The Gold-Eye Tribe and the Human Race (3)
The Gold-Eye Tribe and the Human Race (3)
Existing magical engineering used magic stones obtained from nature or magic beasts in their unaltered state.
It was not that there had been no attempts to dissect their internal structure. But most research had failed, or else achieved only the most limited results.
That changed a year ago, when Count Saliere secretly invented a new machine, and the possibilities for material magical engineering began to stir.
The Refining Device.
As the name implied, it was an apparatus that refined pitchblende magic stones and converted them into a pale yellow powder. By inventing this machine, Cromwell Saliere had demonstrated empirically that refined stones yielded better efficiency than using them in their raw state.
Further research was still needed to apply the refined powder to industry, but the era of its widespread use could not be far off.
Cromwell delegated that application research to Rote. He considered his daughter a genius without precedent in the history of House Saliere.
That was why Rote knew exactly what this machine was.
"Why in the world is this here...."
A family secret had been exposed to an outsider in the most unintended fashion.
"Oh. This is interesting."
Akasha stroked her chin, intrigued, and strode up to the Refining Device. Her reaction was so swift that there was no chance to stop her.
Barely a few seconds had passed. Akasha recognized the Refining Device's identity at a glance.
"It's a machine that pulverizes pitchblende magic stones, right?"
"H-how do you know that...?"
"My big sister tried to make something similar a long time ago."
At Akasha's bombshell of a remark, Rote's mouth fell open as wide as a serving platter. Her expression was one of sheer disbelief.
Her father had supposedly spent ten years researching and building this machine, and not only had it been discovered, but her friend's sister had already made one ages ago.
"Why so surprised? My sister was called a genius even among the Gold-Eye Tribe."
It was common knowledge that the Gold-Eye Tribe was more intelligent than other races. Someone who could be praised as a genius even among them had to be far from ordinary.
At any rate, the milk was already spilled. Rote coolly read Akasha's expression. Beyond an interest in her father's machine, the girl didn't seem to feel anything else.
She had to change the subject somehow and seize control of the conversation. Rote carefully opened her mouth.
"Your sister made something like this? When and where?"
"Right before she and I parted ways. It's been a few years now, I guess."
To Rote's knowledge, Akasha and Aether were around the same age. For Rote, who had only just completed her coming-of-age ceremony, a few years was far from a short time.
That meant she had single-handedly created a machine of this caliber at around age fifteen at the earliest.
Even for a genius, that was impossible. Rote quickly settled on the conclusion that Akasha was lying to her.
"But she couldn't bring herself to finish it. I think she might have grown disillusioned while making something like this."
"Why? What was she making it for?"
"Just because."
Akasha folded her arms as if to say it was none of Rote's business and turned away. Compared to when she'd refused to give her name in the cave, her tone had softened, but... a refusal was still a refusal. That in itself was suspicious.
"Why?"
"You'd get hurt if you knew."
As I thought, she knew something.
Rote pulled the erotic novel that Akasha had wedged in from the bookshelf and tossed it toward the other side. The book landed on a different shelf with a thud. At the same moment, the desk right in front of her slid back into its original position.
Now that her father's masterpiece had been discovered, she had to do something. The magic that House Saliere had begun developing had to be completed by a Saliere's hands.
With that thought, the girl rummaged through her memories—
"The Teller-Ulam Design."
Without any context, she threw the words out right in front of Akasha. Wondering if she might happen to know what it was.
"Do you know what it is? Your sister is the one who taught me."
Akasha's face was well worth seeing.
**
Her sister had produced many weapons as a technical advisor.
Every step of the weapon-development process was classified. Because her sister had personally directed all new weapon development, even Akasha, her twin sister, was in the dark about most of it. And to begin with, she wasn't as smart as her sister.
"The Teller-Ulam Design. Do you know what it is? Your sister is the one who taught me."
So when Rote brought up those words, Akasha felt a chill run down her spine.
She didn't know what the Teller-Ulam Design was. And who in the world were Teller and Ulam?
What mattered was the fact that her sister had taught her something.
Roughly speaking, whenever the word [Design] was stuck on the end, it meant a weapons-development project her sister considered important.
Don't tell me, did she leak military secrets?
Akasha recalled the Refining Device from moments ago.
─ Pitchblende. Its scientific name is uraninite. If you refine it, you can turn it into a bomb.
Those were words her sister had said to her before she lost her memory.
It seemed connected to that so-called Teller-Ulam Design or whatever it was. Otherwise, this girl wouldn't have brought it up right after the Refining Device was discovered.
She was trying to sound me out. As if.
