“Last time I saw you your height was only to my chest or so, you’ve grown bigger. And you’ve become prettier.”
The talker was a large man with hair the same platinum blonde color and light blue eyes as Elsa. Next he turned to Reinhardt.
“Reinhardt, sorry for having had you babysit my sster.”
Reinhardt didn’t seem to mind his somewhat haughty tone and spoke to him amiably.
“It’s been a while, Fritz. So you’re a major now.”
“Uh-uh, I was promoted this year. It seems you’ve been somewhat busy lately too. The rumors about Schwarz Ritter have reached my ears.”
“I’m honored to hear that.”
As befitting for childhood friends, the two spoke without honorifics.
“Oh. Today I came all the way here to Egelia Kingdom’s edge as border security. And just across this hotel I recognized that a certain carriage had been parked. So I thought that just maybe, and right after found it was as I expected.”
Then the man called Fritz once more turned towards Elsa and,
“I wanted to have a good talk with you, but I’m still on duty. I’ll come again this evening.”
He said, saluted and briskly left the dining room. He didn’t seem to have paid attention to Jin from the beginning to the end.
When Fritz left Reinhardt scratched his head while he turned to Jin and,
“He surprised you, right? He was Elsa’s brother, the second son of Randol Family, Fritz Randol Von Grosch. He works as the company commander for the troops garrisoned outside the country.”
He introduced the man. Although he wasn’t here any more.
“Fritz-niisama is a soldier. He’s a bit simple though.”
Elsa explained her brother’s temperament.
“I see, a muscle-brain, huh.”
Jin carelessly said what he thought.
“Muscle-brain?”
“What the, Jin, what’s a muscle-brain?”
Sure enough, it turned out that Elsa and Reinhardt needed clarification. Jin helplessly explained.
“Let’s see, muscle-brain is a figurative expression meaning having even the brain be made out of muscles, so it’s a word to describe someone whose strong point is in moving their body rather than thinking…I guess.”
He explained mixing in some a little indirect expressions. There was no way Jin could call Elsa’s real brother “foolhardy”, “a simpleton”, “empty-headed”, or something like that.
And yet, it seemed to go over well,
“Even the brains are muscle…Fritz-niisama…Pfft…”
Curiously Elsa seemed to be bursting into laughter. Seeing her holding in laughter was rather fresh.
“Ahahaha, what an interesting expression, Jin! Look, Elsa’s face. That’s something rare. …Anyway, I’m off to handle the formalities. Elsa, what are you going to do?”
After Reinhardt’s question, Elsa who was still quivering finally managed to raise her face and,
“Mine said that she’ll show me around town today.”
She replied.
“Is that so, so Mine was from around here originally. Alright. Take care. And you, Jin?”
“Umm, I’ll casually look around town.”
“Is that so. Well then, see you in the evening. …Claude, let’s go.”
“Yes.”
In the end Reinhardt put on his serious diplomat mode face and left the dining room along with the butler Claude.
“In that case, Jin-kun, see you later.”
Elsa left too. The left behind Jin faced Reiko who was hidden using [Stealth] and,
“Well then, Reiko, shall we go too?”
He said and left behind the dining room.
＊ ＊ ＊
Jin returned to Hourai Island with Reiko.
The reason being that a lot of things he wanted to do had piled up. Incidentally, he left Ann in the hotel room. If anyone asked, she had the instructions to reply that Jin had gone to the town.
And now, speaking of the things he wanted to do, first on the list.
“Reiko, it’s a day late but happy birthday.”
“Eh? Father?”
Two days after the day Jin had arrived in this world. The third of April was the day he had restored Reiko. Today was the fourth. The reason for the delay was that he couldn’t make this in time without Reiko noticing.
“It’s new clothes. Wear these from now on.”
The clothes Reiko had worn until now were revealed to be a little worn out during the check-up after the fight with Gigantes, and so Jin had made her new ones.
The material was the same but this time the color was jet black. Together with Reiko’s hair and eyes she was rather mysterious. As a matter of fact, this black dye had the highest anti-magic ability.
“Thank you very much, Father.”
Reiko immediately changed clothes on the spot. She carefully folder the old clothes, and put them in the equipment storage for Reiko.
“Mh-hm, it fits you well. You look a little more adult-like.”
Jin said and Reiko smiled happily.
Next was checking the information received from Ann.
Parts of it seemed to be damaged or missing, but according to Laozi by supplementing it a fair amount of information could be extracted.
“Laozi, how is it?”
Jin asked about the status of repairing the information from Ann.
“Yes. The restoration percentage of the information is 85 percent. The remaining 15 percent is greatly damaged, and regretfully it could not be restored.”
To the apologetic Laozi Jin said,
“Oh, there’s no way around that. So, inside the restored information, was there anything new? If there was, please tell me.”
And urged him to go from here. Laozi responded at once.
“Yes. The first matter is knowledge about medication. The second matter is information about golem suits. The third matter is about the beginning of the Great Magic War. The rest is still waiting complete restoration.”
“Somehow there seems to be only interesting information. But, the beginning of the war, so there wasn’t anything about the Ether Stampede?”
