God Hand Oori

Spider Witch-san, the Okutama Minister of Economic Affairs, was truly exceptional.

After I died, not one bit of my wealth had diminished. That figure takes into account the inflation in currency value over the course of eighty years.

Ten thousand yen from the previous era is equivalent to one thousand new yen. But inflation continued, and today, something that could once be bought for one thousand new yen requires five thousand. Prices have increased fivefold.

Before my death, I had saved one hundred million new yen in cash. If it had simply sat untouched for eighty years, inflation would have reduced the real value of my savings to one-fifth. Money only has value when it is used; left to languish, it loses value all by itself.

Spider Witch-san understood that economic principle perfectly and maintained the value of my assets through investments. In other words, I now had five hundred million new yen in cash. Prices had increased fivefold, but so had my assets, meaning their relative value had not changed.

As for what kind of investments she had made, there were specifically two types of local specialty products.

While I was dead, Okutama developed two major specialties.

The first was branded rice.

The luxury rice with the straightforward name "Okuta Rice" was produced by the plant herself, Fuyou, who had revived Okutama's abandoned paddies. Sweet, chewy, and satisfyingly filling, "Okuta Rice" had become one of the most prestigious varieties in the country, rivaling Tohoku's "Inaba-hime."

Thanks to Spider Witch-san's efforts, it had been improved through partnerships with outside research institutions, crossbreeding varieties from the previous era and optimizing them for Okutama's climate. Apparently, its auction price as new rice broke its own record every year. If you stayed at a luxury inn in Tokyo, you would almost certainly be served this rice.

Its only drawback was its low production volume. Okutama was mountainous to begin with and had few rice fields, so its output was inevitably limited compared with other luxury rice varieties mass-produced across vast plains. Thus, Okuta Rice could become popular as a luxury brand, but it could never dominate the market.

The other was spider-silk cloth.

In the modern era, the term spider silk refers to spider-silk cloth produced in Okutama. Spider silk comes in Grades One through Three. Grade One is made by Spider Witch-san. Grade Two is made by Type-B spider monsters among Spider Witch-san's subordinates. Grade Three is made from the silk of Type-C spiders.

The monsters that appeared in Okutama were exterminated by Fuyou, Spider Witch-san, and the spiders under her command. The spider silk produced by consuming monster corpses and converting them into nutrients was high quality: light, resistant to dirt, sturdy, and even slightly resistant to magic. Clothing made from spider silk was one of Tokyo's specialties.

Thanks to Spider Witch-san's efforts, a luxury brand had been launched in partnership with outside top-class designers. Its Grade One spider-silk coat series sold for no less than 800,000 new yen per coat. It was probably something like a cashmere coat from the previous era. In any case, it was extremely expensive, and everyone acknowledged that it was worth the price.

Hiyori, the Okutama Minister of Foreign Negotiations, had gone on an expedition and found resurrection magic for me.

Oori, the Okutama Minister of Death, was of course dead.

Fuyou, the Okutama Minister of Defense, had steadfastly protected me while I was dead.

Spider Witch-san, the Okutama Minister of Economic Affairs, had preserved my assets.

That left the Okutama Minister of Cuteness. The other two had been reassigned elsewhere, so only Mokutan remained in my house.

Unlike the other two, Mokutan did not seem to have any intention of setting out to find a territory. In fact, it seemed that the other two had gone traveling so they would not overlap territories with Mokutan, who was staying in Okutama.

Mokutan was friendly with both Fuyou and Spider Witch-san. She diligently burned weeds to make ash and enrich the soil for Fuyou, visited Spider Witch-san's old temple to ask for bedtime stories, and was always having fun with them.

Lately, I had also been taking breaks from dismantling the Demon King Gremlin by making charcoal and playing with flame-color reactions alongside Mokutan.

Mokutan really was incredibly friendly.

And that was precisely why I had found the resolve to remove the Fire Lizard Gremlin I had implanted in myself.

