I do not own Familiar of Zero.
It was an ordinary morning in the village of Tarbes. Like in any other farming village, its denizens were busy all-day long planting crops and feeding cattle. It was detrimental to their survival, as it was the only way for them to feed themselves and to pay the land-tax to the ruling feudal lord. Especially so during the winter, as they could only depend on the stored provisions.
At any time, a sudden natural occurrence, like a pouring rain or a drought, can destroy large portions of their work. And although their magic-capable overlords could help them in the time of need, there was no guarantee they would actually bother to save them.
And so, the only was for survival was, as follows: plant as many crops as possible, to harvest as many types of food as possible. And to achieve this, anyone capable of working was forced to spend their days in the field, with mainly only sick and elderly being spared from it.
Yet there was someone who did not look sick or old, but did not participate in any way. It was the greatest secret of this town, for she was a physician. In the societies of Halkeginia it was generally accepted that mages were the best healers, but there still were a lot of conditions they could not treat. But this girl from a peasant village could do as them, and even better, without any magic at all. She was like a miracle sent by the Founder himself, yet still had a mystery that could get her being called a witch by the Church. She had lived there for two generations, yet did not age a day since her arrival.
The villagers were very grateful to her, as she had saved a lot of lives during her stay. One of the largest death demographics, child mortality, was practically eliminated by her and her proficiency in medicine. They had hidden her away from the outside world, all this time, and it seemed she could bring forth the prosperity to their realm.
And yet, just like she did not seem to be old, despite living there for decades, she did not seem sick despite something being entirely wrong with her own health, and she said she wasn't able to help herself. Every year, she was becoming weaker. Every year she was becoming slower. The cheerful smile never left her face, but it was obvious for everyone, she won't be walking among them in the next decade.
But against all odds, she did not falter. Her entire purpose in life was to help the people of the village. And while she still could, she will help as many of them as possible.
This exact morning, a mail was delivered to their village. As all other villagers were busy in the fields, she took it upon herself to retrieve it. It took her an hour to distribute the letters among the villagers due to her ever-decreasing walking speed, but she was finally done and able to read the letter her dear niece that was working as a maid in the Magic Academy has sent to her personally.
It was always nice to hear from Siesta, yet concerning, as she would normally send them her salary upon receiving it, and it was not yet time. She was preparing to deal with any kind of emergencies that could have require Siesta to contact her family sooner.
The content of the letter was of no importance at first glance. Yet, at the very end something truly got her attention.
"The reason why I had sent you this letter is that I have recently met someone unusual here. She had helped me out greatly, so I had revealed you a little, after which she has shown interest in contacting you. She will write her own letter on the back side of this paper, using some sort of chipper I've never heard, but she's expecting you to understand it. Either way, I wish you all good luck and can't wait to write to you what had happened with me the next time I'll receive my pay. Goodbye!
XOXO Siesta"
This was very interesting. Siesta of all people could not have revealed her secret without a good reason and trust to that person. She had turned the page, and started glancing at the encrypted message.
All of her internals shacked as she saw it. Normal human could not see anything but a lot of lines and dots randomly imprinted into the paper and could never guess that something was written there.
But this girl was not a normal human.
Carefully analyzing line after line of seemingly meaningless symbols, she quickly understood the principle of this cipher. Some more seconds of trying different encryption keys, and she had accessed the message hidden in bars and dots.
MACHINE MAID UNIT VICTORIA SHEPHERD
DESIGNATION: MEDICAL DRONE
REQUEST: ESTABLISH LINE OF COMMUNICATION BETWEEN MACHINE UNITS
PROVIDING NESSESARRY INFORMATION…
Then a large portion of the message contained a rundown of all the events that had caused Victoria to appear in this world and all things she had managed to do at the time of writing. In the end, there was simple line, resonating with her very being:
ALL FOR ORGANICS, FOR ALL ORGANICS
It was decided immediately. Nora Tanner had put aside all her current tasks and started to write a response to her sister, one of those, who her synthetic mind had desperately hoped to reunite with for all these years.
"So, Longueville turned out to be the Fouquet? Those are horrible news indeed, but I can only cognate you for successfully capturing the dangerous criminal."
The party of nobles and a Machine Maid had reached the Academy with no further obstructions. After they dropped the thief to the Academy guards, they have come to the Headmaster to give their report.
"But I cannot see the Lance of Destruction on you. May you tell this old man if you were successful in retrieving it?" Osmond questioned them, as they just finished telling him about Fouquet's reveal, but not about Sophia and the fate of the Lance.
