The heavy, oppressive atmosphere of the dining hall had lifted, replaced by a new, strange kind of quiet. A domestic one. I sat at the far end of the long table, a solitary figure in the vast, empty room, nursing my own hunger and watching a scene I never would have thought possible.
Lyra, the perfect, logical, and emotionally composed attendant, was sitting on the bench next to Nara. She wasn't holding her hand or offering platitudes of comfort. Her form of care was, in its own way, perfectly Lyra.
"The nutrient-to-sugar ratio in these biscuits is optimized for rapid energy replacement in a subject of your mass," she was explaining calmly, as if delivering a report. "The citrus beverage is fortified with electrolytes to combat dehydration. Was the flavor profile to your satisfaction?"
Nara, who had probably never had a 'nutrient-to-sugar ratio' explained to her in her life, just nodded shyly, her cheeks full of biscuit. "It's good," she whispered.
"Excellent," Lyra replied, a flicker of what I could only describe as satisfaction in her amber eyes. "Data-point logged."
A small, weary smile touched my lips. I was being left alone, a forgotten party at the corner of the table, but I was fine with it. Nara, who had been trembling like a leaf in a storm, was now calm. She was eating. She was safe. She seemed to be enjoying the strange, formal attention she was getting from Lyra. The juxtaposition of the child from the slums and the perfect, android-like attendant was bizarre, but it was working. Nara was safe.
Which meant I could get back to my mission.
I quietly pushed my chair back, the legs scraping softly on the stone floor. Both of them looked up.
"I'm glad she's feeling better," I said, giving Lyra a nod of thanks. "Since you're here and she's clearly in good hands, I'm going to resume my survey. I still have the entire Neutral Sector to log, not to mention—"
"I am afraid that will not be possible, Kael-sama."
Lyra's voice, as polite and unyielding as ever, cut me off. I froze, my hand on the back of the chair.
"What do you mean?" I asked. "She's safe here with you. I have a job to do."
"As do I," Lyra replied, turning her full, placid attention to me. The brief, almost-human warmth she had shown Nara vanished, replaced by the unassailable logic of her core programming. "My duties include the full logistical management of this Faction, the cataloging of Foreman Fen's structural integrity reports, the coordination of resource allocation for the new wasteland expansion, and the personal, daily maintenance of the Master's workshop. My operational parameters are at 112% capacity."
She stated it all as a simple, undeniable fact. Her gaze was not unkind, but it was absolute.
"You are the one who encountered this new variable," she continued, gesturing politely toward Nara. "You are the one who made the command decision to bring her here, diverting from your primary objective. Therefore, the management of this variable—Nara—now falls under your directive. I cannot look after the child, Kael-sama. I have my own work."
I stood there, completely and utterly floored. I had been outmaneuvered by logic. I looked from Lyra's impassive, 'it-is-not-my-problem' face to Nara, who was now watching our exchange, her eyes wide with a new, dawning fear that I was about to abandon her. The biscuit in her hand was forgotten.
A heavy, resigned sigh escaped me. I couldn't argue. I couldn't debate. Lyra was right. This was my responsibility. I had made this choice in the alley, and I had to see it through.
I slowly sat back down, my grand mission to survey the city collapsing into a new, far more complicated one: babysitting.
"Right," I said, running a hand through my hair. "No. You're right. I understand."
I looked at Nara, forcing a reassuring smile. "Looks like you're stuck with me, kid."
Her answering smile was small, but it was genuine. And in that moment, I knew I'd made the right choice, regardless of the mission. My job was to be a scout, to protect the city. And right now, "the city" was a seven-year-old girl who had nowhere else to go. My structural integrity survey could wait.
My mind, however, couldn't let it go. With my day now unexpectedly free, my thoughts drifted back to the mystery that had started all of this. The Neutral Sector.
Erina's words from the plaza echoed in my head. 'It's a chunk of the wasteland, just with walls around it.' A place with no laws, no patrols, and no... maintenance. My eyes drifted to Lyra. She was the one who managed Fen's reports. She would know. She would have the answers.
I opened my mouth to ask, but then I closed it.
I looked at her, truly looked at her. Lyra, the perfect attendant. The one who had "assumed" I had an ID card. The one who had "forgotten" to mention that the city was divided into four distinct, faction-controlled sectors and one lawless, decaying slum. The same way Valerius, Fen, and Elara had all "forgotten."
It wasn't an oversight. The realization settled on me, cold and heavy as stone. It was impossible for beings this precise, this logical, this dedicated to their duties, to be so consistently negligent. They hadn't forgotten to tell me. They had chosen not to.
I was a tool. An asset. A replacement. Krauss had saved my life to perform a function. They gave me the tools I needed for that function—a new cloak, a new gun, a new mission. But they hadn't given me the context. They hadn't given me the truth. They were keeping me in the dark, telling me only what I absolutely needed to know for the specific task at hand, and not a single, crucial detail more.
Why?
Why was the Neutral Sector a secret? Why was it allowed to exist in such a state of decay, in a city run by the Master Builder himself? What was the truth that Erina had been about to tell me, the truth that the summons were so clearly, silently, and unitedly withholding?
Asking Lyra would be pointless. She would either deflect with a polite, logical non-answer, or she would simply state that the information was 'not relevant to my current directives.'
A quiet, simmering frustration began to build inside me, beneath the acceptance of my new duty. I was a part of this faction, a part of this family, but I was not one of them. I was an outsider, a glitched player who they had caged and put to work.
Fine. If they wouldn't give me the answers, I would have to find them myself.
But not today. Today, I had a new priority.
I looked at Nara, who had finished her biscuit and was now looking at me with a quiet, expectant curiosity.
"So," I said, forcing a cheerfulness I didn't entirely feel. "I guess I'm off-duty. You... uh... you like games?"