The Veteran Android and the Naked Survivor
A creature boasting a grotesquely elongated body was currently undergoing a dissection show right before my eyes. I suppose that’s what you’d expect from an 18+ game. Every time she swung her blade, the plump, fleshy bits—no, the blood splattering everywhere—was quite a sight to behold... or rather, it was disgusting. With the battle concluded, the snow-white android finished the job by splitting the severed head in two, ensuring a perfect kill confirmation. Having finished her task, she began to approach me with quick, heavy steps.
'Don't tell me she's going to attack me, thinking I'm just another monster in disguise!' I really wasn't in the mood for that kind of misunderstanding. It’s too much of a cliché. And besides, what kind of fake could possibly pull off acting like such a sturdy, reliable man (who is still a virgin)? I locked eyes with her golden pupils as she stopped right in front of me. As expected of a "god-tier game" that skipped the political correctness and focused purely on making the characters look beautiful, her appearance was enough to make any celebrity look like a scrub. Then again, considering the lore, this was probably just the average look for an android. ...Maybe humanity going extinct was a blessing in disguise?
"Um..."
"Yes? Yes?"
I was lost in those wicked thoughts for a moment before she spoke.
"The... 'clothing' you speak of is recorded in the computer as 'equipment' created by humans."
"Oh? Right..."
"But, Human... no, sir, why are you in a state of nudity? If that was the standard attire for humans in the past, I intend to file a complaint with the main computer connected to us androids to have that information corrected immediately. So, if you don't mind, I would appreciate an answer."
In short, she was asking if humanity lived their daily lives in the buff before they went extinct. I thought it was a ridiculous misunderstanding, but then again, even in the 21st century, there were people who insisted aliens built the pyramids. To save the main computer—which was supposed to store only accurate human knowledge—from any unnecessary trouble, I decided to be honest.
"I just didn't have any clothes to wear, that's all."
"Ah......"
I confessed the truth, my hands modestly cupped over my crotch. But was it just my imagination?
"...Gulp!"
"Huh?"
"Ahem... um..."
Something about this android in front of me... her gaze seemed to be drifting downward, didn't it?
The android who had saved me by pure chance introduced herself as Code Name: P927JSO261PA, or 'Revi' for short. She explained that she was a member of the last hope humanity had created to annihilate the monsters from Earth's orbit: the Great Monster Extermination Protocol, commonly known as the 'Rescuer Program'.
"Salute. I am Code Name P927JSO261PA, a combat-type android belonging to the 4th Unit of the Rescuer Program, known as Revi."
"Nice to meet you, Revi. I'm Kang Chanwoo."
"Chanwoo-nim. We androids were created for the survival of humanity. Of course... I was taught that not a single human remained alive just before the Great Monster Extermination Protocol began... but even so, there is no reason for an android to use honorifics with you, a human."
"But..."
"Please, speak comfortably. Android Statute Article 0, Paragraph 1: All human rights and freedoms of androids are determined by humans."
I didn't even know there was an Article 0 in the android statutes. In the game, a few of the "knowledgeable" android characters would always blather on starting from Article 1, so I thought that was the beginning. Perhaps it was because a human—who had never appeared in the game's story—had finally shown up, that I was hearing TMI (Too Much Information) that even I, with 20,000 hours of playtime, didn't know.
"By the way, if you're the 4th Unit... that means you're a combat unit, right?"
"?! How did you know that?"
"Huh? Oh... well. I mean, we humans are the ones who built you androids in the first place, so that's just common sense, isn't it...?"
Earth's land, sea, and air had all been wiped out by monsters. Just before extinction, humanity had launched the 'Rescuer Program' (R.P.M)—a massive, self-controlling, self-developing cradle-like spaceship—into space, where it was safe from the monsters, to wait for another day.
"Everything is for the sake of humanity."
The R.P.M contained not only a babysitter system capable of developing combat-type dolls, but also the genes of humans capable of reproduction, in preparation for the day when all monsters on Earth vanished and the planet became a harmless world once again. To signal the 'beginning of the birth of a new humanity,' the R.P.M periodically dropped fully trained androids from space back to Earth. Among the units created by the R.P.M, those specialized for combat were called the 4th Unit.
