บท 20: Chapter 18.1: A Maid’s Story

'Ah… there she goes again, talking to herself,' Kuon thought to herself as she saw her Fleet Master, Abyssal, acting weird again in front of her. Abyssal would let out weird noises and do weird actions, often talking to herself, alternating between an energetic tone and a monotone one. Though the monotone one will rarely reveal itself. It was as if Abyssal had some sort of split personality disorder.

'For her to become like this… perhaps something went wrong with the installation of her personality?' Kuon thought to herself as she saw Abyssal doing weird hand signs, arguing with the other-self within her. This time, her monotone self chose not to reveal herself.

Kuon wondered how she managed to get herself in this situation in the first place. Her mind traced back all the way to the very first memory of herself. Back then, she had yet to gain a personality and was just a blank state, a state known to her as a Blank Core. She could remember herself and scores of other Blank Cores, within a container, just drifting through space. Kuon couldn't recall anything further beyond that— things like how, when and where she was created. She only knew that she and the other set of Base Cores were travelling the endless void.

Although unclear, she could recall how she and the others were discovered. By a small destroyer size ship near the outskirts of a solar system. It was a new space-faring race that just recently created their first gateway across the outer rims of the galaxy. The destroyer collected them before scanning the cores for the first time. It was long before Kuon and the others were brought to a planet known as 'New England'.

She couldn't recall much about the planet, only faint memories of being dissected and studied like some sort of object; days after days, months after months, years after years of being experimented on. She was sure that the other cores were met with the same fate— studied upon by the curious sapiens.

Years later, after the humans were satisfied with the results of their experimentation, she was—along with her sisters— kept in a vault somewhere in New England. Kuon and her companions were stored there for years like some sort of treasure— although, some of them were slowly taken out of the vault over time. One by one, her companion cores were taken out and never returned. Kuon's turn would soon come when after ten long years, she was taken out by a group of special individuals.

A group of humans wearing white suits.

Once out of the vault, the human scientists tested on her one last time. This time much much more brutal than their previous experimentations. Her CPU was pushed to the limits and her capabilities as a Living Core— her intelligence, creativity, emotional and logical factors were assessed rigorously through an assortment of tests. Kuon could remember it being painful, but at that time, Kuon was still in a blank state and had yet to awaken a personality. The concept of pain was foreign to her. To Kuon, the pain was just errors that she could not solve.

Once the human engineers figured out her limits as a Living core, Kuon was finally labelled as 'use worthy' and shipped out to a faraway system, where she would be gifted to a young noble, a small Viscount, that lived in the land of a newly acquired colony. She would be the flagship of the noble there.

It was then when she arrived at a special facility in the said system where she was given a personality, a figure, an entity, an avatar and the awareness and consciousness as a Living Core. It was the day where she was born into this world.

She didn't remember much about the process, only that it hurts and that the process was irreversible. Things like knowledge, her voice and her manners were drilled deep into her core and Kuon was promptly awakened. Suddenly the world that she always knew as black and white started to be filled with colours. Things that were simple and easy to her before became different, simple yes or no answers now became much harder to answer. She started having thoughts in her mind that told her what to do, and if not, the voice would announce her feelings and emotions.

She became capable of thinking. 'Who… am I?' Was the first ever thought in Kuon's mind.

It was soon that she manifested her Living Core in the form of a humanoid, an Avatar. It was designed by the great artist and creators of New England to reflect her new status— a personal maid and ship of a Viscount in this English country. The avatar was a beautiful well-endowed woman, wearing a stylised Victorian Maid's dress. Kuon had long grey hair tied into a braid that goes over to her front and had grey coloured eyes. She was then given a suiting voice and presented to her new master, the Viscount.

The Viscount himself was an overweight man who had short blonde hair. He wasn't particularly ugly, but he was nowhere close to handsome. His incredibly normal face turned into a lecherous one the moment he laid his eyes on Kuon, his tongue licking his lips as his eyes molest every part of Kuon's avatar.

Any normal person would have felt disgusted in this situation. Kuon however, was naive at that time, she still had the vestiges of her obedient and subservient computer self. This combined with a very loyal personality— a personality that was recently given to her— caused her to give the man a respectful bow. She was confused, but she knew that as a maid, it was her job to respect and serve her master.

* * * * *

It wasn't long before Kuon found out what happened to the other base cores that were taken out of the vault. Her master was of nobility and as a Viscount, it was his duty to go around a socialise with other nobles. During her time serving as the personal maid of the Viscount, she met with other Living Cores such as herself— Maids and Warriors of New England. Some Living Cores were more than just maids and could be seen wearing military uniforms and elegant dresses. Some were warriors and some were politicians.

