Möbius Ring Ritual Staff Hariti

The Hell Witch is a woman with an overwhelming number of distinctive features. Everything about her is huge. She has impact. It's easy to get distracted by her appearance, her convictions, and the sheer guts that let her suppress her runaway magic for two and a half years.

However, from a wandmaker's perspective (and probably from a magical linguist's perspective too), her most important feature is that she has "three mouths."

As she herself said, she can chant three spells simultaneously.

She can manifest three different hells at once.

If she learned magic from the other witches, she could even cast combination magic on her own—for example, predicting her opponent's movements with clairvoyance while throwing ice spears and binding them with chains.

Three times the firepower. She's too strong. Her mana consumption is tripled too, though.

Having three mouths and casting three spells is simply powerful, but that's not all there is to it.

Specifically, it puts a strain on the casting medium.

Witches and wizards are superhumans who can use magic barehanded, without Gremlins or magic stones as casting media.

However, when they use two or three spells simultaneously, apparently that's no longer enough. They need to create a magical focus starting from a casting medium.

When a Gremlin is used for simultaneous casting, it vibrates abnormally after just one use and shatters. If a misshapen Gremlin is used, it may even shatter partway through the chant, preventing the magic from activating. Simultaneous chanting puts a great deal of strain on it.

Magic stones are a superior version of Gremlins in that regard. They vibrate somewhat strangely when used for two spells at once, but otherwise they're perfectly fine.

However, it seems even a magic stone couldn't withstand three grand spells at once, and abnormal vibrations caused a crack to form.

That's why the amber magic stone I received from the Hell Witch has a small crack running through its center.

If something similar happens again, the crack will widen. There's also a serious risk that it could split or shatter.

There is an extremely simple solution to this problem.

It's a bad idea to concentrate all the strain on one magic stone and one staff.

Just use three staffs.

Split the magic stone into three, make three staffs, and use each one to cast a different spell.

But this simple, obvious solution—carrying three staffs—has one fatal problem.

It's uncool.

Just imagining it is incredibly uncool!!

Carrying three swords might look cool, but the moment they become staffs, they turn lame. I can't stand that.

Dual-wielding staffs isn't bad, but it isn't good either. It doesn't feel right to me.

A magic staff really looks best when you wield only one.

I really want the Hell Witch to stick with that style too.

We need to make use of the Hell Witch's greatest advantage: simultaneous chanting of three spells.

And somehow deal with its one and only flaw: abnormal vibration of the magic stone.

Make it one staff. Two or three would be a cop-out.

Those are the three things I need to keep in mind while making this staff.

First, I wrote a letter to Professor Ohinata and asked for Professor Ohinata's opinion.

The phenomenon of Gremlins and magic stones vibrating abnormally during simultaneous chanting seemed more like a problem for magical linguistics.

When I sent detailed data obtained by interviewing the Hell Witch, it took an unusually long time for the reply to arrive.

A week later, the reply I received via the Blue Witch courier was longer than any letter before it. Along with the usual bonus snacks, it contained a huge amount of statistical data, distribution charts, and more.

'Though summer's heat has passed its peak, the lingering summer heat remains severe these days. Dairi-san, I hear that you are applying yourself energetically to your research without being deterred by the summer heat, which I envy as someone who is prone to summer fatigue (my tail still hasn't shed its winter coat!).

I recently heard that the Hachioji Witch-san is gathering surviving meteorologists and weather forecasters and planning to revive weather forecasting.

Since artificial satellites can no longer be used, tracking the movements of clouds will be difficult, but knowing the changes between hot and cold ahead of time, even as a rough guide, should make daily life considerably easier.

I will let you know when it becomes possible to forecast the weather in Okutama!

Now then.

Regarding the matter you asked about in your previous letter, I found it extremely interesting and conducted related experiments here. That is why my reply was delayed. I'm sorry.

However, I believe I obtained data that will be useful to Dairi-san.

First, when two or more spells are chanted using a single Gremlin.

This generally does not work. Even if two people coordinate their breathing and begin chanting at exactly the same time, only the spell of the person whose mouth was closest to the Gremlin activates. The other spells fail.

I have detailed data on this from about six months ago, so I have enclosed a copy (the documents marked A-1 to 3 in the upper right corner). Please refer to those for more details.

However, Hell Witch-san makes simultaneous chanting work.

I asked the future-seeing wizard-san and Eyeball Witch-san to help me conduct an experiment.

I wanted to determine whether successful simultaneous chanting was peculiar to witches and wizards capable of controlling mana, or unique to Hell Witch-san.

In both cases, only one of the two spells activated.

Therefore, the ability to use two or more spells simultaneously through a single casting medium can be considered a characteristic unique to Hell Witch-san.

We did not observe the abnormal vibrations you described at any point in the process.

I therefore conducted further research to investigate this unusual phenomenon in greater depth.

I conducted several experiments (I also enclosed a separate summary of the failed experiments, documents B-1 through 5), and one of them—the twin experiment—yielded especially clear results.

I hypothesized that Hell Witch-san was able to make simultaneous chanting work because she chants in exactly the same voice.

Magical language demands extremely precise pronunciation. I thought simultaneous chanting might require not only matching pronunciation, but matching voice quality down to the finest detail.

I recruited a pair of identical twins and had them use two simple spells simultaneously on a Gremlin.

The two spells then activated through a single Gremlin, causing abnormal vibrations and the resulting destruction of the Gremlin.

