Side Story: Researching Arte’s Magic
ARTE WAS A DEEPLY KIND AND GENTLE PERSON. To all appearances she was at her happiest having tea with me or Till. That personality of hers made me hesitate to send her to battle. I wanted her to live in peace in Seatoh Village.
Of course, I wanted that for myself too.
But Arte’s puppet magic was particularly well suited to combat. The irony wasn’t lost on me, given her personality, but her actions had cemented the rapid-fire machine bow squad’s position in battle. Arte’s magic gave her control over all kinds of things, and currently, she used a pair of wood block puppets equipped with mithril armor: the two silver Aventador knights.
I didn’t know if it was because they were made of light materials or what, but those wood block puppets had supernatural mobility. Their mithril armor was also specially made, designed for maximum mobility without compromising protection, and they wielded immense swords more than two meters long, boasting slender forms and top-of-the-line sharpness. These supernatural puppets could race to the heart of an enemy formation, heedless of any damage they sustained.
They posed a monumental threat to any opponent, able to create distractions that helped the rapid-fire machine bow squad provide effective long-range support. The enemy could not ignore the silver knights once their ranks were infiltrated, leaving them wide open to a shower of bolts and arrows—which, helpfully, were so powerful that not even silver shields or armor stood a chance against them. In the enemy’s shoes I’d do anything I could to avoid facing those projectiles head-on; anything else was suicide.
That was how strong Arte’s magic was, and that was why I couldn’t ignore it. In fairness, it would also be beneficial for Arte to know how to protect herself if something were to happen, so I made the call: she needed to learn how to use her abilities properly. But what was the best way to train her? The standard magic curriculum consisted of beginner, intermediate, and advanced courses. I couldn’t be certain, having never experienced it for myself, but I figured it covered how to control one’s magic, more clearly visualize what you wanted to do, and make your reserves last longer.
There was just one problem: nobody had a clue what the curricula would look like for my production magic or Arte’s marionette magic. Khamsin’s thieving magic posed a similar problem. All three aptitudes were scorned by noble society, so there was no publicly available research into how to improve these skills. Production magic was generally considered useless, marionette magic had been used in the past to perform assassinations, and thieving magic was notorious as a skill for criminals.
It was unfortunate that research had been stymied on those fronts, but I had a decent idea of what to do. We needed to explore the scale of the magic and its effects, compare affected targets to each other, and analyze all of it.
“Marionette magic enables the user to control organic and inorganic matter. In other words—hmm, let’s see, the easiest point of comparison would be something inorganic… Mithril is easier to use than iron, so wood is also easier than iron. Right?” I asked Arte, the person who actually used that form of magic.
She put her hands on her knees and nodded seriously. “Yes. Objects made of wood are much easier to control. Oh, and smaller objects are easier as well.”
“Hmm.” I scribbled down notes on a piece of paper. “How many objects can you control at once?”
“In terms of wood puppets, three… No, four, maybe. I can only simultaneously control two iron puppets. And with iron, the overall duration is much shorter.”
“Hmm,” I said again, putting together a simple chart. I separated the materials and number of simultaneous targets into distinct categories, then drew up empty boxes into which to insert times. “All right, then let’s give this a shot.”
“R-right!” Arte said, getting to her feet.
Her determination put a warm smile on my face. Together, we exited the building and walked to the small plaza in front of the manor.
Villagers called out to me while I put together some practice puppets. “What are you up to today?”
“Lord Van, what’s going on?”
“Ah, Lord Van!”
Before I knew it, we had a crowd around us. “We’re practicing magic!” I replied, completing puppets of wood, iron, and mithril.
“Whoa! You used so much mithril!” cried an observing adventurer.
“You could make an entire mithril armor set with all of that,” said another.
“I wonder how much that’d cost.”
“If we’re talking raw materials, a whole damn lot. When you add its value as a piece of art, well. Whew!”
