323 Dawn of a New Generation (1/2)
”The Mage County hasn't yet made an official response? This seems to be a huge matter.”
The Truth Symposium stayed silent—abnormally silent. When I thought about it, however, I realized that this was likely their way of expressing their extreme rage.
It was similar to my previous world. If there was friction between two countries, the aggrieved side would typically declare their dissatisfaction and organize some protests. This usually meant that the country didn't intend to take actual action; for the sake of face, the country merely wanted to act—albeit verbally—tough.
If a country announced that they ”reserved the right to take action,” it meant that they, in all likelihood, wanted to take action. However, a country that was aggrieved but kept silent would be the most dangerous of them all.
”As long as it's necessary, these mages are capable of tolerating humiliation. But now there's no such necessity…”
That left two possibilities. Either the country couldn't afford to antagonize the other one and would pretend that nothing had happened, or the country was intending on taking revenge in secret.
Judging the current situation, there was a ninety-nine percent chance of it being the latter…
”The two sides are already separated by a deep grudge. The Mage Country's forbidden curse ruined the Undead Emperor's invasion plan, while the undead plotted a nefarious scheme to kill off the archmages in one go. And this isn't even mentioning the fact that it was the undead who caused Amelia's current unconscious state…”
”There's you as well. In a way you're the one who caused everything to sour to such a degree, the main culprit behind it all. You practically caused Aso's death, and you're currently in the Mage Country. You're definitely number one on their hit list.”
”Thank you for reminding and jinxing me. By the way, what did it feel like to soak in a water elemental pool?”
”Shouldn't you already know? The tea you drank this morning was blessed with the presence of my shower water.”
*Ptui!*
Anyone who's ever had a pet would know that they loved to show off their captured prey to their owners. And it was even more awkward for them when their pets attempted to share this prey—including all the rats and cockroaches that had been secretly added into the food… Fine then, this silly cat was worse than all of those pets—she did it all intentionally. To curb this unseemly behavior, I would definitely have to give her a good lesson.
”Stop running away! Come, let's see if I don't hang you out to dry on top of the mage tower!”
While the perpetual fight between the silly cat and I repeated itself yet again, the wheels of my plan were once again in motion. The next phase had begun.
Mages could be said to be the ones most wasteful of their wealth. Even with such top-level experimental conditions at their disposal, they would typically just research the creation of basic spell models. Or, with the portal to the water elemental plane, they would only summon a few water elemental servants while the portal itself would remain inactive for the great majority of the time. My subordinates, on the other had, were delighted to be able to use the mage tower's top-level research equipment to perform their own research.
”I'm attempting to install mecha armor and additional weapons on the magic puppets. This can solve the problem of their overly simple attacks.”
”How foolish! Haven't you noticed that their greatest weakness is their slow speed? I intend to install Iron Horse wheels on them so that they can become far more mobile than before.”
”…Why not just install a ropeller? A flying magic puppet would be so cool—it could even carry people around! We could hire it out and make so much money!”
”Stop being so ridiculous. Ropellers are known to be unreliable, and it's impossible to adjust their efficiency ratio. They'll either cause the object to fly too high or not fly at all. And it's fine if it fails to fly, but if the aerodynamic lift is too much then that'd make the puppet be no different from an execution implement. It'll simply fly off with the puppet's head, leaving its body lying on the ground. Did all of you forget about that unfortunate experiment we did with the scarecrow?”
What was with the name 'ropeller'? Ahh, this was a classic story. When I first arrived in this world, I gave a shot at inventing some engineering technology that would allow flight. However, although I could recall the mechanics of propellers from my previous world, I was only a law major and didn't understand the scientific principles behind its functioning. However, I did know of a common little toy: those mini propellers from China. [1]1
I casually created a wooden mini-propeller and gave it over to the gnomes who were skilled at making more intricate mechanisms. I asked them to research and discuss how to make it into a real concept capable of flight. The gnomes naturally asked what it was, as they didn't yet understand why the mini-propeller had the ability to fly through the air. And so, I just responded with something like this was called a propeller and that was its ability.
