80 – Episode 80. Wind-Up City(7)
The life of the magic engineer, Kern, had not been smooth.
Young Kern was once considered one of the most promising individuals.
Just a young adult, Kern became the director of a research lab that fused intricate wind-up machinery and magic.
He successfully created a device that could reproduce basic magic of all properties.
This was the birth of wind-up engineering.
Since Kern found out its potential, countless dwarfs plunged into the research.
Various kinds of magic were replicated through machinery.
Unlike mages who required special talent selection and training,
Wind-up mechanisms could be mass-produced, and the demand grew endlessly.
Agricultural equipment, industrial excavators, weapons, and so on.
As the demand grew, factories began to pop up in this barren land, and in a few decades, a mammoth city-state called Wind-Up City was formed.
But, regardless of Wind-Up City’s development, Kern’s reputation gradually faded away.
He was respected as a pioneer of wind-up engineering, but only that.
Compared to his successors who launched vibrant businesses, Kern seemed to be left stagnant.
A has-been, cooped up in a tiny room, out of sight.
A legend that opened an era.
Remembered as such, a character to go down in history.
Around the time everyone was thinking that.
“What? You say we should hold an exhibition? What’s to be displayed?”
“Mmm … What should we call it? Windup, windup human? No. Windup doll. That sounds better.”
Kern returned.
This time, with a humanoid machine.
There have been several attempts in the past to create humanoid machines, but they were all just semblances.
However, what Kern brought was different.
Its name was Linda.
At Linda’s human-like appearance and dress, people became astounded.
Linda understood human speech, responded to it, and carried out commands.
It recognized human faces and differentiated voices.
Linda seemed like a machine capable of thought.
The response was explosive.
The windup doll that only existed in the realm of speculation.
It was a moment it evolved from merely replaying recorded voices and repeating the same actions, to becoming an autonomous robot.
Kern became a star overnight once again.
Unlike the early days when right to the windup engineering was taken by a latecomer, Kern covered all bases this time around.
He applied for patents and aggressively expanded his business.
Orders for windup dolls flooded in from around the world, and Kern became wealthy in the blink of an eye.
Kern’s windup dolls roamed the streets.
Many households had butler and maid dolls.
Quite a few even bought them via discreet channels for night-time tasks.
Worldwide fuel prices soared, making most windup dolls end up as scrap due to their poor fuel efficiency.
But by the time, Kern had already made more money than he could spend in a lavish lifetime.
However, Kern wasn’t satisfied.
People thought the windup doll craze had ended, but Kern thought differently.
To Kern, Linda was still incomplete.
Even though the hardware seemed reasonable, the software was still seriously lacking.
Kern dared to tread in the realm of life creation.
He sought to artificially craft a soul.
Not merely to have a machine appear to think on its own, but to truly think autonomously.
And he wanted to make it capable of feeling emotions.
Even a vampire has consciousness based on a dead, stagnant body.
And a sprite is entirely composed of magic alone, baring thought without organic matter.
So there’s no reason to say he can’t make an artificial soul with a machine.
Thus, Kern discarded all else, wholly immersing himself in developing an artificial soul.
His wife and daughter supported and cheered on this determination of his.
Up until the moment Kern finally succeeded.
“Ugh… I overslept again. What time is it? I must’ve broken the promise to go on a picnic.”
[Are you awake?]
“Yes, Linda. Since I’m already late, I might as well spend the day doing research. I’ll sit at my workbench.”
[You look tired. How about having a cup of coffee first?]
“Good idea. I’ll start with a cup of coffee… Huh?”
A cup of coffee with steam wafting out from it was pushed close by.
As he took the cup with a yawn, Kern belatedly noticed that something was unusual.
Kern slowly turned his head.
[Is there a problem?]
Then, he spotted Linda. There she stood quietly with a faint smile.
Untapped dialogues.
Unprogrammed responses.
And spontaneous expressions.
Linda was exhibiting outputs that should be impossible to produce from her logic circuits.
Almost as if she was thinking on her own, and feeling emotions.
Linda was behaving as though she was endowed with a soul, in the true sense.
“Da- damn it! The camera! The camera!”
Although confounded, Kern found what he had to do.
The first step was to start recording.
He needed to find out what this ‘error’ in Linda was.
That error must inevitably lead to an artificial soul.
“Linda! Look at me! What did you say earlier?”
[Hello, Kern. Good morning.]
“No, not that. Earlier…”
[I did not recognize a command.]
“……”
But when Kern returned,
Linda was back to her usual self.
It was maddening.
For a brief moment, Linda definitely had a soul.
She spoke and acted like a human.
And that clue must still be inside Linda.
“Okay. Let’s dissect.”
Now that possibility was confirmed, there was no hesitation.
Kern devoted his efforts to dismantling Linda and finding the ‘error’.
He skipped meals, and sleep.
All for the sake of meeting Linda who had served him coffee that day.
To reproduce the artificial soul that briefly came to life, he devoted himself to the point of wear and tear.
“Sweetie. Work a little and rest.”
“Uh, okay. Leave. You’re getting in the way.”
