Chapter 48:
Secret Technique
“Do you have a room for four?”
Choosing an inn this time was not even a debate. The front door that the Crimson Vow stepped through was none other than that of Faleel’s inn. It was not actually called “Faleel’s Inn”—it was the Daybreak Traveler.
There were plenty of inns that did not follow the “Something-Something Inn” naming convention, but the name “Daybreak Traveler” was still a bit of an odd one. If someone were still traveling at daybreak, wouldn’t that mean they had not bothered to stop at an inn? Or did it refer to someone who departed at dawn? Yet having someone leave too early wasn’t ideal for an inn. If a traveler was not going to take their time and linger a while, they’d have been better off simply camping out for the night, wouldn’t they?
Once Mile started thinking about it, she was so distracted that she couldn’t sleep all night. Apparently, she still did not have enough life experience to realize that it might not be a literal daybreak that was being referred to.
“Oh!”
As Mile continued to ponder the name, Faleel came flying out from behind the reception desk and flung her arms around Mile’s legs.
Hehee, I missed this! A shameless grin spread across Mile’s face.
“I though I wasn’t gonna see you again…”
Oh my god, those adorable, tear-filled eyes! Those twitching ears! I can’t take it!
Snap!
“Quit it!”
Mile had begun crouching down to return Faleel’s embrace without even thinking about it, when a karate chop from Reina came down right upon the crown of her head.
“…And so, thanks to the dragons helping us out, we became friends with the beastmen!”
“I’m so glaaad!”
Naturally, Mile could not go into too much detail about an incident so fresh that the paint had yet to dry, so she told Faleel not of their most recent job but of the previous ruins expedition. Her story was a full-scale production, with revised edits and a brand-new script.
Though this particular tale had apparently not yet made it to this country, it was probably already known in others, so it was fair game to tell. It wasn’t as though it was something that only they knew about in any case. That was Mile’s reasoning.
After dinner, when Faleel was free and there were only a few guests around in the dining room, Mile called Faleel over to their table to tell her their tale. Some of the guests, who appeared to be hunters, overheard as well but assumed it to be nothing more than a nonsense story designed to entertain a small child, and so they just smiled along.
(A few days later, when those same hunters went to check the information board at the guild and saw what had been posted there, they would be stunned into silence.)
From within the kitchen, the owner, who was cleaning up after last call and preparing for the next day, glanced jealously now and then at the Crimson Vow, seeing how much fun they were having with Faleel. Beyond him, the woman who appeared to be his wife was grimacing.
Hm…? What about the boys?
According to Faleel, her elder brothers were on a separate shift, in charge of getting up first thing to clean the kitchen and dining room, peel the potatoes and wash the vegetables, and do all sorts of troublesome jobs that they didn’t want to make their little sister do. Faleel was left in charge of the reception, the bookkeeping, and occasionally cleaning the tables after the customers had gone home.
This seemed overly doting, but then again, Faleel’s lineage—the equivalent of what would have been Western European ancestry back on Earth, mixed with beast blood—made her look older than her actual age of just six years old. It was still a bit early for her to be assigned any strenuous tasks.
Plus, on particularly busy mornings, or at other times when the inn was especially full, as when a tour group was stopping through or the whole capital was flooded with travelers because of some big to-do, it was all hands on deck.
At the moment, the boys were probably off playing in their rooms, or else getting some shut-eye in preparation for another early morning.
In this world, there were children who got outside jobs even before the age of ten, so it was only natural that they would be put to work in their own family’s business.
“Mile, I’ve got a request!”
After taking a few minutes to catch her breath back in their room, Mavis called over to Mile, a serious look upon her face.
“Um, could I get you to teach me those moves you used? The ‘Secret Technique: Meteor Bat for a B-rank Small Fry’ and ‘Demon-Slaying Blade: Vacuum Knee-Cutter’? Please, I’m begging you!”
She sank to the floor, her head bowed.
It was a “Japanese dogeza.” Thanks to a misstep on Mile’s part, she had inadvertently introduced the move to the others when apologizing to them in the past.
“M-Mavis, please don’t do that!”
Mile disliked having to do a dogeza, even when apologizing from the bottom of her heart, but she hated to see someone else doing it even more. To have it directed at her was even worse and would be uncomfortable for just about anyone.
Well, actually, there were probably some who would not mind it so much—but such people were already outside the bounds of normalcy and best given a wide berth to begin with.
“N-now then!”
“Nn…”
Even Mile was aware of the inferiority Mavis felt when compared to the mages of their group.
