Master and Teto-sama left for a trip.
She left the duty of managing this place called the «Empty Wilderness» in the hands of me and 20 other service dolls.
«Good morning, everyone.»
« « «Good Morning, Head Maid Baretta.» » »
As someone who serves Master, I took upon the title of the head maid to give instructions to my new brethren service dolls created by her «Creation Magic».
We dispersed to our respective stations after I gave instructions to the 20 service dolls and divided the work amongst ourselves.
The responsibility Master had handed over to us was to look after the management magic tool on the ground surface of the «Empty Wilderness».
Master has the chief authority and I was given a sub-chief authority. Today's work was just like usual, checking the situation of vegetation, the other lifeforms, and the progress of the surface's mana.
«No abnormality in the barrier magic tool, production of ground surface's mana is stable. Drifting mana density is 1% thicker than the other day. It's a nice trend.»
The examination of the situation and the equipment condition was over for today and, seeing that I had some time, I continued to check on the work divided among other service dolls.
The work was grouped into rotations so that everyone would not do identical tasks.
Group one was in charge of the master's residence building.
Master might be absent but we can't ignore cleaning the residence, laundry, making the beds, and cooking.
I, who had been transformed into a demonic race called Mechanoid, and the service dolls, who possessed «Self-Repair» skills, could live on just mana alone but we were also capable of tasting food.
As such, we had been raising our experience in cooking every day by making food for ourselves so that we can cook for Master one day.
During one such time......
«This is....... Salty.»
«I apologize. I mistook salt for sugar.»
«Keep the salt away next time whenever you're going to make something that doesn't require it.»
What should I make of this, I wonder? We, the service dolls created to assist, were supposed to be flawless in executing a given order, so it should be natural not to fail in cooking.
In contrast, the functioning system of the service dolls created by Master was completely identical to mine. However, there were individual differences between the skills of the service dolls, maybe due to the black box, which was in charge of our thought process, created through the vague understanding of Master.
Like the one that was good at cooking, and the one that wasn't.
Or the one that was quick but crude in her work, and the one that was slow but careful.
Or the one that liked working, and the one that hated doing them.
There was also the one with athletic movements and the one that was clumsy in her actions......
«Is this individuality, I wonder?»
I ate a salty lunch while thinking about it.
The lunch was teriyaki chicken made using the soy sauce seasoning we got from Master but it was so salty it made me wish for water.
Moving on, the second group was in charge of looking after the fields and livestock.
Farms and livestock pens had been built near Master's residence.
Starting from our staple crop wheat, we also grew popular seasonal vegetables, perennial plants of strawberries and raspberries, herbs that could be used in medicine, and raw cotton for clothes. I also cultivated flowers in the flowerbed and flowerpots so that Master could enjoy the scenery.
However, Master was usually busy moving from one place to another to take care of adventurer requests so fresh vegetables and the like were generally stored in the «Storage». She created it through «Creation Magic» using the broken magic tool she found in the excavated ruins in the wilderness as the base.
It was an exceptional item that had three functions: temperature control, freezing and refrigeration, and then the time stop function when no one was inside.
I thought the ancient magical civilization had the leeway to develop this technology precisely because the increase in food production would entail the development of long-term preservation technology.
Well, it's a bit iffy to say that when they got themselves destroyed by their runaway mana experiment eventually but either way, there was no problem as long it benefited Master.
Those that couldn't be stored were consumed after cooking though even here the individuality of the service dolls could be seen.
As for the second group, one girl would be silently plucking grass, one girl would be focusing her attention on insects after quickly losing interest in work, one girl would be giving out instructions to the surroundings when it was time to water the plants, one girl would carry a chicken pet that should be livestock and worry for the goats, another girl would secretly eat from the crops, and many more.
Their unfettered behavior made me wonder if they even had any pride as service dolls.
Howeverーー
«Don't scold those girls. They're still inexperienced fledglings with soft hearts.»
Master said while looking over their growth.
As such, it turned into the situation of me guiding them when they made a blunder.
I looked after their growth as an individual which became even more apparent the more they learned.
«Everyone, please change your clothes since they are dirty from work.»
« « «Yes, Head Maid.» » »
Today, I asked the girls who did farm work to wash off the dirt from their bodies in the large bath prepared by Master and change into new clothes.
Service dolls had waterproof functions so they can wash and bathe as well though they could keep themselves clean with the magic installed inside their bodies.
However, I asked them to take a bath since it was a healthy habit and a sign of a cultured lifestyle.
Besides that, I also discovered something else while their skins were laid bare in the air.
The service dolls that only had subtly different hair colors and facial features at the beginning seemed to now have somewhat different body builds.
But that could just be my imagination and further observation was needed for that.
The third group was the forest expansion group.
We, the service dolls, were affected by the mana density of the surroundings. That was why we couldn't do prolonged work in the «Empty Wilderness» except for the forest region that had high mana density.
Thus they were in charge of scouting the forest created by Master to pick up the growing saplings and plant them on the forest borders to expand it.
10% of this wilderness, whose size rivals that of a small country, was turned into forests and 3% had been turned into rivers formed through springs and the spring water from those rivers provided water supply to all over the wilderness.
But the speed of afforestation would now increase exponentially with our service dolls' intervention in helping out with the planting, I guess. Though it wasn't wholly worry-free either.
I believe we would be able to overcome it with the help of our Master.
And then came the fourth and final group, the holiday group.
It was the day when service dolls who had gone through the above schedule in turn could act independently.
Everyone was figuring out their own way to pass the time like entering on standby in sleep mode after refilling their mana from mana refill equipment, cooking dishes of their liking, and entertaining themselves with the books or the games prepared by Master.
As I looked over them spending their time, I realized that I myself don't have any hobbies.
I shouldn't let it happen. Leading such a hazy lifestyle is unproductive.
As the first step, I thought I should begin with sketching out fashion designs from the ancient magic civilization era to come up with clothes for Master to wear.
Then I will select the design which my master liked among them and make clothes of that fashion.
«Fufu, it sounds fun.»
Laughter spilled out spontaneously.
Yes, this is fate, this is life!
I wonder if this was what they called the hymn of life.
Living and working toward a goal is so wonderful.
This happiness was something I wanted to teach my juniors as soon as possible. And then, I also wanted to let Master know my thoughts.
