“Hey, Repairman. You doing all right?”
Roselia’s voice finally shattered the silence. She frowned, jerking her thumb toward the silver-haired girl who was still staring down at her own body in a daze.
“That’s... the real Cecily, isn’t it?”
Her tone wasn't so much impatient as it was seeking confirmation. I couldn't blame her. Anyone would be confused after witnessing the mess we’d just navigated.
“It’s fine,” I replied flatly, lowering my gun. “I separated the ‘two’ who were tangled up in there.”
Cecily back into Cecily’s body. And Olaf’s daughter into the android’s shell. I had simply partitioned their personalities and returned them to being individuals again.
That said, a personality swap was a first for me. Fortunately, the expansion processing of my Repair Skill seemed to have integrated perfectly. For the time being, her systems were operational, and I didn't see any immediate signs of rejection.
I gave Roselia a curt nod before turning back to Cecily. She was still mesmerized by her own hands, slowly opening and closing her fingers as if trying to calibrate herself to this “new body.”
“...How are you feeling? Everything working correctly?”
When I spoke, Cecily’s head snapped up. After a brief pause, a faint smile touched her lips.
“Y-yes... I think I’m okay. It’s just... it’s a bit difficult to move. Or rather, my senses feel different. I haven’t quite adjusted yet.”
That was only natural. I shrugged with a wry smile. The way you perceive the world is fundamentally different when comparing a prosthetic body to one of flesh and blood. Before this incident, more than half of her body had been comprised of machinery. Now, she had been returned entirely to human sensation. It would have been stranger if she didn't feel out of place.
Besides...
Roselia spoke up, looking as if she’d just remembered something while stroking her own right arm. She was likely thinking back to the moment her limb had been vaporized at the manor.
“Well, it’s no wonder. That body of yours is a far cry from a standard augmented prosthetic. How’s the power output? That thing is a masterpiece of overkill—one wrong move and you’d likely shatter your own bones with the recoil.”
Cecily looked down, deep in thought, as she flexed her hands in front of her chest.
“...Is it really like that? It doesn’t feel... like I have that much power. I can’t really tell yet.”
I see. Well, we could verify the specifics later. For now, I had other priorities. I shifted my gaze to the side.
The android remained slumped on the floor, unresponsive. It was silent save for a faint, rhythmic mechanical hum.
“I’ll ask one more time. Where are Lucia and Olaf?”
Silence. However, a speech bubble drifted into my view—an Echo of Consciousness that only I could see.
《It’s all over. To think I’ve ended up in a body like this.》
So, her mind was elsewhere. I raised an eyebrow and let out a heavy sigh. I walked over and crouched down, the sound of my knees hitting the cold metal floor echoing through the room. I caught the android’s chin with my fingers and forced its head up.
The skin was hard. Cold. It lacked even a hint of human warmth. But deep within those eyes, a flicker of genuine emotion wavered. Her unfocused gaze finally locked onto mine, and in that instant, she glared at me with sharp, piercing intensity.
She was furious, but she couldn't move.
“Lucia and Olaf,” I repeated quietly. “Where are they?”
This time, for a fleeting second, a gap opened in her thoughts.
《...Observation Room.》
It was a brief, definitive answer. I glanced up toward the room protruding from the wall, enclosed in reinforced glass. Standing up, I turned back to Roselia and Cecily.
“Let’s go.”
I grabbed the android’s arm and hauled it up, dragging the unresisting frame along with me. The sound of metal boots striking the floor rang out through the frigid space.
“H-hey!” Roselia called out, hurrying to follow me while keeping a protective eye on Cecily.
Ahead of us, the stairs leading to the observation room faintly caught the light.
There were no locks and no alarms. The door slid aside with a soft hiss, proving to be disappointingly easy to bypass.
Inside the dim observation room, the pale glow of emergency lights licked the walls.
“...No sign of life,” Roselia whispered. Her voice echoed, emphasizing the emptiness of the space.
