Chapter 156: Daughter
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 156: Daughter
At Makina's words, the witches wore expressions of bewilderment. Her? The Emperor? A witch had taken the throne in a human nation? Was such a thing even possible?
It was unbelievable. Especially for the witches, who had been ostracized for hundreds of years.
“Wait, what the… What? Who’s the emperor?”
“My original, the great Lady Makina!”
“Original… So, what, you’re not Makina?”
“Nope. I’m not.”
Whirr, whirr— Makina spun her robotic hand, making it clear that she was neither a witch nor a human, but a machine.
The Witch of Machines had finally succeeded in mechanizing herself. Not only that, but she also seemed to have succeeded in mass-producing androids with copies of her own memories and personality.
It was hard to believe, but this was the future—a place where things once thought impossible happened.
“……Yohan?”
And then—Aris, having heard Type 33 Makina’s words, cautiously looked at Yohan.
Amazingly, there was a man here with the exact same name as the grandfather she knew.
A suspicious being who claimed to have come from the past, from decades ago.
“No, it can’t be—there’s no way…”
Whatever she was imagining, Aris began to point a trembling finger at Yohan. Seeing her shake, Yohan let out a deep sigh and nodded.
“Yes, though I’m not entirely certain—”
I am your grandfather.
That was Yohan’s declaration to Aris.
The elite agent of the Grand Witch Special Forces, a woman who knelt to no one, knelt in that very moment.
“Ahahaha—! So that’s what happened?”
After hearing the story of what the group had been through to fly decades into the future, Type 33 Makina burst into laughter, unlike her original self.
It was the height of irony that the machine modeled after her was expressing human-like emotions, while her original self was as emotionless as a machine due to her curse.
Type 33 Makina wiped a tear from the corner of her eye and looked at the group, asking again.
“So? Where is the dear witch who caused all this trouble?”
“Over there.”
Evangeline pointed to the room where Margaret was confined. Since she had been turned human by Yohan’s magic, she couldn’t cause any real harm, but they had locked her in a room with magic just in case.
“How did she even think of doing something like this? It’s fascinating.”
“We’re the ones who find this fascinating. A witch taking the emperor’s throne, how on earth did you manage that?”
“Oh, that?”
Hearing Hekaterina’s question, Type 33 Makina made a series of beeps and whirs as she accessed her original’s memories.
Playing back events from the distant past, Type 33 Makina recited the memories engraved in her mind.
“Ahem, so, decades ago, right after the Malyong died and you all disappeared—the Empress and I were managing the Empire pretty well under a two-person dictatorship.”
“A two-person dictatorship… You don’t know what ‘dictatorship’ means, do you?”
“Anyway! The Empress grew older and frailer by the day, but—my beautiful, strong, and brilliant original did not. The Empress was human, and my original was a witch, after all.”
Herein lay the difference between humans and witches. Humans eventually grow old and die. Even the strongest human eventually ages and must pass their position on to the next generation.
But witches were different. Once a witch, always a witch. They do not die of old age. If a witch who had no problem living among humans were to seize power, that power would last forever.
And that’s exactly what happened. Makina was a witch with the curse of the machine. She couldn’t feel human emotions at all, but that, ironically, made her perfectly suited for the role of a ruler.
She controlled humans and wielded power with cold, calculating reason, devoid of any emotion. Any unnecessary static that arose in the process was dealt with by her magic.
“The Empire conquered the entire world, but there was no static. No, there couldn’t be. The technological gap was just too severe.”
A moderate technological gap can be overcome by other means. Resources, numbers, time, and so on.
But an overwhelming difference in technology—a gap so vast it was like a difference in civilizations—rendered all resistance meaningless.
While every soldier in the Imperial army carried an automatic rifle, other kingdoms had, at best, managed to create old-fashioned cannons.
“After conquering the world, she found direct rule to be a pain, so she turned them into autonomous states. Later on, she started filling all the Empire’s vassal positions with her own clones.”
“She’s a crazy bitch.”
“It’s rational.”
Tap, tap. Type 33 Makina tapped her head as she spoke.
“‘I’ will never betray my original. Why? Because I am my original, and my original is me. Of course, our detailed self-awareness is all different, but… we were created based on the original, so we won’t do something stupid like go rogue or start a rebellion.”
