Ch 228: Maids to order.

"…And you still haven't told us how many pilots you managed to find." grinned Ernesta on the screen of his smartphone, and Noah smiled.

The second of the three genius girls he had revived had this childish enthusiasm that Noah found quite adorable. It managed to make him forget at times that she could be quite manipulative when she wanted to.

"With two that I am about to revive, that will make five. One of them specializes in sniping, so please make sure one of the mobile suits is designed with that role in mind. Oh, and it must be named 'Hecate'."

"Not a bad name. Okay. I'll get to it then. See you later. And you better keep your promise."

"Later, Ernesta. And yes, look forward to it." smiled Noah.

He had promised her that he would revive the three AI she and Camilla had created in her world, and give them flesh and blood bodies.

"Well then…" muttered Noah, thinking about the two girls he wanted to add to his har… no, to his roster of pilots.

Hina Yumihara, from the Buddy Complex fiction. An unfortunate girl getting caught in a time loop where she sacrificed herself to save the boy she liked, returning to the past, losing her memories as her body reverted to that of a child, then found on the ruins of a battlefield and raised by a soldier belonging to the antagonist's side. She found herself fighting the protagonist, then falling for him during the tried-and-true trope of both pilots ending stranded on a deserted island for a few days.

But after refusing to fight any further, Hina still wound up drugged and forced to pilot an experimental mecha to fight the main character, accidentally contributing to create the conditions for the time rift to form again, and waking up from her drug-induced trance just in time to choose to throw herself into the rift to save the protagonist, going into the past, rinse and repeat.

And she wasn't just a competent mecha pilot. She was beautiful, with her long, lustrous black hair and amethyst eyes, on top of being brave and kind. As far as Noah was concerned, she checked all the boxes of the ideal waifu.

Aside maybe from maybe not having any interest in kinky sex, but that was something Noah could easily fix.

The second girl he intended to revive, Saki Rukino from Kakumeiki Valvrave, also had long black hair and violet eyes, although her hair style was different, with bangs cut at an angle. A sharp-tongued girl who fell in love with the protagonist, but kept her feeling under wraps as he already had a girlfriend.

A tragic heroine, forced to pilot a cursed mecha to save her classmates. A mecha, part of a series of five machines that turned their users into vampires, able to regenerate from serious injuries in seconds. But there was a terrible price to pay to use those mechas. Aside from giving them the occasional craving for blood, the Valvraves used the memories of their pilots as fuel. The fiction ended with, if Noah remembered correctly, Saki being the only survivor, the other four pilots having either died in combat, or from having been forced to use their mechas until they had no more memories left to burn, becoming catatonic.

Noah checked with the system. Hina was barely more expensive than a civilian, having no special power or ability. Saki was a bit more expensive at 8k Yin points, but the cost was very reasonable. When asked by the System, he chose to revive Hina as she was before she started seeing the fiction's MC as more than an enemy, and Saki to a point shortly after the fiction's end.

He teleported into an empty room, walked to the bed, and used Resurrection twice. Saki wore her pilot suit, one that looked like a skintight black leather suit with added emerald green pieces of armor covering her upper torso, shoulders, arms and the sides of her legs. It suited her well. Hina's suit was burgundy and black with gold accents, and it wasn't reinforced with any rigid pieces.

Noah smiled gently as he took a chair and waited.

Hina was the first to regain consciousness, and she sat as she looked around, frowning. She first noticed Noah, then the girl wearing a strange outfit lying near her.

"Hello, Hina." nodded Noah.

In a split second, she drew her pistol and aimed at his head.

"Who are you?" demanded Hina.

Noah sighed, mentally scolding himself about being so smitten by those two beauties that he didn't pay attention to the fact that they were both armed. It would be such a joke if he wound up being shot by the very girl he revived, assuming the bullet managed to pierce his skull. Lilith would likely revive him, but she would tease him forever about it.

"I am not your enemy." said Noah with a roll of his eyes.

He used Shunpo to close the distance, touching her gun and sending it into his inventory.

She flinched, her eyes wide, as she tried to understand what had happened to her weapon.

"There's no need for violence, Hina. I know you're very confused right now, and it is normal. I will explain the situation as soon as Saki wakes up. It shouldn't be long."

"…H-How did you move so fast, and what did you do with my gun?" asked Hina, with a smidge of fear in her eyes.

"I teleported your gun into a different dimension. I'll return it later."

Saki stirred, and opened her eyes, staring at the ceiling for a second, then at Hina and Noah.

Her expression hardened, and she reached for her own sidearm, but Noah used Shunpo without waiting, and her gun was confiscated as well.

"Hi, Saki. There's no need for that now, you are safe."

"Who are you?" suspiciously asked Saki as she jumped out of the bed, raising her arms in a battle stance.

"My name is Noah Enfield. It is nice to meet you both. I am the one who brought you here, and I am not a member of ARUS or the Free Pact Alliance. Saki, can you tell us the last thing you remember?"

Saki frowned, wondering for a second what the Free Pact Alliance was, but decided there was no harm in telling them. Surely they already knew, if they already had extracted her from her ruined cockpit.

