[V3C17] Mages of the Management Office
Translated by Jodas 3: The Fateful BrothersOn her way to the Third Spire: Water Bubble, Tia thought. Why was it that she so fiercely resisted using magical artifacts?
(I didn’t necessarily hate it when Sevil wore that magical artifact brooch, nor when the nice old men from the Investigation Office used their mana density indicators….)
It was fine if other people where using them. However, she resisted using them herself. —Especially when it came to flying through the sky, the idea of relying on a magical device gave her feelings of ‘yuck’ and ‘no way.’
She was fine if she could learn flight magic and fly on her own power. However, magical devices were out of the question.
(I wonder why…..)
While she grumbled as she walked, the Third Spire eventually came into view.
The Third Spire, the ‘Water Bubble’ was the Spire farthest away from the castle gate.
Within said Spire, there were three Offices: the Maintenance Office, which was responsible for caring for the Tower itself; the Management Office, which conducted research on magical devices and such things; and the Library Office, which cared for books and tomes.
All three took care of objects in some form. Naturally, they would accumulate large collections over the years. As a result, this Spire was distinctive for having had more expansions and renovations than the other two.
Rooms spread out to either side of the Spire itself, and further to the side of those were a long string of kilns, basins, and warehouses……there seemed to be no end to the additions. It looked too wide to be called a spire, but too strange to be called a manor.
Tia had been told that the Director of the Management Office she was to visit, an old man named Kappel, was one of Hütter’s drinking buddies. So, as long as she brought up Hütter’s name, nothing bad would happen to her.
(This spire has a lot of doors. Which one am I supposed to go in through?)
Perhaps to make it easier to access storage areas, the front of the Spire was covered from left to right in doors that led outside. As Tia paced back and forth outside of the Third Spire, something came flying towards her.
It was an old man —and that was no mere turn of phrase. The old man really was flying.
“WOOOOAAAAHHH, Out of the way! Out of the way!!”
“Pyoah!?”
Hovering only the width of a fist over the ground, the old man flew towards her in a perfect horizontal line.
Tia dodged in a panic, and the man continued flying straight— into a bush behind her.
Whoosh! Crack! Bang! It sounded like it hurt.
Fallen on her butt, Tia huffed “Pefuu……pefuu…….” and widened her eyes in shock.
Then, a man came running up to Tia as she sat there. It was a man just past the age of thirty with reddish-brown hair, wearing a leather jacket.
“Are you okay, there? Are you hurt? I’m sorry, my Director—”
The man first spoke to Tia, before shouting at the bush where the old man had crashed into.
“Director Kappel, are you alive!? If you died, it would be a lot of work to sort out your estate, so pull it together!”
“You bet I’m still alive……….. Ah, damn. Even after increasing the output, is this all we can manage?”
The bush rustled and opened up to reveal the form of an old man wearing a metal box on his back. The few remaining white hairs on his head exposed his shiny scalp for all to see.
With the dirt-covered work clothes he was wearing, he didn’t look like a mage at all.
However, this man was apparently the pinnacle of magical device artisans in the Wedge Tower, the Director of the Management Office.
Kappel wasn’t particularly tall, but he had a reasonably muscular body. He took the metal box off of his back and set it on the ground, spun his thick arms in circles, and clicked his tongue.
“Yeesh, this model takes its toll on my shoulders.”
“I said we should let some strong, tough youngster do the test flights…..”
“You fool. Using the device yourself and making precise adjustments is the fun part……That said, perhaps it may be hard for me to keep doing this.”
“Like I said, you’re not young anymore…..”
“That’s not what I’m talking about. I only realized after actually using it myself, but I’m just too heavy to use it properly. If we’re going to do another test flight, we need to find someone who’s light and tough…..”
At that point in his rant, Kappel looked at Tia. It seemed like he’d only just noticed her presence.
He was an old man with a scraggly beard and a face made entirely of wrinkles. Despite that, he had the air of a young boy brimming with curiosity.
“Would you look at that, a face I haven’t seen before. Could you perhaps be an Apprentice?”
“Piyo! Yes, Mr. Hütter told me to…..”
“You’re Hütter’s student! Now that you mention it, he said he had a student who was interested in flight magic, didn’t he……I see, I see, I see.”
With quick movements, Kappel lifted the metal box at his feet and pressed it towards Tia.
“Pirororoo……”
Still seated on the ground, Tia crawled backwards as Kappel slowly closed the distance. His smile emitted a strong pressure.