Using the “EX Godspeed Blade” made her invincible, true, but the technique came with great limitations, and no true knight would be happy to boast of their own strength if they had to rely on an elixir to give it to them. Furthermore, even the flame attack she had mustered was only thanks to said elixir, and afterward, Mavis had soon begun to feel the side effects.
Though the elixir hadn’t bothered her much at the time, on their return to the capital, Mavis had begun to complain that her stomach felt like it was on fire and that her throat was in pain. Her allies cast a healing spell upon her in a hurry.
After Mavis finally started feeling better, thanks to the healing spells, they made camp early in order to get her to rest. Then once everyone had gone to sleep, Mile, who had taken the first watch, had a conversation with the nanomachines… This was a matter of her dear friend’s health, so it was not a time for Mile to balk at any self-imposed limitations on communicating with them.
Say Nanos, about Mavis’s condition…
FORGIVE US. IT APPEARS THAT PROTECTIVE MEASURES WERE TAKEN, BUT THE AMOUNT OF CONTINUOUS FIRE THAT WOULD FOLLOW WAS UNDERESTIMATED… WHILE WE WERE ABLE TO GUARD AGAINST ANY DIRECT BURNS, IT SEEMS THERE WERE SOME PARTICLE BEAMS INCLUDED IN THE LAST FEW SHOTS.
Whaaaaaaaat?!?!
Particle beams… Electron beams, proton beams, neutron beams…
The phrase “particle beam barrier” floated through the back of Mile’s mind.
I-Is she gonna be alright?!
Mile was white as a sheet. The voice of the nanomachines vibrated in her eardrums.
PLEASE BE AT EASE. THOUGH THEY WERE PARTICLE BEAMS, IT WAS NOTHING THAT WOULD TAKE A GREAT IMMEDIATE TOLL UPON THE HUMAN BODY.
THE PARTICLE BEAMS THAT WERE RELEASED IN THIS INCIDENT WERE ONLY A SECONDARY PRODUCT OF THE ENERGY CREATED TO ENACT THIS PSEUDO-MAGIC, AND ONLY A VERY SMALL NUMBER WERE RELEASED, SO THEY SHOULD NOT CAUSE ANY PARTICULARLY VIOLENT DAMAGE TO HER CELLS OR DNA.
“Particularly?”
NO, WELL, ONLY VERY FAINTLY… HOWEVER, THANKS TO THE HEALING MAGIC OF YOU AND YOUR COMPANIONS, LADY MILE, SHE HAS MADE A COMPLETE RECOVERY. THE NANOMACHINES RESIDING INSIDE OF HER LADYSHIP MAVIS’S BODY HAVE BEEN STERNLY PRESSED TO TAKE SPECIAL CARE IN ENACTING THE HEALING MAGIC UPON HER AS WELL…
I see. Thank you.
Still, did that mean that particle beams were created every time someone used magic? If so, that was incredibly dangerous…
AN EXCEPTION! THIS TIME WAS AN EXCEPTION!!!
GENERATING FLAMES INSIDE OF THE HUMAN BODY IN THE MANNER OF A DRAGON NORMALLY NEVER HAPPENS! GENERATING ENERGY WITHIN A CLOSED SYSTEM REQUIRES EXTRADIMENSIONAL COUPLING AND A NUMBER OF OTHER SPECIAL MEASURES!
Though Mile had not specifically addressed the nanomachines, the nanomachines responded to her thoughts in a panic.
THIS IS NOT A REQUIREMENT FOR ORDINARY PSUEDO-MAGIC, AND DRAGONS ARE FAR STURDIER, SO IT’S EASIER FOR THEM TO DEAL WITH THE CONSEQUENCES…
Apparently, they could not stand the thought of Mile having any distrust of magic itself.
Incidentally, Mile banned Mavis from ever using her “fire breath” again.
Mavis, who had assumed that she now understood a technique that would allow her to challenge even the mages, was of course strongly opposed to this decree. However, as Mile explained to her that it was a technique suited only to those with a body as powerful as a dragon’s, and that by using it, Mavis ran the absurd risk of bringing about her own death, Mavis became aware of her prior recklessness, and bit by bit, her resistance weakened.
Finally, Mile gave her an ultimatum: “You are forbidden to use this technique unless someone’s life is in danger, and you have absolutely no other means at your disposal. Should you break this rule, you shall thenceforth never receive another Micross capsule ever again.”
With that, Mavis finally assented.
Yet here Mile was, dangling these sword-like special techniques right in front of Mavis’s face.
“Wh-why I myself was just thinking how I ought to teach them to you…”
“R-really?! Thank you, Mile! I owe you my life!” Mavis was overjoyed. “Really though, I’m sorry if I’m asking a lot here. I’m assuming they’re a family secret of yours, so I promise never to share them with anyone else. I swear it!”
