Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 81: Monsters, Monsters

However, to be honest, even without the soldiers going forth to drive them away, there was merely a handful of civilians gathered. Not only did they fear the authority of the aristocrats, they feared the power of magic even more. Heidi’s magic laboratory was undoubtedly a strange, terrifying place in the eyes of those laymen who could not use supernatural powers. Moreover, the explosion that came from the laboratory had struck terror into their hearts. Although watching on in curiosity was humanity’s natural instinct, some scenes were such that even the boldest person wouldn’t dare to go look.

Gawain saw a big hole blown open in a wall of the magic laboratory. Thick smoke was billowing out of it, coupled with a pungent burning smell. There was even some magic that had yet to dissipate, shimmering in the smoke. Meanwhile, Heidi and Rebecca had dashed out of the room, both of them dusty and dirty from the smoke. Currently, Heidi was flustered as she summoned a stream of water to rinse off the ashes on her hair and face, while Rebecca rushed forwardly excitedly once she spotted Gawain. “Lord Ancestor! The power of Art is indeed really impressive!”

Gawain held down Rebecca who was evidently a little too keyed up. He focused on these two, the culprit and victim of the experiment accident who looked as if they’d just been rescued from a black coal pit. “Are you two alright? How did a wall even get destroyed…”

The might of the explosion was slightly more formidable than he had expected. Initially, he had thought that with the existence of protective magic — along with the fact that the ignition would only be of a few crystals that hadn’t even been packed — it wouldn’t be too dangerous.

However, he had neglected one thing. This explosion was not of a gunpowder weapon from Earth, but a kind of magic effect. Regarding explosive magic, whether it was packed in a solid airtight container or not actually had a limited influence on its might…

“The result of igniting a large amount of crystals simultaneously was slightly beyond expectations.” Heidi looked more like a human after finally managing to summon a stream of water and cleaning herself up. Upon hearing Gawain’s question, she went forward with a reply. At the same, she snappily swung a water ball onto Rebecca’s face. “Of course, more importantly was that she placed two sets of samples too close to each other! Double the amount of crystals had been ignited at the same time!”

Gawain quietly darted a look at Rebecca. He believed that this doofus wouldn’t be able to escape this beating today…

After making sure that both of them were fine, Gawain felt relieved to a certain extent. Only after that was it time to care about their properties. “Are the losses great?”

Heidi revealed an agonized expression. “The magic circles I use for experiments were destroyed. Fortunately, the moment the explosion occurred, I’d diverted most of the energy in the direction of the vacant wall. That outrageously expensive crystal resonator was unaffected. In replacement of that is half a wall that needs to be repaired.”

Gawain silently took another glance at Rebecca. Since the most valuable crystal resonator was fine, this doofus was unlikely to be beaten to death…

Rebecca was completely oblivious, of course; it was also possible that she had yet to recover from the shock of the explosion. Noticing that her Ancestor’s eyes had drifted to her several times, she even asked blankly, “Lord Ancestor, why are you looking at me?”

Gawain thought for a moment. “Can you stand beatings?”

Rebecca scratched her hair. “I’m quite alright… I used to fight wolves often when I was young.”

“That’s fine then.” Gawain waved his hand. “How many samples were used this time? How’s the work with the rune trigger?”

“Just… two small piles.” Rebecca gestured with her hands. At the mention of the rune trigger, she even broke into an especially proud look. “Let me tell you, the rune trigger really works! Connecting it to the explosive magic circle to serve as the activation energy is totally enough. Once the magic circle has this initial energy, the subsequent exploding process can be totally supported by those crystals. I plan on testing whether the bit of magical power from the rune trigger is able to activate other pairs of runes of another kind… Ah, ah, if only magical power could have more precise figures. I would know how much magical power is produced when the rune trigger shuts and even calculate how much magical power is consumed when an initial rune group is operated…”

Rebecca’s thoughts unraveled as she spoke, and midway through, she jolted and pulled back her thoughts that had drifted far away and began tattling to Gawain. “Lord Ancestor, let me tell you, Aunt Heidi didn’t believe what I said at the start. She refused to believe that the rune trigger would produce a one-time magical power spark when it closes. She said that it did not have a structure to collect energy…”

At the mention of the rune trigger, Heidi really commended Rebecca. “That item is indeed a good invention. Although there were also mages who previously attempted to dissect a complete magic circle and control the magic mechanisms through the reassembly of these parts, no one had thought of turning such dissection and reassembly into a fixed model. The rune trigger that Rebecca created sets fixed runes as the ‘connecting keys’. Such a structure fits the ‘universality’ and ‘standardization’ which you often tell us about.”

That was because Rebecca had positioned the rune trigger to be a product that ‘even laymen could use’ from the very beginning. She’d even thought to the extent where, if the rune trigger was damaged, the blacksmiths and apprentices in the steelworks could even repair it themselves. Consequently, she simplified this structure to the utmost limit, even to the point where there was only one pair of runes.

