Magi Craft Meister

Magi Craft Meister 605

18　Further Progress Arc

18-25　Ancient Giants

After bringing the giant Golems to the surface, the analysis and repair work went forward smoothly.

The team of Magi Engineers set up another scaffolding around them, making it easier to work with them.

Jin proposed that Sand Worm leather be used as the material for replacing the Golems’ synthetic muscles. According to him, this leather should be able to put out equal or greater power than what it previously had..

It took the Magi Engineers a single day of work for them to get this done.

On the other hand, the maintenance work on the Golems’ slightly corroded skeletons was completed in only half a day.

Although the amount of work for their exterior was quite extensive, it was relatively easy. With their large workforce, the young Magi Engineers completed this task in half a day as well.

The real problem when repairing these giant Golems would be their internal Magi Devices. This was the kind of work that Jin was looking forward to the most.

“Hmm, so this is what an Artifact’s Magi Device looks like…”

Jin and the others began to brood over one such Magi Device after having extracted it from the chest of one of the giant Golems.

“So what is this?”

“I’ve never seen a Magi Sequence like this.”

“…”

It was a Magi Converter, a type of Magi Device that both Jin and Elsa were already familiar with.

(Though it seems to be pretty inefficient… it doesn’t look remotely close to anything made by my predecessor.)

“Perhaps this Magi Formula here is what works on the Ether it takes in.”

“Hmm, in that case, then this is… ah, I see! It collects Ether from the environment… and then converts it into Mana!”

Jin was acting like a shadow, casually guiding the young Magi Engineers’ thoughts so that they could come up with the right answer themselves.

Meanwhile, Elsa was also measuring the Magi Engineer Maestro Gebart’s ability in her own way.

(… Though I’m far behind Brother Jin’s knowledge and understanding of magic.)

Despite her lack of experience, Jin’s teachings added to her own natural talent proved that her knowledge and technical prowess had already surpassed those of the current Magi Engineer Maestro.

Marcus Grinwald, on the other hand, had shown to be quite reticent, as he hadn’t said much at all during work.

Though he had received a special education for gifted children as the grandson of the previous Magi Engineer Maestro Sigmund Grinwald, he still had a slight inferiority complex because he had always felt that his ability was one step behind his grandfather’s.

Although it was back when he was controlled by the demon Marchosias, he has still mastered the means to produce the large “Goliaths”, and thanks to that, he was allowed to participate in this restoration project.

For a short while, he was overjoyed that his path to being a worthy successor to the previous Magi Engineer Maestro had been opened, but this changed once he saw that Jin Nidou, who had brought along his Automata Reiko –who, in turn, was the one that had completely trampled over his “Goliaths” on one occasion– had also come to participate in the same project.

No wonder Marcus was feeling so gloomy. And the fact that it had been Jin who had suggested to use the “Goliaths” to hoist the giant Golems out of their hangar wasn’t doing anything to lift his spirits.

Regardless of Marcus’ own feelings, the analysis work went on smoothly.

Jin thought that, had he worked on it all on his own, he probably would have finished already, but neither Jin nor Elsa were so thoughtless as to say that. Rather, both of them were eager to know the proficiency level of the average Magi Engineer.

“…It’s a Control Core, but… what’s this supposed to be?”

“What indeed, huh?”

Jin had never seen it before. But on second thought, it looked similar to something he knew.

(Perhaps this is some kind of remote controller?)

It had a few things in common with those used in “Titan” and “Double”, such as a communication function that is fueled by magical power.

“This probably controls the giant Golem’s movement.”

“But there’s no way it can move as it is now, right?”

Once again Jin hinted at the three types of Golem operational methods to the troubled young Magi Engineers: Autonomous, semi-autonomous, and on-command.

“This looks somewhat similar to an on-command operational device. See? This part here…”

“…Hmm, you’re right.”

“However, even though it has a basic operation formula, the ‘command’ section here is blank. Instead, it is connected to this Magi Device, and so…”

“Ah, I see, so this Magi Device issues commands to the Golem? But it shouldn’t have this kind of function, right?”

“What if instead of giving orders through voice, it could give orders through some other means?”

“…Ah, no wonder you’re the Magi Craft Meister. That’s actually very possible! So, this Magi Device…”

Thus, after a full day of work, this operational method was dubbed “Remote-controlled type”, bringing the total known operational methods up to four.

“…”

“Brother Jin, what’s on your mind?”

While Jin was relaxing inside his assigned room in the Imperial Palace, Elsa came over with a bottle of wine.

“Hmm? Well, about the giant Golems we’re currently researching, I guess?”

“Hmm…”

After sitting across from Jin, Elsa showed him the bottle she had brought along.

“This is one of Brother Rei’s favorite brands. ‘Nasiline 3450’, a noble rot wine.”

“Noble rot wine… is that a sweet kind of wine?”

Noble rot wine is made from “noble rot grapes,” which has a high sugar content due to the presence of the Botrytis cinerea fungus, resulting in an extremely sweet taste. It is mostly drunk as an aperitif or dessert wine.

Reinhardt and Elsa preferred it as a dessert wine.

“Yeah. It’s really smooth and has a juicy taste.”

Elsa asked Edgar to pour some for Jin and for herself. Jin quickly took a sip from his glass.

“Yeah, it sure is sweet.”

Since Jin wasn’t a regular drinker, he preferred sweet wine to dry wine, so he found himself liking the taste of this wine.

“…So, what’s got you worried about those giant Golems?”

