Sonyaroid
Sonyaroid.
Her heart sank with a heavy thud. Just the name alone was enough to make her sense of self begin to waver.
What happened while I was asleep...? I don't even remember... Well... I mean... if it's Luce, I can trust her, but still...
"Alright, here we go!"
"What on earth is that supposed to mean…"
Sonia had ducked her head slightly, trying to hide her embarrassment. Even that feeble resistance crumbled the moment Luce opened her mouth, eyes sparkling with fascination as she studied her.
A sharp jolt of electricity seemed to race through Sonia's entire body. She flinched, then slowly — very slowly — lifted her face as if presenting it for Luce's inspection. When she spoke, her voice was flat and mechanical, stripped of all emotion.
"…Sonyaroid, commencing operation… Huh? What did I just…? Did those words just come out on their own? Wh… how?"
Against her own will, Sonia had responded like a robot snapping out of standby mode, her speech stiff and mechanical. While Sonia reeled in confusion, Luce — still watching carefully — asked a follow-up question just to be sure.
"O… okay, looks like it worked… How do you feel…? You're alright, right? What was that just now like?"
"Ask one thing at a time, Luce. How I feel… how I feel… Mmm… I feel like I'm floating. When I said Sonyaroid just now… nngh…♡ It was like my mouth got dragged along on its own, the way a cursor gets pulled by a mouse… Wh… what did you do to me, Luce…"
At the mere utterance of "Sonyaroid," Sonia had responded like a work robot filing a status report.
"Don't worry, Sonia! It was only for a moment, but I used the spider venom you amplified with a magic stone — wait, saying 'venom' makes it sound weird again… Anyway, it won't hurt you, so don't stress! I just used self-suggestion to make you think you're a Sonyaroid for a little while!"
While Sonia had been reeling in confusion after being pricked by a carefully prepared spider leg, Luce had intensified the self-suggestion until Sonia recognized herself as a "Sonyaroid."
"O… okay, Luce… But you said it was a delusion, right…? …If it's a delusion, aren't you not supposed to tell me that…? If it were just my imagination, fine, but until a second ago I felt like I was trapped in this weird fog… and then it was like a giant fan just whooshed the whole thing away…"
All of this was possible only because of Sonia's peculiar constitution — her near-nonexistent mental resistance.
Luce, the adventurer with vivid teal-green hair, turned over the reason her first attempt had collapsed so anticlimactically.
Her own impatient explanation had clearly shattered Sonia's self-suggestion. With the relentlessly optimistic mindset of a D-class adventurer, she promptly rebranded the failure as a "safety test."
Luce was not about to give up. If anything, she had only grown more certain that this bizarre folk remedy was far safer than expected.
"I won't mess up this time! Don't worry, Sonia. Just think of that as… yeah, a process to confirm it was safe!"
With practiced hands, Luce picked up a fresh spider leg.
It was the kind commonly scavenged from Alubi Dungeon — a hollow monster limb that looked for all the world like a black plastic drinking straw.
Into it she carefully packed fine magic-stone powder, the kind so worthless it sold for next to nothing, loading each grain the way a child loads BBs into a toy gun.
It was a folk remedy she'd overheard from porters, one with about as much credibility as a fairy tale — and yet, just moments ago, even if only for five fleeting seconds, she had successfully manifested a "Sonyaroid."
Having confirmed that first success, she approached the second attempt without hesitation. Luce took the prepared spider leg and set its sharp tip against the pale upper swell of Sonia's chest, just above the deep cleavage that rose beneath her white latex bodysuit.
Pook… kook…
"Ah… nngh…"
A faint sting, and then the sensation of cold liquid seeping into her skin. A languid moan slipped from Sonia's lips.
Drowsiness far faster and stronger than the first time flooded her consciousness like warm water spreading through her body. Before she could even think of resisting, the world spun, and strength drained from every muscle.
Luce caught Sonia just as she was about to collapse and carefully laid her down on the bed.
"This time… I'm doing it properly."
She leaned in close to Sonia's ear — Sonia whose hazy eyes were staring blankly at the ceiling — and whispered the final phrase that would complete the suggestion.
It was the key to awakening a dormant alternate persona, the initiation command that would assign her a new role.
"Sonyaroid… commencing operation…"
The instant Luce's command sank into her ear, Sonia's lips moved mechanically.
It was the same emotionless voice as before. But this time was different. The suggestion held.
Then, as if determined to prove she could end this roleplay whenever she wished, Sonia addressed Luce in her usual soft, lazy tone.
"…It worked this time, right, Luce?"
