Freed from the production line, Yekase was summoned to Mysidia by Alicia Alicia within days.

“Domo, Alice-san. Any instructions?”

“Plans changed.”

Her tone was stiff, a crease of irritation marring her calm. Even so, Alice had the one-eighth-scale maid automata serve Yekase tea and pastries.

A warm-toned muffin crowned with cheese cubes. Yekase plucked a cube and ate it. Only then did a maid automaton offer knife and fork.

Alice’s disdain was obvious.

“There’s been an incident in the court. The Golden Apple’s ripening has paused for unknown reasons. Worst case, it delays a month. By then everyone will be fully prepared. More obstacles.”

“My infiltration?”

“Proceeds as planned. We need time to prepare inside. The situation’s volatile. Automata with hidden cameras and mics are no longer enough.”

“I did say I’m teaching in the City of Ivalice, right?”

“Have a substitute pull you out. I’ll throw an illusion on you and send you back.”

“Fine…”

A month embedded in the palace… Alice had said the shell had etiquette-assist arrays and allowed regular outings. That should be fine.

After they ate, Alice led Yekase to her workshop.

Yekase had wanted to stroll Mysidia. Alice said she could stroll after she put on the shell, and learn the controls at the same time, so she followed.

Alice was Mysidia’s foremost automaton maker and an Ancient Alchemist. Her workshop fit the grandeur and the mystery. It sat in a cavern under the World Tree, directly beneath a colossal root system, and was named the Rabbit Hole.

They stepped through a portal. Though underground, there was no raw rock in sight. Every wall was paneled tight, like a lord’s manor from an older age. First thing Yekase saw was a large oil painting opposite the doors.

A naked, muscular man pushing a spherical stone up a slope.

“Sisyphus…”

“Mm.”

Alice wasn’t in a mood to explain. She guided Yekase straight to the deepest secret room. The infiltration shell was hidden there.

She set Yekase on a chair that looked like it belonged in a gynecologist’s clinic. Several one-eighth-scale maid automata picked up two curved, flesh-colored plates and clamped them to Yekase’s left calf, front and back.

The seam flashed and vanished. It fused into one piece.

Then came feet, thighs, torso. From feet up to chest and hands. Last was a helmet that closed behind the head. The mask lowered from above.

Yekase was wrapped head to toe in metal. On the chair lay a blonde girl.

Only her eyes could stare straight ahead. Everything else was indistinguishable from life.

She stealth-tested her Flash Energy. It permeated the shell smoothly.

Good. No fear of whatever tricks Alice may have built in. A one-eighth maid automaton handed her a classic black-and-white maid dress, helped her into it, then straightened every fold.

Yekase turned into a blonde maiden in a plain maid’s outfit. She slid off the chair and stood before Alice.

Sun-curled hair spilled over shoulders and chest, a lace headband crowning her. Her face wore a gentle, decorous smile. Stained-glass eyes were lifeless, yet beautiful. A neat black long skirt, topped by a spotless apron. Milk-white stockings hugged her legs, heels lightly lifted. Silk-gloved hands folded naturally at her waist.

“Why can’t my heels touch the ground?” Yekase’s voice floated out from behind the smiling mask.

The little assistants produced round-toe leather pumps with five-centimeter heels as answer.

First heels in her life. She paced the workshop, awkward as a fawn on ice. Alice didn’t hurry her. She let Yekase map every new line of motion.

“This personal armor fits. When did you take my measurements?”

“Seems you don’t even grasp the basics of an Alchemy workshop. That crystal crone taught you nothing?”

“Nothing!”

Truly nothing.

Alice sighed, annoyed. “A workshop is an Ancient Alchemist’s domain. Step in, and you’re meat on a chopping board under the master’s knife. For a fusion like you, direct control is limited. But sizing you? Trivial.”

“That strong, huh. Can I build my own workshop at home?”

“You saying that with this permanent smile feels like mockery.”

“That’s your bias talking.”

Yekase kept that spring-breeze smile and tilted her head.

