Kays Translations

Chapter 55: Dairi Kenshi and the Ten Magic Stones

For several days following the defeat of the Aratake Group, Tokyo was consumed with handling the aftermath.

I had expected to be placed under Hiyori’s direct surveillance as punishment for my escape, but to my surprise, she merely gave strict orders to Fuyou to prevent any further attempts on my part. Meanwhile, she herself was constantly on the move throughout Tokyo.

Apart from checking in on me and the bedridden Professor Ohinata once a day, she didn’t even return to Ome City. Instead, she busied herself with various post-incident operations.

What caused this sudden change in attitude? She seemed a little brighter than before. I didn’t really get it, but if my best friend was happy, then I was happy too.

After a few days, the chaos was finally brought under control, and the state of emergency was lifted.

It became clear that, despite the Aratake Group’s violent rampage, the number of fatalities was surprisingly low. While the final tally was still being confirmed, even the worst estimates placed the number of casualties at less than a hundred. While that number was still significant, considering that ten magicians had stormed the city, it was practically a miracle.

This was largely due to the Aratake Group leader’s magic.

The group had a preference for subduing enemy forces, capturing them, and using magic to forcibly bring them under their control.

Turning enemies into allies was far more efficient than simply killing them. In theory, it was an optimal strategy, though in reality, it was nearly impossible to execute—yet their leader had made it a reality.

It was an absolutely terrifying form of magic, one that could turn allies into foes. However, it also meant that the number of fatalities was kept to a minimum.

A silver lining in a tragic situation.

The Aratake Group’s assault began in the morning and ended by evening.

Had the battle dragged on, captured witches might have been tortured into submission and forced to agree to the contract magic, effectively turning them against us. That thought alone was horrifying. We were lucky to have resolved the conflict through a swift, decisive battle.

As the surviving witches patrolled Tokyo and rounded up Aratake Group remnants, it became clear from interrogations that similar situations had played out in both the Biwa Lake Pact and in Fukuoka, the group’s home turf.

In other words, a significant number of people south of Tokyo had been forcibly enslaved by the Aratake leader’s magic.

With his death, they were now all freed.

During the Aratake Group’s invasion of the Biwa Lake Pact, one witch had fallen in a mutual kill against an Aratake witch. However, the rest survived.

The Biwa Lake Pact’s military strength had been diminished, and its political structure was shattered. The pacifist faction, which had previously deemed magic-enhancing drugs too dangerous to be released, had lost control, and now the drugs were spreading throughout society, plunging the region into chaos.

However, with the magic contracts binding them gone, they would likely begin rebuilding. Internal factional disputes would prevent any unified effort, but progress would be made nonetheless.

As for Fukuoka, the Arataki Group had sent every single one of their witches and wizards to Tokyo in their bid for national conquest (?!), leaving the city virtually defenseless.

Two Biwa Lake Pact wizards had been assigned to guard Fukuoka in the Aratake Group’s absence, but with their contracts nullified, it was doubtful they would continue protecting the home of their former oppressors. They would likely return to Biwa Lake as soon as possible.

That would leave Fukuoka completely devoid of witches and wizards.

With a population of 400,000, the city would be utterly helpless in the face of even a single Class A monsters. Even Class B threats could pose a serious problem.

…But from the perspective of the Tokyo Witches’ Assembly, there was nothing that could be done.

Tokyo itself was suffering from a severe lack of witches and wizards. The Iruma Coup, the Great Kaiju Invasion, and the Mushroom Pandemic had all contributed to a steady decline in the number of magicians. The city’s habitable zones continued to shrink.

While Minato Ward had been reclaimed and was being maintained against the spread of monsters, efforts to retake other districts had been delayed repeatedly due to unforeseen incidents, leaving them in limbo.

Even if we provided technological or material support to Fukuoka, it wouldn’t change the fact that they had no magicians to act as a defensive core. They would be wiped out by monsters before anything could take effect.

Moreover, Tokyo and Kyushu were too far apart—just transporting people and supplies was a logistical nightmare.

As unfortunate as it was, the 400,000 residents of Fukuoka would have to find their own way to survive.

Rest in peace.

The Aratake Group’s foolish ambitions and reckless actions had left widespread devastation in their wake.

But they didn’t leave empty-handed.

There were four notable “gifts” left behind.

The First Gift: The Aratake Group’s Underlings

The ten core witches and wizards of the Arataki Group were all dead.

