83. Survival Rule #4: An Escape Route Is Essential (1)
83. Survival Rule #4: An Escape Route Is Essential (1)
"This is it."
I looked down at the world's most perfect wheelchair, completed after seven iterations of trial and error.
That was a fact, not an exaggeration.
Because Patrasche was the only wheelchair in existence anyway.
It was both the worst wheelchair ever made and the best. Personally guaranteed by me, a wheelchair craftsman with a full week's experience.
"...It looks completely different from before? It's kinda fancy now? And there's more stuff on it—"
"I rebuilt it seven times."
Reni seemed pretty surprised by the wheelchair's altered appearance, the way you'd react to a childhood friend you hadn't seen in ten years. Fair enough. I'd redesigned the thing from the frame up. Building that single wheelchair had required me to invest nearly all the treasures I'd scraped up from dungeons.
For strength, solid iron would have been ideal, but that was too heavy, and building a wheelchair out of mithril, the ultimate fantasy metal, would have cost far too much.
Considering how much material a wheelchair required, making one from mithril would have cost the proceeds of looting a dungeon a hundred times over.
Securing that much mithril in the first place was like trying to pluck stars from the sky.
Production was extremely limited, and high-ranking nobles or governments bought up nearly everything. The only mithril circulating was on the black market... and according to Sif, the prices there were outrageous, so buying it wasn't an option.
In the end, the solution I came up with was... Hydra bone.
Hydra bone. The remaining bones had been in an awkward state, their uses unclear, so while I was at it, I used every last one as material. A material stronger than steel, and even a bit lighter. The somewhat menacing exterior was subdued with a leather covering.
The wheels couldn't be made of bone, so I had no choice but to use silver, iron, and rubber. I redesigned the structure with a round rim-shaped grip attached to the outer surface of the wheels so Karina could propel them herself, and solved the comfort issue by purchasing several pelts of cloud fox—renowned for their plushness—to pad the seat area, where contact would be greatest.
Thus was born Patrasche Unit 7, sturdy enough to withstand a troll stepping on it.
"Yohan! Yohan! You finished Patrasche, so make me something too!"
"All right, stop hanging off me."
I wasn't a pull-up bar, so she needed to get off me. I peeled Millia off—her arms had been wrapped around my neck—and told Reni to take the wheelchair. Testing it with Karina here would have been ideal, but I'd already tested it myself, so Karina's weight shouldn't cause any problems.
For now, Patrasche's construction was complete.
"I'll be going, then. Don't skip meals like last time. Karina worries about you."
"Got it."
"...You're really coming, right?"
Reni, holding the wheelchair like a duffel bag, shot me a glare. I had skipped a lot of meals, admittedly. But what was I supposed to do when time flew by while I was crafting?
"I'll bring him this time!"
"All right, Millia... just don't show up by yourself, eat, and leave again."
"But Yohan doesn't listen even when I tell him! I brought him food and fed it to him myself!"
Had she...? Seemed like half of it had gone into her own mouth.
At Millia's excuse, I shot her a sideways look, and the voracious redheaded Dullahan averted her gaze and started humming.
Reni must have found Millia's behavior cute. She chuckled, stroked her hair, opened the workshop door, and left.
So that wrapped up the first project.
Next came collecting edible caterpillars—no, I needed to make something for Millia. I looked at her as she rolled her head around on the workbench with a sulky expression and asked,
"Millia. Is what you want a vehicle?"
"I want a wheelchair too!"
"There's something more fun than a wheelchair."
"Really?"
Her expression changed in an instant. I pulled out a sheet of paper I'd stashed in the corner and placed it on the workbench. It was a simple sketch of the item I meant to give Millia as a gift. Compared to the wheelchair, it was a much simpler object.
I picked up a pencil and sketched the object from memory.
Something everyone had ridden at least once as a kid.
"What's this?"
"A toy I'm going to make for you."
"This?"
Millia had set her head upside-down on the desk and was squinting at it. Could she actually see properly like that? I was impressed by the bizarre posture only a Dullahan could pull off.
"Once it's actually made, you'll know right away what it does. Wait and see."
"Okay!"
I checked the remaining materials and made an estimate. Honestly, compared to the wheelchair, which required complicated and delicate processes, this was a far easier object to build. It wouldn't even take an hour to make.
"Craft."
I made a long wooden deck, a long metal shaft, and a Y-shaped handlebar. Without plastic, I wrapped lumps of iron in rubber to make wheels... then came the shaft, the handlebars, and the brake... Wait. How was I supposed to make the brake?
