Chapter 7
- Knock knock. Creak….
“Who is it… Oh wow! My lord!”
“Ahem.”
Delford Enersis was a mage.
And, to put it kindly, the mages of this world were endlessly curious researchers.
“Is Akion inside?”
“Yes, yes! Just a moment. I’ll fetch the young master!”
“No, never mind. The boy must be busy with his research. Please show me to the workshop.”
“Heehee, yes!”
Or, to put it less kindly, they were lunatics willing to risk their lives to satisfy any curiosity related to magic.
Some might think that was an exaggeration, but such research was how mages advanced to the next rank.
“Hoho. The boy has organized the alchemical materials beautifully.”
“Yes! The young master showed me that, um, MSDS? Material Safety Data Sheet, was it? And told me to be careful when managing the alchemical materials! He has us manage them incredibly strictly!”
“Quite right, quite right. Some alchemical materials are explosive, after all. They must be handled carefully.”
Delford, too, was a mage who loved magical research!
He only kept quiet because he was also the head of the house.
“Is this the MSDS?”
“Yes!”
“Hmm… The management system is rigorous. This could even be included in introductory magic textbooks.”
Of course, there were two reasons he had come today.
First, he was looking for a clue that would take him to the next rank.
Delford had been on the verge of reaching the Tenth Circle, but had suddenly hit a wall.
Even after delving into existing magic again and trying his hand at alchemy… he simply could not break through the barrier to the Tenth Circle.
No, he could not even climb toward it. Thanks to that, the hair loss he had been suppressing with high-Circle power had nearly returned.
- Whirrr!
- Rattle!
“What’s that sound?”
“Oh! It looks like the young master is using that thing called a drill!”
“A drill… So you’ve developed another new magical tool. Hoho!”
That was why Delford had decided to seek his clue in alchemy.
As luck would have it, his son Akion was a genius alchemist!
Hadn’t Akion taken artifacts—or magical tools, as they were called—said to have existed only in ancient times, redefined them through alchemy, and brought them into reality in this world?
When one listened closely to the theories he explained, they were laws derived from natural phenomena people had taken for granted!
He had even interpreted them through equations and applied them to alchemy!
There were even rumors that Akion had mastered the lost ancient technology known as magi-engineering.
Akion himself, of course, vehemently denied it. In any case.
“Akion!”
“Oh, Father? What brings you here?”
When he made his way deep into the workshop, he found Akion assembling something on the worktable.
Judging by how it looked exactly like the pump-motor blueprint he had shown him last time, he seemed to be preassembling the pump motor.
“Akion, what’s that in your hand?”
“Ah. It’s an electric screwdriver. It’s a tool for driving in screws with spiral grooves—threads, that is. You can also swap out the bit and use it to drill holes.”
- Whirrr!
He said this while holding the electric screwdriver in his hand.
The clever Delford thought of countless uses for it the moment he saw it.
Threaded fasteners, combined with an electric screwdriver for making holes. They could be used in countless fields.
Furniture, for starters, and the construction of countless wooden buildings. Perhaps even the ‘factory-based production’ Akion talked about until he was blue in the face. It might all become possible.
Delford shuddered inwardly.
Akion was often called a genius alchemist… but perhaps he was something even greater.
“Ahem. I’ve kept you too long with my questions. I came to the workshop today because I have something important to discuss.”
“Yes, Father.”
Perhaps, then, a distinguished guest had sent word that she wished to meet Akion.
“You know there’s a mage tower in Ridasid, don’t you?”
“Yes. We sometimes buy alchemical materials from them.”
The commercial city of Ridasid had a mage tower.
It was a mage tower in the truest sense. Elsewhere, towers were called the Red Tower or the Blue Tower according to their primary school of magic… but this one’s name was simply the ‘Ridasid Mage Tower.’
The reason was—
“The Tower Master of Ridasid wants to meet you.”
“Pardon?”
It had existed since the founding of the Empire,
because the Tower Master at the time it was built had decided to call it that.
“Father. If it wouldn’t be rude, could I ask you to verify one fact for me? Actually, may I confirm that I may ask you that?”
“Hmm. I can tell you’re flustered if you’re nesting questions like that.”
“I heard a rumor that the Tower Master… is a dragon. Is she really a dragon?”
“That’s right.”
“Gasp.”
And the Tower Master of Ridasid at the time was still the current Tower Master of Ridasid.
She was one of the few dragons who remained in the present age, despite dragons being said to live for over ten thousand years.
“That is why I was concerned and wanted to give you some advance warning. I’ll list the things you must be careful about in front of a dragon.”
The woman who had secluded herself for nearly twenty years was coming to the workshop to see Akion.
*
“I am the master of Ridasid Mage Tower—the Tower Master.”
The Tower Master.
More specifically, the Tower Master of Ridasid.
“Call me Tower Master.”
That was her only title. She did not reveal her real name and asked to be addressed only as ‘Tower Master.’
At first glance, she was a beautiful, black-haired young woman whom anyone, regardless of age or gender, might call the pinnacle of feminine beauty.
She was a peerless beauty who had even captivated the emperor, making him beg her to become his empress….
“You’re the developer of those incandescent bulbs and the motor, are you not?”
“Yep.”
The vicious horns atop her head.
And when one saw the thick, viciously scaled tail rising from her waist… any such thought vanished.
“……….”
“………….”
- Tap, tap.
The living embodiment of violence, crushing every living thing simply by existing.
Some irreverent people grumbled about why the Heavenly Lord had created such monsters, but dragons were fundamentally pacifists.
- Tap, tap.
“Why aren’t you saying anything?”
