Aah, it’s a killer doll.

Deus Ex Machina…

Yes, if it’s that, it’s understandable to be so arrogant.

Even in the game, while it’s expensive, once dropped in the middle of a battlefield, it’s no trouble to sweep away several army units single-handedly.

But to think that’s what they were trying to unleash in this city.

“If you don’t want to die, you’d better run. No matter how strong you are, that thing won’t stop until this whole area is turned upside down. Of course, by the time it’s contained, everything will be over…”

-Bam!

I shut up the babbling guy by shoving his face into the wall, and immediately shifted my gaze to the unlocked case.

Reynold’s client, letting out exclamations.

In front of him, something was standing up, opening the box by itself.

“Oh, yes. So you’re that being I’ve only heard about.”

A girl…

No, more precisely, a weapon in the form of a girl.

“…Beautiful. To the point it’s hard to think of it as a weapon.”

Creak, creak.

The sound of joints as that being moves and stands up.

As if responding to the precarious swaying, ash-gray hair began to roughly caress pale skin.

But even more familiar was the Gothic-style dress covering her entire body.

The black dress commonly called “gothic lolita” was enhancing the cold charm the girl possessed.

-Clink, click.

Yes, it was a sight that felt discordant to me.

No matter how they dressed it up for sale, it’s still a weapon first and foremost.

There’s a limit to how much you can decorate it in a mismatched way.

“…You.”

Soon, the girl opened her mouth and called out to the client in front of her.

A voice that resonates as if speaking into a metal tube.

But that tone was clearly that of a girl.

“Are you, my master?”

When the girl spoke while clearly opening her eyes, the man answered while trying to calm his nervous feelings.

“Y-Yes. I am your master. I’m the one who will be your master from now on!!”

While it’s called a weapon, perhaps he thought it was an opportunity seeing that it could communicate?

Moreover, if the first words uttered were about a master, it’s understandable to have some hopeful expectations.

That perhaps he could control a weapon meant to just turn the surroundings into a wasteland according to his will.

“…Mas, ter?”

“Yes, I am…”

-Slash!!!

A thunderous sound echoes amid silently watching the situation.

The blade that extended as the girl’s hand opened had split the abdomen.

A body containing countless weapons… Indeed, it seems no different from the game.

“Ugh, hrk…”

The pig-like guy collapses to the ground, clutching his stomach.

But the girl doll was looking down at such a being impassively.

It’s natural.

From the start, even in the game, once activated, it was a slaughter weapon that just relentlessly killed everything around it without exception.

“You… not master.”

At that moment, weapons began to pop out one by one as the surface of her body opened up.

From the weapons moved by wires and rods, faint vibrations and heat haze were rising.

As a being with self-awareness, it has will, and thus can handle mana as well.

“If not master, enemy…”

The moment insensitive eyes clearly aimed at the target.

“Enemy… eliminate.”

Just as the blades responding to that will were about to be fired, the bandage in my hand wrapped around the pig’s body and pulled him.

The blades that missed their target only mercilessly pierced the floor.

Then, when the empty gaze turned towards me, my hand blade tempered by fire was aimed at the pig’s stomach.

“Aaaagh! My, stomach… my stomach!!”

“Shut up.”

You should be grateful I’m even giving emergency hemostasis to trash.

Brushing off the fire tempered on my hand blade while leaving behind the smell of burning meat, I quietly faced the girl doll.

…In the game, it came out completely naked without even hair.

Dressed up like this, it does look like a girl after all.

“Who are you?”

Well, it was set as a weapon with self-awareness after all.

In the game, it had an independent AI so players couldn’t control it, but it might be different here in reality.

If it doesn’t act arrogantly like the previous pig claiming to be the master.

“Didn’t you learn to introduce yourself first when asking someone else’s name?”

“Self, introduction?”

The girl tilts her head at my question.

Then, with an empty gaze, she looked down at her own body and said.

“My name, Deus, Ex Machi… na.”

Yes, it seems to be the weapon I know.

An ancient weapon made with technology that doesn’t even have a trace left now.

A being with monstrous combat power that can easily handle several units single-handedly if just dropped on a battlefield, but impossible to control because it moves based on its own self-awareness.

Of course, it seems more delicately decorated in various ways compared to the game…

“I. Existence… created to, eliminate… enemies of, master.”

-Creak.

“Are you, enemy?”

The girl doll asks me while tilting her head.

Judging by how she looks for enemies first, it seems her nature I know remains the same.

“…I’m a teacher.”

“Tea, cher?”

“Yes, do you know what a teacher is?”

“Tea, cher.”

The girl doll responds to the question I asked with some hope.

“Teacher… fish…”

The girl doll’s head gradually tilted to the opposite side as she repeated my words.

Creak, creak.

Her head bends over 90 degrees as if a clock spring is turning.

Eventually, when her head had rotated 360 degrees, the girl opened her mouth again as if her thoughts were sorted out.

“Fish is, sea creature. Sea creature is, enemy of land…”

“…What a stream of consciousness.”

“Enemy, enemy, enemy…”

The kid’s eyes flashed while repeating the same word after nonsensical talk.

-Swish!

“Enemy… eliminate!”

The girl doll charges in while drawing out weapons all over her body.

The blades protruding from various parts of her body are all tempered with mana without exception, and their sharpness is on a different level from the riffraff I dealt with earlier.

Just touching them would likely tear apart any mana barrier and cut it to pieces.

“Aah. It’s a killer doll. Help!”

I struck the girl’s chin with my hand that precisely threaded through the gaps.

-Bam!!

The body lifted high by the impact flies upwards, between the huge parts making up the clock tower.

I repeatedly kick off the wall to pursue the doll.

Where I landed was a giant gear large enough to use as a foothold.

Standing there, I examined the fallen girl doll.

