Antikythera looked at the trainees exercising combat drills on the empty fields beyond the measured farmnds Nazarick had established. This once no-name vilge had turned into something of an impenetrable fortress complete with wooden walls—soon to be yered with concrete—and a rifle-wielding army.

  The vilgers had given this pce a name at some point during his leave; they had called it Antikythera, named after the Automaton himself. It was a fascinating choice, truth be told, since he never assumed that the humans here would get sentimental during his reign over their ckluster settlement. He certainly never expected them to yield any results, let alone show signs of loyalty, but if a vilge wants to give their all to Nazarick, then Antikythera would not deny them.

  They were free to believe Lord Ainz as their one true God; Antikythera would not even dare to think of stopping them, for the Supreme One is in fact a god, and worshippers are merely an extension of that fact. People flock to the strong, and sheep gather around deities, even if said deity is yet to reveal themselves physically.

  "Know that your fellow vilgers will be answered by the new being they worship," Antikythera said to the anxious Ninya. "Lord Ainz is benevolent. He will not abandon those who praise his name and bow before his godliness."

  "Lord Antikythera?.." Ninya trailed off, prompting the Automaton to look down at the girl and tilt his head. Ninya gulped. "You said that you were going to leave again?"

  "Is that what you were anxious about?" Antikythera tried to look from the girl's perspective and understand why Ninya was concerned about his absence rather than the fact that the vilgers had become fanatic zealots. More commonly, humans do not trust a change in leadership, but he supposed Ninya trusted him enough to let this change be.

  "Ninya, I am not here to stay forever." Antikythera told the girl the truth, or half of it. He wanted to see how the girl would develop naturally rather than in a controlled environment where he had all avaible variables to manipute. "I will still teach you things, of course," assuming that it would be relevant to her growth in the future, "but I have things to do and creatures to hunt down."

  "Creatures to hunt down?" Ninya seemed to have only heard the st part of Antikythera's made-up expnation. A concerned look crossed her face. "You have enemies out there, Lord Antikythera?"

  "None that you should concern yourself with." The Automaton rubbed the human's head. "It is my business, and rest assured, Jaldabaoth is not the type to hunt down those weaker than him."

  "Jaldabaoth..." Ninya muttered, a determined look on her face. Antikythera would have pitied her for thinking that she could fight Demiurge if not for the fact that Lord Ainz had commanded them to never harm the girl. "Is he strong?"

  "Incredibly so," Antikythera said, "but don't concern yourself with him. You need years of experience and several dozen spells in your arsenal before you can be considered a worthy fight in his eyes. He will not attack you until then, even if you possess my crest."

  "Your crest?" Ninya turned from composed yet stirring with determination to curious. "What does that mean?"

  "It means I will give you items—your own gear, to be exact." Antikythera had pnned for this, and he had deemed that now was the best time to tell her about his future pns. "You dreamed about becoming an adventurer, yes? Then I believe that my connections to the people of Re-Estize will be of good use to you during that time."

  "Uhm... Is it okay if I don't have to keep carrying the crest all the time?" Ninya asked. She looked like she was thinking about something. Her next words gave Antikythera the answer. "I want to prove myself. I'm a good mage, I can make a name for myself. I'll use your name only when I need to, definitely!"

  Ninya was determined, and Antikythera, in spite of her decration tearing apart his pns, decided that this was the exact thing he wanted when he chose to make Ninya develop in a more natural environment. It was not controlled, and he would not control it.

  He nodded. "I accept your decision," a shock to him, but an expected outcome in the broader sense. "I will give you a crest, then your weapons. All of them will show nothing of your connection to me beyond the quality of their make."

  "I accept it." Ninya's eyes went over to the gathered group of teenagers training to become the vilge's riflemen. "Will I get a cool gun like that too?"

  "You are a mage, so I will give you a primary weapon in the form of a magic-enhancing staff, but if you wish, I will provide you with a handgun." Antikythera reassured, "It will not be as powerful as a rifle, but since it is made by my hands rather than a factory, I will ensure that it is of the best possible quality."

  Ninya sniffed. Antikythera looked at her. She raised a hand to try and cover the Automaton's line of sight but failed. She wiped her face. "Thank you."

  Antikythera tilted his head. "I am afraid I don't understand what you are trying to say."

  "It's just, you saved my sister from a fate worse than death, then you helped me and—and—" Ninya began to cry her eyes out. Antikythera waited patiently. He did not understand why organics were like this; it simply did not make sense. Why they did not evolve the ability to manually control the cleaning of their mental processes was beyond him. "I think you're the best thing that's ever happened to me!"

  "I see," Antikythera nodded. This was an expected conclusion. Ninya was stressed and must have bottled up the emotions she felt when her sister was about to get taken. Then she kept her feelings of gratefulness as Antikythera taught her to be a mage, and after crying, all of those emotions spilled out, cleaning the grey matter residing within her skull and making room for appreciation.

  This was done over the course of several minutes, where Ninya cried and bawled. Antikythera would have done it in a few seconds, but he supposed for a human, she sure had a decent handle on her own emotions—and that was something that Antikythera could praise.

  "You did good," said the Automaton. He shifted his voice modutor to imitate the intimate sounds that humans produced when conversing with their children. "If not for your hard work, I would not have trained you up to this point. But you have broken my expectations time and time again, and thus, I decided to see the end of your training."

  And that was the truth. Antikythera was supposed to only teach her for a short amount of time. But Ninya was more talented than he expected and so, deeming that he would learn more about the magical properties of this world by teaching her more, he decided to extend it. And he extended again when Ninya showed more of her potential—it kept going until she made her own spell.

  That, Antikythera thought, was a sign that he needed to send her off to develop in an environment which would challenge her. Lord Ainz had said that adventuring is not always the same and that every day had a unique situation that an adventurer had to deal with—a new quest that they would have to finish.

  That sounded like the perfect profession for Ninya to have in order to further develop her talent in magic. Antikythera would check up on her, of course, recording her progress and creating a set of calcuted data, for it was paramount for him to complete his task and learn more of this world's magic.

  Ninya giggled. "Thank you, still. I wouldn't have realized my true potential without you." Ninya's smile would be called "bright" and "joyful" should a regur human see it. In Antikythera's eyes, his databanks recognized the distance between the lips and the contorted cheeks as that of an expression which expressed happiness.

  Perhaps he had been too analytical of Ninya's situation. He nodded. "You are welcome." Antikythera took out a sigil from deep within his item storage, one forged from the depths of his factory. "Here. This is a copy of my actual sigil, but this is of my own creation."

  Ninya took it. "What does this mean? Where did it come from?"

  Under Ninya's expectant look, Antikythera began to expin. Both her questions were answered at the same time. "It means to represent the mark of a person who was very dear to me. He is gone now, but he persists within the confines of my perfect memory."

  Ninya stared at the sigil—a ring of metal containing two crab cws centering a hammer. "Thank you for giving this to me."