Chapter 253
Translator: Ebonarch
Chapter: 253
Chapter Title: Genius Elf (2)
“Diablo! Diablo!”
Meimil was a man afflicted with autism.
It wasn’t to the point where he couldn’t communicate at all, but his vocabulary was extremely limited, and he lacked social skills.
Born in an era that didn’t understand mental illnesses, Meimil had been bullied since childhood, and his parents were always angry with him.
Meimil’s only friend was a toy horse figurine.
That was where his talent began.
“Look at this! His name is Drimia XII! He’s the son of Drimia XI, that’s the backstory!”
Meimil was a Golem Meister.
Even in Diablo’s eyes, he was an overwhelmingly skilled master with no equal.
The autistic boy, despised by his parents and ostracized by his peers from a young age, created more friends like his only companion, the horse doll.
At first, they were barely better than children’s playthings, but he had savant syndrome.
No one around him noticed his genius because it rarely showed.
His isolation awakened his talent.
Starting from simply making toys, he wished they could move, and eventually longed for friends who could communicate.
Dozens of years passed like that, and Meimil grew into the Golem Meister Diablo desperately needed.
Under Diablo’s guidance, Meimil built everything he wanted to create.
Meimil was like a child.
It was unavoidable, given his deficiencies beyond golem-making ability.
Still, he was a great asset to the revolutionary army led by Diablo.
Perhaps that was why the 12 Gods didn’t leave the kind soul alone.
“Diablo... Diablo... It hurts. It hurts here.”
His golem legions were a major threat even to the 12 Gods.
As time went on, stronger golems emerged, which must have driven them mad.
So they manipulated one of the revolutionary army’s traitors to assassinate Meimil.
“Diablo... Drimia XXII... Drimia XXII is lonely down there. Sorry, Drimia XXII...”
The kind soul closed his eyes in death, still worrying about the unfinished golem.
After that, the 12 Gods’ bombardment began.
They moved Meimil’s body and their comrades, then had to abandon the revolutionary army’s hideout.
The defeat in the Fourth Great War might have been sealed then.
“Meimil.”
“Hm?”
As Jamie quietly murmured, Braha tilted her head and looked at him.
“Never mind.”
A memory from the past had suddenly resurfaced.
It wasn’t a pleasant one.
Even within the revolutionary army, Meimil had relied only on him.
It wasn’t that the other comrades ignored him; rather, due to childhood memories, Meimil avoided them first.
But he was always affectionate toward him—Diablo Volpir.
“That kid reminds me a lot of my friend.”
“A 13-year-old friend? So he’s also 13?”
“Maybe.”
If he met Meimil again now, could he be even friendlier than back then?
Could he empathize more with the golems he made and praise him more?
There was no way to know now that the boy was gone.
But one thing was certain: Meimil’s legacy still remained in this world.
‘I tried to retrieve it several times.’
But he had failed every time due to the 12 Gods’ pursuit.
The 12 Gods probably didn’t even know Drimia XXII slept below it.
Though much time had passed, traces of Diablo still lingered in this world.
So perhaps Drimia XXII, which Meimil had been building, still existed too.
A mighty golem, feared even by the 12 Gods, slumbering since the Mythical Era.
It was Meimil’s final will.
‘Not sure if it still works, though.’
The important part was that he didn’t know where it was.
He remembered the surrounding terrain’s structure, but after tens of thousands of years, it couldn’t be the same.
It might have fused with underground rock and become a mere boulder.
Still, since Meimil made it, it was worth searching for.
If he could obtain it, it would greatly bolster his forces.
“Here!”
Then Nel-Sharan approached again, her eyes sparkling.
“This?”
“Nia! My friend.”
It was a small rabbit carved from wood.
Just the right size to fit in her palm.
To anyone else, it might look like an unremarkable carving at a glance, but not to Jamie.
‘This is...’
He infused mana into the rabbit figurine.
Red light glowed in its eyes, and its body split wide open.
Wide enough to fit an adult man’s hand inside.
When he inserted his hand, the body closed to fit perfectly and resized itself.
At the same time, the rabbit ears perked up, its face widened, and its mouth gaped open.
A silver cylinder emerged from within—clearly a gun barrel.
“Nia spits a lot.”
Nel-Sharan said innocently.
Braha, standing beside her, looked somewhat flustered at the hand cannon named Nia.
The red gems embedded in its eyes were high-grade magic stones, eager to unleash mana through the barrel.
More precisely, some unidentified energy converted from mana.
Jamie knew what that mysterious energy was.
‘As expected... it’s Meimil’s photon system.’
Since the developer was Meimil, he didn’t know exactly how it worked.
But it was certain: the technology converting mana to photons inflicted massive damage on the 12 Gods’ armies.
And the Nia before him was a hand cannon using that photon system.
“Can I test its power?”
“Yeah.”
Nel-Sharan nodded eagerly, grinning happily.
Not here, though.
Jamie moved to a wide plain.