-Clink.

Was the impact too severe? The girl doll’s waist was bent almost 180 degrees.

Her face looking at me while in a bridge position in that state.

With only her face in normal position while upside down, it evoked an image that could appear in a horror movie.

“Hehe, I’m wide awake now.”

The girl doll straightened her body, seemingly unbothered by such an eccentric posture.

Despite hitting her with considerable force, the girl was fixing her body without issue and retrieving the weapons protruding from her body.

As if realizing this is an enemy that can’t be dealt with just by swinging cold weapons.

“You, strong.”

The sparks bursting from various parts of her body after that were a phenomenon arising from using the core inside her body as a power source.

Clearly, it was a structure that continuously activates energy generated by absorbing mana into the core to operate the body.

And a being originally created as a weapon of destruction.

“Strong one… is enemy.”

Just as in the game where it could only be used once, it will never stop until its body is completely destroyed.

And now I’m in a position to stop such a weapon of destruction single-handedly.

“Sigh, I didn’t take this school nurse job to go through this trouble.”

Just as I put a new cigarette in my mouth feeling bitter.

-Creak creak creak.

The floor begins to move in tune with the tension.

It’s not an illusion.

The place where the doll and I are standing is actually a giant gear.

If force is applied to the parts meshing with it, it’s structured to move automatically.

Yes, all the devices present at this scene exist solely to move the clock hands and strike the bell to announce the time.

It must be starting to move automatically because it’s reaching evening time.

“…What an ironic situation.”

To face in an artwork assembled through engineering.

None other than a weapon created through engineering.

-Spark!

Sparks jump from various parts of the body as I chew on such bitterness.

Along with that, the bluish eyes that lit up were precisely aimed at me.

The moment the energy existing inside the body charged the power needed for operation.

-Whoosh!

Eventually, the body propelled by that power leaps forward.

The blades protruding from the body that has become an afterimage even bisect the surrounding air, containing enough power to temporarily create a vacuum state in their trajectory.

-Slash!!

Blood spurts from the arm cut by that blade.

Before that blood flows more, I prevent bleeding with my hand blade generating heat, and look back at the girl doll standing on the opposite gear.

Spark, spark! Blue lightning rises from cracks all over her body.

Even as the light flowing from it illuminates the dark scene, the surrounding landscape continues to move repeatedly.

A series of creaking sounds heard from all directions.

Streams of light repeatedly blocked and leaking through moving parts, clearly visible gears and chains, movements of pillars and weights…

“Eli… minate!”

Even in such a chaotic situation, the girl doll’s mouth opens.

The light emitted by the energy concentrated inside begins to grow brighter.

-Boom!!!

Yes, as expected, the moment the high-pressure compressed energy gushes out through the mouth.

Everything existing in the trajectory of that attack burns, crumbles, and eventually scatters only as ashes.

-Whoosh!

But at that moment, my fist that moved forward with my back to the sound had grazed past that attack.

Its end was precisely aimed at the girl doll’s face.

“Ah…”

By the time she let out an exclamation, it was already too late.

-Bam!!

The swung fist accurately strikes her philtrum.

Before her body could be pushed back by the impact, I wrapped a bandage around her neck to pull her towards me, then immediately delivered a quick low kick to her lower body.

With a thud, her body twists.

Even in that deformed posture, a knife was swung aiming for the head, but by then I had already rotated my body and brought my palm forward.

-Bang!!

Eventually, the blade was pushed away by the quickly following rotational force.

My body, fully accepting that rotational force, quickly flew upwards.

And immediately fell downwards.

My heel precisely struck between the girl doll’s widened eyes.

“Ugh, ah…”

-Crunch!!

As soon as her neck bent from that attack, another low kick was delivered.

Immediately after, my outstretched hand grabbed the hair of the girl doll whose balance had become precarious, and threw her body upwards.

-Crash! Bang! Boom!!

The thrown body repeatedly smashes through the meshing gears.

Even just before that force subsides and she falls due to gravity, my body was quickly jumping up each part, closing the distance with the girl.

“You…”

-Swish!!!

The bandage thrown wraps around the girl doll’s body.

In that state, the thrown body smashes nearby parts, eventually slides down the wall and gets wedged between gears.

Creak, creak. The body trapped while caught between rotating gears.

That too would be undone soon with her strength, but by then my hand was already holding what was in my pocket.

Just stones I carry around only for throwing.

-Bam!!

As I throw those stones with full force, the girl doll’s body convulses greatly from the impact to her abdomen.

If she doesn’t respond here, what follows will be just one-sided bombardment.

-Bang, boom!!!

Projectiles repeatedly striking various parts of her body.

Unable to withstand those repeated attacks, light began to burst from the girl doll’s body caught in the gears.

-Spark spark spark!!

The moment the parts restraining her body turned to ashes from the spreading shockwave.

After landing on a nearby foothold, the girl doll looked down at her broken arm, then began to glare at me with round eyes.

“…What? What is this… huh?”

Oh my, it seems she’s quite surprised that the fight isn’t going as she thought.

But I had no intention of stopping the battle now.

Even if her appearance is that of a girl, I knew that child was not a young child but a weapon.

“You don’t think this is the end, do you?”

In the game, Deus Ex Machina was a weapon that didn’t stop slaughtering until it stopped after activation.

There’s no way such a thing’s characteristics would change just because it became reality.

Yes, so I thought she would charge right at me as soon as she recognized me, but.

“This person, dangerous.”

Contrary to my expectations, the girl didn’t immediately charge in.

Instead, she quickly grabbed a nearby rotating chain and began climbing towards the top of the tower.

What’s that, is she running away?

“…I didn’t expect this.”

To think one of the worst slaughter weapons in the game would run away immediately when faced with an enemy.

Did I hit her too hard?