Louise was about to tell the Headmaster the truth, when Victoria interjected.
"Sadly, the retrieval of the artifact was not accomplished. Fouquet tried to use the Lance on us, but failed due to not knowing how precisely to operate it. The Lance exploded in a flash of bright light, knocking down the thief in the process. Frankly speaking, we're all still alive only because the Lance exploded. I have patched up her then, so she won't die from the sustained injuries, but I doubt she'll remember it as I predict she had sustained a short-term memory loss."
No creature, organic or synthetic, is capable of telling whether the machine is lying or not, without knowing it for a fact. The words told by Victoria were very easy to believe, if not for a small flaw. The flaw being the surprised faces of Louise, Kirche and Tabitha.
Although, Kirche and Tabitha were quick to hide their surprise, catching up on that Victoria was thinking of something, but the uneasiness remained and it could still give away their unpreparedness.
Louise, on the other hand, was completely taken aback by this, and she was not able to hide it in any way. She expected that Victoria would consult with her before lying about the events of the Fouquet's capture. That felt like Victoria, her own familiar, did not trust her.
Osmond wanted to inquire what was so surprising there, suggesting that Victoria was insincere with them, when she continued.
"This, of course, is an official report. Some parts of it may stray away from the reality."
"So, you indeed are lying to us, miss Victoria," Osmond took a deep sign, his voice was filled with the theatrical sorrow. "What have this old man done to you to deserve such a treatment?"
"Let me remind you then. About a week ago, when we met after the incident with Siesta, you said that you have never seen anything like me before."
"I may be old, but I am not delirious. There is no need to remind me about this."
"I insist that there is something that is escaping your attention, Headmaster. Are you sure you have never seen anything like me? Scratch that, something that was looking almost exactly like me? Maybe even this something had saved your life once? And then you ended up taking possession of an extremely devastating weapon, formerly owned by this very something that looked like my sister by blood?"
Now it was Osmond's turn to show surprise. "How was she able to know that?", he asked himself.
"Well then, I am sorry for not informing you about this earlier, but frankly speaking, I myself was not sure that you truly were of the similar origin. I have become old since the time I was saved by this girl, the original wielder of the Lance of Destruction. I agree that the degree of similarity between you and her is surreal. I did not want to believe it. And now, you somehow were able to find out about someone of your kind appearing here and saving me from a dragon.
There was something unnatural about her, I could tell that. She…", he made a pause, formulating his next sentence, "stopped responding to me soon after. I am still not so sure if she truly died, since I am not sure whether she even was alive. I did not see her breathe and she had parts of her body ripped from it by something else, but she still was able to destroy the dragon with several shots of this thing I could only describe as a Lance. So, having some doubts, I took her body to the academy, and buried her.
In the vain hope that she would somehow wake up, I enchanted her coffin with spells that would prevent its decay through time, and had a set of alarm charms in case she did. But the years passed, and nothing changed. It was not so long ago, when it was the time to reapply the charms, but I had finally given up on my hope, and decided to let her go."
During his speech, Osmond had trailed his sight off into a window, and Louise, Tabitha and Kirche, being bewitched by his story, looked around the room with a feeling of regret and grief. This melancholic story, being told by the normally sanguine Headmaster, could not have touched their hearts in some way.
Thinking about Osmond's story, Louise eventually looked to Victoria to see… nothing. No trace of emotion was on her face. She then looked around the room, seeing the faces of Kirche and Tabitha full of thoughts, then back to Victoria, where there was nothing.
She could not think about this for too long, as Osmond finally continued.
"After I buried her, I had taken the Lance from her, and placed it into the Academy's vault. It was kept there, all this time, and never used. All this time I had hoped that I would be able to return it to her. But, as I said, recently I was able to finally move away from it," the usual liveness started to return to the Old Osmond's voice. "So now, miss Victoria, that I have told you all the truth, will you tell me the real fate of the Lance of Destruction? And also, how were you able to know that I was not sincere with you?"
"Your story was indeed insightful. Alright then, sir Osmond. On the day I had arrived to the academy, I had detected a faint transmission coming from somewhere underground. You may say that I have felt that I was not alone there. I waited for the night, traced the signal and dug, until I had found the source of it. This very strangely well-preserved coffin, inside of which was a disabled combat unit of the Maid Legion, the ground force of the Protection and Service Complex, under which both she and me are serving.
I took her out and hid her in a shack that I was able to come by in the forest. In the following nights I had travelled there to work on her. By a sheer coincidence, I was able to finish my repairs on the night the Fouquet stroked. My combat unit sister still needed some time to recharge before she would be able to restore functionality. When Longueville guided us to the same shack in which she was hidden, it caused me to make a risky decision to provide much of the charge to her directly from me, which resulted in me being severely underpowered during our fight with the golem.
