Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku - Volume 15 - Chapter Pr

ONE MORE PROLOGUE

Sataborn came into the world, a newborn.

His family had been wealthy for generations, so he never wanted for anything. At one month old, he was saying words; at three months, he cast his first spell; and before he was crawling, he’d become deeply engrossed in technical books. This amused his father, who gave him everything he desired.

And so Sataborn grew up surrounded by magic tools, spellbooks, and magical gems. One could say that this period of his life shaped the core of his character.

Sataborn’s toddler period:

By this point, people were already calling him a genius and a prodigy, but the boy thought of the praise and extolling of others as no different from the unceasing sound of the wind, and he quickly came to find it annoying, even.

Hidden laws, unknown theories, and magical formulas that turned the unknown into the known welled up one after the other within Sataborn. Once he had his hands full dealing with all this, he became too busy to feel annoyed by the sound of the wind.

Sataborn as a young boy:

Now that he’d gotten to know himself for a long enough time, Sataborn had a general understanding of what did and did not suit him. He pursued his research using the methods that worked best for him. As a result, his reputation fell from “genius” or “prodigy” to “eccentric,” although that didn’t change anything for him.

By this time, Sataborn knew what he wanted. Just about all magics had failed to satisfy him; they were all missing something. There was something insufficient about them. If he could compensate for what they lacked with the ideas that were always welling up from inside him, those magics would regain their proper forms—they’d become beautiful.

Sataborn had things he wanted to do, things he wanted to make. Rest assured, he’d carry them out.

Lyr Sataborn as a young man:

He gained another name on coming of age, but that didn’t change the actions he took.

Sataborn continued to be an active independent researcher. Pharmaceuticals, barriers, grants, alchemy, contracts, curses, magical girls—he tried everything that interested him, generating some results in every area until eventually people were calling him almighty.

But Sataborn didn’t think anything of what others said about him. He focused on his research.

Lyr Cuem Sataborn in his prime:

Because he had completed whatever task was at hand to the best of his ability, he’d been granted another name in recognition of his contributions to the Magical Kingdom. The title of almighty mage was one with some substance, but the man himself was unconcerned about it, as always.

More apprentices showed up at his door. Sataborn treated them like air—that is, he taught them nothing at all. The only way to learn from Sataborn was to sneak peeks at his work, and anyone who disliked that method ended up quitting. It was very rare for an apprentice to stick around for more than six months.

Lyr Cuem Sataborn in middle age:

Whenever schools, departments, or the Lab sought his collaboration, he would respond to them all. It wasn’t like he was seeking to contribute to society; rather, he jumped at the chance to take on any work he couldn’t accomplish on his own as a researcher—work that involved producing confidential magics, such as for the military or the intelligence community. This was because the most important thing to Sataborn was actualizing the ideas inside him.

However, a lot of this kind of work wasn’t supposed to be known to outsiders, and even though he headed the research, Sataborn himself counted as an outsider. In the most crucial moments, he often had the rug pulled out from under him. Right when he was so close to the next stage, when the project was about to become as it should fundamentally be, he would be shooed away.

After many such experiences, Sataborn had learned and transformed. At his core, his desire to pursue the mysteries of magic remained unchanged, but around that core, there arose some “workings of the mind” that had not been there before.

If he was going to be chewed up and spat out before he could finish his work, then he ought to arrange things so that the work couldn’t be completed without him. People asked Sataborn for help in the first place because they couldn’t accomplish certain tasks themselves, so if he planted pitfalls in those tasks that would prove ruinous for anyone but him, then he would need to stay and help until the very end.

No one could so much as guess the newest techniques that Sataborn was capable of, nor the traps he had set. He actually wished someone were able to figure it out, but nobody noticed that it was all intentional. Since no one was going to understand it anyway, Sataborn gradually became bolder with his methods.

These “workings of the mind” operated separately from the old Sataborn, not interfering with his core desire for research. But this wasn’t a different personality. It was one necessary function added to the core of a man who was far too simple.

