[V4C18] Lifespan, and the Weight of Ten Years
Translated by Jodas 4: Flying Through the Sky“Pirorororo… Something I want Rukiye to make…”
Shaking her head back and forth, she tried to force a thought to come out, but nothing came to mind. To begin with, Tia was a Harpy; she still only had the faintest idea of what tools even were.
Yet Sevil wasted no time in raising her hand.
“Then allow me to make a suggestion. In order to further improve Tia and Oliver’s combined flight…”
Sounds like Sevil already had an idea for how to make their combined flight more secure and stable.
As expected of Sevil. Sevil was amazing. Tia looked up at her with a gaze of admiration.
Sevil forcefully declared her conclusion.
“I recommend we introduce a carrying strap!”
“I see, that sounds reasonable.”
“It’s reasonable, but that’s what you use for babies…!”
Oliver nodded, impressed, while Wren criticized the idea in an anguished voice.
Tia was the only one who was confused. She didn’t really understand what this ‘carrying strap’ was.
Since Harpies flew with their wings, they never carried others on their backs. If they had to carry their companions, they would grab them with their feet.
“Pirororo… Carrying, strap?”
“You see, it’s something like this.”
Rukiye rapidly ran her pan across the page.
On the page in Rukiye’s hands, she drew an image of Oliver carrying Tia on his back. A belt connected the two of them at their abdomens.
Rukiye showed her the drawing and explained it step-by-step.
“We make this cloth that covers the bottom half of your body, then we attach belts to that cloth. Those belts go around Oliver’s body… We secure it around his shoulders and waist so you’d be more secure on his back. Most importantly, this lets Oliver use both of his hands.”
“Piyo! That’s amazing! Sevil and Rukiye are so smart!”
“However, since you have to wear the Magical Flying Device… You would have to attach the carrying strap first, then put the Magical Flying Device on afterwards. Also, it takes a reasonably long time to attach and remove the belts.”
Rukiye plainly raised the benefits and challenges of implementing a carrying strap.
The pros were that Tia would be much more stable on Oliver’s back and that Oliver would be able to make use of his hands.
The cons, however, were the time it took to put on and take off as well as the fact that, with her body more tightly secured, Tia would have a harder time getting her balance while in flight.
Tia thought those issues were a bitter pill to swallow.
“I don’t like it if Oliver and I can’t just pop apart…”
“Indeed. I had been envisioning Tia cutting me loose mid-flight, and I attack with my spear as I land.”
In that case, without her counterweight, Tia’s flying would become unstable, and she would have to try to manage her decent by dropping her flying speed… She’d thought it through at least up to that point.
“Also, you know… Being strapped down with belts like that… I… I’m not good with that.”
What she really wanted to say was that she hated the idea. It disgusted her, but conscious of Rukiye’s attention, she modified that to simply say she was ‘not good’ with it.
It was the same uncomfortable feeling she felt when she first had to put clothes and boots on.
She could probably get used to it if she tried hard enough, but she was already gritting her teeth to bear with the belt securing the Magical Flying Device to her body.
When Tia groaned “Pefuvuu…” Oliver turned to Rukiye and spoke.
“Even if we had a carrying strap, it would still be hard for me to swing my spear with Tia on my back. How about we set aside the idea of a carrying strap for the time being?”
“Sure thing. If you end up thinking you need it, let me know as soon as possible.”
“Got it. First, prioritize making tweaks to the Magical Flying Device.”
They’d set the carrying strap to the side. The number one priority would be adding the ability to control the wind output by the Magical Flying Device and the opening of its wings.
—That decided, Sevil raised her hand once more.
“There’s one more thing I’d like you to make for me.”
Sevil took a thick leather glove out of her jacket pocket and slipped it on. Then, she drew the curved sword from her waist.
Tia realized something. For whatever reason, Sevil’s curved sword felt different than it had before. This time, it carried a barely noticeable coating of mana.
“Piyo… Sevil, what did you do to your sword?”
“I tried to have it adjusted to withstand being used as a magic sword, but… we encountered difficulties. See for yourself.”
Sevil chanted, and the curved sword began to let off a pale white glow. Ice mana started to coat the blade.
While physical attacks would be nullified in a magic battle, attacks made with a magic sword constructed by imbuing a normal sword with mana would go through.
On top of that, it allowed you to make attacks with much higher mana density compared to blindly firing off wide-area attack magic.
—However, Tia immediately realized why that wasn’t going to work.
The cold that covered the blade reached the hilt of her curved sword.
Once it reached the ice sigil on the back of Sevil’s leather glove, she deactivated the magic sword.
“As you can see, my magic sword is not yet in a stable condition. The cold continues traveling all the way down to the hilt.”
For a brief time, she could withstand it by using a leather glove, but if she were to use it for any longer, her hand would probably freeze over.
That wouldn’t be of any use in an actual fight.
Old Man Kappel approached Sevil and took a hard look at her curved sword.
“Ah, that sorta thing is pretty common with magic sword users. It’s surprisingly hard to keep the mana imbuement to the sword’s blade. We could try and adjust the hand guard to stop the cold, but… It’s gonna cost you, you know?”
“Gehehehehe!” Kappel cackled as he spoke.
His laugh was a beautifully devious laugh, boiling over with human greed.
“I don’t have all that much on hand at the moment. Please address the charge to my family.”
“Bah! If I could do that, I wouldn’t have to work at all!”
