Chapter 27
The slightly reddish work song caught on, but in any case, construction proceeded smoothly.
“John, how’s the sewage treatment plant coming?”
“I’d say we’ve got nine-tenths of it done!”
John, manager and proprietor of Enersis’s outlying sewage treatment plant.
“The newly built place is in a lower-lying area than I expected.”
“The location’s good because it’s basically lower than Ridasid, you see. The sewage flows in naturally!”
Akion had wondered what was up when John bought land nearby as soon as he got paid.
But this sharp fellow had done it without Akion even telling him—
he had paid attention to the pipe gradient and built the plant in a low-lying area!
“You did veeeery well….”
“Heh, hehe. Of course! Buuut, Young Master? Your eyes look a little scary. Why are you drooling again…?”
He had figured all this out on instinct alone, despite lacking knowledge of architecture and civil engineering?
What a sly little move. Was John really a genius who could seduce a professor?!
Akion wanted to enroll him in the lab of his own accord.
“No. I have a lot on my mind. So, how are the septic tanks arranged?”
“Yes, yes! We’ll make six large artificial ponds like this—”
“Mm-hm. The water the slimes spit out, purified, flows back into the river.”
He really didn’t do it. If he had, construction on the sewage treatment facility would have been delayed.
It suddenly dawned on Akion that this was exactly how the Tower Master felt about him.
The moment he returned to his place, Akion called the Tower Master.
“Tower Master.”
“Hmm?”
“If you don’t mind, could you teach me the basics of magic theory when you have some free time?”
“Wha-wha-what.”
They say people only understand once they find themselves in the same situation.
Akion had finally grasped the ancestors’ saying about putting oneself in another person’s shoes.
“Akion’s brain is broken! Cure him!!!”
“You’re making me lose all desire to learn….”
Of course, the Tower Master was so shocked that Akion wanted to study magic—which he had never done before—that he dragged him to a clinic to have him treated. Anyway.
“So this is a screw. A nail with a groove cut into it.”
“Amazing—the groove catches tight and fastens it in place. Young Master Akion really is a genius!”
Most important, however, was the equipment’s new development.
At this site, Akion let the carpenters use a magic tool.
- Whirrr!
“And this thing called an electric screwdriver, which can also drive these in and drill holes…”
“It’s so wonderful that it makes all the hammering we’ve done until now feel foolish…!!!”
The tool the workshop employees had boasted about so proudly outside.
The electric screwdriver!
“Now, now, I’ll lend these to you free of charge during construction, so tell me everything once you’re done—anything inconvenient, or anything you think could be improved!”
“Young Master, you’re a god!!!”
“That’s blasphemy.”
“Then you’re the god of magi-engineering!”
“That sounds about right!!”
“Stop talking nonsense and get back to work.”
Of course, he had no idea what kind of repercussions this would cause.
* * *
Naturally, should we call it medieval to steal this too?
“Heh, hehe! Young Master, I actually lost the electric screwdriver, so…”
“…For now, take another one.”
Fueled by the beast’s heart of someone willing to risk anything because it could make him money, one electric screwdriver was pilfered early in the construction period.
“Hee, hehe! I’m rich now…!”
“Exactly… like last time… that guy… his accomplices too….”
“As ordered, we’ll investigate.”
The carpenter who had siphoned it off, convinced Akion hadn’t noticed, handed it over to a black-market dealer in league with a guard—and…
“So this is that electric screwdriver thing?”
In the end, it found its way into the hands of a blacksmith in the southern part of the empire.
- Click.
- Whirrr!!
A scarred, bearded man standing on the boundary between middle and old age.
He gave a sardonic smile at the sight of a magic tool lighter than a hammer.
“Using rotational force… to secure slow but powerful penetration, is it?”
A meister who had handled countless swords and suits of armor.
With that seasoned eye, he envisioned the magic tool’s limitless uses.
“They say it was born from the hands of Enersis’s genius alchemist. Uncle, isn’t it amazing?”
“I’ve spent many years making countless steel tools with hammer and anvil, but….”
