Prologue 0-3: Silver Slayer

A homunculus is a servant of its master.

Homunculi are one of the greatest secrets of alchemy: artificial life-forms that are capable of independent thought, but exist only to obey their masters.

Homunculi have no other purpose.

This homunculus in particular, Silver Slayer, was watching a line of ants traveling along the side of a dirt road when suddenly she raised her head.

“Confirmed revival of lost target signal,” she whispered mechanically and froze for a moment. She looked like she was thinking deeply, or perhaps wasn’t thinking at all.

She appeared to be extremely beautiful from what little you could see of her underneath her bulky jacket. Her hair was closer to the color of ash than silver. Her eyes were the same hue. Her whole body was wrapped tightly in dirty bandages, but the gaps in them revealed her alabaster skin. She seemed almost too beautiful to be a living creature, and her expressionless face only made her look more like a doll.

“Delayed order will now be executed in accordance with signal’s restoration.”

She then closed her eyes, as if listening for something.

...Creeeak.

There was a squeaking sound like groaning gears. It was coming from inside her.

“Confirmed extension of unit lifespan beyond planned parameters. No hindrance to objectives.”

As she stood up, Silver Slayer coldly analyzed the fact that her end was near.

“Attempting to communicate with master before resuming activities...”

Silver Slayer closed her eyes for a moment.

“Failure. Trying again... Failure.”

But no matter how many times she tried, she just kept repeating the same word. Failure.

“...Deleting check-in task. Selecting next action from queue...” Her flat voice droned on as she stood perfectly still. “...Highest priority directive selected from queue. Highest priority directive is the execution of master’s will.”

Her master’s orders were more important than anything else. That was the one absolute in her life. It was written into her upon creation. Her master’s will was her moral compass.

She started to walk down the road, ready to execute her orders... but suddenly stopped. It was because of the line of ants that she’d been staring at earlier. The ants were clever and intelligent. They were carrying food back to their nest.

“Why did I stop? My actions are incorrect.”

An error had occurred in her priority list.

It wasn’t of much consequence when her target had vanished, but now it was time to fulfill her master’s orders. And with the limits of her lifespan approaching, she didn’t have a second to waste.

Yet she’d stopped anyway. For some reason, she wanted to watch the ants as they were hard at work once more. It was almost as if there was a bug in her thinking task. This wasn’t an action chosen as the result of a logical process. It was more like a new priority had just popped out of the void and overwritten her previous one.

“...”

Silver Slayer raised her foot to stomp the ants below her. She didn’t know what was going on, but if these insects were interfering with the execution of her primary task, they needed to be eliminated.

...Creeeak.

Another creaking noise came from within her. But this wasn’t the scream of some old, rusty part. It seemed to be something else entirely.

“...”

After a moment, she lowered her foot. Not on top of the ants, but on the road she’d meant to travel. She began walking again.

“Repeating highest priority task: My master has ordered the annihilation of Rosalind C. Bathory,” she whispered as if to remind herself of her duty.