TBAGM Vol. 3 Chapter 4 Part 4

At the same time, over at Twinwing Alchemists, Elna and Rena had gathered in the alchemy room.

“Rena. I want to be useful to Lord Lloyd.”

“Yeah, I feel the same way.”

The previous night, they too had been informed of the outline of the operation to subjugate Noir.

There was only one day left.

For those in the rear support group, like blacksmiths and alchemists, it was an absurdly short amount of time.

Even so, that was no reason to give up.

“We already have potions in stock, so if we’re going to do something, we need to think of something besides potions.”

“I already know what we should do.”

“And what are you planning?”

When Rena asked, Elna broke into a grin.

“We’re going to make Ellis super strong.”

“Make Ellis stronger?”

Rena did not seem to get it.

That was only natural. Even now, Ellis was overwhelmingly strong.

Rena could not even begin to imagine how she could be made any stronger than she already was.

“Nick’s probably going to make Nero stronger. So I’m going to make Ellis stronger.”

“You mean Mr. Nick and the others at Twinwing Smiths are going to make Nero a weapon?”

“Yeah. Nero’s weapons were worn down. Either Nero will bring it up himself, or Nick will suggest it.”

Elna always kept her eyes on all sorts of things.

She already knew whose weapons were worn down, who was doing what, and so on.

“So why Ellis?”

“Because I’m the one best suited to making Ellis’s weapon.”

Elna spoke with complete confidence.

“I can see mana, so I know. Wands have an outlet for mana.”

“An outlet?”

“Control? That might be closer. There’s a kind of opening that lets the magic come out neatly and in one piece.”

“Huh, that’s the first I’ve heard of that.”

“Yeah. Lord Lloyd told me only wand craftsmen really know about it.”

A magic wand did not merely amplify the effects of magic. It also handled control.

For example, suppose someone used a hundred units of mana on a spell that only needed ten. In that case, the spell would not become more powerful. More likely, it either would not activate at all or would misfire.

It was the same as cooking. Too much was bad, and too little was bad. If it was not the proper amount, it served no purpose.

A magic wand also played the role of supporting that balance.

“But Ellis’s 【Water Ball】 is weaker because of that outlet.”

“Huh? Even with how strong it already is?”

Rena’s eyes widened in disbelief.

She had seen Ellis use 【Water Ball】 several times before.

Most of all, there had been the 【Water Ball】 during the siege against Oni’s Fang, the one that had destroyed a castle in a single shot. Even Rena had been thoroughly stunned by that.

“Y-You mean you can make it even stronger than that 【Water Ball】 from the siege?”

“Yeah. If my idea works, I can make it several times stronger.”

“And what is this idea?”

“Ellis’s current 【Water Ball】 is definitely strong. Making it huge, making it tiny, speeding it up, slowing it down, adjusting it in all kinds of ways, that’s a strength nobody else has.”

“That’s true. I’ve never seen anyone besides Ellis do that either.”

“But every single one of those 【Water Balls】 still has to pass through that outlet, so there’s a limit to how much mana a single shot can carry.”

“Um… do you mean the thing where the bigger the 【Water Ball】 gets, the weaker it becomes?”

The smaller Ellis made her 【Water Ball】, the faster it became, allowing her to fire extremely powerful shots.

On the other hand, the larger she made it, the slower it became, and its power dropped as well.

Since it was only natural for something larger to become slower, no one had ever imagined there was still room for improvement.

“What if a super-giant 【Water Ball】 could move at high speed and still have enough power to destroy any wall?”

“That would be… insane.”

Rena tried to imagine it, but it was so far beyond common sense that she was left speechless.

“Exactly. I’m going to remove that restriction.”

Elna looked excited.

“But there’s one big problem.”

“A problem? If the mana amount is limited because it has to pass through that outlet, then can’t you just get rid of the outlet? Or if that’s impossible, make it as big as possible?”

“There’s one more reason wands have an outlet besides control. It’s a mechanism to protect the wand itself.”

Magic wands had durability, too.

They did not break easily, but after being used for years, they gradually wore down.

And suppose someone forcibly widened the outlet that controlled mana.

That would cause an enormous amount of mana to burst out of the wand all at once, without the slightest regard for the wand’s durability.

The wand would likely break immediately from that burst of mana.

“Then that means we just need to make a wand with enough durability.”

“Yeah, but that’s pretty difficult. Most magic wands are made from materials with an affinity for mana.”