“Still, even if I teach them to you, I’m not sure that you can use them…”
“It’ll be fine. I can do it. I’ll show ya!”
“Uh-huh…”
The problem was that those techniques employed magic.
No matter how fast you could swing a sword, nullifying an opponent’s spells with your blade or sending magical waves flying obviously depended wholly on magic, which would be virtually impossible for someone like Mavis who lacked the means to use magic externally.
Later, as Mile crawled into bed, she thought of Mavis and how horribly despondent she would be at the discovery of something completely out of her reach even after all the hard work she had put into tempering her body. Mile’s heart grew very heavy.
Ugh! Why did I have to put it like that? Then again, there’s no way I could’ve denied her without reason when she looked that desperate…
WOULD YOU CARE FOR OUR ASSISTANCE?
Wah!
The sudden voice startled Mile.
What’s this now?
WELL, IT SEEMS THAT OUR COLLEAGUES’ CLUMSINESS HAS CAUSED TROUBLE FOR HER LADYSHIP MAVIS, SO WE THOUGHT THAT WE MIGHT BE OF ASSISTANCE…
OF COURSE, WE ARE ALWAYS READY TO SHARE OUR INFORMATION, SHOULD YOU EVER REQUEST IT, LADY MILE…
Mile got the faint impression that they were implying that she should rely on them more, but she wasn’t interested in running to them for every little thing, so she ignored this.
However, if there were a way to ease her current worries, then she would accept it in a heartbeat.
Indeed, it was her perennial philosophy at play:
“Now is now, and then is then!”
***
As they had just completed a job, the girls decided to take a short vacation. Since they had been in an all-out battle, and because they had earned quite a bit of money, they decided to take three days off. They had only just stopped in at the guild the previous evening, so for today they were each free to do whatever they liked.
“Miss Mavis, could I ask you to accompany me today?”
Seeing the serious expression on Mile’s face, Mavis knew exactly what she was asking.
And so, with an equally serious look, Mavis replied, “Gladly—if you’ll have me.”
Mile gave a grave nod.
“We’re coming too, then!” Reina cut in from beside them, as always.
However…
“Please, I must ask you to sit this one out.”
“Huh?”
To Reina’s surprise, Mile swiftly denied her. As she gaped in confusion, Mavis voiced her objections as well.
“Mile is passing on a family secret to me. Even passing it to me is as good at giving up her family’s livelihood, something to which she must be loath to agree… I would not dare to allow another soul to bear witness to such a thing. Though you may be my allies, I still cannot permit this. At least this once, I must ask that you don’t follow us, not even in secret.”
So came the stern declaration, not only from Mile, but from Mavis, who was always so gentle toward others.
Even Reina could recognize that there were some lines that simply should not be crossed.
“I-I get it! Do whatever you want!”
And so, leaving behind Reina, her face arranged in an expression of studied disinterest, and Pauline, who merely shrugged, Mile and Mavis headed into the forest beyond the capital’s walls.
Blessedly, the other two did not follow them into the forest. Such a thing would be a deep breach of the trust between the party members—a fact of which there was no way the other two could possibly be ignorant.
“Now then, let’s begin.”
“Please, let’s.”
The expressions on both of their faces were serious.
“First, allow me to start with an explanation of the skills. As you are aware, my own technique as a swordswoman pales vastly in comparison to yours, Mavis. My only redeeming features are my speed and brute strength.”
Although that’s quite a high hurdle already, Mavis thought to herself. However, she continued to listen quietly and respectfully.
“These skills are not ones that rely on that strength or speed. Er—well, I suppose a bit of speed is involved in striking back at magic that’s flying toward you…”
Mavis nodded.
“What’s most important here is what I would call ‘spirit.’”
“Yeah!” Mavis nodded, her eyes glistening. If the key were magic, then there would be nothing she could do about it, but strength of spirit she could handle.
Mile then began a fabricated tale, reworked from what the nanomachines had told her the night before.
“So, Mavis, you’ve realized that you can use your spiritual strength within your body, but you can’t send it out into the world, yes? Even your flame spell was something that originated within your body and was fired out directly from your body. This means that it’s currently impossible for you to do things like combine that spiritual energy with your sword to deflect or destroy your opponent’s magical attacks, or to send out your own energy waves.”
“What…? So, that means that I can’t use them…?”
Mavis was stunned, but of course Mile was not finished.
“So I’m going to enact a countermeasure to ensure that you can use your energy externally in a concrete form. First, I will need some of your blood and your hair.”
