Roon x Nero (kinda) (no cringy sex ahead)

ARC 0 (II)

The commander's office was always animated: multiple girls, who were his secretaries, moved around the office, each one with a different task to fulfill. The only person who had nothing to do was, ironically, the commander himself: he sat at his desk and dedicated himself to leisurely activities such as reading and pondering the plan which gradually unfolded, wondering what he could do to improve it even more. If one had an overview of the office in that moment, they would probably feel like the commander was in an entirely different dimension, compared to the secretaries that occasionally entered and exited the room. There was no communication or interaction between him and his "helpers", which, by the way, were quite numerous: he always wanted to have at least 7 active secretaries at once, but in total there were 18 secretaries in charge at the same time. Why the hell would he need so many?

The main reason was that he, unlike his successor, did not tolerate any breaks on the girls' part: if one of them was too tired to continue, she would simply get replaced by another secretary. This was only seen by him as a precautionary measure though, as he did not want the secretaries to stop working at their own leisure: they knew they could stop at any time, but they also knew there would be consequences if they did. But let's not forget our commander wasn't stupid. He knew that if a specific group of his secretaries was classified as the "main bunch" and they were the ones to work continuously everyday, they would eventually grow exhausted. For that reason, the secretaries alternated daily.

The commander did not like viewing the KANSENs as humans. Since he had studied warships his entire life, he refused to believe that KANSENs had human feelings: from his perspective, a KANSEN and a mass-produced warship were the same thing. In his eyes, KANSENs were only weapons during battles and tools during peacetime. This vision of his was very evident whenever he interacted with a KANSEN: and when he did interact with one, it was almost exclusively for issuing orders or giving directions.

In his diary, which he wrote daily, he often expressed his discontent about the KANSENs "emulating human feelings", as he reported in his diary. He undeniably recognized that KANSENs were indeed able to feel, but he was, on the other hand, firmly convinced that those feelings of theirs were merely emulated. He believed that KANSENs did not need feelings at all, and because of that he had written multiple times that "MNF Gascogne is the prime example of what a KANSEN should be: quiet, compliant, ready to obey at all times."

Even though he knew that trying to turn a KANSEN into a machine was like trying to do that to a human being, he still attempted to render the girls more "disciplined", especially through his unforgiving school system. The first bell rang as soon as 7 AM and the students were supposed to be within the Academy's perimeter by 7:02. Those who arrived later than 7:02 were considered latecomers and were punished by the commander himself: in fact, every morning he stood right next to the Academy's gates and checked the time constantly. If, hypothetically, a girl were to arrive even a second after 7:02, she would be punished, and forgiveness was not a possibility. Since he did not want to lose the job he had worked hard for, the punishment did not include any physical harm, but it was still very strict: the latecomers would be locked into a specific room for the rest of the school day and their digital devices would be confiscated. The room itself had only one window, located very high up on the wall facing the outside of the building. But this punishment was not the only brutal thing about his system: there were no breaks between or within classes, and right after they were over, at 3 PM, all the girls had to move to the beach. Of course they didn't go there to play and have fun: they had to train and spar with each other for three hours straight. At 6 PM, their school day was finally over.

The commander always justified this excruciating routine with the fact that KANSENs were still weapons, no matter how human they looked: they were born to fight, and they needed to know how to do that perfectly. However, in the end, all those hours of sparring were practically useless, as KANSENs, since they were born to fight, already knew how to fight. The only product of all that fighting was tiredness and frustration, and the girls did not learn anything new from it.

And even after an entire day of school, the girls would not get any chance to have fun: the german pub, the british cafe and the italian restaurant did not exist at the time, and even if they wanted to at least relax at the beach, they couldn't have any swimsuits. The hot springs were not a thing either, with the only exception being an hot tub built specifically for the commander (the same Daniel used with Eugen). He absolutely loved that hot tub as, according to his diary, "it helps me with thinking and regenerates my body and mind." He spent most of his evenings in that tub, hence it was maintained by the Royal Maids very frequently.

Speaking of Royal Maids, his relationship with them was... very special, compared to any other KANSEN. His wife would actually never know about this, but he used to "relieve himself" through them right in the small hot spring built for him, where he knew his wife would never see him. The maids themselves would never complain about it, but that doesn't imply they were fine with it. Again, in his diary he talks about this: "Belfast often says that it is a maid's duty to fulfill her Master's every wish. Since I'm not even a demanding Master, I can at least expect them to bear with me a little sometimes, no?"