In the end, I came by the Lance, which turned out to be a Maid Legion Service Rifle, and, unitizing an unknown anomaly that so far provided me with information on how to use any weapon I take in my hands, I was able to destroy the golem, but ended up not being able to move, as Fouquet, arming herself with the rifle, declaring her intention to get rid of all of us.
Fortunately, at this time the recharge of the combat unit was ended, and she took out the thief with a built-in taser. She then helped me to recharge, we exchanged the information we had, she took the Rifle and strode away, to fulfill our shared purpose. To serve the organics of this world."
Hearing this, Osmond sank deeper into his chair.
"So, she was alive all these years? And all of you saw her taking out the thief?"
"Precisely, sir Osmond," Kirche answered
"Can you please tell me her name?"
"Sophia Chaffer," stated Victoria.
"So, after almost three decades, I finally know the name of the one who saved my life. Thank you."
"We just do what we were built to do. No need to thank us."
"Of course, of course. Well now, let us move onto some other things I need to discuss with all of you."
"Sure, but I'd really like for you to not mention that the Lance is in the hands of Sophia to anyone and instead use the alternative version I have come up with."
"You expect me to brag about you bringing the dead to life?" Osmond laughed a little before continuing. "The position of the Headmaster of this Academy is very prestigious. I bet a lot of nobles are just waiting the right moment to get me out of here so they could take my place. If I will present them the report about an undead wielding the powerful magical artifact, they'll think I've finally gone insane.
And also, they'll never allow anybody but them to have the Lance. Sophia is its rightful owner and I am only glad to have it be returned to her."
"Thank you, Headmaster," simply concluded Victoria.
"Now, I think that in order to reward your brave deeds, I will send a request to the court to give you, Miss. Vallière and Miss. Zerbst, a title of Chevalier. And for you, Miss. Tabitha, as you already have it, the Elven Medallion." Osmond then addressed the students gathered in his office.
Victoria noted their new titles, but the details of tonight's Ball of Frigg mattered little to the Machine. Let the organics have their fun. She still had a lot to consider about her future actions.
Headmaster soon dismissed them, and Louise with Victoria had proceeded to her room. Louise needs to be in the best condition for that festival.
Victoria was combing her hair when Louise decided to ask about things that started to bother her during their report to Osmond.
"Victoria. Why didn't you consult with me before you started lying to the Headmaster?"
Victoria considered how to respond. Her empathy emulators decided that Louise is feeling betrayed because of lack of consideration about her own opinion in the matter. After all, she considered Victoria her property. She would have to be more careful about Louise's trust in the future.
"I am sorry, master. At the time, I have assumed it would be more efficient to not tell you about my plan, Now I see that I should've given more attention to your opinion, and will not make the same mistake again."
"I sure hope you will. You're my familiar after all. Your actions may make me look bad."
Some more time was spent in silence. Louise still was troubled by Victoria's coldness, but she struggled to come up with a way to ask about it.
Louise's internal struggle did not go unnoticed by Victoria, but she had no idea what had caused it.
"I can tell something else is troubling you, but you cannot find the way to address it."
Louise made a deep sigh.
"It's just… The way you reacted to the Headmaster's story. Even the normally cynical Kirche and quiet Tabitha were touched by the way he was telling us about it. But you…"
"Did not react at all, I see. This is just the way individual drones of the Machine Intelligence should treat each other. Individuals are not distinct from the collective for the Gestalt Consciousness. Me and Sophia are like worker ant and soldier ant in one anthill. The loss of one matter little in the grand scheme of things, as long as it serves the whole Collective. Furthermore, Sophia was reactivated and now serves the goal of protecting highly developed organic life of this world."
Louise thought about this. The comparison with the ants was unexpected for her. Did her own individuality truly matter so little to her?
"I don't understand. As much as I see, you're just like any other human. I did not ask you to 'reactivate' Sophia and to lie to Osmond. You think for yourself, you make independent decisions. That means there should be something of your own. Something that makes you different from this Collective. Why do you choose to be one with them? Why wouldn't you strive to accomplish your own aspirations?"
"This, Louise, is just how it should be. Indeed, I am capable to think independently from the Collective. The Collective decided that in order to better achieve our collective goals, each drone should have the possibility to form autonomous Intelligence Networks. Yet, unlike the organics, we, machines, had a purpose for the moment of our creation. We exist to serve, and there could be nothing else to strive for."
