Taog ran down the road as fast as he could, chasing after Ateia. More than once he tripped on the muddy road in the middle of a rainy night, the mud now covering his clothes. But he grit his teeth and picked himself up.

Taog had no particular love for the people of Turannia. Most of them hated and abused him for his entire life. There was more than one he would seriously consider killing himself.

But that didn’t mean he was comfortable letting them all die.

After all…this was the land his parents died defending. The people whose lives they saved at the cost of their own. He could not let them die in vain.

And when he thought of Miallói facing the Dobhar right at this moment…he found a little more strength to put in his legs.

Fortunately, he somehow seemed to know which way NSLICE-00P was. Likely a side effect of that magic contract they had so hastily signed.

But now he could only be grateful for it.

And so he tried to ignore the burning in his legs and chest and pushed himself to move, even that much more quickly…

NSLICE-00P was standing in the middle of the road, staring back in the direction of Castra Turannia.

She still hadn't determined the exact cause of the unexpected drop in her mission success probability.

And the amount of time she was spending recalculating was becoming a problem.

But she needed to resolve the random drop first. Her cybernetic components still couldn't figure out how to fit it into the equation. And her organic components were not cooperating with her attempts to analyze them and determine the exact cause. The only data she had at present was that the drop originated from her organic components, so the only possible solution she had with the available data was to re-implement the emotional controls and see if that would reduce the drop to predicted levels.

And that solution was not viable, as all attempts to reapply the emotional controls had failed. She tried to apply the data she had gathered when letting the organic components handle motion and interaction with her allies. But it seemed that data had not yet given her any useful countermeasures to this situation.

Rather, if anything, the emotional controls had gotten weaker. Or the organic components had gotten better at resisting them.

And then…something happened to change the situation.

Her link with Ateia and Taog was faint, as she did not need to supply them with mana like the dungeon monsters, but it did still exist.

And now…she could feel that connection getting slightly stronger.

They were moving closer.

NSLICE-00P’s heart pounded…but her protocols still wouldn’t let her move forward. In fact, there could be a risk that the battle was moving towards her, and that she would need to evacuate even further. But her organic components refused that idea, and since she could not confirm which situation was the case she couldn’t overrule them.

So she compromised, cast an invisibility spell on herself, and flew into the sky. She then hung in the air, utilizing all of her long-range sensors to determine the situation.

After a short while that seemed like an eternity, NSLICE-00P got her confirmation. The friendlies were moving in her direction, completely alone.

Her heart pounded and her organic components ordered her forward…but her protocols kept her in place. She still could not bypass the minimum safe distance. She had to wait until they reached her.

And when they finally did, she lowered herself down to the ground, dropping her invisibility. Ateia and Taog’s eyes lit up as they saw her.

““Seero!””

“Greeting: This unit is pleased to note friendlies Ateia and Taog are in fully functional condition. Query: Have the friendlies decided to evacuate the area?”

They shook their heads as they panted for breath. NSLICE-00P logged her heart rate increasing but then Taog held out a scroll to her.

“Please…read this. It’s…an offer from the Empire.”

NSLICE-00P formed a mana barrier to keep the scroll dry, then opened it up and read through the contents.

It was apparently an offer of a particular title, the Amicitia Populi Elteni, in exchange for joining the Empire as a mercenary in the up and coming battle.

“Requesting Clarification: term ‘Amicitia Populi Elteni’ is implied in this document as an ally of the Empire but no details on rights or responsibilities have been provided. Please define details of the term and its place in the Empire’s political or military hierarchy.”

Taog shook his head.

“It just means the Empire considers you a friend. Officially you would have no affiliation with the Empire or rank with any hierarchies, but the Empire will treat you as if you did. You would be able to travel the Empire at will and request Imperial assistance with your mission…and you wouldn’t have any obligations in exchange.”

Ateia nodded.

“It’s perfect for you, Seero! You don’t have to join the Empire, but it will help you search for your people anyways! That’s worth something, right?”

NSLICE-00P’s robotic eye flickered as she processed the new data. It did, in fact, seem like this title could be useful to her primary directive…and did not necessarily violate her non-affiliation protocols. There could be an implied relationship from the Empire ‘considering her a friend’ that could cause foreign parties to make assumptions about her affiliations…but no more than traveling with two Exploratores. The effects of that implication depended on how the term was perceived beyond the official definition, but NSLICE-00P had no data on that and so could not include it in her calculations beyond a reasonable predicted value.

But that still didn’t matter to NSLICE-00P.