I didn't know how to build a brake.
Ah, whatever. I'd build it first and figure it out afterward.
I got down to constructing the toy for Millia in earnest.
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"How do you ride this?"
"Hold the handlebars, put one foot on the deck, and push off the ground with your other leg."
"Like this?"
Millia followed my instructions, put her foot on the deck, and pushed off the ground. With a slight scraping sound, Millia's body slid forward. She picked up speed little by little. Millia pushed off the ground with all her strength, then at some point pulled both feet onto the deck and began weaving this way and that.
"Yohan! This thing is incredibly fast!"
"Be careful not to fall!"
Millia shrank to a speck in no time. Had scooters always been that fast? The last time I'd seen one was more than ten years ago, so I honestly couldn't remember. After I got older, the only ones I ever saw were electric scooters.
I folded my arms and watched Millia make a U-turn and come back. Compared with the wheelchair, the scooter felt roughly made, but it was good enough to play with. Its crude shape was nothing to look at, though I could refine that later.
"How's it feel to ride?"
"It's awesome! I'm gonna ride around some more!"
"Don't go too far!"
"Hey, what on earth did you make this time?"
At the familiar voice, I turned toward the attractive brown-skinned knight. She stared at Millia disappearing into the distance with an expression of pure disbelief. Was a scooter really that surprising?
Scooters didn't exist here, so it made sense that she'd be surprised.
This was a world where the only things that rolled on wheels were carts, wagons, and rickshaws.
"It's a toy. It isn't that fast."
"You really do make the strangest things..."
"Do you need one?"
"No. It might be convenient, but it'd be hard to react in an emergency. And you couldn't ride it anywhere the ground wasn't as smooth and well maintained as this."
She'd identified the problems exactly. As expected of an experienced knight, she immediately saw the scooter's weaknesses. Still, I wanted to see her ride one at least once.
The corners of my mouth rose as I imagined Reni riding a scooter. A skateboard might suit her better. A knight of Reni's caliber would probably find a skateboard more useful because it left her hands free.
"Then I'll make you something else."
"I'd prefer a weapon, if you're offering."
"Got it."
"Thanks, Yohan. So, you don't have anything else to do now, right?"
"Anything else..."
I scratched my chin and thought. Was there anything else to do? I'd finished the wheelchair and made Millia a scooter.
I lacked the materials to make poisoned needles or other equipment right away. Those would have to wait until I placed an order through Sif. Did that mean it was time for me to guard Karina too? Guard duty with a shovel strapped to my back... I might need to make a decorative sword to wear at my waist—
Wait.
I snapped my head down and stared at the ground. I saw earth covered entirely in green. But what I was trying to see wasn't the ground.
Not the ground. Beneath it.
The tunnel I'd dug.
My own secret passage.
"Reni. Something else has come up."
"What? What is it this time?"
I slung the shovel that was leaning beside the workshop door over my shoulder and pointed at the ground with my other hand. As Reni's gaze followed my finger to the green lawn, I answered her at once.
"A tunnel."
"Ah. A tunnel? The one you made last time? Why that?"
I'd told Reni about it before, so she caught on immediately and looked puzzled.
"I'm going to dig tunnels across the entire academy."
"What?"
When she heard me, Reni stared at me with a visibly stunned expression. Maybe she hadn't understood what I'd said. I looked up at the sky for a moment, collected my thoughts, then elaborated.
"An unseen path is the most terrifying kind."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"I'm going to create tunnels that let us escape immediately, no matter what happens."
"Can't you just run away normally?"
"A hidden path and an exposed path have different levels of risk. Think about the wyvern. Do you think a wyvern can follow us underground?"
If the enemy surrounded us without leaving a single gap, where could we run?
Break through the front? Even if we broke through the encirclement, we would face an endless pursuit, and our odds of survival would plummet. To avoid another chase like the one with the wyvern, I needed an unseen escape route—one that monsters attacking from the air couldn't reach.
And the only escape route that fit the bill was a tunnel.
"I think I understand. You want to dig tunnels throughout the academy so we can evacuate Karina in an emergency, right?"
"Correct."
There was no better survival measure than an unseen escape route.
This was the fourth Survival Rule.
Escape routes were serious business.
"Ah... yeah. I get it. I get what you mean, but... we don't have the budget to hire laborers. And getting permission would be tough."
"I can do it alone. And I'll get the permission myself."
"Right, you alone... what?"
I met Reni's skeptical gaze—one that plainly asked whether she had heard me correctly—and thumped my chest.
"Trust me."