Chapter 169: The Silent Octameteorite

During the journey from Japan to the Kingdom of Rus, Hiyori consistently chose safe routes.

We avoided Mongolia, where dangerous magic fungi ran rampant, and skipped the unstable Iranian Plateau.

Among the various magical terrains scattered across the land, there were many routes that could have shortened our travel time if we cut straight through them, but we always prioritized safety and detoured around them.

Despite all that caution, we still ended up encountering incidents like the Hatobato encounter at the start, the internal turmoil of the Chengdu concession, and the rescue of the future-seeing siblings—but those were just that: incidents.

Our meeting with Hatobato-san was nothing more than a ridiculously low-probability collision accident. As for Chengdu, Hiyori actively went in to settle things herself. And the future-vision incident was unavoidable.

There wasn’t a single accident caused by Hiyori’s carelessness or mistake.

Throughout this journey, we never got injured or sick even once. That was entirely because Hiyori was constantly thinking ahead and taking precautions.

Naturally, that also meant we never had things like “oh no, we ran into an upper-class magical beast in the middle of nowhere.” We simply didn’t pass through areas where dangerous creatures were known to appear.

As expected of a witch who has traveled the world for eighty years—her travel planning was best handled by delegation. She always got everything right.

But that itself became a problem.

Hiyori wasn’t properly conducting performance tests on the Octameteorite.

From Baghdad, 400 km north along the Tigris River, in a snack shop in the canyon town of Dahuk, Hiyori pushed my forehead back with the butt of Kyanos as I reached for the Octameteorite, scolding me like a stubborn child.

“You’ve done enough. Even if its appearance has recovered, its performance hasn’t. Why do you need to go to a forbidden zone?”

“Exactly because it might be different whether you test it or I test it! Comparative verification, controlled experiments! If we don’t keep conditions consistent, we won’t know if the data is accurate! Didn’t you learn that in elementary or middle school?”

“Hmm… maybe I did… but don’t bring up school days like that. To you it’s twenty years ago, but to me it’s ninety.”

With Hiyori responding sluggishly, I carefully explained the importance of the experiment again.

The canyon town of Dahuk, where we were staying, is near the border with Turkey. About 50 km northeast lies the “Amadiya Forbidden Zone,” a nest of snake-type Class-3 monster—perfect for testing whether the Octameteorite’s monster-repelling function had returned.

The Octameteorite allows weak monsters to pass while repelling strong ones. If that lost function—destroyed by Iruma—had returned, then the guardian stone would have truly regained its full power, not just its appearance.

Yesterday, Hiyori locked me in a lodging, layered more than ten types of spells for protection, placed an ocular familiar for surveillance, and went to test the Octameteorite herself.

I wanted to go too, but she wouldn’t let me approach the dangerous area.

She said she was confident she could protect me from Class-3 monsters, but taking me into the danger zone was a different matter entirely.

And according to her report after returning, the Octameteorite showed no effect whatsoever.

The Class-3 monsters didn’t flee, didn’t react, didn’t suffer, didn’t suddenly die, and didn’t turn to dust.

She also tested it on lower-ranked Class-2 and Class-1 monsters—still nothing.

Hiyori concluded, “Unfortunately, even if its appearance has recovered, its function has not.”

But I disagreed.

“The Octameteorite seems like it chooses people. It beat down Iruma, but it didn’t do anything to the Spider Witch or to you. It’s not that it attacked transcendent beings—it probably recognizes individuals properly.”

“…Is that so?”

“Yeah. Maybe when Hiyori holds it, it thinks, ‘The Blue Witch is strong. She doesn’t need protection, so I’ll turn off the monster-repelling function.’”

“You talk as if the Octameteorite has a will of its own. I’m skeptical of the idea that magic stones have ego. Maybe someone is using it remotely to cast magic from afar? There are spells that turn gremlins into golems, and spells that seal monsters into gremlins. It wouldn’t be strange if there were remote-sensing or long-distance magic through magic stones similar to gremlins.”

“Does that kind of magic even exist?”

“Not that I know of…”

Hiyori’s theory boiled down to two possibilities:

1. The Octameteorite’s appearance has been restored, but not its function. 
2. It never had special functions to begin with—someone was using it as a medium to beat Iruma and repel monsters from somewhere else. 

I could understand that.

But the Octameteorite’s effect feels similar to Quodent. I feel like the theory that it has some unique autonomous function makes more sense.

After all, it’s the precious guardian deity of my workshop. It wouldn’t be strange if it granted a blessing or two to its devoted followers.

“Maybe it didn’t protect you because your faith wasn’t strong enough.”

“How am I supposed to measure something like faith?”

“Well… polishing it, praying, enshrining it…”

Hiyori gave me a suspicious look, then awkwardly polished the Octameteorite with her sleeve.

The stone sparkled beautifully in the sunlight streaming through the snack shop window.

It’s beautiful. I love it.

This jewel is mine. I won’t let anyone take it.

“…I don’t feel anything different.”

“Hmm, weird.”

“If I had been there when it used some unknown magic on Iruma, I might have understood something you didn’t.”

“Yeah, well, that’s true. From my perspective, all I saw was Iruma suddenly suffering, getting beaten up by the Octameteorite, then screaming and smashing it in rage… but yeah, something like mana or magic was definitely happening.”

