“The Evil God?” Mia asked, looking up at me.
I had to nod. Wasn’t good to leap to conclusions, but given what we did know…
“And yet ‘freedom.’”
Perhaps that was why the demon lord worshippers’ names always had freedom in them.
We’d have to stop by Lumork on our way east and see if we could find anything out about this god or his apostles.
“Not sure we should go farther.”
“Mrr?”
“There’s a secret passage behind this painting—or rather, a hidden teleport.”
I wasn’t sure how to activate it, but whatever was hidden back there was probably important.
“Right,” Mia said, looking around. “Satou, writing.”
Her silver eyes had found a longer passage.
“True…and it’s in Japanese?”
With “Spirit Vision” on, I could make it out.
Hiragana and kanji, but it bounced around and made no sense.
I tried “Miasma Vision” and “Magic Vision” in turn, and they made different writings appear. There were still gaps, though…but I could fill it in. Or rather, I recognized it as Jugemu, a famous Rakugo story.
For the hell of it I recited Jugemu, and the teleport behind the painting lit up—and a magic circle appeared beneath our feet.
I’d expected as much, so I held on to Mia and waited for the teleport.
“We’re under our previous location,” I said.
A moment later, the lights came on.
“Floating rock.”
A massive boulder was hovering in the air not far from us.
It was so big, the far side of it was hazy, every bit as big as Lalakie itself—or the flying fortress, Arcatia.
Lalakie had been a city, but this was much more military-looking.
“…Threat.”
“Yeah.”
No clue what kind of superweapons it was loaded up with, but if something this dangerous fell into the hands of demon lord worshippers, the world would be in big trouble.
I used “Skyrunning” to touch the side of the fortress and put it in Storage.
As I did, a massive gust of wind blew through the cavern.
Oh, shit.
The humongous loss of mass had generated gales, yanking the smaller flying rocks around.
I quickly put up a Shelter spell to ward them off.
“Mrr.”
“That one’s on me,” I admitted, gently helping to straighten her ruffled hair.
The wind died down eventually, and I put the cluster of floating rocks in Storage, too. A gift for the professor studying flying rocks at the Echigoya Company.
“Satou, passage.”’
Mia pointed up ahead to some sort of hangar; it was jam-packed with parts for the fortress and what looked like weapons. I collected all of them in turn.
I didn’t see any libraries or research notes stored down here, so Mia and I went back to the transport point and continued our tour of the ruins, collecting more statues.
Anything on paper had disintegrated by now, but we did find some clay and stone tables with period records.
But that one painting was the only sign of this god of freedom.
“Pretty.”
Outside the back of the ruins, we found a garden with glass-like translucent columns.
At a glance, they appeared colorless, but according to my AR display, they were a special orichalcum alloy, much like the statue Bandages.
“Magic circle?”
“Certainly some sort of magic code.”
The monument near the front had TO STRIKE AT THE FOOLISH GODS in big letters on it, and the columns behind it had magic circles and complicated magic theories inscribed on them.
“Comprehend?”
“Not right away.”
There were a lot of principles and runes not understood by modern magic theory.
This would be tricky, but based on what the monument said, it could well be some sort of anti-divinity measure and run afoul of their taboos—best I worked this out myself without asking anyone else for help.
Once we got back to the base, Arisa found out that Mia and I had gone exploring without her and blew her top.
Guess I’ll have to go somewhere with her next time.
Two days after Mia and I explored those ruins, the full party was in the third ruined Azure Land city, some ways from our base. This one was near the coast, and we could smell the sea.
We’d arrived early in the morning and found a smaller ruin on the coast itself; at Arisa’s request, I’d made a private beach and resort. That meant our actual goal—testing their new gear—was put off until afternoon.
“Well?”
“Great viewww!”
“This is exquisite.”
“Yes, sir! Extremely, extremely great, sir!”
I’d applied the transparent orichalcum alloy from the Otherworld garden to the golden armor’s helmets. I’d found the recipe for it in the tablets we’d recovered. Unfortunately, I’d found nothing about the Bandage orichalcum; I’d have to reverse engineer that from the sample.
“Hmm, you can adjust the transparency.”
Since the rear guard had been using veils, I tried making visors instead.
Arisa’s first impression? “Pretty soldier Mercury, fighting in a sailor uniform!” but I didn’t think there was that much resemblance.
“It’s so light, I could easily forget I’m wearing this.”
They could also turn it back into a golden helm, making it only transparent on the inside—like a one-way mirror. These changes had required some complicated mana signals, so I was relieved they weren’t accidentally injecting magic and blinding themselves.
This let me see my party’s faces while they were training and make sure they weren’t too tired or feeling unwell. That was a huge boon in my book.
“Master, the transparent shield feels fragile, I fear.”
“I get that. Let’s keep the shield as it was.”
The see-through one could go in Nana’s Fairy Pack as an emergency backup.
“But, Master, why leave our base behind just to show these off?”
“Well, the real goal has yet to come,” I said, pulling golden armor enhancement parts out of my Storage and laying them out on the tarp.
“Oh, badass! Exoarmor?” Arisa cried. “These leg parts look like they could move three U.C. bots at once. What are they?”
“What they look like. Hover gear.”
Make them too small, and they were unstable—didn’t want any pratfalls.
“These are flying parts. Just for moving—no aerial combat.”
The beast girls knew “Skywalking,” but that could only get them so high. I’d made these to travel to hunt sites faster. If they kept them on all the time, the folding wings would get in the way.
“These are skypower engines, I report.”
“Also flying parts, yeah. Skypower engines with smaller wings, so better agility.”
They looked like inner tubes.
“Two types?” Mia asked.
“We’re evaluating them, so I made more than one kind,” I explained. “This is the gunner option—one type for the front line, and one for Lulu.”
I’d made small-caliber Fireburst Gun barrels arranged like a Gatling gun for rapid fire.
The reason there were two types is because they had different types of golden armor, and Lulu’s gear had no aim assist attached.
“The heavy armor’s artillery option is for attacking bases like the Taurus castle, while the pods with mini missiles that autotrack and fire in bulk are—”
“Whoo-hoo! Full armor! I’m going full armor!”
“No, Arisa, the armor quantity does not change, I advise.”
“Not what I meant! This type of gear is called full armor!”
“A trooope?”
“Yes! You get me, Tama!”
“Pochi knows this one, sir! You have to honor the tropes, sir!”
“Yes, Pochi. I have updated my trope list, I confirm.”