No matter how stacked my MP and MEN were, I wouldn’t have gotten this far if textbooks were my only resource. There was one particular reason why I’d been progressing so fast. That night, I saw the goddesses in my dreams again.
Yes, I’d been seeing these goddesses in my dreams every single night. I asked Rakti what was going on when I woke up, but she said even the other goddesses didn’t know.
The arch-cleric that had been part of the first sacred king’s party, San Pilaca. Even he had been blessed by the five goddesses at the time, but never had anything like this happened to him.
Apparently the goddesses could perceive each other’s thoughts, and Rakti told me the reason the Goddess of Light had been angry with me before was because I had been summoning nothing but earth spirits when I should have been practicing light magic more.
As for what those goddesses were doing with me every night, they were teaching me magic. The Goddess of Light was especially enthusiastic about it.
I couldn’t move myself in my dreams. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, either. So how was I learning magic from them, you ask? Right now, the Goddess of Light had numerous flipbooks in front of me like we were in a quiz show. Each book had pictures in it that explained in detail how to use each spell. Yes, the goddesses were using my only sense, sight, to teach me magic. Those flipbooks were many times easier to understand than the textbooks the temples had given me. That was the sole reason why I had been learning spells so fast.
There was the arch-cleric who had been blessed by five goddesses long ago, then I, who had four blessings now, though one from a non-head temple. I was the first person since San Pilaca to achieve anything close, and the goddesses wanted to help me grow and learn more spells.
Lately the fire stone pillar had been consuming much more of my MP than usual, and a certain someone wasn’t taking that very well. The Goddess of Light, unsurprisingly. As a result, most of the spells I had learned were light cleric spells.
Why was she wearing glasses and a skirt suit, though? She had been wearing a dress that went down to her ankles until now, so her bare legs extending beyond her skirt were far too radiant for my eyes. Her silky blonde hair that she had originally worn as a ponytail was now tied up in a neat bun. Knowing my thoughts would be conveyed, I wondered if her hair would get damaged by tying it up like that, and the next night she wore her hair in a simply ponytail tied at neck level.
The Goddess of Fire was wearing a tracksuit. She had a tank top on underneath her jacket. A bamboo sword would be very fitting for the rest of her appearance.
She was, how should I say, the type to get friendly easily. The day I learned how to summon fire spirits, she happily ruffled my hair.
The Goddess of Earth was wearing a white blouse and a pencil skirt, as well as stockings. She wore a white lab coat on top of that. The three of them looked like schoolteachers all lined up together.
Her incredibly well-endowed assets were practically spilling out of her blouse, and even now it felt like a button might fly off at any moment. In fact, I could see her cleavage and bra from the gaps between the buttons. She was indeed the goddess of bountiful harvests. On top of that, she didn’t seem to mind it at all, and I was always greeted by a splendid view whenever she came to teach me. It’d be a huge problem to have such a healthy teacher like her in school.
After I woke up and asked Rakti about it all, she said that we each had influence on each other’s images inside the dream. I see, so when I was being taught spells in my dream, I started imagining a school setting as well. I could understand why the goddesses started dressing like teachers, then. But in that case... why was Rakti wearing a red elementary school backpack in my dream? Was that her image of herself or mine? I was unable to confirm that with her even after we woke up.
After about half a month of being taught magic in an environment that would make all the men of the world jealous, my Magic Eater armor was finally done being tuned. It had gone down about a size, and I would describe the look as a “sleek black demon.” According to Pardoe, it hadn’t actually gone down in size, but had just been pseudo-shrunk to fit my size.
I’m about to get into an utterly practical and realistic topic, but magic items were extremely expensive. Especially a full set of metallic armor—it’d get harder to sell the moment its size changed. As a result, a spell had been placed on it that let the armor pseudo-shrink to its wearer’s size.
That spell was right at the top among the arsenal of craftsman spells. Its name was “Alteration,” and it was an indispensable skill that used rare magical items. It couldn’t turn a smaller object into a larger one, nor could it modify an object’s weight, so it had its limits when it came to changing an item’s size. The Magic Eater, which was created over 500 years ago, did not yet have that spell placed on it.
To get an idea of just how great of a spell Alteration was, only a few among even the top-class blacksmiths in Hephaestusopolis could use it. The reason Pardoe had called for Shakova to assist with tuning the Magic Eater was none other than the fact that he knew how to use Alteration.
He pounded the magic into each and every part of the armor using the blessing of the Goddess of Fire, the divine heat from my MP, and a hammer. The tailoring had taken a month because of how difficult to understand the process was.
“Aren’t the horns and the claws a little big?”
“That’s where the conductors are located, so we can’t change those.”
Originally, magic was all conducted through a person’s body. Imagine a person facing an enemy with their palm facing out, about to blast a spell—that was essentially it. If you felt so inclined, you could also blast the spell from your forehead or anywhere on your body.
On the contrary, a conductor was an item that you could hold in your hand or wear on your body, then channel the spell through there. It was like a magician casting a spell with their wand, and the spell shooting off from the jewel at the top of the wand. With how the magic in this world worked, the jewel at the tip of the wand acted as the conductor, and as long as the wand itself could channel magic, magic could be fired from the jewel at the tip just by gripping the wand part of it.
