Chapter 22
The standard mass-produced wands made by the Handa Method, emblematic of a mass-production approach diametrically opposed to mine, are slowly spreading as more production lines are added in stages.
It has been less than six months since standard magic-wand production began, and for now we're making only around 100 a day. At this rate, it would take roughly eighty years to supply everyone living around Tokyo.
But each time we add a production line, daily output rises by about ten. The craftsmen's skills are steadily improving, and production is becoming more efficient.
Since output will increase exponentially, it probably won't be long before magic wands spread not just through Tokyo, but across all of Japan.
Tokyo had established a good cycle of reconstruction.
Or rather, we'd succeeded in creating a good reconstruction cycle centered around the Witches' Assembly.
According to somewhat dubious information from the Dragon Witch, who flew all over the country, Tokyo—governed by the Tokyo Witches' Assembly—is the largest of all survivor communities, and supposedly has made the most progress toward recovery.
According to a statistical survey conducted by the Eyeball Witch at the beginning of the fiscal year, Tokyo's current population is around 2.8 million. The entire metropolitan area totals 3.5 to 4 million. That's roughly 20 percent of its peak population.
Immediately after the Gremlin disaster, there simply weren't enough people.
The life that had depended on enormous quantities of supplies brought in from outside the prefecture collapsed when distribution stopped.
We ate into our stockpiles, worked the fields with everything we had (without machinery!), desperately cleared new land, while desperate anglers lined the piers and even sparrows and pigeons became precious food. We also gathered and salvaged food from nearby cities that monsters had wiped out.
Even so, there wasn't enough nutrition, and the people of Tokyo gradually grew thinner.
When the water supply stopped, we had to walk long distances to the river every day to fetch water, while dismantling abandoned houses for firewood took time and effort. Someone always had to tend the fire (a fire in central Tokyo would be no joke. There were no fire trucks!), and whenever a monster appeared, everyone had to drop everything and fight for their lives until a witch or wizard arrived.
Everyone in Tokyo was desperately trying to survive each day. There was absolutely no energy left to think about tomorrow, let alone reconstruction.
I remember those hardships from the early days. Most of the day was spent gathering food and fuel, and it still wasn't enough. Even hoarding all the supplies in the countryside was an unstable situation that made me uneasy.
In days so brutal that people kept dropping out and dying, it is worthy of praise that a few people, led by the Vampire Wizard, somehow scraped together enough leeway to invest in the future.
That small, fragile hope bore fruit when Professor Ohinata succeeded in casting Harvest Magic through an alternate incantation.
Harvest Magic more than doubled the yield from cultivated land, allowing the people who had been tied up in farmwork to be assigned elsewhere.
With that newly available manpower, they were able to install a simple water supply.
Once they had running water, the people who had been fetching it could also be assigned elsewhere.
The number of people able to work for tomorrow instead of merely surviving today increased explosively.
That let us establish a university, which wasn't necessary if all we cared about was surviving the day, and build wandmaking workshops one after another, assigning craftsmen and apprentices to them.
That first catalyst—the alternate casting of Harvest Magic—set off a spectacular chain reaction and created a virtuous cycle.
Well, most of what I know about this came secondhand from the Blue Witch and Professor Ohinata. I wasn't actually in the middle of that dramatic reconstruction (I was just lending a hand now and then from the safe, peaceful countryside), so I don't know how much of what I heard is exactly true.
The giant Gremlin that came into my possession today was another result of that positive chain reaction.
The thick glacier created when the Blue Witch defeated the giant monster, large enough to envelop an entire city, could only be melted with magical fire.
The Kindling Witch had been steadily thawing it every day, but once ordinary people began learning fire magic and standard mass-produced wands started spreading, the work accelerated. The project had initially been expected to take three years, but it was completed in two and a half.
Amazing.
But what does that make the Blue Witch, who created a glacier that took two and a half years to thaw with a single spell? Are you a bug in the world or something?
It seems various troublesome issues, such as relocating the residents, remained even after the thawing was complete. There had apparently also been quite a dispute over the giant monster's corpse.
First, the enormous quantity of monster meat was taken by the Dragon Witch.
Most monster meat isn't fit for human consumption. It gives humans an upset stomach. Witches and wizards, however, can eat it normally, so the Dragon Witch—who had come by to help herself to some and literally acquired a taste for it—took responsibility for disposing of all the meat. Apparently, she'll breathe fire over whatever can't be eaten raw and smoke it all at once.
