by Hirukuma,
I can’t settle down, so I keep looking around the room, but the only things in here are a timeworn desk, a chair, some documents, the light of a magic item, and what looks like a set of tools. The ceiling is about ten feet high, and it, the walls, and the floor are made of stone that looks thick and sturdy.
The classic escape would be to dig through the wall, but how many years would that take? In the end, no matter how much I look around, there’s no way out. I’ve just about given up, prepared to wait for tomorrow.
Just then, there’s a soft sound, and my vending machine body shakes a little. What was that? It was almost nothing, but did I just hear something bursting open?
I listen hard with my nonexistent ears and hear another sound in the distance, like something exploding, followed by a clash of arms.
“Hey, what was that?!”
“It’s coming from above!”
I hear the guards shouting, and their footsteps disappear up the stairs. Does this mean the fortress is under attack?!
Then I have to wake up Hulemy.
“Get one free with a winner. Get one free with a winner. Get one free with a winner.”
“Huh? Wait, what? I, uh… What’s wrong, Boxxo?”
She looks at me with a half-asleep expression as she wipes some drool away. I have no way to explain, so for now—have this can of coffee to wake up.
“Oh, thanks.” She drinks some, and she burps. “Best thing for waking up in the morning.”
Her demeanor still reeks of “old dude,” but that doesn’t matter right now. The only thing I can think of in this situation is that a raid is happening. I have to find out who the lowlifes are fighting.
A couple guesses at the assailant’s identity come to mind. First, the monsters that roam the stratum. Second—hunters.
The settlement’s increase in activity naturally means an influx of villains like these who can smell the money. Let’s assume stealing me isn’t their first crime, and that they’ve committed many already. They could be on a watch list.
Still, this is too fortunate to be a coincidence, which means…
Wait, were they waiting for someone to steal me? A hunk of iron full of money is the perfect bait, isn’t it? They’re leaving a giant, defenseless safe in the middle of the road. It’s like they were asking criminals to go after me.
Plus, stealing me would be a pretty large-scale operation. I’m significantly valuable, too, which means it would take time and effort to move me. I must be the best bait around.
Hold on. Has Director Bear or someone in the association used me for a plan they thought up? But Director Bear would have told me beforehand. No, maybe they stole me as he was coming to tell me, and he used the opportunity? Whichever the case, if my prediction is correct, we’re saved!
“This noise… Are people fighting?”
Hulemy seems to have finally woken up. With her usual sharp gaze, she moves to the door and puts her ear to it.
“Yeah, they’re fighting someone, all right. Don’t know who, but this might be our chance.”
I was thinking the same thing. The worst scenario would be each side wiping the other out. If that happens, we’ll be trapped here.
She struggles to get the door open for a short while, but it’s locked from the outside, and it doesn’t look like there’s anything she can do.
“—xxoooo!”
Wait, that voice. I give a start—I know that voice. Hulemy must have an idea, too. She knits her eyebrows and clings to the door.
“Boxxooooooo! Wheeeeeere aaaaaaaare youuuuuuu?!”
I know this voice coming from the other side of the thick door all too well. It’s—
“Lammis?!”
Yes, it’s Lammis’s voice! I’d never mistake it. That means the hunters are the ones attacking. We’re saved!
“But wait, why is she here? Does this mean the Hunters Association is behind this? And she’s calling the name Boxxo. Do you know her?”
“Welcome.”
“Ohhh, great! Let’s make sure we don’t get in their way or hold them back. Wouldn’t be very funny if they took me hostage in desperation, after all.”
She seems to decide it’s safest next to me. She gets her clothes together and leans back against me.
“Hope you’ll protect me if you need to!”
“Welcome.”
Leave it to me. Protecting, at least, is something I’m confident I can do.
I begin to hear the sounds of fighting and angry shouts getting closer. The tremors I feel from time to time are most likely Lammis. If she removed her fetters and wielded her Might with all her strength, she could tear through these decayed fortress walls like tissue paper.
