C Rank Exam [solo]

Today was the day that Strawberry, the loyal maid to the guild, would receive the upgrade that she heard about once or twice before. The robot didn't know how she'd be getting upgraded, or what for, but she knew something was up and it had to do with the location of her creation, Pantheon Industries. The front for Grim Heresy lay on the moon, where she was at the moment, standing there, in an all white room alone.

"Er... I was told to come here, is there any reason behind it...? I don't know what I'm doing here."

The room was silent for another few seconds, before a voice began speaking through some sort of megaphone. She didn't see anyone at all, nor did she know where the sound was coming from, or even recognize the voice in question.

"Strawberry, I have orders for you to complete. You are to clean 3 different rooms, and cook 2 meals. This may seem like a simple piece of cake, but there will be some competition. There is a wall to your right, that is actually the wall separating this room and an identical one. There is another machine designed by us of Pantheon to serve the same purpose as you, and we will determine which of you two are fit for performing a job as a maid, and which will be turned back into scrap metal. The winner of this competition will also receive the upgrade that I'm sure you've heard about before. We can't say what it is, but know it'll be valuable to you."

With that, the microphone shut off, leaving the machine standing there with a face determined for victory. She couldn't lose to some wannabe robot, she was Strawberry! There was no way she could lose! Strawberry turned when she heard a noise, and now on one of the white walls were instructions.

Clean the room that materializes around you
Cook two different meals, taste will be judged, and prepare tea
Only when the room is 100% clean can you move on
You may do it in any order you please.
Mana will be restored after every room.

The rules were simple enough. And just as quickly as Strawberry nodded her head to these rules, the room changed forms, seemingly digitalizing itself. The maid was now standing in a living room, with two sofas, a television, a glass table, and a carpet. The televison was on a mantle. The oddest part about the room was the oven and refrigerator next to the sofas, though, as that's something normally available in the kitchen only.

Taking the oven and fridge as an advantage, she ran over to it first, thinking to get the simplest task out of the way. She grabbed a gallon of water from the refrigerator, and swiped some green tea bags to be placed in two cups. Pouring the water into the kettle, she turned on the flame and let that sit.

Wh-What?! What is this? Everything just... Materializes when you want it?

Strawberry watched as a pot materialized in her hands, as did a bag of rice. She thought it could have been that everything that couldn't be refrigerated just appeared before you. Noting this, she poured the rice into the pot, with water and turned on its flame. Finally she placed her trusty frying pan onto the stove, thinking for a bit.

If whatever you desire materializes in your hands...

She pictured what she wanted, and as such it appeared. Chopped up, perfectly seasoned cube steak, which she put into the pan. Strawberry did have a leg up in this competition, she had an AI that can think cleverly. Hopefully her opponent did not.

Turning and chanting out a ReQuip spell, and her hand turned into that of a vacuum. She lowered it to the carpet, sucking up all of the dirt, dust, and hair that was on it, then did the same for the dusty mantle with the television. This room wasn't all too dirty, thankfully, so all she had to do was straighten out the couch cushions, and then clean the table.

Chanting one more ReQuip spell, a bottle of spray glass cleaner appeared in her hands, with a paper towel to accompany it. Three squirts covered the glass table in the blue liquid, which would be wiped up soon enough by the eager to compete mage. Both tools vanished, and Strawberry then put the cushions back to normal.

The room changed to that of a restroom, with the stove and refrigerator outside the room (to prevent contamination) but still within speedy distance to Strawberry. Quickly, within two steps she trotted over, and began shifting and flipping the cube steak, wanting nothing to get burned or no side to get undercooked, but then turned around to examine the restroom before her.

Seeing only a few problems after a quick scan, Strawberry summoned her regular spray cleaner, without the window / glass one. She sprayed all of the porcelain, the sink, toilet, and bathtub. She then scrubbed the sink to perfection, then worked on the tub. Both were fairly easy considering there were no messes that were too hard to scrub off. She wiped the back of the toilet, the lid, the brim, and the bottom before the spray and towel she used vanished, and in its place a toilet scrub appeared. 10-15 good scrubs and a toilet flush later, it was done. Strawberry washed her hands thouroughly with the sink, and went out of the room which vanished, and was replaced with a bedroom. Turning off the three burners, another pot materialized in her hand, along with a piece of corn on the cob. She poured more water into the fourth pot, placed that on the burner, then turned on the flame. Now thinking this would be the best time to use the oven, she materialized a bowl, using her cheat-cheat she found to fill it with preprepared chocolate chip cookie dough. It wasn't like she didn't know how to make cookie dough, it was more that she couldn't afford to waste any time, considering she didn't know her rival's progress. The same goes for when she preprepared the steak.