Lyr Cuem Sataborn, passing middle age:

His desire to make a plethora of hidden knowledge his own and actualize his ideas did not settle down—in fact, it swelled. The days, months, and years passed as he brought to life the ideas that welled up inside him. His hair turned white, and his skin grew wrinkled.

While Sataborn was immersed in his research, his apprentices got married and had children. Sataborn couldn’t stand wasting his time with trivialities and always faked illness for ceremonies and other events. Eventually, his grown nephew kept hanging around and getting in the way, so Sataborn drove him off with some half-hearted scolding.

Sataborn’s “workings of the mind” enabled him to deal with society as needed rather than ignoring it and ending all involvement. He didn’t feel strongly about this either way, but simply carried on with his life, as indifferent as always.

And then Lyr Cuem Sataborn in his old age:

Age deepened his wrinkles and darkened his liver spots, but his mind was sharp as ever. Neither did his body provide any hindrance: Sataborn continued to produce as he pleased.

A new type of barrier, the development of which he’d been involved with for many years, had finally reached a certain stage of completion. And then, just as if they’d been waiting for that moment, members of the Osk Faction came to speak with him.

They were creating a magical girl who would serve as a vessel for the soul of one of the Three Sages, the great mages who had supported the Magical Kingdom since ancient times. The Osk Faction was going to work on an ultimate being, sparing nothing in funds, magic, or lifeblood, with no regard for cost. This magical girl had to be completely new in every sense of the word.

What an incredibly exciting theme for research.

If Sataborn added his existing research to any future endeavors and used the data from the Osk Faction, he should be able to create something interesting—a giddy voice inside him said as much.

He had them secure an island for him and put up a custom barrier there to create the ultimate research facility that none could enter without permission. He filled the island with flora and fauna for easy access as experimental material, while the actual residence was basically just cobbled together.

The Lab tried sending him a helper, which he declined because it was unnecessary. But it foisted a well-built middle-aged man on him, saying, “You can just use him for odd jobs,” so Sataborn acquiesced and allowed his frequent visits. Chasing him off would be a waste of energy.

This man had to be a competent researcher, since he’d been dispatched by the Lab, but he merely did as he was told without a single complaint. Sataborn left him to it, treating him neither warmly nor cruelly. He didn’t feel strongly about the man either way.

One day, when Sataborn had entrusted him with organizing the storehouse—a task that Sataborn would never do himself—the man babbled on about how this place had some amazing items and how this one item was a masterpiece connected to the First Mage. Sataborn, meanwhile, was always good at drowning out background noise, so he avoided trouble yet again by pushing the man’s voice out of his brain.

Sataborn’s mind was occupied with work he had to do. To complete the Sage incarnation’s senses, he had to fill in each part one by one. A lot of mages would assume there was no great difference in senses between magical girls, so you could slack off in that area and put in an existing formula, but if you did it like that, the work would never be able to reach the point it should.

But then the man did something drastic—he grabbed Sataborn by the shoulders and shook him. “Are you listening, old man?!” he shouted, desperately trying to ruin Sataborn’s concentration.

All that violent shaking caused a few pieces of paper that had been left on top of the table to flutter through the air. They were Sataborn’s will, which he’d made during an experiment simplifying will-issuing formulas for a government office. He’d filled it out with whatever came to mind, so it didn’t matter if it got bent or dirty, but he figured the more of a mess was made, the longer it would take his helper to finish tidying up; he calmly removed the man’s hands, pushed him aside, and returned to work, deep in his thoughts away from the man’s voice.

By the time Sataborn had finished the sensory ability settings, the sky was already dark. He could have sworn the man had kept babbling on, but he must have left at some point. Sataborn cleared his mind of any thoughts of that man and seamlessly proceeded to his next task. He had to set a trap that only he would understand in the Sage incarnation’s base. He obscured the way the formulas meshed so that anyone else would get burned were they to interfere, and then he created a secret hole in those formulas. He would not put this in the documentation. If Sataborn was chased off before completion, he would be called back—he was the only one who could revise the incarnation, after all.

At his core, Sataborn cared only for the further realization of his ideas; the workings of his mind knew nothing of self-preservation.