Chapter 6
When I woke up and was washing my face with water from the well, I saw the ice statue of a ridiculously huge kaiju, with only its face visible over the mountain.
"Huh...?"
I dropped my toothbrush, covered in foam.
What is that?
The Tokyo Snow Festival? It's summer!
It's so huge I can't make it out... It's just enormous.
What? What is it?
Is it a monster? A prop? The real thing? An illusion?
As I stared blankly at the kaiju ice statue, I sensed someone's gaze. I jumped when I noticed the masked Blue Witch peeking out from the shadow of my front gate.
That scared the hell out of me! If you were here already, say something! Why are you watching me after erasing all sound and presence?!
"Could you at least say something? My heart stopped."
"?"
"I know, I was the one who asked you not to talk to me, but..."
The Blue Witch nodded as if to say, "Right?"
I mean, you're right.
Maybe because her face was hidden behind a mask, meeting the Blue Witch had stopped being quite so frightening.
At first, I'd thought of her as something like a delivery lady, but now she felt more like a fairy from the neighborhood. I naturally dropped the polite speech and started talking to her casually.
I hate meeting people, but I don't mind meeting fairies.
Hmm.
"Could you try talking?"
"?"
"Yeah. Sorry for telling you not to talk and then asking you to. Just for a little while."
"Uh, good morning...?"
The Blue Witch's confused voice, as though she couldn't figure out what I was getting at, was muffled by the mask and had its humanity pleasantly stripped away. It sounded like a person's voice heard over the radio. This way, I could avoid feeling stressed.
"Okay, talk normally from now on. Writing notes must have been a pain, right? But no shouting. Keep the mask on at all times. And no touching."
"You are a demanding man. Fine, understood."
"Sorry, please do. Anyway, I wanted to ask you something. Do you know what that is?"
When I pointed at the distant ice statue and asked, the Blue Witch tossed me a paper bag full of supplies and answered.
"I came today because of that. That's the monster that attacked Tokyo yesterday."
According to the Blue Witch, that kaiju had emerged from Tokyo Bay yesterday, destroyed the city, and gone on a rampage.
Then the Blue Witch froze it solid and defeated it. She's strong.
Unfortunately, the city had been frozen along with it, and the ice wouldn't melt even with ordinary fire. The cold radiating from it had left central Tokyo colder than summer had any right to be.
A witch called the Witch of the Perpetual Flame had apparently begun thawing the city with magical fire that morning, but the frozen area covered the entire city of Hamura. Who knew when the thawing would be finished?
"The city is scary. I'm glad I live in the mountains."
"This concerns you too, Dairi. It's been discovered that I have a magic staff."
"Huh? That's a good thing, isn't it?"
I tilted my head at her tone, as though something terrible had happened.
After all, we'd agreed that the Blue Witch would advertise and sell the magic staffs I made.
If she'd defeated a giant kaiju attacking Tokyo so spectacularly with Kyanos, that was fantastic publicity!
When I looked at her in confusion, the Blue Witch sighed.
"There are limits to advertising. If you made a gun, you could sell it. Even if you made a missile, you could probably sell it to the right people. But once you get up to the level of a nuclear bomb, you can't sell it. You've become Oppenheimer."
The Blue Witch sounded so serious that I nodded solemnly, but I didn't really understand what she was trying to say. What was Oppenheimer?
"The other witches questioned me about the source of this overtechnology. I somehow managed to bluff my way past them and shake them off."
"Why? It's the perfect sales opportunity."
If I'd attracted the interest of potential buyers, I should have immediately made a sales pitch. I'd entrusted that role to the Blue Witch, so I couldn't understand why she wasn't trying to sell anything.
When I tilted my head even more, the Blue Witch clutched her head.
I could tell I was saying something strange, but I had no idea what was strange about it.
A staff capable of nuclear-bomb-class magic couldn't be sold...? Why? Hadn't my staff allowed her to freeze and defeat that kaiju? Everyone would want one, wouldn't they? Just sell it.
When I voiced my honest question, the thoroughly exasperated Blue Witch explained it to me.
She patiently explained the responsibility of engineers, big-stick diplomacy, and the concept of a balance of power, and I finally understood my position.
In short, if nuclear weapons fell into the hands of bad people, it would mean a catastrophe caused by the technology I'd developed!
B-but that's awful!
I just want to make amazing magic staffs and show off.
I can understand something being unsellable because its performance is too low, but can something really be unsellable because its performance is too high?
But once I understood it, I could also see the Blue Witch's point.
Right. Not everyone was going to use my magic staffs for the right purposes. When I thought about it, that was only natural.
This was completely different from selling fan-made anime merchandise. What I'd made was a weapon capable of destroying the world with ease.
Of course there would be people who misused it. They could threaten, kill, or rule over others.
