I slowly turned around and saw Lily with her hands over her mouth with the kids huddled behind her and George trotting up behind them. I looked back at Carnivac, there was no talking my way out of this one.

“Oh... oh no... is he... is he dead?” Lily stammered as she slowly approached Carnivac. She stopped when she saw the energon leaking from him and his mangled, mechanical, leg.

“Well... how to say this... he’s not alive... but he never was? Carnivac is a doll. My doll, I built him. A proxy body that I can control remotely... he lets me get around without being attacked for being a free Automata... I just need to get back to my workshop and I can repair him, good as new.”

She stared at Carnivac for a long time, no one else said anything.

“Gods I’m such a fool. All those things he said or did, that was all you, huh? An Automata pretending to be a real person.”

I knew she felt heartbroken to find out that the thing she was attracted to wasn’t real and was lashing out at me for convenience so I held my tongue... but man I wanted to refute that. Abruptly, she turned around, grabbed her sons by the wrists and marched back in the direction of the carriage. The kids yelled and tried to resist but she just dragged them along. George looked confused and just looked back and forth between me and Lily.

“I’ll leave you guys be, if you want to set up camp for the night. I don’t need sleep so I’ll keep watch for you.”

“You don’t really...”

“He may be a doll, but I’m the one that agreed to the contract. I’ll make sure you get back to town safely.”

George nodded and walked back to the carriage. I sighed and looked down to see that I’d been instinctively holding my damaged arm to keep it from falling off. I had Alfred put Shrapnel, along with the tools and materials I’d need, into my [Inventory] so that I could retrieve him and established the proxy connection. Shrapnel transformed into humanoid mode as I laid down on the ground and set about removing the crushed armor plating. Since the first time I’d used him, I’d equipped him with a small torch for cutting and welding as well as different drill and screw attachments. He was a pretty handy bot for doing small detail work. With my free arm I put the wyvern corpse into my [Inventory] and opened my [Console] to shut down all mana flow heading to the damaged arm, this wasn’t going to be a proper or pretty repair but it would be enough to get me going till I could get back to the workshop.

I opened the Network tab so that I could keep an eye out for anything in the area. I spotted a couple of hits but without knowing what direction they were in, it was hard to decide what to do about them. In the end I transfered Rom and Ram to my location via the [Inventory] and had one working on getting Carnivac’s neck repaired while the other kept watch for anything in the area. It was kinda neat having my own little team at the ready like this, having more could come in handy since now the shop was understaffed.

Rom got Carnivac’s neck repaired and dragged him over so that I’d be able to [Inspect] him to figure out how to get him back online. Thankfully, the problem seemed to be a mana disconnect so when it was repaired, I would just need to reboot him. Once he was back online and the proxy connection established, I had him stand and lean against a tree to keep an eye out while Rom continued working at repairing his leg. With Rom and Shrapnel working on mechanical repairs to Carnivac and myself, I had Ram slip away to keep an eye on the carriage through the night.

I was really worried that something might happen during the night when our combat abilities were so hampered, but thankfully nothing happened. In the morning, the repairs were as good as they could be until we got back to the workshop. Carnivac’s leg was mostly repaired though it still looked like a robot leg and I had a functional hand again even if it was unarmored and skeletal looking. I didn’t want to upset Lily and the others further so I put Rom and Ram into my [Inventory] but left Shrapnel, in beetle mode, with Carnivac.

I approached the camp with Carnivac as George was packing things back up and Lily and the kids were finishing their breakfast, but stopped ten or so meters away and waved George over.

“You got beat up pretty good, huh?” George said, gesturing at my arm.

I looked down at my arm and flexed my fingers a bit, “You should see the other guy. Carnivac here is going to need a lot of repair work but he should be fine to get you back to town. I’ll scout ahead with him to make sure our path is clear but I don’t want to leave your back unguarded.” I had Shrapnel fly off of Carnivac’s shoulder to land in my palm. “This is Shrapnel, he’ll be my eyes in back. I can’t keep him flying the whole rest of the trip but I’d like to have him ride on the back of the carriage and do sweeps from time to time.”

“That another of your puppets?”

“Yeah, so anything he sees, I see.”

“I see.”

“...nice, I see what you did there.”

“You were a human before becoming an Automata, weren’t you?”

“Yeah, you can tell?”

“Only humans make dumb jokes like that. Other races just don’t seem to have the knack for it.”

“Huh... I’ll have to keep that in mind when playing Carnivac.”

“Yeah, so, Lily won’t like having one of your buddies onboard so I guess just keep to the back.”

“That was my intent. I’m sorry I upset her...”

“Yup, I heard your warning too. He’s more of a machine than I am. Now those words make more sense, I thought you just meant he was all about the job.”

“That’s what I was hoping for.”

“I don’t know her full story, but I think she’s been raising those boys on her own for a long time now. She probably saw Carnivac as a strong man and potential father figure. She’ll come around sooner or later, don’t worry too much about it.”

“Right. Thanks George, you’re a good guy.”

“Heh, I don’t know about that!”, he laughed as he walked back to the carriage to finish packing up.