Special Delivery

THE KING OF BEASTS - KUWAHAWI LOCATION

"Okay, this is for the housekeeping. What's next?"

"Let's see..."

Setup for the arrival of the Kobbers was going quite well. There were plenty of deliveries being made to the resort every hour, all sorts of special ingredients and materials alongside the regular preparations for an influx of tourists. Since the Kobbers were no ordinary tourists, there were naturally many extraordinary deliveries.


Still, the box the size of a person wasn't a normal delivery. Looking between each other, the two men in charge of packages think for a minute, then hoist the box inside. Finding that it's really heavy, they set it down carefully. It's a bit of a debate whether or not to just get rid of it, but eventually they agree on opening the box.

The two men lever it open, and the lid pops off the box to reveal a woman lying inside. A sheet of paper rests on her chest, and she's fully dressed in a maid outfit. Utterly befuddled, one of the men reaches down and picks up the paper, looking it over.

"...Huh, listen to this. 'Thank you for ordering your cleaning robot, model TH-3.0. To activate the model, find and press the primary power button, located on the back of the neck.' We ordered a cleaning robot?"

"First I've heard of it, but I suppose the bosses know what they're doing. Let's see here..."

The second man reaches down and turns the woman over - with the help of his partner, because she's a lot heavier than she looks. And cold to the touch, but that's because of the metal. Once they've done that, he notices a button on the neck and pushes it. They wait a bit to see if anything happens, but before they can get too bored, she suddenly pushes herself up. Facing away from the two of them, she looks left, right, left again, and then her head swivels 180 degrees to face them.

"Hello!"

Recoiling a bit in surprise, the first man decides to be the one to break the awkwardness. "Um... hello. You're a cleaning robot, right?"

"That's correct! Elite mechanical maid, Ruukoto, at your service!" Ruukoto attempts to salute, which is slightly thrown off by her arm and face currently being in opposite directions. Ignoring the clunk she makes as she hits the back of her head, she smiles. "I take it I'm here to work for you, correct? If that's the case, I'd like to know where we are!"

Exchanging glances with the other, the man decides to go ahead and continue answering. "This is Kuwahawi Island, next home of the King of Beasts branch of Zoofights Corp, which is moving here later this year. ...Shouldn't you know all this, if you're coming to work for us?"

"Nope!" With a bright smile, Ruukoto continues her own explanation. "All I know is that I'm Ruukoto, and I'm a robot built by... by... well, I don't know that, but I do know that I'm here to clean anything and everything that you need- speaking of!"

Noticing that there's a few dirty spots on one of the walls, Ruukoto grabs up a nearby dust rag and swivels back to normal as she cuts off the conversation to clean the wall off. Not stopping until the entire wall is shining with cleanliness, she steps back, admires it, and turns to them.

"So, when can I officially start?"

"Uhm... why don't you talk to our manager, Inshabel. She'll get you set up."

"No problem! On my way!"

As the mechanical maid walks out of the room, grinning widely, the two men look at each other again.

"Strange. Really, really strange."

"Honestly, she'll probably fit right in with the Kobbers. But I'd still like to know who had the idea to order a robot maid."

"You know Kobber-types, I bet one of them did it for us on a lark."

"Heh, that's true. Come on, we'd better get back to packages."