Children of the Rune – Winterer - Chapter 574

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 26.
The Princess and the Detective (26)
“Fine… well, all right then. So you, Langie, tell me what you know about that dangerous substance. I think I deserve to hear at least that much, don’t you? If I sell it, I can make some money. Don’t you think it’s only right that I use that money to cover the consultation fee that Mulberry refused to pay me?”
Langie was my roommate, and though he seemed like someone raised in a greenhouse seeing only spring sunshine—someone who could be easily intimidated—he was actually possessed of tremendous fortitude. The fact that he didn’t fear grades and even stood up to professors earned him a place worthy of a page in Nenyaple’s biographical records. Though it was a record that yielded no practical benefit whatsoever.
At the same time, he embodied rationalism incarnate. That is, if I could persuade him with logic alone, I could gain his cooperation. But he had never once been swayed by arguments like “the professor said so” or “we’re friends.” Perhaps because he was so inhuman—he seemed to get along better with machines than with people.
While I was thinking such thoughts, Langie spoke.
“Do you know what Psyche is?”
It seemed information was about to spill forth. I shook my head.
“Do you look like you’d know?”
“No.”
“Hey… you’re being awfully blunt about it, aren’t you?”
Langie looked up at me with an expression that said “So what?” and continued.
“Psyche are energy lifeforms observed irregularly, mainly where energy concentrates. They don’t seem to possess intelligence sufficient for communication, and because they’re so small, they don’t cause any real harm to people. Plus, they can be eliminated with magic.”
“But?”
“When you destroy Psyche, a ‘dust’ is produced. It’s a useful material, so some mages deliberately hunt Psyche. Different types produce different kinds of dust, and if you combine them well, you can create a magical energy source. If you could collect enough of it in large quantities, you could even power large mechanical devices.”
Langie gazed into empty space for a moment as if imagining it. Perhaps in his mind, a grand and intricate mechanical device was turning smoothly according to some fantastical principle. But when I tried to imagine it, all I could picture was something like a parfait made by haphazardly mixing metal scraps and bolts, then dumping ice cream on top and drizzling chocolate syrup.
In fact, most Nenyaple students would probably imagine the same thing. Only those who remained in this research lab were exceptions. Professor Ostley, the master of this place, was known as an emerging eccentric of Nenyaple—a professor at the Magic School who pushed magic aside and poured all his allocated budget into pretty gears and cute screws. Meanwhile, Langie, unlike most students who were terrified at the mere sight of a lathe, handled craft tools with ease and earned the professor’s favor. As a result, the professor had made the extraordinary decision to personally mentor him—a student not even in the research program—allowing him to skip classes and remain in the lab.
There was good reason for this: there were no other candidates. Any student who had graduated safely and entered the research program would never want to come near Professor Ostley. They wanted to become mages, not mechanics. If assigned to Professor Ostley’s lab, they would think they’d been exiled.
Langie, on the other hand, seemed satisfied with his exile. When he said he’d abandoned most of his classes to remain in this place—which was little different from a mechanic’s workshop—students were initially shocked, but soon understood. Two professors had already stormed out of class arguing with him, so there was reason enough to stop attending classes.
But from my perspective, Langie’s choice to remain here had nothing to do with such reasons. He had simply found a place where he could be alone. He was extremely averse to crowded spaces. To the disappointment of those who enjoyed gazing at his pretty face during class, he disliked people. He disliked even the slightest touch. He had once told someone who stared at him persistently, “There is not so much value in what is pleasant to look upon.”
“So? You’re saying that kind of energy source was inside the gun? That’s what made the gun work?”
Langie looked at me for a moment as if considering how to explain, then pulled out a sheet of paper and unfolded it. He explained things well. For someone who disliked people, he had quite the teacher’s temperament.
“Half right, half wrong. First, this gun is called an automaton. It’s not a real gun. Automatons work with springs, so there’s no need to insert an energy source. But this gun showed suspicious reactions from the start, so the professor examined the inside with an endoscope. What he found was very strange.”
“Strange how?”
“Something like dark chocolate was clumped together and melted inside. It seems to have melted part of the drive mechanism completely. The rest appears impossible to separate. The professor said he’d never seen an energy source bonded in such a form.”
As he said this, Langie picked up a pencil and sketched a simple drive mechanism with several interlocking gears on the paper. Then he laid the pencil on its side and shaded the areas where the chocolate-like clumps were tangled.
