Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody, Vol. 4 Page 5

  Next, I whipped up a heating circuit for the kotatsu. With this setup, you would have to stick your head under the kotatsu to supply magic, but since creating a cable to run outside would be a pain, I left it as is. I could always just keep an eye out for cable components next time we reached a big city and craft one without too much effort.

  Now to make a top for the table…

  There was a large rock on the other side of the carriage about five feet around, so I used the Holy Sword Excalibur to slice off four slates less than half an inch thick.

  Holy Swords really are something else. The surfaces of the slates were as smooth as if they’d been carefully polished. I couldn’t put them into the Garage Bag at this size, so I cut them down to the dimensions of the kotatsu.

  I decided to make the table portion easy to disassemble for storage, too. I have to say, making screws without any tools was a little annoying.

  “Arisa, it’s done.”

  “What? You made it just now? It hasn’t even been two hours.”

  “That’s because I used some things I already had instead of starting it from scratch.”

  Secretly feeling a bit proud of myself at Arisa’s surprise, I set my handiwork on top of the rug.

  Then I reached into the Garage Bag I’d brought along with me, pulled out the quilt Arisa had made yesterday, and placed it between the heated table and the slate on top to complete the job.

  When I let some of my magic power flow into the heating circuit inside, a soft, gentle warmth radiated from the kotatsu.

  I told Arisa and Mia that it was ready, and they immediately shoved their feet under it.

  “Aaaah! No winter is complete without a kotatsu.”

  “Mm. I want oranges.”

  It sounded like they had mandarin oranges in Mia’s elfin village. I’d have to remember to pick some up when we brought her home.

  Finishing her pseudo-yoga, Lulu toweled herself dry and eyed the new contraption curiously. Her hair, damp with sweat, clung to her skin in a way that bordered on sexy. Once she becomes an adult, she’ll probably be dangerously attractive.

  “So this is a kotatsu?”

  “Yeah. You can try it, too.”

  At my recommendation, Lulu delicately slid her feet under the blanket and looked pleased.

  Now the vanguard group had paused their training to approach curiously.

  “Is this another magic tool of your creation, master? How very wonderful. I look forward to using it on night watch.”

  “Kotatsuuu?”

  “It’s warm inside, sir.”

  Tama and Pochi stuck their heads under the quilt, sniffing around and patting the device studiously.

  “Master, this is too small for everyone to use, is it not? I inquire.”

  “Don’t worry. There are three more of them.”

  I pointed at the other kotatsu a short distance away, though some assembly was still required.

  Before long, the vanguard team called off their training, and instead I ended up leading a practice session on how to put together and take apart the kotatsu.

  Once everyone could handle that, I had them try supplying it with magic, but Lulu and the beastfolk girls couldn’t quite manage it.

  Lulu and Liza had used the Tinder Rod before, but it automatically absorbed magic when you pressed the switch. This was probably harder.

  “It’s all right. You’ll be able to do it sooner or later.”

  I comforted the kids who hadn’t been able to do it and readjusted the night watch shifts accordingly.

  After all, if nobody on a particular shift could supply the magic, the heating would stop, and they’d get cold.

  That evening, I was on the late-night watch with Nana.

  Since there weren’t any animals or monsters around that would harm us, I decided to do an experiment I’d been meaning to try for a while. Just to be sure, I asked Nana to use her Foundation Magic spell Sonar to keep an eye on our surroundings.

  I went outside the igloo-style Shelter wall and began some prep work.

  This time, I wanted to attempt forging a Holy Sword with the instructions I’d gotten in Sedum City.

  Arisa’s hint had helped me decode the cipher, and the resulting text was a guide to making “blue,” a special circuit liquid for creating Holy Swords, and then using that to create the special blade.

  The blue seemed doable enough, but the sword itself required special casting equipment and the help of various magic experts, so that wasn’t feasible right now.

  However, the process bore a close resemblance to the one for making demon blades described in Trazayuya’s documents, so the liquid itself could probably be used for other magic tools. I fished through Trazayuya’s documents and found a guide to making Holy Stones that I could try instead.

  These were the elf version of the barrier posts I’d seen keeping monsters away from villages. According to the documents, the effect radius was about half that of the barrier pillars.

  There were several types of Holy Stones to choose from, so I picked the easiest kind, which had an effect only when it was infused with power.

  I did a search in Storage to make sure I had enough material on hand.

  All right, let’s give this a try.

  First, I’d need to make the blue.

  The materials were similar to those used for making the circuit liquid that was needed for crafting normal magic tools, but blue’s stabilizer was powdered gold and gems, and dragon powder was required instead of ground-up cores.

  Dragon powder seemed to be particularly rare. Once I’d figured out the recipe for blue, I’d immediately checked at all the magic and alchemy shops in Sedum City for it, but none of them had any.

  Fortunately, I’d found a vial of dragon powder while exploring the labyrinth under Seiryuu City with the beastfolk girls, so I wouldn’t even have to mess around with the scales I’d plundered from the Valley of Dragons.

