"So then, where do I get ice weapons like those?" Reina asked mockingly.
"You can freeze it in winter" Yami replied, unwilling to admit defeat.
"That is useful, thank you very much... but it is not winter."
"Use a dumb refrigerator" Yami shot back, having run out of arguments.
And even though Reina had no idea what that was, she still knew she had won.
"The celebration!" Yami said, remembering. "Take me there"
"Alright" Reina shrugged and guided her.
In just a few minutes, they arrived at the best looking structure in the entire village, its size several times larger than the others.
Upon entering, Yami recognized the place as a celebration hall, the kind of place where dances or banquets would be held.
And indeed, a banquet was being prepared.
Several amazons moved all around the place in a rush, carrying decorations made of plants and placing them everywhere.
At the center of it all was a large table with a kind of enormous tiger in the middle, cooked along with other dishes.
"What is the problem here?"
"They think the banquet is not worthy" Reina explained, but from her tone, it was clear she did not agree.
"But it is not. Queen, try this!" An amazon approached, handing her a skewer of meat and vegetables.
Reina tried it and liked it quite a bit, giving it a good rating before passing it to Yami so she could taste it.
"But, Queen, this is only tasty by our standards, compared to what Mr. Yuuji Rito let us try the last time he came, it is clearly inferior" the amazon said, nervous and agitated.
"Yuuji Rito? This banquet is for Yuuji Rito?" Yami asked while eating the skewer she had been given.
"Yes, it is in gratitude to him" Reina nodded.
"What did he do?"
"A few years ago, when I had just become the leader of the tribe, a herd of dinosaurs attacked us, almost completely destroying the tribe. It was Yuuji Rito who descended from the skies with an army of metal birds and saved us all" Reina explained with great admiration. "Thanks to that, we lived in peace for a long time.
It was only recently that a dangerous enemy appeared that we cannot handle, we call it Ginga Kong.
But Yuuji Rito came to save us again, so we must prepare a celebratory banquet for him.
By the way, did you like that?"
"Mmm, yes" Yami frowned as she answered. "My body can turn into anything, including flavors or seasonings, so it is impossible for me not to like something."
Of course, this does not change the actual taste of everything, but if her brain detected something she did not like, before she could even process it, its flavor would be perfected before being swallowed, making it taste like the closest food she liked the most.
"That is amazing. Then why are you upset?"
Having finished, Yami threw the skewer into a trash container before answering.
"I cannot change the taste of your food, since I do it with the nanomachines in my body."
"Nanomachines?" Reina asked, not understanding.
"You can think of them as incredibly small machines. My body is made of millions of them. They can combine in infinite ways that create everything I can create," Yami explained. "Things like flavors or seasonings work for me because the nanomachines would simply return to my body, but I cannot make others eat them."
"If you are made of machines, are you not also...?"
"I am a person" Yami interrupted coldly before Reina could finish.
"A complicated topic, huh? Alright.
As for the food issue, do not worry. Yuuji Rito said he likes our style of food. He once told us: "If I came here and still ate the same as in the city, what would be the point?" "
"Then it is fine. I guess I am the idiot." Yami, having already soured her mood after that, did not insist and admitted defeat.
After that, she simply lowered her head and started walking back to her seat with no desire to do anything else.
But before she could even leave the hall...
"SKREEEEE!" a sharp screech was heard from outside, followed by repetitive sounds.
Skitter Skitter Skitter Skitter.
Yami and Reina, along with the entire tribe, went outside to see what was happening.
They found the source of the noise in enormous eight legged creatures, giant spiders that had entered the village taking advantage of the lack of guards due to the repairs and the banquet, and were approaching, probably attracted by the smell of food.
Everyone grabbed their spears and bows immediately, which they never put down, always carrying them on their backs, and went into action without needing orders.
Yami watched as the entire tribe began to fight the giant spiders, even Reina, who had been beside her a second ago, was already fighting, and she joined in as well.
In a second she had already closed the distance and her hair turned into a massive blade that cleanly cut one of the spiders in half, killing it instantly.
"Goddess of construction!"
"Thank you very much!"
Yami moved to the next one, splitting it in two again without waiting for it to react.
For the next one, the spiders had already noticed her, so one reacted before she could attack, trying to stab her body with its massive legs.
Yami did not dodge, she grabbed its leg with a huge hand made of hair while piercing its body with a giant spike.
"Kreeee" the spider let out a howl of pain, still alive but agonizing.
But Yami did not finish it off, instead, she grabbed several more spiders with her hair made hand and impaled them on the spike like meat on a skewer, before finishing them all at once by splitting the spike into two blades that opened outward, cutting the spiders in half.
Then she transformed her hair into a large shield that protected her from two spiders that had approached while she was busy, from the shield came two cannons that pierced the spiders quickly, making them fall to the ground dead.
Realizing she might be wasting time, she simply transformed her hair into several similar energy cannons that fired at all the surrounding spiders in succession.
Killing most of them, while the ones that remained alive were finished off by the amazons.
Only five minutes later, all the giant spiders lay dead on the ground.
Of course, it was meat, so everyone began cutting the spiders into pieces and carrying them toward the storage where Yami had previously frozen several pieces of meat.
Yami saw this and moved forward with the intention of helping, but was stopped by Reina.
"It is not necessary" Reina said, then added with surprise, "So you also have something as lethal as those weapons, huh?"
Even though Reina said it impressed by her strength, Yami frowned at her words before nodding.
"Yes, I... am a weapon."
"A weapon?"
"That is right, a machine created to kill" Yami nodded.
Reina looked at her for a moment, finally understanding where her earlier anger came from.
"I do not think you are a weapon."
"I was created as a weapon."
"Who told you that? Was it your creator?"
"No" Yami denied immediately.
Although she knew who created her, she never really knew her enough to talk about it. In fact, after leaving the place where she was created, she never saw her again. Her creator, as far as she knew, was only there during her creation process to teach her some things necessary for the experiment, nothing more, she never had any maternal feelings toward her.
"Whether it was what you used before to help build the houses or to improve the food, none of that sounds like weapons, right?"
"...I"
"Rather, they are things to improve your life.
You are a person, yes, but that does not change that you were created, right?
But I think your creator's goal in making you was to create a person, not a weapon. That is why you have so many functions to ensure your survival and comfort."
"...and the weapons?" Yami asked, hesitating.
This time it was Reina's turn to look at Yami like she was an idiot, she even gave her a small tap on the forehead at her clumsiness.
"Of course, any mother would want her daughter to be safe, right? Of course she would give you methods of defense."
"Does this look like defense to you?" Yami asked, turning her hair into different exaggerated futuristic firearms.
"Yes, mothers are excessive when it comes to their children's safety," Reina nodded without hesitation.
Yami shrugged and did not respond before returning to her seat.
However, her steps were no longer as slow or downcast as before, showing that Reina's talk had worked.
'Mother' Yami repeated that word in her mind, wondering if perhaps she had misunderstood her creator. But she quickly shook her head, dismissing the idea as nonsense.
'I am a person.' Yami repeated it in her mind with a bit more conviction than before. On her stoic face, a small smile appeared on her lips.
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+15 chapters in advance on Patreon.
p-atreon.com/IAMME26
(just delete the hyphen)
80 power stones = 1 extra chapter (cumulative)