However, nearly 500 underlings—who had been acting as foot soldiers and assistants—had been rounded up and imprisoned by the witches.

Hiyori, who had participated in hunting them down, summed up her impressions: “If the top brass are trash, the grunts are trash too.”

They were beyond salvation, and it was expected that they would be put to “good use.”

Most likely for human experimentation.

The Second Gift: Magic-Enhancing Drugs

Originally hidden by the Biwa Lake Pact, these drugs temporarily restored magic power beyond the user’s natural limit, at the cost of permanently reducing their magic capacity.

Each dose restored around 10K magic power.

However, it also permanently reduced the user’s max capacity by 0.2K.

For an ordinary person, using it five times would completely deplete their magic reserves, causing their body to disintegrate into dust.

To make matters worse, the lower one’s magic reserves, the higher the addiction potential.

A complete failure of a drug.

At least make it restore 100K magic power! What’s 10K supposed to do? This isn’t even viable as a last resort!

Still, it was technically a magic recovery potion.

Tokyo had never seen anything like it before, making it a fascinating subject for research.

The confiscated drugs would be sent to the Magic University for study.

Personally, I had no interest in magic potions, but if they could remove the drawbacks and keep only the recovery effect, that would be a game-changer.

I looked forward to the results.

The Third Gift: Magic Spells

The Arataki Group had chanted a variety of spells across Tokyo.

Anyone with even a passing knowledge of magic knew the importance of incantations.

Efforts were already underway to collect fragments of these spells from the memories of various witches and civilians, cross-referencing them to reconstruct the original incantations.

Magic required absolute precision in pronunciation. Even those with perfect pitch would struggle to memorize spells after only hearing them a few times.

But by pooling together many people’s recollections, it wasn’t impossible.

The Aratake Group had employed several useful spells, and if we could salvage even one or two of them, it would be a huge gain.

The Fourth and Most Valuable Gift: The Ten Magic Stones

Hiyori had personally retrieved the magic stones carried by the ten fallen Arataki Group members.

The Dragon Witch had attempted to pocket two of them in secret (one from the witch Hiyori had defeated and one from the wizard escorting the Chofu witch), but confessed when threatened by Hiyori.

Truly a disgraceful dragon.

However, since she had personally defeated a key enemy, she was granted one stone as a reward.

She then tried to barter that one stone in exchange for the remaining nine, only to be smacked down by Hiyori and sent sulking back to her nest.

Greedy dragon, go home.

Magic stones were among the most precious resources in the post-Gremlin Catastrophe world.

They could be crafted into powerful staffs, used to capture monsters, and likely had even more undiscovered applications.

With ten of them in our possession, their use had to be carefully considered.

For now, though, it was good news—these stones would primarily be used for crafting staffs.

More and more Class A monsters carrying black gremlins with time acceleration abilities had been appearing, causing trouble for the witches.

If we could distribute magic stone staffs to our witches, we could restore the power balance and regain the upper hand.

The Aratake Group may have been trash, but at least they left behind something useful for Tokyo.

Out of the ten, one had already been processed into the Spider Witch’s staff and given as a gift.

That left nine.

Since Hiyori had killed almost everyone in the Aratake gang, seven out of the nine rightfully belonged to her. She had done enough to earn them, and if the Blue Witch claimed ownership, it would be difficult to argue against her.

One belonged to the Dragon Witch, who had single-handedly taken down an enemy.

Another belonged to the Flower Witch, who had drawn an enemy into a grueling war of attrition and held them off.

Hiyori collected the remaining seven and, under the condition that they would be processed into staffs, brought them all to me.

…Is she a goddess?

I was going to use the seven magic stones to craft seven staffs, but Hiyori decided who would receive them.

I had no objections to the choices made by our PR and negotiation expert.

Every witch wanted a magic stone staff.

However, the Zombie Witch already had a magic stone and was too shady, so she was excluded.

The Mermaid Witch was a good person, but her intelligence was questionable. The risk of her misplacing the staff or giving it away was too high, so she was also excluded.

The Pebble Witch hadn’t contributed at all this time, and no future contributions were expected, so she was out.

The Setagaya Witch was untrustworthy. Out.

The Firekeeper Witch declined, saying, “I already have the Firekeeper’s Staff.”

Among the remaining witches in the gathering, Hiyori first selected the “Eyeball Witch,” the “Seer Witch,” and the “Night Witch.” I didn’t know much about the Night Witch, but the other two were solid choices, as I’d heard plenty about them.

