Chapter 97: Armory

Though the shelves were sparsely populated, giving the warehouse a somewhat desolate feel in terms of stock, the potentially dangerous nature of the items there overshadowed any sense of emptiness.

As Isamu had suspected, it was indeed a suitable room to be called an armory.

“These are a bit different in exterior but they’re definitely thunder orbs. I can read the magic circle, so there’s no mistake.”

The first things he checked were the cylindrical objects, which were the most numerous.

According to the notebook of Wami Nashara, a wanderer who was also a beastman, thunder orbs were found here, so they had expected as much.

Since the content of the magic circle was the same as what he had seen on the ship, it seemed that the identical ones outside the armory had been retrieved.

“And this… wow, is this a hand grenade!? Ah, that’s why the exterior is thicker and harder than the thunder orbs…”

“A hand grenade?”

Eto, who had been inspecting alongside Isamu, asked.

As for the other members, Anne-Marie was also observing Isamu’s inspection with Eto, while Willem, seizing a rare opportunity, went to see the magic circles of the magic tools that had been in the inspection hole earlier.

Additionally, two knights remained outside the room to keep watch, while the other four dove into examining the swords.

“Yes. It’s a magic tool that utilizes explosive magic. Should I say it’s easy to understand? Inside this metal cylinder, there’s a magic circle for explosive spells. When the explosive magic activates, the metal casing shatters and scatters rapidly around the area. It’s a magic tool that combines the impact of the explosion with these metal fragments.”

“That sounds like quite a brutal magic tool…”

Eto furrowed his brow.

“Yes, indeed. I think it’s a type of weapon commonly used even in the original world. You can throw it by hand or with something like a catapult, but in the original world, they would probably combine it with another explosive device to propel it even further.”

It’s what you’d call a grenade launcher. There are many derivatives and evolutions, so it would likely be a popular destructive weapon.

“This is one of those magic tools that you don’t want to spread around too much… It would be quite powerful if only we could use it ourselves, but it would be troublesome if the enemy got their hands on it…”

“Indeed… It’s fortunate that we found the thunder orbs outside.”

“Yes, I think so too.”

While they would take them back for now, it seemed they would need to discuss how to handle them with Selfers.

“What’s this? The magic circle itself is similar to the explosive type on the hand grenade, but the exterior is thinner… And what’s this fine powder? It looks like metallic powder…”

Next, they examined a spherical metal object.

About the size between a baseball and a softball, it had an explosive magic circle positioned at its center, with the rest of the space filled with a mysterious metallic powder.

“If it’s meant to explode, does that mean they want to scatter the powder over a wide area? Ah, I remember learning about making an incendiary bomb with aluminum powder in chemistry class…”

“Without knowing what metal the powder is, it’s best not to experiment recklessly…”

“Yes… Or maybe we should test it in an uninhabited area of the Rocky Desert on the way back.”

Since it seemed to be designed for throwing, as long as they secured some distance, it should be fine, but it was better to be safe.

“Are these the only disposable types among these?”

“Yes…”

After inspecting the three types of throwing weapons (provisional), Isamu and Eto glanced silently at one corner of the shelf.

There, a large number of attributeless magic stones peeked out from an open box.

“Given the size, I think these are for activating these throwing weapons…”

“Yes, because if they were left on, it could be disastrous if they were to accidentally activate. But why are they all used up?”

“Yeah…”

As Eto said, the attributeless magic stones, which had dulled like frosted glass as their magic was depleted, were stored in a lidded box for some reason.

Once magic is depleted from a magic stone, it’s essentially useless, so they’re usually discarded. Colored ones might be used for external decorations like walls or garden ornaments, but there’s hardly any reason to use them for the dregs of magic stones.

“Maybe they were trying to reuse them?”

“Who knows… Well, it’s not something we can figure out just by thinking about it. Let’s inspect the swords and armor next.”

“Yes, let’s do that.”

Since I don’t know when the monsters will attack, they took a look at the swords that the knights were jumping at.

“Ah, Isamu-dono. Are you finished over there?” 

Felix noticed Isamu, Eto, and Annemarie approaching and called out to Isamu.

“Yes. The Thunderball and Explosive Magic Tools are done. As for the third one, I’m not quite sure yet.”

“Oh! So that means we’ve discovered two new magic circles again, right!? It was worth exploring!”

Mizeroi, who had somehow ended up carrying Orihime, said with a smile, though it wasn’t clear which of the two was the reason.

