Chapter 40
40 New Weapons – Revenge
「「「Mile!!!」」」
「S-Sorry!!」
Maevis sunk to her knees and put both hands on the ground in despair while Mile was being shaken by Rena who had grasped her by the collar, and Pauline looked bleak at the thought of their finances.
「M-Mile, youuu….」
「W-Wait! We can talk this out!」 (TL-Note: These three lines are a pun on talking (hanasu) and letting go of smth/smb (hanasu) for which I found no way to translate it while keeping the joke.)
「Even without letting you go, I understand that I was an idiot to have believed for even just one moment that this could work!」
「N-No, I don’t mean letting me go, no, thinking about it, it would be great if you let go off me! So, let me go and let’s talk this out!」
In front of Rena, who finally calmed down, Meavis who had stood up but was still emitting a gloomy atmosphere, and Pauline who was doing her best to recalculate their budget, Mile started her explanation.
「I am very sorry, I thought I had sufficiently strengthened it with Earth Magic, but it seems like it wasn’t enough…」
「「「……..」」」
All of them had a lot to thank Mile for, and they weren’t really angry at their comrade. But an expense of this scale right after the debut of their party was painful.
That the previous sword had broken had been unavoidable. Its time had come and they had saved enough money for a new one.
On the other hand, losing the new sword they had poured most of their savings in, had hurt.
The clouded faces were worse than yesterday. All but Mile’s.
And in the gloomy trio’s ears, Mile’s upbeat voice resounded.
「Then, I am going to fix the sword now!」
「「「Eh…」」」
「Wait, repairing a broken sword is not as simple as putting the gluing the pieces back together! Even if you put it back together with Earth Magic, that spot is going to snap at next clash, leading to my death! A sword like that is worse than useless!」
Meavis rejected Mile’s words looking unpleased.
「You might not know this, but weapons are not something that simple.
A broken sword has to be melted down into its components and forged from zero. I have never heard of someone using a patched together sword.」
Rena also rejected the swords repair.
Pauline also nodded in agreement.
But Mile didn’t let that bother her.
「Please say that after I show you the results!」
「Isn’t that result lying on the ground over there!!」
They certainly laid around there. The pieces of the broken sword.
「Thank you very much for waiting. This is the repaired sword.
It is hard, will neither break, nor chip, nor bend, will not lose its edge and is easy to take care of. A precious product from the Mile workshop…」
Saying this, Mile respectfully drew the sword from its sheath.
Meavis accepted the offered weapon wordlessly.
「This going to end well I hope…」
Rena and Pauline looked at them with doubt filled eyes.
「H-How rude! It is going to be fine this time! I only held back a bit earlier!
If I get serious something like this…」
「Then be serious about it from the beginning!」
「………..yes…..」
Anyway, Mile was desperate to regain the lost trust of her comrades.
Making a too superior sword was neither good for the party, nor Maevis, nor herself. Thinking like this, she had only done the minimal necessary enhancement last time.
But a sword that would just snap would cost Maevis her life and would put the whole party in danger. And even if they overcame that danger, they’d have to buy a new sword again, which would empty their pockets.
That’s why when she had made the sword stronger she had thought of the high-tensile steel and its carbon content, titanium and other 『materials from earth that are as unbreakable as possible』 in a bid to create a 『robust sword without anything special besides its hardness』.
She thought that that had been enough, but as expected, a boulder was a little bit too much.
But, selfishly, Mile was indignant.
Weren’t there things like a stone cutting sword back on earth?
If she used those manufacturing methods, wouldn’t a simple boulder be nothing?
And what about the trust she had lost?
Further failure was not an option.
If she failed again, Maevis would never again be able to trust a sword Mile had laid her hands on.
…..she had to do this.
Yes, there were no other options.
(This time I will not limit myself by this world’s or earths manufacturing methods! Using all methods and all materials at my disposal I will make a sword that won’t break, no matter what. The edge will be around the fifth sharpest in this world.
The blade will not chip and blood will fall off, a convenient sword that is easy to maintaince! But its appearance will stay as a cheap sword!
The weight and balance will remain the same as before! Now gooo~!)
She pierced the broken blade into the ground, pushed it in with her foot before ramming in the rest of the sword on top of it, and activated her magic.
The result of that was this blade.
「Now, please cut the boulder!」
Maevis hesitated to heed Mile’s words but if she didn’t she wouldn’t be able to depend on this sword.
After all it was a sword that already been snapped in two. If she didn’t do something like batting it against stone she wouldn’t believe that it wouldn’t just break again.
And a weapon you couldn’t trust from the bottom of your heart was of no use in a real battle.
Resolving herself, Meavis lifted the sword and brought it down onto the boulder.
Gakin!
As expected, she hadn’t cut it in half, but her sword had fractured the surface and bitten into the rock, astonishing Meavis, Rena, and Pauline.
「….this.」
And, while Meavis was looking at the sword that had not the slightest sign of chipping with wide eyes, Mile pulled out a short sword from her Storage.
This one was, even though it was called a short sword, around fifty centimeters in length.