The “Tobacco Witch,” who had long been suspected of drug addiction and being a drug lord, had proven her reliability during the Arataki gang invasion, so she made the cut as well.

The remaining three magic stones were to be processed into staffs and handed over to the Biwako Pact.

Apparently, the Biwako Pact originally had five magic stones (according to the Dragon Witch—though who knows if that’s true).

Two were taken by the Tokyo Witch Gathering as payment for handling the Arataki gang.

If we returned the remaining three as staffs, there would be no further complaints.

The Biwako Pact seemed to have enough on their plate already. I also saw it as an opportunity to spread the reputation of my brand of magic staffs.

Six of the seven staffs were to be multi-layered, with three to five layers.

This aligned with the Blue Witch’s desire to prevent the proliferation of Kyanos—destructive weapons on par with nuclear bombs.

Excessive power amplification made control difficult, leading to magic outbursts.

Even with an anti-backlash mechanism, a seven-layer Kyanos was nearly impossible to handle.

Thus, the plan was to limit the layers to match the user’s level of magic control—between three and five.

All three staffs for the Biwako Pact would be standardized at four layers.

As a magic staff craftsman, I formally received an order from the witch gathering for seven staffs.

The payment was set at 1.5 billion yen per staff, using the newly issued currency from six months ago.

In total, I was paid a slightly discounted 10 billion new yen (equivalent to 100 billion old yen).

My sense of money is completely broken. Am I the only one experiencing extreme inflation?

But this wasn’t an excessive price.

Back in the old days, ballistic missiles were worth 300 million to 1 billion yen (old yen) per unit.

If a three- to five-layer staff was roughly equivalent in value to a missile, and considering that staffs weren’t single-use and required skilled users, the pricing made sense.

By the way, a single Kyanos was worth at least 30 billion old yen (roughly the price of a nuclear bomb).

I really created something insane, huh?

Seeing an actual price tag on it made me understand why Hiyori was so wary when she first learned about Kyanos.

I was doing some truly incomprehensible things back then. Still am.

If my 10 billion new yen payment were given in physical coins, it would require 2 million of them.

Since there weren’t enough new coins in circulation to make such a payment, dumping that much cash on me would disrupt the economy.

So, I accepted only 1 billion yen in cash, while the remaining amount was deposited—via a bank—into a metalworking factory in Shinagawa, which had been left idle since I received it from the Fire Witch.

Take that! A nominal owner’s investment!

I refuse to set foot in that factory, so they can do whatever they want!

Oh, and every employee gets a 1 million yen bonus!

With that, the magic stones were assigned, the orders placed, and the payments settled.

All that was left was for me to craft the staffs.

First, I made the three staffs for the Biwako Pact.

Each had a four-layer core, an anti-backlash mechanism, and an integrated magic power gauge made from structural color gremlins.

Simply holding the staff made the gauge move, providing an accurate reading of the user’s remaining magic power.

Witches and mages could already sense their own magic reserves, but they weren’t usually aware of them with 1K precision.

There would be situations where having an exact reading would be useful.

More importantly, I wanted to show off to the Biwako Pact.

Look at my amazing staffs!

It took a month to complete the three staffs (80% of the time was spent making the magic power gauge).

By the time I sent them to the Biwako Pact, the restoration of the university campus had been completed.

Professor Ohinata had also woken up and recovered.

With rehabilitation, she would regain her strength, and classes resumed.

Hiyori moved her base from Ome City to Tokyo Magic University.

Using a controlled version of the Great Glacier spell, she constructed a 300-meter-tall, unmeltable ice tower.

She lived at its peak, keeping watch over Tokyo and guarding the university (and Professor Ohinata).

Freed from the shackles of Ome City, Hiyori looked visibly relieved.

I, on the other hand, was bummed.

My friend had moved far away, making it harder to hang out.

But I couldn’t exactly ask her to stay for my sake.

Still, Hiyori continued visiting her old home in Ome for grave visits and dropped by my place, so our friendship wasn’t in danger.

She even said our plan to go swimming together in the summer was still on.

And we also planned to play a late-night tabletop RPG with Professor Ohinata, using her familiar as a proxy.

I was considering inviting the Spider Witch, too.

Once I finished the three Biwako Pact staffs and took a breather, I moved on to crafting the four for the witch gathering.