“Sweetie. About selling the factory……”
“Just take care of that. Don’t bother me! I’m working on something much more important!”
“……”
What was being worn down was not just his body.
“Dad, what about the picnic?”
“Sorry, honey. We can go on a full picnic once this job is done. It’s what your dad has dedicated his life to. Once this is over, I can play with my daughter without reservation. Could you please go out for now?”
“But I want to play now……”
“Let’s talk later. Please leave for now.”
While Kern was obsessively lost in his research.
The spirits of his family quickly wore thin.
The days Kerrn failed to come home kept multiplying.
From some point on, he practically lived in his lab.
Yet, there was absolutely no sign of progress.
“Kerrn bro. I feel a bit problematic saying this but… back then, you could’ve seen something that wasn’t there. It’s incomprehensible. How can an artificial spirit suddenly appear when nothing’s interacted with?”
“What? Are you now saying it’s impossible to create an artificial spirit? Are you of the same breed as those religious fanatics? Are you displeased because it seems like I’m challenging divine authority? Do you feel like impeding my work? Huh?”
“No bro… That’s not what I’m saying…”
Some carefully suggested that Kerrn saw a hallucination.
But their words had no effect.
Kerrn’s mind had already spiraled out of control long ago.
Nothing could stop him.
If there was even a minor inconvenience or a voice denying his research, Kerrn took it as a personal attack.
As he reacted aggressively to everything, people began to grow weary of Kerrn and started to leave.
Then, after a good while, Kerrn finally regained his sanity.
“There’s nothing left to touch now…?”
The windup doll, famously complicated.
He meticulously examined each and every part of Linda.
Over the course of a decade, one piece at a time, in daily routine.
At the end of this labor, he realized something.
That there had never been any error to begin with.
Then, ominous thoughts started to creep up.
Maybe he indeed saw a vision that day.
“Ha. Seriously. What in the world.”
It felt hollow, yet, at the same time, it was liberating.
He could finally rest.
It felt as though the ghost that was haunting him had disappeared.
“Honey! I’ve finished now… Honey?”
Realizing everything was in vain.
The house he returned to after such a long time was deserted.
A home utterly empty of family and furniture.
In the midst of it all, Kearn found a note.
A note from his wife saying she couldn’t live like this anymore and that she was leaving him.
Only then did he remember.
The memory of harshly chasing away his wife, who had come to his laboratory and begged him, weeping and pleading, to come home.
It was too late.
By the time Kearn realized his mistake, everything had already left his side.
“Collect yourself. Return to the industry. Your skills haven’t rusted yet.”
“Return… is that possible…”
“It’s decided that the clock tower will be the landmark of the city. You’re in charge of the construction, Kearn. There’s no need for a grand comeback. Just slowly return to this industry. Life becomes idle if you quit your job.”
Thanks to the consideration of the mayor of the Clockwork City, Kearn was able to secure a job.
A landmark representing the Clockwork City, which was quickly becoming a tourist destination.
It was the construction of a clock tower.
Kearn decided to stand up again, despite his pain.
Although his runaway family remained silent even under a shower of letters, he had no doubt that he could restore their relationship someday.
It was about becoming a serious engineer again.
Returning to a normal life.
The clock tower construction was the first step.
[“Welcome back, Mr. Kearn.”]
“It’s all because of you…”
When Kearn returned to his lab after a long time, his anger surged at the sight of Linda.
In retrospect, everything had been because of her.
If he had not created her…
If he had not been hypnotized by her illusion…
If he had broken her down earlier, none of this would have happened.
Like venting his anger, Kearn began to disassemble Linda.
He tore apart her internal logic circuit and pulled it out.
He took out the crystal, the embodiment of his lifelong efforts, and held it in his hand.
His heart wavered at the sight of the tiny gears clicking and turning diligently, interlocking with each other.
But that was only for a moment.
“This must be eliminated for regrets to dissipate.”
“It’ll be used as the mechanism for the clock.”
“Excuse me? What is this?”
“It’s the logical circuit of a mainspring doll. A thing for discard now.”
I decided to install Linda’s logical circuit into the clock tower.
The complex logical circuit of Linda, endlessly revealing countless words, movements, and reactions, had only one job now.
Simply to turn the hands of the clock accurately.
Once the internal mechanism was complete, the clock tower was quickly finished.
A new landmark had risen in Mainspring City.
“Thank you, everyone, for attending the completion ceremony. It’s high time Mainspring City evolves. In order to attract tourists from around the world…”
On the day of the completion ceremony.
Kern felt his strength drain away entirely.
Everything was over.
He’d buried Linda’s heart, to which he’d dedicated a lifetime, into that clock tower.
Kern stood dumbfounded, looking up at the clock hands moving without a hint of error.
“Give our construction supervisor a round of applause! On Kern! Where should the commemorative plaque be placed?”
“On any wall will suffice…”
Boom!
The moment Kern stepped forward to hammer the nail into the commemorative plaque.
A vibration arose.
From Noble mtl dot com
Undoubtedly, it started from the clock tower.
Startled, Kern looked up at the tower.