Barely a few milliseconds had passed, yet Akasha's thoughts had already reached this point. The Gold-Eye Tribe brain processed information at a speed no human could match.
Akasha deliberately put on a surprised expression.
"Sh-she taught you that?"
She wasn't as good an actor as Rosemary... but she was still a humanoid demon who carried out infiltration missions. Faking an emotion was child's play.
"It's an Innate Magic that my sister tried to create in secret, long ago.... Well, I suppose it doesn't matter. If she told you about it, you must be someone she trusts quite a bit."
"You know about it?"
"Of course I do."
It was a lie. But Akasha pretended she had no choice and shrugged, spilling the words.
"It's a magic art that uses pitchblende magic stones to design an incredibly powerful bomb. That's the Teller-Ulam Design."
The words were tossed out on a whim, but it wasn't a baseless guess. Considering the context, wasn't that the natural inference to draw?
If anything, Rote was the one who looked shocked. Her face had gone pale.
What the heck. Had she gotten it right?
This wasn't a bad turn. Akasha kept mixing in lies and pressed Rote further.
"Still, my sister, of all people. Does she really go around telling you things she meant to research and announce all on her own? She never, ever tells anyone what she's working on unless she really likes them."
"Huh? Uh...."
"I mean, wasn't it the same with that Flare magic or whatever that House Haspelt was researching? My sister happened to be researching something similar at the time. Before that, she barely even taught me anything."
Akasha glimpsed Kleis Haspelt in Rote Saliere. If she was researching classified magic, then she might as well learn ahead of time that she could be betrayed like this.
If she doubted her sister, and kept doubting her, until their relationship fell apart. After that, however it turned out, wouldn't it benefit the Demon King's army?
"Hm, anyway, I'll keep this to myself as an unwritten rule. I don't want to cause trouble for a friend of my sister's who helped me out."
She grinned and brought her index finger to her lips. Rote's face was well worth seeing.
Good. That settled the humiliation from a few days ago.
**
That evening, despite the Saliere family's protests, Akasha helped the maids prepare dinner.
"You really don't have to do this...."
"You've put me up. Please, let me do this for at least one day."
At first glance, it sounded like a remark born of goodwill.
Akasha helped with the cooking in an ordinary fashion, then took advantage of a moment when the maids' attention was elsewhere to pull a corked bottle of white powder from her bosom.
"The seasoning seems a little weak."
Pop went the cork. She tipped the white powder into the bubbling pot and stirred it around with a ladle.
The dishes were laid out sumptuously across the wide tablecloth. The quality of the ingredients used had been cheap enough that even commoners could afford them, but prepared by skilled cooks, they gave off an elegant air.
The really extravagant nobles wouldn't even touch this sort of thing, would they? Akasha, who had heard stories from Rosemary and inwardly scoffed at them, picked up her fork.
"Aether, aren't you eating the soup?"
"I'll pass tonight."
For a noble household, the Count Saliere's meals were modest and brief. With the state of things outside, they could hardly hoard expensive ingredients and use them up simply because of their high rank.
"Thank you for the meal."
Akasha could at least acknowledge that much. She nodded, picked up her dishes, and rose from her seat.
That night, the Saliere household went to bed a full hour earlier than usual. For some reason, everyone felt more fatigued than normal.
Rote was no exception. The moment she had confirmed that Akasha was fast asleep, she herself dropped off into a deep slumber.
Akasha counted to exactly 600 and then sat up. She approached Rote and tapped her cheek lightly.
"Hey, you asleep?"
Truthfully there was no need to ask. Her sensory organ could detect the delta waves leaking from Rote's head, confirming it for her. It meant she was properly unconscious.
"Good."
She quietly closed the door behind her as she left.
Ever since discovering the Refining Device in House Saliere earlier that day, Akasha had been certain that the mansion held something more.
Thud, tap, thud. Each step she took made a sound against the floor, but no one sensed anything amiss and came rushing out.
"The sleeping drug's working nicely."
Akasha opened just about every door she could, hoping she'd find something decent. The mansion was sprawling and complex, befitting a frontier count, and merely roaming its interior took more than an hour.
Eventually she reached a storehouse tucked away in a corner. It was sealed with magic, but the spell wasn't very complex, so she dispelled it easily and entered.
The interior was particularly dark. But Akasha possessed an infrared detection device, so even without lighting a separate lamp she could scour the storehouse inside and out.
"Huh."
A fairly large object, reaching up to her chest, blocked the way ahead. When she ran her hands over it, it felt like iron.
"Wait a minute, this is...."
It was a tokamak.