'Let's see... 1st Unit was support, 2nd was survival, 3rd was stealth/covert ops, 4th was combat, and the 5th was the elite unit with balanced stats, right?'
For the record, these five classified android units appeared as selectable job classes when you first played Star's Doll. Of course, the unit recommended for newbies was the 5th Unit, which had well-distributed stats. After that, it was the 1st Unit, which could hide behind NPCs as a supporter rather than engaging in main combat, or the 2nd Unit, which had enough tenacity to avoid meeting the "Game Over" screen too often. Or perhaps the 3rd Unit, which could escape from near-death battles using 'Stealth' skills.
And the snow-white android in front of me, Revi, belonged to the 4th Unit. They called it a combat unit, but...
'That's a unit strictly for hardcore veterans...'
Of course, as a combat-specialized unit, they boasted the highest combat power among all androids. But you have to think carefully. While Star's Doll was a Soul-like genre that included combat elements, it was also a real-time survival game that included 'thirst' and 'hunger' mechanics. In other words, even if they were great at fighting, they were inevitably inferior to the other four units in terms of 'gathering' or 'construction.' Because all their stats were dumped into combat, they were famous as the 'newbie-cutter unit'—picked by clueless beginners who thought "stronger is better," only for them to quit the game immediately.
"Um, by the way, Revi."
"Yes. What is it, Chanwoo-nim?"
"I'm sorry to ask this right from our first meeting, but could you lend me some spare clothes?"
"Spare... clothes, you say?"
"Yeah. Actually, I didn't have any clothes, so I've been walking around naked."
While I was chatting with Revi, a red sunset was spreading across the sky. I could feel the temperature dropping as evening approached. Since I had just met an android responsible for the safety and survival of humanity, I decided to beg her for some spare clothes, even if they were just rags.
*Slide.*
Wait, what are you doing?
"Hey, Revi? Why are you suddenly trying to take off your bodysuit?"
"I apologize, Chanwoo-nim. I do not currently have any spare clothes. It is not much of a substitute, but I will give you the bodysuit I am currently wearing."
"You don't have any spare clothes...?"
No, and besides, I'll pass on the bodysuit. Clothes that cling to the body like that should be for women. It looks terrible on a man. Even if I were to freeze to death, I didn't want to be caught wearing a skin-tight bodysuit that made my junk bulge out. And there was one more thing I couldn't understand.
"But how can you not have spare clothes? Usually, when an android lands on the surface, the R.P.M distributes a few skins... I mean, clothes, right?"
"Yes, that is correct. However, I am an android from the 4th Unit of the R.P.M who only arrived on Earth 89 days ago."
"No, but why don't you have any spare clothes already?"
"That is because I ate them all as 'rations'."
"......Eh?"
Like many other games, in games where the protagonist is a female character with a body like this, skin sales were usually a big deal. Even in Star's Doll, knowing the appeal of their non-PC female characters, there were three skins provided as a taste-test even without buying DLC. And she ate them all?
"They were edible when grilled."
She said it with such confidence. Revi's expression, showing she didn't understand why eating her clothes was strange, was the very definition of a combat unit with nothing but fighting on her mind. 'Well, if you think about it, clothes are made of animal hide or fiber materials that are theoretically edible... so you can eat them... hmm. Yes, that's true... hmm!'
Still, it was such an absurdly inefficient diet that a veteran player would never recommend it. I mean, eating a skin just to fill a hunger meter? That’s not just a cost-effectiveness issue; that’s a problem of pure extravagance! But as someone who had just been saved, it was awkward to nitpick. I decided to just assume the skins never existed in the first place. I wondered what kind of equipment she had in her inventory.
"Hey, Revi. Can I check what's in your inventory?"
"You mean the inventory system. Of course. Normally, checking the contents of an inventory is a regulation that is not permitted to anyone other than a superior officer. However, for a human like Chanwoo-nim, I can 'open' it for you as much as you like."
"That means..."
"If you ask, I will 'open' it for you anytime."
She said she'd open it anytime I asked. It was just an inventory, but as expected of an 18+ game (due to the combat), it didn't let me down. Revi began to pull out the items she had farmed one by one from between her cleavage—the four-dimensional space connected directly to the android's body, which could be toggled on and off.