It would disgust me if a disaster happened because of a staff I'd made. I wanted my staffs to have good reputations, but I didn't want them getting a bad one.
NO! Controversy marketing!
I crossed my arms and thought about how serious the situation was for a while, but then I saw the Blue Witch thinking just as seriously and realized something.
My magic staff might be a nuclear weapon, but the Blue Witch had used it properly, hadn't she?
She was the hero who had defeated the kaiju that attacked Tokyo.
They say the tool isn't bad; it's the person who uses it who's bad.
Why not simply choose the right people to sell to?
Actually, I could even give them away for free.
A magic staff containing tremendous power, granted to those with righteous hearts!
That was so cool. It was starting to seem better than selling them off at high prices.
"Hey."
"Hm?"
"I still want to sell them. But I don't care about the selling price. Could you find someone who seems likely to use one properly and sell it to them?"
When I made the proposal, the Blue Witch became so troubled that I could tell even through her mask.
"I understand why that would be best. These are troubled times, and the more power that gets used correctly, the better. But I have no eye for judging people."
"You have a better eye than I do."
"That's true, but comparing me to someone with zero interpersonal ability is meaningless."
Oh, come on! But zero was too harsh! I had about three points!
"Come on, I hate to let the magic staffs I worked so hard to make sit unused. A work only truly matters once it reaches someone else's hands, right? Even if you only sold them to people who wanted to display them as decorations or use them as props in plays, as long as they didn't misuse them, that would be fine."
"But if a tragedy happened after I sold one believing that the buyer wouldn't misuse it, what would I do? I am a woman who was betrayed by her father, mother, and childhood friend—the three people I trusted most."
"Huh? No, isn't the person who betrayed you the one at fault? I don't know what happened, though."
She talked as though her lack of judgment was to blame, but being betrayed by the three foremost people she could trust wasn't her fault.
Even my parents, who had grown fed up with my social maladjustment, had merely cast me off with a "Do whatever you want." They hadn't betrayed me.
"If you sell to someone you trust and it goes wrong, well, that's life. Tough luck. I'm not so much bad at judging people as unable to look people in the eye when I talk, so leave all the choosing to you."
"That's far too irresponsible..."
"It can't be helped. If I sell them indiscriminately and a disaster happens, then it's my fault. But if I carefully vet the buyer and a disaster still happens, then it's not my fault, is it?"
If I took responsibility for everything that happened because of something I'd set in motion, I wouldn't be able to do anything.
The Blue Witch had the gloomy air of someone who had been through a lot of hardship, but I didn't think she needed to be so pessimistic.
There were plenty of bad people in the world, but there were plenty of good ones too. It would work out somehow. Let's just say it would.
If I stopped making magic staffs forever, the question of whether to sell them would disappear at its root. But I wanted to make and sell them, so it couldn't be helped.
I tried my best to persuade the Blue Witch for the sake of my own desires, but if I succeeded here, I'd have to surrender my Title of Social Misfit.
In the end, she glossed over the matter by saying something like, "I'll sell one if I find someone I can sell it to," which was basically the same as saying, "I'll go if I can."
This was hopeless. She probably wouldn't sell even one.
For the time being, I had no choice but to give up and patiently wait for the Blue Witch to change her mind.
There was no reason to hurry and sell them. As long as the Blue Witch continued using Kyanos, my cowardly self-esteem and arrogant shame were at least soothed for the time being.
I'd take it slow.
Three months passed after the giant kaiju-freezing incident.
I was still living as a shut-in in Okutama. Thanks to the Blue Witch diligently delivering food and supplies, I went hunting much less often and had more time to tend the rice paddy instead.
There were still canned goods and preserved foods left over from before civilization collapsed. Ironically, the drastic drop in population had reduced consumption, so the stockpiles in the cities hadn't been eaten up.
But they would eventually run out. A stable food supply was a major problem.
If this rice paddy succeeded, at least the food problem for one person—me—would be solved. I really wanted to eat fresh rice instead of old rice or even older rice.
I'd also tried raising some chickens I'd found gone feral in the mountains, though no one knew where they'd escaped from, but they promptly escaped again. I was devastated when I found feathers stuck to the top of the two-meter-high fence.
They'd looked as though their wings had degenerated and they couldn't fly, but they flew away anyway. I'd been tricked! Damn you!
On the other hand, I'd had some successes.
My fishing methods, which until then had consisted of fishing rods and baited traps, had improved dramatically after I learned how to catch fish with magic.
When I spotted a large fish-shaped shadow, I blasted it with a magic beam. The stunned fish floated to the surface, and I scooped it up with a net. That was all there was to it.
It was a simple method, but it worked.
According to the Blue Witch, who had been training me, I had a relatively large amount of magic power. Apparently, I had between one two-hundredth and one two-hundred-fiftieth as much as she did.
