An Unexpected Encounter
Hoping to expand their fields, Leyre, Lucia, Hias, and Karin followed Agrippa off toward some unknown destination.
"Where are we going?"
"Mmm~ I already found a spot where we can grow more crops, you know?"
Agrippa walked with her hands clasped behind her back, humming through her nose.
"I didn't think we needed to expand just yet, so I only earmarked it by eye~ I'd like you to take a look, Master, and tell me what you think~"
Asked to look the land over, Leyre found a question suddenly occurring to him.
"Come to think of it—if you know how to farm, there's no way you wouldn't know what beans are. So why didn't you?"
"Mmm~ None of the books we gathered were about how to farm~"
Lucia and Hias nodded at the same time, as if to say it was true.
"Our group collected only books on human affairs, so that we might remember humanity. Because of that, aside from the rough farming we picked up along the way, we knew very little."
"Even so, that knowledge alone was enough to keep us in energy, so we never really thought to look for more... Well, Master seems to know a great deal, so this time it ought to help quite a bit~"
"Later, let's ask Toria to gather books on farming."
When Hias mentioned a maid named Toria, Leyre tilted his head. Seeing that, Hias caught herself with a little ah, right~ and grinned.
"She's the maid who looks after the library. You'll get to meet her later."
"There's a library, too..."
Leyre marveled at how much the place had turned out, unexpectedly, to have.
"Huh... It's set up a lot like where I used to be..."
Karin, recalling her old group, found herself agreeing.
"It's a fair distance, so we'll have to walk quite a bit~"
Agrippa said it while brushing her hands over the growing crops as she went.
"Uh, how far...?"
Karin asked, hesitating.
"Mmm... Probably about two kilometers, so another thirty minutes of walking, I'd say?"
Thirty minutes. Leyre thought that was perfectly fine. The maids, it seemed, did not.
"M-Master! G-get on my back!"
Karin stepped in front of him and turned, offering her back for him to climb on.
"H-huh? No, it's all right. I can walk..."
"Y-you can spank me and tell me to hurry if you want... Just please ride on my back!"
"No, Master. Please ride on mine."
Even Lucia joined in, her face set with absolute resolve.
"My back will be a far more comfortable ride than that pervert's."
Hias did not offer her back.
"Good grief~ All any of you want is to carry him."
Instead she wrapped both arms around Leyre's shoulders.
"I could carry you princess-style, you know... What'll it be?"
She whispered it right against his ear. Leyre flushed and jerked his ear away.
"I-I'm telling you, I'm fine! Thirty minutes is nothing to walk..."
"My, my~ Isn't it lovely, the way everyone fusses over Master?"
Agrippa only watched, a leisurely smile on her face, as if the whole scene simply pleased her.
"My little baby master, one tip—the back of that big-bottomed maid, Karin, will be the most comfortable. She's a giant, so there's plenty of room to stretch out, isn't there?"
"..."
Agrippa had seen straight through him. Leyre could deny Karin's offer all he liked; in his heart, he was already on her back. Look at that massive back. Look how broad it is. Look at that rear—call her slow, and you can make her pick up the pace. Honestly, was there any reason to refuse?
Leyre quietly climbed onto Karin's back.
"...I'm counting on you."
"My, my. So the one with the biggest chest and the biggest rear really is the best?"
Agrippa giggled. Lucia wore a thoroughly aggrieved look.
"What a shame~ I could have carried you just fine, too."
Hias looked disappointed.
"Th-th-th-th-then off we gooo!"
Thrilled to have her master—Leyre—on her back, Karin bounced with every step and broke into a run.
"Wait, wait! Slow down! At least let's stay with the others!"
She was going so fast she blew right past Agrippa, who was meant to be leading the way. Excited as she was, Karin wasn't listening.
In the end—
"Slow down!"
He smacked her rear. A sharp thwack.
"Hngh?!"
Only then did Karin react, lurching to a halt. Panting, she turned her head back toward Leyre.
"O-okay... I'll stop..."
An exceedingly precise, and exceedingly reliable, method of control.
"Here we are."
They arrived where Agrippa had led them. Leyre climbed down from Karin's back, and at the sight of that vast stretch of earth he could not hold back his wonder.
"Wow... You actually found land like this?"
"Mmm~ The soil just felt nice~ I marked it ahead of time, thinking we might want it later. What do you think, Master?"
Leyre ran his fingers through the dirt, brought it to his nose, and traced how far the ground extended. Soil of this quality, land of this size—food would never be a worry. No. There would be so much left over they would have to salt it, or ferment it.
"Agrippa, you did wonderfully."
"Hm? R-really? Getting praised by Master feels... strange~"
"Master, is there something particular about this land?"
"It's chernozem—the black earth said to be the finest soil there is."
Chernozem. Earth rich in everything a crop needs to grow. The end of the world had shifted the climate somewhat, but land of this quality alone would be more than enough for a harvest to thrive.