“This could be bad,” says Hulemy suddenly, looking at the ceiling. I look as well, but I don’t see anything wrong. A little bit of dust is falling, but I don’t think it’s enough to signal a collapse.
“The storeroom is above us. It’s got all the coins those garbage heaps amassed in it. That’s all well and good, but those morons had to start hoarding defective magicite—also known as blastite. Originally, magicite was used as a fuel source for magic items, but sometimes the mana built into it starts flowing strangely, and then you can’t use it for fuel—mishandling it could cause magic items to malfunction and break.”
Magicite exists, too? I’ve been wondering how magic items worked. I see—so that’s the trick.
“Anyway, defective magicite is hard to handle. I even heard a story once about a nation that stored a lot of it away, planning to use it for weaponry, but then the whole thing exploded, taking nearby facilities with it. Nowadays, it’s common sense to destroy it as soon as you find it…but they don’t know that. Some merchant probably sold them a bunch of huge pieces of blastite and told them it was magicite, and then they threw it all into the storeroom above us with the utmost care, as you can imagine. Morons, am I right?”
If this didn’t relate to us, I could say “what morons,” but this means there’s an unexploded bomb sitting right above us… Are they freaking morons?!
“Anyway, you get it now? If you give blastite a strong impact, things will turn real bad. If the roof of the storeroom above us collapses and it hits the blastite…”
Yeah. Right. Say no more. Lammis, could you please tone it down just a little bit?!
I think I feel the bangs and shaking getting closer!
“Uh, yeah, this is really bad.”
The moment the words leave Hulemy’s mouth, the ceiling comes crashing down with a thunderous boom.
As a Vending Machine Maniac
The sound of an explosion, so loud that it would have stunned my eardrums if I had them, fills the underground chamber. As we look up at the ceiling, it creaks, and we see crevices start to scatter out in all directions.
Ack, this is exactly what Hulemy was worried about!
“I-it’s caving in! Ahhhhhhhh!”
She’s cute when she screams—this isn’t the time to think about that! Force Field, activate!
At the last moment, blue walls surround me. It repels the collapsing ceiling, preventing it from entering the field. With an unidentifiable noise surrounding us, Hulemy clutches her ears and crouches, cowering.
When the sound finally subsides, we’re trapped in the rubble. It would normally be pitch-black with no light coming through, but with the light coming out of my vending machine body, we have a good view of our surroundings.
“Th-thanks for saving me, Boxxo. You’re a pretty reliable guy, y’know that?”
She bumps my metal body with a fist. The situation calls for more urgency, but for the moment, we’re okay. The problem is what to do now.
We can manage for food. The biggest issue is keeping this Force Field up. With a little over ten thousand points and that number decreasing by one per second, there’s a limit to how long I can maintain it. If it costs 3,600 points per hour, someone will have to dig us out within three hours or we’ll just get crushed to death.
If it
was just me…I could withstand it by increasing my toughness. But that couldn’t be further from what I want to do. If I abandon this woman, it’ll haunt me for the rest of my life. Now that I’m not human anymore, I want my soul, at least, to be as human as possible.
And I don’t want to see Lammis cry, either.
“Boxxo, can you keep this Force Field up forever?”
“Too bad.”
No point lying to her now. I’ll tell her the situation in as much detail as I can, and then we should search for a way we’ll both be saved.
“Do we have less than an hour?”
“Too bad.”
“Is it a two-hour limit?”
“Too bad.”
“Around three hours?”
“Welcome.”
“I see. We might last three hours… That’s not much of a margin. What a pain.”
Yes, we don’t have time. We have to break out of this situation before it’s up. Unfortunately, no tool I can have as a vending machine product will let us get out of here.
It’s cruel, but I guess this is reality. I’m incredibly far from gaining another Blessing. Things would change if I could have an optional drill part as a feature, but obviously that doesn’t exist. Even if it did, it would probably take an immense number of points.