“So this gun probably can’t be repaired. Here and here have melted away. From the looks of it, the black substance probably wasn’t in this form originally. Something went wrong and it either burst or melted inside, but I can’t figure out how such a large mass got in there in the first place. Or why it melted.”
Langie explained while pointing to several spots with his pencil, but it was a field I couldn’t possibly understand anyway. So I attempted my specialty—asking a question that struck at the heart of the matter.
“Is it possible it’s actually real chocolate?”
Even at such an absurd suggestion, Langie didn’t laugh and simply shook his head.
“Chocolate doesn’t emit that kind of energy.”
“Then, did it become dangerous because it melted?”
“I’m not sure if it became this way because it melted, but I’ve never seen an energy source emit such strong energy from such a small quantity. That’s why the professor, after his investigation, thought of Psyche dust. I’ve never heard of anyone collecting that much dust, but there’s no other energy source at a comparable level.”
“How strong are we talking?”
“Compared to burning the same amount of blue liquefied fuel, roughly five hundred times?”
As someone with a failing grade in magic, I didn’t know much about magical matters, but I had sufficient reasoning ability. If a lamp produced five hundred times more light than another lamp of the same size, would that lamp be safe? What in the world was happening inside that lamp?
“Hey, is it really okay to just leave something like that on a shelf?”
“It’s not just left on a shelf. It’s inside a magical shielding box. Probably the safest box in this research lab.”
With that, it became clear that stealing the box and opening it would be an extremely dangerous undertaking.
“So that’s all you’ve concluded so far? You can’t even guess at its true nature? And you can’t predict when the research will be finished?”
Langie nodded honestly.
“For now, yes.”
Maximian gathered his thoughts. What exactly was this pistol?
Someone had painstakingly scraped together the dust Psyche left behind, succeeded in synthesizing an enormous energy source, and hidden it within an automaton pistol—then, as various parties appeared seeking it, stealing, snatching, concealing, forgetting, and tumbling through endless cycles of chaos, it had somehow rolled its way here. That much seemed plausible enough.
Whether it had melted like summer chocolate because of Boild or for some other reason remained unclear. In any case, the pistol and the energy source fused together as one couldn’t have been their original state. If they couldn’t be separated, it would mean an enormous energy source had been placed into nothing more than a toy pistol—which made no sense. So the question became: who was this mysterious “someone”? Judging by the escape, it likely wasn’t Mulberry. Could it be Espin? But how could a fresh-faced new student the same age as Maximian have obtained such a tremendous substance?
Of course, Maximian couldn’t claim to know Espin’s true identity. They had only just met today. She could be nothing more than an errand runner sent by someone to retrieve the pistol. Yet for a mere errand runner, she possessed a strangely impressive array of abilities—and seemed to act rather willfully.
Maximian recalled Espin’s appearance once more in his mind. When necessary, his memory replayed even the finest details with remarkable precision. Though only when necessary.
The checkered half-cape evoked the small towns surrounding Keltika. Not the garb of nobility, yet not that of a pauper either. Her pale complexion and large, dark eyes leaned toward northern features, while her black hair suggested southern origins—a confusing mix. Her voice carried something of a boy just entering his voice-changing years. In other words, for a nineteen-year-old male, it was rather high-pitched.
Her unguarded demeanor and manner of speech were nothing like those of a servant or errand runner. There was something commanding about her, something aristocratic—accustomed to giving orders. Her swordsmanship was, needless to say, of the highest caliber. Even in Nenyaple, there were few with such skill.
And most of all, her magic—by no measure did it seem like that of a new student. Wait… could that burning monkey she had eliminated possibly be Psyche or something similar?
“Hey, Langie. Does Psyche come out from inside lamps and such?”
“Lamps?”
Langie thought for a moment, then shook his head.
“I’ve never heard of such a thing. Psyche doesn’t just pop out anywhere on a whim. You have to track it down painstakingly and find it. If it were common, magical energy sources wouldn’t be so expensive.”
Then that theory was out too. Just then, Langie suddenly asked.
“But Maximian, is there really someone who would buy something like that?”
“Huh?”
Maximian retraced his own words and realized his slip. He quickly tried to smooth it over.
“I’m just making up the idea of such a person. Money’s been so tight lately. If you know anyone, introduce them. Or would you buy it yourself?”
Unexpectedly, Langie nodded.
“If the price is reasonable.”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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