Even if I removed the Gremlin, Mokutan surely would not come to hate me.

There were two main reasons for removing the Gremlin.

The first was to guard against magical death. Magical death, which occurs mainly when one's maximum mana capacity reaches zero, means complete erasure from the world, and even resurrection magic cannot bring someone back. My current mana capacity was 6.1K, but if I contracted an illness like Shadow-Loss Disease that reduced my maximum mana capacity, I would be in dangerous territory. Drinking mana-recovery potions by the gallon would not be enough, either.

As long as I had a Gremlin implanted in my body, I could not increase my maximum mana capacity through mana training. So I needed to remove the Gremlin, increase my maximum mana capacity through training, and keep magical death at bay.

The other reason was that I wanted to learn teleportation magic.

In the modern era, magic wands with up to three layers were manufactured and sold. They were made using a process that employed teleportation magic.

Teleportation magic existed in the modern era. Even the most advanced teleportation magic was limited to inanimate objects, had a range of less than one kilometer, and came with many other restrictions, so it was not all that absurdly powerful. But it was teleportation magic, after all. Teleportation. If I teleported material so as to hollow out the inside of a Gremlin, I could make a multilayered core without relying on my own superhuman craftsmanship.

That said, freely teleporting anything anywhere was impossible.

I could not pull off something as precise as, say, teleporting a one-millimeter Gremlin to a point 1.2 millimeters away with an error margin of 0.1 millimeters.

Users of teleportation magic devised all sorts of tricks to perform precise transfers, but even when they used a large Gremlin monster of Class A1, making a three-layered structure was apparently the limit. Anything beyond that failed because of the error that occurred during teleportation.

I was dexterous enough to perform processing more advanced than teleportation magic without using teleportation magic. But I was extremely interested in the teleportation-magic manufacturing process. I wanted to try it.

I heard that the lower-grade teleportation magic used for processing consumed 50K mana. That was a heavy cost for an ordinary person, but if I removed the Gremlin and trained my mana, I could reach that level.

There were reasons to remove the Gremlin.

And if doing so would not make Mokutan hate me, there was no reason not to.

Having made up my mind, I called Mokutan to the workshop and sat her down near the small furnace. Then I used a scalpel I had made myself to extract the Gremlin from the back of my left hand in a flash.

I immediately healed and erased the extraction wound with a healing scroll. Then, while waggling my left hand to check how it felt, I cautiously asked Mokutan, who was sitting with her legs stretched out.

"How is it, Mokutan? Does it feel like you've become a different person...?"

Mokutan tilted her head, wearing on her Hiyori-like face the vacant expression Hiyori would absolutely never make.

"Hmm? Oori, I got all weird somehow. Like when Fuyou's hair withered...?"

"What kind of comparison is that?"

I tilted my head too, presented with a comparison that made sense and did not make sense at the same time. In any case, she did seem to feel some kind of discomfort.

When I slowly reached out to Mokutan, she hesitated for a moment, but then licked my fingertips with her hot tongue just as she used to.

My hand was covered in drool, and I felt relieved. Good. She was still the same old Mokutan. The Gremlin may have been what allowed me to become friends with the Fire Lizard, but the affection built up through all our interactions had not disappeared.

"There, there, there, there. Mokutan, you're so cute!"

"Yes. I cute. Mokutan Kawa-iina."

Tsugibi had taught Mokutan to control her flame output, so she was no longer hot enough to burn me when I approached. I freely rubbed and fussed over her chin, hair, and side, and Mokutan rolled onto the floor, exposed her belly, and went completely limp.

Even after taking human form, her mannerisms had not changed from when she was a youngling. I couldn't help smiling even more.

"Good, good, good, good..."

"Mimimi... Oori, back. Do my back too."

"Sure thing. Here? Is this the spot?"

"Mii. Best ever."

As I responded to the blissful Mokutan's requests by rubbing her all over, something clattered.