If peace was unavailable, they meant to reclaim it by force. That was why they were called the embodiment of violence.
Fortunately, Akion was accustomed to situations like this.
He had spent several years under a vicious professor, then more than a decade walking on eggshells under the awful Lucretia and her children!
“I’m deeply honored to behold the Tower Master’s countenance….”
“Enough with the flowery language.”
“Yep.”
Unfortunately, compliments about her appearance did not work on her.
Akion didn’t want to be crushed flat, so he shrank into himself.
“Akion Enersis.”
“Yes, Professor!”
“I may be the academy’s honorary professor and honorary chancellor, but call me Tower Master. Honestly….”
- Tap.
What she pulled from her bosom were an improved incandescent bulb and a portable fan.
The incandescent bulb was understandable, since it was currently in mass production, but there were only four of those portable fans in existence. One belonged to Delford, one to Goldie, and two to that damned Lady Lucretia.
At that moment, Akion saw an inscription on the portable fan’s handle: ‘Delford, dear father.’
Father, she took yours…!!
“Explain how these two products work.”
And so the great dragon, the Tower Master, suddenly ordered him to explain their principles.
“Yep!”
Akion racked his brain as hard as he had during his master’s thesis defense, explaining in detail the principles behind the two products.
Thus began the noon product presentation (under duress),
“Hmm. I understand.”
and it did not end until the sun had set.
Akion remembered the time, back in college, when he had given a presentation using his professor’s doctoral dissertation as a reference.
Because he saw that same vicious professor’s sparkling eyes in this dragon!!
“Magic developed when people noticed that natural phenomena followed certain laws. Yet you, Akion Enersis, have discovered laws even outside the realm of magic.”
“I-I don’t think it’s, whew, all that impressive.”
“You suddenly became so polite. Anyway….”
Which parts OO had referenced, how OO had figured out that it was possible despite the material accumulating at different rates, which values OO had set differently at the time, and so on…….
Akion should not have been lured when his professor said, ‘I’ll buy you dinner, so let’s talk.’
“Akion Enersis. Become my disciple.”
“Pardon?”
Just like now.
The Tower Master’s eyes were exactly like those of that vicious professor!
“I’ll give you wealth and glory in the Empire beyond anyone’s envy, along with honors rivaling the emperor’s.”
“Wait, give me a chance to speak!”
“Continue uncovering the laws of nature under my tutelage. Modern magic has stagnated, focused as it is on shedding blood. If you share that alchemical knowledge of yours with every mage—”
Akion had no intention of repeating the mistake he had made back then.
“Tower Master!”
And so Akion made his decision.
*
Ridasid Mage Tower. Top floor.
The Tower Master’s workshop, proudly displaying restrained elegance with its fine hardwood.
“For the time being, I have no intention of belonging to any organization. I’ll make an exception for Enersis, since it is my home.”
“Hah.”
- Tap tap tap.
The Tower Master had been shown the door by Akion.
Apparently quite displeased by that, she kept drumming her pointed finger against the desk.
“A human who won’t even live a hundred years. How dare he….”
That human youth, puffed up because he had merely uncovered a few laws of nature….
He had driven out the Tower Master—a dragon and the ruler of a mage tower with a thousand-year history!
A mere baby whose magical knowledge was leagues below hers.
- Crack!
“Oh. My.”
By the time half her indignation had been vented, the desk was riddled with holes like a sponge.
“Have it replaced by tomorrow.”
“Yep.”
After taking it out on the innocent desk… the Tower Master tilted her teacup to calm herself.
“A human who won’t even live a hundred years, yet dares to insult me. He is exactly like that man….”
Remembering Enersis from over a thousand years ago.
“──Young lady, you know, someday I want to use magic to make laughter flow instead of blood! Man or woman, child or old person, noble or commoner! You’ll help me, right?!”
“I get it, so stop petting me! You’re messing up my hair!”
Because the genius archmage in the hero’s party had also borne the surname Enersis.
The Tower Master had been like sisters with the hero’s companion dragon back then. That was why she knew every one of them inside and out.
“Tsk. Still unable to let go.”
The sparkle the Tower Master had once seen in Enersis… she saw in Akion today.
That man and his descendant—mere worms who would not live a hundred years, yet so radiant with possibility!
- Crunch.
The dazzling beauty of it was lovelier than any jewel stored in her lair, enough to blind her.
Such sublime beauty, the kind she wanted to display forever in one corner of her hoard….
- Crunch!
Dragons sometimes come to crave things like that. As though acquiring them were their duty in life.
And when that happened, they sometimes became as heinous as the evil dragons in history books.
“Very well, Akion.”
It would soothe the boredom of her ten-thousand-year life.
She would claim him by any means necessary.
The Tower Master pulled out a sheet of paper and hurriedly began writing something.
*
And the next day.
- Bang!
“Son. What have you done?!”
“Pardon?”
Akion was working in the workshop.
When Delford suddenly burst in, he recalled the proverb, ‘Never say never.’
“That cold-blooded Tower Master….”
“Ah…….”
So kicking the Tower Master out had been a bad move after all. He shouldn’t have voiced his honest opinion!
Akion squeezed his eyes shut and—
“She wants to sponsor you!”
“Pardon?”
“For the rest of your life, until the day you die! Hahahaha! How did you manage to win over that dragon?!”
He was dumbfounded that another major sponsor, the equal of Count Delford, had appeared.
“Why… me?”
“Naturally, it’s thanks to your outstanding knowledge and skill! Come to the head’s office at once! Her representative has arrived with the contract!”
“Oh, yes. Right.”
‘Does that dragon actually enjoy being insulted?’
With that utterly absurd suspicion, Akion hurried off.