It rubs me the wrong way, but I suppose the result is what matters. If they'd taken too long to dispose of all that meat humans couldn't eat, it would have rotted in no time and become a breeding ground for disease. That woman is useful once in a while.
But there were disputes over everything besides the meat.
The monster's tough scales, which ordinary magic couldn't even scratch, had become brittle when thawed and removed, but they were still useful. The sturdy bones that had supported its enormous body were valuable resources too. The two giant 80-mm Gremlins taken from its tail and chest were priceless.
The residents of Hamura City and their administrator, the Tobacco Witch, claimed ownership. The Blue Witch also showed interest, while the Kindling Witch and the Hachioji Witch, who had risked their lives to hold the monster back, demanded a share. Even the Setagaya Witch, who had fled from the monster partway through, shamelessly joined the dispute, and the situation became utterly chaotic.
In the end, thanks to the Eyeball Witch's mediation, it was decided that everyone would share the spoils fairly.
Of course, they got into another argument over what “fair” meant (was it based on contribution? How were contributions to be evaluated? Divided by the number of witches?), and apparently things nearly reached the point where the Blue Witch drew Kyanos. That is one meeting I never want to attend. Even if I had ten stomachs, every last one of them would be ruined.
Although the Blue Witch had frozen an entire city in the aftermath and killed several dozen residents who hadn't escaped in time, she was ultimately the one who defeated the monster.
The fact that at least tens of thousands more people would have died if the Blue Witch hadn't defeated it was given serious consideration, and she took the two giant Gremlins as her share.
At Professor Ohinata's request, one of them was casually donated to Tokyo Magic University, where it became ideal joint research material for the Department of Monsterology and the Department of Gremlin Engineering.
And that's how the other one ended up in my hands.
I placed the giant Gremlin on the pedestal in my home workshop and slowly looked it over in admiration.
"Huuuge... It was 80 mm, right? Not as good as a magic stone, but it's pretty. I like this thing."
"Like it? Shall we play the board game tomorrow instead?"
"Huh? Yeah. I mean, is it really okay for me to take this? It's your share, isn't it?"
"I wouldn't use it if I kept it. I have Kyanos. I only secured it because I thought Dairi would want it."
"Seriously? Let's be friends forever! Friends are the best!"
"You're unbelievably mercenary..."
The Blue Witch was exasperated, but I really meant it.
I'd always thought I'd never understand the meaning or significance of friendship in my entire life. But now that I had a friend, it wasn't bad.
Or am I wrong? Is this indescribably happy feeling, beyond merely getting something expensive, not because she's my friend, but because she's the Blue Witch?
I only have one friend, so I have no idea.
The Blue Witch had left after putting down a two-player board game she'd excavated from some ruins, so I turned my full attention back to the giant Gremlin.
The largest Gremlins discovered so far were the 28-mm-class specimens found at power plants around the country.
This one, by contrast, was 80 mm. It was a massive specimen that shattered the record by a wide margin.
A common feature of monster-produced Gremlins is that they are nearly spherical even before processing, and that they have color. Their distinctive bluish-white hue looked like ice, but when the light struck it differently, it also looked like a blue flame burning at tremendous heat.
Hmm. Beautiful. I could polish this and display it. It would look amazing beside the Octameteorite, the sacred object of my wand workshop.
But a Gremlin this large also meant I could try all kinds of processing methods that had been impossible before simply because of the size.
What to do? It's a luxurious problem to have.
I spent an entire night staring blankly at the giant Gremlin and worrying over it, but in the end I decided to use it for processing experiments.
Using it as a workshop decoration was tempting, but Tokyo Magic University was using theirs for research. I got a little nervous that if I indulged my hobbies too casually, I'd fall behind technologically. Professor Handa's research team was seriously not to be underestimated.
If both giant Gremlins had been mine, I could have displayed one and used the other for experiments. But oh well.
I decided to use the giant Gremlin for cutting-edge research into the development of Möbius processing.
Möbius processing is profoundly complex. The giant Gremlin was worth using, and there were experiments that couldn't be attempted without one.
The important thing was that the behavior of a spell changed depending on the Gremlin used to cast it.
①Use magic with a normally shaped Gremlin
・Two different people use magic simultaneously with one Gremlin → Only one spell activates. The other fails.
