Micro Gaia Wand Salamandra

As promised, after quickly making and handing Kinrenka a magic-power-sealing protective outfit modeled on a flower crown, I decided to tackle Tsubaki's outfit problem.

Seeing the mischievous Tsubaki sitting in seiza on the ash-covered bed because Hiyori had made her do so, I was once again struck by how defenseless she was.

Tsubaki was stark naked.

Even with the Abyss Gold hammer Hiyori had newly bought for her strapped to her back, she wasn't wearing clothes.

Flames flickered around her body and looked like clothing, so at first glance she appeared civilized, but she was still a nudist through and through.

Trying to dress Tsubaki would be like dressing a dog or cat. It would certainly be cute, but it felt like forcing a pet to do something for human convenience, and I didn't like it.

A collar—or rather, a magic-power-sealing protection choker—was probably the appropriate choice.

Thanks to the reflexes and magic-power manipulation she'd inherited from her mother, she could apparently deflect bullets with Abyss Gold. There was no need to force some half-baked armor onto her.

Now that she'd become bipedal and had both hands free, should I give her a wand to carry?

...No, wait. Would that even suit Tsubaki's fighting style?

Tsubaki hadn't used incantation magic at all when fighting Hiyori.

Had she chosen not to use it, or had she been unable to?

"Tsubaki. What kind of equipment do you want?"

"Mii! Oori's calling me. Lecture over."

"Ah, hey! At least clean up the ash before you go! ...Oh, honestly."

When I called out to her, Tsubaki, who had been wilting in seiza, came running over, clearly happy to seize the opportunity.

I casually waved off Hiyori, who was glaring at me reproachfully, and immediately began my interview.

What exactly was Tsubaki's fighting style, and what kind of equipment did she need?

"For now, I'll make you a magic-power-sealing protection choker. It'll have the same design as Hiyori's, with the colors adjusted to suit you. Any requests?"

"...Won't the choker burn?"

"I see, so heat resistance is an issue. What temperature can you breathe flames at now?"

"Dunno. Much more fiery than when I had a tail."

Sticking out her tongue and spitting out a few sparks, Tsubaki proudly puffed out her chest.

Apparently her firepower had increased now that she was an adult. She had already melted tungsten when she was a juvenile, so even a conservative estimate put it at over 3,500°C...?

Well, it wasn't as though she could breathe 3,500°C flames. Fire Lizard folk could concentrate the heat of their flames on whatever they wanted, so it was probably more a matter of gradually raising a target's temperature with prolonged fire-breathing until it ultimately exceeded 3,500°C. If she could breathe out flames that were naturally 3,500°C, even Hiyori would be reduced to charcoal.

"Hmm. In that case, we don't have a material for the choker. Whatever we used, it would burn and melt."

"Mi. Magic stone won't work."

"Ah."

Tsubaki said this ruefully while looking straight through my chest――――at the fragment of Octameteorite inside the amulet pouch beneath my clothes.

It was true that magic stones had the best heat resistance in the world. Unlike Gremlins, magic stones couldn't be melted.

They could be shattered, but not melted or annihilated, and even ice-alchemy magic had no effect on them.

In other words, a magic stone couldn't be turned into anything other than a magic stone.

In the first place, magic stones that had fallen from space as meteorites had endured the several-thousand-degree heat generated during atmospheric entry. Their heat resistance was beyond question.

So... make Tsubaki's choker out of Octameteorite?

No, no way. Surely not.

Octameteorite was my talisman. It was a genuine guardian deity that had driven off an evil god with its mysterious power. No matter how much it was for Tsubaki's sake, I couldn't give it up.

Besides, a magic-power-sealing protection system couldn't be built from magic stone alone.

"Let's think about the material for the choker later. As long as we get it heat-resistant up to around 2,000°C, it shouldn't melt unless the battle gets seriously heated. The Abyss Gold didn't melt, either. Anyway, Abyss Gold takes care of the armor. What are you doing for weapons?"

"Abyss Gold for everything. I punch and burn the little guys. If they're strong, I transform."

Tsubaki cheerfully said this while gripping the ridiculously huge golden hammer on her back in both hands and swinging it around. So it was both offense and defense. Was what she'd shown in her battle with Hiyori her serious mode for tough opponents?

"Wouldn't you be even stronger if you carried a wand and fought with magic too?"

"That's no good. Oori's amazing, but doesn't understand fighting."

My amateur bit of half-baked wisdom was summarily rejected by Tsubaki.

According to her, focusing on controlling Abyss Gold was vastly stronger than relying halfheartedly on magic.

For one thing, Tsubaki was a demon, and her magic power was overwhelmingly lower than a Transcender's. It was less than half that of even the weakest Transcender, so she ran out of magic power quickly. She couldn't beat a Transcender in a magic duel.

On top of that, her body was far less durable than a Transcender's. She was somewhat sturdier than a human, but compared with a Transcender, she had paper armor.

So Tsubaki had abandoned magic contests entirely and specialized completely in close-quarters combat with Abyss Gold.

Rather than divide her attention and magic power between incantation and non-incantation magic, she was stronger using her large reserve of Abyss Gold to punch things while moving it precisely, powerfully, and swiftly.

It was like saying that if singing and dancing at the same time left you mediocre at both, showing off a poor song and a shoddy dance, you were better off concentrating on one or the other.

"Fight using magic, magic power keeps going down. Soon out of breath. Me. Fight with Abyss Gold only, can fight loooong time. Healing magic only when hurt. Mim!"

"You really think carefully about how you fight, don't you? That's amazing."

"I amazing. Have most amazing territory. Study lots, practice lots, get stronger."

When I patted her head, Tsubaki puffed out her chest and leaned back, scattering sparks along with her snorting breaths.