I turned around to see Hiyori standing at the workshop entrance with a stunned look on her face. She was holding a dustpan, so it seemed she had been cleaning, but she had dropped her broom.

"O-Oori? What are you doing?"

"You can see what I'm doing. I'm petting Mokutan."

"Oori, your hands stopped. Pet me more, pet-pet."

"Oh, sorry, sorry. There, there, there, there."

When I carefully kneaded the area around her waist, Mokutan mewed happily. Mokutan was so cute!

I was merely enjoying some animal therapy with Mokutan, but Hiyori, watching us, wore an indescribably complicated expression.

After starting to say something and then closing her mouth over and over, she finally spoke cautiously.

"Oori. You see, Mokutan is, um, about the age of a middle-school girl. At least, physically. She's not a Fire Lizard anymore. Do you understand?"

"You're underestimating me way too much. Of course I can tell just by looking."

I complained while continuing to rub Mokutan's belly.

Sure, I could be absentminded in various ways. But even I could tell that Mokutan had taken human form. It would be harder to mistake her for anything else.

"Y-Yes, of course. You can tell just by looking. So, um... No, I don't think you're misunderstanding. I don't. But when you pet Mokutan, Oori, it's sort of... indecent, or..."

"Indecent...? What part of it is...?"

I was bewildered by her incomprehensible statement.

Was petting a pet indecent?

Hiyori had never said anything like that when I petted Mokutan before.

Why was she bringing it up now?

Was she saying that all those videos I had watched, thinking they were animal videos, had actually been adult videos? They were both AV in the alphabet, too. No, no, that was ridiculous.

While I was confused because I could not understand what Hiyori meant, Mokutan suddenly realized something and spoke up.

"I know. The Blue Witch wants Oori's petting too."

"I see? No, that doesn't explain anything."

If Hiyori wanted a massage, I was more than happy to oblige.

But Mokutan's insight did not explain why Hiyori had called it indecent. What exactly did she mean?

"Hey, Hiyori. I'm an idiot, so thinking about it myself isn't getting me anywhere. Could you explain how petting Mokutan is indecent?"

"Oori's petting feels really good. Blue Witch, you should get some too."

"Ugh...!"

"Hmm, I don't really get it, but should we lie down for now? I'll make you feel good, Hiyori."

"Aah! My brain is going to break!"

Hiyori clutched her head, screamed, and writhed in agony. After an inexplicable fit that came out of nowhere, she shouted, "Hold on, my sanity!" with an extraordinary amount of determination, spread a sheet on the floor, and lay down.

No, a massage was supposed to be relaxing. Was it really something you needed to psych yourself up for?

"Ah, customer, you can keep your clothes on. But please take out anything inside them."

"Hah, hah... This is a massage. Oori has no ulterior motives. This is a massage. Don't get ahead of yourself, me..."

Hiyori muttered to herself as she took things out of her robe one after another.

After a very girlish handkerchief, hand cream, compact mirror, and sunscreen came a handgun, which made me recoil a little. W-Well, there seemed to be things like chant magic and sealing magic in this world. I understood that weapons that did not rely on magic were important. But seeing one in person was still intimidating.

After the handgun came an ingot of Abyss Gold and a Hollow Silver card, reminding me that I still had not asked about magic metals.

I had been too absorbed in the geometric aggregate Gremlin to ask. I had not even gotten around to reading the papers on that subject.

"Hey, Hiyori. What exactly are these magic metals? A variant of the magic alloys used in magic letters?"

"This is a massage, this is a massa—huh? What did you say?"

"These. What exactly are this ingot and card?"

"Oh, right. I guess I haven't told you yet. Um, there are currently three known magic metals."

According to Hiyori, the three types of magic metal were Abyss Gold, Hollow Silver, and Life Iron. All of them were made by "burning" Gremlins.

When Tsugibi burned a Gremlin in her magical fire, it vanished in a shower of purple lightning. If that purple lightning was applied sufficiently to a specific metal, it caused the metal to undergo a transformation.

