It's been two weeks since I came to the royal palace.
I'm now living in a room in one part of the royal palace.
However, since that day, the king hasn't called for me.
They don't give me any explanation, but I know the reason. I'm watching through the harvesters.
They're thoroughly analyzing the harvesters using experts in the hospital. Since most of the people originally in the hospital seem to be important, they're conducting tests to check if their illnesses have been completely cured.
But on the contrary, people who aren't important.
For example, children who became orphans during the Bern City incident. They separate harvesters from among them and literally dissect them.
They don't even anesthetize properly and conduct human experiments, so thankfully I heard everything they said. So there are a few things I know.
For example, the blue skin. They say if you peel off the skin, the flesh pieces return to their original color. Even the hair color is the same.
If you drop it, it returns from blue to its original color, and if you reattach it and let it heal, it turns blue as if seasoning is soaking into meat.
In the case of amputated wounds, there are big individual differences, but it shows that more than half can regenerate even if it takes time.
I also heard that they will definitely live longer than the average lifespan.
However, I don't know more than that. Maybe because it's just like torture anyway, they were experimenting on the same face every time, but that person died.
A child who was hiding their ability controlled metal and blew off their head. But the child was already fatally wounded, so they ended up dying too.
Unfortunately, after that, there were no more people kidnapped for dissection.
Let's be satisfied with gaining a little information this time.
Other than that.
Two days ago, they held a press conference with people who played a big role in Bern City. Broadcast journalists and newspaper reporters. They all came and took photos and videos.
The king came out and gave a plaque of appreciation to each of those who worked in the disaster area, and distributed prize money.
It's really a wonderful method.
Because it treated the work of those who suffered there as if it never happened, and only a few people received money. Moreover, they put faces on photos for easy recognition.
It might be different if you have enough power or strength to protect yourself, but for people who have nothing, it becomes a target of jealousy and greed.
Of course, it would be difficult to take away the plaque of appreciation, but you can't guarantee that it won't happen with humans.
In other words, there will be many people trying to steal the prize money.
Then, they'll resist? The warmth will increase too. Hehe.
Let's return to the story.
There was a press conference.
I thought I might be able to meet Victoria there, but I couldn't meet her because I was completely isolated and had a separate press conference.
However, I know that Victoria is also heading to the Royal Academy, and since she's thinking of seeing me there, I thought I'd do the same.
For reference, in that broadcast, while clarifying that I'm not an apostle of god, I also implanted an image of just being someone who does what others tell me to do.
If someone asks, yes or no.
When a question is thrown, they told me to answer like this.
When I received a difficult question to answer, I stared blankly at the highest-ranking person.
I was also curious how people would interpret this.
At least the harvesters interpreted it like this.
That I'm a pitiful person held captive by the royal family.
I'm acting to appear that way, and I'm glad it's working very well.
I stay still like a child who knows nothing.
Anyway, since there's an overflow of screens to watch, I just sit quietly in the room given to me without going out unnecessarily.
The people working around me.
They mainly do cleaning or change my clothes, but the people with education who are supposed to be servants and maids whisper that they feel bad looking at me.
It's because I'm acting passively like a doll.
I still haven't made the person the king really wants to heal into a harvester.
An easy-to-understand, easy-to-handle object that stays still if left alone.
Thanks to that, the people working around me are extremely dismissive of me. At first, they treated me like a high-ranking person, but gradually their attitude relaxed, and when they realized that I hardly react even when they talk to themselves or swear, they started treating me comfortably.
However, whether it's because they're afraid of the king or because I look like a child, even though their attitude became rough, it didn't go as far as abuse.
They just treated me like a cute doll.
Although there were some who weren't like that as five people changed over two weeks.
Time passed quickly.
And finally.
The king called for me.
Unlike usual, people wearing heavy armor came, and I followed them to the place where the king was waiting.
I thought I would be invited to a working space again, but I headed to a place I had never been before.
Not a building in the middle of the royal palace, but a beautiful palace standing alone a little distance away.
The soldier who brought me here stopped at the entrance of the palace, then looked back.
And I alone went inside.
As I entered there, inside were the king and a young man who looked just like him.
Father and son, I see. They both look fine, so I wonder if someone like the queen has a problem?
"Can this one really save her?"
"Yes. Haven't you seen the people who were healed?"