We’re in a bind, no matter how I look at it, but…not yet. I must be able to combine something to…
“Hey, Boxxo. Do you need money to maintain this Blessing? You said you had more ways to use money before.”
“Welcome.”
Ah yes, I did say that. Of course, if we got a lot of coins, I could change them into points and preserve the Force Field. But Hulemy said they took all her money and belongings. We don’t have the kind of money I need here.
“I thought so. Then we might be able to pull through. Boxxo, look up.”
Pull through how? I don’t believe her right off the bat, but I move my gaze toward the upper portion of the ceiling rubble. What does she want from—? Wait.
“Do you see it? That bag is full of coins. Remember how I said there’s a storeroom above us?”
Oh, I get it. I see. We’re right under a storeroom, which is what caused this huge mess. If the floor fell out, then obviously whatever was inside the storeroom would fall.
In that case, I’ll allow just that bag into the Force Field!
The bag falls to the floor. Its opening is large enough to fit an entire child inside, and it’s filled with gold, silver, and copper coins. This is great! With all this, I can keep the Force Field up for a long time. Just the coins that fell out of the bag upon its descent should let me maintain it for a whole day.
All I need to do now is set my item prices to cost at least one gold coin.
“Sweet. I’m buying whatever I want now!”
Gold, silver, and copper coins pour into me, and my points rise to unbelievable levels. I think this money is probably acquired illegally, but there’s no way to return it to the people who lost it, so I’ll put it to good use.
If their boss is safe out there somewhere and he realizes all the money they saved up is gone, he might slip a disk.
The Force Field is no longer a worry. If we can hold out for three days, Lammis will be able to clear the rubble and dig us out. And I have faith that if I keep calling out to her, she’ll find us before long.
With the threat to our lives at bay, we finally have time to think. Now we just have to wait for rescue.
Hulemy is in total relaxation mode; she’s been munching on her chips, bought for the premium price of more than one gold coin. She’s quiet now, though, so maybe she’s sleepy since she’s full.
“Hah, hah, hah-hah, what…? I can’t breathe…”
Wait, her face doesn’t look good. She’s not breathing smoothly. She has a hand to her forehead as though she’s in pain. What’s wrong? She was so energetic before, and yet… Oh, shoot, I’m an idiot!
I have a mechanical body, and I made a stupid mistake because of it. Right now, she’s suffocating. Unlike me, people need to breathe. The rubble has us totally buried, in an airtight space. People can’t last long like that.
Crap. A little bit of thought and I would have realized it. I slipped up, figuring I won’t die, and exposed her to danger without needing to.
“My head hurts…Hah, hah, hah…”
What should I do? I have even less time to think than before. If Hulemy suffocates and passes out, I’ll be powerless. If she needs oxygen… Oxygen… I got it!
I recall seeing that I had a feature for this. I thought I’d never get it, but I’ve never been so happy to have been a vending machine maniac before this moment.
The vending machine changes into a more retro shape. After switching forms into an archaic rectangular design, Japanese characters appear on my upper body:
OXYGEN VENDING MACHINE
In the middle of my body are masks that can cover your entire nose and mouth, as well as a thin tube outside me, connecting to my main body. When you hook it up, you can breathe oxygen from it.
“Hah, hah, wh-what do I do with this?”
Originally, the oxygen provision system cost fifty yen per three thousand cubic centimeters of oxygen, but this time, of course, it’s free. I make sure to output the oxygen so that even if she doesn’t figure it out, she’ll be fine. The important thing is to provide oxygen to this space.
“Hah, hah, there’s something, hah-hah-hah…coming out… You want me…hah-hah…to breathe it?”
“Welcome.”
She puts the mask firmly over her mouth. She begins to greedily inhale the oxygen, her pained look gradually relaxing. Great—I think she’s okay now.
