Sis, Save Me (4)
Sis, Save Me (4)
There was a saying: strike while the iron was hot.
Rosemary thought this was the perfect time to legally set foot in the club room. No, she felt that if not now, she might never be able to enter this place again.
Every club room at Tillet was a private space. A place difficult to enter without being a member or the supervising professor.
Of course, Rosemary could easily peer into the interior structure using her ability. But even so, thoroughly examining the entire room was nearly impossible.
The source of Scope Magic was electromagnetic waves. It was magic that sent electric and magnetic fields in all directions and visualized the returning information. And such electromagnetic waves had great difficulty penetrating conductors.
An electric field penetrating a conductor was like plucking a star from the sky. Strictly speaking, it wasn't impossible. However, the depth to which it could penetrate was extremely shallow.
Exactly one such conductor-enclosed space existed inside the Alchemy Hall club room. Rosemary knew that Aether and Vermel had frequented this space during summer break.
Whether the purpose was a secret rendezvous or a conspiracy, she didn't know. There was no guarantee that examining the interior structure would yield any useful clues either.
But there was one thing Rosemary wanted to confirm.
'Is that elf bastard in here?'
It was a reasonable inference. After all, she hadn't seen Vermel Horde anywhere she'd looked until now.
For places where remote probing was impossible, she could simply check with her own eyes. Rosemary, having made up her mind, threw open the club room door.
And then.
"Wha... what is this."
Three seconds were enough for the face that had maintained the decorous noble lady concept to crumple along with her expectations.
A spindle-shaped steel structure resembling a capsule stood towering before Rosemary's eyes. An eerie aura emanated from the unidentified structure, which had the form of a tall column standing roughly four to five meters high. What on earth was this thing?
At that moment, warm sunlight streamed through the south window, illuminating the direction from which Rosemary had entered. Because of that, a column-shaped shadow fell across her face. Her mind spun like a top.
Rosemary asked in a voice laden with urgency.
"Uh, Sis... what on earth is this?"
Aether let out a sigh that seemed to say 'hoo boy.' It was a lament that suggested speech was difficult. But Rosemary was too confused to read her always-expressionless sister's face.
She didn't know what this was. But she could tell it was dangerous.
"What do you think! It's a bomb!"
It wasn't Aether who resolved her curiosity. A purple-haired brat wearing a large hat popped out from behind the structure.
She was a girl with sharp, fox-like eyes. But her face looked soft and squishy like a well-steamed bun. Still retaining some baby fat, it seemed like if you pinched and pulled her cheeks, they'd stretch like rice cake.
She was slightly shorter than Rosemary, but that difference created a subtle contrast. If Rosemary had the look of a refined young lady just beginning to transform from adolescent to adult, Frey was a brat through and through, far removed from elegance.
'A b-bomb?'
There was no time to organize her thoughts.
"Hey, but why are you in here?"
Frey snapped at Rosemary in a high, sharp voice.
Not only did she look young, but the way she spoke hadn't escaped the level of a child either. Rosemary didn't particularly like this Frey.
Still, she couldn't show herself flustered in front of a kid like this. Having regained her composure, Rosemary snorted and replied.
"Aether said I could come in."
"Really?"
"If you don't believe me, why don't you ask her yourself?"
Frey looked back and forth between Aether and Rosemary with narrowed eyes. Black hair and ultramarine hair alternated in Frey's gaze.
Black. Blue. Black. Blue.
"Hmm... Well, if Aether brought you, it's fine."
Soon Frey stopped minding Rosemary and focused on what she was doing. Rosemary watched the scene blankly.
Picking up iron ore, Frey sorted pure substances from the Magic Stone without even a transmutation formation. She extracted pig iron, combined it with other Magic Stones, and produced a solid iron ingot. She even reshaped it at will and attached it to the 'bomb.'
She was shaping the exterior of the bomb exactly like a child playing with modeling clay. Contrary to her appearance, her Earth Magic skill rivaled that of an archmage. Rosemary stared blankly at the sight for over five minutes.
"...This is a bomb?"
"Yeah! We're planning to submit it at the festival!"
"The festival...?"
Rosemary couldn't help but tilt her head.
"What, you're aiming to enroll next year and you don't know about the festival, Tillet's biggest event?"
"Who do you think is an idiot? Of course I know!"
The festival was a large-scale autumn event held once a year at Tillet, spanning an entire month.