・Twins use magic simultaneously with one Gremlin → Both spells activate, but abnormal vibrations occur.
②Use magic with a Möbius-ring Gremlin
・Two different people use magic simultaneously with one Gremlin → Both spells activate simultaneously.
・Twins use magic simultaneously with one Gremlin → Both spells activate simultaneously.
In short, a Möbius ring is a magically stable shape that can process two spells simultaneously. It neither amplifies nor diminishes magic, but outputs it at precisely 1.00 times its normal power.
But there was more to this principle.
What happened when twins used the same magic simultaneously on a Möbius-ring Gremlin.
Mana consumption was divided between them.
Take the freezing magic's core spell, "Freeze," which had been tested and confirmed in practice.
When the twins held a Möbius Gremlin together and simultaneously chanted "Freeze," only one freezing beam appeared. Its power and mana consumption were the same as a single casting by one person.
However, that mana cost was divided between the twins.
It counted as the two of them cooperating to cast a single spell. Each person could cast one spell while consuming only half the mana.
The experiment was also conducted with triplets. In that case, a single spell activated with each person consuming one-third of the mana.
They hadn't been able to test it with quadruplets or larger groups because they couldn't find the people, but the twin and triplet experiments were more than enough to infer what was happening.
In theory, a hundred-tuplet could divide the mana cost into one hundred portions.
Even powerful magic that humans could technically cast but that consumed so much mana it was effectively limited to witches and wizards could be activated this way, with everyone sharing the burden.
In fact, one set of twins had successfully activated a spell that neither of them could cast alone due to insufficient mana, using the cooperative casting that Professor Ohinata called a "chorus."
It was very, very interesting.
Magic activated by two people joining their voices and combining their strength! It was incredibly cool! And practical, too!
The catch was that their voices had to match perfectly.
Because of that limitation, "chorus" casting was impossible except for special cases such as twins, triplets, or the Hell Witch.
It was still amazing, but I wanted to see a hundred people perform a grand chorus and cast some huge spell.
So I decided to use the giant Gremlin to remove the limitation on chorus casting.
Couldn't unrelated people perform a "chorus"?
Couldn't you perform a "chorus" unless you were twins?
Then let's process the Gremlin into twins!
The Blue Witch had once told me that all Gremlins were related as parent and child, having originated from a single progenitor magic stone.
If parent-child relationships existed, couldn't there be twin relationships too?
The method for making twin Gremlins was simple.
I would carve multiple Möbius rings with perfectly identical shapes from a giant Gremlin.
I would carve the same processed objects from the same mass.
If I did that, I should be able to call them twins.
There was no particular basis for believing this twin-Gremlin processing would succeed.
It might fail completely, but I had a feeling it would work. That's why I was going to experiment.
I wasn't a professor, so I couldn't explain the theory step by step.
It was a wandmaker's intuition, built on more experience processing Gremlins than anyone else in the world. Like thinking, “This part looks like it belongs here.” I just had a feeling this method would work.
I spent nearly a month carving twelve Möbius rings with perfectly identical shapes from the 80-mm Gremlin, along with one slightly larger Möbius ring for comparison experiments.
To achieve 100 percent identical shapes, I worked absurdly slowly and carefully, slower than a snail, and spent an absurd amount of time on it. I concentrated so hard I felt as if my eyes might bleed.
In fact, I got a nosebleed once while in a state of extreme concentration, and when I came to, my chin and knees were covered in blood.
But thanks to that, I never made a single mistake, and I think I reached the theoretical limit of the precision I could achieve.
Even if there was an error in the processing, it couldn't have been more than 1.0 micron. A world of 0.1-micron precision was impossible for even me to reach in my lifetime, so this was genuinely my limit.
They were masterpieces. Even real twins weren't this identical.
After finishing the twelve-plus-one Möbius rings, I slept like the dead for three whole days, woke up like a dying turtle, nibbled some hardtack, and spent half a day staring blankly into space. Only then was I finally able to move normally, and I called the Blue Witch through the Eyeball Familiar communication.
The processing was complete. All that remained was to test whether they would actually function as expected.
After some time, the Blue Witch came through the mist and arrived. The moment she saw my face at the entrance, she spoke worriedly.
"Dairi, don't you look a little gaunt?"
"I... do? Probably?"
"You said you'd be concentrating for a while, but you were eating, right?"