At that point, the reddish-brown-haired man offered her a lifeline.
“……Director, how about we hear out her request first? Also, the wings are broken off of that, we need to repair it first.”
“Hmph. Of course I’m aware of that. Let’s see, I’ll go get the parts. You head inside first and wait for me!”
Kappel turned away from Tia and ran off back towards the bush. This grandpa had a lot of energy.
As Tia watched him leave from behind, the other man laughed bitterly and spoke to her.
“Well, you heard the man, let’s head inside. There’s already another Apprentice in there.”
The Management Office was situated in a building that stuck out of the side of the Third Spire—in an annex that was added on at some point. If you consider that it would be convenient for them to be near the kilns and basins, it was a logical location.
Inside that building were a number of workshops, and Tia was guided to one of them.
A large kiln sat on the opposite wall of the room. Sitting at one of the worktables near the kiln was a blonde girl wearing a turban, working a thin wire with gloved hands.
“Piyo! Ah, it’s Rukiye!”
Tia’s fellow Apprentice Mage, Rukiye Sorge from Armster’s class, was a thin girl in her late teens. She always wore a turban over her straight blonde hair.
While she typically wore her turban like a hairband, tied in her hair like a ribbon, or other elaborate fashions, at the moment she tied it properly like a turban, holding her bangs out of her face. Her long hair was collected behind the back of her neck.
“………..”
Rukiye glanced at Tia, then just as quickly returned her gaze to her hands and continued to work in silence. Rukiye was always like this. Even in the classroom, she never interacted with the other Apprentices and was always weaving with beads or drawing some kind of design idea.
The reddish-brown-haired man who brought Tia here spoke casually.
“We pay an allowance to the Apprentices who come to the Third Spire to help us with our work. As a result, we always get quite a few Apprentices coming here.”
“Piyo, allowance?”
“Here in the Management Office, that would mean assisting with magical device manufacturing. In the Maintenance Office, you might help repair the Tower’s walls or help carrying supplies around. In the Library Office, it would probably mean organizing or taking care of the books. All of us are short-staffed, so Apprentices are always welcome. Well, we also have kids like her who truly want to make magical devices.”
As he said ‘her,’ the man looked at Rukiye.
“Piyo,” Tia chirped and her eyes widened.
“Rukiye, you want to make magical devices?”
“…………”
Of course she doesn’t respond. Her face as she continued silently bending metal fittings seemed to be warning her don’t talk to me.
When Tia voiced “Pefuu” in displeasure, the man from the Management Office offered her a seat. It was a simple wooden stool without a back. When Tia sat down, the man sat in the seat across from her.
“Well, I guess I should introduce myself first. My name’s Winston Barrett. I’m one of the mages of the Management Office here, and I’m something like an assistant to the Director.”
“Barrett! I know you! You’re the one who’s good at flight magic!”
There were two mages in the Wedge Tower who excelled at flight magic.
One was Frederik Lange, of the Extermination Office. He was Oliver’s older brother, and he fought by combining his flight magic with his skills wielding a spear. If you had to categorize him, he specialized in short-range high-maneuverability flight magic.
Then, the other one was Winston Barrett here. Barrett was said to specialize in stable, long-distance flight magic.
Tia had no doubt that his was the flight magic she wanted.
“Mr. Barrett, teach me flight magic! I want to learn the flight magic that lets you fly really far!”
Breathing rapidly from her nose, Tia stood up and leaned on the table, to which Barrett smiled bitterly.
“You must be Tia Vogel, then. Hütter told me about you. He came here not long ago……told me ‘One of my students is going to head over to your place this afternoon, so take care of ‘em.’ That guy’s always working hard, huh.”
“Mr. Hütter came by earlier?”
“Yeah, he’d told me that you wanted to learn flight magic a while ago, and on top of that, that you had trouble controlling your mana…….also, since you’d be doing a Magic Battle soon, he asked me if we had any magical device that could help you.”
Tia was surprised. Mr. Hütter’s really amazing.
The fact that Tia had trouble controlling her mana had only come to light in that morning’s lesson. In that time, he’d already been able to communicate that to the Management Office.
To be honest, there were too many things that she either wanted to or had to do today, to the point that Tia’s head felt stuffed full.
So she was grateful that Hütter had already explained the situation to the Management Office beforehand.
“Taking that into account…….. Well……..”
Barrett ran his hand through his reddish-brown hair and spoke in a regretful tone.
“I think you should give up on learning flight magic.”