Adeban, a small city located in the southern part of the continent.
It was one of the regions you could reach around the time you moved from the early game into the mid-early game of Akris.
Akris was a game that prided itself on its high degree of freedom, so apart from a few mandatory quests, there was no need to do the quests in other cities.
Even so, it was a place that early players almost always stopped by.
Because it was one of the few early regions where you could easily get basic weapons, armor, and items.
And Edith was an NPC who, as Adeban's mechanic, repaired players' weapon Durability.
She was also active as a weapon maker and smuggler, but her true identity was something else.
Namely, she was an agent working as one of the Resistance's key officers.
The enemy they were fighting was none other than the Iron Factory, where I'd first woken up.
Several years ago, it had approached under the pretext of developing the city, taken over the mining rights and seized ownership of the ore, and before long started hogging all the profits.
As if that weren't enough, it had gone as far as committing crimes like half-forcibly exploiting the town's ore and supplies and even squeezing taxes out of it.
And all the while, to the outside world, it was posing as a company with a good image.
To liberate the city from that Iron Factory, a Resistance had been secretly formed in Adeban.
"Are you really okay leaving your treatment, I mean, your repairs, to me?"
"Yes. You'll be able to do it without much trouble, Miss Edith."
"Aren't you trusting someone you met less than a day ago a little too much?"
Edith sounded thoroughly reluctant, but she said she'd try for now and sat me down in a chair.
"So, what do I do now? I never studied human anatomy."
She tapped my shoulder with a screwdriver.
As she'd said, there wasn't any doll shape to be seen on my body right now.
"Please wait a moment."
I closed my eyes and focused my mind.
[The Mana Core is activating.]
[Mana circuits are activating throughout the body.]
As I'd expected, once I activated the Mana Core, lines began to show on my body.
"How advanced would your engineering have to be to build a body like this?"
"Who knows. I don't know the first thing about engineering."
As Edith's hand touched my shoulder, a new message popped up.
[External contact detected.]
[The Mana Core reacts to the external contact.]
Wait, doesn't this mean Miss Edith is going to get hurt?
[The Mana Core identifies the contacting party's intent.]
[Trait effect, Thousand Masks, activates.]
[Your body's composition switches to the 'Clockwork Doll' form.]
Another effect of the Doll trait.
Soon, as a goosebump-raising sensation swept over my whole body, I felt somehow strange.
My outward appearance also changed into a more obviously doll-like form, and Edith now wore an exasperated expression.
"At this point, I'm not even surprised anymore."
Soon, after opening part of my back and checking the inside, she began skillfully fixing the broken parts.
"Nothing's badly broken. Just some tangled gears and loose screws."
Every time I heard the sound of her wrench, messages came up in my vision now and then.
[Body restoration in progress.]
[Body Durability – 94%]
I probably wouldn't keep leaving my body repairs to Edith like this from now on.
I already had self-restoration, and on top of that my Mana Core generated its own mana.
At least short of an emergency, I wouldn't have to impose on her like this.
[Body restoration complete.]
[Body Durability – 100%]
[You have completed the quest.]
[The quest-completion reward is issued.]
Completing the quest got me a reward this time too.
Maybe it'd be another memory shard.
[You obtain the skill Part Enhancement lv. 1.]
This time, instead of an item, a new skill was given as the reward.
Just from the name, I could more or less tell what it was.
It was a skill that could enhance parts I could attach to my body or use.
Conveniently, I'd decided to buy a weapon from Edith, so I'd get a chance to use it soon.
"Good work. Nothing hurt or anything, right?"
"I didn't feel a thing."
"Right, it's not like you have nerves like a person."
Done tidying up, Edith asked me something.
"So, was the person who told you I'm in the Resistance the same person?"
"Yes. Let's just say that's how it is."
At my answer, Edith snorted and smiled.
I had a rough idea of who she was thinking of, but I kept my mouth firmly shut.
She already believed I'd been forced to undergo body modification, and it'd be strange to start complaining about my conscience now.
Sometimes you need to cover the truth with a lie.
'Sorry to whoever's going to get chewed out for nothing.'
While I was apologizing inwardly, Edith was standing at the foot of the stairs leading up to ground level.
"I brought over some things you can wear, so pick something out yourself."
Where her finger pointed, there was a white dress shirt, a snug brown vest, and what looked like suit pants.
When I took off my filthy sleeveless top and put on the clothes Edith had prepared, I looked pretty decent.
Person or doll, dressing neatly changes the impression you give.
I threw the sleeveless top in the trash can and followed her up the stairs she'd already climbed.
When I set foot on the first floor, a familiar sight spread out before my eyes.
Parts and tools laid out here and there on the shelves.
A place I'd passed by countless times in the game.
'Somehow, this stirs up a lot of feelings.'
Seeing in person a place I'd only seen on a screen was bound to be a different experience.
As I looked around, my gaze stopped on Edith as she got ready to open the shop's door.
Soon her eyes met mine, and Edith waved me over and said something.
"Hey, doll, I mean. You said you'd help me with my work for now, right? Would you come and help me lift this?"
"All right."
I helped Edith move a heavy box into the storeroom.
With a measly 1 Strength, even lifting the box was hard for me, but once Edith helped, it lifted easily.
