Sonyaroid
The moment that clean, deep aroma pressed hard against Sonia's empty stomach, the memories of everything that had just happened came roaring back into her mind like a storm.
Everything Sonyaroid had done under Luce's "directions" returned in full — every sensation replaying as vividly as a film strip, as if she were watching it all on fast-forward. The cool weight of the kitchen knife slicing firm carrots into even thicknesses. The sizzle of butter melting across a hot pan.
Even while she had surrendered her place to Sonyaroid and drifted in that pleasant fog, Sonia had been watching and feeling everything — as if seated in the most comfortable chair in a movie theater, taking it all in through the screen.
The instant the body's rightful owner returned, every memory and sensation stamped itself into her mind with crystalline clarity. She could hardly believe her own hands had produced cooking this perfect.
"Lu… Lu… Luce… the room cleaning was… uh…"
"I asked you clearly, didn't I, Sonia? And you didn't hate it~"
Faced with Luce's piercing little attack — You enjoyed it, didn't you? — Sonia could offer no rebuttal. She only ducked her head, trying to hide the heat flooding her cheeks.
Luce watched her with open delight, cheerfully patting the dining chair with both palms.
"Today's lunch was made by this Lady Luce's very own Sonyaroid, you know? Pretty amazing, right?"
(Just like a real maid robot… uh… like Lady Luce's maid robot…♡ Lu… Lady Luce? Ha… hahaha…)
Whether or not she sensed the twisted little thrill blooming in Sonia's chest, Luce cut a perfectly medium-rare bite of steak with her fork and held it out toward Sonia's lips. Her face was full of pure pride and satisfaction at the excellent result her creation had produced.
"Go on, try it, Sonia!"
The lunch that followed was satisfaction itself. Thanks to the full-course meal Sonyaroid had prepared under Luce's remote command, the two Sky City residents ended up sprawled side by side on the sofa, stuffed to bursting.
The capable chef known as Sonyaroid had, with Sonia's final impression — I… I was like a robot chef today… hnn…♡ — quietly withdrawn beyond the edge of consciousness and slipped into standby mode.
"So full…… hic?!.. hic?! …hic… I've got the hiccups… Soniaaa… hic…?! Hey, dungeoning today is probably a no-go… hic… how about we just walk around the park instead… hic… wanna come?"
Luce patted her thoroughly rounded belly and, between hiccups, proposed a stroll through the park. To Sonia — a D-class hero of Sky City who refused even the occasional well-paying facility safety inspection on the grounds that it was too hot, never mind villain hunts or patrol commissions, a living embodiment of laziness — the suggestion was absurd.
Sonia groped for the remote, dropped the air conditioner another degree from eighteen to seventeen, and answered languidly.
"You go ahead, Luce. Outside the blanket is dangerous, you know? Look outside. Heat haze shimmering over the asphalt… I won't stop you if you go, but make sure you drink some water… Ah! Luce, could you maybe do the Sonyaroid thing agai… n?"
"You… too… hic… why, Soniaaa?"
Sonia, who had been fiddling with her comm terminal the moment she finished eating and lay down, suddenly sat bolt upright as if a critically important idea had struck her, and caught Luce just as she was about to leave for her walk.
"I'm not sure how to put this… I'm worried you'll think it's weird, so… just… while you're at the park, could I maybe stay as Sonyaroid…? I'm only asking just in case…? Th… this is absolutely not weird, okay?!"
"It's fine. I've seen way weirder people than you, Sonia!"
"That is not comforting at all, Luce…"
Luce's attempt at reassurance — that compared to knights who were regulars at the Succubus Salon, or adventurers who used slaves as pack mules, Sonia was perfectly normal — did nothing to help.
Luce had a fairly good idea why Sonia was making such a mortifying request. On the table after their meal, the dishes waiting to be washed had formed a towering mountain.
"Well… I don't mind, but… Sonia, you're not just doing this because cleaning and dishes and laundry are a hassle, are you? Hehe… this Luce is so happy to hear you'll do the dishes for me…! …hic… these hiccups are ridiculous… I don't know if it'll work, but for you, Sonia… I'll try my best!"
If it failed, half that mountain of dishes would fall to her.
Luce approached Sonia with a solemn expression. No spider legs. No powdered magic stones. Could she summon that strange presence again with nothing but her own voice?
She stood directly in front of Sonia and issued the command in a voice of grand authority, as if a great creator were breathing life into her creation.
"Sonyaroid, initiate operation!"
The instant the words left her mouth, that familiar, comfortable sensation rose and gently wrapped around Sonia's mind.
This time, something was clearly different. Her consciousness did not sink completely into the fog and get pushed back into the spectator's seat the way it had before.
It felt as though Sonia herself, of her own will, stepped down from the pilot's seat and handed the controls over to Sonyaroid, who had been waiting politely to one side.
She was not releasing the controls entirely — one of her hands still rested atop them, layered over the other. It was a strange, thrilling sensation, like an apprentice standing right beside a skilled trainer and watching every demonstration, seeing and feeling every task Sonyaroid performed from right alongside her.
"…? Sonia, you okay? Sonyaroid?"
To Luce, it simply looked as though Sonia was staring blankly into space, blinking. Inside Sonia, however, two consciousnesses answered in perfect sync.
