by Fuse
This whole conversation was getting ridiculous. “Right. If we keep talking about this, Shion’s imagination is gonna run wild on her. Benimaru, I’m assigning this job to you!”
“Yes, my lord,” he replied with a fatigued nod. Yeesh.
Still, Benimaru was the right man to serve as my proxy here. He was second in command only to me, and I doubted he would underestimate any adversaries he came across. I wasn’t expecting hidden mountain settlements on the Thalion border, but considering the future, it was better to work everything out with them sooner or later—and Benimaru’s better than me at that stuff.
There was one thing I had yet to hear about.
“Can you tell me anything about the changes in our monster ecosystem, Soei?”
I had asked him to investigate trends among the monsters in town and along our highways. A lot of residents were practically brimming with magicules; the air was pretty dense with them by now, which was exactly how you got mystic beasts—they’d spontaneously manifest from pools of the stuff, and the more that were created, the more likely at least one would be harmful to us. Beasts like these necessitated a constant patrol around the forest. They were a threat to humans even at D rank or below, so we needed to be hypervigilant with those guys. If one ranked B or so showed up, that required immediate attention.
Rigur, as head of our security department, was the main man in charge of handling them. His team was experienced now, and even the newer ones could provide able service after several weeks of training. They patrolled the highways, ensuring the merchant wagons could ply their trade in peace, and they did a good job at it—for now, no problems had been reported. But they couldn’t cover the entire forest, so there was no telling where a new, and powerful, creature might be lurking.
Soei had informed me that it wasn’t worth worrying about much, which was puzzling. What did he mean by that? Like, we could live safely alongside them? If they didn’t harm us or the travelers, then sure, I could accept that. Any monsters intelligent enough to be negotiated with were free to live out their lives, but you just never knew when a new menace, like the A-minus-ranked knight spider Gobta tangled with, might rear its ugly head and start defending its territory.
That’s why I was concerned with the forest outside of the highways and other areas we had populated. Those places, it seemed to me, were more likely to house these potential threats. Soei had his Replications looking into this for me, so I was pretty sure he at least had an inkling by now.
“I did not discover anything particularly problematic,” Soei coolly replied to me. “If I had to name one, it would be the saber grizzly I chanced upon in the forest’s northwestern reaches, but I safely dispatched it.”
Hmm. Nothing problematic?
Report. A saber grizzly is equivalent to an A-minus rank, similar to the knight spider.
What?!
“Whoa, that’s, um, that’s nothing a normal adventurer could take on!”
I couldn’t hide my shock. He made it sound so commonplace that I didn’t pick up on it at first. No merchant would be able to travel in areas with freaks like those nearby. They’d be a danger even to Gobta and his patrol teams.
“Uh,” Gobta grunted, picking up on my concern, “is that for real, Soei? ’Cause I don’t really wanna deploy anyone new and untested to places where they are. It’d be dangerous.”
“I wouldn’t worry. You spoil them too much anyway, don’t you?”
“Heyyy! Wait a minute! Maybe you wouldn’t worry, but to us, if we let our guards down, we’re goners!”
“Then go to Hakuro,” Soei blithely replied as Gobta kept whining. “Just have him train you harder. You’ll be fine.”
Hakuro nodded at this like it was plainly obvious. I felt kind of bad for Gobta, although his reaction piqued my interest. He himself didn’t seem too scared of a saber grizzly. The magicules coming off him seemed to be higher than before; he was probably on the higher end of the B rank by now. But there’s a pretty big jump between B and A, I figured…
Hey, Raphael, I’m not misreading Gobta’s power, am I?
Understood. When Unified with a starwolf, the resulting growth in fighting level cannot be measured in numbers.
Ah. All right. Yeah, I think that Unification was an A-minus. And with Gobta head of the goblin riders, maybe a saber grizzly wouldn’t be a big issue for him. And didn’t he mention successfully defending himself against an attack by one of the Clayman squad leaders? Between Hakuro’s training and his own experience, he must have been improving, in his own way. He didn’t look any different, but maybe Gobta’s a force to be reckoned with?
I smiled a bit as I reflected on this. “Now, now, I think Gobta’s got a good point. Just because you can handle it doesn’t mean the whole world can, Soei.”
That was meant to defend Gobta a bit, but I also wanted to remind Soei not to try solving all his problems alone. If the more powerful among us use themselves as a yardstick, that’ll bring a world of pain upon anyone who can’t live up to that. It’d also make things more inefficient for the powerful themselves, burdening them further and ultimately leading to their ruin. I spent a few moments explaining this to the team, mixing in a few real-world examples.
“…I understand. I did not think carefully enough.”
Everyone is different. Soka and the rest of Soei’s team were talented enough to satisfy his harsh demands, but it took a special group of people to do that. I appreciated his apology, but I hoped he kept that fact in mind somewhere. The same could be said of Benimaru and Hakuro; I wanted them to be a bit more broad-minded in how they raised the new generation. Geld and Gabil, on the other hand, thought a great deal more about the people under them, so I had less concern about them. Hopefully everyone could learn from them. It’d make for better relationships all around.
