Chapter 151. The Person I Am (3)
“Huh. So what’s the problem?”
No. 7, who had been quietly listening, spoke as though it were no big deal.
“Our originals are dead anyway, right?”
Yukgap raised his voice in disbelief.
“What?”
“Isn’t it strange?”
“We’re copies!”
“Even our memories and abilities were adjusted by Alpha!”
“So what?”
No. 7 looked like she genuinely did not understand why Yukgap was so shaken.
“Does learning that suddenly make me stop being me?”
She pointed at herself and spoke proudly.
“I’m me.”
“I don’t care even if I’m a copy of someone else.”
“My abilities and experiences belong completely to me.”
“And the original isn’t even alive anymore, so what exactly are you worried about?”
“B-But...”
Yukgap trailed off.
He had never expected to hear something like that from No. 7.
No. 7 muttered in complaint,
“Although if my thing for stupid men came from my original too, I might want to complain about that.”
No. 8 added calmly,
“No. 7 is correct.”
“We are weapons anyway.”
“Arguing over originals and copies is meaningless.”
“Even the weapons we use were mass-produced in a laboratory, were they not?”
The two of them were so calm that it almost made Yukgap feel foolish for having been so devastated.
Was everything I worried about really that trivial?
Yukgap looked between them.
Then a hollow laugh escaped him.
“Ha... Hahaha...”
No. 7 sighed.
“So what are you going to do?”
“Keep sitting there like an idiot and rot in the dark?”
Yukgap thought for a moment, then slowly shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
“Now that the purpose of my life is gone, everything just feels empty.”
He had deserted to find himself.
He had never thought about anything beyond meeting his family and recovering his past.
But now that even those emotions had turned out to be something manipulated into him by someone else, every moment he had lived through felt hollow.
He did not even feel the desire to do anything anymore.
It was as though everything inside him had burned away, leaving only white ash.
“Yukgap.”
Victoria quietly spoke.
“Let’s go back to the restaurant.”
Yukgap looked at her in surprise.
“Go back?”
“Yes.”
“You’re still the chef of Restaurant Shelley.”
“And you’re a cook.”
“The place you belong isn’t here.”
“It’s in the kitchen.”
Yukgap hesitated.
Then he weakly said,
“I already resigned.”
“I reject your resignation under the authority of the owner.”
Victoria answered without even thinking.
No. 7 and No. 8 agreed.
“If you’re going to sit here whining forever, then just get lost and go back there.”
“You can no longer function properly as a weapon anyway.”
“In that case, living as a chef would be more suitable.”
Yukgap stared at them blankly.
Something strange was happening.
Everyone was accepting him.
They were telling the person he had believed was fake that there was still somewhere he belonged.
After remaining silent for a while, Yukgap finally asked,
“Am I allowed to?”
Victoria smiled gently.
“That isn’t something someone else gets to decide.”
“You decide it yourself.”
“What do you want to do?”
Yukgap fell into thought.
What do I want?
What can I do?
What am I allowed to do?
No.
Are these really my feelings?
What if even this was planted inside me by someone else?
Countless thoughts flashed through his mind.
And at the end of them, Yukgap quietly spoke.
“I...”
“I want to go back to Restaurant Shelley.”
Then he poured out his feelings almost like a sob.
“I want to go back and prepare ingredients.”
“I want to study recipes.”
“I want to clean the kitchen, wash dishes, cook food, and live a busy life!”
“Living as a chef makes me a hundred times happier than running around killing people as a weapon!”
He did not know about anything else.
But this was real.
The person called Yukgap wanted to return to Restaurant Shelley.
At the end of his confession, Victoria spoke softly.
“Then let’s go.”
Yukgap nodded, his eyes red.
“Yeah.”
“Let’s go.”
He no longer cared what kind of being he was.
Right now, there was only one thing in his heart.
He wanted to return to that small restaurant hidden in the back alleys.
At that moment, the lights throughout the base suddenly came back on.
“What?”
No. 7 looked around the illuminated interior.
No. 8 cautiously guessed,
“It seems the base’s power system has come back online.”
Before long, No. 11’s voice thundered through the speakers throughout the facility.
[Attention, all Archons within the base.]
His voice sounded urgent and unsteady.
[This is Alpha’s order.]
[Bring Victoria Frankenstein before Alpha immediately!]
No. 7 and No. 8 both turned toward Victoria in surprise.
“Alpha wants you?”
“Why?”
Neither of them seemed to understand why Alpha was looking for Victoria.
Victoria hesitated, then gave a casual explanation.
“Well...”
“I was playing princess with Alpha, then I ran away.”
No. 7 and No. 8 looked at each other.
“What do we do?”
“Alpha ordered it.”