The peanut gallery motivated me to give the puppets a bit of aesthetic flair. Focusing on realism would make them creepy, so I designed them after patterned drawing models. They looked like ceremonial dolls at that point, but the mithril reflected the light in a way that made them feel a bit divine.
All the while, Arte stood next to me with her gaze cast downward and her fingertips trembling. Our audience was only increasing her stress levels.
“Okay, all set,” I said. “Let’s get the ball rolling. Can you start with the wood puppet?”
Arte activated her magic, glancing at her surroundings. “Here goes…” she whispered, and almost instantly the wood puppet rose to its feet.
It looked just like a human standing up from a seated position, and it set the onlookers abuzz.
“Wow!”
“It’s like it’s alive!”
It was unclear whether Arte could hear the spectators. She seemed focused, bringing both of her hands up in front of her and making the puppet somersault first forward, then backward, like an acrobat. Then it kicked off the ground, launching itself into the air. Next, it kicked off the side of the building and spun through the air like a gymnast.
Its jumping abilities far exceeded anything a human could achieve. This world had knights and adventurers, people like Dee, who were capable of insane displays of strength. My guess was that this had to do with magic, a type of power that didn’t exist on my Earth. But even compared to them, Arte’s puppets were on a whole new level.
It probably helped that this puppet was made of wood, but
still.
To adventurers who regularly threw themselves into battle, the puppet’s movements proved particularly surprising. “Incredible…!”
“If that thing had a sword, there’d be no defending against it.”
For something like two minutes, the wood doll danced about, performing all kinds of acrobatics. I checked that Arte was still okay, then called out to her, “Okay, we’re good! Could you take control of the iron puppet next?”
Arte blinked and turned around. “Ah…of course.”
I guess that was shorter than she expected? I plan to quantify the aggregate amount of magical power she’s using later, but for now, output tests are the priority.
Ever earnest, Arte returned the wood puppet to its place and sat it down. She wasted no time activating her magic to take control of the iron puppet. Unlike the wooden one, it produced a loud noise as it stepped its right foot forward to stand up. The puppet was an impressive sight, due in no small part to its weight and the shine of its metal body, but it was incredibly tough and had the power to match its weight. It was a completely different beast from the previous puppet.
Picking up on that, the onlookers went quiet and tense, watching the puppet’s every move. For my part, though, I was vividly reminded of a bunch of robot flicks.
“Here I go,” Arte whispered after she took a single deep breath. She began to move the puppet, making it launch into the air with a boom that echoed across the plaza. Though it might as well have been wearing full-body armor, it flew like it was made of feathers.
Unfortunately, its weight had consequences. Leaping through the air for even ten brief seconds made it land with enough force to shatter the ground beneath it every time. “Ah…”
Arte deactivated her magic so that she could apologize. “I-I’m so sorry!” she said, bowing her head in all directions.
Eh. We’re performing these tests in an open space, so nobody got hurt. It’s fine.
The crowd started chatting again. “…Incredible.”
“If that thing tackled one of us, we’d probably be dead.”
“Oh, Lady Arte, worry not! It’s fine!”
I turned to Arte. “Don’t worry; I can fix this no problem. How does it feel to control this thing? Is the process consuming more magic than before?”
Arte nodded, still looking apologetic. “W-well, um, it does feel a little heavier when I move it. More like, whenever I try to move it, there’s a slight delay before it responds? Oh, and when it lands after a jump, it takes more time to get it to do the next action. I’m…not sure about my magic consumption. I do think the amount of time I can control it for is shorter than before.”
“Hmm.” I jotted down her words in addition to my own observations. The iron puppet did in fact move slightly slower than the wooden one, and its reaction time wasn’t as good, either. To my surprise, however, the magic consumption only saw a slight increase over the wood puppet. “Okay, next up is the mithril puppet!”
“A-all right!”