Meanwhile…
“Although I should say that training Gobta and the rest is a great thing. You gotta make sure they’re prepared for the unexpected!”
Hakuro gave a sly grin as Gobta hung his head low. Sure, not everyone advances at the same rate or to the same degree, but training itself is never a bad thing. It’s just like going to school—it’s bound to help you later on.
Convinced that Gobta was on the right track, I went back to the main topic.
Just as I feared, we were starting to see new, and dangerous, monsters born in the forest. Our patrol teams had potions on them if worse came to worst, and the starwolves were astonishingly fast on their feet, so I’m sure they could flee easily enough. But I can’t expect our upcoming visitors to act the same way.
“If we have all these magicules pooling together, that’s going to create more unusual monsters to deal with. It’ll be too late for us if they kill someone. We need a plan of action.”
We could try stricter patrols, but that wouldn’t address the root of the problem. We’d have to keep that up forever, stressing all of us out. Unless we identified and removed whatever was creating these dense clouds of magic, I’d have to keep worrying about this for all time.
So now what…?
As I pondered over this, a helpful voice called out from an unexpected place.
“In that case, why don’t we place anti-magic barriers over the highways?”
It was Vester. Kaijin immediately stood up to reply.
“And you know, pal, we just finished up the perfect device for that.” He grinned at me. “A fully automatic, barrier-producing magic generator!”
I knew he had been working on a few things in secret. But really? An automatic magic generator?
Apparently, this was a device that automatically kept any magic spell going, as long as you told it which one. A major innovation, it sounded like, kind of an advanced version of the inscription magic–driven tools he had invented before. I guess Kaijin and Vester, chagrined at how useless they were during the whole barrier crisis we had, stepped up to try developing this. These guys are amazing. Making a working model in such a short time… What are they,
geniuses?
Turns out, though, this wasn’t just a couple of dudes working in a garage. Gabil was pitching in during his spare time, as well as Kurobe (who wasn’t with us at the moment). Even Shuna was helping out. In a way, we had some of the world’s greatest magic wielders coming together for this project. It was kind of epic.
Kaijin had long been devoting his days to research, leaving forge duties to Kurobe. I’m sure it wasn’t just research, what with his duties as head of Tempest’s production department, but still.
As he explained to me, the automatic magic generator utilized the magicules naturally floating in the air. He figured we had tons of those around us right now, and that there had to be a way to harness those—hence the idea. The Prison Field covering the town worked by purifying the inner space of its magicules, absorbing them. In much the same way, monsters took in magicules from the air and produced magic crystals from them. They had researched these natural processes, analyzing how they worked.
Another thing, one I had already mentioned, was that this nation was unnaturally full of magicules. We were all projecting pretty heavy auras even when we tried to hold them back. Even in a regular cave, the density could be enormous in areas, enough to give birth to a whole gaggle of B-plus creatures. It was all just too weird for this country. Kaijin and his team had tried to figure out what to do about this for a while, it seemed.
“So if we use this automatic magic generator, we can create anti-magic barriers?”
“We sure can,” Vester confidently stated. “And that’s not the only thing!”
They were both grinning ear to ear now. I could hardly believe these two used to be at each other’s throats. But anyway.
“What other use is there? I thought the barriers were the point.”
“Heh-heh-heh… Get this, pal! This generator includes a mechanism that collects and gathers magicules from the atmosphere. We can use this to lower the density of magicules in the air!”
Whoa! Really? I had to restrain myself from shouting with glee. That’s exactly the solution we were looking for!
“It definitely is, Sir Rimuru,” Vester said. “But it’s not without its drawbacks. It requires a certain magicule density to work; otherwise, it is too inefficient.”
“Not that we have to worry about that around this town, huh, pal?”
I nodded my agreement. It wasn’t a problem worth considering.
“So basically, these devices will suck magicules from the air and automatically create barriers for us?”
“They could, yes, but eventually they’ll run out of local fuel and fizzle out. That’s why we’ve set it up so you can refill their magical energy stores.”
As Kaijin put it, the area around Tempest had more magicules than it knew what to do with, but the closer you got to the Western Nations, the sparser they became. It’d be a problem if the barriers disappeared without anyone noticing it, so the devices were set up to generate magic based on its previously loaded stores as well.
What was the fuel source? The crystals made from magicules collected from the air—in other words, magic crystals. Normally, these crystals would be too inefficient an energy source to use for fuel as is. Unlike the magic stones crafted with secret Free Guild technology, magic crystals were neither uniform nor stable. Converting them into magic energy would cause a good 90 percent of their magicules to dissipate into the atmosphere.
Magic stones were better, and thanks to the Great Sage, we had a fully optimized conversion spell driven by inscription magic. It didn’t require any magic stones at all, as long as the potential output exceeded the energy needed for recovery. The technology we developed back before we could just buy all the magic stones we wanted was still paying off big-time today.
