Chapter 129
We continued testing for a while, and eventually got our results. Fifteen times! We had managed to get everything perfectly clean fifteen times. This was no small feat. It meant that mana efficiency had risen to more than ten times its previous level.
The portable toilet was complete!
"So the portable toilet is finally complete."
"That's right. This resolves one of the problems of traveling!"
As we celebrated, Marcel-san spoke with a slightly exasperated look.
"I never imagined we would actually manage to create something this efficient, but this goes far beyond the small issue of portable toilets. The technology of connecting magic stones will have a considerable impact."
He was certainly right. If this technology also increased the mana efficiency of other attributes, it would revolutionize magic items.
We should test that as well. Also, we used five magic stones this time, but I wanted to see what would happen if we increased or decreased the number of stones.
"This technology really is remarkable. Should we report it to Father first?"
"Martine-sama, before that, wouldn't it be better to test how it works with magic of other attributes and determine the optimal number of magic stones before reporting it?"
"Certainly, we need to conduct some tests, but I think we should limit them to simple ones and report it first, as Martine-sama suggested. Leon, you should report it to Chancellor-sama as well. I believe this will be registered as a technology rather than a magic item, but either way, the officials won't be able to handle it."
Was this really such a big deal? Increasing a magic item's mana efficiency would certainly make it more convenient, but was it really that significant?
As I wondered about that, Marcel-san explained it to me.
"The most remarkable thing about this technology is that it will allow us to easily dispose of things we couldn't dispose of even if we wanted to. Do you know that the royal palace collects poisons and other substances harmful to the human body because they cannot be disposed of even by burning them?"
"I didn't know that."
"The royal palace collects such things and dumps them all in one place. Ideally, we would erase everything with Purification, but it is far too inefficient, which is why this system is in place. From now on, however, we will be able to do so using magic items."
That would certainly be useful for such things. Come to think of it, the sewage must go somewhere too, so using a magic item there would make it easy to clean everything up.
But isn't that a good thing? I don't see why it needs to be reported so urgently...
"The problem comes next. Purification can erase everything other than living things. That makes concealing crimes easy. For example, it becomes easy to poison someone. If the poison is erased with Purification, all evidence disappears completely."
Yikes... This is getting really scary. But poison is generally used in small amounts, so couldn't someone with the recovery attribute erase it?
"Since poison is used in such small quantities, couldn't it be erased even without a magic item?"
"No. Erasing poison requires dozens of times more mana than erasing ordinary water. Consequently, even someone with a mana capacity of five can erase only a truly tiny amount."
Did the amount of mana Purification consumed vary with the target? I had never really thought about it.
I had never erased poison or anything like that... On the other hand, I had never erased water either. You could just wipe it up, and it would dry eventually.
Come to think of it, I might have used it only to clean the dirt off my body and to clean the toilet. From now on, I should try using it for all kinds of things.
"And this is the biggest problem of all: if this technology is effective for other attributes as well, anyone will be able to use attack magic. People have researched whether magic items could be used against monsters before, but it never became practical because a magic stone's worth of mana could fire only a few shots of attack magic. Even people with large mana reserves could originally fire attack magic only a few times. Turning it into a magic item would at best double that number, and if the magic stone had to be recharged partway through, it would be completely impractical."
He was right. Taking out a magic item in the middle of a battle, attaching a magic stone to the magic iron, and activating the magic would be a pain. Carrying a magic item would get in the way too, so I could understand why people would prefer fighting with a sword.
But if this development resolved those issues, wouldn't that be good news for dealing with monsters?
"If attack magic becomes the mainstay of combat from now on, it will of course be good news for dealing with monsters. However, it will completely change the nature of warfare. We can expect the number of casualties to increase."
I suppose that's true. Until now, swords had been the mainstay of combat, but now it would become attack magic. There would probably be more casualties... The same sort of thing had happened in Earth's history, hadn't it?
Maybe it would be better not to make this technology public.
"Marcel-san, do you think we shouldn't make this technology public?"
"No, I cannot make that decision. That's why we need to consult His Majesty and Chancellor-sama. There is no doubt that it would be a useful technology if used well. But it could have harmful effects too."
The current situation certainly made this difficult. They would probably want to use it against the monster forest immediately, but it would be troublesome if it fell into the hands of an enemy faction. Still, magic items were basically controlled by the royal family, so it would be impossible to acquire a large number of them in a short period of time.
On the other hand, it could give the royal family an advantage and make a civil war less likely. This was difficult...
I suppose we would just have to accept that it would make concealing evidence of crimes easier. Nobles would probably find a way to hide evidence even without Purification.
"Then would it be all right if we tested only whether it worked with the other attributes and reported it when we got home today?"
"Yes, you should at least verify that. It should make the report easier."
After that, we conducted tests involving Stefan and Lucien as well. We couldn't test attributes none of us possessed, but we found that it worked for every attribute we could test.
What's more, there were some attributes for which mana efficiency increased even more than with Purification. We may truly have developed something incredible.
Once testing was over, Stefan and Martine would report to Alexis-sama, while Lucien and I would report to Richard-sama, so we immediately set off back.
I felt really bad for Loic-senpai and Miguel-senpai. Their research had finally gone well, but they couldn't even get into a celebratory mood.
If possible, I thought it would be nice if they were summoned to the royal palace and praised as the developers, or at least received some sort of reward. Stefan had said something similar, so they would probably take that into consideration.
In any case, I had to report to Richard-sama now. As Lucien and I rode in the carriage, I organized in my head what I should say.