“He’s aware of it. No place for you to butt in.”
“My! What an attitude!” she fumed, but I ignored her, asking about the others’ progress.
“We’ve finished the airship, but…”
“There a problem?”
“Ordinary people can’t ride it.”
“The acceleration crushes them.”
At Aoi’s prompting, they were now working on anti-G suits.
“We’ve asked former knights who can use ‘Body Strengthening,’ but anyone under level 30 passed out during the acceleration phase.”
Curious how fast this was, I checked the data.
“……Are you trying to reach the void?”
“Oh! That would be nice. I would love to get there!”
“You fool! We have to make it fly level first! How many times—?”
They had ridiculously huge acceleration boosters working together to get up to very high speeds.
From what I could tell, the shock wave upon breaking the sound barrier was damaging their instruments and knocking out the passengers.
“Still, surprised you could achieve this power.”
“As well you might be! But look here!”
“This is the fruit of our labor!”
They showed me the schematics for a Magic Furnace.
Fending them off, I ran my eyes over it.
“……Hmm.”
They were attempting to make a hybrid system combining a bluecoin-fueled Holytree Stone Furnace with a standard Magic Furnace.
Per theoretical values, this would allow them to get output beyond what the Holytree Stone Furnace alone could achieve. Based on the figures from the tests, the strength of the furnace itself proved inadequate, and they hadn’t yet achieved the theoretical values. Still—
“This is the actual output?”
I asked them to boot up this hybrid furnace—according to the schematic, they were calling it a “twin furnace.”
Red and blue lights shot out, turning purple and filling the area.
“We originally wanted to call it the ‘purple flame furnace’…”
“But if what you call it is something that ominous, it’s bound to explode!”
“And so we thought of something else.”
Purple was considered bad luck.
“It’s not really hitting those theoretical numbers.”
“This is the limits of capital technology. We’ve put out requests to the Ougoch Duchy and the Bolehart domain.”
Ah, Dohal and the dwarves could make a better furnace.
I’d have to try myself back in the Azure Land. Or maybe I’d have better luck in Torazayuya’s labs in the Bolenan Forest?
“If we release the limiter, we can get twice this!”
That sounded ominous—and a moment later, the stable purple light began to billow. Before Aoi could run to put the limiter back on, the twin engine detonated.
“Sense Danger” warned me of it, so before it blew, I yanked Aoi back with Magic Hand and kept the princess and professors safe with “Flexible Shield” and “Shelter.”
There was no trace of the twin engine—save for the shards of it embedded in distant walls.
I checked my map, but no one had been injured in the blast.
“What was that?!”
Foreman Polina came running at the sound, and Aoi and Professor Explosion (the man who’d released the limiter) apologized profusely.
Still…
“Perhaps you’d better take a few more safety precautions.”
It wasn’t safe underground, and at the least they should put walls around the area, shoring that up with Hard Clay and Hard Stucco. Add an incline to the walls so the flames would escape upward—which might double as a defense against intruders.
To keep them safe, I could leave a few adamantite golems armed with the Phalanx system here. Disguise them as assistant-type living dolls, and no one would complain.
I resupplied materials lost in the blast from Storage and provided a few materials that might be good for the boosters.
“Maybe use this for the passengers.”
“This being?”
“Armor liners with good shock absorption.”
It was a sample I’d made while designing the new golden armor liners.
It fit my figure but would adjust itself 20 percent in either direction, so any smaller knight should be fine.
“It’s like a leotard or the space clothes in sci-fi films,” Aoi said accurately. I merely grunted, handing the sample over.
That should let them pilot the high-velocity tests safely. I had plenty of extras, so I gave them ten suits. I’d made a bunch extra for experiments and hadn’t used many up.
“Professor Jahado, how goes the improvements to the skypower engine?”
“That’s done and dusted. I’ve got three types for different purposes; I’ll show you the schematics later.”
While he was getting those, other professors submitted finished papers and schematics of their own. It hadn’t been that long since my last visit, so the quantity was impressive. Gathering brilliant minds together really did allow them to bounce off each other.
“Mm, you’ve got some, too, Aoi?”
“Yes, I may not be as talented as they are, but I’m trying to recreate Japanese devices with magic.”
“These two already exist. Don’t pursue this one. The others are fine. Make a test, calculate the costs, and run it by the manager or Tifaleeza.”
Aoi’s magic appliance proposals had one dicey-looking one, so I took that off the stack.
