Gun Wand "Giant God Slayer"

Two weeks had passed since we started making the molds for the new currency.

In the city, they had apparently begun announcing the issuance of the new currency, scheduled to coincide with New Year's.

First, the value of the currency would be revised. One new yen would be worth approximately ten old yen.

In other words, the new 500-yen coin would serve the role of a 5,000-yen bill. Apparently, this was decided in anticipation of the inflation in currency value that would naturally occur from here on.

If they issued denominations like 10,000-yen coins from the outset, once inflation progressed, they would need 100,000-yen coins and so on. More digits made calculations troublesome. Reducing the denominations to one-tenth seemed right.

...Probably. I don't really understand economics.

Food was chosen as the economic foundation to back the currency's value.

At present, more than ninety percent of the food production feeding Tokyo's residents is publicly operated. If the Witches' Assembly guaranteed that 100 yen could be exchanged for one rice ball, the new currency would unquestionably have value.

Food ration coupons had already circulated as a substitute for currency, so all that was happening was the coupons being converted into coins. Apparently, ration coupons and the new currency would also be exchanged around New Year's.

Since it was much the same as rice serving as the economic foundation during the Edo period, they expected it to work despite some problems.

The second phase of land reclamation in Katsushika Ward, now a vast stretch of cleared land, had already begun, using blood tests on livestock for latent monsterization risks and the breeding and operation of artillery balsams. If food production stabilized, the economy would stabilize as well.

Eventually, the plan was to privatize food production, shift from the labor-allocation system currently used in many Witch-administered districts to a free-employment, free-market system, and introduce a tax system alongside it... Apparently, that was the blueprint, but all of it hinged first on whether the new currency system succeeded.

It concerned me too.

Until now, I had been paid for wands in kind: food and medical supplies, clothing and fuel, tools and art materials, and so on. When there was nothing in particular I wanted, I received handwritten promissory notes from Witches or Wizards saying things like, "Guarantees the value of food equivalent to XX days."

But from now on, I would probably be paid in the new currency more often. If its value crashed—or skyrocketed—or its circulation failed right after issuance, I would be in a bit of trouble too.

I really hoped the Witches' Assembly and the Council of Experts would do a good job working out those details.

The new currency would be issued simultaneously by the Tohoku Hunting Association and the Hokkaido Magical Beast Farm.

With the Kraken defeated, the Hokkaido Magical Beast Farm could now use a coastal route along the Pacific side, with aquatic magical beasts towing its ships. The new currency would invigorate exchange and trade.

The Tohoku Hunting Association would have liked to ride that wave too... but apparently there was one major obstacle.

The Tokyo Witches' Assembly had nearly been wiped out by the giant monster invasion.

The Kraken had long been a thorn in the Hokkaido Magical Beast Farm's side.

Likewise, the Tohoku Hunting Association had a monster problem.

A powerful monster with an enormous territory centered on Lake Inawashiro, stretching across Fukushima and Niigata Prefectures and splitting Honshu clean in half.

It was commonly known as "Daidarabocchi."

Daidarabocchi was a colossal giant. A 100-meter-class bipedal beast, it covered itself in solid rock like armor.

It was a threat simply because of its size, but it was also intelligent enough to make and equip its own armor and wielded multiple spells through its cries. Its threat level was estimated to be the same as that of the giant monster that had nearly destroyed Tokyo: Class Kō-1.

No survivor community existed within this mighty monster's territory.

Daidarabocchi had a habit of shaving down mountains, creating new lakes, and repeatedly punching the earth to cause earthquakes and trigger volcanic activity. It seemed to be remodeling its territory into a place comfortable for itself.

Moreover, Daidarabocchi never tolerated intruders in its territory.

It let creatures no larger than a wolf or sheep pass, but when it sensed something human-sized, bear-sized, or possessed of high magical power, it detected the intrusion instantly and tried to kill it by hurling giant trees and boulders or emitting something like magical poison gas.

It was an outrageous monster, but its habit of fiercely guarding its territory was a blessing too. After all, it did no harm as long as you stayed out of its territory.