“No. It looks like Ann was abandoned before the Ether Stampede occurred.”
“I see. In that case it was inevitable. Well then, medicine, was it? Please tell me about that.”
About 98 percent of Jin’s body was composed of Magi Atoms, that is, magical particles arranged into atoms. For that reason if there was an Ether Stampede Jin would probably vanish in the blink of an eye. That’s why he wanted to know about the Ether Stampede.
But also, cells made out of Magi Atoms are stabler than regular cells. Consequently there’s the side effect of no results of muscle training appearing, but on the other hand his health wouldn’t be negatively impacted by illnesses or such. The sole exception was mental disorders.
Therefore even if he was wounded he wouldn’t fall ill, was the state of Jin’s current body. How things like growth or senility would turn out, he didn’t yet know.
Be that as it may, Jin had an interest in medicine. In the knowledge he inherited from the preceding Magi Craft Meister, Adrianna Balbora Ceci, there was only a little relating to chemicals.
There was just barely enough information for Jin to make things like ointments protecting skin from irritating materials, or salves for burns.
“Yes. There is information about oral medicine that utilizes Magic Energy to improve the body’s internal healing capability.”
Jin was about to jump for joy after what Laozi said.
“Potions!”
It was the famous thing from games like a certain game about the last illusion or one about beating a dragon. The medicine’s synthesis wasn’t through Magi Craft but through what was categorized as alchemy and so Jin was extremely interested.
“Yes, it’s the so-called Potion indeed. According to the information it can also be made to restore Magic Energy, making it the so-called ‘Ether’.”
The ‘Ether’ usually spoken of in this world was the source of the unevenly distributed Magic Energy, the ‘Free Origin Energy’. Confusing, Jin thought.
“That’s good. Do you know its manufacturing method?”
“Yes. The one made out of high-ranking devil beasts was the most popular one. After filteirng the blood cells and such, it becomes something close to the so-called ‘serum’.”
After hearing that Jin wanted to try making it.
“Ahh, but where would you even get a high-ranking devil beast’s blood.”
Jin muttered but Laozi said,
“We have some.”
“Eh?”
“The blood from the Sea Dragon beaten the other day was secured and cold-stored.”
“Was it now, good work!”
This time Jin actually jumped up in joy. He immediately went to see the frozen blood in the freezer.
“Woah.”
There was 20 drums of blood from the giant Sea Dragon. That’s approximately four kiloliters, or four cubic meters. It was a preposterous quantity.
For experiments, Jin took an already-prepared subportion. Laozi had been sensible about this.
“Let’s try purifying this first.”
Jin searched his uncertain knowledge and decided to try a centrifuge. He could make the machine, but to begin with he decided on a simpler course of action.
“Reiko, I’ll leave it to you.”
He entrusted the task to Reiko.
“Yes, Father.”
Reiko swung around the chemically inert Adamantite vessel where the blood had been poured in. Because the container had a high durability, he had her swing it at near the speed of sound, and it brought about unexpected results.
She was able to separate it into some three components.
Serum is essentially blood from which the blood cells, platelets, and such have been removed, but by further centrifuging it at a speed no one had thought to try, a liquid that ought to be called ‘pure serum’ appeared.
“Hmm, this clearest part must be the serum, right? Please put the remnants to the cold storage for later analysis.”
Jin brought the crystal container in which the pure serum was before his eyes and looked into it. There was about 300 milliliters of it.
“Laozi, what do I do with this?”
“Yes. That is sure to contain an abundance of Mana. Please try examining it.”
After being told that, Jin examined the Magic Energy’s flow using [Inspection]. And then he found that it was certainly true. More precisely, no one could object to saying it was mostly Mana.
“Next is simply giving it directions. Directing it for ‘Healing Improvement’ makes it a Potion, and ‘Absorption Improvement’ makes for an Ether Potion.”
Because Laozi had Jin’s information, his explanation was easy to understand. However, these Potions made out of a Sea Dragon’s blood had an over ten times better effect than those that Ann’s era had had.
“I see, the idea is similar to inscribing spells into Magi Crystals.”
After grasping that, Jin thought about inscribing the spell [Medicare] into it, but Jin couldn’t use it. Right now Reiko was the same.
“Hmm, I need to have Reiko learn it from somewhere, don’t I.”
Jin muttered, and separated just 100 milliliters of it for an experiment, and tried charging it with the healing magic he himself knew, [Recover].
The liquid shined for a moment and then returned to normal.
“Hmm, I think there’s a limit to the effectiveness, but there’s no test subjects.”
Jin wasn’t wounded, and golems didn’t need medicine. And because of that, Jin helplessly decided to pour it into a bottle and carry it with him until there was a chance to test it.
Using the [Forming] magic he made a bottle out of crystal, and capped it with a block of wood resembling a cork. For now he put it in his pocket.
Now then, he also had an interest in the second thing, the golem suit.
“Powered Suits!”
Jin got unusually excited. However, there seemed to be only minor data.
“Hmm, I guess I have to teach myself how to make them.”
And thus, another unthinkable piece of equipment would be born.