Phew. That scared me. It was worth being a part of the vending machine enthusiast community—whenever I find a vending machine museum, I jump in without a second thought.
This oxygen vending machine was something that actually existed around 1965. At the time, air pollution was a problem in Japan, and apparently, they placed some of these in Ginza as an attempted countermeasure.
Based purely on what I’ve seen, it’s one of the strangest vending machines I’ve ever come across.
I have more than enough points to keep both the Force Field and the oxygen going without issue. Now we just have to wait for Lammis to rescue us. Only after giving some thought as to whether I’m forgetting something again, of course.
I can provide food whenever she needs it, and all the items she bought litter the floor now, so we’ll be fine for a while. I’ve got points to spare, as well. I’ll be on alert for a while, without rest or sleep, to prepare for anything unexpected. I should be good. I don’t think I’ve overlooked anything.
It saddens me that I can’t say that for sure, since it’s been pretty bad until now, but if I fail, we should manage as long as I back her up. I swear to myself that I won’t make a mistake until we’re rescued.
“Thanks, Boxxo. You know, if you were human, that might have been really bad.”
Sitting, she looks up at me with a blush, almost making my heart—er, my circuitry—start to pound. But Lammis is the one who has my back, metaphorically and physically.
I wonder if she’s crying right now, worried that I might’ve been crushed. She knows about my Force Field and my toughness, so I think she’ll be fine. I just hope she’s not acting crazy.
As if to interrupt my thoughts, a strange sound comes from overhead. A scraping noise mixed with a low-pitched sound, reverberating through my body. Did something heavy fall to the ground?
The noise is quickly canceled out—by a certain girl’s shouting.
“Boxxo! Where are you?! Even if you’re not safe, answer me!”
That wailing… Is she crying? I swear, crying over a vending machine… Even a maniac like me would go pale.
“Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha. Lammis is calling, Boxxo. Give her an answer,” says Hulemy, standing up and hitting me on the back.
The rubble overhead blows away, and Lammis, lit by the magical lamps, peers in
at us. Her face is smeared with snot and tears, and the area around her eyes is swollen from bawling; her eyes themselves are bloodshot. I can tell at a glance how much she was worried about me.
“Boxxooooooo!”
Without hesitating, she leaps at me from above. I allow her through the Force Field, and she slips through its blue walls and crashes into me.
[25 damage. Durability decreased by 25.]
Ow, argh. That was more damage than I thought. Still, I wish this damage indicator would read the mood.
“I’m sorry—I’m sorry. This all happened because I took my eyes off you.”
You don’t need to worry about that so much. And I’m happy for the hug, but I hear some unpleasant groans from my body.
[10 damage. Durability decreased by 10.]
…I’m going to recover my durability. If this goes on, I could lose the life she just saved. Please calm down, Lammis.
“Thank you.”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry—I’m just so happy you’re okay!”
I have no arms to hold her as she sobs, and I don’t have a mouth to give her words of comfort—but from the bottom of my heart, I’m glad I met you. And I’m happy I could meet you again, Lammis.
Boxxo, eh…? A strange magic item but full of too many mysteries.
A magic item with its own mind. It seems like a human soul is in there, but what is this box, anyway? It’s a container made of materials I’ve never seen or heard of before, and the things inside taste like nothing I’ve ever experienced—and they’re even tasty.
I was pretty confident in my intelligence, but there was nothing like this recorded in anything I could find. If someone could make a magic item with the same capabilities as Boxxo’s, they’d be swimming in money for sure.
And the human soul trapped inside it—it’s a pain that it can only say yes or no, but I can still feel the human goodness in it.
Lammis has always been a good judge of people, and if she’s that attached to him, then he probably isn’t a bad person.
She’s still hugging him, making creaking noises, but the box is taking it all without so much as a complaint. This mysterious magic item—it protected me from the falling rubble, and did its damnedest to save me.