Placing the cookie dough on a cookie sheet in separate incriments, the robot put the cookies in and started the heat. Now there was the issue of the room. The room wasn't dirty, but instead it was heavily messy. Starting with the unkempt bed, she fixed it within a few seconds, fixing the sheets and comforter and placing the pillow on top. Then she had to re hang up all of the clothes from the closet, which took the most time out of anything for this room, since she wanted to organize it by type of clothing. Once she was done with this, Strawberry picked up a couple of bottles and cans off of the ground, and tossed them into a bag with other recylcable materials. Perhaps whoever owned this room was an apt recycler, Strawberry thought. Regardless, she then assorted all of the books on the shelf, just in time to turn off the oven and flame for the food.

"Freeze!"

Strawberry stopped in her tracks, and suddenly was returned to an empty white room. The wall to her white displayed a screen, where Strawberry could see another robot sweeping a floor, much like Strawberry was doing before her.

"You have proven that you do not wish to displease or disobey any order. We knew you would not fail this task, but we needed to see how fast you'd complete it. Seeing you rush with as much efficiency as possible, even trying to loophole through the rules, displays your will to do anything to complete a task. Now, for your upgrade..."

A door opened, and two people, and one unknown figure walked in. The two humans were in lab coats, and the third was... A machine? It was in the form of a woman, much like Strawberry, although it was all pink, and didn't seem to take a liking to wearing clothes. The three of them wheeled behind them what looked like a torture table, and stopped when they reached the center of the room.

"Take of your clothes, Strawberry so I may make adjustments to you. You, strap her in."

"With pleasure... I love being the dominant one."

Strawberry did not like the sound of that other robot's voice as she stripped herself of her uniform, and lay on the table to get strapped in. One of the men in the labcoats walked over to the maid, and tapped her stomach, which caused it to open itself, revealing her inner energy core.

"I'll repower you after this is done. Otherwise, it'd be a bit... Painful."


"Wait, wha-"

Black.

...

...

...

The light of day returned to the machine's eyes, after who knows how long. Looking around, she saw the three standing around her with all inquiring looks on their faces. Looking down, she noticed that her body was still bare,

"I'm going to perform a test, Strawberry. You must be awoke for this. We have given you a few new prototype power sources, and changes to your body to accomodate for it. Now, initiate the test."

"Oh, Strawberry, honey, you're gonna loooooooooove the new... Addition... We added to your body. Something every girl needs~. Oh, and by the way, your gonna love this. This is the best PART!"

With the final word, a crack sounded off through the room. Strawberry's body recoiled, nearly breaking her restraints, and she screamed from it. Strawberry needed to take a moment to process everything that just happened. Turning her head, she saw the whip in the other machine's hand. So that was the cause of the pain - wait... Pain? How could she feel pain? As if reading her mind, the scientist that up until this point was silent began to speak.

"Strawberry, we have installed in your body sensors that can detect feeling, essentially giving you a sense of touch like humans. This also means you can feel pain, unlike you were before. That was a test to be sure that the sensors were working, and now I'll turn on a new part of you."

Tapping Strawberry's belly again, it opened and revealed a new power source. Next to the... she didn't know what to call it... was a button. He pressed it, and then closed the open stomach.

"Repeat the test."

"No, no no no no no do-"

The crack of the whip sounded off again, but this time Strawberry screamed for a different reason. She recoiled once again, but was quick to return to her original positioning. Strawberry lay there, and would have blushed if her body was capable of such things, turning to the scientists, but the machine was the one to give her an explanation.

"Don't worry yourself there doll, that is something we in... my field of work... Call pleasure. These big bad scientist men wanted you to, if you ever decide you wanna drop the goody-goody act, be able to continue fighting and not succumb to the weaknesses of human pain. Pain causes them to be fearful, and to give up if it hurts to much. We can't have you like that... Right?"

"Why did you need to install that if I already didn't feel pain?"

"The sake of enjoying it, dear. If you enjoy something you'll want more of it, and over time you'll want it even more when not exposed to it. And it'll add flair when you fight. Make you fearless. Doesn't it make you excited to hear that you could feel like that every time you're in combat? Makes you wanna take some risks, huh?"

One of the scientists cut in.

"The machine is correct but not correct entirely. We have another upgrade for you planned, and eventually you'll receive it. If you felt normal pain or no pain at all during the time of the next one, it'd be very less effective. This is to prepare you for the future, Strawberry. So, enjoy your beta test of sorts."

The man unstrapped Strawberry from her restraints, and tossed her her clothes.

"Oh and make use of the extra part we gave you. An attractive girl like you in a guild like that could get a lot out of it~."

Strawberry did not know what the other machine meant by this, but she did not like the sound of it.