Volume 6 Chapter 2-2 Auroora No. 217
Edited by: Kanaa-senpai
She’s clearly looking at me, so she knows it’s me.
She remembers everything about me… right?
A warmth spreads in my chest, and I take a deep breath. If she sees me tear up, she’ll tease me endlessly later. Well, that’s fine too, I guess.
Ms. Nina looks like she wants to say something, but underwater, she can’t speak. She seems confused, even distressed. Without air or limbs, it must feel like drowning in a nightmare for her.
”This won’t do. She’ll get more confused like this. We’ll put her to sleep. Lower this handle to the marked line. You do it.”
Waking up as just a head in water would panic anyone. I’d probably drown myself.
To ease the mental strain, it’s better for her to sleep until her body is fully formed.
”I’m adding a sedative now. It’s completely safe, so rest a little longer, Ms. Nina. I have so much to tell you when you’re better. Next time you wake up, we’ll be together forever, and we can go on adventures again.”
Ms. Nina smiles. Her eyes shine with intelligence. She remembers me. I want to keep talking, but it would strain her. She’s always so stubborn, so I need to be careful.
”Goodnight, Ms. Nina.”
I adjust the lever, and the sedative flows in. It’s not instant, so I keep talking to her as she slowly drifts off.
Watching her sleep, a sudden fear grips me—what if she never wakes up?
No, it’ll be fine. I’m just too worried. I need to trust the dwarves’ skills.
”She seemed conscious, wanting to talk to you. Her desire to live is a good sign. It’ll probably work out.”
It’s not “probably”—it has to work. If it raises the chances, I’d sell my soul to the devil or the Demon King.
”How long until she can go outside?”
”It might take half a year, maybe even a full year.”
”Wow, that long? It’s healing really fast.”
New skin is already growing over the wound. This healing speed is way too fast for a normal person.
”Even a baby takes almost a year to grow in the womb. This machine is like a fake womb, but since it’s making an adult, it’ll probably take even longer, right?”
A year—that’s a long time. People can be brought back to life in seconds, but this is taking too long. Using healing magic to speed things up makes sense, but if I mess up, it’ll all be wasted.
Why am I so worried just because Ms. Nina moved a little? I need to calm down or everything will go wrong. The best thing to do is let Ms. Mahal handle it.
”The first doll princess took over 2 years to make. Compared to that, my machine should be much better.”
The first doll princess, made about ten years ago, was created entirely from special cells, making her almost like a real human.
”At first, we tried all sorts of risky things. Once, the original princess who was copied even died.”
During the soul-copying process, the original person suffers a lot, and more than 3 copies can be dangerous. More than 5 copies are almost impossible to survive.
”But, Ms. Nina is Auroora 217.”
I thought there were at least 217 copies of the Auroora princess, like Ms. Nina.
”I checked what that number means. Now, they only make 2 copies at most from a human princess. So, they make Auroora 1 and Auroora 2 first.”
She explains it’s not 217, but 2, 1, 7.
First, only 2 copies are made from the princess for safety. Then, more copies are made from those two, and even more from those new copies. Doing too many rounds of copying hurts the original too much; it’s not efficient. Even with normal methods, you could go a bit further.
If all copies break after 4 rounds, you’d get only 8 copies from the second round, or 32 from the third round.
”Can’t you make more copies from the third round?”
”The more you copy, the worse the quality gets. But now, doll princesses have 4-digit numbers, so that probably means… you get the idea.”
Since the numbers are 4 digits, like 2171 or 2172, the copies of Ms. Nina are so degraded that the original breaks down. The Hero Management Bureau is doing something terrible.
If only about 128 copies can be made due to quality loss, and they summon nearly a thousand Heroes each year, the original princess would need to be remade 8 or 9 times a year.
Even if you could make 512 copies from one princess, they don’t do that, so the quality loss must be really bad.
”Quality loss—what does that mean?”
”They become emotionless, like dolls. Lately, the doll princesses are so degraded that even a simple golem might be better.”
”I’ve only been here less than a year, though.”
If there are thousands of doll princesses now, Ms. Nina’s 3-digit number is strange, right?
”Well, you were just given an old copy. But it’s not bad—the older ones are made better.”
Maybe, like me—a failed Hero—they thought a new one was a waste. If I met Ms. Nina because of that, being a failed Hero was maybe a good thing.
”Still, number 217 is strange too, right? It’s impossible to copy 7 times successfully.”
Ms. Mahal says they made too many doll princesses, so they stopped making copies from Auroora 2 and changed the number to 217 randomly. She says this happens sometimes because of budget changes and other reasons.
”If this girl is the first copy, she’d be almost like a real human. It’s easy to see why you’d like her.”
In the past, doll princesses sometimes fell in love with Heroes. But now, with 4-digit numbers, they hardly feel anything, so they’re not seen as romantic partners.
No matter what Ms. Nina really is, to me, she’s just Ms. Nina.
Lately, some people want to stop using doll princesses because of budget issues. I agree with that. I wonder what Ms. Nina thinks about it?
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Edited by Kanaa-senpai.
Thanks for reading.
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