Old Man Kappel spat on the ground, and Barrett tried to console him, saying “Now, now…”
“It’s true that gathering materials for a modification like this is a tremendous task. Things like specially carved gems and fire dragon scales aren’t easy to get your hands on. Worst case, you’re looking at a year or more just to gather the right materials.”
The Wedge Tower was located in an Autonomous Region on the far Eastern edge of the Empire. The majority of their supplies came via the nearby towns and villages, so it would take a long time before anything reached them.
If there was anything they urgently needed, the Finance Office could deploy negotiators to secure it, but it would be hard to convince them to move because an Apprentice wanted something for a magic battle.
“Ah… Um, about that…”
Wren spoke up, nervously whispering.
Wren stuck his right hand in his pocket, and asked Kappel a question.
“Is it possible… to re-use parts from magical devices?”
“It depends on the item. A dragon’s scale, for instance, could be re-used if it was taken from a still-living dragon, but if you extracted one from a corpse, it would be impossible.”
“… Could you re-use this?”
Seeing the item Wren pulled out of his pocket as he said that, Tia’s eyes widened.
After handing the curved sword and the materials to strengthen it over to Kappel and the others from the Management Office, the three students of Hütter’s class: Tia, Wren, and Sevil, headed to the gardens.
They didn’t have anywhere in specific that they were trying to go, but they wanted to find a place where people wouldn’t overhear them talking.
After walking for a little bit and arriving at a place with no one around, Sevil opened her mouth.
“How unexpected of you to have retrieved my brooch, Wren.”
The item Wren took out of his pocket, saying it would work as a material for a magical device was a red shard, and the moment Director Kappel saw it, his eyes lit up.
It was a fire dragon’s scale of the highest quality.
The same one used in the brooch that Tia had caused to go berserk and explode by pouring a Harpy’s mana into it when they were cornered by the Greater Monster Jack.
She’d thought it had been reduced to dust after the explosion, but it seemed like Wren had retrieved it.
“Sorry I didn’t tell you earlier… Sorry…”
Wren’s lips twisted uncomfortably, and he hemmed and hawed as he spoke.
“That brooch was your favorite, wasn’t it Sevil? But it broke thanks to the plan I made, so… I was thinking of making friends with the Management Office and having them fix it up so I could give it back to you…”
(Wren is very human.)
Tia was secretly impressed.
He really understands what it feels like to think a tool is important. Totally different from Tia, who didn’t even realize it until Ella told her.
Sevil’s face showed a hint of surprise, but her expression quickly warmed up into a smile, and she rustled Wren’s hair.
“You lovely rascal!”
“Oh, stop it! My hair’s gonna get all messed up! Miraculous pretty boys are not for touching!”
If that fire dragon’s scale can be reprocessed and incorporated into the hand guard of Sevil’s curved sword, then it should be able to stop the ice mana from traveling down to the hilt.
And Rukiye said she’d be responsible for doing that reprocessing, with Director Kappel guiding her each step of the way.
That means Sevil will be able to use her ice magic sword without having to worry about it. That’s one problem cleared.
Few among the Apprentice Mages had a means of attack. As a result, whether or not Sevil could use her magic sword would have a huge influence on their victory or defeat.
Seeing Wren and Sevil getting along so well, Tia felt a little happier, and she made a contented “Pefupefu” noise.
Wren undid his hair tie and fixed his golden hair with a comb after Sevil’s hand was done rustling it up. Then, he neatly tied it back into place.
“By the way, about Tia and Oliver’s combined flight, that’s using Oliver’s flight magic to get up high, then using Tia’s Magical Flying Device to fly around, right?”
“Um… Something like that?”
“Then, if you learned how to jump real high with flight magic like he can, then you’ll be able to fly on your own, right Tia?”
What Wren said made sense.
The reason Tia had to rely on the Magical Flying Device in the first place was because she was bad at mana output, and they told her that if she tried to use flight magic, she might just throw herself high up without control.
If Tia could learn how to use flight magic to get to those kinds of heights like she was relying on Oliver for at the moment, then combining that with the Magical Flying Device, she’d be able to fly by herself…. but…
“….Wren.”
Tia made a low warble. “Pefuvuvuvu…..” Then she leaned in towards Wren with a serious expression.
“Flight magic… isn’t easy. It’s not easy at all. It’s really, really hard.”
First, and this was a big hurdle to overcome, magecraft wasn’t easy to accomplish no matter what you were doing.
Tia, who’d been having issues learning just the fundamentals, wasn’t going to have an easy time picking it up.
While the magical formula for flight magic was said to be relatively simple, it was anything but straightforward for Tia. More importantly, flight magic required extremely precise mana manipulation abilities.
Unless she grew another head, it would be impossible for her to handle both flight magic and the Magical Flying Device at the same time.
Pressured by Tia’s grim expression, Wren weakly let out an “Oh, uh, I see.”
Sevil spoke sternly.
“Oliver himself has spent ten years just to get to the point where he can fly straight up. This isn’t the kind of thing you can do overnight.”
“But, if you start practicing now, then you’ll be able to do it in ten years’ time, right? I’m sure the technology of the Magical Flying Device will change a lot ten years from now, too!”
“Piroro….” Tia groaned.
Ten years until she could fly like she wanted. That wouldn’t do.
“That’s not gonna work, Wren. I won’t live that long.”
“Eh?”
“A Harpy’s life span is, in terms of human age, just a little over twenty years.”