I Became a Robot Vacuum That Tears Through Romance Fantasy
“…Hic. …Hiccup.”
“Tatiana. You all right?”
“…I am not all right, so—hic—don’t talk to me… uwek.”
The hiccups would not stop.
Ju Eunseong’s officetel.
Tatiana sat on the sofa, her trembling hands pressed over her face.
I want to die.
She should have thought this through with common sense.
Let’s run the scenarios.
1) Ju Eunseong really is my father.
→ He hasn’t transmigrated yet, so he has no idea I exist. Of course he has no memories with me.
2) Ju Eunseong is not my father.
→ Just die already, Tatiana…
What kind of nerve had possessed her to charge in like that?!
As Tatiana shook, Ju Eunseong smirked in his usual sly way.
“Whoa, that startled me. But Captain, why were you looking for your dad? Want me to give you a little pat-pat?”
“Eunseong. Come here a second.”
“Huh?”
“About Tatiana…”
As Lee Shin whispered in his ear, Ju Eunseong’s face gradually darkened.
Separated from her family at thirteen and still looking for her parents?
She was basically an orphan.
Unintentional Darula attempt number one, locked in!
Ju Eunseong cleared his throat and made coffee. One cup each for Lee Shin and Yu Seoa, and one for Tatiana as well.
“Slurp. …Yeah, that’s good.”
“I’ve always liked coffee.”
“My father was quite the coffee connoisseur as well.”
“I—I see. He must have been a wonderful man.”
…Silence fell.
He’d tried to change the subject, but the conversation had swung right back around.
What you needed in a moment like this was a middle-school-dropout orphanage director.
“Eunseong. So, you find a wife yet?”
“Freyla? Nah, she died again. Starting to wonder if this game even has a happy ending.”
So it was about End of Empire.
Tatiana glanced sideways at the monitor. A blizzard was sweeping across the lands of her homeland.
A sudden question struck her. Ju Eunseong had supposedly been glued to that game since the day it launched—was there a reason?
When she asked, Ju Eunseong’s face grew a little sorrowful.
“…Captain. Have you ever heard of Pygmalion?”
“The sculptor who fell in love with his statue. The goddess took pity and turned the statue into a woman, and the two of them married.”
“I’m pretty much the same. Simple, right? The only difference is statue versus 2D.”
Yu Seoa and Lee Shin exchanged a look.
Ju Eunseong really is the neighborhood’s most infamous otaku.
Tatiana thought it over carefully, then finally issued a warning. If Ju Eunseong had nothing to do with her, he might end up transmigrating against his will.
“Senior Ju Eunseong, that game may be an objet. The Phenomenology Department is investigating it.”
“I know. …Honestly, I’ve tried everything I can think of to get transmigrated. A 5,700-character letter, emails to the developer, getting hit by a truck—the works.”
“Are you insane? How did you get hit by a truck?!”
“Just a light graze. Maybe you really do have to die for it to work…”
It made no sense.
Tatiana knew it was an objet because that world was her home—but Ju Eunseong had no such certainty. Why go that far?
It was none of her business, but she forced herself to speak up.
“You could actually die doing that. If it isn’t an objet, you’ll have died for nothing.”
“…Yeah. Maybe it’s all just my delusion. You work in the Phenomenology Department long enough, you see that kind of symptom all the time. Odds are it’s just a game—nothing but scraps of data. …But if it really is an objet.”
Ju Eunseong’s eyes lit up.
“I want to save her. The person on the other side.”
For a moment, Tatiana couldn’t find her voice.
…!
The face and the voice were different, but she knew that look. She remembered it clearly.
— Daddy. You said you came from far away. Why did you come?
— …Because I wanted to save your mother. And thanks to that, I met our daughter too. Best decision I ever made in my life.
Tatiana’s fingers clenched unconsciously around the fabric of Lee Shin’s sleeve.
“What’s wrong?”
“Ah—nothing. …Sorry.”
Thinking of her father, maybe.
Lee Shin laid his hand over the back of hers.