The hammer Pardoe used was a conductor, too. The process was essentially the same as Rium’s crystal magic.
In the Magic Eater’s case, conductors were located in the gauntlets’ palms, the short but sharp claws growing from the back of the gauntlets, and the helmet—or more specifically, the two horns growing from the helmet’s forehead. I additionally ordered another set of conductors be placed at the bottom of the greaves’ shoes.
Since the pseudo-shrinking didn’t work on conductors, those parts were all a size larger than the rest, but they were never too big in the first place so I accepted it as part of the design.
The armor was originally designed to look terrifying, but the size alteration kept the Magic Eater from looking too eerie and gave it a slightly cleaner look. Pardoe said that the design had changed a bit since pounding the magic in with the hammer. Shakova had tried to make the armor look more fantastical again, but Pardoe stopped him from getting carried away. Pardoe apologized for the change in the armor’s looks, but I hadn’t wanted it to look terrifying or flashy, so I should have thanked him instead.
Shakova, who was looking a little worn out next to Pardoe, seemed a little dissatisfied with how the design aspect had turned out, but his eyes were still sparkling. Mark looked triumphant himself, though all he did was help out here and there. Lastly, Crissa had been moved to tears, currently wiping her eyes with a handkerchief.
“Nyow then, try it on!”
“Let me help you.”
“I’ll help too!”
I let Rulitora and Roni help me into the Mana Eater. It was much heavier than the brigandine I’d been wearing until now, but no so much that I’d have trouble moving. My field of vision decreased when I put on the helmet, but I suppose that couldn’t be helped.
“Touyaaa! You look so cool!”
Rakti immediately squealed at me as soon as I put on all the parts. This was armor we’d originally obtained in Hadesopolis, so the design must have been right up her ally.
Beside her, Rium gave me a thumbs up with her eyes sparkling. The armor looked pretty intimidating. I wondered if I looked like a veteran warrior with this on.
“How is it? Anywhere that feels tight to mewve in?”
“Let me try... Roni, Rulitora, step back for now.”
After the two got a safe distance away, I started moving around to test the armor all over my body. The metal made clanging sounds with every move, but nothing felt like it was obstructing my movements. It looked like I shouldn’t have any problems in a real battle, either.
“...And what sort of dance is that?”
“Radio calisthenics.” A certain track was playing in my head at the moment. An intimidating set of armor doing radio calisthenics must have looked pretty surreal to everyone looking on around me.
Next, I checked all of the conductors. I pressed my hands against the ground in the yard, summoned earth spirits through my palms, and made two pillars pop up from the ground a distance away from where the others were standing. I stood back up, pointed a fist at each of the pillars, then summoned fire spirits through the claws on the back of my hands and fired them at the pillars, toppling them over. So far so good.
The damage to myself was minimal if I formed the fire spirits through my claws. The claws actually stayed the perfect size for my usage.
Next, I tried to summon light spirits from the horns on the helmet. Two balls of light formed at the top of each horn. Nothing wrong on this end, either.
As an aside, I was a beat slower than usual when summoning spirits to something other than my hands since I had to concentrate more. I’d need to keep practicing to make that go more smoothly.
Last were the conductors at the soles of my feet. Those were the ones I’d asked to be placed anew. There was one reason I asked them to go out of their way to do that for me. A full set of metal armor was heavy. I knew as much, and felt as much now that I had it all on. Of course I planned to get stronger in this armor in the future, but I’d always get tired from having to run around in this suit no matter what. So I thought of a possible solution.
First, I lowered my hips a little, then positioned my legs about shoulder width apart to keep my balance. Then I summoned earth spirits from below my feet and controlled them.
“Alright, success!” The next moment, I was darting around while still wearing the Magic Eater. This was a big success for checking the functionality of the conductor.
The others must have been seeing me as a full set of armor in a defensive pose gliding across the ground without moving my feet. Right, I was using the earth spirits to move the ground underneath my feet. That made the ground itself slide and allowed me to move large distances in one go. Since I was controlling the ground using my own MP, moving around felt even easier than skating or skiing. And since I wasn’t moving up and down, it was more quiet than walking as well.
However, I would lose balance during sharp turns and sudden stops. The power started at my feet, but I needed to control it with my whole body. I’d need to practice and train this skill as well.
I needed a cloak and preferably shoulder guards if I wanted to wear this in battle, but apparently it was hard to find metal made from the same materials as my armor. I’d ask Pardoe and the others about that later. The shoulder guards served as decoration as well, so maybe I should talk to Shakova about it, too. There was one last thing I had asked the blacksmiths to prepare for us.
“I’ve got it right here for you, meow~”
This was something they had been working on during our off time like how we had gone shopping, and it looked like it finished just in time.
It was a single sword. The blade was one stuto tall and fairly wide—a longsword. I doubted I’d be able to use it with one hand. The blade was sharp and wavy, like a flamberge sword. Flamberge swords normally sacrificed strength due to their wavy pattern. However, this sword was about as bulky as a wooden plank, had a wide blade, and was overall massive enough to be called a greatsword.