  Following the instructions, I began the formulation and transmutation.

  It was more difficult than I’d expected. If I lost focus at all, the dragon powder would start vibrating strangely, as if it was about to separate, so I had to keep constantly adjusting the flow of magic.

  Come on, Satou. Concentrate!

  After dozens of what felt like very long seconds, the blue was finished.

  > Skill Acquired: “Precise Magic Manipulation”

  Good thing I pulled it together and focused. It would be a shame if the finished blue deteriorated, so I moved it safely into Storage for now.

  Next, I prepared a thin stone slate to use for the magic circuit of the Holy Stone. I’d utilized a similar one when I made the kotatsu.

  With a sharp metal rod, I carved the lines of the circuit diagram–like design into the stone—then cleaned the dust and dirt off the surface with a cloth.

  Then, in Storage, I filled the precision carving rod with the liquid blue. The tool was like a pen with a slim opening, used for depositing circuit liquid into the finely detailed grooves of the design.

  Since the characteristics of items in Storage didn’t change, I took advantage of this to keep the blue fresh while I created my circuit.

  The blue seemed to harden faster than the normal liquid. This made it easier to trace the intricate pattern, but without my Storage system, I think it would’ve been ridiculously difficult.

  I completed the task and poured some power into my handiwork.

  Since the circuit was so delicate this time, I moved the magic with the same precision as sorting grains of salt with chopsticks.

  Using the “Precise Magic Manipulation” skill I’d just gained, I was able to move less than one point of MP at a time, down to two-digit decimals. As I did so, a faint blue light began rising from the circuit.

  It was similar to the glow of a Holy Sword.

  The color of this light was probably why the liquid was called “blue.”

  Normally, the light was red-based, so it was easy to differentiate between th
e types of liquid.

  Just as I’d added about one point of magic, the Holy Stone’s core began to work. I kept slowly increasing the supply of magic until the circuit was completed, about five points.

  A pillar of blue light appeared around the slate, about three feet wide and twenty feet tall.

  At a glance, it seemed to be a simple beam, but if you examined it from different angles, you could see the circuit pattern repeating over and over again.

  Nana emerged from the Shelter igloo, where she’d been keeping watch.

  “Master, the monsters shown by my Sonar magic have suddenly disappeared, I report.”

  I shifted my gaze to the radar occupying a small corner of my field of vision.

  Sure enough, the monsters around the edges of the display were gone.

  “This light pillar has a monster-repelling effect.”

  “Master, according to my information library, only Holy Swords emit a blue magic light such as this, I report.”

  Expressionless, Nana tilted her head as she regarded the pillar.

  “Yeah, this uses the same material as a Holy Sword.”

  “I see… It is quite pretty.”

  Nana nodded without looking away. She seemed to be entranced by it.

  I left her to it for now, since I wanted to investigate the performance of the light pillar.

  On the map, there were no longer any monsters within a third of a mile of us. They had been driven away and were now huddled in a neat ring around the area of effect.

  I looked at my log, too, and found that a few ghost monsters had been destroyed when I activated the stone. The insect types were still around, and only a few skeleton monsters had been defeated, so my circuit was probably particularly effective against undead-type monsters that had no corporeal form.

  Makes sense, since this is part of a recipe for a Holy Sword.

  The effect range of a blue-based Holy Stone was a little less than the three-hundred-foot radius of a barrier post, but it was still ten times more than that of a Holy Stone made with normal circuit liquid, according to my documents.

  Since the range of our go-to monster repellent powder was partially dependent on the wind, I was glad the Holy Stone had such a good radius. The problem was this exceedingly conspicuous pillar of light. At this height, it was probably visible from the nearby villages.

  I tried using “Magic Manipulation” to reduce the Holy Stone’s strength by making myself part of the circuit, much like how I’d supplied Nana with power before. I let the magic flow through it and me, gradually lessening its power inside.

  My plan was to temporarily remove all the magic and then try again, but…

  “Master, the light has disappeared, I report.”

  Though she was still expressionless, Nana’s announcement sounded vaguely crestfallen.

  “Would you like to try powering it?”

  “Yes, master.”

  At my recommendation, Nana eagerly approached the stone and started pouring magic into it.

  It was probably more difficult than usual because of the delicate circuitry; a few beads of sweat appeared on Nana’s forehead.

  She got the hang of it soon enough, though, and the stone started emitting a pale-blue light. This time, the pillar maxed out at around six feet in height.

  “That’s enough, thanks.”

  “Understood.”

  Nana seemed a little out of breath, so I handed her a handkerchief to wipe the sweat from her brow.

  According to her status, Nana had expended about 3 percent of her MP.

  Judging by the information Arisa had given me before, Nana should have about seventy points total, meaning that this had cost her almost twenty times as much magic as me. Given the size of her pillar, the difference was probably greater.

  Clearly, my magic efficiency was rather unusual when it came to tasks like this.

  Since I could do it with essentially no loss at all, the ratio seemed way too different. My guess would be that a single point of magic could have different densities or something like that. It seemed likely, especially considering the size of our respective results.