“Ah…”
“….”
He couldn’t give her a blood relative’s warmth—but a little warmth, at least, he could spare.
“…Pbbt.”
Yu Seoa puffed out her cheeks for no good reason.
The truth was, there was nothing Tatiana could do at this point. She had no way to confirm whether Ju Eunseong was her father, and in the end someone had to transmigrate for her to even be born.
…So that’s how it is. No matter what I do, I can’t meet my father.
Maybe that was why she felt so down.
Tatiana let a hint slip, carefully.
“…Senior Ju Eunseong. About End of Empire—every single branch leads to a bad ending.”
“You know about that? Yeah. No player has ever found the final boss. Beat that thing and you’d probably get the true ending where everyone survives—or so I figure.”
The look on Ju Eunseong’s face as he said it was so much like her father’s.
In the end, Tatiana made up her mind.
…I’ll tell him just a little of the history I learned.
Whether he was her real father or not, the desire to save the people of her homeland was genuine.
She would repay that, in a small way.
The one path recorded as official history.
She would set him at the starting point of the history her father had walked twenty-three years ago.
“Did you know there’s another version of the Pygmalion story? Some say he didn’t make a statue at all.”
“Then what did he make?”
Tatiana smiled faintly.
“…An automaton.”
And she went on.
“Pygmalion didn’t build a statue. He built an automatic machine.”
Ju Eunseong sank into thought for a moment.
It sounded absurd, and yet somehow it almost made sense…
That was when Lee Shin, who had been staring blankly, jerked his chin toward the monitor.
“Eunseong. Doesn’t your wife’s family have that automaton butler-robot thing?”
“Ah, Tin Can? That one’s not a playable character. Just an NPC.”
But maybe…
Right on cue, a robot vacuum puttered past right in front of them. Ju Eunseong gave it a light shove with his foot.
“….”
And Tatiana watched him from the corner of her eye, her feelings tangled.
Right. I won’t tell him the name.
If he really was her father, he would use her father’s name of his own accord.
The Abyss.
A pure white temple stood there, without so much as a speck of dust.
Around the temple, the corpses of humanity’s ancestors and primordial giants lay tangled together in heaps. Overhead, a membrane of oil drifted and rippled without pattern.
Through cracks that had opened here and there, other worlds flickered into view from time to time—the far side, the underside of the world, the stratified ruins of previous civilizations. Dark and deep places had always found it easy to connect.
This was a place hidden in the deepest part of humanity’s cognitive field, the Noosphere.
The Serpent Religion’s stronghold, which the Management Bureau had never once managed to find.
As if reality’s physical laws had come unmoored, the surrounding colors inverted or scrambled themselves at will, lending the place a grotesque atmosphere.
Inside the temple, zealous believers steeped in faith were going about their everyday human sacrifices, cannibalism, and orgies.
Deeper still, before the door that led to the Holy Sanctum, three cardinals held a conference.
“I’m telling you, it’s true. Before I even realized it, the Noosphere had been flipped inside out. The moment I saw it I thought my breath would stop—it was that magnificent… I want to meet him again as soon as I can. Sir Lee Shin.”
“Ah, Cromwell! Going on about that man again? Regrettably, he is someone we must eventually strike down and kill. Like a woman who drinks blood. Just as evil is the absence of good, the anomalous is nothing more than the absence of humanity!”
As Cromwell gestured in a distinctly feminine manner, a giant of a man well over four meters tall answered with rather exaggerated flair.
“Both of you, that is enough. The Lord will soon deliver His voice, will He not?”
Beside the two men, a woman with her robe pulled low over her head chided them with quiet dignity.
As if on cue, the door to the Holy Sanctum opened. Infinite radiance and glory poured forth, and the three cardinals dropped to their knees.
Beyond the door resided the God who had come from Outside. God was looking down upon their world.
An Outer God.
The ignorant world would no doubt reduce that being to a tangle of sucker-covered octopus tentacles.
No.
God had brought humanity a gift, together with holy light.
The most precious gift of all: enlightenment.
