5. Assembly (Hardware Edition)
In short, Ray had acquired the software named "Yuki."
Ray understood now. The reason he couldn't bring himself to move a single finger before was simply that he lacked the software required to drive him—a program named "Motivation."
He had obtained the essential software. However, he lacked the crucial "hands" to execute it. As it stood, he remained an incomplete existence.
"And so," Yuki's voice bounced with excitement.
She spun on her heel and reoriented Ray's head, not toward herself, but forward—toward the disposal site spreading out below.
As if shining a flashlight into the darkness, or perhaps holding up a video camera, she used Ray's gaze to scan the entire area.
Then, like a child on the morning of a field trip, she declared loudly:
"Let's assemble your body, Ray-kun."
"How?"
When Ray asked, she spread her arms even more joyfully.
"Can you see all this? All the junk here is material for your new body. It's an embarrassment of riches—all-you-can-choose, all-you-can-assemble!"
Her tone was like that of a child gifted a "dress-up doll set" on Christmas morning.
Ray once again analyzed the scene spread across his field of vision.
"True, the quantity is undeniable. But it's all broken trash, isn't it? Will this really work? In the first place, do you even know how to assemble a body, Yuki?"
"I can just search as I go. If I access the Mother Cluster's archives and build while asking for instructions, we'll manage somehow."
Yuki answered with brimming, baseless confidence.
Then, as if preparing for the great adventure ahead, she tucked Ray's head under her arm. She did it with the lightness of an athlete heading onto the field with a ball or helmet tucked under their arm.
She began to run down the hill.
To search for parts that still seemed usable, sturdy components, and fragments of hope that had not yet lost their shine.
"First, the torso."
Yuki declared, running her gaze over the mountain of rubble.
However, the desired parts were not lying around so conveniently. All she found were wreckage of lower bodies, pelvic parts, or torn-off arms and heads. Like fish bones left behind after a messy meal, only miserable wreckage was piled up endlessly.
A sense of futility, like searching for a needle in a vast desert.
Originally, Ray—who was shipped with his "Motivation Software" missing and whose thought circuits were biased negatively—would have thrown in the towel early in such a situation.
But Yuki was different. She seemed to be enjoying even this hopeless treasure hunt. Eventually, as she began digging through the rubble while humming, Ray's processing synchronized with her relaxed rhythm, thinking, *Well, it's not so bad even if it takes time.*
"Found it!"
The voice cried out surprisingly quickly.
Yuki paused her work and placed Ray's head, which she had been holding in one arm, atop a nearby mound—the summit of a compressed block of metal.
"Watch from here, okay?"
It seemed to be a consideration that excavation required both hands, and that the supervisor ought to have a good vantage point.
Unburdened, she began diligently digging out "it" from where it was buried under other trash parts.
Small, white, innocent hands wrestled with heavy iron scraps. Ray stared intently at the scene. The impulse to help raced through his circuits, but as a severed head, he could do little more than send signals of encouragement. While he was lamenting his own powerlessness, the work was completed all too quickly.
Yuki succeeded in pulling a tattered humanoid torso from the sea of rubble.
"Torso, secured!"
Yuki laughed happily, holding it high.
Adhering to her pure white cheeks were stains of black oil and metal powder, likely picked up during the excavation.
The moment he saw that, a new task was generated within Ray.
*I want to obtain arms quickly and wipe away that smudge.*
It was affection for her, and at the same time, the first clear "motivation" he had ever voluntarily embraced. He hadn't known that engaging with the world with motivation could be so comfortable and rewarding.
Before he could wallow in sentiment, Yuki scanned the retrieved torso, then proceeded to scan Ray's head connection surface.
"The model is quite different."
When Ray voiced his concern, Yuki immediately presented supplementary data.
"But look, this was made by the same corporation that built you, Ray-kun. The first half of the serial number matches. It's likely a unit manufactured on the same factory line."
Prompted to run a detailed scan, he found she was right. It was the same Gladiator category, an extremely closely related model.
Although the majority of units discarded in this site were Gladiator types, drawing such a highly compatible unit on the first try was a stroke of astonishing luck.
"With this, we won't need special molding or conversion adapters."
"Yeah. It's not completely identical, but it's within spec tolerances. We can connect directly."
"Then let's perform the connection—the operation—right away."
With a tone as excited as if she were placing candles on a birthday cake, Yuki carried the torso over.
Conveniently, the neck of the torso had also been severed by a sharp blade, just like Ray's. This unit, too, had likely lost in the arena, been beheaded, and discarded here. Since the shapes of the cut surfaces were similar, the difficulty of joining them seemed low.
Yuki selected a stack of flatly compressed metal plates to serve as a workbench.
Her white, delicate hands—hands like those of a sheltered young lady protected within a greenhouse until now—lifted the rugged, scarred torso.
That torso, its paint peeled away by the passage of time, turning into a mere lump of iron, radiated a sorrow like an artist's mannequin pleading, "Let me sleep already."
Yuki set the torso down on the workbench with a heavy *thud*. Thanks to the flat cut surface at the waist, the torso stood upright as if made to do so.
Preparations were complete.