Maxemon and the Fourth-Dimensional Pocket

A burst of blue sparks crackled behind my eyes along with a shrill ringing in my ears. I gritted my teeth. Inside the transmission, the mass of steel was melting down under the interference of my mana and beginning to reconstitute itself.

So even at high efficiency, it's still this bad, huh?

I'd raised Material Conversion all the way to Level 3, and yet the pain searing through my mana circuits was as vicious as ever. This was on an entirely different difficulty level from making bread or bullets.

Tank gears were precision-machined components, after all. Maybe it was only natural. If a tooth's angle was off by even a single degree, if a bearing's diameter differed by the width of a single hair, a tank weighing dozens of tons simply would not move. At highway speed, the engine could literally blow itself apart.

I wrung out the last of my strength and completed the Material Conversion.

"Nngh…!"

A heavy weight settled into my fingertips. I cradled the bundle of gears I had extracted with mana in both hands.

"Hah… hah…."

A single one of those gears weighed tens of kilograms. Sweating buckets, I lowered the finished gear onto the workbench. Its silver-glinting teeth were of a quality you'd believe had come straight off the line at the Imperial arsenal that very morning.

But the price had been anything but small.

"Damn it."

My head throbbed. When I pressed hard against my temple, a pulsing ache rolled over me like a wave. I wiped beneath my nose with the back of my hand — dark, dirty blood smeared across it.

Precision parts really do cost a fortune, huh.

It was only because I'd used materials of similar composition. If I'd tried to conjure this out of a pile of completely unrelated scrap metal, I probably would have burst a blood vessel in my brain or passed out cold.

And this wasn't the end of it. Still remaining were the main shaft bearing, the clutch disc, and the road wheels.

"…Let me rest a little."

I sprawled out in a great big X amid the wreckage of the tank, the fuel, and the scattered machine parts. It was only much later that I managed to transmute the shaft bearing, the clutch disc, and the road wheels as well.

Anyway — done. All of it. I picked up the radio.

"Gunter. Bring me the two mechanics you trust most. Make sure they're the tight-lipped type."

A short while later, Gunter and the mechanics emerged from the darkness.

"C-Commander! Th-these spare parts — where in the world did they…?!"

Gunter recoiled in shock. I paid him no mind and approached the two mechanics. Secrecy was paramount.

Charming Speechcraft.

"Your names."

"P-Private First ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Class Braun, sir!"

"Corporal Porsche!"

The mechanics snapped to attention, taut as bowstrings.

"From this moment on, you will never breathe a word about the work you're about to do. These parts were airlifted in through a special channel."

"A sp-special channel, sir?"

Corporal Porsche nearly jumped out of his skin.

"That's right. Special operatives risked their lives to deliver these. The Empire has no choice but to protect that channel."

I paused deliberately, letting the silence build, before continuing.

"And for the Republic, it is a channel that must be destroyed. Which means if this ever leaks, I can't guarantee your lives either."

"Eep! Never! We will never let a single word slip, sir!"

"I'll assemble it with my life on the line, Commander!"

"Good. Gunter, keep an eye on them. Have everything perfectly installed in Major Frederica's tank before dawn."

"Leave it to me, Commander! Even if I have to break every one of their fingers, it'll be done right!"

Just then, Corporal Porsche shot Frederica's tank a troubled look.

"B-but, Commander… to swap this out we'd need to remove the transmission cover, and the bolts are all rusted solid… Even with the oxy-welding torch, that alone would take half a day."

"Hm…."

I sucked in a breath. Of course — I'd bled myself dry procuring the parts, only to run straight into a whole new problem at the site.

"Don't worry about it. I think I can help."

I walked up to the front of the tank. There they were — the hex bolts embedded in the frontal armor plate, rusted hopelessly fast. I laid my hand on a bolt head.

Material Conversion.

Shff.

The instant I funneled mana into it, the rust packed tight between bolt and nut crumbled into sand and rained away.

"Wh-what?!"

The mechanics rubbed their eyes raw.

"There. Give it a turn."

"Y-yes, sir!"

When Gunter fitted his massive wrench and heaved, the bolt that shouldn't have budged an inch slid around as if it were nothing at all.

"It's — it's turning! Commander, what in God's name is this?!"

"Special lubricant. Hurry up!"

I kept circling the tank, working my 'magic' as I went — dissolving rust from every seized component, re-cutting stripped threads to pristine form.

"Damn it all! The gasket's completely rotted through! Pull this off and it's done for!"

Corporal Porsche howled.

"Quit whining. I figured this might happen, so I brought something."

I gave an old wooden crate sitting in the corner of the workbench a kick. It was the box I'd filled with all the assorted scrap metal I'd scraped together from the tank wreckage earlier.

"Sir? What's in there?"

"An 'emergency maintenance kit' airlifted from the Imperial arsenal. It's special-forces issue — they've got everything."

