Lovable N || N x Harem

Chapter 1

N readjusted the collar of his coat, and stepped into the abandoned building through the windowsill. His coat billowed faintly from the slight breeze that had made its way inside while he made his own way deeper inside the complex, making sure not to step on any of the frozen skeletons and disturb the dead. The floor he searched through was quite a ways into the sky, towering over all other structures in the vicinity. Passing by a few windows, he was granted the gift of witnessing Copper-9's rare, ethereal beauty that one could only truly appreciate at night. The pale moonlight shone down on the ruined valleys of what used to be homes and factories, illuminating the white snow that blanketed the planet's surface, and who's light colour could only truly be matched by the moon itself. It gave an eerie feel to all that could see. Truth be told, N was probably the only sentient being on the planet that appreciated sights like this. The workers hid themselves away, never to see the light of day or the shine of night, and his squadmates weren't exactly the aesthete type.

N occasionally stopped strolling to check nearby rooms, claws primed and ready to rip and maim if need be. Each and every time, he found nothing of interest, only his rising disappointment and annoyance. J had tasked him with scouting out the area for any signs of worker colonies. He did find the occasional stray, and trinkets he took a liking to, but his search had been otherwise fruitless. The compound he was currently exploring was the last building in the area he hadn't checked. He silently prayed to himself that his efforts of mindlessly searching for worker colonies would soon be rewarded, for if he didn't bring some kind of good news to J, then punishment was a given.

N continued his search deeper and deeper inside. One of the rooms he found was filled with frozen corpses of humans. The drone curiously walked in, yet he was still alert. One of the frozen, decomposed bodies had a piece of plastic lodged inside its chest. N reached and yanked it out, wincing at how the corpses frozen chest crumbled and collapsed in on itself. He muttered a quiet apology and backed away.

The piece of plastic was some kind of name tag―a way of identification for the employees of Jc Jenson. N took a moment to properly analyse the name before frowning. The owner of this name tag had only been around twenty earth years old. For a drone like him, that was nothing―his metallic body could last a century, maybe even two without rusting―but for a human, he was relatively young, just entering adulthood. He found it heartbreaking how someone who had their whole life ahead of them had it ended so quickly. N carefully placed the plastic rectangle back into the chest cavity of the corpse and whispered a quick prayer that he hoped would put the human's soul to peace.

A few minutes later and N had done the same for all the other bodies in the room. Whether they be young or old, girl or boy, N prayed for them. He had learnt from a group of workers he had stalked in his earlier years that humans and some drones conducted an act of communication with holy deities. This was called praying. He had learnt that some prayed for riches, others for prosperity, and then there were people like himself that prayed for the wellbeing of others and hoped that the holy deities would take care of the souls who had been sent to the afterlife. N cast once final, sad glance around the room before he left to continue his search.

No one deserved to die in that kind of way: bodies frozen on some nowhere planet in space, with their loved ones unable to reach their remains. If someone he cared about (someone like V) had perished and he was unable to reach what was left of them, he'd be sad, so in a way, he could sympathise with the friends and family of the perished, hence why he prayed for them. To N, praying was putting the souls of the dead to rest, and putting their loved ones at ease. It made N feel a bit giddy inside, knowing that in some shape or form, he was helping someone out there in the vastness of space to cope with loss.

Time had gone by in a blur, and soon enough, there was only one room left. N's face was contorted into a grimace, and his eyes were unfocused. This was his last hope. If he didn't find some kind of trace of a colony or even a clue that a group of workers were nearby, he could say goodbye to having peaceful sleep during the day; knowing J, she'd kick him out of the spire during daylight to repent for not having anything to show. N unconsciously gulped. Disassembly drones like himself couldn't go out in the sun, it overheated their systems too quickly. The so-called "failure" of the resident disassembly squad had experienced the effects of sunlight once before in the past, and he could faintly remember the searing pain of the light across his metal skin.