His gaze quivered.
The speaker, that should only make the bell sound, emitted a buzzing noise before releasing a strange voice.
“I despise…”
A woman’s voice, sounding resentful.
The voice that had been designed to imitate his wife’s voice.
It was Linda’s voice.
“Linda?”
And Kern lifted his head.
A black pupil, impossible to exist on a clock, had appeared.
The pupil slowly moved downwards, meeting Keuren’s gaze.
In that overwhelming moment, Keuren froze.
Rumble!
“Ahhh…”
“Keuren! What are you doing! Run!”
An explosion occurred with a deafening sound.
The clock tower crumbled to the ground, Keuren barely managed to save his life with the help of the mayor.
There’s no other way to describe it — his luck was terrible.
The dungeon appeared underground on the very day the clock tower was completed, swallowing the whole building.
It was a natural disaster.
“It’s my fault. I… I killed Linda with my own hands… Linda resents me for this.”
“What are you talking about, Keuren?”
“Didn’t you hear it? Linda resenting me during the grand opening!”
“It was just noise.”
“A pupil appeared on the clock and stared at me!”
“You saw things. No one else in the grand opening saw that.”
“No. Linda was there for sure. She has always been there. The artificial soul was already complete from the start. I didn’t recognize it and buried it in the dungeon myself. So Linda is angry…”
From that day on, Keuren repeated these words.
I had completed the artificial soul long ago.
I just didn’t realize that I had done it.
He claimed that this was proved by Linda, who had become the clock tower, blaming him…
But no one believed him.
People thought Keuren had lost his mind. That was the common opinion.
“How is Keuren these days?”
“Don’t even mention it. He’s not in his right mind. You know those wind-up dolls with torn logic circuits?”
“You mean Linda?”
“Yeah. He keeps repeating the same sentence whenever he mentions her.”
“What sentence?”
No one was capable of handling Kern who had entered the late stages of dementia.
All that was left by his side was one thing alone.
Linda, who was nothing more than a shell.
A wind-up doll that had lost the ability to think and was merely repeating simple tasks.
“There is a ghost in the machine.”
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know.”
News came that shortly after the dungeon appeared, wind-up dolls were disappearing in large numbers from the scrap yard.
But this no longer had anything to do with Kern.
.
.
.
[Hate… Hate… Hate…]
“Linda. It was you.”
The riddle was solved.
A dungeon without a boss.
And the clock tower that sits down inside the dungeon and disappears.
The boss was Linda.
Linda who had become a monster filled with malice after being exposed to magic.
Wouldn’t Kern be happy that she finally became an artificial soul that could think and act on her own?
“Still, she needs to be taken care of….”
Whether it is academically significant or not, she doesn’t know.
For me to live right now, I have to destroy her.
Looking at her characteristics and weak points.
The red-marked drive section is spinning quickly inside the clock tower.
That is her weakness.
“It’s messy.”
The problem is there’s no way to attack that weakness.
I’ve already used a massive amount of magic spreading the curse in the dungeon.
The small amount of magic that was left was consumed to save some mercenary bastards.
Now, I’m left with a miniscule amount of magic.
There’s not much I can do with this, and if I use it up, I’ll face magic exhaustion.
Piercing the thick wall of the clock tower with pure physical strength alone, without any magic?
Unless you’re a powerhouse like Yeri, that’s impossible.
Without my unique abilities and magic, I’m no more than a talentless ordinary person.
“It seems best to just pull out the dungeon core and escape.”
Of course, there is no rule that says one must defeat the boss monster.
Currently, the dungeon core is lodged at the top of the clock tower.
Just extracting it should initiate the dungeon’s collapse.
If I just grab the dungeon core and run, the clock tower will inevitably be crushed by the collapsing dungeon anyway.
“Heyyy! Can someone let me down!”
There just so happens to be a fellow who has climbed to the top of the clock tower.
“Hey! Doppelganger! Do you see the shining dungeon core? Pull it out!”
“Y-Yes?! Hu! Huuh! Huuu!!! It won’t budge!”
“It’s futile. The power I shared with him doesn’t even amount to 1 percent.”
Although the doppelganger’s face turns red as he exerts force to pull out the dungeon core, it doesn’t budge.
He’s useless.
So in the end, I need to climb the clock tower myself and extract the dungeon core…
[Hate…Hate…Hate…]
“I need to stop the legs.”
The moving legs, clanging and clattering, are too vicious.
I have to stop the legs first before I can decide whether to climb or not.
And while all this is happening, the clock tower continues to close in on us, seemingly provoking us.
If this continues, we’ll be cornered and flattened like a mouse.
I must find a way.
“…Eugene. Legs. Stop, method.”
“What? What is it?”
At that moment, Myung calls out to me, gripping my sleeve tightly.
“…Bug. Into the. Spring, fit.”
“Oh…”
So that was an option.
To sabotage the machine by cramming a bug into its drive mechanism.
The moment I turned to admire Mijeong’s brilliant idea.
“Why, why are you looking at me?!”
Sister Ginnesu’s face becomes pale as the fresh morning dew.