Chapter 365

12-10 Ehr

After lunch, Jin, Reinhart, and Saki returned to the workshop, but Belche ended up staying behind.

Reinhart had told her that he felt sorry for dragging her along, and that she didn’t need to go back to the workshop with them.

But Belche replied that she wanted to accompany him, no matter how boring it might be.

“I’d love to have some of your specially prepared sweets for our 3 o’clock tea time, Bel. It’s been a while.”

Since Reinhart had asked her, she decided to stay behind and wait for them with some sweets for tea time.

“Well then, next is the skin, face, and hair, right?”

Asked Reinhart while taking materials from the shelves.

“Saki, do you have any requests?”

Saki thought hard about that.

“Hmm, I don’t have anything particular in mind… but if I had to choose, I think I’d like it to have light-blue eyes. As for its hair, light blonde, and short.”

The first thing that came to Jin’s mind when hearing that was Elsa’s face. He then started to work immediately.

Without having anything particular in mind, he used Elsa as a model, but with a more neutral-gendered face.

Reinhart played the role of an assistant. He was closely observing Jin’s ability, eager to learn from his crafting technique.

Since it was a rather meticulous effort, it took them about an hour to complete the automata’s exterior, but they had done a magnificent work.

“Hmm, hmm! Good, good! I like it a lot! It’s fantastic, Jin!”

Only the fine details remained: adjusting the speaking device and its voice quality, tuning its vision and hearing, and so on.

“Jin, what should we do about the Control Core? And, are we copying someone else’s behavioral patterns, like how you did with Lotte?

Lotte is a maid golem that was commissioned to Jin by his good friend, Earl Kuzuma, for the exclusive use of Prince Ernest, back in the Egelia Kingdom.

On that occasion, he copied the behavior and knowledge from the head maid of the Kuzuma household.

“Oh, I’ve come prepared this time.”

Jin took out a Magi Crystal prepared for storing information from his pocket, which will serve as the automata’s master reference.

This is the same thing used for the five-colored maid golems back in Hourai Island.

“‘Trans-info’ Level 6.”

With this, the automata will be able to provide the highest level of household services, just like the ones in Hourai Island. In short, it will be able to prepare Jin’s favorite dishes. That, in fact, was one of the main reasons to make it like this.

Then, an Ether Tank and an Ether Driver will be used for its power source, just like in Elena’s case.

“What’s that, Jin?”

It was the first time Reinhart had seen that Magi Device. So, Jin explained.

“Well, there’s this automata called Elena… with this, she can operate semi-permanently.”

“Ah, if only we had some ether…“

This type of technology was also present during the Great Magic War, and automata such as Ann and Tia used to be equipped with an Ether Converter and a Mana Driver.

It is older than the current equipment used with Houran Island golems and automata, but it’s usable enough.

“Oh, so you will be storing ether in its Ether Tank, and changing it into magic with the Ether Driver? Very interesting!”

Saki was staring at the two of them work while mumbling such things.

It was completed a little before tea time.

“All right, let’s start it up. Reiko, can you share some of your ether?”

“Yes, Father.”

The Ether Converter in Reiko’s body has an added function to collect ether. Because of this, Reiko has a considerable amount of ether inside her body.

The Engineering Magic ‘Transmit’ is rarely used, but it’s mostly used to activate Ether Converters when there is no Mana Driver present.

Since this new automata was not created for battle, it has a small Ether Tank. For this reason, it was filled up very quickly, and soon they were able to start up the Ether Driver.

“‘Activate’.”

Jin said the activation keyword, and the automata opened its eyes.

“Nice to meet you, Creator.”

Since the one who created the Control Core was Jin, he was considered the Creator by the automata’s system.

“All right, your master is Saki Eschenbach.”「よし、お前の主人はこのサキ・エッシェンバッハだ」

“Yes. Saki Eschenbach-sama, I’m in your care.”

Since the voice was adjusted to be neutral, Jin thought that it sounded as if a woman was playing a male role in a play.

The automata then turned to Saki, and greeted her with a bow.

