Chapter 82: Dry Run Check

There are moments in life that make you think, “Of all times, why now?”

Like when it only starts raining the one time you forget your umbrella.

Or when your stomach’s in trouble, and of course, there’s no restroom anywhere nearby.

The magnitude 5+ earthquake that hit Tokyo on December 25th was the ultimate “of all times, why now?” moment.

Of all days—it just had to be Christmas.

But the people, caught up in the festive mood, didn’t exactly panic or scatter in fear when the disaster struck.
That was thanks to the fact that precognitive magic users had already issued warnings: a magnitude 5+ quake would hit Tokyo around midday on December 25th.

Interestingly, it wasn’t just the mages. The “Pouch Sparrows” kept as pets all over Tokyo also sensed the earthquake coming.

Pouch Sparrows are a type of trained monsters, like kangaroos with pouches that ignore the laws of weight and volume.
Because of their special abilities, ease of care, and fast breeding, they’re kept all over Japan and play a key role in the delivery industry.
On top of that, their extreme loyalty to their owners and their round, chubby, lovable appearance means plenty of people keep them just as pets too.

In Tokyo, these sparrows can be seen everywhere, and on the morning of the earthquake, they became visibly restless.
They started tidying up — carefully packing away all the rocks, fallen branches, and metal scraps they’d used to build their nests, stashing everything in their pouches.

They spent the entire morning fussing around until the quake hit.
Once the tremors stopped, they pulled their materials back out of their pouches and rebuilt their nests, visibly relieved.

This newly confirmed earthquake-sensing ability made Pouch Sparrows even more popular among pet lovers.

According to the Department of Monsters, this ability is likely linked to their construction instincts.
Pouch Sparrows are slow, clumsy fliers and weaker than ordinary sparrows, so they make up for it by collecting heavy, sturdy materials in their pouches to build durable nests.

But the same sturdy construction becomes a death trap during an earthquake. If the nest collapses, the sparrows, their chicks, or their eggs would be crushed.
That’s why, the theory goes, they evolved the ability to predict earthquakes and dismantle their nests in advance to avoid disaster.

It’s just a hypothesis, of course. But it does sound plausible.

Their unexpected talent also helped ease public anxiety.
A few days prior, an official announcement had stated that the seer mage protecting Tokyo was taking an indefinite medical leave, which had caused some unease.
But the sparrows’ earthquake warning gave people hope: even without a seer watching over the city, things might still be okay.

The seer mage was officially “on leave for health reasons,” but in reality, he’d retired to the countryside.

This was a strategic move against the criminal underworld lurking in Tokyo.

There were a lot of shady characters who only kept their heads down because they knew the precognitive mage was watching.
An outright retirement announcement would’ve sent them into a frenzy.

So instead, they framed it as a temporary leave, leaving everyone uncertain when — or if — he might return.
That lingering uncertainty was a powerful deterrent.

Given how worn down the mage had looked, nobody questioned the need for a break.
And since he’d always bounced back — collapsing during every major incident but somehow always returning — the public assumed this too would be temporary.

It was shaping up to be the perfect way to retire while still keeping the bad guys in check.

Of course, some troublemakers would still pop up, but Tokyo wasn’t so weak that it couldn’t stand on its own without the seer.
The city had faced destruction countless times and survived.

No — the one who truly couldn’t cope wasn’t Tokyo or the seer mage. It was the Blue Witch.

Apparently, she’d been really looking forward to the Christmas party with me.
But with the earthquake turning Christmas into just another day, Hiyori was left moping for quite a while.

I was pretty disappointed too.
For the first time in my life, it had looked like December 25th would actually be more than just another day. I almost got to experience a real Christmas.

But Christmas comes every year.
So I promised the sulking Hiyori we’d make it happen next time, and threw myself into cleaning up the disaster zone my workshop had become and reinforcing it against future quakes.

When the Dragon Witch destroyed my workshop years ago, I’d reinforced the walls with steel plates during repairs, hoping it’d help defend against monster attacks.
But in this earthquake, that very reinforcement almost got me killed — the heavy steel plates, loosened by the tremors, nearly collapsed inward on top of me.

If they had, I’d have been flattened.

Sure, Fuyou would’ve probably used her roots to save me if I got pinned, but if the steel hit my head or crushed something critical like my heart, it would’ve been game over.
Not even the highest-grade healing scrolls I kept on hand, or the “Monster Scissors” meant for last-ditch emergency rescues, could save me from instant death.
After all, humanity still hasn’t discovered resurrection magic.

