Robot Protection Zone Chapter 28

The master’s hand that had been stroking my head was withdrawn.

As the warm touch disappeared, a wave of disappointment washed over me. Calming my pleasantly pounding heart, I decided to ask my master about the kiss from yesterday. To see if it was really a joke, or if….

Taking the empty glass, I carefully opened my mouth.

“Master… about what happened yesterday….”

“Yesterday?”

My master turned to me and repeated my question. But his reaction was strange somehow.

“Don’t tell me… you don’t remember?”

“I remember coming home, but I don’t remember anything after that.”

I froze, as if struck by lightning.

What…?

He took my lips and then forgot all about it? Crash. I heard the sound of something collapsing in my head. My heart, which I thought had been malfunctioning, now grew cold.

And here I was, not knowing that, agonizing over it all by myself for nothing…. It really was just a simple drunken act from my inebriated master.

It was shocking. The me who had spent all last night worrying and wondering how I should act around my master now felt like a complete fool. I even felt a sense of betrayal toward my master, equal to the amount of trouble I had gone through all night alone.

An unexplainable sense of emptiness dug into a corner of my heart. My shoulders slumped dejectedly as I took the empty glass and stood up from my seat.

“Why, did something happen?”

“No, nothing happened at all….”

I kept my mouth firmly shut and forced myself to shake my head.

The truth was, I wanted to demand how he could steal my lips and then forget about it so casually, but I forced my emotions down. When I answered with forced nonchalance, my master seemed to pay it no mind and just nodded his head.

Click.

I left the room alone and quietly closed the door.

Still, it was a relief. If my master couldn’t remember, then I could also just go on as usual, as if nothing had happened. Although I probably couldn’t help my gaze from constantly drifting to my master’s lips….

I quickly shook my head.

No. That was just a mistake my master made while he was drunk. The reason my heart keeps pounding is probably because Mr. William resembles my old master so much.

…Probably.

It was before he left for work. My master called me and gave me an order.

“Didi, show me your arm.”

I nodded and rolled up my sleeve.

This had recently become a new morning routine. The moment I woke up, I had to get my wound checked by my master to see how much it had healed.

The stitches that had sewn my skin together were removed yesterday, but the scar still remained distinct. The line where the scalpel had passed was still red and swollen, and bluish bruises had spread around it, making it look even worse, as if the swelling was just starting to go down.

I found myself furtively studying my master’s expression. It was because his mood always seemed to sour whenever he saw my wound. Today, he looked even more haggard than usual, perhaps due to his hangover, which made me even more concerned.

After he went to work, I sat on the office sofa and thought about it seriously.

Lately, I hadn’t been able to do anything for my master. I was even forbidden from doing housework until my arm healed…. The only thing I could do was try to recall information that might be helpful to him.

I wrapped my head in my hands and fell into deep thought. I tried hard to recall any information that might be helpful to my master, but nothing much came to mind.

“What are you doing?”

As I sat there with my head in my hands, my master must have found me strange, as he came up beside me and asked.

“I’m trying to think of some information that might be helpful to you, Master.”

“What’s this? Trying to do something praiseworthy for a change. Alright, if you think of anything useful, I’ll praise you.”

My master reacted as if it were unexpected. I felt happy in advance at the thought of being praised, and a grin spread across my face without me realizing it.

“So, do you remember anything?”

“No….”

“Right, I didn’t expect much.”

My master chuckled and plopped down next to me, then suddenly lay down with his head in my lap. I looked down at him, flustered, but my master closed his eyes nonchalantly.

“Master…?”

“I think I still have a hangover, my head hurts. For some weird reason, it’s fine when I’m with you. I’m just going to lie down for a bit, so wake me up if someone comes looking for me.”

My master’s soft blond hair tickled my thigh. Long eyelashes fluttered beneath his peacefully closed eyes, and the sound of his regular breathing hovered gently by my ears.

And his slightly parted lips.

My heart pounded. I quickly shook my head in alarm.

It was a simple mistake. My master didn’t even remember kissing me. There was no need to take to heart every single drunken act of this drunkard master.

I simply loved my old master. Although I was abandoned, my love for him still remained. He would remain in my memory for the rest of my life as the master I loved.

That’s why seeing my current master, who resembles him, makes me so confused. That’s why.

After returning home, I had dinner and then spent time with Eve, lying on the sofa.

While I was playing with Eve, I saw my master going up to his room, but I deliberately pretended not to notice and kept my eyes away from the stairs.

Thud.

Along with the sound of a door closing on the second floor, the smartphone in my pocket fell to the floor. Eve stopped beside the table and pointed out where the smartphone had fallen.

“Thank you, Eve.”

As I thanked Eve and picked up the smartphone, a thought suddenly occurred to me. Couldn’t I possibly find information about my old master on a smartphone?

I was curious about how my old master had lived after I was powered down. How he had aged, what traces he had left on the world. And… whether he was happy in the end.

My current master had only ordered me to recall everything about my old master, but he showed a displeased reaction whenever I actually asked about him. Were they not on good terms? Mr. William didn’t seem to like my old master very much.

I cautiously speculate that the reason might be because my old master hid the method for creating human-like robots. Since that was what my current master wanted from me.

“……”

Now that I was actually about to look up my old master, I felt a little hesitant. What if I found his wrinkled face unfamiliar? Or what if his life wasn’t as peaceful as I had imagined?

As I hesitated, I suddenly realized. I simply didn’t have the courage to witness my master’s future, a future where there was no trace of me.

The moment I realized that, all my hesitation vanished. Making up plausible excuses when I was the one who was abandoned. I felt pathetic.

I swallowed a sigh and turned on the screen.

I opened the internet with its unfamiliar logo and was about to search for my old master’s name. But then, a familiar name caught my eye in the main news section.

William Spencer. It was my master’s name. But the headline that followed was even more eye-catching.

“A Major Scandal for William Spencer? The Shocking Identity of the Other Party is…?”

This wasn’t what I had intended to look up, but the provocative headline made my finger move on its own.

Tap.

When I clicked on the article, my master’s photo appeared along with dense blocks of text. The sensational content and flashy writing style drew me into the article without me realizing it. The provocative advertisements inserted here and there seemed to make the article appear even more sensational.

I read through the long article in an instant.

The identity of the person in the dating rumor was indeed shocking. It was the actress who played the female lead in the first movie I saw with my master.

I did think my master’s reaction was a bit lukewarm when we were choosing the movie… but I never imagined this was the reason. Of course, it seemed they had broken up now, but a shock was a shock.

“Ah, I shouldn’t be doing this.”

I belatedly shook my head and came to my senses. What I needed right now was the story of my old master, not my current master’s shocking dating scandal. I collected myself and pressed the back button.

But right below the article I had just read, another provocative headline appeared. It even seemed to be a dating rumor with a different person than before.

I hesitated for a moment. But my finger, unable to overcome its curiosity, was already moving toward the sensational headline. In the end, the screen changed, and I found myself reading the article and once again wasting time, aghast at the shocking content.

Now, I was really, truly going to look for information about my old master….

[William Spencer, His Ideal Type as Revealed by an Ex-Lover….]

“……”

I’m a little curious about this one….

Ahem, ahem, I let out a small, dry cough and glanced toward the stairs. After confirming there was no sign of my master coming out, I carefully tapped the article and began to read.