The staffs for the Eyeball Witch and Night Witch each had a five-layer core, an anti-backlash mechanism, and a magic power gauge.

The Eyeball Witch’s staff was named “Gaze Witch,” and the Night Witch’s was “Nyx Cane.”

The Night Witch’s husband had chosen the name.

Apparently, they almost went with a design featuring their names under an umbrella together—like some middle school crush doodle.

I was relieved they chose “Nyx Cane” instead.

It felt like narrowly avoiding a disastrous baby name situation.

Why was I so stressed about this?

One staff for the Seer was designed with a focus on reducing magic backlash and improving mana control. It was limited to a three-layer core with an anti-backlash mechanism. He had requested that a mana reserve meter not be included, stating that it would be unnecessary—since his mind would break before his mana ran out anyway.

He had made a similar request when I sent him the Gremlin staff last time, specifically wanting the highest-quality anti-backlash mechanism possible. To meet this, I gathered all of the late Professor Hanada’s past research papers and incorporated the latest theoretical advancements to create the most refined and precise system I could.

He didn’t want a named engraved for the staff, so I simply marked it with a Fire Lizard logo.

Honestly, I think the Seer should lighten up a little. But judging by his stress levels, he probably doesn’t have the mental space for that.

That said, after the Aratake raid, he apparently took a secret vacation at the urging of his assistant, who had broken down in tears. If he had the time to rest, then I’d like to believe he won’t be overworked to death anytime soon.

The final staff was for the Witch of Tobacco. She had asked for an “interesting staff,” so I took full advantage of the opportunity to play around with its design, prioritizing creativity over practicality.

Specifically, I made an experimental new wand featuring a spherical outer shell encasing a dodecahedral fractal core.

The dodecahedral fractal core inside this wand had fewer recursive layers compared to Professor Ohinata’s Aleister, making its structure simpler. Since I had to insert tools through tiny gaps in the spherical shell—like building a model ship in a bottle—complex processing wasn’t an option.

As a result, while the spherical shell provided additional reinforcement, the wand’s magic power output was reduced by about 90%.

That would be completely useless in combat, considering that most witches rely on magic to fight monsters. To compensate, I embedded an additional two-layer magic core into the wand’s pommel, allowing it to toggle between 10% power and normal amplification.

The most interesting feature of this wand was its ability to pseudo-cast two spells at once.

When casting a spell with the dodecahedral fractal core, the magic wouldn’t activate immediately; instead, the core would blink and enter a standby state. Casting another spell would then trigger the release of the stored spell simultaneously.

However, witches and wizards could manually release the stored spell without incantation, using only their mana control.

In short:

1. Cast a spell to store it in the fractal core.
2. Cast a different spell while manually releasing the stored one.
3. Both spells activate simultaneously.

Of course, the first spell’s power would still be reduced to 10% in standby mode, making it fairly weak. I wasn’t sure how viable it would be in actual combat.

But hey, no other staff had a gimmick like this. It was essentially pseudo-chantless magic, meaning there were plenty of creative ways to use it.

For the staff’s name, the Tobacco Witch requested “Gushiken Stakes.”

It had absolutely nothing to do with staffs or tobacco.

“Stakes” was a horse racing term, right…?

Between that name and her title, it was easy to get a sense of her personality. She probably still mourned the loss of electricity and the fact that she could no longer visit pachinko parlors.

And so, I completed all seven staffs and shipped them out.

Before I knew it, July was nearing its end, and the chorus of cicadas in the mountains had grown deafening. I had spent nearly two months crafting these wands.

The excess magic stone shards left over from production were divided accordingly—30% went to the magic university for research, 10% was mine to keep, and the remaining 60% would gradually be repurposed into monster-trapping shears.

Sealing bullets would have been a more effective and versatile option, but since no one in the Witch Assembly specialized in firearms, the risk of them being lost or misused was too high. Hiyori insisted that shears were the safer bet.

That made sense, even if it was a little less exciting. Oh well.

While growing watermelons for my planned river outing with Hiyori, I casually started manufacturing the shears.

It had been over two months since the Aratake raid, and Tokyo was steadily reclaiming its daily life.

No major incidents had occurred since.

But then, in late July, a shocking piece of news spread across Tokyo.

The Mutation Studies Department at Tokyo Magic University had made a groundbreaking discovery.

They had found a method to train and increase one’s mana reserves.

For the first time in history, mana capacity—which could only ever be depleted but never expanded—could now be strengthened through training!

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