"If I'd fasted for a month, I'd be dead. Forget that—come in, come in. Help me with the experiment."
I led the Blue Witch into the workshop, showed her the Möbius rings I'd made, and explained the phenomenon I expected to occur.
The Blue Witch tilted her head while playing with one of the twelve completely identical Gremlins in her hand.
"So I hold this, Dairi holds another twin Gremlin, and then we perform a chorus together?"
"Right. But let's call it ritual magic instead of a chorus. I was thinking about it, and that sounds way cooler."
"Hm? Well, if that's what Dairi wants to call it, fine. I understand your prediction that performing ritual magic together will split the mana cost between us, but how will the spell emerge? Which ring will it come from? Or will it come from the midpoint between the two rings?"
"Huh? Well, uh... no idea. I didn't think about it at all."
I'd been so focused on whether ritual magic would work with twin Gremlins that I hadn't thought about that part at all.
Well, whatever. We'd find out when we tried it.
The Blue Witch sighed.
"This is what I mean when I say you lack a sense of danger. What if it misfires? To be safe, let's point our Gremlins in opposite directions while we cast."
"Okay. Then that's what we'll do. Let's use 'Freeze.' One, two, three, okay? Cast after the final sound in 'three.'"
The Blue Witch nodded and held the Gremlin in a direction guaranteed not to hit me.
I also held my Gremlin in a direction guaranteed not to hit the Blue Witch.
Then we cast.
"One, two, three! 'Freeze!'"
It was immediately obvious that the experiment had succeeded.
The Möbius rings held by the Blue Witch and me both glowed golden, but only one spell activated.
However, that spell shot out of the larger Möbius ring we had placed on the wall for the comparison experiment.
I was stunned.
That one!? I didn't expect that!
The freezing beam had come from a direction that would hit the Blue Witch head-on, so I instinctively leaped in front of her and shielded her with my back.
"Gah!? C-cold! Eek!"
The freezing beam hit me squarely in the chest, and I trembled violently from the cold.
It was like jumping into an ice bath. I'm freezing! It's cold! So cold!
As I rubbed my gooseflesh-covered skin and stamped my feet, someone grabbed me hard by the shoulder from behind and forcibly turned me toward the Blue Witch.
"Hey! What were you thinking!?"
The Blue Witch looked absolutely furious. Wh-why is she so angry!?
I raised both hands and backed away.
"I-I mean, there was no way I could know, right? How could I have predicted the spell would come from that ring? If the twin theory is right, then maybe that one was recognized as the eldest of thirteen, and the mana gathered from the twelve smaller Möbius rings was focused and converged on that slightly larger eldest Möbius ring, and—"
I tried to explain my theory and plead my innocence, but the Blue Witch cut me off and roared furiously.
"No! Why did you shield me? What if you'd died!? I'll kill you, you idiot!"
"No, no, I wasn't trying to shield you! Really, not even a little! The freezing beam just came out of nowhere and startled me! My body moved on its own!"
When I hurriedly explained myself, the Blue Witch's tirade abruptly lost steam.
"...You shielded me on reflex? Without thinking?"
"Right. Sorry!"
I had seriously done something stupid. If the beam had hit the Blue Witch, who was naturally resistant to cold, nothing would have happened.
When I apologized, the Blue Witch fell silent. She stopped moving entirely, so I waved my hand in front of her mask, but she didn't react.
"S-she's dead..."
"Alive. But I go home now."
"Huh? What about the rest of the experiment?"
"Tomorrow."
Once she finally moved, the Blue Witch went home with stiff movements and strangely stilted speech.
The ear I glimpsed between her mask and hair was red. Maybe she had a cold...
But I wasn't dense enough to think that.
I could tell.
The Blue Witch had been embarrassed! She had been so embarrassed that even her ears had turned red!
But why?
What had there been to be embarrassed about? It made no sense.
Well, she had a unique sensibility every bit as peculiar as mine, so she must have found something embarrassing. Some days were like that.
Regardless, thanks to the Blue Witch's cooperation, I had confirmed that the experiment was a success.
Next, I'd coat these twelve-plus-one twin Möbius rings in resin to keep them from getting scratched, then send them to Professor Ohinata.
And then I'd brag.
Well? Your university can't replicate this twin-Gremlin manufacturing process, can it?
I'll keep increasing the number of artifacts that ordinary people could never make!
Wahahahaha!