Chapter Sixty-Four: A Mecha Girl Needs No Friends

"Worry, according to the explanation, means being unable to let go. I am strong, so there’s no need to worry." Nodding with certainty, Zhuang Xiaosi reaffirmed the correctness of her conclusion. As she spoke, she leaned back against Zhuang Xiaoyuan, sweeping her beam swords left and right. Several approaching fiends were instantly sliced apart, their core crystals vanishing in a flash.

"Worry has nothing to do with strength," Zhuang Xiaoyuan replied, frowning slightly as the Gatling gun in her hands whirred to life again. The storm of bullets tore through the fiends converging from the other side, shredding them into pieces. Their exposed core crystals, unable to withstand the metallic onslaught, were pulverized in moments. "It's because I care that I worry. No matter how strong you are, those who care about you can’t help but worry when you’re facing danger."

Though she had come to understand the machine girls’ emotional fragility, after meeting some older ones, Zhuang Xiaoyuan had begun to doubt her earlier conclusions. But seeing Zhuang Xiaosi again, she realized she’d been right—machine girls still didn’t truly grasp the nature of emotion. Especially this one before her.

"Care? You care about me? Why?" Zhuang Xiaosi still could not comprehend, asking as she guided them both toward the center of the open space.

"Isn’t it obvious? You were the first person I saw when I opened my eyes. And I think we’re already friends. Isn’t it normal for friends to care about each other?" As she followed Zhuang Xiaosi, Zhuang Xiaoyuan manipulated eight Dragoon floating cannons with her mind, weaving a dense net of scarlet laser beams—a web of death that vaporized a charging tank-class fiend from behind.

"Friends? Machine girls do not need friends." The green binary code flickered in Zhuang Xiaosi’s eyes as she searched her databases. After a thorough query, her conclusion was clear: friends… were unnecessary.

"Is that so?" Zhuang Xiaoyuan’s gaze sharpened and she fell silent for a moment, a trace of self-mockery curling her lips. "Since you insist you don’t need friends, I won’t presume. But if friends are unnecessary, do you need comrades in arms?"

"Comrades… Confirmed." Zhuang Xiaosi’s green data flickered even faster in the silence, then paused. She gave a small nod, acknowledging their relationship as comrades.

They reached the center of the clearing, carved out amid the horde of fiends. From afar, a considerable number of machine girls had gathered here, but most were in a battered, broken state—at least a third were unable to fly at all, their propulsion systems at their backs severely damaged.

"How did it come to this? Is this why you couldn’t retreat in time?" Looking at the bodies lying on the ground—expressionless, faces as calm as if dead, only the faint flicker in their eyes revealing life—Zhuang Xiaoyuan’s face was a mix of shock and heartache.

It was a sorrowful sight. Despite suffering such grievous wounds, their faces remained so serene, unable to express what lay within. What a heart-wrenching race they were.

It wasn’t that the machine girls lacked emotion; theirs were simply frail by nature. Or perhaps, having never been taught from birth, they’d never learned what feelings truly were. If they had been mere machines, the damage would have only drawn pity. But to possess emotion and yet be unable to express it—that evoked a far deeper pain.

"Those with over thirty percent damage were all shot down by unknown energy beams of mysterious origin. This is not all of them—some were obliterated, not even a single part left." Zhuang Xiaosi’s face remained unchanged, but her tone carried a heaviness she herself did not notice.

With each exchange with Zhuang Xiaoyuan, Zhuang Xiaosi’s understanding of emotion was subtly shifting. The awakening of her own feelings was perhaps only a matter of time.

"Damage rate… Using such a term here really makes me uncomfortable. Hm." Zhuang Xiaoyuan frowned and glanced toward the direction from which the fiends came. "The energy beams you mentioned must be from artillery-class fiends. With such a vast force, it’s only natural there would be artillery-class among them. Yet it seems there aren’t any Demon Gods."

Not having encountered a single Demon God along the way was abnormal. Typically, every fiend carried the seed of a Demon God, and though their emergence was rare, the numbers here made the absence inexplicable. Yet, fact remained—none had appeared.

"Artillery-class fiends? Demon Gods? Zhuang Xiaoyuan, you know these things?" Zhuang Xiaosi looked over, green binary flickering in her eyes—she was likely querying the central processor for the terms Zhuang Xiaoyuan used.

"Yes, I know a bit about these monsters. They’re called fiends..." While they were still some distance from the gathering point, Zhuang Xiaoyuan quickly explained what Demon Gods and fiends were.

Ordinarily, displaying such knowledge of fiends would arouse suspicion. But not in this world. Here, among machine girls with limited emotional awareness, few would ever think to question her—save for the rare few who had awakened their own feelings.

"So that’s what these are—fiends. I’ve never encountered the Demon Gods you mentioned. Central processor update complete. Fiend data uploaded." It seemed Zhuang Xiaosi had transmitted Zhuang Xiaoyuan’s information to the central processor. With these details, the other machine girls would be better prepared, and the unknown would be less daunting. It would be a great help in the battles to come.

"I only know so much. I’m also puzzled why there are no Demon Gods. What do you plan to do now—will you leave?" As she spoke, the two of them landed at the center of the machine girls’ gathering.

The gravely wounded machine girls lay in the middle, their remaining energy barely keeping them functional. Around them, the intact machine girls stood guard, holding off the fiends’ assault. Judging by the vigor of those on the perimeter, it was likely that the energy of the wounded had been transferred to those still able to fight.

Would it be a blessing or a curse if all these machine girls awakened to emotion? With feelings, and the tempering of time, perhaps unity would become difficult. For emotions are not only positive—they can be negative as well.

Witnessing their selflessness, Zhuang Xiaoyuan felt a tangle of emotions. As a human who had once lived through a time of great peace—a world of mutual scheming and exploitation, of hurt and profit above all—Zhuang Xiaoyuan understood the darkness of the human heart, the complexity of emotion, better than anyone. She could only hope that if these machine girls were to awaken to feelings, they would not follow in humanity’s bitter footsteps...