Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Kurisu

Compared to ordinary horse carriages, the phantom horse carriage clearly had many advantages as they only half-existed in the mortal plane. They didn’t need to survive on food and water, nor were they picky with only travelling on straight roads. All they needed were enough magical power, and they could even levitate in the air for a short amount of time. They exceeded limits of space and the shape of the terrain. Especially enhanced phantom horse carriages even had the power to change their fixed trajectories.

Winlair was obviously someone who knew how to enjoy himself. The interior’s strengthened resting space appeared far more comfortable and wide than what one would assume from the outside. No matter how steep the mountainous route was, it wasn’t bumpy on the inside in the slightest. The carriage had three compartments, furnished differently and not missing a single thing. However, in this moment, only Katerina, Harloys, and Winlair, the few “female” comrades sat inside.

It wasn’t like I was picking on the gender separation or anything, as adventurers on long journeys were used to this. On long journeys like these, to get enough physical and fighting strength, the mages who needed to get some rest had the privilege to ride in comfort. Besides this, only these “weak women” had the privilege to ride on the vehicle… Alright, I should admit that these weak women were our best in combat. However, compared to the rough men, at least having beautiful women by my side was a little easy on the eyes.

Let’s not mention how Winlair was someone I relied on the most right now, as Harloys didn’t change the name. As my familiar, she had ranked-Legend powers and her real fighting skills could take out those fake ranked-Legends. Harloys could even fight it out with a Saint level, but as for Katerina… She was actually this journey’s biggest reward.

“With rich and robust qualities like artificial intelligence and emotion systems, what difference was it to normal people? Back in the day, Saint Civilization was truly frightening.”

A grimoire sat on the table, but my mind was elsewhere. On the other side, the gargoyles were patrolling under my control. Not even a field mouse would be able to escape their view within a three kilometer radius with their enhanced sapphire eyes for surveillance. Surveillance was comprised of four gargoyles who completed their job as “guards” extremely well. There was simply no need to worry.

You get what you pay for. The limit to a constructed creature’s powers were the same as the creator’s techniques and the quality of their resources used. Although many precious materials were used in places that I couldn’t even comment on, Winlair had plenty of money to make mithril ornaments and that was key to the gargoyles’ mobility. The basic functions had been well invested in and their abilities weren’t lackluster. Even with the most useless direct fighting power, gargoyles wouldn’t have a problem going alone up against Silver-ranked fighters.

“Um, Karo…”

Or perhaps, I was being too impolite for staring directly at them. Sitting in front of me, Katerina had her head down and her face was flushed.

“Oh, sorry. I was thinking about something.”

As an expert in souls, I didn’t see any secrets behind dead souls, living souls, and elemental souls. Back in the day, when I first saw Katerina, I was stunned by the artificial soul within her body that imitated a human’s.

Lowly artificial souls weren’t really a difficult problem to create, such as those gargoyles all having basic judgement and reasoning capabilities. Also, mage tower spirits and gold golems as such had a mind of their own. Judging solely by their ability to calculate, they were most probably better than Katerina who sat before me. However, for her to exist at all carried an extremely special meaning.

“What’s the difference between Katerina and normal artificial souls? In just a short amount of time, you most probably couldn’t tell, but the difference in their foundational characteristics were very obvious. Whilst those lowly creations were being made, their upper limit in abilities and their uses were already decided for them. Whereas Katerina developed abilities, self-realization, and emotions on her own. Her growth potential is exactly the same as humans, and on top of this, the fact that she has a metallic body structure means that she has limitless potential.”

In the ordinary materialistic world, simple logic and calculations weren’t far off from artificial souls. However, in Eich, where willpower could be transformed into actual strength, only by having emotions, self-awareness, and a soul could one possibly become a truly powerful fighter. No matter how strong an artificial soul’s stiff logic was, they were just a tool. Only souls with all standalone emotions could become truly independent “humans”.

The soul’s strength and growth was directly related to one’s potential. I could sense that if ordinary souls were a raw and untouched piece of ore, then Katerina’s soul was like a blazing sun that was wrapped by ore on the outside. Even if there were obstacles all around, the core was bright and couldn’t be covered up.

“The strength of this soul was practically like a legendary hero and God reincarnated. If something like this could be mass produced… then it wasn’t wrong for the Gods to have wiped out the Saint Civilization.

I’ve tried to let Katerina come into contact with martial skills and magic, but I was unable to determine that she had any special affinities for either. However, she must have an area that she was highly specialized in. Afterall, there was no way the Saint Civilization would spend so many resources to make the best artificial soul like this, and use her for an ordinary job like a female bartender.

There was no way to for me to currently reverse engineer the method of creating such a high quality artificial soul, but I understood what high quality meant. To forge a naturally strong soul like this one required them to use objects of the same value. By making a slight calculation, it far surpassed the value of a floating city.