“Right. A famous one would be the wood of the Caene leaf plant used in potion-making.”

“But the woods with mana affinity only have poor durability.”

“Huh… th-then what are we supposed to do? We don’t have time to start searching for materials now.”

“It’s fine. I already took care of that.”

As soon as Elna answered, a young boy entered the room.

“Honestly, Lady Elna, you’re being too demanding!”

The one who came in with tears in his eyes was Renz.

He was a boy who had joined Twinwing Alchemists not long ago as a newcomer.

He was an elf, and at first he had refused to acknowledge Elna, a dark elf, but after she had utterly crushed him, he had been worked like a slave ever since.

“Renz, did you bring that thing?”

“I brought it, but… don’t blame me for whatever happens, okay?”

“It’s fine. If anything happens, I’ll just blame you.”

“Then that’s a relief… wait, I’m the one getting blamed!?”

Renz let out a ridiculous cry at that unreasonable treatment.

Ignoring him, Elna took the rod wrapped in cloth from him.

Then she immediately stripped the cloth away, revealing what it really was.

“Elna, is that…?”

Rena knew at a glance what Elna was holding.

It was that famous, that rare, and above all, absolutely not something that should have been here.

“Yeah. A branch from the World Tree.”

It was a branch from the great tree in the elven nation known as the World Tree.

The World Tree was said to be so ancient that it had existed since the birth of this world, and for elves, it was an object of worship.

A branch that formed part of such a tree was even said to be unbreakable, and unless one used a secret technique known only to elves, it could not be scratched in the slightest.

That was why it was used in many different fields within the elven nation. Though, due to its rarity, only nobles and royalty could make use of it.

And now, a branch from that very World Tree was here.

“We’d normally get in trouble for this, right?”

“Of course. Naturally, dark elves aren’t allowed to touch it, but humans aren’t permitted to either.”

“Hmm-hmm-hmm.”

“…Well, it’s too late for that now.”

Elna had no intention of listening to Renz’s warning.

Faced with a material she was seeing for the first time, she could not contain her excitement.

For a while, no one’s voice would reach her. Thinking that, Rena decided to clear up her questions one by one.

“Renz, how did you get your hands on something this valuable?”

“Well, my family line is actually a fairly influential noble house even among elves, so obtaining a branch from the World Tree itself isn’t that difficult.”

“A-A noble!?”

“Yes. So I guess this sounds like an excuse, but that kind of background is part of why I used to have such strong racial prejudice.”

Hearing Renz’s explanation, Rena understood.

Nobles were proud people. Elven nobles especially tended to look down on every race other than their own.

The reason Renz had hated dark elves so intensely before was because that was how he had been raised.

“B-But was it really okay for you to bring something like this?”

“Not at all.”

“Right, figured.”

At Renz’s instant reply, Rena buried her head in her hands.

A dark elf was handling something elves treated as sacred.

In the worst case, it could mean a death sentence.

While Rena desperately tried to think of what to do, Renz relaxed the tight line of his mouth.

“But that would be the judgment of ordinary elves.”

“Huh?”

“My parents told me I could use this branch however I wanted.”

Learning that Renz had not secretly stolen it out on his own, Rena felt a moment of relief, but another concern immediately came to mind.

“B-But that just means Renz was allowed to use it freely, right?”

“No, I properly explained that Lady Elna, a dark elf, would be touching it too. I got permission with that included.”

“…What?”

The impossible explanation brought Rena’s thoughts to a halt.

Then Elna joined the conversation.

“I told him to be honest.”

“You did?”

“At first, Renz was going to steal it in secret. But that would go against Lord Lloyd’s teachings.”

“E-Even so, if you told them that, they obviously would’ve objected, right? There’s no way adult elven nobles would give in that easily, right?”

Rena’s question was entirely reasonable.

Ask ten people, and all ten would have reacted the same way.

“Of course, it’s not like I went in without a plan. I had Renz bring one of the potions I made.”

“Elna’s potion… don’t tell me you mean those support potions?”

“Yeah. The ones I finally finished recently, the kind that make you stronger or faster.”

While Nick and the others had been developing magical revolvers, Elna and the others had been working on their own potion development.

Potions were medicine used for healing.

Breaking even that fixed idea was exactly the sort of thing members of Veiled Moonrise did.

Making use of Lily’s imagination as a newcomer specialized in development, Elna had wondered whether support magic could be turned into potions.