Alice ignored the workshop question and handed out orders. “Inside the shell, there are teleportation arrays at the mouth and lower body. They’ll feed you and handle waste. In theory, you could live in there forever. Posture and etiquette are pre-set. You look better than you.”

“Thank you.”

Good thing Alice didn’t know the depths of Yekase’s teleportation chest still held Jiang Bailu’s precious gift—two, maybe three, reactor control rods. With that wicked alchemist’s taste, she’d have removed the outlet array and told her to plug uranium rods and solve it herself.

“Uh, wait. What about the True Name above my head?”

“An isolation spell will make the field effect of ‘True Name’ miss you. No one will see it, and no one will treat you as human.”

“Got it.”

“If you sense danger and must shed the shell to fight back, touch the emergency release inside your inner thigh. The shell will store in subspace. Capacity is limited. One use. Be careful.”

“Understood.”

“Palace maid automata have names. You’re Lymriel. If the shell detects an authorized person calling it, it will obey their commands.”

“Mm.”

“Lymriel, go to the market and buy me a bag of apples. After that, free time.”

“Yes, master.”

The mask parted its decorative silicone lips and answered in Yekase’s voice.

“Nice. It even saves me talking. Can I just nap inside and let the shell walk my body around?”

“In theory, yes. But why am I sending you in to infiltrate?”

“I’ll wake when something happens. Trust my bus-nap alarm.”

The empty banter died as the shell named Lymriel finally moved. She extended a slender, white-stockinged leg and glided with a catwalk grace out of the workshop into Mysidia.

She stepped into a street that flowed like a tide of people.

From now on, no one who saw Yekase would take her for human. She was only Lymriel, a maid automaton running errands for a noble Alchemist. A fine piece of magitech. No equal respect.

Kinda fun. Like roleplay.

The stray thoughts didn’t slow her steps. That, at least, was convenient.

But before any suggestive daydream could quicken her pulse, a line surfaced in Yekase’s mind:

“This armor will become your new prison…”

My phantom limb went slack with a rueful laugh.

Lymriel took a route Yekase didn’t know and stopped at a fruit stand’s curbside rack.

“I’d like a bag of apples,” Lymriel said.

“Oh—Lord Crescent’s new automaton.”

The shopkeeper deftly opened a paper bag, dropped in ten plump, rosy apples, and handed it over.

“Thank you.”

Lymriel nodded, cradling the bag. Suddenly, her whole body shivered. Yekase regained control.

The apple quest done, free time began. She tossed the apples into her teleportation chest without thinking. The shopkeeper gaped. “Even automata can cast teleportation?”

She stepped into the street.

Even in free mode, the shell polished her posture at every instant. It made her move with the softness, grace, and humility of a palace maid.

Thin as paper, yet etched with so many fixed Sorcery circuits… frightening in practice.

By lightness alone, Alice’s craft was master-tier beyond doubt. Yekase couldn’t hold a candle.

Four hundred years of a craftsman’s hand, indeed.

And Sandryon, a century older, still needed tutoring to decouple spell circuits just to build a mech…

Her body felt like a precision robot. She walked, yet each step matched the last in interval and length. Chin up, chest open, torso steady. Balance so true a book on her head wouldn’t fall.

It felt like…

“Mom, why does that girl stare straight ahead? Is she blind?”

“Silly. That’s not a person. That’s an alchemical maid automaton.”

“When I grow up, I want to build my own automaton!”

Right. Not a robot. A maid automaton. She moved by her will, and every sensation was hers. Elegant, well-drilled Lymriel—

—?!

That was the effect of the Runic Words!

“Maid Automaton” was a Runic Word too? Through the shell’s always-on arrays, Yekase had unknowingly linked to the base grid. It triggered a near-assimilation routine. Even her thoughts had almost drifted into “maid automaton.”

That casual brainwash… born from studying Mind Body Manipulation and refining it?

Good thing Yekase had plenty of Reverse Meme combat under her belt. Like an internal camera, she caught contradictions and oddities in her thinking fast. Otherwise she was done for.

Alice, you set me up.