- Click, whirrr!
The aged blacksmith whom they called Uncle.
His eyes gleamed with curiosity despite his age.
How had anyone thought up a principle like this,
and why had they intended to make it for such a purpose?
He wanted to run to Enersis that instant and debate all night with Akion, the inventor who had made this.
“This will make up for your reduced strength, Uncle!”
“Enough. Enough. What are you trying to make an old man who’s long since put down his hammer do?”
He was a furnace whose fire had already gone out.
“Uncle!!”
“Hush. If you’re a Steelburn, take it with dignity.”
The Viscount Steelburn family.
A family that began with a blacksmith, made its name as knights,
and received a viscountcy for repelling the monster armies of the south.
They were still rookie nobles by the standards of history, but this old man—the first viscount, whom everyone called Uncle—was…
“Put that strength into making your sword. I’m going inside.”
“Uncle!!”
The man once called a sword master while wielding a hammer.
Cladd Steelburn, the ‘former’ guardian of the empire’s south.
- Throb…!
Of course, he had retired after old injuries gradually weakened him.
“Ungh.”
Strength once lost was difficult to regain.
As he aged, he became a swordsman and blacksmith who had ‘been’ far greater in his prime.
“That boy. I handed over the family, yet he insists on taking care of this old man.”
His nephew, who had idolized him, became head of the family in place of the childless Cladd.
That nephew had brought all sorts of restorative tonics and devices, hoping for Cladd’s return, but…
None of it helped.
- Click, whirrr!
Still, this electric screwdriver thing was rather intriguing!
“They said it was made by Akion’s workshop….”
He, too, was one of those who had seen the performance of the incandescent bulbs with his own eyes.
Its tremendous performance had astonished him as much as the time he had faced a basilisk long ago.
Good heavens, a glass sphere smaller than his palm that shone five times brighter than a mana lamp!
- Click.
That incandescent bulb now served as his desk lamp.
It was a desk stand his nephew had obtained for him out of consideration for his habit of staying up all night.
- Swish, rustle.
Under that stand, Cladd was using his spare time to draw a blueprint.
A machine he had always wanted to make back when he was a blacksmith.
“Here like this, and this part… hmm.”
For instance, an automatic hammering machine using rotary motion.
Or a powerful furnace that could heat and melt iron using nothing but mana.
- Scratch, scratch.
“Whew. This is difficult too, now that I’m old.”
He meant semiautomated facilities that were like a blacksmith’s dream.
Of course, he could no longer properly lift a hammer or sword.
- Click, whirrr!
“Still, with this….”
He did have such hopes—that if he made machines like these, it would be easier for his descendants to make and use swords.
If Steelburn blood ran in your veins, a knight had to make his own sword to carry.
He thought there was nothing wrong with making that process a little easier.
- Knock, knock.
“Lord Patriarch. It’s time for bed.”
“Oh my. Is it that late already?”
If he became absorbed in drawing blueprints, it would soon be time for the moon to rise overhead.
“You have a hard time because of me too. Go on in and get some sleep.”
“Thank you for your consideration.”
That had become Cladd Steelburn’s daily routine of late.
Wrapped in his blanket up to his neck, he dreamed of the fervent hope of a man who wanted to see the machines he had designed brought to life someday.
- Boom!!!
“What was that?!”
That was, at least, until an explosion outside the window dyed the night red.
- DONG! DONG! DONG! DONG! DONG!!
“Surprise attack! We’re under attack─!!”
“What in the world…!”
The guards protecting the estate rang the bells in a terrible uproar.
Cladd hurriedly rose and stepped into the hall, where he saw the servants running about in a panic.
Not knowing what had happened, Cladd grabbed the nearest person and asked.
“What’s going on!”
“They say it’s an enemy attack!! Knights in black cloaks bearing an open-mouthed snake have stormed in!”
“Don’t tell me…!”
There was a group hated not only by the Steelburn family, but by most nobles as well—
a group called devils, though they were not devils themselves.
“Those half-demon bastards…!!”