Being both a festival and a venue for competitions and exhibitions, it often hosted events like invention contests and art exhibitions.
"Who submits a bomb to an invention contest or exhibition?"
"We're gonna do it? We're submitting it to the art competition!"
It was a statement that left one utterly speechless. Rosemary turned her head toward Aether, hoping Frey's words were a joke. When she looked at her with an expression demanding explanation, the older sister let out another breath.
"Frey's right."
They were clearly insane.
This was the conclusion Rosemary reached after deep deliberation.
The members here were collectively insane.
"So what? Everyone's definitely going to love it!"
"No, they won't?!"
"Then everyone except you will love it!"
Rosemary, her frustration reaching its peak, rubbed her face with both hands. She thought she finally understood now. Why her sister had stayed quiet even though she had banned the Flare Scroll.
During her time in the Demon King's army, Aether had hated having her research interfered with more than anyone in the world. If Flare had been necessary for her sister's research topic, she would certainly have snapped at Rosemary.
So she could finally reach a conclusion now.
'Flare had been bait.'
The real research was this.
"Sis... please think about this again. I know the prize money for winning the art festival is high, but if you submit this you're obviously going to be eliminated in the preliminaries, you know?"
"Just giving it a try, that's all."
"Who puts a bomb in the ranks of fine art?"
"I looked it up, and a toilet won last year's competition."
Although Rosemary had studied modern art history to play the part of a noble lady, she had merely stuffed the information into her head. The ever-changing aesthetic sensibilities of humans were still difficult to understand.
As a last desperate act, Rosemary ran the calculations. She decided she shouldn't be here any longer.
'Fine, I'll just look inside that room and leave.'
She could discuss the rest when she was alone with her sister. It would be better to have a conversation after organizing her thoughts.
"Sis, may I go into that room?"
"Do as you please."
Surprisingly, it was an immediate answer.
Well, of course. There was no reason for her sister, who had recovered her memories, to hide the elf here. Her sister had answered that she wasn't on the Demon King's army's side, but at the same time, she'd answered that she wasn't on humanity's side either.
Worrying about why they were building such a gigantic bomb could come later. Rosemary opened the door she had been curious about all this time.
"My lady, you came?"
The first thing that caught her eye was Rote.
Rote, who had been scratching away with an etching pen used for scroll-making, beamed a smile as bright as a full moon the moment she saw Rosemary. It was an unnecessarily kind smile for a mere human.
"Sorry I can't get up. I'm working right now. So, what I wanted to say......."
There was no time to listen closely to Rote's words. Rosemary rapidly scanned the interior of the room.
It was a small room of barely two or three pyeong. All six surfaces were covered with metal plates. As expected, there was a reason the Scope hadn't worked.
"...Anyway, that's how it is. Originally it wasn't allowed because we were keeping it secret among ourselves, but since Aether gave permission, you may come in and look around, my lady."
"No... I'm fine, so...."
Perhaps because it was a cramped and dim space, it was gently prodding at her trauma. Rosemary shook her head and took a step back.
But for some reason, her body was moving forward.
"...Huh?"
The stupid sound had barely leaked from her mouth when she realized Frey was shoving her from behind.
"Hey, you came all this way, what's the point if you don't see this? My friend makes a damn good scroll, you know? Take a look and go!"
With a voice that didn't contain a speck of malice, Rosemary ended up setting foot inside the cramped little room.
"Oh right! This scroll has to be made in as clean and sealed a space as possible, okay? So if you want to keep watching, you gotta keep the door shut. Got it?"
-Click
"Ah, ah, ah...."
"My lady, what's wrong? You look pale...."
She didn't even have the presence of mind to check what scroll Rote was making.
Her heart, transformed into something like an internal combustion engine by the Curse of Iron Transformation, pounded. Her unfocused eyes shook violently, and her hands and feet trembled as if she had tremors.
-Bang!
The memory of the night before last slowly surfaced. Rosemary, barely maintaining the strength in her legs that threatened to give out, flung the door open as if to break it down.
"My lady?"
"I, I suddenly remembered something I have to do...! I'll be going now!!"
Rosemary glared at the oblivious Frey with burning eyes, then quickly bolted out of the club room. She was so fast that the wind pressure sent Aether's hair flying.
Aether let out a third sigh and moved her feet.
"I'll step out for a bit too."