Ever since the Gremlin disaster that destroyed human civilization, everyone had come to possess at least some magic power.
Every human being possessed bioelectricity. It was an extremely tiny amount of electricity, but its influence caused a small amount of magic power to form in the body, which was naturally expelled without affecting one's health.
People with an electrically charged constitution generated massive amounts of magic power, but the Gremlins that crystallized inside their bodies destroyed them from within. I was lucky to have only a moderate amount of magic power.
I envied the immense magic power of witches, but I didn't want it badly enough to risk my life.
Anyway.
And so, one day while I was learning magic and spending my days working the land,
I was in the backyard learning basic magic from the Blue Witch.
I held Hendensho, while the Blue Witch used her bare hands. We each aimed at targets drawn on sheets of cardboard hanging from branches of standing trees.
"Vaara!"
"No. Vaara. Don't stretch the 'vaa'; pronounce an 'a' after 'va.'"
"Vaara?"
"You're getting closer. Now the intonation. The best way is to listen and memorize it――――Freeze!"
The Blue Witch sharply chanted the model spell, and a pale blue freezing beam shot from her outstretched palm and struck the target. It froze instantly, becoming lightly coated in ice and giving off a white mist.
When I applauded in admiration, the Blue Witch snorted.
"This is the most basic of basics. Come on, pronunciation practice. Repeat after me: Vaara."
"Vaara."
"Again. Vaara."
"Vaara. This reminds me of English class. It feels more like some kind of language than a spell."
"Of course. It's magic language."
"It is?"
When I asked, intrigued, the Blue Witch noticed that my concentration had broken and said, "Shall we take a short break?" She sat down on a log, and I sat on the stump across from her.
It was time for a lecture.
"I'm not an expert myself, but according to linguists who analyze spells, it's a genuine language with grammar and context."
"Oh? Where did you learn magic language?"
"All witches and wizards learn the magic suited to them immediately after waking from the coma that accompanies their mutation. It's instinctive, like suddenly knowing how to swim or ride a bicycle... It's difficult to explain."
"No, I kind of get it."
It was something acquired later in life, instinctive, and impossible to forget once learned.
"No one knows why the spells were etched into our minds, but monsters also seem able to use the magic suited to them immediately after mutating, so I suppose the principle is the same."
"So monsters know magic language from birth?"
"It's the other way around. Monster pronunciations are incorporated into magic language. For example, the 'Vaara' you're practicing means 'freeze,' but according to linguists, meanings are assigned to distinctive phonetic symbols."
"...?"
"In other words, when you pronounce 'Vaara,' things freeze. So we decide that this pronunciation means 'freeze' and incorporate it into the language system. Apparently, magic language is created in that order."
"So it's like translating the scream 'Aah!' that someone shouts when scared as 'I'm scared!'?"
"More or less. Probably."
The Blue Witch nodded halfheartedly.
She didn't seem all that knowledgeable herself. She had said it was instinctive, after all.
"Witches and wizards can control their magic power, so they can pronounce spells accurately without causing the magic to go off accidentally. But Dairi, you're not a wizard. If you accurately pronounce a spell while a Gremlin or magic stone is nearby, the magic will activate on its own even if you don't intend it to, so be careful."
"Huh? It'd be a problem if I accidentally chanted a spell in the middle of a conversation."
"The pronunciation of magic language is completely different from Japanese. That probably won't happen. Besides, at least seven sounds in magic language can only be pronounced with the mutated throats unique to witches and wizards. This is especially true of advanced magic."
"Can't be pronounced? Sounds like there's something like that? I'd like to hear it."
"Well then... ××・××fifi・iivaara."
The Blue Witch chanted lightly, like a bird singing, and placed her palm against the log she was sitting on. The log transformed completely into ice without changing its shape.
Seriously? Awesome! Ice alchemy, not alchemy!
"Ah. Sorry, was that log meant to be firewood?"
"No, no, it's fine. Don't worry about it. Amazing!"
She'd shown me something incredible. When I gave her a generous round of applause, she looked a little pleased with herself.
I see... So it's a witch-only spell. I'm jealous.
But I had an original spell too—or rather, an original scream.
"Does my characteristic-frequency spell have some kind of meaning in magic linguistics too?"
"Your... what?"
"You know, that one that produces a white beam, like a screaming beaver."
"That one. I don't know. As I said earlier, everything I've told you is secondhand knowledge. I'm not an expert in magic language myself. I only know a few spells."
"I see..."
"If you're that interested, should I get you some materials from someone who studies spells?"
I nodded without a moment's hesitation at the Blue Witch's proposal.
Knowledge of magic language was sure to provide good inspiration for making magic staffs.
"All right. I won't be able to bring them until after the next witches' gathering, so... wait five days."
Yes! I couldn't wait for five days to pass!