Chapter 111: Or Perhaps an Interlude: A Certain Day at the Fortress

The name’s Defense Unit No. 1029.

I work as a defense unit protectin’ the inside of the Dragonia fortress. I was out of commission for a while, but I got rebooted just the other day, so I’m back on the job.

Man, I was surprised, seriously. ‘Cause when I rebooted, the fortress was crawlin’ with Demons. I hurried up and wiped ’em out, every last one of ’em.

So that’s how the fortress got peaceful, but now I’m a bit bored. After all, there ain’t a single human inside, and I already wiped out the Demons.

Well, sometimes a group shows up like they just remembered this place exists, so I guide ’em deep into the fortress, take their payment (lives), and then wipe ’em all out at once.

“Guwaaaaaaah!”

“I-Impossible!? This fortress should have ceased function—GUWAAAAAH!!”

Yeah, thanks for the cliché lines. Or rather, you guys should be more careful already. Compared to the Demons before I shut down, these guys are way too easy. What’s up with ’em?

Come to think of it, I noticed our defense tactics had a new order: “Lure the enemy inside before taking them down.” I wonder if that’s really okay for a fortress defense system?

…Well, whatever. It’s prolly the policy of the human who rebooted us. But that human went somewhere else right away.

“Still, ya know. It’s gotten pretty lively inside the fortress.”

That was Defense Unit No. 489 speaking, same model as me.

“No, no, there ain’t no humans or Demons here.”

Rather, isn’t it quieter?

“But your buddies have gotten noisier instead, ain’t they?”

Ah, that way. Yeah, well, I kinda thought so myself deep down.

Like, before we knew it, we became able to “think.” We’re magic items, so we have functions to calculate and distinguish orders.

But we didn’t have functions to “think” about stuff unrelated to work like this. Tools don’t need features like that, ya know.

Naturally, we didn’t think of the same magic items as “buddies” either. Let alone have conversations.

But I know the reason. It’s ’cause the main source we’re connected to—the control unit managing this fortress—suddenly got smarter.

Since the Boss got smarter, us connected to him got smarter too, reaping the benefits. Probably when the fortress rebooted, old parts were swapped out or something to improve performance.

The Boss used to scream, “KILL ALL ENEMIESSSSS!” but now he’s like a different person, like some intellectual bandit.

“Listen up, you lot. When attacking the enemy, corner them into a dead end so they don’t escape. Also, inducing friendly fire by making them shoot each other is good too.”

No, inducing friendly fire to make them kill each other… the nastiness level is off the charts.

Seriously, for the Boss to become such an intellectual bandit, just what kind of high-performance magic item was installed?

Could it be that? Was this fortress decided to be used as a testing ground for operating the latest unmanned fortress?

The chief administrator of the fortress seems to have changed too, so maybe that’s it? Well, the previous administrator was defective to the level where getting replaced wouldn’t be strange, so I can’t say for sure.

Making wild “guesses” like this is probably ’cause our calculation ability went up.

So, our performance got strangely good, but recently the Demons must be wary ’cause they stopped coming entirely.

Maybe we hunted a bit too enthusiastically. Thanks to that, I’m bored.

But we’re magic items. If there’s no work, we just go into sleep mode and wait for the enemy.

“Well then, nighty-night.”

“Nighty-night.”

Now then, I wonder when the next enemy will invade.