「T-That is!」
「Yes, it is your broken sword form yesterday. I thought that it could become useful if you lost your main weapon, so I tampered a little with the remaining blade and reforged it into a short sword. When the odds are against you this will surely become useful…」
Meavis hugged the sword to her breast as though she was overcome with happiness at having the sword she had taken with her from her home coming back once more to protect it.
「….Mile-chan.」
「Yes?」
And Pauline, who seemed to be unhappy for some reason, called out to Mile.
「Could you have repaired and strengthened that sword so we wouldn’t have needed to buy a new one?」
「「Ah…….」」
Three pairs of eyes zoomed in on Mile.
「…eh? But isn’t a side weapon also necessary?」
「Even if the main weapon is a sword that won’t break, no matter what?」
「「……..」」
「N-No, it could be batted away or she could lose grip on it, so there a many reasons for a side weapon, right? Right?」
Looking hopefully towards Maevis, Mile was greeted with a complicated expression.
To be honest, between these two swords, the cheat was much stronger in the short sword.
Since it wouldn’t be used normally there was no fear of it catching someone’s eye, and since the need for it would mean a battle fierce enough to lose the main weapon, having it be even stronger than that was obvious.
「….so, since we have finished testing the sword, now we’ll try cutting down some prey with it?」
「Ah, yes, that’s right. But before that I should test my weapon too…」
「「「Mile’s weapon?」」」
「Yes, as I said earlier, I also have something I want to try out.」
Saying this, Mile took out something fairly odd from her Storage.
「What is that?」
「It is called a Slingshot. You use it to hunt birds or small animals.」
「Hmm~~….」
Rena looked at the small weapon with doubtful eyes.
Apparently it didn’t look like a real weapon to her with its small size and seemingly low power, so she wasn’t really interested in it.
Mile took a couple of pebbles from her Storage and put them into the pouch of the slingshot. Actually, she had made the small pouch magnetic so she could stick several iron balls to it and fire them like a shotgun. Not that this mattered right now…
Mile pulled back the elastic strings and aimed at a branch a little bit away from them.
Her firing stance was completely arbitrary. First of all, this slingshot was something she had made by ripping off a magazine she had read in a past life, and she was sure that the designer of the original would wordlessly punch her if he saw her bastardized version.
She had ignored things like balance, ergonomics, safety of use or material strength, so it was nothing but a very crude slingshot.
But since it was meant for Mile that is no problem. With her power the balance was unimportant and with the Mysterious Materials she had no worries about it breaking.
The body was made of the Mysterious Material that by far surpassed things like titanium.
The elastic strings were made from carbon nanotubes.
And now that slingshot was pulled by Mile. Slingshot fanatics would shout out in despair at her atrocious stance.
It was not the proper stance, using the whole upper body, of stretching the arm holding the slingshot all the way out, then pulling the pouch back to around the position of your shoulder. Instead she pulled only with her arms, the slingshot in the middle in front of her body. The carbon nanotubes were only stretched out half as far as they would be in the proper stance.
The Mile let the pebble fly towards the branch she aimed for.
Pashi!
The pebble splendidly hit the branch, and blew it away.
Of course this was thanks to trajectory corrections by the nanomachines.
「「「Eh…」」」
The other three who saw this were astonished.
「T-This, isn’t this the same as your Wind Magic….」
「Yes, although the principle is completely different and it doesn’t use magic, it fires off pebbles, so in that way they are similar.
I would not want for someone to investigate the number of prey or their injuries too deeply, and with the Wind Magic I could accidentally put in too much strength and explode the target… With birds that is one thing, but if the opponent is human.」
「「「……」」」
With a disgusted look the trio turned silent. It seemed that they had unluckily imagined that case.
「So I thought that I could make it look like the prey I killed with Wind Magic was hunted with this weapon. Since it would be problematic if someone got interested in this spell…」
「L-Lend me that! If I have that I can also use that knock-off Wind Magic!」
Rena also got interested in this weapon instead of the magic which (Mile had threatened) would blow off her finger.
「I can lend it to you if you want, but I doubt that it will be useful…」
「Why!? If I practice I’m sure that I can hit with that too!」
「No, that is not why…」
With a complicated expression on her face, Mile handed the slingshot along with a pebble as ammunition.
「Gu,gugugu…. C-Can’t pull…」
Trying to pull back the (carbon nanotube) strings made Rena’s face flush red.
「I did warn you….」
Having that much power essentially meant having that much kinetic energy, and as for where that energy comes from…
In short, to pull back the (carbon nanotube) strings an enormous amount of force is needed.
Mile’s earlier stance was not because she didn’t know the correct posture, but rather a conscious choice.
But with that stance she achieved the power of a .22 cal pistol. Enough to hunt birds and small animals.
With the correct stance, meaning about twice the way to pull back the string, she would get more power than a Magnum hunting rifle. A 『Secret Weapon』 so to say.
Because normally swords or magic would be use to hunt large monsters.
After that, Maevis and Mile hunted for a bit, and were able to get some confidence in their weapons.
Meanwhile Rena had recovered from the realization that she was unable to use the 『weapon perfectly suited to hunting in the forest』 and started shooting off Ice and Water Magic which were not her strong suit.
Like this, what should have been a free day had in the end turned about quite a bit of profit.
And they lived happily ever after….