Along the edge of the promised land—or, simply put, our national border—was a red wall I’d made with magic. Recently, other countries had taken to calling it the Redline. I came here today to test out a few things.
I held out my hand and cast my new spell: “Air Mine!”
Magical light condensed into a single point until it was no bigger than a grain of sand, but the light was so dazzling, as bright as red-hot metal, that it looked much bigger than it really was.
“Good,” I muttered under my breath. For the finishing touch, I poured in a bit of my mana until the dazzling light vanished. Picking up a pebble from the ground, I tossed it to where the grain had been, and then—
A huge explosion rattled the air, kicking up a cloud of dust that swallowed me whole. I was ready for it, though. My barrier was already up, so I took no damage.
In the middle of all this dust, I clenched my fist in victory. The on-site experiment was a success.
“A trap, hmm?” Lardon said as the dust finally cleared.
“Yep. I made it based on the blue ant beads.”
“Why make a new one?”
“To increase the chances of success.”
“Oh?”
I recognized that tone of voice—it was the tone Lardon used whenever her interest was piqued. That short hum was all I needed given the time we’d spent together.
“Making the blue ant beads float, setting up a trigger, then making them fall—that’s one step too many. It’s much simpler and far more precise to just install something right here to explode when touched.”
“It seems you sacrificed some power for it, though.”
“I can afford it,” I said with a shrug. “The blue ant beads are overkill. Not every enemy is as strong as you, Lardon.”
Lardon chuckled. “I suppose not. This is enough to send a human flying.”
“And what we lack in quality, we can make up for in quantity—Air Mine, thirty-onefold!” Thirty-one glowing grains manifested in the air before me and disappeared almost at the same time. I nodded conclusively. “There’s strength in numbers.”
“You speak the truth,” Lardon affirmed.
“Next up...”
I summoned my item box and took out a small bundle of cloth about the size of my fingertip. Then, I set it down on the ground and stabbed it open with Needle. A dense fog came bursting forth from within.
“What is that?” Lardon asked.
“Paithon’s fog,” I answered. “It’s from one of the pillows I gave her. Breaking it will cause the absorbed fog to leak out.”
“Oh? So you prepared this?”
“I always carry them around.” I took a pillow from my item box and showed Lardon. “I store them in my item box when she’s done using them. I’ve been putting off coming up with a way to dispose of them... Turns out they’re pretty useful.”
As I spoke, the fog continued to spread, but at this quantity, it was harmless.
Actually, I stand corrected—Paithon’s fog was always harmless. It was only a threat because Paithon produced it endlessly in her sleep, and that could be for months at a time. Succumbing to this fog just once would force anyone to sleep alongside Paithon, and while the divine dragon could sleep for months like it was no big deal, the same couldn’t be said for humans. Without any external care or means of replenishing liquids and nutrients, the victims were bound to die long before Paithon ever awoke.
So this trap I was setting up using the fog wasn’t a threat. Without Paithon around, all this fog did was send people on a quick trip to dreamland, and that was enough for me. Or rather, my goal.
“Amelia’s concert will last half a day at most. It’s the perfect chance to make use of this fog.”
I’d been setting up these midair bombs and fog traps all to fulfill Amelia’s request. Setting up a half-day security measure wasn’t too tall a task, so I was testing out two at once.
“Hmm... Is there a need to set up both?”
“Recent experience tells me yes,” I replied. “Remember when the city ran out of mana? That was one problem I never would’ve foreseen. This time, I want to prepare a backup from the start. We can never guarantee anything a hundred percent, but we can still get as close as possible by stacking backups and contingency plans.”
“Hmm... How surprising.”
“What is?”
“Your words are exceedingly similar to what a rather impressive human once said regarding risk management,” she explained. “He spoke of getting as close as possible to certain success by preparing multiple countermeasures.”
“Really?” So I came up with the same thing as someone who had impressed Lardon. That gave me a boost of confidence.
“However, that human failed,” Lardon mused.
“What? Why?”
“Because he applied that logic to everything he did. He prepared backup upon backup upon backup, placing too immense a burden on his every move.”
“Oh...”
That made sense to me. Stacking backup plans brought us closer to a hundred percent guaranteed success, but sooner or later, you had to ask yourself: “How many is too much?” Applying this mindset to anything and everything would naturally call for twice or thrice as much work. It made sense that a human would crumble under all that pressure.
I shrugged. “Well, I’m doing it just this once, so it’s all good.”
“Indeed,” Lardon agreed.
This was a onetime thing—all to fulfill Amelia’s request and to ensure that her concert would proceed safely and peacefully. For a onetime performance that would last no more than half a day, there was no such thing as too many precautions.
“I have nine more measures in mind, so eleven in total.”
“Very well. What’s next? Show me what you have in store.” Lardon sounded excited to see all the things I’d come up with.