That was why the Tohoku Hunting Association, which operated outside its territory, had refrained from touching Daidarabocchi for so long.

But along with the issuance of the new currency, the Tohoku Hunting Association decided to hunt Daidarabocchi.

Having every overland route through the very center of the Japanese Archipelago completely closed was a serious hindrance to starting trade and exchange. To put it bluntly, it was a damn nuisance.

Daidarabocchi would not notice if someone flew over its territory at extremely high altitude, but the only one capable of that was the Dragon Witch.

At present, Daidarabocchi was only (?) changing the terrain of its territory.

But it had a history of slaughtering every human, Witch, and Wizard within its territory.

Better to kill it while the opportunity existed.

Hunting Daidarabocchi had long been taboo within the Tohoku Hunting Association, but that did not mean they had completely ignored it.

They had built an observation tower on high ground just outside the edge of its territory and continued studying its behavior through telescopes for years.

The conclusion based on those observations was: "It can be hunted now."

Provided they had suitable hunting tools, that was.

And that was where I finally came in.

Previously, Hiyori had tried to sell magic wands to Okyaku-san of the Tohoku Hunting Association.

Okyaku-san took the proposal back for consideration, using the product samples included as a free service.

And the other day, an order finally arrived.

Along with two magic stones.

The two magic stones had arrived carefully packed. One was a substantial gray "Killing Stone," and the other was a night-sky black "Starry Heaven Stone" containing star-like inclusions.

However, both were clearly fragments. Judging from the broken surfaces, they seemed to be about one-third their original size. It was obvious that the remaining two-thirds had already been used as material for Mamonobasami.

The Tohoku Hunting Association wanted me to use these two magic stones to make five Gun Wands and at least five sealing rounds.

Both were for the extermination of Daidarabocchi.

If the extermination succeeded, they would give me all of the Gremlin that could be harvested from Daidarabocchi.

Daidarabocchi was intelligent and could sense magical power with considerable precision thanks to its keen detection abilities, making it difficult to lure it into stepping on a Mamonobasami.

Mamonobasami were activated with magical power, so no matter how well they were camouflaged and placed, Daidarabocchi would see right through them.

So I would make sealing rounds with a miniaturized, more efficient Mamonobasami mechanism built into them, then snipe Daidarabocchi with those rounds from outside its territory.

Once its movements slowed, they would concentrate fire using the boost spells of the magic-stone wands.

That, in broad strokes, was the extermination operation's plan.

No one had ever attempted magic-stone sealing on a giant the size of Daidarabocchi.

However, it was known that, in general, the larger and more magically powerful the capture target, the shorter the duration of magic-stone sealing.

According to the Tohoku Hunting Association's estimates, they would need at least five sealing rounds to kill Daidarabocchi. Ten would be preferable.

I skimmed the text following the caveat in the order form that read, "If processing them according to your specifications proves difficult..."

Leave it to me. No need to worry.

I had made a magic item for killing a Class Kō-1 monster once before, you know?

I read the order form sent to me thoroughly, then immediately began working out the design for the sealing rounds and Gun Wands.

All four Wizards and the one Witch in the Tohoku Hunting Association were gun users, so it seemed best for the magic wands to function as both wands and guns. It would be easier to handle one integrated weapon than carry a wand and a gun separately. Something like a bayonet, maybe.

Spare hunting rifles used by the five had also been sent as reference material and raw material, so I measured them, took them apart, and studied their construction. I had thought guns were fairly precise weapons, but their mechanisms were much simpler than I expected. I could probably integrate one into a wand without trouble.

After drawing up several blueprints and making prototypes in wood, I settled on the Gun Wand's shape.

I tried all sorts of things, but a shape resembling a walking stick seemed best. I would give it a mechanism like a concealed sword cane, allowing it to switch between normal wand mode, with the stock serving as the wand's handle, and gun mode, with the wand mechanism unfolded to extend the sights and pistol grip.

Transforming weapons like this tended to have weaker joints, but this was not a melee weapon; it combined two ranged weapons, a wand and a gun. As long as I designed it to dissipate the recoil of firing properly, strength should not be a significant issue.

