Chapter 63
It was a winter day after the first three days of the New Year had ended.
The snow that had fallen during the night lay over everything, and I was outside in my winter clothes, building snow sculptures in the backyard, when I heard a sneeze from the direction of the mountain.
Wondering if even a flower monster could catch a cold, I took a spare scarf and went to take a furtive look. I found three fire lizards running in circles around Fuyou, melting the snow.
The fire lizards, unfazed by the cold, darted away whenever Fuyou tried to catch them with her roots and laughed in little mews. Fuyou was making angry noises, but her face was smiling.
They're getting along.
Well... are they really getting along? I suppose they've become close enough to play-fight.
Not wanting to be so boorish as to intrude on the children's game, I conspicuously hung the scarf from a low branch of a nearby tree and left. Play nice while you fight, kids.
I returned to the backyard, breathing white clouds into the air, and found Hiyori there.
She was staring intently at the snow sculpture I'd made, which made me feel a little embarrassed.
"Hey, Hiyori. I didn't have any reference material, you know. Honestly, the details are pretty questionable."
"No, I can tell. It's a cow, right? Why did you decide to make such a realistic snow cow?"
"Because we had beef hot pot for dinner last night."
Strictly speaking, it had been the meat of a cow monster.
After the Gremlin Disaster, most livestock barns were attacked by carnivorous monsters, and the production of genuine beef plummeted. It still hadn't recovered. With imports from overseas suspended, beef was a valuable commodity.
It was expensive, of course, and there was so little of it in circulation that if you missed your chance to buy some, you couldn't eat it even if you had the money.
But monster meat wasn't bad either. It had to be marinated in secret sauce to be edible, so a faint sourness from the gastric juices used in the sauce inevitably remained, but you stopped noticing it once you got used to it.
Hiyori crouched down and started making a snow rabbit at the snow cow's feet, so I made a snow stoat on the cow's back. While I was thinking about what pose to give it, Hiyori, who had been mass-producing badly made snow rabbits, suddenly stopped and spoke.
"I almost forgot to tell you. Big news, Dairi. Apparently, America is coming next month."
"Huh...? Wait! America's coming!? What do you mean, America!?"
"The arrival of the Black Ships. The future-seer said they'd seen a future where a steamship flying the American flag entered port."
"That's a huge event!"
"It is. It hasn't been officially announced yet. Don't tell anyone."
Well, the only people I could tell were Fuyou and the fire lizards.
Wait, America hadn't been destroyed? America was where Kō-class monsters migrated. I'd assumed it had been flattened long ago.
From what I heard, it apparently wasn't an American invasion of Japan. The people believed to be Americans who were coming by steamship were extremely friendly, and they were bringing gifts as well.
We wouldn't know any more details until the date of their arrival drew closer, but the witches' gathering was generally moving toward welcoming them.
The phrase Black Ships didn't exactly inspire positive associations in Japanese history.
During the Edo period, Japan had been forcibly opened under the threat of military power and made to sign unequal treaties.
But in the old world, Japan and America had been allies. Opening our borders would be more than welcome; if anything, Japan would be the side applying pressure, with Hiyori—military force—backing it.
I counted off the months on my fingers and marveled.
"It's been five years and eight months since the Gremlin Disaster, right? It's amazing that they managed to build a steamship and cross the Pacific. Their recovery is damn fast."
In Tokyo, a shipyard had only just been completed, and shipbuilding had yet to begin.
America had suffered tremendous damage from the Gremlin Disaster too, yet it had already restored its industry enough to build steamships. I was awed by America's productive capacity. That's the USA for you—its national strength was on another level from Japan's.
"But America is where the Kō-class monsters migrate, right? Don't tell me they defeated every last one of them? That's insane."
"Who knows? I suspect it may be a ship that fled here carrying refugees."
"Ah, that sounds more likely."
According to estimates from the Department of Monster Studies, if Kō-class monsters from around the world had gathered in America, at least fifty Kō-1-class monsters should have made landfall there. Groups from the upper ranks of Kō-2, Kō-3, and Otsu-1 would have followed them as well, numbering anywhere from tens of thousands to over a hundred thousand.
There was no way we could win against that.
If Japan had been their gathering point, it could have been wiped out ten times over, with destruction to spare. The only realistic response would have been to gather witches and wizards on some remote island, hole up there, and cling to life as best we could.
Was the Second Black Ship coming next month Noah's Ark, fleeing from destruction?