And just like that, the Empire fell neatly into Makina’s hands. A nation where everyone from the emperor at the top to the vassals below was Makina herself.
If Makina ever felt so inclined, turning the world into a sea of fire would be a simple matter.
“Anyway, so—even for my original, other witches were a nuisance, so she created the Grand Witch Special Forces, but…”
As she spoke, Type 33 Makina glanced toward the room where the unit members were being held. To think that after all the expensive equipment and training, they’d get completely thrashed without being able to do a thing.
Or perhaps she should praise them for managing to hold out against seven witches?
“—Makina.”
“Hm? What is it?”
“The Grand Witch Special Forces… aren’t those just Holy Knights? Why would you create something like that?”
Evangeline looked at Makina as she spoke. She was just a clone android, after all. Knowing that even if she died, it wasn't her real self dying, Type 33 Makina nonchalantly told the truth.
“To kill witches, of course—”
Smash—!
Makina’s face shattered, and about half of her head blew off with a pop. Having thoroughly demonstrated her mechanical nature, Makina looked at Evangeline, sparks fizzing awkwardly from her circuits.
“What do you think you’re…”
“A witch creating a unit to kill other witches? And one that uses divine power, like Holy Knights?”
“It was… a necessary…”
“Necessary or not, you just pissed me off, so I hit you.”
With that, Evangeline jutted her chin, gesturing for her to explain why the Grand Witch Special Forces were necessary.
But with more than half her head destroyed, Type 33 Makina couldn’t offer a proper explanation. She just fizzled and sparked before finally exploding with a loud BOOM.
“Kyaaah—!?”
Seeing Makina explode, the witches shrieked and started making a fuss.
Evangeline, speechless, watched the spot where Makina had been and scratched her cheek awkwardly.
“……I thought robots were supposed to be tougher than this.”
That was the only excuse she could offer.
“Tea, is it alright?”
“……Yes.”
While the witches were chattering away outside, getting all sorts of explanations from Makina, Yohan was having a private conversation with Aris.
When he brewed some expensive tea and presented it to her, Aris gratefully accepted the cup and began to gently trace its surface.
Yohan, who had been sipping his tea, tilted his head as he watched Aris leave hers untouched.
“You don’t like tea?”
“No, it’s not that… I can’t drink hot things.”
“Really?”
“Yes, it’s genetic… didn’t you know?”
“……Elesis couldn’t drink hot things either?”
When Yohan said that, Aris began to look at him with an expression that seemed to say he was pathetic for not even knowing that.
Belatedly realizing he knew almost nothing about Elesis, Yohan lowered his head sheepishly and let out a laugh.
“To be honest, I didn’t know her that well.”
“Why?”
“We hadn’t known each other for very long. She was a Holy Knight of the Holy Nation, and I was a witch’s disciple.”
“……A Holy Knight? My grandmother was a Holy Knight?”
As Aris asked back as if this was the first she’d ever heard of it, Yohan realized that Elesis had never spoken about him.
Still, how could she not even know that her own grandmother was a former Holy Knight?
“Yes, Elesis—your grandmother was a Holy Knight. A pretty good one, too.”
“And you, no—Grandfather, were a witch’s disciple… Huh? A witch’s disciple?”
Finally realizing something was off, Aris began to stare intently at Yohan. A witch’s disciple? In what way did he look like a witch’s disciple?
No matter how she looked at him, Yohan was a man. He had a prominent Adam’s apple, broad shoulders, and the unmistakable appearance of a man.
So how could he possibly be a witch’s disciple? She had never even heard of a witch taking another witch as a disciple, let alone a man.
“What does that mean… Grandfather, you’re a man, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I am.”
“How can a man become a witch’s disciple?”
“It just happened that way, my dear. Strangely enough.”
As he spoke, Yohan realized how incredibly awkward it was to deal with Aris. Of course, he was facing his own granddaughter who was about his age—it was impossible not to feel awkward.
And Aris was well aware of Yohan’s awkwardness. As a working adult, she couldn’t afford to be clueless about social cues.
After observing Yohan for a moment, Aris cautiously brought up a topic she thought he would want to hear.
“Um, Grandfather?”
“Yes?”
“Would you… like to go see my mother?”
She was asking him to go see the daughter he had fathered.