“This time, there were a lot of enemies, and we stayed for several nights. We’re grateful to the knights,” 

“No, no, thanks to the magic stove, footbath, and especially Isamu-dono’s cooking, it was comfortable. Compared to the knights’ expeditions, it’s heaven! I’m really glad I became a personal guard.” 

Liddell said happily, overhearing the conversation.

“Liddell is so lucky. I wanted to be a personal guard too! Then I could have all the head pats from Orihime-sensei I wanted!!” 

Tiramisu protested with puffed cheeks, but given the reason, the knights of the viscount’s family were worried.

“Now, let’s take a look at the swords, shall we?”

“””Please do!”””

Although the knights were eager to jump at the swords first, they refrained from activating them.

Even though they were confident everything would be fine, they were all prepared to wait for Isamu’s inspection, exercising caution against any potential mishaps from activating them recklessly.

“Hmm…”

“””How does it look?”””

Isamu drew a sword from its sheath and inspected the magic circle.

Since the blade was short, it would likely be classified as a shortsword. The magic circle was drawn at the base of the blade.

“Ah… sorry. This is a magic circle I can’t read… Since there seems to be a thunder magic stone embedded, I can make a few guesses, but…”

“You can’t read it?”

“Well, that could also mean it’s not disposable.”

“Let’s test it outside later.”

“””Understood.””

Unfortunately, despite setting aside the short sword that couldn’t be deciphered, and checking the other swords, they all seemed to have the same magic circle, and there was nothing that could be deciphered, unfortunately.

Next, Isamu picked up the armor. There were only two sets of armor, and they felt light.

“It’s light… It doesn’t feel metallic, more like plastic or something?”

Made of a slightly glossy plastic-like material, it was assembled by connecting protective parts divided by body part.

According to Isamu’s sense, calling it armor felt a bit out of place; “protector” seemed more fitting.

“Whoa! This is amazing…”

Isamu was speechless as he looked at the back of the protective parts.

“Hmm? What’s wrong? Oh, wow, indeed…”

Peering in beside Isamu with a surprised voice, Eto was also speechless.

There, magic circles densely covered with intricate patterns were drawn without any gaps.

“I can read this, but it seems too complex to decipher right away…”

Isamu said, blinking.

“It’s rare for you to say you can’t decipher it right away. It must be quite complex…”

Eto was surprised by Isamu’s words.

“Yes, this is serious. It seems to involve importing various types of external parameters, complex conditional judgment formulas using them, and complex behaviors depending on the conditions… Ah, it’s been a while since I’ve encountered such a robust algorithm. It’s worth deciphering.”

“I see. Well, that’s good…”

Rather than feeling overwhelmed by the overly complex magic circle, Eto responded somewhat hesitantly to Isamu, who spoke enthusiastically about it.

“I’ll take this back and decipher it thoroughly. I don’t know why this magic circle is decipherable, but this one alone seems like it will be quite educational.”

“Hehehe, that’s wonderful! You had the same look on your face as when you found the first decipherable magic circle, didn’t you? As expected, Isamu-san, that expression suits you the best.”

Smiling, Anne-Marie, who had been watching nearby, said to Isamu.

“Haha, well, I suppose that’s just the nature of a craftsman… But I’m sure we can make something useful out of it!”

Isamu scratched their head, blushing slightly as they responded.

“Ohhhh!!”

A scream echoed from Willem, who had been inspecting the magic circles at the inspection port a little while ago and had returned to the armory.

“What’s wrong!?”

Everyone in the armory rushed to where the voice came from in a panic.

“Th-th-there’s an arm there!”

At the wall of the large warehouse, Willem pointed forward with half his body lowered.

Everyone followed his gaze.

“Whoa!”

“Huh?”

“Hmm!”

They all exclaimed in surprise.

Indeed, there was a large arm rising from the ground, illuminated by the lantern.

“What is… this…”

“It’s an arm… but… isn’t it huge?”

“Yeah, and it’s wearing armor, isn’t it?”

“It’s certainly bulky… Well, it’s unlikely to be a real arm, and it doesn’t seem like a monster, so I’ll go take a look.”

“I’ll accompany you.”

Isamu and Felix, who had regained some composure, walked toward the arm.

“It’s really big… Is it about the size of the ogre we saw earlier?”

“Yes, I think it’s about that size.”

Seeing it up close, it was an impressive arm about twice the size of a person’s.

As Eto said, it was covered with something like armor on the back of the hand, forearm, and upper arm.

As Isamu looked closely at it, he muttered.

“…Could this be a robot?”

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