I reached for the switch beside the door. A low hum hummed through the room as I pressed it, and the recessed ceiling lights flickered on one by one, bathing the interior in soft white light. The instruments along the wall beeped as they came back to life, including monitors displaying the very underground plaza where we had just been fighting.
Ignoring the screens for a moment, I looked toward the center of the room—at the most conspicuous objects in the area.
Two bio-capsules sat side-by-side. They were oriented horizontally, tangled in a mess of haphazardly connected cables. It looked like a makeshift laboratory. Tools and medical equipment were strewn across the floor; there was no doubt someone had been performing "experiments" here until very recently.
I handed the android over to Roselia and stepped carefully over the cables. Peering through the transparent glass of the capsules, I saw two familiar faces.
One was Lucia. The other was Olaf Karvel—a man I had only seen in data files until now. The sterile light illuminated their peaceful, sleeping features.
“Roselia, can you check the status of these capsules?”
Roselia leaned the android against the wall and moved to the terminal. “Give me a second.”
The rapid clacking of keys filled the silence. Cecily remained quiet for a moment before timidly approaching the capsules.
“Sister...!” She pressed her hand against the glass, her voice catching. Her profile was a map of conflicting emotions—relief at finally finding her sister, mixed with the lingering confusion of the ordeal.
“Repairman.”
Roselia called me over. When I reached her side, she kept her eyes on the screen and tilted the monitor so I could see. The display cast a pale blue light across her face.
“Look. The girl, Lucia... she’s fine. They’ve just suppressed her vitals. If we get her to a medical facility, she’ll wake up without any complications.”
She paused, then switched the display.
“But this one...”
The data for Olaf Karvel’s capsule appeared. His biological signs were present, but the section for brainwave activity was a total blank.
“...There’s no brain.”
I frowned at Roselia’s blunt assessment.
“I can’t be certain without digging through the logs,” she continued flatly, “but it looks like it was removed several days ago. I don’t understand the logic of keeping the body alive while extracting the brain, but...”
In other words, he was already in this state before I even took the job to repair Cecily.
“It’s possible it was transferred into a prosthetic body, but that’s just a guess for now,” Roselia said, crossing her arms as she stepped back from the terminal.
Or perhaps he was simply gone from this world entirely. Regardless, it didn't look like we could dig any deeper into the mystery right now. Roselia closed the terminal and let out a weary sigh.
“Anyway, we’re securing this place. I’ll call the Seventh Division teams from upstairs to sweep the area. I'll give you a full report later.”
I nodded. As for handling classified information? If Roselia was willing to overlook it, it wasn't my problem. Probably.
Once Roselia sent the signal, the rhythmic thud of heavy boots descending the metal stairs began to echo through the silence.
...It was over. A temporary conclusion to a very long job.
The Rainburgs had Lucia back, and Cecily had a body again. Vira Corp’s dirty laundry was about to be aired, and the people who had been monitoring me would likely be purged in the fallout. Olaf’s fate was a loose end, but that was Roselia’s department now. The Ninth Division didn't concern me, either—the police could handle their own messes.
I relaxed my shoulders and exhaled. Good grief, I hadn't stopped moving for days.
In the back of my mind, I started running a tally of the repair materials I’d burned through. I’d need to focus on restocking for a while. It felt like I might finally be able to return to a quiet daily life.
I glanced to the side and saw Cecily staring at Lucia’s capsule with a tearful, happy expression. I couldn't help but let a small smile touch my lips.
However—out of the corner of my eye, I saw the android huddled against the wall. A victim of the bizarre fate set in motion by Olaf Karvel. I wondered what would become of her now.
I gave a self-deprecating chuckle and muttered to myself. Well, I’m just a repairman. My job is fixing broken things. I have no business, nor any right, to worry about what happens after the repair is done.
Under the bright lights, three shadows stretched across the metal floor. I stepped over one of them and quietly turned on my heel.
The "repair" was complete. Even if it did leave a few mysteries in its wake.
Now then. On the way home, I think I'll pick up some sweets and a good cup of coffee.