“Saki, can you give it a name?”

After hearing Jin’s question, Saki, who was feeling nervous about being referred to as a master by an automata for the first time, suddenly came to her senses and started thinking.

“A name… Hmm…“

Before long, Saki raised her head as if an idea had just hit her, and said a name.

“All right, let’s call you ‘Ehr’.”

“Yes, Master. My name is ‘Ehr’.”

“Ehr?”

That was not a name you would hear that often.

“Yeah, I remembered that in a book I read a long time ago, the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, were written as Yee, Ehr, Zan, Su… The second one in the world was 2, which was called ‘Ehr’.”

“I see.”

Reinhart was honestly delighted, but Jin had his doubts.

“Say, Saki, what kind of book is it? I also know how to count in that system… Yi, er, san, si, wu, liu, qi, ba, jiu, shi… “

“Oh, that’s quite similar, huh? But I’m sorry, Jin, I don’t know. Those were some old documents, and one particular book among them had only up to the number four written that way. There was no hint of it being a counting system or anything in the first place.”

Jin desisted to push the matter any further after hearing Saki’s explanation. Those numbers were strangely similar to how the numbers are pronounced in Chinese, for some reason.

“… I see. I’m the one who’s sorry, Saki. It was a weird question. Let’s just focus on Ehr for now.”

“All right, Ehr, try to stand up.”

Saki began giving instructions to Ehr.

“Yes.”

Ehr stood up… or so he thought. The table fell with a loud noise. Ehr had stumbled and, trying to support himself on the table, ended up bringing it with him to the floor.

“Ah, are you okay?”

“Yes, master. I am fine.”

As he said that, he tried to stand up once again, but he fell to the floor once more. To Jin, it appeared that the control system was not working properly.

“All right, Ehr, just sit down for now.”

Jin also took a seat and thought of a task to give Ehr in order to test the condition of his control system.

To that end, he asked Saki to prepare some clay.

“Okay, Ehr. Try to shape this clay into a dumpling.”

Ehr said yes, reached out to the clay… and crushed it in his hand.

Seeing that, Reinhart expressed his disappointment.

“It’s a failure, Jin. He can’t control his strength at all.”

But Jin had a different opinion about it.

“Ehr, take your time. Try as many times as you want.”

“Yes, Creator.”

As instructed, Ehr takes some clay with his hands. And then, he ends up crushing the clay every time.

“… It’s no good, Jin. What could have gone wrong?”

Contrary to Reinhart’s discouragement, Jin’s eyes were fixed on Ehr’s movements.

“Is it just my imagination, Jin? I have a feeling that Ehr is becoming more and more dexterous every time…“

Just as stated, though little by little, Ehr seemed to remember the degree of strength with which he held the clay in his hands.

And ten minutes later, Ehr managed to make a perfect dumpling out of clay.

“So that’s what’s happening…“

“Jin, I can’t make heads nor tails of this by myself. Please explain it to me!”

Both Reinhart and Saki were worried about not fully understanding what was going on. Jin told them his opinion on the matter.

“I’m thinking that perhaps the signal sent from tactile sensors are not in line with the control formula I prepared.”

In Jin’s calculations, the control formula contained information passed down from an earlier generation model. So it’s only natural that the newly designed sense of touch was not considered in that formula.

At first, Ehr’s control system does not know how to properly handle unknown information like the sense of touch.

Then, after getting ‘used’ to it over time, he finally managed to roll up a piece of clay successfully.

“I see, that makes sense!”

“I’m not so sure I fully understand, but do you mean that Ehr is not used to his body yet?”

Jin nodded.

“That’s what I think. That’s why for now I think it’s best to let Ehr learn his movements little by little, like a baby.”

“Reinhart-sama! It’s time for tea! It’s a little late, so I came to pick you up.”

Since Belche called them out for tea, Jin and the others left Ehr to continue with his exercises with clay and left for the main wing of the house for tea.

(Reiko, just to make sure, keep an eye on Ehr.)

Jin couldn’t forget to give a quick instruction to Reiko with a low voice.