After being reborn, I was turned into a slave girl by a princess.

Ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong.

The sound of the girl's high heels echoed lonely in the empty corridor.

This is not the core area of ​​the space station, so the heating system is only maintained at the lowest level... The surrounding light is also somewhat dim, and even the ground a little further away is not clearly visible.

Even so...

The girl's steps were indeed exceptionally firm, as if nothing could hinder her progress.

……

"Elusia, we..."

"Yes, we're almost at the anomaly area mentioned in the report. If you see anything strange, don't overreact."

The girls didn't make a sound because they could communicate with each other in their minds.

Hearing Elusia say that, Lonese felt a sudden surge of nervousness.

Because her current state is very strange; she's not exerting any physical effort, just like when she's lying in bed sleeping. But her body is definitely moving.

This state is as if countless threads have been attached to one's skin, turning one into a marionette.

……

"A-Elucia, I'll try to stay calm... but you have to talk to me for a bit. Otherwise, it's too easy to get nervous if you stay silent."

"Alright, alright, you silly little thing, you're just embarrassing yourself. What do you want to say?"

……

The girls' friends were not by their side.

To obtain the most accurate information, the team's job was to distract the robots. This allowed Elusia and Lonnies to infiltrate this crucial area undetected.

……

"You can say...you can say anything, as long as it's Elusia who speaks, right?"

"Hehe, alright then, let's just tell ghost stories."

"Ghost stories?"

“That’s right, isn’t it? Once upon a time, there was an old man living in an urban village. He lived a very frugal life and never wasted water or electricity… but every month when he settled his electricity bill, he would feel that it was more than what he actually spent.”

"Ghost stories are out of the question, they're even scarier!"

"Hmph, whatever you want to say! The old man was puzzled, so he turned off the appliances in the house and went to stay elsewhere for half a month... When he came back, he found that the electricity meter was still going up! And the electricity bill was not a small amount."

"This...this must be because electricity was stolen?"

"Yes, the old man thought so too. So he thoroughly searched his house and finally found a socket in a corner of the warehouse... But strangely enough, the wire didn't go into the house or the neighbor's house, but underground!"

"underground?"

Lonnie swallowed hard. If she were in control of her body, her legs would be so weak she couldn't even walk.

"That's right. The old man was furious when he discovered that his electricity had been stolen. To find out what was going on, he hired some laborers to dig up that section of the floor... But no one expected that a large refrigerator would be buried in the soil of the foundation."

"!!"

"Moreover, the top of the refrigerator was covered with a dense layer of tape, as if it were hiding something..."

"Waaah, stop talking."

Lornes tried to cover her fox ears, but since the voice came from within, it was impossible to do so.

Sensing Lonnie's flustered attempt to clear her name, Elusia became even more excited:

"A daring worker used a shovel to cut the tape off the refrigerator bit by bit..."

"Wow……"

"And what was stored inside? It was the corpse of a young fox-eared girl! Her clothes had been completely removed, except for the torn white silk threads clinging to her legs. Her skin was bloodless and tightly bound with hemp rope; the fluid flowing from her body had turned to ice crystals, frozen on the inside of her thighs..."

"What kind of ghost story is that?!"

……

Although Lonnies was somewhat afraid before the final mystery was revealed, she was no longer afraid at all when she heard Elcia mention the fox-eared girl.

Who would torture a fox-eared girl like that? This must be something Elcia made up!

……

"Oh ho ho, it seems the little silly fox isn't scared at all?"

"Who could be afraid? This is such a big fuss, it seems too fabricated!"

"Oh? But generally speaking, if a murder occurs, the killer will hide the body in the refrigerator, right?"

"what?"

"Because whether it's sunk in the sea or buried underground, there's a risk of it being discovered. But a freezer is the safest option. As long as you put the little fox in it, it will remain as it was when it was alive and won't decompose."

"Ugh!"

……

Although Lonnies knew that Elusia was flirting with her, the cold tone made it sound as if she were stating something real.

So Lonnie was also frightened, and her body trembled involuntarily.

"Silly boy, don't move around."

"I didn't want to move around either, and... and it's not that I didn't want to, Elusia was just scaring me."

"Hmph, I'm not trying to scare you. I'm just giving you a heads-up so you won't be so scared when you get into the core area that you'll wet yourself... Hmph, this is my body, you know, and I won't allow you to do anything so rude!"

"Vaccination?"

"That's right..."

Elusia smiled slightly and pushed open a heavy iron door.

And what about the scene that comes into view?

It was a temperature like an ice cave.

And dozens of young girls' corpses, lying in disarray.

……

……

(W-What's going on?!)

For a moment, Lonnie was completely stunned.

A cold sweat broke out on her back, and she was so frightened that she almost screamed and even ran back to hide behind cover.

but……

"Silly fox, don't shout! Didn't I already warn you? Are you still scared?"

"I'm giving you a heads-up, but... but this scene is just too..."

……

Just like the ghost stories told by Elusia, the girls in the ice cave didn't even have a complete set of clothes on; their skin was completely pale, without a trace of blood.

Even more bizarrely, many of the corpses did not close their eyes.

Those pitch-black pupils, open without a trace of light, exude a chilling pressure at first glance, making it impossible to look at them a second time.

Lonnie was shivering a bit from the cold, but Elusia smiled and said:

"Oh, so you're really stupid, aren't you? Okay, I won't scare you anymore. These corpses may be considered corpses, but they aren't human corpses, you know?"

"Not...a human corpse?"

"That's right, if I'm not mistaken, these should all be the corpses of cloned dolls... Hmm, look at the back of their necks, there are numbers on them."

Elusia bent down, lifted a girl's head with her fingers, and said this.

Chapter 8 The Doll

"A cloned doll?!"

"That's right, cloning using biological methods and giving it consciousness using scientific methods. This allows for the mass production of robots capable of complex behaviors at extremely low cost. I think this space station is doing something similar, isn't it?"

Elusia's fingers slowly brushed across the girl's corpse's cheek, closing her unclosed eyes.

And don't forget, Lonnies and Elusia are currently in a combined state.

Therefore, Lonnies could also feel that cold touch.

"Then...are all the corpses placed here failed experiments?"

"Hmm, they're probably all failures. For example, their physical strength didn't meet the standards, or their body connections and cores weren't complete... Oh dear, bodies deemed worthless were just thrown here."

"Ugh..."

……

Although Lonnies could understand the reasons for doing so.

Just like in a factory where various products need to be inspected, defective products, if shipped out, can cause even more fatal risks.

But seeing so many girls piled up in such a scattered way, Lonnies still felt a touch of sadness.

……

"Elusia? May I ask you a question?"

"Yes, of course!"

Did these girls have consciousness before they died? Were they just vessels for each other?

If Lonnies viewed these girls merely as empty shells, she would feel a little better.

but……

……