I’d leave the judgment call on profitability to the manager.
Oh, right—
“I got the thing you asked for.”
On my way out, I remembered that one of them had asked about floating rocks, so I put a few sizes of them in a warehouse. I need hardly tell you how delighted he was.
I also gave the manager the Demon-Sealing Bell I’d obtained in Latiluti.
“The flying fortress? From the legends?”
Having wrapped up my work at Echigoya, I put on my Akindoh guise and paid Hikaru a visit, where she was enjoying her role as the dorm’s caretaker.
“Yeah, it was hidden in the Azure Land.”
“It actually exists! Sharorik always believed it did, but Melbon and Litty swore up and down it didn’t.”
Even in her day, it had been the stuff of legends, its very existence unclear.
“Does it still fly?”
“The heart of it’s been removed, so not at the moment.”
I’d checked it out in my Storage, but the central computer-like portion—a part known as the Purple Moon Core—was missing. It had Magic Furnace–like energy sources remaining, so some parts of it would function.
“Ah! Then we can rest easy.”
I imagined whoever hid the flying fortress in that subspace had taken it away with them.
“How’s Shizuka doing?”
“Mm, she’s drawing her heart out. She’s got passionate readers, which has proved motivating—perhaps a little too motivating.”
Hikaru had brought Shizuka’s books to tea parties, and they’d proved very popular among a certain set of noblewomen—starting with the wife of Count Litton.
Even though this world had no printing presses…
“The originals?”
“I’m making copies with magic.”
“There’s a spell that does that?”
“Mm, but I was told it was taboo, so I’ve been keeping it to myself.”
A reincarnated mage had made a Practical Magic spell for that.
I guess if we can use Light Magic to project images, knowledge of printing procedures would make crafting that spell pretty easy.
“Oh, and rumors of your disappearance are spreading through high society, Ichirou.”
I’d heard as much at the Echigoya Company.
“They’re that widespread?”
“Mm, you went off to the west, and nobody’s heard from you since.”
We’d taken a rather unconventional approach to reach Arcatia.
“Can I leave some letters with you?”
I didn’t want to worry anyone, so I gave her letters from the prime minister and other acquaintances. The prime minister was well aware Pendragon’s merchant, Akindoh, was regularly visiting the dorm, so it shouldn’t seem weird.
As long as I dated them the day we reached the fortress city of Arcatia, there’d be no issue with it arriving before the letters sent via the sea route.
“I’ve got food prepared, so I’m delivering it in time for dinner—wanna tag along, Ichirou?”
“No, I’ve got other places to be.”
I wanted to see Shizuka, but if I popped in unannounced, I might find myself in another lucky perv scenario.
So on the way out, I left presents for Shizuka and Hikaru, made from the Mermaid Tears we obtained in the frogfolk country, Chipucha.
“Master Satou!”
Yuuneia had been farming, but she stopped to wave.
I’d wrapped up business in the capital and stopped by Paradise Island on my way to the Bolenan Forest.
“Sister, Master Satou is here!”
“Y-Yuuneia, don’t drag me!”
Rei’s face was covered in dirt, and she had her hands covering that. I didn’t think that was something to turn beet red about.
I headed inside like I owned the place and got some cold wheat tea and corn on the cob ready.
“Thanks for waiting! Wow, those look amazing!”
Yuuneia chugged the tea, then pounced on the corn.
“How do you eat this?”
“Hold it like that and nibble the kernels off the sides.”
“It smells amazing—is that soy sauce?”
“It is. Japanese-style corn on the cob.”
I put a bag of seed kernels on the table, with a written list of instructions.
“It’s so good! Sister, this is the best!”
Yuuneia was getting soy sauce all over her face, but she paid that no heed, munching away on corn with the rhythm of a typewriter.
Rei seemed somewhat reluctant to follow her lead, so she used the Practical Magic spell Multitool to remove the kernels to a plate and eat them with a spoon.
“Sweet and tasty. Is it a vegetable or a fruit?”
“The former. The sweetness comes from improving the strain.”
I’d used a Treespirit Pearl to cheat my way to that.
I thanked Rei again for her report on miniaturizing Heavenslight Protection, telling her how I’d used that technology to complete the Castle function.
“I’m glad I could help,” Rei said with a satisfied smile.
I told them how the girls were doing and showed them Light Magic images of everything we’d seen in the southwest, sharing tales of our travels. While passing out the gifts we’d bought for them.