Robot Protection Zone Chapter 66

In the end, only a charger was placed in the bag. The bag was small to begin with, and now that its inside was empty, I felt insignificant.

I took out my smartphone from my pocket and muttered.

“I won’t need this anymore either.”

It was the only way to contact my Master, but it was something I no longer needed. I quietly placed the smartphone on the bed. If I took it with me, my heart might weaken, and I might contact my Master again. My Master wouldn’t answer my calls anyway….

Holding back the tears that threatened to spill, I slung the bag over my shoulder and went downstairs. At the entryway, I tied my sneaker laces tightly. I would have to walk for a long time, so I made them tight so they wouldn’t come undone.

Feeling like this was the last time, I slowly looked around the house.

“Didi, are you going out?”

Sophia, who I thought had already gone into her room, approached the entryway and spoke to me. I was startled but smiled at Sophia as if nothing was wrong.

“Yes. Be well, Sophia.”

“Have a good trip, Didi.”

Since I was planning to never return to this place, I didn’t say that I’d be back. I placed my hand on the front door and looked back.

“Sophia.”

“Yes, Didi.”

“…It’s nothing.”

The question I asked every morning—When is the Master coming back?—rose to the tip of my tongue, but I barely managed to swallow it. The answer I’d get today wouldn’t be any different anyway.

Leaving the faceless Sophia behind me, I finally stepped out into the world alone.

“It was definitely… that way.”

As soon as I left the house, I picked a direction and started moving.

I tried to recall the memory of the day I left my previous Master’s mansion. I passed through wide-open fields and a dense forest, then a city gradually appeared, and finally, I arrived at the residential area where I live now. If I retraced that path carefully, I should be able to reach my previous Master’s mansion.

I walked, trying to retrace my memory.

Today, the sun was shining brightly, and the weather was a little hot and humid. It was a relief that the weather was at least good. If the sky had been gloomy on a day like today, my mood would have sunk as well. The journey to turn off my power felt like a picnic, so my gloominess subsided a little.

I was familiar with the streets around here. I had gone on walks with my Master, and it was the path I took every day on my way to and from work. As I walked for a while, reminiscing about memories that had now become just that, I passed the cafe where I had coffee with my Master and the park where we watched the fireworks.

However, the city just wouldn’t show itself. The distance that always seemed so short when traveling by car felt so far today.

I had set out during the day, and now it was night. And finally, I left the residential area and arrived in the city.

The city’s night streets, which I was on alone, were very glamorous. The lights from the electronic billboards illuminated the streets as if it were broad daylight, and some places were so bright that it felt like being indoors.

When I was out and about with my Master, all my attention was focused on him, so it was a sight I had never noticed. I looked around in wonder and muttered.

“It would have been nice if my Master were here too….”

I stopped walking for a moment and thought of my Master, but I soon shook my head and came to my senses. My existence would only be a hindrance to my Master now. I must not forget that fact.

I tried to set off again, but I had lost my sense of direction after entering the complex city. My legs were stiff and wouldn’t move. I felt like I had been thrown out into a strange world all alone.

Which way do I go to get to my previous Master’s mansion? All I know is the address and the view from the mansion.

I tried to ask passersby, but they rushed past me without even listening to what I had to say. And seeing their stern, hardened expressions, I was so startled that I couldn’t bring myself to stop them and talk.

Come to think of it, if they found out I was a Human-bot, I might get kidnapped. Even though I was on my way to turn myself off after being abandoned by my Master, I didn’t want to experience something like that.

The thought that I might get kidnapped made me afraid to talk to people. As I hid in a corner, wary and avoiding people’s gazes, I suddenly realized that it wasn’t just people, but also robots, roaming the streets.

Ah! Couldn’t I ask a robot instead of a person?

I was also more used to and comfortable talking with robots than people. Thinking it was a good idea, I approached a robot cleaning the street and asked for directions.

“Excuse me… do you know which way I should go for Edenhill 8th Street?”

The robot stopped moving as if lost in thought for a moment, then shook its head. It meant it didn’t know.

I bowed my head to the robot to thank it for answering and approached other robots nearby to ask as well. But they all just replied that they didn’t know.

“Haaah….”