It's a bit stiff for a conversation between son and father.
Inside, there's the prince looking at me with suspicious eyes and the king looking at me with expectant eyes.
As soon as we arrived, the king said:
"Follow me."
And I followed the king deep into the building.
After going up to the second floor, there's a large room there. It would have been a beautiful room originally, but instead of decorations or tools, a huge machine is humming and running.
And countless tubes protruding from that machine head towards a bed.
In the middle of the bed. A girl close to a corpse is lying with several tubes going into her face, and tubes stuck in her chest and abdomen.
It's more of a machine for life support rather than for treatment.
"Make a contract with this child."
The king said that while pointing at that girl. I glanced at the prince's expression. But he's half suspicious, half expectant of me.
Nowhere is there an expression of disliking the girl waking up.
They must have been close.
Thinking that, I climbed onto the bed without saying anything. Because the bed was so packed with tubes, when I accidentally stepped on a tube, the prince shouted at me loudly.
But the king soothed and calmed him.
He growls, but with my height, it's difficult to get closer without stepping on the tubes. So I just stepped on them and stood in front of the child. Since my skin touched the girl's body, I said this:
"I'll give myself to you. In return, I'll take everything you have when you finish everything later. How about it?"
The girl answered that she wanted to live, and the contract was established.
Crack.
The girl's entire body changed like pottery and suddenly stopped. And strange patterns appeared on the girl's face and chest.
"Do you know what this is? It's interfering with the contract."
As the prince approached me angrily, he saw where I was pointing and his face turned white. And the king also looked at the pattern with a face seeing something terrible.
There must be some connection.
Well, it's a world where there's magic that can revive almost anything. If there's a reason why a princess who can receive top-class treatment can't wake up, it means there's something interfering with it.
I deliberately waited quietly. So that they could clearly memorize the pattern, and to make them more desperate.
"Can't even your power save Aurora?"
The king asks me with a despairing expression.
The contract has already ended. But because they're trying to push me in, it's like there's a thin vinyl membrane on top of the cup, so I can't enter.
It's very thin.
"I'll try my best."
Yes. With this, I clearly showed that I made an effort. While waiting for them to give some explanation, no one opens their mouth.
It's difficult to get more information than this.
So I tore apart what was interfering and properly made her into a harvester.
As I entered, the light turns dark purple.
At the same time, her whole body changes like pottery again and all the tubes stuck in her body fly out.
And as that pottery breaks, blue skin comes out from inside.
Plop plop.
As all the eggshell-like pottery fragments fell off, a naked girl emerged.
Of course, unlike before, her hair color is purple and her skin is dyed blue.
And the girl named Aurora opened her eyes.
"Uh, Father, Mother? Brother?"
The girl sits up groggily and looks alternately at the king, the prince, and me.
"Um... Is she my little sister, or my niece?"
Indeed.
It's a logical inference. In a space where only family can come, there's an unfamiliar girl standing on her bed.
She remembers that she was sick and dying, so she must have thought a lot of time passed while she was lying down.
So logically thinking, I must be someone's family.
But since it's not the correct answer, I immediately got off the bed. Aurora is staring at me with a face full of questions, but I went in front of the king.
"You did it."
The king slowly knelt in front of me.
"Thank you."
I nodded silently without saying anything. In fact, it's not something to receive thanks for, since I threw everything except her current life into the gutter.
Warmth is more important.
"Huh? What! It's not clothes! Why is my skin blue? Am I that close to death? Uh. Uhh? Hair! Why is it purple? Wasn't my hair originally platinum blonde?"
Aurora touches herself here and there in confusion. But her brother Sorindiges is looking at his sister with tears of joy, and her father Hypion let out a sigh mixed with various emotions including relief.
And King Hypion approached Aurora, covered her naked body with a blanket, then hugged Aurora.
"Welcome back."
Aurora made an awkward expression, and soon answered with a voice mixed with crying.
"Yes, Dad."
Leaving them, I watched them from a distance. From afar, they look like a good family.
For reference, the queen died after giving birth to Aurora. In such cases, it seems right to hate the surviving child, but here they raised her with love and care.
But because of that, she might be unfortunate. Because such a father sold her to me.
I thought like that while looking at the new harvester in the upper class.
As I expect, in this world, it seems like I can create an automatic warmth harvesting system.