The secret of simultaneous chanting was indeed a perfect match in voice quality.

I had the twins conduct additional experiments to investigate the patterns governing abnormal vibrations. Please refer to the separate documents for this series of experiments (C-1 through 6), but in conclusion, there seem to be Gremlin shapes that are less prone to abnormal vibrations.

With the cooperation of several professors at this university, I conducted experiments using several Gremlin shapes (see Figure D-1 in the accompanying documents), and found that a flat shape with a hole in the center produced the least abnormal vibration. Something like a five-yen coin.

However, our university's processing technology has reached its limits, and we cannot conduct any further research.

The comparison of vibration values for each shape (Figure D-2) suggests that shapes exist which can reduce vibration to zero or to a negligible level, but our university cannot process Gremlins into those shapes.

It would be a tremendous help if you could use your exceptional processing skills to discover the ideal shape we have predicted.

I believe that doing so would also help with the dedicated staff for Hell Witch-san that you are currently making.

This has become a very long letter, but that is all the data I can provide.

I hope it proves useful.

Finally.

This may be meddlesome, but I am concerned because you seem inclined to neglect your daily life when you become absorbed in your work. If you eat three proper meals a day, sleep well, and maintain your health, your work efficiency will improve as well.

Please take good care of yourself.

Ohinata Kei'

I read through the enormous amount of research data while snacking on the dried pineapple enclosed with the letter.

Professor Ohinata is worried that I get too absorbed in my work, but putting together and producing this much research data in a single week seems like an equally excessive degree of absorption in research to me.

Well, Professor Ohinata has research students, other professors, and witches and wizards who support Professor Ohinata, so the burden must be completely different from mine, since I do all my production work alone. Sociability... the difference in personal connections... Even though Professor Ohinata is so tiny, they're incredible.

The data I received was fascinating and looked incredibly useful.

I tossed the data I'd gotten from the Hell Witch at the university, and an avalanche of highly advanced data came pouring back.

I was only hoping for some kind of hint, but the answer was practically complete already.

There really is an ideal Gremlin shape that causes no abnormal vibrations? And it's close to the shape of a five-yen coin? When people pool their wisdom and technology, can they really figure out that much in such a short time?

And it wasn't just, "I did it by feel and somehow succeeded." They had properly reasoned it out.

It seemed the final piece could only be entrusted to me, but that's what division of labor is for.

Leave the processing beyond human comprehension to me. That's my specialty.

You could also say I'm hopeless at everything else.

With all this groundwork laid, there was no way I could fail as a technician.

Following Professor Ohinata's advice, I took reasonable breaks while sending the university Gremlins carved into every shape I could think of, based on the five-yen-coin shape, so they could test them for abnormal vibrations.

I sent them a red-blood-cell shape, a hollowed diamond, a corrugated circle, and various others. One of them produced perfect readings.

Its abnormal vibration value during simultaneous chanting was zero.

It was a Möbius ring.

A Möbius ring is shaped like a long, narrow band twisted once and joined at both ends. It is a continuous surface with no distinction between front and back, and is famous in both mathematics circles and the chuunibyou crowd as an example of geometric wonder and beauty.

Apparently, it also had magical significance.

The Möbius ring turned out to be extraordinarily stable for magic; regardless of the ring's size, its magic amplification multiplier was 1.00. Exactly one-to-one.

When magic was used through a Gremlin processed into a Möbius-ring shape, the inside of the ring glowed gold regardless of the type of magic, adding a special effect as well.

This magically blessed Möbius design had other distinctive traits too, but the important thing was that its shape was perfect for the Hell Witch.

When I saw the Möbius ring, I decided what shape the magic staff I would give her should take.

A ringed ritual staff.

There was no other choice.

A ritual staff with a head of linked rings is primarily carried by Buddhist ascetics. It was perfect for the Hell Witch, a seeker walking the path of hardship.

From the flat amber magic stone, I carefully carved seven Möbius rings as a single unbroken piece.

There is a legend that the Buddha walked seven steps when he was born. Inspired by that, I made the head from seven rings in total: one large ring with three smaller rings hanging from each side.

For the shaft, into which I built a backflow-prevention mechanism, I used wood from the auspicious bodhi tree, said to be the tree beneath which the Buddha attained enlightenment.

There was no practical meaning to either the number of rings or the material of the shaft.

Indeed, the six small rings would probably rattle noisily and get in the way, and there were woods with greater strength.

But this staff was not a mere weapon whose only criterion was performance.

It was her companion on her arduous journey.

I wanted to give it a meaning worthy of her.

I agonized over the inscription, but after turning the house upside down and searching every dictionary and reference book, I found the perfect one.

It was the Buddhist demon goddess Kishimojin, who had originally been a man-eater but later renounced cannibalism and became a deity—the Sanskrit Hārītī. In Japanese, it is read "Hariti."

With this inscription, I wanted to send her my blessing.

The Möbius Ring Ritual Staff Hariti was completed just in time—the day before the Hell Witch left Eyeball Witch-san's side and set out on her journey. When the Blue Witch went to deliver it, she was apparently already in the middle of packing her things for the trip.

I took my time making it, resting at intervals, so it ended up being finished at the last moment. But in exchange, I can guarantee its craftsmanship.

It was a supreme bespoke staff imbued with a craftsman's soul, something different from a mere high-performance product.

I hope the Hell Witch's journey will be a good one.