I lied through my teeth with a straight face and plunged my hand into the box. Under my fingertips there was nothing but rusty wire fragments and crushed tin cans.

Material Conversion.

Drip.

Blood gushed from my nose, but I just wiped it carelessly against my collar.

"There you go."

Corporal Porsche's eyes bulged.

"Holy —?! I-is this a pure-copper gasket?! Isn't this the top-grade stuff they only put in a general's vehicle?!"

"Then use it."

Next, Private First Braun pulled a face on the verge of tears.

"There are no washers that fit the spec! They're all worn down and slipping!"

Material Conversion.

"Catch."

Clatter.

A fistful of silver-coated washers spilled out over Braun's apron.

"Th-this is… brand-new spring washers with rock-solid tension…?!"

"This ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠is the battalion commander's command tank. It deserves at least that much. Now get swapping."

I had become a kind of jack-of-all-trades — no, a walking Maxemon for the mechanics.

"C-Commander! Do you happen to have any 14mm hex bolts? The ones with a 1.5 pitch, sir!"

"One moment."

"Take these."

Clunk, clunk.

"Commander! Clamps! The hose clamps have blown out!"

"Here."

Toss.

"We're short on wiring terminals!"

"Here."

Toss.

"Surely… you don't have bearing grease, do you? The kind that withstands extreme heat…"

"Wait."

I grabbed the waste-oil residue sloshing around in the box.

Material Conversion.

"There. Bring a container."

When I held out my hand as if squeezing a tube, thick, gloppy, premium red grease dribbled down drop by drop.

"Eep—?!"

By this point even Gunter stood with his jaw hanging open, staring not at me but at that 'magic box' before me.

"C-Commander… forgive my impertinence, but I must ask."

Gunter ventured carefully.

"That box… is it hooked up by direct line to the arsenal in the Imperial Capital? Or is it one of those legendary fourth-dimensional pockets from the old tales?"

"I already told you. Special-issue supplies."

I turned my head to hide the nosebleed and put on a stern scolding front.

"No time for chit-chat. We finish before sunrise!"

"Y-yes, sir! Oi! The Commander's handing us top-grade parts and that's how slow your hands are?! Move it faster!"

"Sir, yes, sir!!"

The mechanics, thoroughly fired up now, threw themselves at the bolts. With the excuse of 'no parts, can't fix it' off the table, assembly proceeded at an utterly insane pace.

Leaning against the box, I secretly gulped down ragged breaths.

Damn it… raising even a single level is a royal pain in the ass….

And so Frederica's precious command tank drank down my blood, sweat, and mana as fuel, gaining a brand-new life through the night.

The next morning.

"Th-this is… impossible!"

Frederica cried out in a strangled voice.

She had climbed onto her own tank and was staring down into the engine compartment in a daze. Her adjutant and the mechanics came swarming around her.

"Major? Is something the matter?"

"I tried to… I tried to start it up…."

Frederica couldn't finish, and instead stroked the tank's hull with trembling hands.

"It's idling, but there's no vibration at all. It's as silent as if the engine were dead. And the exhaust note…."

She murmured as if in a trance.

"It's a perfect four-beat. Not a single cylinder knock, not a single valve chatter. Even a brand-new engine fresh off the line wasn't this smooth."

Unable to contain herself, she flung open the engine compartment cover.

Fwoosh.

Along with a wave of trapped heat, the engine bay's interior was laid bare. Frederica's eyes shook as though an earthquake had struck them.

"This is…!"

Her gaze locked first onto the gap between the cylinder heads.

"A pure-copper gasket?! Has she lost her mind — using something this precious in the field?!"

That wasn't all. The heat-treated bolts I had produced with Material Conversion the night before were binding the engine tight, gleaming with a deep black luster. Every trace of the stubborn rust was gone, and smeared across each critical point was the finest lithium grease, red as a jeweler's ruby.

"Someone removed the transmission cover. And yet… ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠not a single bolt head is stripped. No — they look brand-new."

She was an elite with a genuine command of mechanical engineering. Which was exactly why she couldn't comprehend it.

To repair the transmission, you had to lift that massive cover. Overnight? Here, with no crane, no dedicated press? And where in the world had those parts come from?

"Could resupply have arrived from the homeland, by any chance?"

At her adjutant's words, Frederica shook her head.

"No. No transport planes came. And besides — these aren't Imperial Army supplies."

She ran a fingertip along the surface of a tank component. There was none of the distinctive Imperial stamping. What she felt instead was the almost unsettling ecstasy of a finish polished beyond reason.

"Truly… produced here…? In a single night…?"

Somewhere inside Frederica's mind, something could be heard shattering to pieces.

Frederica whipped her head around, scanning her surroundings. Her eyes met mine just as I was coming down the steps of the town hall.