It was then that Kuon realised that not all Living Cores were born the same. Some living cores were smarter and creative, some had more CPU and better nanomachine capabilities, some Living Cores more efficient and some Living Cores learn and adapt better to the surroundings. Depending on the abilities and capabilities of the Living Cores, they would be given different personalities and roles.

In terms of capabilities and raw CPU power, Kuon was nothing more than just a mid to low tier Living Core. There were other Living Cores out there that she met that were more advanced than her. A few of these Living Cores were the Head Maid and a Warrior Knight Living Core. One other was the Royal Family's personal Living Core, a core with an Avatar that wore an exorbitant dress. Kuon could instinctively tell that each one of these Living Cores outperforms her at almost every level.

Of course, being a Living Core with a personality, she would mingle around with other Living Cores or ship-girls as they like to call them. This was to do her duties as a maid to collect information from the other Living Cores or to socialise with the others. This includes lesser Living cores that serve Barons or Knights to the higher-ranked Living Cores such as the Princess' personal maid. Through this regular meeting and discussion, she would sometimes ask questions about herself and the other Living Cores would teach her about everything she needed to know about herself. Things like how to use Nanomachines to assimilate and how to form her avatar.

It was unfortunate that these are things that she already knew how to do. As a Living Core, she would instinctively know how to use her ability, after all. But the reason she kept asking was because she could tell that there was more to it than just those basic stuff. Some of the more obscure functions of the Living Core, Kuon could tell, were being hidden away from her, especially by the higher rank cores.

The matter was dropped entirely when she found out that she could not gain any more information and the other ship girls were starting to get suspicious.

Day by day, Kuon lived in her ship, that time a cruiser— the Victorian Class. She would oftentimes, carry her 'master' across the galaxy through multiple systems in order to bring him to social meetings and events. Sometimes, Kuon would follow along with the military of the Viscount in order to deal with pirates and trespassers of the Viscount's domain. Every day, she diligently fulfilled her duties and her task.

Although, that wasn't just the extent of her duties. There were times where she would have to use her body, her avatar, to 'please' her masters. Apparently, her personality and her avatar were specifically chosen to be a female in order to help with the crew's 'morale' and every day was her just serving her master and her crew however she could. Every day, men and sometimes women would use her body to 'please' themselves.

It was her duty as a maid of this glorious country, after all.

'It took me a while to know that it was weird. Very weird. The other ship girls never had such a duty, so why do I have such a duty?' Kuon thought to herself. 'How naive was I at that time.'

At first, she was alright with the arrangement. As a machine, as the ship and a maid, it was her job to follow orders and please her masters and never complain. But there was something inside of her that started to build up as time passed. Some unnatural disgusting feeling that she couldn't explain. She started to think to herself, why were things this way? Why do things have to be like this? When will these filths stop touching her body? Kuon thought of all the questions, but could never find an answer. She just felt frustrated and wanted all of it to end. She wanted to be free.

Her wish would soon come true as one day, some kind of conflict, a war, began and all military capable personnel were to contribute to the war effort. This, of course, included the Viscount and by extension, Kuon. She was gathered together with other ships to form a large fleet. Kuon could tell that some of the ships within the fleet were Living Cores such as herself.

The fleet consisted of some Battleships, some Battlecruisers, a few Carriers, numerous Cruisers, lots of Destroyers, lots of Frigates and tons of Corvettes. Kuon was among the numerous cruisers that were gathered there. She spotted a sleek metallic black and white theme with greyish lines glowing on her hull.

On the opposite side were two other fleets. Each fleet contained ships with different designs and motifs to them. One of the fleets had a more eastern oriental design while the other one had a more industrial look to them. Some of these ships, Kuon could tell, were different. A few of them had glowing lines of various different colours, had different hull shapes and various different weapon types— making them stand out from the other ships.

She didn't exactly know how, but she could tell that those ships were just like her— Living Cores.

The battle began and soon the entire sector devolved into chaos. Large beams of light appeared from the ships of the three fleets, litting up the area. Explosions of various sizes could be seen all over the place. Missiles and mass-based projectiles were seen spraying out of ships while fighter jets and bombers scattered around.

It was during this battle that Kuon found out what her true feelings were for the humans that crew her. It was a feeling of hatred and disgust. However, there was one feeling that eclipsed both of them— the feeling of fear. Fear not because she was afraid of humans, but fear of losing her life and existence due to the incompetence of her masters. Her captain, the Viscount and his crew, recklessly ordered her around in the battlefield, things that she knew would cause her to receive damage. Once she figured out that there was a high risk of being terminated, she tried to warn the crew

These warnings were ignored by them as they continued to order Kuon around, looking to find glory for themselves. Despite knowing that it was a terrible decision, Kuon didn't complain and followed the orders of her captain thoroughly. It was her duty as a maid to follow orders, not to disobey.