However, the gnomes didn't clearly hear me and thought that it was called the 'ropeller,' instead. And that was how 'ropeller' became its official name, a name that spread far and wide before I discovered what was going on. When I finally learned of the mistake, the name had spread far too much for me to do anything about it. Ropeller was now the officially recognized name of this mechanism I brought from my previous world. I was no longer able to change the name even if I wanted to.
It could be expected that if magic puppets were equipped with all these devices and accessories that my engineers were thinking about, they would become much more powerful. With all sorts of dangerous weapons and heavy armor, they would be quite fearsome… But for some unknown reason, I suddenly thought of a certain strong naked man who shouted, ”I'll be back!”
The locals in this world were equally intelligent with the geniuses from my previous world. The most I could do in many cases was provide them with inspiration and tell them that this was possible. Often times, the end result would far exceed my expectations.
Magical engineering was such an unexpected miracle product. The combination of science and magic gave birth to explosive transformations in existing technologies. Nobody could predict what might come about as a result of magical engineering. However, it was easily predictable that the discipline would change the very fabric of this fantasy world's society.
At the very least, under my supervision, magical engineering's development had far exceeded its extent in the game's ”history.”
Beastmen warriors were equipped with mobile mechas, elven rangers rode motorcycles, while gnomes and goblins who weren't as physically strong wore mecha armors. ”History” had already reached a divergent point.
”How's the analysis on the Salo's Crystal going? I think it's one of the top-level inventions of the 'Age of Scholarly Inventions,' the Haletdam generation. Oh, what's Timlad doing?”
”Timlad says that it's way too difficult to analyze its workings, but it isn't impossible. No matter what, the current environment is different to that of the immemorial generation. It's definitely impossible to recreate a Salo's Crystal with the same power as the original, but still it should be possible to create a weaker version with less than one percent of its power.”
”That's sufficient… tell him that it's not a rush—it's only medium priority. After all, Salo's Crystals are far too dangerous. I don't want to wake up one day to find out I'm flying through the sky because my mage tower has exploded.”
Little Timlad was becoming more and more amazing. As my lead engineer, he was a bottomless pit when it came to anything involving engineering. He would always give me happy surprises.
Two days ago, I handed Timlad another research idea of mine—developing new Colossi. The immemorial Haletdam generation was also nicknamed the Colossi generation after their excellent Colossi technology. It just remained to see how much of it Timlad was able to develop.
With more and more people joining under me, there were now plenty of specialists in all areas and fields. I didn't think that the loose contractual relationships between domain lords and their hired personal mages were appropriate to use. Instead, the company, department, and project team structuring from my previous world worked much better for me.
By the way, I should mention that the current leader of my alchemy department was Yingou Beyar. However, the one who really ran things in the alchemy department was his second-in-command, Olivia, who was growing more talented with each day. Not only was she fully developing her natural talent in alchemy that was displayed in the game's ”history,” but she had also established good relationships with the alchemists, engineers, smiths, and enchanters. More importantly she and was always able to mediate between them. Even though Olivia wasn't even twenty years old, she was becoming more and more like an overall general manager of the departments.
Right now, Olivia was in charge of all my important projects, such as the improvements to mobile mechas and Olivia's Magic Box. With her around, I could be comforted of the fact that the alchemist teams and engineer teams wouldn't start fighting outright.
Of course, she did complain about it. Working on improving her Magic Box or enchanted mechas helped greatly improve her engineering and enchanting knowledge—she was now at the level where she could subclass in both engineering and enchanting. However, it was pushing her farther and farther away from her dream of becoming a grand alchemist.
However, Yingou, her alchemist teacher, secretly told me that Olivia's alchemy potions were becoming even stronger—and their effects, too, were getting stranger. For example, there had been an underwear thief with ridiculously long body hair who had kept stealing underwear all over the Cloud Tower. When he was finally captured, it was discovered that he was only a wild monkey who had been fed an ”extra hair growth” potion from Olivia. It was just that not only did the potion help the monkey lengthen its body hair, it also massively increased the monkey's lust, height, strength, intelligence, and many other areas. The ordinary monkey became a long-haired gorilla that went around sexually harassing the mages.
”For the sake of world peace, we should make Olivia use her talent in safer fields. I'd prefer to live a few extra years.”—Yingou Beyar.