"Wow, I'm so lucky to mooch a meal from Commander Renault! Otherwise, I'd be stuck eating those sickly sweet MREs again!"
CF05 deftly wielded the spatula, stirring the peppers in the pan while expressing gratitude to Renault, who was slicing butter nearby.
"Oh, spare me. If you're mooching, why didn't you bring the hotpot ingredients? You're just afraid of getting fired, so you came running to me, right?"
The pungent aroma of peppers... Even G36, the house chef, was driven out of the factory by the scent, except for the Jaeger, who wasn't very sensitive to smells and stood nearby watching.
"The smoke's unbearable. If only we'd brought out the old gasoline stove when we knew she was frying peppers here. Then we wouldn't have to stay outside," M1 Garand remarked, wiping tears from her eyes caused by the smoke.
"Let's go for a stroll on the street; it seems we can't stay here." With G36's suggestion, several dolls greeted Renault and headed out for a shopping trip.
Who would endure the torture of peppers at home?
However, Vector didn't join them. She squatted outside the factory door, playing happily with the orange cat brought by CF05 with a teasing stick. Two Dinergates also stood by, watching, and occasionally tried to catch the teasing stick in Vector's hand.
Little did they know, playing with Vector at the factory door would lead to a terrifying situation...
As time passed, Vector found herself surrounded by a group of autonomous dolls who were attracted by the orange cat.
"Vector! Whose luggage is this outside the gate?" Simonov returned first with M1 Garand and the others, carrying alcohol and beer.
Although the smell at home was choking, she had been out for an hour; frying peppers wouldn't take that long, right? So, after buying some alcohol from the street, Simonov naturally came back first.
However, upon reaching the factory gate, she found a small suitcase and a large woven bag behind the gatepost, and she didn't know what was inside.
"Huh? There's no one else outside the gate except for you guys." Vector responded somewhat strangely, raising her head from among the autonomous dolls.
As she spoke, she also pushed aside the autonomous dolls around her and walked towards the gate. Although she had been teasing the cat all the time, she had always been paying attention to the movement at the gate. If someone appeared outside the gate, even if they were hiding behind the wall, she would have noticed.
Taking advantage of being surrounded, the orange cat leaped onto Vector's shoulder and successfully escaped the clutches of the autonomous dolls!
"Um, let's take them inside first. Maybe CF05 will recognize these things." Simonov placed the beer boxes on the table, and Vector placed the small suitcase and the woven bag, which were probably CF05's luggage, next to the table.
"Oh? Oh! Thank you!" Upon hearing Simonov's shout, CF05 was first startled, then quickly thanked Simonov.
"Luggage?" Glancing at the small suitcase and the woven bag on the table, Renault scratched his head, suddenly realizing that CF05 seemed to be missing something today... "Speaking of which, CF05, where's your imprinted weapon?"
Even if T-Dolls are on vacation, they wouldn't just toss their imprinted weapons aside, right? After all, the weapons still had sensors. For T-Dolls connected to the imprinting system and the weapon, the imprinted weapon was half their body; how could they just throw it aside?
"Um... about that..." Hearing Renault's question, CF05 suddenly showed an embarrassed smile.
"So? Did you resign from G&K? Or were you fired?"
This was quite unusual; it was the first time Renault had seen a former tactical doll from Griffin, or rather, a former tactical doll who could freely roam the city after resigning or being fired.
Shouldn't T-Dolls who leave their jobs have their career changes handled by IOP?
"I guess it's more like resigning voluntarily? Anyway, I left my resignation application on the commander's desk and then went to the IOP branch to remove the fire control core. Now that I think about it, it was really refreshing! I really want to see the expression on that commander's face, like he's constipated!"
"Hey, we're cooking here, don't use such unpleasant adjectives. So, you came to me because you want to join?"
"Yeah, that's right! Even if I'm not a tactical Doll, it doesn't matter! As long as I have a meal to eat, I'm satisfied!"
"Um, the way you put it, it seems like your previous commander didn't give you food, huh? Griffin shouldn't treat its tactical T-Dolls like this, right?"
"Don't mention it, that commander is simply a disaster. He only gives out MREs to T-Dolls, and they're the ones that have been picked over. Everything inside is sickeningly sweet; every time I eat, it clogs my throat!"
"Oh? That's a bit terrible. Did he eat that stuff himself?"
"How could he! That guy laughs and jokes with the rich people in the affluent district every day! Eating big fish and meat every day! Leaving us T-Dolls outside in the cold wind! All I did was cook a hotpot in the dorm, and that bastard wanted to deduct my salary! This kind of commander... Anyway, I won't serve him anymore! Let him find someone else!"
CF05 clearly harbored deep resentment towards her former commander, pounding the table as she spoke.
"Oh, right, my resume!" Saying that, CF05 hurried to the table, opened her suitcase, and took out a resume, handing it to Renault with some trepidation.
"Oh, now that you mention it, we've never given the commander a resume since we left Griffin!"
Seeing CF05 hand her resume to Renault, Simonov suddenly remembered that neither they nor later MDR or Vector had ever thought of writing a resume or anything.
"It's still not too late to write now, but it seems the commander doesn't care about these things at all."