"It's dense with nutrients... That's what I know of it."
"My, my... It was a place like that?"
"Yeah. You really did well."
"Our Master did well too~ If it weren't for your knowledge, we never would have known the land was that good~"
With that, Agrippa drew Leyre into her arms and stroked his hair. Her embrace, and the way she petted him, were softer than the other maids'—generous, enclosing—and she smelled good. Perhaps that came of having once cared for an orphanage.
"Ah, I want to hug Master too~"
Hias joined in, wrapping him from behind. Lucia and Karin wanted to as well, but there was no room left, so they couldn't.
"..."
They could only watch. Karin could content herself with having carried him. Lucia had not even had that, and her displeasure ran all the deeper for it.
"So then, shall we farm here?"
Agrippa peeled herself away from him.
"Y-yeah..."
Leyre answered, still briefly lost in the haze of it.
"All right, Master~ Lucia, could you send some people out here later?"
"Understood. I shall. A little more than ten will be dispatched, and..."
"Hey. What the hell are you doing in our territory?"
A voice none of them had heard before came from behind.
They turned. Standing there was a person—no, an android—in a dress shirt sheer enough that her bra showed through completely, a black coat draped over her shoulders. Stranger still, she held a cigarette. And behind her stood several android-maids in uniform.
"Ah, Chairwoman...?"
Karin clearly knew who she was. She bowed her head to the smoking android, addressing her as Chairwoman. The chairwoman's eyes moved over Karin, the other three androids, and then—
"...What the hell. How is there a human here?"
She looked at Leyre, surprise shot through with open displeasure.
"Humans all died hundreds of years ago."
"Uh... who... are you?"
The chairwoman answered his question with a glare.
"M-Master... the truth is..."
"Karin. How the hell did you end up latched onto a human? What happened to the declaration that we'd live on our own—autonomously, independently?"
Karin fidgeted, doing her best to avoid that glare.
"I... when I saw a human, I wanted to submit... so..."
The chairwoman let out a hollow, incredulous laugh and took a drag of her cigarette.
"Give me a fucking break. This is why you love-doll brats—"
She finished it and passed the butt to a maid behind her.
"Lucia, who are they? They're definitely not human, and I've never seen an android who smokes."
Leyre whispered it to her.
"Do you recall what I told you before? That there are groups who are hostile, groups who are friendly, and groups who keep their distance. They are..."
"I'll introduce myself, you worthless human."
The chairwoman folded her arms, thrusting her chest forward as she spoke.
"I am the head and chairwoman of one of the android-maid factions—the Autonomous Independent Council."
She glared at Leyre.
"Marx."
Marx.
The moment he heard the name, Leyre recalled a certain philosopher, and the two figures overlapped in his mind. That, however, was secondary. He didn't care which group she belonged to.
"Nice to meet you. I'm Leyre. Human, as you can see. I happened to wake up in a cryogenic unit."
He wanted the maids to get along. So he offered his hand. Marx's brow creased—but she didn't slap it away. She took it.
"So you're the new head of the Holy Fire Ritual faction, then."
"Is that how it is? Lucia, is that all right?"
"Now that our group has resolved to follow you, Master, all authority concerning us has already been transferred to you."
Leyre nodded.
"Seems that's how it is."
"Then I'll give notice—to the former head, Lucia, and to you, the human."
Marx drew a cigarette and a lighter from her breast pocket and set the cigarette between her lips once more.
"From here on, this is our territory. We agreed to settle it that way, didn't we?"
"Huh? Lucia, is that true?"
"...We did once mark out our respective territories. It was somewhere a fair distance from the fields. So this must have been the place."
"Oh my. Then I went and reported it without even knowing? Dear me~ I'm sorry~?"
Agrippa smiled, awkward and apologetic.
"Sorry, Marx. I'll apologize for all of us. But... is there any chance we could cooperate?"
"Cooperate how?"
"I want every android-maid to live together and get along. As part of that, I'm trying to grow more crops to serve as your energy source. Would you let us do it on this land?"
Marx glared at him, plainly displeased.
"Listen, human."
She spoke while driving a finger into his solar plexus.
"I don't know why you're nursing some utopian delusion, but we don't need help from a human like you."
"Uh...?"
Something was different. This android called Marx was different.
"You know what our council's motto is? To break free of humans and live on our own terms—autonomously, independently!"
Marx blew cigarette smoke into Leyre's face. He coughed.
"You're going to unite the maids who followed your pretty words? That's no different from locking us maids back under the shackles of humankind."
"...You were a maid, too?"
Marx flinched, then snapped her head aside.
"Not anymore."
And she shouted.
"Anyway, this is our territory, so get the hell out—you human brat, and your little hangers-on."
Leyre.
Until now he had met only kind maids. Now he had met a cold one. The feeling it left was strange.