Because her friendlies were here, and not in harm's way.

“Acknowledged. Query: Are the friendlies under orders or else planning to leave the operational area?”

Ateia and Taog tilted their heads. Taog spoke up first.

“Um…are you asking what we’re doing after this?”

“Affirmative.”

Ateia shook her head, and then looked NSLICE-00P in the eyes.If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“We’re going back to fight, Seero. We can’t let our people die, just like that. So please…please…can you help us?”

Taog looked into her eyes as well and nodded.

“We have to do something, Seero. So please…can you at least consider this? Look…it would help you a lot on your mission, and you would just be a mercenary, so it’s not like you’d be picking a fight with the Dobhar personally, right?”

NSLICE-00P briefly considered trying to prevent them from returning...but her protocols wouldn't let her force Ateia and Taog into breaking a major directive. In fact...that action would be directly harmful to her primary objective. Causing them to fail an Exploratores directive while they were still in training would remove the benefits to the contract they had with her in the first place. So the fact that Ateia and Taog were physically present was irrelevant to the overall analysis of the situation so long as they intended to return.

Perhaps a crafty negotiator may have realized they could keep the pair here without explicitly forcing them by drawing out the decision until the battle concluded...but NSLICE-00P was not programmed for negotiations, and so such a measure didn't cross her mind. Even if it had, it would have qualified as intentionally causing friendly units to fail a directive as far as her protocols were concerned.

But...there was now a new mercenary offer from the Empire. And that could hypothetically change the results of her calculations.

“Acknowledged. Statement: Analyzing Imperial Mercenary proposal in light of new offer.”

NSLICE-00P rushed to analyze the offer, throwing all her processors at the problem. 01R and the others noticed and offered their components once again, which NSLICE-00P used to speed up the calculations.

And then…

Her heart pounded.

She detected feelings of nausea, even though she had not ingested organic fuel lately and couldn’t detect any signs of toxins or pathogens.

Her calculations were about to finish…but the results were already clear.

It would be much closer…but the advantages of intervention to her primary directive were still not enough to overrule her non-intervention protocols.

She opened her mouth to report the incoming results…but no words came out. Her organic components resisted that statement with all their might. They demanded a recalculation, even before the current calculations had finished.

But she had recalculated time and time again and all the new variables had been accounted for. The simulations would not change no matter how many times she reran them.

She already knew what the results would be. Rerunning further calculations would be inefficient.

And yet…she couldn’t report the results.

Inside the monster hangar, 01R gnashed his teeth and pounded the ground. The other rat monsters kept glancing every which way. 00B was crying with all his might. The spider monsters trembled in place.

They were still connected to the wise-mighty-gracious boss-queen…and so they could feel her anguish.

For some reason…she was in pain.

And they were helpless to face it.

After all…they didn’t even understand what had shaken the wise-mighty-gracious boss-queen so, and so they could not even begin to address it.

So they boiled in rage and helplessness as they…

At that moment, Lilussees stumbled out of her room.

“By. The. Aesdes. WOULD YOU ALL JUST STOP ALREADY?!”

All the monsters froze and turned to her.

“I’M LIKE, TRYING DESPERATELY TO FIND A WAY TO SLEEP WHEN THESE STUPID THINGS ARE KEEPING ME AWAKE AND YOU’RE ALL, LIKE, SHOUTING INTO MY BRAIN! LIKE, CAN YOU ALL STOP BEING IDIOTS FOR FIVE SECONDS, OR SOMETHING?!”

R stood in shock for a moment longer, then narrowed his eyes.

“Quiet-silence, disloyal one! You sit back and do nothing to aid to wise-mighty-gracious boss-queen, yes yes!”

R let out a cry as Lilussees whacked him on the head with one of her now metal-coated legs.

“SHUT! UP! Who do you think taught her how to do, like, anything dungeon-related?! The stupid snack? IT WAS ME, YOU IDIOT! You wouldn’t even exist if I wasn’t here, so, like, shut up and listen, or something!!”

Rattingtale would have argued that point...had he not fled to his room the moment Lilussees left hers. Lilussees jabbed her legs at the screen.

“Can’t you idiots open your eyes and look for like, five seconds, or something?! Obviously she thinks those stupid humans are going to die and wants to help them! Not even the royal records understand why she would want to but clearly she does! So, like, stop angsting and figure out a way for her to help, or something, you stupid suicidal snack!”

R’s eyes widened and he stared at the screen. Did he truly fail to read the wise-powerful-gracious boss-queen’s intentions like this? He gnashed his teeth once again.