Half-demons who had inherited the blood of devils.
Most of them were characterized by inverted eyes like those of demons.
In his youth, Cladd had spearheaded the southern campaign to exterminate the half-demons by imperial order… so he had a particularly bitter history with them.
“Bring me my sword!”
“You can’t! The head of the family ordered us to evacuate you…!”
The servants desperately tried to stop him from going to the scene, but the burning village outside the estate kept catching Cladd’s eye.
In the end, he said…
“I’m Steelburn’s elder.”
“Lord Patriarch…!”
“Bring it quickly. I’m their enemy, so I should at least be able to draw their attention.”
“Sob…!”
He refused to bend, and the retainers who had grown old alongside him hurriedly brought out his equipment.
“Lord Patriarch?! Why are you here instead of fleeing…!”
“I’m a Steelburn too! Do you think I’ll let you lot die comfortably while I leave you behind!”
After hastily preparing himself, he led the knights down toward the village, arriving before his nephew, the current head of the family…
- Crash! Rumble!
“Gasp!! An Armored Basilisk!”
A four-legged lump of armor, with a half-demon riding on its back, was approaching.
It was a monster called ‘Armored’ because its scales could not be pierced even by a steel sword.
“It’ll take at least an intermediate Expert-level aura to fight that!!”
“Damn it, of all times, when everyone’s out there…!!”
And the Steelburns currently had no force capable of that.
“So the commotion around us was a trap….”
Because of the frequent monster attacks lately, everyone from knights to mages had been sent outside to deal with them.
Cladd belatedly realized that this had been a trap laid by the half-demons.
“Claaad─!!!”
And above the Armored Basilisk that was approaching them,
“Kent.”
“It’s been a long time, my old enemy!”
stood Kent, the half-demon who had shared a long and bitter history with Cladd.
“Yes. How is the hole where your left eye used to be?”
“Insulting me at our first meeting! Even though you’ve aged, that thick tongue of yours hasn’t changed, Cladd!”
He was the half-demon who had surrendered his left eye to Cladd and fled in disgrace.
Thus, he bore a deep grudge against him, but… at least he had one advantage over Cladd.
“I don’t age, you know!”
“That must be nice, considering the Heavenly Lord rejected you.”
He did not age.
Of course, he was not immortal; a clean severing of his neck would still kill him.
Even so, barring major injuries, half-demons lived roughly two hundred years longer than humans.
“So, why have you come to visit Steelburn today?”
“Obviously, Cladd! As your old enemy, I’ve come to remove your remaining eye as well!”
If only he would give up that grudge already.
Cladd let out a deep sigh and sent a hand signal to the knights behind him.
‘I’ll hold them off alone. You retreat with the current head of the family. Request aid from the surrounding domains.’
“Lord Patriarch?!”
“Quickly!!!”
Kent already had eyes only for him.
And the monsters following him seemed to be simply waiting for orders.
If Cladd alone was sacrificed here… the forces, including the viscount’s knights, could remain intact.
“Daaamn it…!”
The knights who understood that fact found themselves even less able to move.
Even so, they had never imagined Cladd would back down from his decision.
“A day—no! Just hold out for a few hours!”
“We’ll call for reinforcements as quickly as possible!!!”
And so, all the knights—only a couple dozen of them—retreated.
Following Cladd’s orders, they left Cladd behind alone.
“Ha. Your pointlessly kind nature hasn’t changed.”
Kent also climbed down from the basilisk and glared at him.
“You’re not going to chase them?”
“Would chasing them accomplish anything? My only goal today is to wipe out this viscounty you built—with you included.”
“You have an excess of pointless jealousy, Kent.”
Cladd, who had blasted out Kent’s left eye more than a decade ago.
Kent had never intended to forgive him, and for this day he had trained his taming skills again and again.
“So I’ll burn you first. With this Armored Basilisk.”
- Clank, clank!
The Armored Basilisk he had tamed.
A monster with a heart like lava beating inside it, which breathed out flames and had once been mistaken for a distant descendant of dragons.