And its symbol was a golden apple.
Between awe and bloodlust and the urge to submit, the ground trembled.
SIN-003 spoke once more in the language of humans.
The worlds had been joined, He said.
The daughter had been brought over—so now it was time to send the father.
Let us complete the starting point.
Upon the veil that blanketed the sky, another world was reflected.
A place filled with endless blizzards and pure white snowfields.
With a single word from the Outer God, two distant worlds were connected with almost insulting ease.
At the same time, Dorm Room 702.
Two days had passed since they’d barged into Ju Eunseong’s place. Naturally, nothing had happened in that time.
Tatiana hugged her knees, restless and out of sorts.
…What am I even hoping for?
Was she hoping Ju Eunseong really was her father—or did she simply want to go home?
She didn’t even understand her own heart, and a sigh slipped out on its own.
When it came to family, Tatiana was still frozen at thirteen years old.
I’m getting depressed for no reason. Maybe I should go next door. …Is 998 with Yu Seoa right now?
Yu Seoa was a good junior. But the thought of her being with Lee Shin only made Tatiana more gloomy.
“Uugh…”
She was practically on the verge of a full mental spiral, groaning to herself, when—
Knock, knock.
Just like a few days ago, someone knocked on the door. Tatiana scrambled into her pants.
I really need to break this habit of lounging around the house in nothing but underwear.
She opened the door, and sure enough, Lee Shin was standing there. Had he come out of worry again?
But Lee Shin said something she hadn’t expected.
“Eunseong’s not answering. Calls, DMs—nothing. I’m going over there now.”
Tatiana’s pupils trembled.
In the car heading to Ju Eunseong’s place, Tatiana took a slow breath. It was the same road as a few days before, but her feelings had already changed.
If no one was there when they opened the door—what then?
And if, on the other hand, Ju Eunseong looked at her with that same amused expression—what was she supposed to say?
Swish, swish.
The wipers beat against her ears. Raindrops on the windshield kept blurring her vision.
“…I don’t know exactly what’s going on, but it’ll be fine.”
“Yeah. …Thanks.”
Lee Shin, in the driver’s seat, said nothing more. Tatiana felt a quiet, deep gratitude and stole a glance at his profile.
…He really doesn’t look the part. He’s careful.
With someone this solid beside her, it was time to face the ending.
Before she knew it, they were standing at the front door again. Lee Shin knocked, but no one came out.
“…Tatiana. I’m opening it.”
“You know the passcode?”
“Of course. Eunseong may not share my blood, but that bastard’s family.”
Thump-thump-thump-thump.
Her heart felt ready to burst.
Ju Eunseong is my—
Click.
The door opened, but there was no sign of anyone.
An officetel that was fairly spacious for one person living alone. In front of the sofa, a robot vacuum puttered about.
Had someone knocked over a glass of water? The floor was soaked, and shards of a drinking glass rolled across it.
“….”
The empty room was still warm.
As if someone had been there only moments ago.
“…That game again?”
Lee Shin muttered, looking at the monitor. As always, End of Empire sat abandoned on the screen, mid-play.
“….”
Inside the monitor, Tatiana met a longed-for face once more.
Hair the color of frost. Gently downturned eyes. Green irises identical to her own.
Her mother was smiling at the player.
On the character creation screen, the name field blinked. Ju Eunseong must have been about to start a new run.
Tatiana looked at the name and sank to the floor.
“Ah…”
Only then did the tangle of what she was feeling come into focus.
Longing. Tenderness. The fragile hope that they might meet again someday. Resentment that he had never come looking for her. A touch of bittersweet love-hate. Gratitude that, for even a little while, she had lived in the same time as him.
And the love that only blood could give—the love he would one day show her, the love she was about to lose.
“Ha… mel.”
Tatiana murmured the familiar name. Tears she could no longer hold back came spilling out.
Hamel Karstein.
Tatiana Karstein’s real father.
But Tatiana still had no idea.
That Lee Shin, too, was a presence bound to her more deeply than she could yet imagine.