The blade was colored black. Cursive kanji was etched into it, saying “Demon King of the Sixth Heaven.”
Rakti seemed scared and hid behind Rium, which didn’t placate her one bit. She was trembling while holding on to Rium’s shoulders.
Yes, this was the grave marker that the first sacred king had prepared to seal the demon lord, but ended up sealing the Goddess of Darkness, Rakti, instead. I had asked to make it into a sword. I had been wondering what to do with it since we retrieved it from the demon lord’s castle, but since we confirmed that it held absolute power against demons, I asked Pardoe to make it into a greatsword for us.
I felt a dense weight as I gripped it using both my hands. Everyone was watching on silently as I swung the sword like a kendo sword. It made a sharp sound as it cut the wind. I had never learned fencing or kendo, so I couldn’t be called good with a sword no matter how you looked at it. I’d need some training on this as well if I wanted to use this in a real battle.
I decided to name it “Gravesword.” “Grave Marker Sword” sounded a little off. Though “Grave Marker Sword” would sound funny to anyone from modern Japan, I bet the people of this world wouldn’t have minded. I hoped Haruno would understand my thought process for the uncreative name and not laugh at me. I hoped.
But just in case, I decided to contact her to ask her opinion on my name “suggestion.”
If there was one problem, it would be that even though this was an ultimate anti-demon weapon that could even seal the Goddess of Darkness, it was nothing more than a sturdy magical greatsword to everyone else. Well, that already made it an impressive weapon, but only one among the many we had found in Hadesopolis. We had the blacksmiths appraise and single out any weapons that seemed easy to use, then keep them as our trump cards for the future.
“The armor job is done nyow!”
“Time to dig into that pile of treasure like we agreed!”
“...You don’t even need to take a break?”
Pardoe and Shakova distinctly remembered our agreement to save the other weapons for after the armor was done being tailored. They should have been tired, but their breathing was running wild right now.
Of course, I remembered our agreement as well. I was curious about the mountain of weapons we had piled up in a corner of the garden, too.
I looked over at Crissa to find her wiping her tears again, for a different reason this time. She had long given up on trying to stop them. I could tell that she knew from experience how tough it was to get them out of this state once they were in it. However, there were some things they needed to do before diving into that mountain.
“Don’t forget to eat. And you’re dirty, so go take a bath—”
“I refuse!”
“...I figured.”
One thing I had learned from staying with them over the past month was that ketolts, as their outward appearance implied, tended to hate baths. Or rather, they had their own methods of keeping clean that were comparable but different to humans.
Yes, that was the grooming process. Grooming someone else implied romantic intimacy, and in general it was a very important part of their culture. Of course, they didn’t lick themselves after a day of blacksmith work or else they’d be eating up soot. So a bath was the solution here, but anyone who refused to take a bath in this state must have hated them to the core.
Pardoe was infamous for his hatred of water among his group of friends. He often boasted about his soot-covered fur like it was a symbol of his pride. Apparently self-grooming brushes were made for these kinds of ketolts.
The filthy Pardoe and the pure white Crissa. Their huge difference in cleanliness likely came from Crissa learning by example of what not to do from her father.
Shakova, on the other hand, was a neat freak. You might not have been able to tell from his work clothes, bu
t according to Mark, he enjoyed dressing fashionably. He would take a bath after a hard day’s work and groom himself after that. But even he wouldn’t get near baths with hot water, so it was easy to tell how much ketolts in general hated bathing.
“At least take a bath. Or else I’ll only let Shakova do the appraisals.”
“Hisss!!”
We couldn’t just leave the almost-black Pardoe be, so I tried to negotiate with him a little. Some of the items in the pile were made of cloth, so we couldn’t have him getting stains everywhere. Pardoe might have been shrieking in terror, but Crissa seems happier, so I called it a success.
On that note, apparently Mark was the opposite of his father in that he hated baths, but ever since learning that Crissa preferred cleanliness, he took a bath every day. Ah, to be young.
We transported the weapons to be appraised outside for the blacksmiths to look at, then decided to go to the temple of fire and thank the clerics. After all, the main reason we had been able to get the armor tailored was because they had introduced us to Pardoe. We bought some meat as a donation.
I had kept the Magic Eater on to show them how it looked, but let’s not mention the bit of commotion I caused because they thought I was an invading monster. When the temple elder heard about the disturbance at the front gate, he started rolling on the floor in laughter.
Well, the Magic Eater was indeed pretty scary on the outside. In fact, it clearly made me look like the bad guy when I wore it. There wasn’t much I could do about that though, since we had taken it from the demon lord’s armory.
Anyway, when the elder heard that the tailoring was finished, he introduced us to the training ground that the clerics and followers used day to day. The training ground was surrounded by audience seating, so it would’ve been more accurate to call it a stadium.
The elder must have known that I needed some time to “break in” my new suit of armor. I had thought he was just a broadminded, muscular man who did nothing but laugh, but he actually paid attention to our needs. I took up the opportunity and visited the training ground every day for the next week. I was breaking in the armor just fine, but my surroundings had changed in the past few days.
The Chaotic Stone Sauna Page 13
