Automata Unleashed

I was reborn into a fantasy world as a magic robot?! Book 3

Summer was coming to an end. So much had happened in the short handful of months since I was reborn into this new world that felt like a fantasy role playing game from my old world. At the time I was super excited about the chance to become a living robot since in my past life I was an avid fan of all things mecha and giant-robot.

When I got reborn, I got a bunch of cheat skills that let me fabricate just about anything I can imagine as long as I have the materials. I was also gifted with abilities that let me interact with this world’s magic the same way a computer programmer can interact with code. Those two aspects have defined my role in this world as a sort of artificer and I’ve put my skills to use in creating and upgrading other Automata bodies that I befriend.

I’ve even been able to build proxy shells and bodies for myself that are specialized to handle different situations. Some of them even transform into vehicles, which is like a childhood daydream come true.

It hasn’t all been sunshine and robots though. After meeting my first friend in this world, I learned that Automata are treated as property with strict propaganda from the government to enforce the idea that Automata are just really high end magic tools. Most people don’t know the truth.

I’ve figured out ways to dispel the control curse that gets placed onto Automata that makes them submit to a master as well as lock away all of their memories from before their conversion. Every Automata that I come across, I try to unlock.

As you can imagine, this hasn’t made me very popular with whomever is in charge of keeping the Automata as magic tools. I learned that there is a facility that’s called The Factory in a nearby town that produces Automata. This “Factory” has been murdering people and converting them into Automata on a mass scale for generations it would seem.

I only know this, thanks to what other Automata have told me about their experiences from before they were converted and what led up to it. Some of them were sold to The Factory as would-be slaves, others were criminals that were executed, and others still were actually soldiers from other countries that had been captured.

My friends and I even found that entire remote villages were being massacred in order to capture their souls and bind them to a soul core that could be installed in an Automata body. I didn’t have any definitive proof that it was The Factory killing off these villages but they were my top suspect.

We reclaimed one of those destroyed villages as a safe place for all of the Automata that I’ve freed so far. We call it “AutomaTown”. It’s corny, I know, but all of my Transformer referencing names got shot down since no one knows what an “Iacon” is.

For a brief couple of weeks, I had been working as an Adventurer using a proxy shell that looked like a big, black, wolfkin named Carnivac. I was part of a party with an elf named Shea and a warrior class Automata disguised as an orc, named Elita. We were doing pretty well until my cover was blown.

The Adventurer’s Guild ended up chasing after us and eventually a contingent from the Royal Guard was sent to wipe our whole village out. The royal contingent was even led by Prince Milliardo Peacecraft Du Fangwell, the crown prince of the Fangwell Empire; and his little sister Princess Relena.

During the battle, Princess Relena was murdered by their captain of the guard in some sort of political assasination meant for the prince. The captain had planned to blame it on us Automata as an easy scapegoat and means of unifying the Noble factions against a “common enemy”.

With her dying permission, I trapped the princess’s soul in a soul core to “save her life”. Right now, she’s in a loaner body until I can get something fitting of her station built. Not even the prince knew that Automata had living souls in them, but he divulged that the king had a close advisor that is actually a representative of The Factory.

For now, the prince is heading back to Capitol City for the trial and execution of the former head of the guard. We’ve decided to keep the princess’s conversion a secret for now for fear of The Factory getting their hands on her. Officially, she was gravely injured and is recovering; which is true... from a certain point of view.

I don’t know what the prince plans to tell his father in regards to our village. The princess is staying with us, so I know he won’t do anything that brings more violence our way. I have no choice other than to trust him right now.

My closest friend, Elita, ended up going off the deep end during our battle with the Royal Guard before flying off on draconic wings that I’d built for her. Apparently, Automata are a form of undead— something like “living armor” in RPG terms. The longer the soul goes after death without passing on, the more homicidal they become. Something about the soul decaying and needing to patch the holes by consuming the souls of the living.

From what I could tell when I inspected her core systems, Elita was OLD. Like... REALLY old. She’d been formatted and memory locked so many times that she had no memories at all from before her conversion other than the name “Maria”. Even her conversion memories were spotty at best, the further back you went.

I didn’t know just how old she was though, but it seemed like what she was going through was the end-of-life cycle for an Automata— which frankly sucked. Was this something that all Automata had to look forward to? Was it just her? I was never “alive” in this world, so what does that mean for me?

You could fill an ocean with the amount of stuff I didn’t know, but I suspected that I might find some answers if I started looking deeper at The Factory. Prince Milliardo promised to investigate just what sort of hooks The Factory had in the empire while I promised to start doing some more field work and investigating The Factory directly.

So many things to do, so many promises to keep. The weight of the world resting on my small shoulders seems to keep getting bigger.