“Well, the first of my worries has already been cleared. I was worried that those giant Golems would have some kind of built-in device that would trigger an ‘Ether Stampede’…”

The “Ether Stampede” was a phenomenon that had been created by the Homunculus known as “Nega-Doll 001” out of his hatred for both humans and demons.

そのため、既知世界の人口は４割以下に減少してしまったのである。

The first time such a phenomenon was documented to have happened was at the end of the Great Magic War, and it single-handedly reduced the population of the known world to less than 40%.

“…I see.”

However, it seemed that these Artifacts had nothing to do with Nega-Doll 001.

“So, what else?”

Elsa continued to ask questions while enjoying her wine.

“Their control device. Just like with my Substitute Doll and Titan 3, there should be some kind of control device or cockpit somewhere, but I can’t help but wonder ‘what if I can’t find it’?”

Without it, they wouldn’t be able to move the giant Golems even after finishing the repairs and maintenance they were doing, rendering all of the work they had done so far completely meaningless.

“Is that all?”

“No, there’s one more thing. I found a Magi Formula engraved on the inside of the giant Golem’s chest plating.”

“But I didn’t see anything like that.”

Jin began to explain in a soothing voice as if trying to comfort Elsa.

“I know. As soon as I found it, I immediately had Reiko take it to the Chancellor, so it’s no surprise that you didn’t know about it, Elsa.”

“…Is it dangerous?”

Jin nodded, took a sip of his wine to moisten his mouth, and continued.

“I believe it can be something dangerous. It was a Magi Formula that amplifies magic.”

It was one of the Magi Technologies that had been lost to time.

“But you know about it, right, Brother Jin?”

Jin nodded at Elsa’s confident question.

“Yeah. But it’s full of flaws…”

Seeing Elsa’s confused look, Jin began to explain with a bitter smile on his face.

“…The Ether concentration in today’s world is way too thin.”

“…Ah, so that’s what it is.”

Elsa quickly agreed. Both of them had learned that, before the Great Magic War, this world was at least 3 to 5 times higher in Ether concentration than in the present.

In short, trying to amplify magic would make no sense unless there was a high concentration of Ether in the surroundings.

“So as soon as this amplifier is put into operation, it’s going to cause a shortage of Mana, right?”

“Correct. …It works like the Elradlite. That could get to an amplification of 20 times, but I think this other one can get to 10 times at most.”

“It’s still quite a threat.”

While an amplification ratio of 10 didn’t sound too much of a big deal, when thinking of it as an engine that suddenly gets 10 times more horsepower, it can be clearly seen just how overwhelming of an increase it can be.

“Probably, just moving one of those giant Golems already uses up a lot of Mana. I wonder if the amplification function was necessary to temporarily compensate for that.”

“…What would happen if an ordinary person were to use this?”

Jin grimaced in response to Elsa’s worried question.

“…They’ll run out of magic right away.”

When Jin said “run out of magic”, it was the same as if he had said that their Mana will be completely depleted. And on that note, though he was speaking of “amplification”, this function wasn’t able to create something out of nothing. All it could do was put together 10 times the amount of Mana a spell or device needed and consume it all in one go to make its effect more powerful.

“That’s why it’s a pointless Magi Technology right now. There’s no surplus of Ether for it to be able to generate that much Mana.”

Having reached that conclusion made Elsa feel a little more reassured, but he knew that this Magi Technology could become a threat depending on how it was used.

(Imagine if someone were to use this to send super-powered, but disposable, sorcerers to attack a city… or an entire country…)

Although the thought was considerably frightening, just as there was too little Ether in the environment, there were very few sorcerers left in this world, so it would make little sense for anyone to try to do something like that.

Besides, Jin felt a bit of relief knowing that the Magi Formula was now under the protection of the Shouro Empire’s Ministry of Magi Technology, where it would be kept under lock and key.

“There’s one more thing…”

“…One more thing?”

Elsa was taken by surprise, and couldn’t help but parrot Jin’s words back at him.

“…It’s about their Control Cores… there were some formulas written there that even I don’t know about.”

Though Jin’s knowledge of the current world was immense, he had close to no knowledge about this world’s past. He didn’t know about the Magic Tools that were used before the time of his predecessor, nor about the Magi Technology that was developed back then.

However, there were a few things about that time which he did know.

Especially, about how Magi Technology had progressed little by little until before the Great Magic War.

“If only I had been alone with that thing…”

Jin was still very cautious about showing the full extent of his abilities in front of others, and believed that it would be better not to let others know about it more than they should for any given situation.

“I had to stop analyzing it at one point because I felt there was a high possibility of it being protected in some way.”

Jin had considered the possibility of the Magi Formula reacting to an attempt to analyze it.

“Do you mean…”

“Yeah. If it were to simply self-destruct, we’d lose some progress in our work, but that would be the end of it. But what if it were to cause a big explosion instead…?”

In order to maintain confidentiality, the Golems created by Jin were also designed to self-destruct whenever someone tried to analyze them without his authorization, so his worries weren’t unfounded.

“I hope nothing happens in the future because I left that ‘black box’ be…”

“I suppose it would be better if you put it back underground, where it already was surrounded by a very low concentration of Ether.”

If they were to do that, the Magi Formula would be in the same environment it had been all this time, where it would be unlikely that anything would happen to it at all.

“I see. I’ll talk to the Chancellor about this tomorrow.”

Jin replied at the same time as he started to feel a bit uneasy after the few sips of alcohol he had taken had already started their quick climb to his head.