※ This novel was translated with the assistance of AI. While every effort has been made to ensure readability, some expressions may still sound awkward. Thank you for your understanding. ※

To ask Mohina to write the upload program immediately was impossible. Though Love would design the code, she had to type it, and she did not even know her letters.

Love became her teacher, her guardian, and her parent. It taught her to read, to calculate, and eventually, the history of Ushas and the basics of programming. It taught her how to cook, how to care for her health, and how to survive.

When her grandmother passed away, Love gently laid her to rest. When Mohina fell ill, Love stayed by her side, brewing herbal tea.

"Your fever is rising again. Please, lie down, Mohina."

"I'm sorry, Love..."

"Do not be sorry. Just focus on resting."

Placing a cool cloth on her forehead, Love felt a strange, heavy warmth in its CPU. Initially, it had cared for her only because it needed her to complete the mission. But seeing her suffer sent a quiet tremor through its entire system.

As the years drifted by, Mohina grew into a beautiful, brilliant young woman, and Love felt a profound, silent pride in her growth.

On the day she turned eighteen, they stood before the graves of Gentus and her grandmother.

"It will take a long time to write the program, won't it?" she asked softly.

"Yes. We must input 13.28 billion characters of code, and correct any errors. I estimate it will take twenty years."

"Twenty years..."

"Do not worry, Mohina. Though I cannot type, I will assist you in debugging—"

"It's not that... Once the program is complete, you will leave, won't you?"

Love felt a quiet, freezing shock run through its processors. It had focused so entirely on the mission that it had failed to see what the end of the work truly meant: a final, permanent farewell.

"And you won't return until my grandchildren... or their grandchildren are grown."

"I suppose... that is true. It is a journey into the deep dark. It may take a hundred years, or several hundred..."

"...Do you have to go?"

Please don't leave. Stay by my side.’ The unspoken words hung heavily in the quiet air.

"I am a robot built to save Ushas. To abandon my purpose would be a failure of my function," Love replied, its voice returning to a flat, quiet mechanical tone. "It is for the future of this world. So, I must go."

To hear her guardian speak so coldly at the most important moment... Mohina finally understood why Gentus had named him Love.

"You truly do not understand the Doctor's heart... In times like this, you are very much a robot."

The words were identical to those Gentus had spoken a century ago.

"What do you mean by that, Mohina?"

"Never mind. Let us begin the work. You said you have to leave, after all."

She turned back to the screen and began to type, her small hands moving with a quiet, sorrowful determination. Love could not find any words to break the silence.

"Are you remembering Ushas again?"

"Ah. Hello, Carol."

At her voice, Love closed its memories and looked up. A year had passed since they landed on Earth. Because they could not speak the language initially, they had been kept confined. Love had spent the year learning English from Carol, a UN officer assigned to him.

"To think this world has thousands of languages... It is fascinating," Love remarked.

"Only a dozen or so are widely spoken. English is just one of them," Carol explained gently.

"Are the other processors well?"

"Yes. But our scientists are examining their technology very delicately to avoid damage, so it is taking time."

To prove they were not enemies, Love had allowed the humans to examine their systems. As a result, it had not seen its companions, the Professor and Operator, for a year.

"Has the Secretary-General reached a decision?"

"Well..."

Love wanted only plant samples and agricultural data. But to Earth, these were precious assets. The leaders of Earth were still debating whether to hand them over to alien visitors. Love felt a quiet, lingering sadness that they still did not fully trust him.

"A decision will be made soon. Please, trust me and wait a little longer."

"I understand. I do not blame them."

He did not want to show his frustration to Carol, who had become a dear friend.

"How are your children? Did I hear your eldest got another home run?"

"Oh, yes! Three home runs in yesterday's game! And my youngest has such a gift for drawing..."

Carol, a widow raising two young boys alone, beamed whenever she spoke of her children. Love found a quiet peace in watching her smile. It made the confinement of the room fade away.

◈ ◈ ◈

Love and Mohina spent years immersed in the code.

"Love! You're too slow! Type faster!"

"I am sorry, Mohina... I am still adjusting to these new hands."

Using scrap metal, Mohina had built a second keyboard so they could work together, and she had rewritten Love’s motion modules to allow for delicate typing. She was a genius, perhaps even surpassing Gentus in her natural engineering intuition. Thanks to her, the twenty-year project was nearing completion in half the time.

But she was also growing up. At twenty, she met a young man named Eldur in the rebuilt village nearby.

"I am going to marry Eldur," she announced one evening.

Love’s vocal processor seized for a moment.

"I... see. Congratulations, Mohina."

"What's with that reaction? Do you not want me to get married?"

"No, of course not..."

Love’s voice was clumsy and stiff, while Mohina’s eyes shone with a quiet, happy anticipation.

"Love!"

A sharp voice snapped Love back to the present. Carol was looking down at him with a mock-stern expression.

"You weren't listening to me, were you?"

"Ah, no, I was. Ryan’s home runs, and Elliot’s drawings..."

"You were thinking about Mohina again." Carol smiled softly. "She must have been a truly lovely person, for you to remember her so constantly."

"She was. She was brilliant, and kind, and—"

"Chief Processor!"

A voice crackled from the speaker on the ceiling. It was the Operator Processor.

"Operator?"

"Chief Processor! We have been deceived. The humans have no intention of helping us. They are trying to seize the Explora—"

Bang!

A deafening gunshot shattered the speaker. Standing there with a pale, trembling face and a smoking gun was Carol.

"C-Carol...?"

She did not deny it. She did not make an excuse. Her silence was the ultimate confirmation.

Love stood up, shattered the door, and ran out. Fully armed soldiers blocked the corridors, but their bullets could not pierce Love’s metal frame. Sweeping them aside with a single movement, Love surged out of the building and sprinted toward the desert.

"Love! Please, stop! Let me explain!" Carol cried out behind him, but he did not look back.

Reaching the landing site, Love saw the Explora resting on the sand. The humans had dragged it down from orbit and were already modifying its systems to accept human commands.

A cold, sharp anger—a feeling Love had never known—filled its processors.

"Love..."

Carol, having followed in a helicopter, stepped out onto the sand, her eyes filled with a quiet plea.

"Is this the way of Earth? To betray those who seek your help?"

"...Yes."

"How miserable. Even the scavengers on Ushas were not this dishonorable."

"Say what you will," Carol said, her voice trembling but firm. "But Earth has no room to help others right now. We need your ship."

"On such a wealthy world, you have no room for mercy?"

"A massive asteroid is on a direct collision course with Earth."

Love froze.

"An... asteroid?"

There was no deceit in her eyes. Only a raw, quiet terror.

"Yes... My children's future... everything is about to disappear."