The terrain was a vast plain, perfect for testing Nia’s power anywhere.
“Exciting.”
She usually wore her hood outside, so only her nose and mouth showed as Nel-Sharan hopped in place like an excited child.
Jamie glanced at Nia.
As a hand cannon fitting perfectly in his hand, he didn’t expect overwhelming power from its size alone.
Even so, photon energy followed the formula ‘speed = power.’
He raised his hand and created a massive wall about 2km away.
He aimed Nia at it.
“Fire.”
Weeeeeng—
Particles of blinding light seemed to be sucked into the barrel, then...
Kuwaaang!!
A white beam shot straight from the barrel.
Careless, Jamie’s eyes widened.
His body was pushed back; without quick reflexes, he’d have fallen flat.
The white beam traversed 2km in an instant and collided with the giant wall Jamie had made.
Flash—!
The beam penetrated inside, cracking the entire wall from within.
Light leaked through the fissures, devouring the wall in moments. When the light faded, the wall had vanished like a lie.
“Wow!”
Nel-Sharan’s short cheer came from behind.
“Nia strong!”
“...You’ve never tested it before?”
“Made it yesterday after seeing you.”
“What?”
“Flashy. Strong light. Pretty. So I made it.”
Nel-Sharan spoke innocently, while Jamie Welton looked baffled.
Braha smiled awkwardly.
“She’s always been like that. If she finds something interesting, she tries to replicate it somehow. The structure differs, but she ends up making something similar. Even so, I never imagined she’d recreate it from that light.”
So Nel-Sharan had seen holy light last night and invented the photon system.
Impossible by Jamie’s common sense, he asked to confirm.
“You really made it for the first time yesterday? Or do you just mean this hand cannon, Nia?”
If she’d developed the photon system before and merely adapted it to her age, it wouldn’t be so shocking.
No, producing the photon system at all was amazing, but far less so than inventing it on the spot yesterday.
Even with savant syndrome, it didn’t make sense.
The photon system was Meimil’s lifelong achievement.
Nel-Sharan shook her head.
“Made it. Light. Sparkly!”
“So you mean you created the photon beam that comes out of Nia?”
“Yeah!”
Was this possible?
Jamie pondered seriously.
His conclusion:
‘Even Meimil would have to concede in front of this girl.’
Nel-Sharan was a mage at the pinnacle and a genius inventor blessed with extraordinary intellect.
He should have remembered that from the start.
Even Meimil, a fellow genius inventor with savant syndrome, wasn’t particularly skilled in magic.
To a grand mage like him, that was the impression, but actually, he was around 4th-5th class.
He learned it out of necessity for golem magical engineering, but up close, his talent wasn’t remarkable.
And most of that was only for golem crafting.
In contrast, Nel-Sharan was a born mage and artifact inventor.
One who could recreate Meimil’s decades-long photon system in a single day.
“I knew she was amazing, but that amazing?”
Braha kept confirming with Jamie, seeing her cousin anew.
It was getting hard to keep answering, so Jamie clamped his mouth shut.
Braha stopped asking and watched Nel-Sharan fidgeting at her workbench.
“But savant syndrome is usually exceptional memory-related talent... Maybe Nel doesn’t have it?”
Indeed, as Braha doubted, Nel-Sharan and Meimil were geniuses whose minds worked at superhuman speeds.
It wasn’t an realm reachable by mere memorization.
Even a combination of genius senses, ideas, imagination, comprehension, and intuition might not yield Nel-Sharan’s talent.
Jamie nodded.
“We call it autism or savant syndrome because we lack words to describe it. Nel-Sharan’s genius has transcended those categories.”
“Really?”
“If we must name it...”
Jamie paused thoughtfully, then continued.
“Diablo syndrome.”
“Diablo?”
Braha, not knowing the name, tilted her head. Jamie grinned.
“Demonic talent.”
Nel-Sharan was an elf with truly demonic talent.
“N-not the best connotation.”
Braha shut her mouth, not wanting to say more.
Jamie shrugged and nodded toward Nel-Sharan.
“But she’s High Elf blood too?”
“Yeah. Unfortunately.”
“Must have been tough growing up. Especially as a High Elf’s child... Their rules would bind even stricter.”
“Yeah.”
High Elves or regular elves all prioritized one justice above all.
‘Order.’
And disabilities like Nel-Sharan’s defied their order.
Almost no elves had disabilities.
Simple reason.
They killed those born without order.
Survivors fell into two groups.
Those without innate disabilities who acquired them later, and those inheriting High Elf blood.
If Nel-Sharan weren’t High Elf lineage, she’d have been killed upon discovering her autism.
“I see how she ended up here.”
“Mother’s consideration.”
Braha was also noble High Elf blood.
Then Nel-Sharan approached Jamie.
“Show me.”
“What?”
“Exchange.”
Come to think of it, she’d brought Jamie here for magical exchange.
Not sure if it matched what he thought, though.
Nel-Sharan said,
“Magic circle. Huuuge one in the sky. Show me!”