What came from that was the support potion.

An outrageous technique in which Elna broke down the formula of support magic and then used 【Magic Manipulation】 to hammer the residual mana into a potion.

Who would ever think of such a thing?

Who would ever make such a fantasy real?

“So? How did Renz’s parents react?”

“They were stunned. They kept saying, ‘What kind of genius alchemist is my son working under?!’”

“And when you told them she was a dark elf?”

“Oh, they completely blew up. Because I’d kept it from them until now, because I was working under a dark elf, and more than anything because a dark elf had mastered alchemy in the first place.”

“Exactly as expected. That’s why after that, Renz had to do the hard part.”

Elna gave Renz an enthusiastic thumbs-up.

Then Renz began speaking in a calm tone.

“Up until now, I’ve lived exactly the way my family told me to. I never once doubted that what my parents said was right.”

Most people were probably the same as Renz.

No one questioned what was considered correct. Living like that consumed a person mentally.

“I’d never once voiced my own opinion, and I’d never rebelled either.”

Renz had grown up receiving plenty of love from his noble parents and had lived a wealthy life. There had never been any room in that life for rebellion to take root.

“So that day, for the first time, I told my parents what I thought. That Lady Elna was an alchemist worthy of respect.”

Naturally, Renz’s parents had refused to listen.

They worried that he had been misled, that he had been deceived.

“But no matter how many times they denied it, I didn’t give up. I explained it over and over, bowed my head, and sometimes even got angry. It might’ve been the first time in my life I’d ever talked to my parents that much.”

Renz spoke with a bitter smile.

“But prejudice toward dark elves isn’t something that can be erased in a single day. No matter how much I pleaded with my parents, that part stayed the same.”

If he could have corrected that prejudice in a single day, then the world would never have ended up like this to begin with. It would not have been a world where dark elves were oppressed.

“But it wasn’t pointless.”

“Huh?”

Rena, who had been looking down, suddenly lifted her face.

“In the end, we found a good middle ground.”

“A middle ground?”

“They said that if I believed in Lady Elna, then maybe they could try believing in her once as well.”

Clenching his fist in triumph, Renz looked full of accomplishment.

It seemed his parents had finally yielded before their son’s desperate persuasion.

Despite their standing as elves and their pride as nobles, they had trusted Renz and entrusted him with a branch from the World Tree.

“There is one condition, though. They want to be shown what the World Tree branch is going to be used for. I hadn’t even asked what it was for yet, so I agreed on the spot, but is that okay?”

“It’s okay. You did well, Renz. The rest is my job as the Guildmaster of Twinwing Alchemists.”

Elna adorably rolled up her sleeves.

“Rena, question for you. The World Tree branch has a special property besides being sturdy. What do you think it is?”

“Um… sorry, I don’t know.”

“The World Tree branch has a property that repels mana.”

“Then doesn’t that make it unsuitable for a magic wand?”

“Exactly. That’s why nobody sees this branch as material for a wand.”

Elna set the World Tree branch on the mixing table.

“But I’m different. I can make use of this material.”

Since Elna was short, as usual she brought a step stool over in front of the mixing table.

Standing on it, she began preparing for the alchemy work.

“Right now, I’m going to use 【Magic Manipulation】 to forcibly pour a huge amount of mana into this branch, make the mana settle into it, and somehow create an affinity.”

““Wh…!?”””

Both of them were left speechless.

“If I can do that, then I’ll have a magic wand that absolutely won’t break even if Ellis goes all out.”

Put simply, what Elna was trying to do was like trying to force together two magnets with the same polarity.

Normally, it would have been impossible. Even if someone managed to force some mana through, their own body would break first while trying to suppress the repulsion.

And yet, both of them found themselves thinking that Elna might actually be able to do it.

And Elna herself was convinced that she could.

It was not arrogance, nor was it overconfidence.

She believed in Lloyd, who had told her she had talent.

She believed in Rena, who always praised her as a genius.

She believed in the people around her who acknowledged her for who she was.

“You two should leave the room. It’s going to get dangerous in here.”

From that point on, the mana in the room would rapidly grow denser.

It would become a hellscape where an ordinary person could not even remain standing.

“Do your best, Elna!”

“Please do your best! I believe you can do it, Lady Elna!”

With that, the two of them left the room.

Left behind, Elna thrust both hands high into the air.

“I’ll do my best. For Lord Lloyd… no, to live up to everyone’s expectations!”