Chapter 8: Girl, Has Nightmare
“COME right on in. Don’t mind the mess.”
Determining it was only a waste of breath to complain after Sylmia left, Nichika followed Lambert to the workshop downstairs.
She couldn’t tell from the outside that Sylmia’s house had been built on a slope, and although the workshop was underground, bright sunlight shined through the large windows, warmly illuminating the generous space. Brooms of varying shapes and sizes hung on the walls, and the smell of freshly cut wood filled the air. Nichika closed her eyes and deeply inhaled that woody scent.
“Smells so good…”
“Brooms are whittled down and adjusted here,” Lambert explained. “Now where’d that measuring tape go?”
“Didn’t know you had a hobby like this,” Oswald remarked, entering the room a few steps behind them.
Lambert sheepishly scratched the back of his head. “I couldn’t mention it at school. You know how it is. Outside this village everyone thinks it’s taboo for men to mount a broom.”
He grabbed the measuring tape off an old desk and began taking Nichika’s measurements. Height, shoulder width, arm length, the distance from her wrist to her fingertips. Nodding to himself, he wrote down the numbers.
“I can whittle off a huge chunk for someone of your size,” he cheerfully told her. “You can look forward to bein’ a lightweight competitor. Ah, but if I take too much off, you’ll lose strength and durability for what you gain in speed…so this part of the broom has to go like this and this has to be done this way.”
Craftsman Lambert marked up the broom received from Sylmia with black charcoal. Nichika’s cheeks dimpled at the first real signs of fun he seemed to be having since they met. Not wanting to disturb him, she waited for him to stand from the desk before speaking.
“You really love it don’t you. Adjusting brooms.”
“Hm? Mm, you think so?” He sounded uncertain, like he had never really thought about it. “Yeah, maybe I do.”
Lambert fetched a saw from the cabinet and started the adjustments by cutting down the excessive handle and shaft length. He proceeded to remove the brush bristle in accordance to the changes he made to the length.
“It’s been my hobby for Spirits knows how long. Guess ya could say fiddlin’ with it for fun gave me a knack for it,” he explained, his hands going about the work without second-guessing his next move. “Just hope my intuition for these things hasn’t changed since I last took on a project like this.”
“Are there rules for what changes you can and can’t make?” she asked, running her fingers along one of the beautifully carved brooms on the wall.
“Absolutely,” he answered while carrying over several different types of wood file tools and rasps. “First of all, the broom must be the exact model specified by the tournament committee. You’re free to whittle it down as much as you like, but ya can’t add anything extra. Contestants are riding on the wind, so the key is to reduce weight as much as possible with the rider’s size in mind, but take it too far and you’ll weaken the frame so much it could snap on you like a twig. You’ve also gotta take wind resistance into account too.”
He prepared the general shape by shaving down the wood with a rough rasp. The texture gradually changed until the surface smoothed out.
“Oh and wind mana love all things beautiful, so the prettier the broom, the more of a speed boost they’ll give ya.”
Lambert chiseled a gorgeous design into the wood without drawing up a sketch first. Nichika was fascinated by his magical handiwork.
“Wow! You’re amazing, Lam! You could do this for a living!”
A faint smile touched Lambert’s lips at the way her eyes shined over his detailed openwork. Meanwhile, Oswald watched him work over his shoulder and pulled something from his pocket.
“Have anywhere to put this?”
“…What’s that?” Nichika asked, her distrust on full display for the black tubular object in his hand.
“Can’t you tell? It’s a booster,” he answered with a straight face. “It absorbs wind and fire mana to create explosive propulsion power.”
“Weren’t you listening?! Lam just said that adding anything extra is against the rules!”
“This thing is seriously amazing. I pointed the nozzle toward a rock wall during the test phase and it erased everything behind me when I took off.”
“Don’t make your apprentice race with such a dangerous object!” she shot him down as usual. This time, though, it actually upset him.
“Tch,” he clicked his tongue. “Think you’re in a position to follow the rules? Your journey ends here and now if you don’t win tomorrow’s race.”
“Th-That’s…”
Nichika didn’t know what to say when he thrust reality upon her. If he outright asked if she was confident she could win, the honest answer was no. That being said, she didn’t want to cheat. She hung her head and muttered under her breath.
“I’ll never be able to forgive myself later if I win by cheating.”
Oswald sighed and turned his back to her. “Still playing the heroine after all we’ve been through? Go ahead and do it fair and square. Just don’t come whining to me later.”
With those final stinging words, he left the workshop.
“…Did I make him angry?” she asked sullenly after he’d gone.
“Beats me. But I think my upperclassman there might’ve been lookin’ out for you in his own way.”
She felt a little guilty after hearing that. I’ll apologize when he comes back.
But Oswald didn’t show up even after the day gave way to late night.