Without good control over mana, the information one can obtain about magic is severely limited.

I’m probably missing a lot.

Siding with my belief that the Octameteorite has intent, Hiyori tried speaking to it in magical language—but only silence returned. The only result was that the shopkeeper, enchanted by the sight of a beautiful eastern witch speaking to a sacred stone, spilled chai all over the place.

“Hey, what if we took it to Ero-Manga Island—if we shoved it in front of that second puppet guy like Iruma, wouldn’t we get a reaction?”

“E-hem… There is no Markin ice statue on that island anymore. Conrad took it away; it’s now under UN supervision. I don’t know its current location.”

After further discussion, we agreed to approach the forbidden zone—but not get too close to the Class-3 monster.

The Octameteorite’s effect radius is about 10 km, so we could observe monsters from the edge of the zone without entering it.

Hiyori was reluctant, but eventually relented, with the sarcastic remark: “Better than you acting on your own like with the Arataki incident.”

…Sorry. I feel like I’ll never stop being teased about that.

The mountain road leading from Dahuk to the Amadiya Forbidden Zone was poorly maintained. Not that it was easy to get lost—there was only one valley path—but the faded, unreadable signs suggested no one had used it in a long time.

Riding a rented tiger beast, Dun, the valley wind felt pleasant, brushing across the green carpet of mountains. As we headed north in Neo-Mesopotamia, the scenery changed from barren white earth to increasingly lush greenery.

The scent of flowers, clean air, and small squirrels peeking out from the grass—it was actually a nice place. And the lack of people was a big plus.

“Hey, Hiyori, you like squirrels, right? Want to pet one?”

“……”

When I pointed at a cute squirrel staring at us, Hiyori silently picked up a stone and threw it.

The squirrel leapt in surprise—and its lower body, a scorpion-like mass of vicious spikes, scrambled away in panic. A skull of some creature was impaled on its tail stinger.

Uh… I definitely didn’t imagine that, right?

Hiyori sighed deeply at my horror.

“I have no interest in petting something like that.”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Stay close to me.”

“Yes ma’am.”

After about two hours, we reached the vicinity of the forbidden zone without even seeing its entrance watchtower.

About 10 km away, beyond the ridge, the weather suddenly changed. Clouds spiraled downward from the sky, and swarms of mosquito-like shadows were sucked into them.

Hiyori reined in the tiger beast and stopped, lifting the brim of her witch hat to narrow her eyes.

“What is that? Some kind of magic?”

“That… is the snake-type monster. It’s fleeing. Trying to get away.”

Even from that distance, I couldn’t clearly see it, but Hiyori apparently could.

As we moved a few hundred meters closer, another group of Class-3 magical beasts panicked, summoned clouds, and literally “hid within the clouds” as they fled.

There was no doubt about it—powerful monsters were running away from the approaching Octameteorite.

Whoa! That’s insanely effective! The moment they enter its range, it’s driving them off!

Amazing, so strong—Octameteorite!

As expected, the guardian deity of my workshop had fully revived!

“See! I told you! The Octameteorite’s effect wasn’t lost after all!”

“…This is… yes. It does seem like the Octameteorite recognizes its owner… or does it?”

“It doesn’t turn things to dust like Quodent, but this is clearly a guardian deity! A god! I’m grateful, I’m so grateful! It really has been watching over me all this time!”

“…All this time… y-yeah, I guess so.”

Unlike me, who was praising the Octameteorite with heartfelt gratitude, Hiyori suddenly realized something mid-sentence and froze in shock.

She looked back and forth between me and the stone, her face cycling through red and blue like a mask. Then she cleared her throat and spoke in a weak voice.

“D-Dairi… I have a request. Could we… stop placing the Octameteorite next to the bed when we sleep?”

“Eh? Why?”

“W-why… well, if it really has awareness—or at least some kind of individual recognition—then that changes things…”

“What? That’s a good thing, isn’t it? It’s watching over us, right?”

“No, that’s not what I mean… well, yes, but—no, listen. When we sleep… or before sleep… at night… there are, um, things people might not want others to see, right?”

“Huh? What are you ta— oh.”

It was a clumsy explanation, but I was a little late in realizing it too.

If the Octameteorite truly had a “watching over us” function, then it meant it had also been observing what Tsubaki called “the nightly cuddle sessions where I’m the only one left out.”

Ah.

Aaaaaaah…

AaaaAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!

My hands started trembling so badly I almost dropped the guardian stone.

Tell me it’s not true, Octameteorite! No, actually—don’t say anything!

Hiyori, looking extremely awkward and red in the face, poked the stone lightly with Kyunos.

“Hey, Octameteorite. Can you hear me? If you have any awareness, forget everything you’ve seen and heard so far. Or I’ll smash you.”

“Hey, don’t smash it! Poka-poka glue isn’t infinite, you know! But I also apologize—once we get back to the inn, I’ll prepare a proper case for it so it can’t see outside. Sorry, I really didn’t think that through.”

Even after being threatened and apologizing to, the Octameteorite simply sparkled in the midday sun.

It said nothing. It remained silent.

It was great news that the Octameteorite had fully revived.

But if it has a will, could it maybe speak up a little more?

Please. Seriously.