Or was it the wildest possibility of all—a friendly delegation from America, the strongest superpower, after it had annihilated the army of Kō-class monsters?
We'd know for certain once the Black Ships arrived and we could hear what they had to say.
"Hey, if you want to go see the Black Ships, tell me. I'll be your escort."
"Huh? You're not going to stop me? I thought you'd say, 'Hole up in Okutama while the Black Ships are docked!'"
"When it was the Arataki Group..."
"Ah. Sorry, my bad."
Right.
I had a previous offense on my record: despite being repeatedly told not to leave Okutama, I'd gone out anyway.
Apparently, they thought granting me permission to go out and putting me under escort was still better than letting me wander around on my own.
"I'm kind of interested in seeing a real steamship. But there'll be tons of rubberneckers, right? I'm not going."
"Please do. And the reason I told you about this, Dairi, is that I wanted to ask if you'd make a gift."
"A gift...? A present? For America?"
"That's right. Apparently, they're preparing some sort of gift to bring with them, so we'd like to have a return gift ready as well. The Hokkaido Magical Beast Farm says it will have a golden eagle magical beast ready by the time they arrive. The Tohoku Hunting Association is providing materials from a Daidarabotchi. The Lake Biwa Accord is still deciding what to give, but it will prepare something. The Tokyo Witches' Gathering would like you to make a magic wand, if possible, Dairi."
"Oh...! I will! Absolutely!"
I was deeply moved.
Wonderful.
I had started out as a wandmaker in Okutama.
Then I became a wandmaker in Tokyo.
Then I became a wandmaker known throughout Japan.
And now, my magic wand was taking wing into the world.
Even when I was running online auctions, I'd never shipped a product overseas.
If the Americans arriving on the Black Ships took a liking to my magic wand, it might even achieve worldwide standing.
Make your mark on the world, magic wand.
I immediately shut myself away in the workshop and began designing and building a magic wand as a diplomatic gift.
According to Hiyori, there was no need to worry about technological leakage.
To begin with, the "multilayer structure" and "Kvant-style magic compression ring" in my wands were overtechnology that had utterly crushed the spirits of Japan's finest craftsmen when they tried to imitate them. Even if they understood the principles, they still wouldn't be able to copy them. In fact, if they could, it would be worthy of applause.
Even the mana backflow prevention mechanism, which was comparatively easy to imitate once its principles were understood, would be difficult to copy just by looking at the finished product. A melted-and-resolidified Gremlin looked no different from an ordinary Gremlin, after all. Since it couldn't serve as a medium for activating magic, they would quickly realize that it was different from an ordinary Gremlin, though.
There was just one thing I was warned against: don't make it over-spec.
This time, what I was making was, first and foremost, a gift. As far as I was concerned, it was a product sample.
The quality naturally had to be the best, but giving them a weapon of mass destruction on the level of Kyanos would cause all sorts of problems. Who gives a nuclear weapon as a token of friendship?
Quite right.
Since America was a gun-owning society, I based the design on the Gun Wand "Giant Slayer" that I'd made before, creating a wand capable of firing live 5.56 mm ammunition.
The live ammunition for test-firing was found by Hiyori, who scoured the black market for some from the old world.
Personally, I wanted to show America my sealing rounds (They'd be a huge hit!), but when I asked Blue Witch-sama, who handled diplomacy, what she thought, they were vetoed. The sealing rounds were too over-spec, she said, so they were out.
Well, she had a point. With sealing rounds, even an ordinary person might get lucky and kill a witch or wizard, not just a magic-user. You could snipe someone, put them under time stasis, pile dynamite around their feet, and blow them up. They were seriously dangerous.
In the end, I settled on moderate performance for the Gun Wand intended as a gift.
The core was Gremlin-made and had three layers.
I included a Kvant-style magic compression ring, but left out the double-intersection type and kept it to a single ring.
The backflow prevention mechanism could be full-spec.
It also had a transformation mechanism that switched between wand mode and gun mode.
The only thing I played around with was the wand's handle. As the first practical application of the wood-generation technique Fuyou had been practicing, every wooden part of the wand used light, sturdy wood that Fuyou had made. It was probably about as strong as bronze. And yet it weighed no more than ordinary wood, which was quite remarkable.
At last, I carefully placed the completed Gun Wand in a high-quality paulownia box worthy of a diplomatic gift and shipped it out.
Now all that remained was to wait for the results.
The arrival of the Black Ships was drawing near.
What would America's reaction be when it saw my magic wand?