Once the Gun Wand's main body design was settled, I designed the sealing rounds that would be the key to the Daidarabocchi extermination operation.

That said, with the gun's caliber set, the shape of the bullet was practically fixed too, so all I had to do was make minor adjustments to the internal structure.

The Tohoku Hunting Association had support specialists capable of using detection magic and sixth-sense enhancement magic. Apparently, they planned to cast detection magic on the bullets before firing them, then recover and reuse them many times.

Therefore, the bullet heads needed to be durable enough for reuse.

However, I prioritized ease of maintenance over durability and changed the specifications slightly from those in the request.

No matter how durable I made them, repeatedly firing them with propellant and driving them into the target would warp and break them every time.

So instead of making them bend or warp when they broke, I gave them a structure that would cause them to come apart.

That way, even if they broke, all I would have to do was reassemble the scattered parts and refit the casing.

If they bent or warped, repairs would be extremely difficult, so this was the best option.

The customer had asked for bullets that would not break, but the true purpose behind that request was bullets that could be recycled indefinitely.

Therefore, within the realm of possibility, the bullets that best fulfilled the customer's request were ones that were hard to break, yet had a simple structure and could be repaired quickly when they did break. Even I could not make bullets that could neither deform nor be destroyed.

I did not think I had been needlessly clever. I wanted to believe I had understood what the customer really wanted.

Once all the designs were complete, it was finally time to start production.

Carrying the necessary materials and tools, I headed for the reverberatory furnace in the back hills.

It was the Fire Lizard Unit's first deployment.

Now was the time to show the fruits of our training...!

"Mokutan, Sekitan, Tsubaki! Fall in!"

"Mii."

"Mi!"

"Mimimi!"

When I called out, the three, who had been playing by rolling pinecones around the reverberatory furnace, scurried to my feet and lined up in a row.

"Reverberatory furnace operational. Prepare flame projection."

When I said it solemnly, the Fire Lizard Unit entered the reverberatory furnace, mewing as they spread out in a fan formation. They faced the furnace mouth and assumed a "wait" stance.

Good, good. Such good children. I'll give you plenty of your favorite treats later.

After countless training sessions, the fire lizards and I had learned to work in sync on fire duty.

Since the fire lizards could control their heat, the metal in the crucible melted at a speed impossible for a purely physical smelting furnace.

I changed the mixing ratio of the metals according to the part, melted them, poured them into molds, and cooled them.

Work at the reverberatory furnace, which I had expected to take a full day, was over in barely an hour.

Fire lizards are amazing!

But I'm amazing for taming these guys, too.

Everyone wins, right?

Naturally, it did not go perfectly on the first try; a few parts failed their strength tests, falling below the acceptable threshold, so I remade them. Even so, everything took less than four hours.

The fire lizards were lifesavers. The Magical Creature Workshop really is the best!

Once the metal parts were finished, I was in the clear. Making full use of the skills I had cultivated over the years, I carefully crafted five Gun Wands.

It was a transforming sword cane.

I used a three-layered magic stone for the core.

The anti-backflow mechanism was the latest type.

Using the leftover fragments from making the five cores cleverly, I managed to make fifteen sealing rounds. That worked out to three rounds per hunter.

The inscription, in Japanese cursive script, read "Giant God Slayer."

I also remembered to number the five individually, from No. 1 through No. 5.

Daidarabocchi was called a giant, not a giant god, but god sounded cooler, so I went with god. With things like this, whoever names it first wins. "Giant God Slayer Wand" sounded considerably better than "Giant Slayer Wand."

Then, to show my respect for the firepower assistants who had helped me, I secretly added a small Fire Lizard logo to the inside of each handle.

You need something like that, after all.

Works with no author's name engraved, where only a discerning eye can identify the maker from the quality alone, have a classy, thrilling appeal too, but hiding a logo inside is fun as well.

I carefully placed the five completed Gun Wands, named "Giant God Slayer," along with the sealing rounds in a gun case I had made as a bonus.

Until now, my many genius creations had been famous only within Tokyo.

Now was the time for them to spread their wings across all of Japan.

Go forth, my wands.

Go slay Daidarabocchi and make your names known!