In the case of gold, the intermediate metal altered by the purple lightning was compressed under the pressure of the deep sea to create Abyss Gold.

Abyss Gold was also called mana-responsive metal, and it could be freely reshaped through mana control. If you had a single ingot, you could turn it into a sword, a shield, a pot, or a kitchen knife.

Although it transformed easily through mana control, its strength and hardness were extremely high. Even when drawn into an ultrafine needle, it did not break easily, so tools made from Abyss Gold were apparently the favorites of craftsmen.

Abyss Gold was also a catalyst required to activate the Tobacco Witch's magic. The chair Hiyori had produced from Abyss Gold was apparently an extremely degraded, incantation-free recreation of the Tobacco Witch's Feast magic. In the real Feast magic, delicacies sprang forth from an Abyss Gold plate.

Hollow Silver could be refined by exposing silver to a Gremlin's purple lightning in a vacuum.

Hollow Silver had only been discovered about ten years ago, and its effect by itself was unknown. The only confirmed fact was that, when used with an amulet, it created a magic-dampening field.

When Hollow Silver came into contact with an amulet, the amulet's mana-recovery field transformed into a magic-dampening field. Within this field, the power of magic was indiscriminately reduced.

Simple foundational spells like "Fire," "Freeze," and "O Flame" were perfectly nullified, and it could also serve as a substitute for the resistance to magic that Transcendents and demons achieved through mana control.

However, self-enhancement and healing magic were dampened as well, and spells like return magic failed because their flow of mana was disrupted. A magic-dampening field had its pros and cons.

Hiyori's Hollow Silver card was the highest-rank Transcendent certificate.

In recent years, as the number of demons had increased, it had become difficult to distinguish Transcendents from demons. This card had been created so that people could prove their status without having to display their mana reserves or cast a grand spell every time.

A Transcendent certificate was an identity card, a passport, and a police badge all in one. If a Class-A monster appeared, showing the card allowed you to obtain smooth cooperation in subduing it.

Hiyori's card in particular was the most impressive one, so it could also be used like this: "How dare you ask who this person is! She is none other than the world's strongest, the Blue Witch! Stand aside!" It was powerful.

Life Iron was made by having a living creature absorb an intermediate metal treated with a Gremlin's purple lightning, then giving that creature magical death and making it vanish. The production method was brutal.

Life Iron had only been discovered the previous year, so nothing at all was known about its properties. It was still in the research stage.

"Hmm... Hollow Silver sounds the most interesting. It can alter a Gremlin's properties? But the Demon King Gremlin is made entirely from Gremlins. Come to think of it, does that mean Gremlins alone are sufficient for an advanced magical civilization?"

"O-Oori? The massage...?"

"Sorry, I'm busy right now."

I had no idea what Quodenenets of the Rushi Kingdom was like, but the Demon King Gremlin was made exclusively from Gremlin material.

Was Hollow Silver really unnecessary for manufacturing advanced structures in a truly advanced magical civilization? Or was the Demon King Gremlin simply an exception? Even in Earth's civilization, advanced computers and pharmaceuticals naturally used completely different materials.

Was it too conceited to think that magical civilization had failed to discover Hollow Silver, while Earth civilization had discovered it independently? Abyss Gold had incantation magic built around it, but Hollow Silver... Hmmm.

I was so absorbed in pondering the mysteries of magic metals that, before I knew it, everyone had disappeared from the workshop.

It was completely dark outside, so I realized I had been lost in thought for quite some time. When I asked Mokutan, who was chewing on charcoal briquettes in the entryway, she said Hiyori had gone home looking dejected.

I had done something bad. Hiyori seemed to have wanted a massage, so before she came again, I would read a massage manual and study proper massage techniques.

I had no idea whether a human massage would work on Hiyori's internal anatomy, but with my dexterity, I was sure I could manage somehow.

Thank goodness I'm dexterous. Long live dexterity!