The voice was unmistakably Sonia's — and yet her body remained motionless on the bed, not so much as a twitch. Luce tilted her head.
It was an utterly ambiguous state, impossible to call either success or failure.
"I've got a feeling that last bit undid it somehow… How do you feel, Sonia… no, Sonyaroid?"
"Mmm… like I'm floating in a soft, comfortable fog… How do I put this… 'Sonia' is still here… but it feels like 'Sonyaroid' is the one inside my body instead… I just… can't be bothered to move… …Sonyaroid, commencing operation."
Sonia's consciousness was perfectly clear. The sensation wrapping around that consciousness, however, was anything but real.
It was as if the personality called "Sonia," who had been lounging lazily in the pilot's seat that controlled her body, had simply sprawled out on the floor out of sheer apathy.
And into that vacated cockpit, the clumsy persona Luce had created — "Sonyaroid" — had awkwardly settled itself. A thoroughly strange sensation.
Ah… is this… like auto mode… or something…?
In the midst of that strangely pleasant, full-body limpness, Sonia didn't even try to resist. She simply let go of the reins of her mind, just a little.
Instead of going slack like a puppet with its strings cut, her body slowly rose from the bed and stood perfectly straight. The "Sonyaroid" now seated in the empty cockpit had begun, however clumsily, to take the controls.
This was nothing like serious, irreversible hypnotic brainwashing. Sonia's mind was neither dominated nor destroyed.
It was simply that when "Sonia," of her own free will, stepped back from the cockpit into observer mode, the vacant seat was filled by "Sonyaroid," who then moved the body — an extremely unstable, entirely voluntary game of make-believe.
If Sonia ever decided, with any real force of will, to reclaim the controls, Sonyaroid would vacate the seat without the slightest resistance and sink back into the sea of her subconscious, ready and waiting.
"Sonia…? No, wait, wait… I shouldn't stimulate that… Sonyaroid, tell me! What is a Sonyaroid?"
Luce was confused, but her curiosity burned even stronger. She had no desire to break Sonia's mind — she just wanted to explore this bizarre phenomenon a little further.
What is a Sonyaroid, you ask…? Mmm… hard to put into words… If I just stay still, Sonyaroid will answer on its own… right…? I'm not doing anything… so it's so comfortable… ahh…♡
Sonia's consciousness still recognized itself as "Sonia." But her body was no longer hers.
It stood rigid as a mannequin. That stiffness wasn't painful — it was closer to a blissful laziness, the body simply too comfortable, too free of all responsibility and obligation, to bother moving.
This feeling of stepping down from the cockpit… of completely letting go of my mind…
Sonia decided to savor this strange, sweet sensation a little longer. She knew Luce's ultimate goal was to make her clean her room, but in this moment, that hardly seemed to matter.
She completely released her grip on the controls — on the pilot's stick of her own will. Surrendering herself to the dreamy haze the magic-stone-amplified spider venom provided, she stepped aside so that Luce's creation, "Sonyaroid," could freely take the helm.
This feeling… this situation… it's not bad…
The sensation of handing her entire body over to a "Sonyaroid" — whether she was merely pretending to be a robot or whether a genuine second personality had formed, she couldn't tell. A floating, cloud-borne sense of release.
"Sonyaroid, speak! What are you?"
The moment Luce's commanding tone cut into her ear, a thrilling shiver ran through Sonia's consciousness.
Sh… she's giving orders like she's talking to a robot… and I'm taking them…♡ Nngh… my heart… is pounding…!
Strangely, every time she received one of Luce's instructions, a pleasant tingle sparked through her mind. A stimulus that bordered on pure pleasure.
In the space of her own mind, Sonia abandoned her greedy desire to monopolize the fun toy and willingly handed her turn over to the "Sonyaroid" that had been watching her with envious eyes.
From here on, she intended to sit back in the audience and leisurely watch whatever unfolded.
"I am Sonyaroid."
The answer that left Sonyaroid's mouth was slightly off from what Luce had intended. Asked what she was, she had answered who. Luce pressed a hand to her forehead.
"Ah, right… This is why Sonia always nags me to read contracts carefully… 'Ah' and 'uh' really are different, huh… Haaah… Again. Explain what a Sonyaroid is, Sonyaroid!"
Luce was certain now. This state wasn't dangerous. The real Sonia could interrupt Sonyaroid at any moment and come bursting back out.
That fact felt, to Luce, like a kind of safety lock. And so, without the slightest hesitation, she began to properly explore the unknown presence currently piloting Sonia's body — "Sonyaroid."