After repeatedly asking the same question while looking for robots, I quickly grew tired. The place names must have changed while my power was off. Otherwise, there was no way all the robots would say they didn’t know.

It was while I was sitting on a roadside bench, sighing deeply.

“Hello! Are you lost?”

Someone approached and spoke to me. At the cheerful mechanical voice, I raised my head, and a familiar robot came into view.

“Uh…?”

The figure was definitely familiar. It was the guide robot from my Master’s company that had taken me to Thomas’s lab.

I was flustered and kept my mouth shut. Why was a robot that should be at the company here? We met in such an unexpected place that my memory was muddled, but I wasn’t mistaken. Seeing the company logo clearly drawn on the robot’s body, it was definitely the robot I had met.

“Why, why are you here? This is far from the company….”

“I am currently on an outing.”

The guide robot replied confidently.

I looked at the robot in confusion, then nodded my head. Do company robots usually roam around outside? I didn’t know, but maybe it was out on an errand or had some other business.

I set aside my deep thoughts and asked the robot.

“Do you happen to know where Edenhill 8th Street is? It’s where my previous Master used to live….”

“Edenhill 8th Street is 400km west of here!”

An unexpectedly precise answer came back.

My eyes widened as I looked in the direction the guide robot was pointing. West? The distance of 400km didn’t quite register, but just knowing the exact direction was a huge gain.

“Thank you!”

My face lit up, and I shot up from my seat. After bowing my head to the robot and thanking it several times, I started moving in the direction it told me.

Dawn arrived. The reason I, who had no clock, could tell the time was because the people around me had disappeared one by one.

The bright lights also went out one by one, and darkness befitting the ‘night’ finally descended. Still, thanks to the lampposts that remained here and there, it wasn’t scary. I continued to walk.

I was still walking, but I didn’t feel like I was getting any closer to my destination. It was surely a street I had walked with my Master, but it felt so unfamiliar and new that I even wondered if I was going the right way.

On the third day since I left, I was still wandering the streets of the city. I still couldn’t be sure if this was the right direction or if I was getting closer to my previous Master’s mansion.

I was suffering from extreme hunger. I had no strength in my body. Perhaps because all I’d had were occasional naps on roadside benches, the asphalt road spreading out in all directions looked like a vast, gray bed.

Nevertheless, the driving force that kept me moving was the fact that I had a set destination.

“I think the battery is low….”

Having moved nonstop for three whole days, I could feel my battery getting dangerously low. Looking around, I stopped a robot that was cleaning the roadside by picking up trash and asked.

“Hello, is there any place where I can charge my battery?”

The robot looked up at me and stopped, then smoothly moved away. It must not know… I was about to look for another robot nearby when the robot stopped and looked back at me.

Ah, it meant for me to follow!

Only then did I understand the signal the robot had sent and hurriedly followed it.

The robot led me into an increasingly dark and secluded alley. Even though it was daytime, the place felt somewhat dark and damp. I clutched the strap of my bag tightly, looking around nervously.

Then the robot stopped. Looking past it, I saw an old, shabby warehouse standing in a secluded corner of the alley, untouched by human feet.

Inside the warehouse, chargers for the cleaning robots were lined up in a row. The robot went inside the warehouse, stopped in front of one of the chargers, and looked at me. Another charger was already plugged in, but it seemed to mean that I should unplug it and use it.

“Thank you!”

As I expressed my thanks, the robot silently rolled its wheels and disappeared, as if to go back to cleaning the streets.

I fumbled in my bag and took out my charger. The charger that was already plugged in was fixed quite firmly, so I couldn’t start charging right away and struggled with it for a long time. As soon as I finally pulled it out and plugged mine in, I connected it to the back of my neck.

“Haaah….”

It felt like a nearly empty glass being filled to the brim. Feeling my exhausted body melt away, I plopped down on the floor.

The floor was very rusty, dirty, and damp, but I didn’t really care. For me, who had been wandering the streets for days, I was just grateful to have a space where I could rest my body in peace.

I slowly turned my head and looked around the interior. A dirty charging room that seemed to have been unmaintained for a long time. It was a little sad that the cleaning robots, which keep the streets clean, were charging in such a poor place.