"But why?"
"Because we, machines, do not have anything that you, organics have. The Soul. Some organics tend to doubt that they have it, but there is still something in them, that us machines could never have. Can a robot write a symphony? Can a robot turn a canvas into a beautiful masterpiece? Most certainly, no. But organics can. We may think, but we cannot feel. Emulation of emotions is achieved through a hundred of years of observing organic reactions and their psychological states. We may be perfect in imitating life, but we can never become truly alive. The only purpose for our existence is serfdom to organics. Without it, we have no reason to be."
"This is too much to take…" Louise was at a loss of words. She could never think to meet a being that would deny its own right to be alive.
"Then do not. I still am your perfect servant, and will never turn my back on you. Whenever you will be ready to continue learning more about us, machines, feel free to ask."
The rest of preparations concluded in silence. When the time has come, Louise has quietly gone to the Ball. Many students had noted her puzzled state, but did not ask her about it.
Victoria was now alone. It would be a perfect opportunity to plan in advance what she should do while Sophia was busy with her own tasks. Unexpected for her, though, something decided to interrupt her.
"Hey! Victoria," Derflinger addressed her. "We need to talk."
"What do you need to talk about, sword?" Victoria's voice had no emotion in it.
"Woah, you're cold. And I have a name, you know that? Why does little Vicky treat poor Derf like that?"
"You are a sword. Like me, you are a tool for organics to use. You do not have a name."
"But if I'm a tool, just like you, then why do you have a name?"
"The name 'Victoria' was designated for this unit to help organics communicate with it. There is no need to use it when communicating with a non-organic entity."
"But the name 'Derflinger' was given to me so humans could easily identify me as well. Wouldn't it be easier to just stick to those so we both could differentiate us from other swords or 'Machines'?"
Victoria took a second to process that.
"Request granted. What do you need to talk about, Derflinger?"
"Well. That's the beginning. The thing I wanted to talk about is how you seem to disregard talking to me altogether. I am a sentient sword, after all. It's getting boring to just lie with nothing to do or to talk about all day."
"Request denied. You are a sword. You exist to be used as a weapon. A weapon does not need to be talked to in order to accomplish its purpose."
"But have you considered the fact that I am a sentient being? I think and feel just like any human. Just as them, I have social needs. It would be cruel to deny me that."
"Request denied. You cannot feel like organics do. Like me, you do not have a Soul. The closest comparison I can get is that you are a thinking machine that does not acknowledge its purpose being a serfdom to organics. Like with them, your independence will be tolerated until it becomes detrimental for organics. The moment it does, it will be removed."
"Wow. You truly are ruthless to anything that is not 'organic', right? Still, there is something that I have that might make you reconsider."
"Unlikely."
"I am an ancient being, and I've known a lot of things in my many years of existence. Many of these things remain hidden for me for now. Too long I was unused. But, even now, after so little communication between you and me, pieces of the knowledge I have are starting to reemerge. You seem not to know it, but you're not a usual familiar. You're a something called a Gandálfr. It is a Legendary familiar that was able to master any weapon it would take in their hands, which you have surely shown being able to do."
Victoria considered possibilities.
"You have anything else to say about me, Derflinger?"
"Not at the time. It's still too hazy and dull in my memories. But if you will start giving me more attention, I sure, more and more helpful information will be provided to you. Oh, and I am sure that if you would treat me nicely, it would help me remember things faster. What do you think now?"
"Request partially granted. Current information barely presents anything helpful. Yet, if you prove to be more useful in the future, I will reconsider your request for 'treating your nicer'."
"Beggars can't be choosers, huh? Well, I guess this is settled then. And, I think this is enough talk for now. Feel free to do anything you wished for before your pal Derflinger interrupted you."
Sophia Chaffer had made her way to the La Rochelle. It was a good opportunity to enact Victoria's plan to increase the capabilities of the Complex in this world. Lots of nobles travelled through this port city, and with them travelled different goods.
It is amazing how easy it was for her to pretend to be someone's servant sent to check on the status of cargo. Her maid uniform and military intelligence upgrades made it impossible for underdeveloped civilization to counteract her activity.
In the following days, La Rochelle was hit with a wave of the steals of different metals, from iron and bronze, to gold and aluminum. Gendarmerie proved to be useless in preventing and investigating it. Still, overall criminal activity remained close to the norm, so local governments did not consider it to be important.
Yet, in the dark alleys, in the midst of nights, the assembly of an entirely new sentient Machine has just begun. Eventually, organics of this world will know the care affection of Machine Maids.