“Wha…? No, screw it. That’s fine! At this point I’d sell my soul to the devil if it meant I could learn those techniques!”
When Mavis heard the words “your blood and hair,” her mind immediately ran to deals with devils. The thought was highly understandable.
Mile then took Mavis’s sword, extracted it from its sheath, and placed it on the ground.
“First, the blood.”
At Mile’s words, Mavis drew her back-up dagger and pressed the blade to her left arm without hesitation. And then, she sliced across.
The blood trickled down, coating her sword. Mavis then laid the dagger beside it, coating the smaller blade with blood as well.
“That should be enough,” Mile said, magically treating the wound on Mavis’s arm until the cut healed up perfectly.
Next, she cut some of Mavis’s hair and sprinkled it across both blades.
She hadn’t hacked at the hair, merely snipped a bit from Mavis’s bangs, so the effect on her appearance was negligible. The short pieces of hair adhered to the blades, upon which the blood was already beginning to dry.
Do your thing, nanos!
YOU’VE GOT IT, BOSS.
The blood and hair was then absorbed into each of the blades, which glowed with a light just bright enough to obscure their shapes and then dimmed to reveal…
Two blades, tinged with a slightly reddish-golden hue that had not been there before.
They were an extension of Mavis’s body itself, imbued with her own hair and blood. They would serve as antennae.
Why was it that demons possessed stronger magic than the other humanoid races?
THAT IS BECAUSE THEY HAVE ANTENNAE.
Or so the nanomachines had explained to Mile.
Demons had something that the other humanoid races did not—namely, their horns, which sprouted directly from their skulls. These helped them to radiate their thought pulses with greater efficiency.
Mavis’s ability to radiate thought pulses externally was incomplete, and her internal antennae were in poor form. Thus, it was better to prepare her an external transmitter, which could be appended to the exterior.
These blades, which had now absorbed Mavis’s hair and blood, had become like parts of Mavis’s body. So it was little wonder that such an object could be used as a conduit for her desires.
“As I explained, your own spirit should be coursing through these two blades, Mavis. Now, please try practicing those skills. And then, when you need to increase your power, drench the hand that is gripping your weapon.”
“Drench?”
“Yes. You see, most of the resistance that will prevent that sword from conducting your ‘spirit’ will come from the place where your hand and the sword are directly in contact. By wetting that part, you reduce the resistance. Water and sweat and the like are all fine for the job, but obviously the most efficient thing is…”
“Blood, right?” Mavis asked.
“Yes…” Mile replied, just as the swordswoman had suspected.
Mavis bared her teeth and grinned.
Indeed, no matter how powerful a voltage you could generate, the more resistance you have, the less power would be transmitted. This is the reason that so many people receive accidental shocks in the summertime—when your palms are slick with sweat, the resistance is lowered, and a greater voltage can run through you.
Likewise, if one’s palm were soaked with blood, or blood directly from a wound were touching one’s sword, then it would be easier for a thought pulse to run through the sword. Acting as an antenna, that sword, through which the thought pulses now course, could radiate those thoughts out into the environment where the surrounding nanomachines could pick up on them and react. With this arrangement, Mavis’s commands could reach not only the scant number of nanomachines that existed within her body but all those outside of her as well.
“However, for now, please use this skill sparingly. Especially while you’re practicing… using these skills in a casual manner won’t do much to strengthen you. And of course, please be careful not to let your sword slip from your hands while they’re wet…”
“Mile, just what do you think it means to be a swordswoman? Any sword-wielder who would let their blade slip from their hands just because of a little sweat or blood would never make it in this discipline. Plus, what do you think all these complicated wrappings on the hilt are for?”
“Oh! Is that what that is?”
“Mile…I know it’s only secondary to being a mage, but you are still a magical swordswoman, aren’t you?” Mavis shook her head in disbelief.
And so Mile, replacing “magical power” with “spirit,” continued her instructions, and Mavis’s special training proceeded.
At the end of the first day, when they headed back to the inn at dark, Mavis’s body was spent, but her eyes were glistening.
“Could we give Mavis first dibs on playtime with Faleel today?” Mile requested, and Reina and Pauline nodded in reply.
It was unanimously agreed that Mavis was clearly in need of a bit of “Faleel therapy.”
At the end of the second day, when Mavis returned to the inn, the others noticed that her body, ever a slender thing, had begun to look even more trim… No, actually, she was just losing weight—wasting away, even.
She looked lightheaded, but her eyes were still glimmering.
“Say Mile, is she all right? Don’t you think it’d be better for her to take a break from training tomorrow and get some real rest?” asked Reina.
“I-I agree,” said Pauline.