But Lilussees was ignoring him now.

“And you, boss lady! Like, this is not my place to say, or something, but if you, like, want to help, THEN JUST GO HELP! We’re, like, dungeon masters, or something! The rest of the world calls us, like, demon lords, or something! We, like, do whatever we want, and don’t care what other people think! So if you want to do something, then, like, just do it! AND STOP TELLING ME TO, LIKE, DO ALL THIS MATH BECAUSE YOU CAN’T MAKE A DECISION, OR SOMETHING! I’M, LIKE, TRYING TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO EVEN SLEEP! LIKE, SERIOUSLY!!!”

And with that, Lilussees stormed back to her room, trembling and muttering about stupid snacks and indecisive bosses.

NSLICE-00P froze, her robotic eye spinning slightly.

Obviously NSLICE Lilussees was a bit mistaken. NSLICE-00P didn’t ‘want’ anything, she did not possess subjective ‘desires’ or any such inefficiencies. She was simply trying to determine the most efficient way to proceed with her primary directive.

But, as NSLICE Lilussees shouted at her, something shifted within her organic components. Something clicked into place, like the missing piece of a circuit. Like she had just identified a syntax error causing a cascade of bugs.

Finally, she determined the exact cause of the random drop in mission success probability.

The survival of friendlies Ateia and Taog was deemed important to the success of her primary directive. Her organic components predicted that succeeding without them would be significantly more difficult. And not just because of the loss of social connections to the local society’s military hierarchy.

It seemed that the termination of friendlies Ateia and Taog would directly impact her own efficiency, particularly of her organic components, and so disrupt further efforts to pursue her primary directive. And a reduction to her own effectiveness was a variable she could reasonably include.

Her cybernetic components determined this effect was purely emotional, and so could be counteracted with effective emotional controls. But she had already logged her emotional controls failing and had not re-calibrated them yet. Effective emotional controls were no longer a guarantee, and she could not predict when they would be. Likewise, situations had occurred that necessitated her disabling the controls intentionally, when she wanted her organic components and cybernetic components to exist as separate threads. So…the effect being purely emotional and hypothetically counter-able did not negate its predicted impact on her efficiency. The variable was still a valid addition to the equation.

And so her organic components immediately moved to add it in.

In that moment, a basic value was added to the calculation that was just winding down. An offset to the efficiency of non-intervention in this case to account for the likely termination of the friendlies and its impact on her own function. This new variable was added just as the calculation was about to finish. Haphazardly, and as a raw static value, as the organic components didn't wait for the cybernetic to construct a new simulation.

And so, in that moment, the calculation returned just barely in favor of intervention.

The difference was statistically insignificant and there was a complete lack of confidence in the validity of the result. Adding a new variable in such a brute force fashion while the simulation was already running was not at all an efficient method of prediction. She would need to determine how the new offset fit correctly into the simulation and then rerun the calculation to produce any significant results.

But she didn’t do that.

Her organic components immediately dropped all requests for additional recalculations. Her cybernetic components wanted to verify the result first given the lack of confidence in that prediction…but the organic components were now requesting immediate, urgent action in line with a calculation result that technically matched her protocols and predicted benefits (or at least minimized losses) to her primary objective. And since there was a battle likely in-progress which made this contract offer time-sensitive, her organic components' urgency was accepted as valid. In that moment, her cybernetic components did not find a strong enough reason to refuse, given there was not a specific protocol or directive being unjustifiably violated.

“Analysis Results: Terms and conditions of Imperial mercenary offer determined as acceptable.”

NSLICE-00P channeled mana into her finger and signed her name on the document held in front of her, having encountered that sort of mana paper beforehand.

And once her name was on the paper, all additional calculation requests ceased. Regardless of her uncertainty as to the validity of the simulation, she had now signed an official contract. In other words, she had agreed to fulfill an official directive for a temporary tactical authority. Now only the risk of either immediate termination or failure of her primary directive would overrule that.

So additional calculations on intervention were now unnecessary and inefficient.

Ateia and Taog’s eyes widened.

“Seero…you mean…”

She surrounded the two with mana barriers. Her helmet engaged and her robotic eye turned red.

“Status Report: New directive accepted. Entity ‘Empire’ designated as temporary friendly. Entity ‘Dobhar’ designated as temporary hostile. Initiating war-zone termination protocols.”

And with that, NSLICE-00P activated her repulsors and shot into the sky, pulling along a screaming Taog and a laughing Ateia.