"Hey, you—"
"It's Enon."
"Right, Mr. Enon. You do know how dangerous what you said earlier was, don't you?"
"Yes. I know."
A quest I'd accepted dozens, hundreds of times in the game by pressing the spacebar.
This time, instead of with the tap of a finger, I accepted the quest with my own mouth, looking the person in the eye.
"From now on you can't back out, even if you want to. And keep this in mind. The moment you've joined the Resistance, you're under the Resistance's watch."
"I'll keep it in mind."
"Then from today on, Mr. Enon, you'll carry out missions with me as a provisional agent of our Resistance. None of the other agents know about this yet, so don't do anything suspicious for no reason."
Nothing different from the lines you got when you first followed her quest and became a Resistance agent.
It drove home all over again the fact that I'd really entered the game.
"I'll tell you about the mission in detail this evening. I've got work piled up."
With that, Edith picked up a wrench.
Edith was one of the key officers of Adeban's Resistance, but at the same time she was the owner of the Adeban repair shop.
You couldn't call either one a fake job.
'She's been living as a mechanic, a mechanic through and through, since long before she joined the Resistance.'
Living two lives at once would be harder than you'd think.
Just then, even though it was early morning, the repair shop's door opened.
The one who stepped into the repair shop was a man in a gentleman's suit with a striking, bristling mustache.
If that had been all there was to him, I might have taken him for an ordinary city dweller.
'Why is that man here?'
Behind the mustached man, two black-painted mechanical soldiers tall enough to reach the ceiling stood guard.
"Go inside."
Whispering that, Edith shoved me straight into the storeroom.
"What brings you here so early in the morning? Mr. Victor."
"Nothing much; I came because there's something to discuss. It would be rude to come at a busy hour, so I apologize for coming this early in the morning."
The mustached man's name was Victor.
It was a name I knew well too.
Victor, the operator of the Iron Factory.
'But why did he show up right at this timing?'
In the original game of Akris, a city's story didn't progress until the player did that city's episode, in other words its quests.
But the place I'd entered was reality inside the game.
Unless the whole city's time had stopped, the stories in the quests would naturally progress on their own too.
And if I was right, there was a good chance the protagonist was here.
Because Adeban was a place the protagonist absolutely had to pass through to head to the nearby big city.
So unless the protagonist had gone somewhere strange, joining the Adeban quest would be the normal flow.
But Victor only started suspecting who the Resistance were like that after the Resistance quest had progressed quite a way.
If that point was now, the protagonist definitely should have been here too.
"So, what brings you here? I doubt a man who lives somewhere as grand as you do came to leave repairs with me."
"I could say I came to ask for repairs, but let me be frank. How would you like to come work at our Iron Factory?"
For a moment, the corners of Edith's mouth stiffened.
"Ever since we began developing the city's industry, we've always admired your skill with machines, Miss Edith."
"Thank you for thinking so highly of my skills."
"There's no need to worry about what others think. If you'd just join our Iron Factory, you could become a great figure who contributed to the city's development."
Contributed to the city's development?
What a joke. The Iron Factory had never once done Adeban any real good.
That guy Victor might spout nonsense about their profit being the city's profit, but to Edith, who'd been born and raised in this city, that wasn't the case at all.
Looking at the side of Edith's face, I could quietly sense her forcing down her anger.
To come straight to a victim and ask her to destroy her own hometown with her own hands.
She was truly remarkable too, holding back a fury like a dragon's whose reverse scale had been touched, welling up from deep inside.
"I'm sorry, but I'll have to decline that offer. I'd rather live a normal life here."
With a smile that was fine acting, she stated her intent firmly.
Having confirmed her intent, Victor stroked his chin, then soon picked up a part fragment lying on the shelf.
"If you insist, there's nothing to be done. So you like the simple things.... Until now, I thought you liked things flashy and loud, Miss Edith."
In that instant, silence fell over the repair shop.
Setting the part down, Victor left one last remark.
"In any case, it's a shame we can't work together. But the door is always open, so do come by if you change your mind."
With that, Victor quietly left the repair shop with his escort of mechanical soldiers.
The atmosphere was like a small storm had just passed through.
When I saw through the repair shop's window that Victor was completely gone, I went over to Edith.
"Are you all right?"
"...I nearly put a bullet in that bastard's head."
At some point, a pistol had appeared in her hand.
"You held back well."
Victor, that man alone, could be dealt with even by me on my own, never mind Edith.
But if we'd done that, the escort mechanical soldiers on either side would've stopped us, and we'd have gone down just like that.
"Miss Edith, there's something I'd like to ask you."
"Something to ask? Go ahead."
I put strength into my tense voice and asked.
"By any chance, has any other outsider recently joined the Resistance or started cooperating with it?"
If my hypothesis was right, the protagonist should have joined the Resistance by now and been busy working to bring down the Iron Factory.
There was no way Edith, a key figure in the Resistance, wouldn't know the protagonist.
At least, if the protagonist was following the story.
"No. Not even once. You're the first outsider, Mr. Enon."
Along with her answer, a new quest popped up before my eyes.
[A new quest has been issued.]
[Mission – Help the Resistance restore peace to the city.]
[ * A hidden quest exists.]