Now, they reported, they could generate the magic with a minimum of loss, providing the desired effects even with the 10 percent of a magic crystal normally available for use. What’s more, the “wasted” 90 percent wasn’t gone forever—it just went back into the air, ready to be used again. As long as the required density was there, it was virtually a perpetual motion machine.
And we could use these things in other ways. For example, how about creating a whole bunch of magic crystals, sending them to the Free Guild, and having them converted into magic stones? Then we could operate these things even more efficiently. The most important use, however, was paring down the magicule density around us. Less density meant few monsters and magic beasts to worry about; fewer great hordes of creatures stomping around. The number of unique monsters that might pose trouble for Gobta’s team could potentially be reduced to near zero.
Truly, a wonderful invention. A perfect match for one of our nation’s most unique quirks. I could envision a future where we couldn’t live without it.
“You know,” Kaijin cheerfully stated, “I think we’ve also found a lead in extracting the energy needed to convert them into magic stones. For that, though, we’re gonna need some dedicated equipment. It’s gonna be too hard with what we have now, so that’s why we looked for a way to use magic crystals as is.”
First, they found a way to make crystals from the magicules in the air; then they developed that tech further; and then they theoretically learned how to make them into magic stones. But while the stones I purchased in Englesia helped them out a lot, they led Kaijin and Vester to the conclusion that producing our own was an uphill climb. I think I remember hearing that the process required a dedicated factory filled with large-scale equipment. It was complicated, high-level work, and while they had the theory worked out, applying it was a different matter.
Well, nothing worth going crazy about. If we could use magic crystals anyway, there was no need for haste. Besides, using those crystals for fuel proved to be a lot easier than expected, they told me. All they had to do was rewrite the formula for the relevant inscription magic, and boom, they had a working magic circle.
“And what’s more,” Vester excitedly continued, “these automatic generators can cast magic besides just barriers!”
Impressively, they could handle quite a few more spells, although there were restrictions. Just place the relevant magical inscription on a magisteel disk, pop it in the device, and you could conjure up all kinds of things—a bit like a record player, except it ran on magic crystals instead of a power outlet. I remember telling them about media playback devices like that, but I had no idea they’d leverage that knowledge into something magical like this.
If they could miniaturize it down to CD-player level, maybe we could even make them portable. Or how about the opposite, creating larger models for tactical-level magic deployment? The possibilities seemed endless. For the time being, though, the generator was a rectangle a bit over three feet long on each side and half as deep. Kinda big. Heavy, too—enough that it took some serious muscle to lift. If we could keep them stocked with magic crystals, though, there wouldn’t be any need to physically move it at all.
Vester’s proposal was to nestle these devices within the heavy stones we used to pave the highways, setting each one to maintain a magical barrier. They could carefully measure out the life span of each one, having the daily patrol teams replace the crystals to keep the barriers going—although no replacement was needed if the local magicule density held up. As long as nothing was amiss, the devices could just be checked up on regularly and otherwise left alone.
It seemed like a pretty smart plan to me—easy to use and adaptable to a wide variety of functions. By their calculations, one generator every six-ish miles along the highway would guarantee a safe refuge across the whole area. We had patrol stations every twelve miles along the roads, so it wouldn’t add much to a patrolman’s daily duties.
“So what about the magic inscriptions?”
“Heh-heh-heh… Dold’s already got the prototype done. We’ll have Kurobe work out the manufacturing process for the generators, so at this point, pal, we’re just waiting for the word go.”
“My team has largely completed the education I
’ve been giving them, so we’re holding fewer classes at the moment. I have some free time to work with, and I would love to take this job on, if possible!”
Vester’s eyes were burning with anticipation. Research wasn’t enough for him—he wanted to see these devices humming along for himself. And so did I. It looked like they could solve our magicule problem while improving highway safety. I saw no reason not to add this to our highway planning.
“Okay, Vester. I want you to begin tomorrow!”
“Leave it to me, sir!”
He smiled, elated. Glad I could rely on him. I intended to have the high orcs left in town help with the installation. The devices were ponderously heavy to a human being, but just a bit of a lift for a monster. It’d be far more efficient that way.
I figured that adjusting the ranges of each barrier to match the path of the highway might be the biggest challenge remaining. Vester laughed that concern away, but before he could go into detail, the friendly atmosphere was shattered.
“Gwaaaaaah-ha-ha-ha! Once you complete that network, I can release as much mystical energy as my heart desires!”
“No you can’t, dumbass! You’ll kill half the populace if you do!!”
I couldn’t help but yell at him for that. I really didn’t need Veldora’s crap right now. Vester’s smile turned into an alarmed, pale frown.
“I wouldn’t advise it, no,” a disturbed Benimaru replied. “We might be able to handle it, but the rest of the city? I doubt it.”
“Indeed,” added Shuna, “even if we moved Sir Veldora off-site, the force of the blast would likely affect us in one way or the other.”
Yeah, no duh. Even the sealed-off magicules leaking out made it impossible for most people to be near him. If he started shooting out his mystical force willy-nilly, we’d be awash in corpses.