She had always been the most overbearing, outspoken, and boastful one, but she had the ability to back it up. She was quite something.

I continued the interview for a while, but reached the conclusion that it would be better not to change Tsubaki's current fighting method. Even now, albeit under certain conditions, she could pressure Hiyori aggressively. We would be better off developing her current approach.

Tsubaki. Become a master of close-quarters combat!

With close-quarters combat as her focus, the kinds of wands I could make were limited.

After much consideration, I decided to make an experimental wand.

A miniature earth-core wand that recreated the Earth's core in miniature and drew power from it.

If she wasn't going to use magic, she was currently leaving most of her magic power unused.

It would be fine to use a magic spiral wand to convert it into physical enhancement.

And with Tsubaki's high-temperature flames, there was a chance—just maybe—that we could reproduce on the surface the leyline formation occurring in Earth's core.

To begin with, magical changes were currently occurring at the center of the Earth.

At Earth's core was a mass of molten, high-temperature metal, in constant motion due to rotation and convection.

The molten metal and the Gremlins that had grown by feeding on the electricity generated by the metal's convection mixed together under high temperatures and pressures, constantly producing unknown magical metals in Earth's core.

These unknown magical metals altered Earth's environment and created flows of magic through the ground――――leylines. By accessing those leylines through magical spiral structures and taking them in after mixing them with their own magic power, demons and monsters could enhance their physical abilities.

The problem was that it hadn't even been a hundred years since the dangerous substance known as magic had been injected into Earth.

A hundred years was a mere instant to the 4.6-billion-year-old Earth—about the length of a single blink. In such a short time, Earth's core, and by extension its leylines, couldn't mature sufficiently.

That's why Earth's leylines were still babies, weak and feeble.

The efficiency of converting magic power into physical enhancement using those feeble leylines was just as poor.

With the wand I was making for Tsubaki this time, I would take on the "feeble leyline problem."

First, I would make a palm-sized pressure-resistant sphere from an ultra-high-strength alloy with extreme pressure and heat resistance, mixed with magical metal.

Into the hollow pressure-resistant sphere, I would seal various materials primarily composed of iron, nickel, and Gremlins, recreating the composition of Earth's core.

Then Tsubaki would heat it by breathing flames at it, raising the temperature and pressure inside the sphere.

The substances inside the pressure-resistant sphere would then melt into a sludge and begin convecting, theoretically producing the same phenomenon as the leyline formation occurring 2,900 km deep beneath Earth's surface.

I would reproduce, on a palm-sized scale, the grand undertaking of leyline formation that Earth, a 12,756-km-diameter planet, carried out on a colossal scale.

Compared with Earth's planet-scale leyline 2,900 km underground,

a palm-sized leyline that could be kept close at hand would be easier to access, closer and more directly connected, and provide stronger benefits.

It should.

Probably.

Most likely.

The basic theory was full of promise, but many problems remained in putting it into practice.

First, the composition of Earth's core wasn't known precisely. We could only determine indirectly what lay 2,900 km underground. So accurately imitating its composition was impossible. There would inevitably be discrepancies.

Second, the pressure was nowhere near sufficient. The pressure at Earth's core was approximately 3.65 million atmospheres. By contrast, the realistic pressure modern humanity could achieve was only around 1,000 atmospheres. Just one 3,650th! Far too low.

Even so, it was worth experimenting.

Because nature's imitation was not necessarily inferior to nature.

Artificially produced ultrapure water had vastly fewer impurities than pure Alpine spring water.

Synthetic diamonds were sturdier than mystical natural diamonds with eternal brilliance.

Who could say that an artificial palm-sized leyline couldn't surpass the leyline formation that occurred naturally in Earth's core?

Unlike naturally formed leylines, artificial ones allowed us to alter the temperature, pressure, and composition and search repeatedly for the optimal conditions for leyline formation.

I would adjust the pressure-resistant core and its contents, while Tsubaki would heat and operate it with her flames.

If things went well, the miniature earth-core wand, made by combining a metal core modeled on the Earth's core with a magic-spiral handle extending from it, would greatly aid close-quarters combatants skilled at physical enhancement.

At worst, even if the miniature earth-core module didn't work at all, the handle alone could connect normally to Earth's leylines, so it would still be reasonably useful.

Thus, the theory was complete.

Since the structure itself was simple, I succeeded in producing the new wand more easily than expected after making the core explode into pieces seven times in pressure experiments.

The red-hot central core generated intense heat waves, so I covered it with an outer shell, like a thermos, to block heat radiation. Unintentionally, this also imitated Earth's inner and outer cores, making it look all the more authentic.

A metal spherical core, with a metal handle.

Having gotten her hands on a new toy made entirely of metal, Tsubaki happily made the flames covering her whole body roar and hugged the wand tight.

The heat-dissipation mechanism I'd installed to keep Tsubaki from accidentally heating the core too much and melting it was already spouting white steam. It looked like a pressure cooker.

Somehow this thing had turned into a steampunk wand. Not bad, though.

"Mimimi. Like metal. Oori, thank you. Warm and take care of it every day."

"Yeah, take care of it and raise it. Don't let the core cool down. If you keep it at high temperature and pressure continuously, its leyline should gradually grow. In theory."

I named it 'Micro Gaia Wand Salamandra.'

We planned to continue observing its progress and making improvements, but Salamandra would surely help Tsubaki take another great leap forward.

And if Tsubaki made a name for herself, the reputation of the wand she carried would shoot up right along with hers—mimimi, that's the idea.

And if we added the matching magic-power-sealing protection choker in the same design as Hiyori's, it would be Mimimi's Mimimi.

Good for me. Good for Tsubaki.

Go forth, Dairi・Tsubaki・Sugoizo!