By the time I’d finished clearing the debris, fixing the smashed roof tiles (swapping them out with undamaged ones from an old abandoned building), and repairing the broken waterwheel, January was already drawing to a close.

If earthquakes are masters of bad timing, then Professor Ohinata is the opposite: a master of perfect timing.

That lovable stoat held off on bringing me new jobs until I’d finished cleaning up all the mess.

And just when I was finally thinking, Alright, time to get back to reverse-engineering the Demon King Gremlin, the professor showed up — as if she’d been waiting for that moment.

She asked if she could use the Demon King Gremlin and the hot springs and wells of Okutama for some magic experiments.
Apparently, she wanted Hiyori to help with the chanting.

I nodded. Though I was giving my permission, I still wanted to hear the reason.

For the time being, the three of us headed toward the ruins of a hot spring inn near Okutama Station, and as we walked, I listened to the story. The stoat perched on Hiyori’s shoulder explained the recent developments in magic linguistics.

“The experiment I want to conduct this time is what’s called a ‘misfire magic’ condition check. We’ve known for a long time that there are spells that simply ‘don’t take effect.’ You chant them, they consume magic power, but nothing happens. For example, the magic used by the Stone witch won’t do anything unless there’s a gremlin nearby. If the conditions aren’t met, the magic misfires.”

“Ah, like how fertility magic won’t work on rocks, or healing magic won’t work on corpses?”

“Exactly. The Tobacco Witch , for instance, only has two spells to begin with, but both of them just consume a huge amount of magic power without producing any effects. She had a really hard time because of that. Even now, no one knows what her spells are supposed to do.”

“That must’ve sucked.”

It’s like having your entire skill tree locked, huh? Brutal. But once you figure out the conditions, the effects probably turn out to be super unique and powerful. Easy for me to say since it’s not my problem. Back during the early chaos of the Gremlin Disaster, surviving through all that without any usable magic and relying only on brute strength must’ve been a hell of a handicap. Pretty impressive that she made it.

“Through our journey around the world, we magic linguists gathered a massive number of spell samples. At the same time, we also collected a lot of samples of misfire spells.

So today, I was hoping we might be able to identify at least one condition that would make a misfire spell actually work.”

“I see. Oh, we’re here, we’re here. Man, even the signboard fell. Earthquakes, huh.”

We circled around to the back of the hot spring inn, avoiding the half-collapsed interior, and slipped into the bath area through a broken window.

Even though the drain was clogged with leaves, mud, and broken ceiling boards, the hot spring kept bubbling away, as if nothing had happened.

“Blue Witch, if you would. Two of the spring-related spells, please.”

“Got it. And so… The Myayon Spring entrusted the Etrov Guardian with the taste of Kaa××, and Etsu-aat remembered it—No!”

Hiyori chanted the spell, but her voice only echoed hollowly through the ruins. Nothing happened.

“…Next one, then. After a thousand gigitta×× cycles, at long last, the Trudtoh Spring Guardian met Kaa×××× once again, and finally, Etrov laughed, lilili.”

She chanted another spell, but again, nothing happened.

“…Nothing, huh.”

“Nothing at all. Was something supposed to happen?”

“Not really. We’ve already tested it at other springs, and the odds weren’t great. But Okutama is a rather special place with an oddly low number of monsters, so I thought… maybe here. Then again, maybe hot springs aren’t the right environment. Do you know any cold springs around here? Ones that haven’t been touched by humans?”

“Not sure about places completely untouched, but there are a few springs that were once maintained but have been left abandoned for decades.”

“That should be fine. Sorry to make you walk around so much, but could you guide us to a few more?”

At the professor’s request, the three of us wandered around Okutama visiting various springs.

But—no luck!

Every single one of them misfired. None of the misfire spells showed any special effect.

Back at home, I tried chanting a completely different spell on the disassembled parts of the Demon King Gremlin, one unrelated to the spring-focused spells.

That too, was a dud. Nothing happened.

With every attempt ending in failure, the only “result” the professor achieved was proving that it was all a waste of effort. Looking a little disappointed, the professor sat in the living room nibbling at some senbei crackers piled on a small dish.

“Don’t sweat it, Professor. Those spells sounded like they were super connected to springs, though.”