“I do,” said Mile, “but there’s probably not much point in telling me that…”
“I’m going again tomorrow. If Mile doesn’t come with me then I’ll just go by myself. Almost—I’m almost there…” Mavis groaned. Laid out on her bed as she was, they had all assumed she was already unconscious.
“You heard her. If I let her go alone, there’ll be no one there to keep tabs on her, and she’s likely to push herself too far…”
Thus, there could be no further argument. Reina and Pauline had no choice but to trust in Mile.
Mile, however, was worried. Soon enough, Mavis would come to fully grasp those skills. And when that happened…
What the heck am I going to name them?
***
“Vacuum Cutter.” “Magic Cutter.” “Wild Magic Blade.” Ugh! I just can’t think of a good naaaaame…
As she watched Mavis’s practice, Mile was suffering. This was not some one-off phrase, it was something that Mavis would have to say in front of other people for the rest of her days. It couldn’t be some throwaway punchline.
Just then…
Whsh!
A translucent arc came flying from Mavis’s blade, striking a shrub several meters ahead.
“Oh…” Mavis stood dumbstruck, her jaw hanging open.
“Congratulations! You’ve just mastered the ‘Wind Edge’! Now you just need to increase your speed and power independently, and put it all into practice.”
“W-weh. Waaaaaaaah…”
Mavis fell to her knees, tears running down her face.
“It’s too early to celebrate, Mavis. Next up, you have to learn how to keep your spirit energy within your sword so that you can fend off or repel an enemy’s magical attacks. That way you can conquer the secret exorcist-style technique, the ‘Anti-Magic Blade.’ If you can’t master that, you’ll never be on equal footing with a mage!”
“Oh, yeah! I’ll master it! I’ll master it for sure!”
Even as the tears continued to flow, Mavis grinned, her eyes sparkling again.
And Mile thought to herself, Th-thank God! I managed to do it! I came up with some good naaaaames!
She had chosen the name “Wind Edge” because anyone who heard it would assume that it was nothing but ordinary wind magic. It would be bothersome for Mavis to have to explain every single time that she was using “a technique that draws on your spirit energy.” Plus, that would cause others to assume that it was a skill that could be used even by people without any magic—which would be a big problem.
If such a thing happened, there was no question that magicless sword-wielders the world around would come banging on Mavis’s door, begging her to teach them what she knew.
***
Later that evening, sometime past the nine o’clock evening bell, in the Crimson Vow’s room…
“Say, it’s all good. Come over here with me.”
Mavis had a complete monopoly on Faleel.
“Wait a minute, Mile! Why does Mavis seem so confident and full of herself now?!”
“Ahaha…”
Mavis always worked so hard, it was okay for her to get a little carried away, at least for tonight, Mile thought.
Hey, nanomachines in Mavis’s blades?
YES!
YES, MA’AM!
That night, once everyone was sound asleep, Mile called out psychically to the nanomachines in charge of Mavis’s sword, as well as her back-up dagger, and received a response from each party.
Thanks for all your help. Now, should either of these blades ever become unusable, or fall into the mouth of a volcano, or end up stolen with little hope of ever being returned to Mavis’s possession, could I ask you to please consider your exclusivity contract void? In those cases, could you vacate the blade once you’ve rendered it useless and relocate to Mavis’s next sword? You’d be acting as an external antenna on that one as well…
CONSIDER IT DONE. REMAINING WITH HER LADYSHIP FOR HER ENTIRE LIFE IS BUT A PASSING MOMENT FOR US. THE TIME SPENT SHOULD BE ENJOYABLE FOR US AS WELL, SO DO NOT FRET…
YEP YEP! LEAVE IT TO US!
Receiving the swift consent of the representatives of each blade, Mile was relieved.
These special new skills relied not on the “Micross,” but on Mavis’s “spirit” energy. With her blades as her antenna, Mavis could now emit her thought pulses in order to activate even the nanomachines outside of her body. Granted, because her emission strength was fairly weak to begin with, she would still be unable to properly use any magic outside of those two special moves.
Besides, if she lost or could no longer use her current weapons, then she could no longer use the techniques. This really meant that she would be relying on the sword’s power, and if she lost her sword, she would lose much of her strength with it, putting her life in danger.
And so, though she felt as though she was somehow bending the rules or putting herself above the law, Mile implored the nanos to ensure that Mavis’s most beloved sword would always be able to use her two special techniques—even if the sword itself changed.
Should that day come, Mile trusted in the nanomachines to take the appropriate measures and let Mavis’s blood flow through that new blade just the same.
In the end, though Mavis was in high spirits, her body was worn to its limits, and so the Crimson Vow decided to extend their vacation for three more days.
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