Once Arte focused and began to control the mithril puppet, it leapt through the air just as swiftly as the wooden one. Not only were its arm and leg motions swift and precise, so were its movements after it landed on the ground. The onlookers were clearly impressed.
“Wow!”
“It’s made of mithril, but it’s moving that fast?!”
“I think this thing could beat a dragon.”
After about two minutes of letting her move it around, I called out to her, “All done!”
“Okay!” Arte replied, sounding relieved. She quickly returned the puppet to its starting position.
“Took a lot out of you, huh?” I asked, watching her.
“Y-yes. I don’t think I can control it for extended periods of time. That being said, it wasn’t as difficult to control as before. I feel like I could handle two at once.”
I nodded. “Then I guess we should try that next, huh? I’d like to investigate how exhausted you get. Are you still up for it?”
“Of course. Which two would you like me to control?”
“Since I want to study your magic consumption, let’s go with the mithril and iron puppets. They’ll make it easy to measure.”
Arte nodded, then activated her magic. The iron puppet stood first, followed by the mithril one. They simultaneously kicked the ground and broke into sprints, but the iron puppet was demonstratively slower. The mithril puppet ran all the way to the roadside tree trunks, then leapt up and spun in the air. At this point, the crowd was watching in stunned silence.
The wood puppet moved fastest, followed by the mithril puppet, then the iron. But the mithril puppet consumed the most magic by a huge margin. A good comparison would be modern-day vehicles: the wood puppets were like two-wheeled motor vehicles, the iron puppets were like trucks and such, and the mithril puppets were like sports cars. Thinking about it that way made it easy to see the relationship between the frame’s weight and its “fuel” consumption.
“I-is that enough?”
Abruptly, I realized that sweat was rolling down Arte’s forehead. She was looking at me and still controlling the puppets. A significant amount of time must’ve passed while I was lost in thought. “Oh, man, I’m so sorry! You can stop now!”
Arte quickly returned the puppets to their starting points, then sat down, looking relieved. “Oh, I’m fine. But controlling two at once sure is exhausting.” She flashed me a tired smile.
I nodded. “What kind of exhaustion is it? Is it different from when you controlled just the mithril puppet?”
Arte looked down and thought in silence for a moment. “Let me see… I think it was several times more exhausting. I believe I could control the iron puppet for up to two hours, but my limit on the mithril one is somewhere around thirty minutes. Controlling them together, I can probably keep going for ten minutes at best. The last time I controlled two wood puppets at once, it was exhausting, but I think I could do that for about an hour.”
I nodded and jotted down some more details. “Gotcha. So does that mean each additional puppet multiplies the magical consumption by itself? Or to the third power? Or are they just added to one another? Wait, it’s possible that there’s a fixed number based on the materials and capacity…” I whispered, analyzing all the possibilities. Arte giggled gently, surprising me. “Hm?”
I turned around to see her covering her mouth with one hand. “Ah.”
“What’s up?” I asked.
Arte gave me a troubled smile and looked straight at me. “I-it’s nothing. It just seems like you’re having fun,” she explained.
The affectionate look on her face embarrassed me a little. It was like she was calling me cute, which felt odd since she was also still a child.
“My bad,” I said, trying to rein myself in. “I think I lost myself in thought.”
“Hee hee… Well, I enjoy it when you have fun,” she replied with another cute giggle, only furthering my embarrassment.
Our audience took the opportunity to provide an entirely different kind of excited commentary than before. “Awesome! This is what I like to see!”
“Someone bring the booze! I can’t handle all of this!”
“Looks like someone’s jealous.”
“Leave ’em be. He’s just jealous ’cause he ain’t got a girlfriend.”
“Shut yer trap!”
Out of nowhere, the people around us were getting riled up. They were even setting up tables and chairs around us, complete with snacks and drinks.
“Go on, Lord Van! As you were!”
“Enjoy yourselves!” said another onlooker, sitting us down in a pair of chairs.
All Arte and I could do was exchange glances and smile.