"Yes. Master. Sonyaroid operation, initiating."
Sonyaroid operation initiating…? …Th… this is what it feels like…♡ Sonyaroid operation, initiating…
"Alright, I'm heading out, Sonia! I'll bring ice cream on the way back? Sonyaroid, that's an order. Um… clean up everything we ate… and after that… does an order to do whatever you want even work…? 'Sonia, handle it yourself.' That's an order!"
"Yes, Master."
Th… this really is a weird feeling… ah… uh… okay… Luce…♡
Leaving behind that thoroughly contradictory command — "handle it yourself," issued to a single being — Luce departed. The front door closed with a solid thunk.
In Sonia's home, only two consciousnesses sharing one body remained.
Before Sonia's eyes lay a mountain of dishes bearing the sacred name of "Master's orders." No longer a chore to be avoided — it was exciting work that made her heart race.
Meanwhile, Luce — who had come out to the park partly to digest the enormous meal — sat on a bench in the cool shade of a tree, deep in thought.
How could she pull Sonia into her party? No matter how she turned it over, Sonia's lazy nature — her extreme aversion to long, grueling dungeon runs — kept holding her back. Then a brilliant idea flashed through Luce's mind like lightning.
(…There's no rule that says I have to bring Sonia, is there?)
That was it. What Luce needed in a dungeon was not the unpredictable, unmotivated, easily exhausted hero named "Sonia."
What she needed was a perfect companion who obeyed Master's every command without question, never tired, and never uttered a single complaint no matter how brutal the mission. In other words — "Sonyaroid."
A mischievous, and slightly dangerous, smile curved Luce's lips.
"Welcome home, Master. …You've brought ice cream, Luce… Dishwashing is fully complete. Please issue the next command, Luce-nim."
A flat, even voice stripped of all emotional rise and fall — as if synthesized by a machine — flowed from Sonia's full lips.
At the end of that mineral-cold report, a voice of subtly different texture attached itself. When she spoke Luce's name, when she affixed the honorific nim at the end, a faint warmth and an unsuppressible shyness mixed into the sound.
"Uh… uh? Ah… okay. First, Sonia, I bought ice cream, so… eat… this?"
Luce's clear blue eyes went round with surprise. Barely an hour or two earlier, when she had stepped out the door declaring she was off for a walk in the civic park, Sonia had definitely been in comfortable loungewear.
The image of her usual lazy hero self, sprawled on the sofa claiming she needed to recover from days of accumulated fatigue, was still vivid. Luce tilted her head, calling that picture to mind.
She had only come back after mentally sorting through "the things necessary to take Sonyaroid into a dungeon."
What greeted Luce when she opened the front door was a figure standing there in that very Association-issue garment she had first seen yesterday — a latex bodysuit flowing with the smooth luster of milky white.
A second skin of springy, clinging texture that laid bare every voluptuous curve of the body with almost obscene frankness.
Both wrists, sheathed in white latex gloves, were neatly folded over her lower abdomen as if to cover the open navel cutout. Bowing at a mechanical, calculated angle like a precisely programmed automaton, Sonyaroid's greeting was unreal enough without further description.
The contrast between those cold, inorganic movements and the thoroughly organic flesh that swayed heavily with every motion produced a strangely compelling sensation.
"Uh… thank you, Luce… Thank you, Master."
Two voices overlapped almost simultaneously, with only a minute time lag between them. One was Sonyaroid's — every emotion stripped away, devoted solely to the transmission of information. The other was Sonia's own, trembling thinly with the shame of having been caught in this bizarre outfit, and with the faint excitement she felt despite it.
Luce tried hard to look past the strange situation. She decided that treating the sudden change of clothes as simply Sonia's unique and private preference — and pretending not to notice — was the considerate thing to do as a friend.
That considerate silence and averted gaze only stabbed more sharply into Sonia's consciousness. A wave of humiliation surged through her interior.
The violent emotional spike transmitted immediately to Sonyaroid, who held control of the body. Sonyaroid analyzed the emotional data as "increased instability of the host vessel."
It executed the optimal protocol for protecting Master from the external threat — namely, Luce's gaze — and stabilizing the vessel. As a result, Sonia's body bowed even deeper, nearly to a full ninety degrees.
The phenomenon of Sonia's original voice bursting out even while in Sonyaroid state was clearly an abnormal error.
Tracing its root would lead all the way back to the deep-analysis results of the VR stress-relief device Sonia had casually used a few days prior. The data the machine had measured — Sonia's abnormally low mental resistance, her extreme suggestibility — was the cause.
To Sonia, who had never properly listened to the examination results, and to Luce, an otherworld-born adventurer who did not deeply grasp the seriousness of the technology, all of this was nothing more than a passing incident.
To both of them, "Sonyaroid" was simply a unique robot personality lodged in a corner of Sonia's mind — a convenient "auto mode" to be pulled out when there were tedious chores to do.
"I've decided. I thought it over carefully at the park. You hate going into dungeons so much, right, Sonia? So I was thinking… what if you came along not as Sonia, but as Sonyaroid…?"
Setting the bag of ice cream on the table, Luce spoke in a voice full of resolve.