"I was fighting five of those ARUS bastards in the asteroid belt, and my mecha had just shut down from overheating. I felt missile impacts, and then, nothing. I must have lost consciousness. Are you the one who got me out? And how did you move so fast just then? And what did you do with my machine?"

"ARUS?" frowned Hina.

"Yes, ARUS… Why are you making that face?" asked Saki, seeing the confusion in Hina's face.

"She doesn't know, but that's normal, I will explain in a moment." said Noah. "How about you, Hina? What do you remember last, before waking up here?"

"…I was fighting that enemy Valiancer, trying to capture it. But the storm was very bad, some debris entered my left engine, and it burst into flames. I lost control. I remember falling toward the ground, and then, nothing."

"Valiancer?" asked Saki.

"That the name they give to giant robots in the place Hina originates from." smiled Noah. "Now, does any of you believe in the parallel worlds theory?"

"There's a consensus that the theory is sound." nodded Hina. "But there's no way to reach those parallel dimensions, or even conclusively prove it… Wait, if you're mentioning it now… are you suggesting that this girl…"

"Both of you, actually. We aren't on either of the Earths you know. There is a way for souls to cross dimensions. For physical objects and human bodies as well, with the help of certain beings. I am sorry to say, but you both died. And I just resurrected you."

"Impossible!" blurted out Hina.

"More impossible than moving much faster than your eyes can follow?" shrugged Noah, opening his hand and making Hina's gun appear and disappear repeatedly. "More impossible than taking your weapons into a separate dimension? I am the direct subordinate of a deity, a real Goddess. And she gave me many abilities normal humans don't have. Your souls have crossed over, and I recreated the bodies you currently occupy before binding your souls into them."

The two girls sat on the bed, looking devastated.

Noah gave them time to digest the news. It wasn't every day that you learned that you had died, that you weren't in your original world, and that you likely would never see your friends or relatives again.

"…Why?" finally asked Saki. "Assuming you're telling the truth, and that we both died, why revive us?"

"As I said, I am the subordinate of a goddess. My job is to supervise the Earths of several parallel dimensions. I am not participating in the day-to-day governance, that would be way too much work for a single person, but I give some global objectives, and I have many subordinates who travel around healing terminal patients, rooting out corruption, and generally working to make those worlds better places to live in. I intend for you two to become my subordinates as well. Don't reject it right away, there are many benefits to it.

"But you were asking why I chose both of you. The latest world added to my portfolio has a big problem. There's this organization named Celestial Being that possesses a handful of very advanced mechas called Gundams. Think like the Valvraves you are used to, Saki, but without any of the flaws like overheating and using the pilot's memories as fuel. Or your Valiancers, Hina, when they are doing that Coupling thing. Gundams were created to go toe-to-toe against a dozen enemy mechas and win."

"And they did pretty well. Celestial Being's goal was to wage war in order to eliminate war. Whenever a conflict of terrorist attack would happen anywhere on the planet, the Gundams pilots would go over there and force both sides to retreat, taking care to kill as few combatants as possible."

"…But that's stupid." frowned Saki. "You can't stop wars with more fighting. It's a paradox."

"…I'm not so sure." dubiously said Hina. "If a war costs a lot of resources without any tangible gain, the politicians behind it may eventually just give up on it. But maybe I'm just being overly optimistic."

"I'd say it would depend on why the war started in the first place." said Noah. "If it is about seizing land or resources, I could see it happening. But if the conflict is motivated by ideology, like an ethnic cleansing… Anyway, Celestial Being isn't banking on just that. Their real goal was to make themselves such a nuisance that all the nations would set aside their differences and unify against them. At which point, Celestial Being would be very publicly crushed and disappear, and the unified government would keep managing things in a peaceful manner. With a single political body ruling over everything, there would not be any more wars."

"Oh. So they aren't simple fools or terrorists." nodded Saki, revising her first impression.

"And they did succeed in the unifying part, at least. Which, when you think about it, is quite the achievement, with only six Gundams, six pilots, and their support crew. And they did it while losing only one Gundam and pilot, who I revived already."

"The issue…" sighed Noah "…is that the new world government is very fascist. The A-Laws, that's the name of their new military, aren't shy about arresting civilians on the flimsiest of excuses, and secretly do some very nasty shit, such as secretly testing autonomous military drones on the prisoners of a penal mining colony."

"And this is where we come in, I guess." said Hina as she eyed Noah with suspicion. "You want pilots to fight them."

"That's the main reason I paid the cost to resurrect you, yes." smiled Noah. "Since I am now responsible for that world, I made Celestial Being part of my faction, more or less. Their leaders agreed to follow me. I have sent over there a few of my subordinates already, great geniuses from various parallel Earths that I resurrected a few weeks ago, who have experience designing and building high-tech weapons and powered armor. They are cooperating with Celestial Being's engineers to upgrade the existing Gundams and create six more. Two of those will be piloted by you girls."

"No." flatly said Hina. "And if you have a way to travel through dimensions without dying, please bring me back to my world."

"I am afraid that isn't possible." said Noah. "Your respective worlds aren't part of my portfolio, so I can't go over there. And there's another thing, I do not know how much time passed between your death and now. For all I know, your souls may have been waiting in the afterlife for reincarnation for decades, centuries, or more."

