The nature of those aftereffects was a subtle aversion to honorifics.
A really strange thing.
Isn’t it natural for me, who exists for the citizens, to honor the residents of this planet?
But recently, this formal speech has suddenly felt awkward, uncomfortable, and at times even burdensome.
[Today, I should finish quickly and additionally check on my physical condition.]
Thud! …Clink, clink, clink.
Noise flows.
The mysterious sound just formed was that of light gemstone stakes clinking against each other.
The purpose of this schedule is to deploy a powerful new barrier using those catalysts.
The reason wizards are out here in the farthest upper level glacial region to set up barriers is that the Alphauri have recently encountered old foes.
Is it really correct to stop them with just a few of these barriers?
[Of course. Their ruler, ■▒, said that… ]
I dutifully answered the resident’s question beside me.
[They said there’s no more effective magic against Beta Species than this.]
‘Beta Species.’
Those great celestial beings that once drove the Alphauri to the edge of extinction throughout history.
According to the information passed down from above, surprisingly, it seems the weakened natives of the satellite that we thought would perish have survived by continuing to reproduce.
And recently, unable to withstand the resource shortage, they are attempting incursions again from the outskirts of the main planet.
[The last attack happened during a total solar eclipse, so it’s about time they appear again.]
They almost wiped the Alphauri out of existence before, so wouldn’t it be easier if it’s not their first but second time?
The fear and hatred toward the Beta Species were ingrained deeply in the genetics of the main planet’s residents.
So, the ruling class governing these waters was determined to spend a colossal budget worth of a decade to prevent the invasion of the Beta Species.
In return, the citizens gratefully expressed their loyalty to the strong ones who protect them amid this crisis…
[Huh? They’re here.]
It was then.
From lost in thought, a new piece of information entrapped my senses.
A wavelength distinctive to the Beta Species.
Gah!
Ugh, look at that! Just like the stories from my great-grandfather!
I can’t stand to look at it!
The greatest foe born from the satellite planet was so rugged in appearance that even a distant glimpse of its figure had everyone in a panic.
But I remained unperturbed.
This operation was funded with an enormous budget. If I have a conscience, I should simply do my job as a professional.
[‘Mana burn is no longer critical for the new human species of the Beta Species. As usual, weaken them a few times with barrier filters, then wait to strike when the coordinates are fixed…’]
Splash!
Enemies fall from the sky.
I stepped up, brushing aside the barrier mages rushing toward the scene.
What appeared was the fearsome presence unique to the Beta Species…
Kaah!
…Wait a minute, don’t they usually make this kind of guttural sound?
I rewrote the high-resolution echo localization.
A hard shell.
Asymmetric body.
And the faint breathing holes that occasionally exist on me.
That was the image of the monster appearing in the sky.
Yes. It was exactly as I remembered.
What a deal. This similarity is the problem.
[They evolved, right?]
Certainly, the Beta Species shouldn’t be vulnerable to mana burn anymore. But how can something with those breathing holes structurally function like that?
What’s going on? Why does today’s proceedings feel off compared to yesterday’s correctly followed procedures?
[?]
I hurriedly activated the X-ray magic.
Then new information flooded in.
Interestingly, inside the Beta Species right in front of me lay mechanical parts that mimicked the organ functions of a living creature perfectly.
In other words, that white monster was not alive, but a clone made of golem… What the hell!
[This is a fake Beta Species?!]
Ahhhhhhh!
It was at that moment.
I felt an undefined, enormous pain emanating from the circular structure of this thought-creating body.
It was an intensely agonizing sensation that made me want to scream.
Questions about lifespan, awkward honorifics, and the deceptive Beta Species emitting a strong sense of incongruity… all of that felt like a clogged pipe abruptly bursting.
[What the hell!]
I finally realized what a ridiculous situation I had been put through with everything that had happened so far.
With each sensory overload, memories came flooding back.