But what is she doing here…? How did she get out of there? Well, I guess Lis appearing as a familiar was unexpected, too. There was always a possibility that she might show up. Ah… Right. Now I see why Lis wanted us to take this route.
“Understood,” I said. “Bring her to me.”
Her mouth curled into a smile when she saw me.
“Heh heh—that’s quite the grand outfit you wear now, my master.”
“Glad you’re well,” I said, removing my Lord of the Flies mask as I spoke her name. “Eve.”
“I’m happy to see you’re in good health too, Too-ka,” replied Eve Speed. She had been in her human form from the moment she entered my tent, and she seemed to anticipate that I might have some questions about that. “Erika invented a magical device that can condense large amounts of mana and store it for periods of time. That device is allowing me to maintain this form on my own,” she said, puffing out her chest proudly.
…Not that I’m well versed in this stuff, but that invention has huge consequences for this world, right?
“Squee. ♪”
Piggymaru snaked out of of my pocket.
“Hmh? Oh, it’s you, Piggymaru. You’ve gotten good at concealing your presence.”
“Squee! ♪ Squuuh~.”
“Piggymaru says it’s been too long. It wants to jump over,” I explained.
I held out my arm, and the little slime hopped onto Eve’s shoulder.
“Squeee~! ♪” Piggymaru happily rubbed its cheek (?) against Eve.
“Heh heh… I’m happy to see you again too, Piggymaru.”
“You did well to make it here through the Land of the Golden-eyed Monsters.”
“Hmph,” Eve nodded, folding her arms and looking even more proud of herself. “I had a few advantages.”
She grinned, showing me a flash of white teeth. “After you left in that war chariot, Erika got right to building herself another one. A one-seater this time, though. I suppose it was less of a chariot, and more like a magical creature shaped like a horse…”
“Eh? She can just make things like that? I feel like it wasn’t quite so simple, last I heard…”
Based on what Erika said, the awareness blocking spell on our war chariot was sort of a unique deal.
“Hmph. That’s where the mana storage device I mentioned comes in.”
“Hm? Sorry, I’m not really seeing how those two things are connected…”
“Erika’s a researcher, right? She’s been running tests on awareness blocking devices for years now.”
“So you’re saying she had some convenient eureka moment, and now she can construct them herself?”
“In a way, yes.”
“…Is this Hijiri’s doing?” The thought struck me suddenly.
Ah, right. Eve is probably here because of something to do with…
“Heh heh. I should have known you’d realize, Too-ka.” Eve uncrossed her arms and placed her large backpack on the ground before her. She wasn’t wearing her fly swordsman outfit, as she usually did, but a set of regular-looking clothes that she’d gotten from Erika. “Bit of a tangent, but has Hijiri told you about this yet?”
“Yeah.”
I pulled up my memories of the Takao sisters.
“Erika has been researching for a long time, trying to create magical items to oppose the Goddess.”
“She said that she might be able to create an item that can inhibit, just a little, the powers of a divine.”
“Aneki said something to her, and it was like Erika’d found the missing piece of a puzzle the moment she heard it! One of them eureka things, right?”
An item that might inhibit the powers of a divine. I’d been torn about whether to go into the Land of the Golden-eyed Monsters to retrieve it when I first heard those words. In the end, I made the decision to stay. Leaving this army for several days just to retrieve an item would be too arduous. I’d considered sending the Takao sisters, but back then, I didn’t know if we could afford to do without them in battle. Especially on the weak promise of something that Erika might possibly be able to create…
But now…
“She’s made it—and you’ve brought it here, then, eh?”
“That’s right,” Eve replied.
“Getting back on track… This hint that Hijiri gave Erika didn’t just extend to her creating this magical device that might be able to interfere with the power of a divine. It also helped Erika to come up with a mana storage device and a new awareness blocking tool?”
That all sounds awfully convenient…
“She’s lived so long that her thinking was all rigid. She was stuck in a rut—or so she said. It’s not like living a long life necessarily makes you a genius, according to her.”
She does have a point there. There were tons of teenage geniuses in the old world who were capable of getting way better results than their elders ever could.
“It might seem simple, but it can be really hard to realize your way of thinking has gotten stale without some outside catalyst. Impossible, even. I can see that happening.”
“Hijiri also said that her Intelligence stat modifier might have something to do with it, I think. By the way…” Eve squinted, her expression uneasy as she continued. “She said that her increased Intelligence might let her calm her brain and concentrate for long periods of time. Something like that? That stat modifier allowed her to compute and multitask in a way that didn’t compromise her abilities, raising her information and situational processing abilities…I think? I didn’t really get what she was saying…”
It can be hard to tell how stat modifiers actually affect us heroes. Vicius told us it varied from person to person, which is barely an explanation at all. But hey, it is just like Hijiri to come up with a convincing explanation after all that analysis. That being said, I don’t feel like I’ve gotten way smarter…but maybe my improved instincts and perception might have something to do with my Intelligence stat.
The smile faded from Eve’s face. In its place was not sternness but a caring look.