“Can your weakened self kill this basilisk?”
Kent wanted desperately to see this monster crush and burn Cladd…
And Cladd, too,
- Click.
“We’ll have to see.”
had no intention of losing quietly.
*
- Crash!
“Ghk?!”
Only in theory. Just in theory.
“Kwahahaha!!! At your age, nearly sixty, you can’t do a thing!”
“Ghh, you’re lucky to be young in body and mind. You still think like a snot-nosed brat.”
There was no way an Armored Basilisk that surpassed Cladd in size, strength, and ability would lose to someone who had ‘been’ a sword master.
- Clang! Clang!
- Krrk!
His feeble aura could not cut or pierce those scales at all.
After blocking and blocking for hours, attacking whenever he could, Cladd was gradually driven onto the defensive.
Before he knew it, he had been pushed all the way inside the estate.
“But I’ll live longer than you, Cladd.”
“How ignorant. Books even tell you how horrifying eternity is.”
At least his brain had not been injured, so Cladd’s tongue was still as sharp as ever.
“Ha, stop wasting time. You know it’ll take a day for reinforcements to arrive.”
“That’s why I’m wasting time. I have to keep you here until your head falls off.”
“As if.”
Of course, Kent had suffered plenty from this banter too.
It still got under his skin… but he had grown enough not to fall for it.
“Armored Basilisk.”
“Kwoooor!!”
And he had gotten his fill of watching Cladd be mercilessly trampled.
Cladd’s armor was dented, his sword blade had been shattered, and blood was flowing from wounds all over him.
Seeing him in that state even made Kent feel a pang of pity.
“Finish him in one blow. At least I won’t send him off painfully.”
“Kwoooaar!!!”
- Thud, thud, thud!
Out of respect for an old enemy whose grudge had lasted decades, Kent gave his final command.
Watching the Armored Basilisk approach slowly, but with heavy thudding steps… Cladd felt an unexpected pang of regret.
He had wanted to see the blacksmith’s machine he had designed actually brought to life before he died.
But now that fate had denied him that chance.
Thinking this was as far as he would go, Cladd closed his eyes and prepared himself, but then—
- Click.
“Hmm?”
When he clenched his hand, he found the gift his nephew, the current head of the family, had given him earlier that day.
“What’s this…?”
An electric screwdriver.
A magic tool that used mana to spin a motor and gained tremendous penetrating power from rotational force.
“……!”
At that moment, Cladd instinctively gripped the electric screwdriver.
- Click!
- Whiiiiir!!
Although he had been helplessly driven back while facing the basilisk, he still had plenty of residual mana.
He also had enough stamina left to use his aura.
“Uwoooooo─!!”
Even so, deeming it insufficient, Cladd poured in every last bit of mana he could scrape from the bottom of himself, enough to overload the motor.
The mana stone fitted into the driver also reacted and began spewing out mana,
and the mana about to be converted into aura began traveling through the driver toward its tip.
- Whiiiiiiir─!!
- Kiiing!
The aura gathered at the tip of the driver’s bit and began to rotate, imitating a pointed screw.
“Ha, is this your final desperate struggle?! Charge straight into him and crush him!!”
“Kwooor!!”
Kent, who knew nothing of what was happening, ordered the basilisk to charge straight at him,
- Krrk!
And the instant the aura drill’s tip met the Armored Basilisk’s head, built for headbutting…
- Grrrrrrrind!!
the aura drill cleanly crumbled the scales on its head,
- Fwoooosh!!!
“Kweeeeeee─?!!”
“Wh-What?! What is that?!!”
and bored straight through to the basilisk’s jaw.
Kent, who had come right up beside it to watch, gaped at the sight.
“What the hell is that thinggggg─!!!”
His basilisk had just gotten its skull bonked after ten years of taming!
He couldn’t possibly remain calm.
“No, my Armored Basilisk─?!!”
- Thunk?!
“Ghk…?!”
“How dare you do that to my uncle…!!”
All without noticing the Steelburn head of the family and the knights who had come to help.