For a soul expert, there wouldn’t be anything more tantalizing to learn about than an unknown yet powerful artificial soul. If it wasn’t for the fact that Katerina was a living robot rather than an ordinary life form, and that I wasn’t an expert in engineering and machines, then I would have likely taken Katerina apart already. It was only because I didn’t have the confidence in being able to successfully reconstruct her if I disassembled her.

If Katerina hadn’t taken so much of my attention,I wouldn’t have stayed here for so long. What’s more, I wouldn’t have found the dragon knight general Barton… I’m not gay, so why would I remember a man’s name out of boredom? I only discovered Barton coincidentally because of looking for her relatives after I found Katerina…

“A mere creation has such secrets. There must be some extremely shocking secret among the ruins. We absolutely can’t make a mistake!”

If I hadn’t spent so much energy studying Katerina and training little Barton, I would have gone tomb raiding ages ago. How could I let someone beat me to it and grab all the good stuff and secrets remaining there? That was the most important goal of this journey!

To completely milk the ruins for all it’s worth, I even braved danger and invited the great engineer Timlad!

What? Undead Dimensional Doors? Er, I supposed that I might as well take care of it since I came across it. If there’s no way to solve it, then so be it. Que sera sera, there are so many wars in this world, what’s there for me to do?

Aren’t you afraid of going overboard and there being an Eich version of a great robot war? Who’s to say that the woman before you isn’t the future Skynet? And yet you really wanted to unearth ancient relics. In reality, it was a dormant factory for creating war machines.

“The Terminator? Stop trying to scare me. In theory, I don’t think creating a completely human-like soul like Katerina is possible with mass production techniques. Even if it could be mass produced, and dangerous artificial souls at that, this isn’t even Earth, so what is there to fear?”

Yes. This wasn’t a modern city with electronics and computers all over the streets. Most lands were still in medieval times. Even if it were creations from magical engineering techniques, they were more like man-made old-fashioned heavy machinery, there was no space for artificial souls to interfere. Even if we wanted a grand Skynet magical world, there was no soil for Skynet to mature in.

What? Techniques that matured after several thousands of years? The great war of the machines only happened thereafter? I wouldn’t even know where my bones and ashes would be then, so what’s it got to do with me?

“Um, Karo… You look a little strange. Are you unwell?”

There was too much on my mind. My flickering expressions made Katerina feel uneasy, as she asked tentatively.

“He’s wondering how to he should take off your clothes.”

Harloys’ voice sounded full of evil intent, but it made Katerina take a quick half-step back. She suspected something long ago, seeing him lie on the chair with seeming thirst in his eyes to strip her naked.

Too many things happened in the past few days; so many things that this uneducated female bartender couldn’t even wrap her head around it. Forget that her good friend who she trusted suddenly became the highly revered great mage master, he now looked at her like as if he could see through her soul, and it made her incapable of feeling at ease.

She thought about it repeatedly. There must have been some other reason for a respected master mage to pretend to be a drunkard for as long as half a year in a bar. He even hung out with a female bartender like herself who came from lowly beginnings.

But now, this blonde little girl gave a rather reasonable sounding answer.

“You… Karo, tell me that you’re not that kind of person! Why aren’t you saying anything? We’re good friends. I treat you like a brother, an older brother. Unless, you really only thought about…. about having sex with me!”

The female bartender who never went to school had to deal with those vulgar adventurers, so she spoke bluntly and unrestrained. It happened so suddenly that even Harloys who had been filled with so much evil intent was astonished together with myself.

“Miss, he’s a douchebag! He’s an irresponsible playboy who’s already made countless girls cry; even I’m one of the victims! And what he wants to do the most is strip everything off you. Look at the way he’s gritting his teeth! He wants to hit me again! Miss, Save me!”

In an instant, silly cat pounced into Katerina’s arms. Tears had already started flowing from the corner of her eyes as though she had already been deeply hurt.

“You think…”

“You can ask him! He’s cursed himself before, so he can’t lie. However, he could really get away with it using flowery, insincere words. Just ask if what I said was true! Did he want to strip you or not and did he make a lot of good women cry?!”

“I…”

“Yes or no? You can’t use flowery words with such a direct answer. We don’t need other answers!”

“F*ck! Harloys!”

Being an expert at truthful lying, how did it feel to be bound by your own most realistic lie? I really wanted go ballistic, but I didn’t know how to begin. In other people’s eyes, this furiosity was merely because of my embarrassment at having my vices exposed.

In Katerina’s eyes, my silence was a kind of tacit admission. It was an enormous hit like thunder striking in clear blue skies to her. Her face immediately turned pale, as she staggered out of the horse carriage and hid behind her adoptive father……

“Silly cat!”

“Ha! With Elisa and Amelia already, you still have time to start a love affair? I’ve nipped it in the bud for you, so no need to thank me.”

I was just thinking about getting revenge when those two familiar names calmed me down in an instant. Yet, right now, as the gargoyles watched me, I got into some trouble that I was forced to deal with.