“Just because a spell mentions something doesn’t mean it actually affects that thing. For example, I’ve learned a glacial magic spell, but I can use it anywhere, regardless of the location.”

“True enough.”

I nodded at Hiyori’s words. Magic chants are kind of hard to make sense of. Most are poetic, but some, like the torch-passing spell, sound like pure nonsense.

“Hmm… Maybe ‘spring’ isn’t referring to the water source, but a person’s name or something.”

“Huh? Could that even happen?”

“It could.”

I blurted out my doubt, fully expecting the professor to wave it off—but instead, the professor nodded quite seriously, which made me hesitate. You’ve got to be kidding me, Professor.

“For example… you know the Sahara Desert, right? It’s the name of a desert. But ‘Sahara’ is actually Arabic for ‘desert.’ So when you say ‘Sahara Desert,’ you’re literally saying ‘Desert Desert.'”

“Huh, I didn’t know that.”

Hiyori and I nodded along, absorbing the professor’s fun fact like an impromptu lecture.

“Another example: in Christianity and Judaism, the name of the singular God is treated like a proper noun nowadays, but originally, the word meant something like ‘the one who exists’ or ‘existence itself.’ It’s quite common for what started out as a simple descriptor or definition to become a proper name as it moves through different languages.”

“Kind of like how my ‘Kyanos’ name ultimately traces back to the Greek word for ‘blue’?”

“A perfect example! Spot on!”

The stoat gave Hiyori a small, polite bow.

Even during a serious lecture, the little creature was irresistibly cute. I wonder how the students in magic linguistics manage to focus in class. Or maybe they don’t, honestly.

“In magic linguistics, we also have several suspicious terms that seem to have shifted meanings like that through translation. For example, there are two words we’ve found that are both translated as ‘king’: Tarquear and Donlaul. Donlaul definitely refers to the ordinary concept of a king. But Tarquear seems to be used more like a personal name. It’s possible that it’s not just a generic word for king, but rather a proper noun, like ‘King Tarquear.'”

“Ah, yeah, that kind of thing totally happens. Super plausible!”

“Sure, it’s plausible, but you’re nodding like a bobblehead.”

“Well, think about it—Hiyori, have you ever seen a person’s name appear in any of the Anonymous Epics?”

“…Now that you mention it, no, I haven’t.”

Hiyori seemed to dig through her memories, but in the end, she shook her head. I couldn’t recall anything either.

That was strange. Is it even possible for an epic to contain no personal names at all?

Take humanity’s oldest story, The Epic of Gilgamesh — it’s packed with names like Gilgamesh, Humbaba, Enkidu, and plenty of gods, too.

Or The Iliad, the legendary masterpiece of ancient Greece — even people who aren’t familiar with epics have at least heard names like Achilles, Hector, and Apollo.

And that goes for plenty of other works, too, like The Song of the Nibelungs, The Mahabharata, and Yukar. Around the world, there are countless epics, but not a single one deliberately avoids using personal names. Not one.

“Rather than assuming the Anonymous Epic just doesn’t use personal names at all, it makes more sense to think that one of the words that doesn’t seem like a name actually is one.”

“Yeah, that sounds about right.”

“Or maybe it’s just a custom of the magic civilization to avoid using proper nouns in their epics.”

“…That’s also possible. So, which is it?”

“I don’t know. From what we can tell, the Anonymous Epic seems to have a main character, or at least a central figure, but at some point in the story, their role and allegiance clearly shift a few times — and with each shift, the way they’re referred to changes, too. Because of that, there are a lot of chants where it’s hard to tell if they’re talking about the same person or someone entirely different.”

“That’s a pain to untangle. Well, I guess we kind of do the same thing — calling the same person by different names like 0933 and Dairi.”

“You mean me, huh. But yeah, maybe it’s something like that.”

The Anonymous Epic is full of flowery phrasing. It wasn’t written to make its content easy for Earthlings to understand, so of course it’s confusing.

While I was working through the Demon King Gremlin, trying to get closer to the super-advanced technology of the magic civilization, Professor Ohinata and the team of linguistic researchers were steadily inching toward the truth of that civilization’s culture and history, one spell chant at a time.

I’m not so full of myself as to think I’ll uncover all of magic’s mysteries with my own hands — but I’d at least like to grasp the outline of the truth before I kick the bucket. Gotta keep at it, I guess. In moderation, anyway.

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