  Incidentally, the Holy Stone stayed in effect until morning with the magic Nana supplied.

  With a few experiments during the night watch, I discovered that interrupting the light or covering it with a Shelter wall didn’t alter the effect.

  I’ll have to make a cylinder with a light-shielding curtain tomorrow so that we can put the Holy Stone inside it and ward off monsters that way.

  I still had a huge stock of the inferior monster repellent powder, but I figured there would be a use for that eventually. Holding on to it wouldn’t cause any trouble, so I squirrelled it away in a corner of Storage for now.

  As I reviewed the map before bed, I noticed that the demon’s doppelgängers had been reduced from three to just one.

  In exchange, the demon himself had changed from level 35 to 37. Apparently, creating a doppelgänger meant losing one level, and that level was recovered when the doppelgänger returned to the main body.

  If the thing possessing the knight was another doppelgänger, it was probably best to assume that the hell demon’s real level was at least 40.

  Kid Bandits and a New Village

  Satou here. Every time I watch the treasure-hunting TV show Hidden Cash in Your Home, I can’t help thinking, Their taxes must have been murder that year. But then, my taxes are bad enough as it is.

  “Take this, sir!”

  Pochi’s short sword stabbed at the leg of the thieves’ boss.

  “Don’t underestimate me, little girl!”

  The boss raised his ax high overhead to crush her.

  “Mrrr.”

  “Hiyaaah!”

  At that moment, an arrow from Mia’s short bow and a stone from Tama struck the man’s arms, disrupting his attack on Pochi.

  “Grr, that’s enough out of you, you—”

  Even as he staggered back, the boss tried to intimidate us, but then Arisa’s Psychic Magic spell Mind Blow came out of nowhere.

  The man lost consciousness immediately and slumped to the ground like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

  Once Arisa’s magic had knocked out all the thieves, we stripped them of their weapons and tied them up with rope in the middle of a meadow near the main road.

  “So what’re we going to do with these fellows?”

  “Well, what would people normally do in this situation?”

  I didn’t know the answer to Arisa’s question, so I responded with one of my own, about the standard practices of this world.

  Since all the bandits we’d met so far were ordinary villagers without a bounty to their name, we’d just knocked them about a bit, disarmed them, and sent them scurrying away with the help of my “Coercion” skill and Arisa’s Fear Magic.

  “If they have caused trouble, the usual practice is beheading. If you bring the head of a thief to a town or city guard, you will receive a reward for their extermination.”

  Liza was the one who answered my question.

  That’s a pretty violent way to handle things. I’d prefer a method that’s a bit more peaceful, if possible.

  “What if they haven’t caused any trouble?”

  “Then one generally brings them to the city alive. In that case, the thieves will be sold to slave traders as criminal slaves, and the person who apprehended them will receive half the price in addition to the reward.”

  So in the latter case, the city increases their labor force in addition to protecting the peace. This probably worked because of the “Contract” skill.

  “Should we bring them back to the town we passed by earlier, then?”

  “No, let’s just dig a hole and toss them in it.”

  The bounty columns of the guards in that town had just as many outstanding major crimes, like sexual assault and murder, as the thieves did, so I didn’t want to go there. They could drum up false charges to take away our carriage or cargo or, worse, try
to do something to the kids.

  “All of them?”

  “Yeah. I have a spell that’ll make it easy.”

  As proof, I used my Pitfall spell to create a hole under the thieves that they wouldn’t escape from easily.

  Now that our safety was secured, I dismissed the Shelter wall that was protecting Lulu and the carriage.

  I’d asked Lulu to look after our horses and vehicle while we took care of things, but now she was wearing a dispirited expression.

  “Are you all right, Lulu?”

  “Y-yes…”

  Such a gentle girl was probably shocked to see people wounded in battle.

  As she sorted through our spoils, Tama found something of interest and brought it over to me.

  “Gabo fruuuit?”

  In Tama’s hands was a root vegetable, about the size of a fist, that looked like a red miniature pumpkin.

  To my memory, gabo fruits made up for their gross taste by being nutritious and easy to cultivate, so it was no surprise that they’d be grown in the Muno Barony.

  However, since they were a favorite food of goblins, they were only supposed to be grown in cities or other walled-in areas.

  Checking the town we’d just passed, I found that they were being raised in huge quantities. According to the map, about two-thirds of the area of the town had been converted into fields.

  Normally, this wouldn’t be too surprising in a territory as plagued by famine as this one; still, I couldn’t help but suspect that there was more to it, since there was a demon masquerading as a magistrate.

  Searching the map for goblins, I found five or so small settlements of demi-goblins in the large forest near Muno City. Each settlement was comprised of only thirty goblins or so, and they weren’t close together, so I concluded that they probably weren’t being bred deliberately.

  What’s the difference between a goblin and a “demi-goblin,” though?

  Since “demi” usually referred to some kind of subspecies, it had to be a particular subspecies of goblins. Monster subspecies would be strong, but they were all only between level 1 and 3, so they wouldn’t pose a problem for us.