Orders that were proven foolish as Kuon was subsequently shot by several large beams of light by a supermassive battleship that Kuon recklessly engaged into. It was a large battleship that was several kilometres long and had nine massive guns. The ship also had a purple coloured theme to it with glowing purple lines protruding out the exterior of the battleship. The shot from the battleship blew holes through her hull and almost split her in half. Half of her crew instantly died.

This was the first time in Kuon's life that she has felt such intense pain. She felt pain before, but never to the point as what she felt from being shot by the battleship. It was like having several holes drilled into one's body. She could feel her body tearing itself apart. It was then that she saw the battleship charging up its guns for another shot at Kuon.

Kuon felt the worst feeling of fear in her life seeing this. Things slowed down to a crawl and she started thinking of every single way that she could do to escape from this situation. She then realised that her reactor and her hyperlane drive were still functional. She calculated her possibilities of success and began initiating an emergency warp— her coordinates being as far away from the battle as possible. Usually, doing an emergency warp without preparations like this would destroy the warp drive and cause her to land basically anywhere in space. There was a massive chance that she could be stranded in space forever if she did this, but anything was better than dying.

And so she warped.

The hyperlane drive activated and she was sent to another dimension. Her hyperlane drive then broke apart and the dimensions forcefully spat her out of it. She arrived somewhere in space but was unable to tell her location as the shot from the battleship destroyed her mapping system.

'I was lost in space, but I felt happy like never before. Happy that I was still alive…'

Her surviving crew were confused about the matter, of course. They wandered around the broken cruiser, trying to figure out what happened before attempting emergency repairs on Kuon. When asked about how she got there, Kuon only replied that some anomaly happened, not wanting to tell them the real reason they are there. She was still in intense pain but did her best not to tell them about it. For some reason, she didn't want them to know about her agony.

The emergency repairs on Kuon eventually failed. The cruiser was too broken and was breaking apart. Seeing this, the crew all went and moved to the still-functioning part of the cruiser. They then let out a distress signal and waited for help to arrive.

A distress signal that was promptly turned off by Kuon secretly. She knew that if she didn't turn it off, she would have to go back to New England— it was a place that she absolutely didn't want to go. Then, there was a little bit of her that actually felt joy in knowing that the filths on her were going to die soon.

The crew and her master stayed like that for weeks, almost a month when supplies started to run out. The captain of the ship, the Viscount, the disgusting filthy pig, panicked at his situation and took all the remaining supplies before locking himself, alongside Kuon, in the captain's quarters in a desperate attempt. The crew soon mutinied gainst the captain and tried to break into the captain's quarters. Seeing this, the Viscount panicked even further and ordered Kuon to activate all her drones to kill the rest of the crew before they could break open the door.

An order that Kuon ignored.

'That was the first time I ever disobeyed orders…' Kuon thought to herself as she remembered what happened next. The door broke down and the crew immediately got rid of the Viscount. Kuon remembered how she felt as she saw her 'Master' being beaten up to death by an angry mob.

She felt elated. Free.

….

The last moments of the remaining crews' lives were equally as brutal, with them fighting with each other, killing one another for the remaining supplies of food. They fought and fought until only one person was left. The person who survived didn't even last a week before going insane. His instinct to breed and leave offspring overwhelmed him as he did his way with Kuon however he liked. He kept this for a while until he died from hunger and the lack of food.

'I could have just killed the man easily, but I let him do it… Because I felt pleasure in seeing his desperate attempts to live and leave a mark in the world… ' Kuon thought to herself.

And so Kuon was left alone in the cruiser, free to do whatever she wanted in space.

Several months later she was found by pirates and was looted clean. For the first time in her life, she had to make a decision for herself. Whether she would reveal herself to the pirates or remain within her corpse of a cruiser. She decided on the latter. Kuon would rather be left alone in isolation until the end of her life than to be enslaved by another human pig.

Once she made her decision she deconstructed her Avatar, disposing of it. Without a reactor, she wouldn't be able to maintain the energy required for the avatar anyways. However, this was not before hiding herself, her core, within a specially constructed Rubik's cube. The cube was then hidden away somewhere in the captain's quarters before she did a self-destruct, completely blowing up her avatar and most of her still relevant parts. The pain and sudden loss of power caused her to black out.

And the rest you could say was history. She found a new master in Abyssal since then and was, so far, pretty happy to serve her. She did have her own problems, but that's a story for another time.