Of the mainstream mages in this world, who would think of that?

As for the magical-power standardization that Rebecca casually mentioned earlier, Gawain also put it in his heart.

Although the standard of skills in the current era (for humans, at least) totally did not include the ability to carry out accurate calculations of magical power and normalize operations, there had been developments in this aspect back in the Gondor period, 700 years ago. Some of the mages had once considered, in the presence of almost inexhaustible magical power provided by the Well of Deep Blue, how to utilize this immense energy even more accurately and precisely. Regrettably, the Well of Deep Blue exploded before they could arrive at actual results.

Since he wanted to develop things with this world’s ‘magical power’ as the basis, quantifiability was something that would come sooner or later.

“Let’s repair the magic laboratory first. Then the explosive experiments involving those crystals still have to be continued.” Gawain returned from his brief ponder and said while looking at Heidi and Rebecca, “But those experiment methods have to be adjusted… The might of those crystals are beyond expectations. It’s too dangerous to continue holding the experiments indoors. I will set aside the gentle slope on the eastern side of camp to be the experiment grounds for you two. The terrain there is broad, suited for testing out such items. In addition, do think of how to build a corresponding vessel to serve as the outer shell of ‘Rebecca Crystals’, so that they can be turned into truly usable weapons.”

Rebecca and Heidi nodded in succession and took down these orders. Meanwhile, Gawain was reminded of another rather important matter after some thought. “Hold on. Also — have you two thought of how to delay the magic-circle explosions?”

“Delay the exploding time?” Heidi was stupefied at first; then she quickly realized that not everyone could use the Sculpture Hand to press down on the rune trigger from a far distance.

Given the current operating mechanism of the rune trigger and explosive magic circle, it was something that would explode once the trigger was pressed down. This meant that it was essentially an artifact of instantaneous explosion. Once the switch was pressed down, one wouldn’t know whether the enemy would die, but in any case, one’s own death was a certainty…

In this aspect, the ancient Gondor crystals relied on the ‘friend-or-foe identification’ function that was this close to black technology to guarantee safety. And there was almost a complete set of extremely complicated detonation mechanisms in the crystal which would automatically trigger upon leaving the control of the owner. However, this part of the runes might as well be the creation of aliens in the eyes of today’s mages. It would be difficult to draw out on paper, not to mention recreating it.

Lots of runes and magic circles appeared in Heidi’s mind, and she attempted to use these to satisfy her Ancestor’s demand for a ‘delayed explosion’. She thought of adding a structure to slow down the charging in the rune group. When the rune trigger was pressed down, it would slowly begin to charge, and after the energy was fully charged, it would trigger the explosive magic circle at the next level. But clearly, the instant magical power provided by the rune trigger was entirely unable to fulfill this point.

Rebecca’s mind was thinking fast too. However, other than runes and magic circles, there were also a bunch of springs and connecting rods which appeared in her mind…

She was attempting to use avenues other than magic to satisfy her Ancestor’s demand.

This would be the difference in the manner of thinking between a mage who’d mastered lots of spells and a mage who only mastered one fireball spell.

The two great-great-great-great… -great-granddaughters had their heads full of ideas from the task Gawain handed them, while Gawain remained standing in the same spot. He watched the magic laboratory where smoke was still curling up from and sighed with emotion.

A world… with magic?

As expected, even the first sound of Art was entirely different than that of Earth’s.

As an explosive that required a specific magic circle to ignite, the might and security of ‘Rebecca Crystals’ weren’t a problem. Instead, they’d encountered a huge complication in the aspect of delaying the explosion.

If it had been gunpowder on Earth, all that was needed would simply be a fuse.

In the twinkling of an eye, it’d been a month since the Cecil pioneering camp took root on these grounds. The people and supplies promised by King Francis II had yet to arrive, but there was definite news that they were on the way. The flood season of the Duoergong River this year had come two weeks later than in previous years; the support coming from the heart of the Kingdom was delayed as a result.

With regards to these delays, it could be said that Gawain had long been mentally prepared. In this world where everything was slow and lagging, he could not look to others to work according to the kind of precise and efficient social background that they had on Earth. Hence, his camp building plan remained unaffected, still proceeding according to the established pace.

The majority of the tents in the camp had been changed to sturdy wooden houses that could be used for the long term. At the present stage where cement was temporarily hopeless, Gawain planned to have the craftsmen open up a new area at the western side next for the building of brick kilns to bake mud bricks. Although the production of cement in this world had failed, baking bricks was still possible. This was a technique that already existed here.

Only, traditional brick baking depended on manual labor. The efficiency was extremely low; thus, the corresponding price of the product was high. In areas like Tanzan Town, only residents could afford to live in brick houses.

However, before his plan could be put into action, a sudden unforeseen event disrupted the pace of the camp’s construction.

Several serfs who had gone into the mountains in search of quartz sand had run back in terror. Two of them suffered significant injuries, and one other had been left in the mountains forever.

They had been attacked by ‘aberrations’.