"So we have no choice but to become your pawns." retorted Saki. "How convenient. Thank you, but no thank you. I won't risk my skin for people I do not know."

Noah smiled gently at her.

"I did mention benefits, didn't I? The first is that you won't die. At least not permanently. Even if you die, I'll eat the cost I need to pay whenever I revive someone and do it again. You won't have to fear injuries either, as I'll give you the ability to heal from anything. Even if Saki already has that."

"You do?" asked Hina in surprise.

"…Yes." sighed Saki. "…The Valvrave I piloted isn't a normal machine. It injected me with… nanomachines, I guess. We somehow learned how to pilot them almost instantly, and whenever we are injured, the wounds close after a few seconds."

"I am immortal, too, and I can share that immortality with my subordinates." said Noah. "Now continuing on the list of incentives, I could mention the luxurious living conditions or the authority my subordinates yield on my worlds, being allowed to overrule even ministers or judges, but I do not think that would move you. I do, however, have one argument that may do the trick."

"What is it?" suspiciously asked Saki, and Noah's smile became sly.

"I can't bring you back to your worlds, but I can revive more people who you would be missing, and who you would want to have a second chance at life. As least, as long as they haven't reincarnated already. Maybe some former companions, or, say, an adoptive father?"

The last words were directed at Hina, and she flinched.

"It wouldn't be the first time I cement the loyalty of a subordinate by reviving a loved one or a relative."

"…Can you prove it?" asked Saki with intensity in her voice. "If you can, I'll accept your offer."

"Excellent." nodded Noah, "How about, say… Akira?"

"…I'd prefer Haruto." said Saki.

"Not him. I'll resurrect him after the war is resolved. I'll keep him as a carrot to motivate you." said Noah as he shook his head.

"…fine, Akira it is." sighed Saki. "But she's very shy. I hope you will give her space."

"I do not mind giving her some time to adjust, and everyone here is kind. She won't be bullied." assured Noah.

"Now look carefully, because I won't do that too often."

Noah used his resurrection skill again, and the two girls watched intently as mana streamed out of his hands, coalescing into the body of a cute redhead wearing the same pilot suit as Saki, but with purple armor pieces instead of her emerald green.

"She'll wake up within a few minutes." said Noah, confiscating Akira's gun. "Meanwhile, I will need you to sign those contracts to formalize our agreement."

Noah created three soul contracts.

MAID CONTRACT.

1/ I, ……………………., hereafter called the 'Maid', agree to serve Noah Enfield, hereafter called the 'Master', for a duration of a thousand days, renewable by mutual consent.

2/ The Maid agrees to live in the Master’s house for the duration of this contract, or in any accommodation provided by Celestial Being during deployment. There are no boundaries of place, time, or situation in which the Maid may willfully refuse to obey a legitimate order from her Master.

3/ The Master will provide the Maid with any uniforms, clothes, tools or accessories he will deem useful for the fulfillment of her duties. The Maid will wear or use the items provided by the Master while inside the Master’s house or during her deployment.

4/ The Master will provide the Maid with the training necessary for her to perform her duties to the Master’s satisfaction. Those duties involve, but may not be limited to, fighting Hollows and stray devils, piloting Gundams, protecting the Master and the other Maids, or participating in the house's cleaning, cooking, and other domestic chores.

5/ The Maid agrees to serve her Master to the best of her ability, for the duration of this contract. An exception to this includes sex. If the Master demands sex with the Maid, the Maid has the right to decline.

6/ The Maid understands that, for the duration of her contract, she must always consider her Master’s wishes, interest and wellbeing as having priority over her own.

7/ The Maid agrees to be disciplined by her Master if she does not perform her duties to his satisfaction, to learn from it, and to be grateful for his efforts to teach her how to better herself as a maid.

8/ During and after the termination of this contract, the Maid will not divulge to any tierce party any information that she knows would bring harm to the Master, his subordinates, or their reputation.

9/ As compensation for the Maid’s service, the Master will revive, within reason, a number of individuals designated by the Maid, and provide them with the support they need to rebuild their lives on a world under his responsibility.

Signed:

"A maid, really?" exclaimed Hina the instant she started reading.

"Most of my subordinates are maids. Think of it as me providing you with an occupation besides piloting mechas." smiled Noah.

"It seems we're in the hands of a pervert. Well, you best keep your hands to yourself, even if I sign this." frowned Hina, reading further. The expiration clause reassured her, as well as the one about being allowed to refuse perverted orders.

She carefully considered her options, assuming everything he said was true.

If she refused, at best, Noah would kick her out, and she would be stranded in a world that was not hers, with no official identity, no personal belongings other than her pilot suit, and no way to support herself. At worse, he would choose forceful methods to gain her cooperation.

If she agreed to become his maid, she would at least have about three years to learn more about the worlds she could live in and make preparations.

And her father would be with her. Together, surely things would be okay.

She would only have to endure three years of working a humiliating job.

After another look at the girl in purple armor, and a nod to herself, Hina looked back at Noah.

"I'll sign this contract."