08-05 Regret
The time for regrets would be later.
Reinhardt was crestfallen and hung his head down. It was understandable.
Well, maybe an easy-to-understand illustration would be something like diabetes caused by Magic Energy.
It was natural for him to come to the conclusion that there’s no one who could build a Magi Tool that keeps Magic Energy at precisely the right level.
“If Elsa had just been my sister instead of my cousin, I would’ve long ago wanted to consult you about it, wouldn’t I.”
Reinhardt said, mocking himself. But now was too late.
At that time, once more there was a knock on the door. This time Ann opened it.
The knocker was Fritz.
“Eh?”
“In other words, I’m saying it’s fine for you to no longer take care of Elsa. Sorry for your trouble.”
“…”
There was silence between the two. Then one of them sighed and,
With a lonely smile on his face, Reinhardt threw a question towards Jin. Jin immediately replied.
Being asked that, this time Reinhardt smiled happily.
“Got it. I’ll kill time as I see fit until evening.”
Jin replied to Reinhardt’s explanation. The two then parted ways.
After having a proper breakfast in the hotel, Jin once more warped to Hourai Island.
That was a Magi Tool to find Elsa’s whereabouts. Assuming Elsa had the dagger and brooch Jin had made on her, Jin’s Magic Energy pattern was surely recorded in them.
In other words, what he thought about was trying to build a high-power Magic Energy detector.
Laozi asked. Jin nodded,
“Understood.”
What Jin thought to build was a superior version of the Magic Energy detector. A Magi Tool, no, a Magi Device that could sense the Magic Energy of an individual and pinpoint the location.
As a matter of fact, after the predecessor had died, to find a successor the Automata that was Reiko’s previous body had spent 50 years developing such a device.
And that’s why once more Jin had to build one from scratch.
The foundation was the built-in sensor in Reiko. It could tune for a particular Magic Energy and discern the direction and strength. Its precision wasn’t very good.
If you knew the direction, then by drawing two straight lines from two different points the location would be shown at their intersection. Because the two points can’t be moved, to prepare against the worst case that the lines to the target overlap, Jin thought that a rather good precision could be expected by adding one more for a total of three sensors.
On the side, Reiko was building the sensor’s chassis and support beams according to Jin’s instructions.
Looking at the situation was Hourai Island’s brain, Laozi, thinking that if only he had arms and legs he could be more helpful for Jin.
Next, Jin was stumped by how to quantify the direction of the detected Magic Energy. If this was his original world he would have the compass or even the location of the North Star.
And so he temporarily stopped the construction of the sensors, and tried making a compass.
In the end, he made wire out of copper with [Forming], and painted the surface with the sap of a tree that resembled a lacquer tree to insulate it.
He magnetized the steel needle’s iron core, and finally the magnetic needle was completed.
Jin went on to building a regular compass. A steel needle, a small crystal for a bearing, and an aluminum case. He segmented the compass rose to 360 degrees, added east, west, south, and north to it, then northeast, northwest, southeast, and southwest, and in between those he marked the eight directions of north-northeast and so on, for a total of 16 directions.
If he wanted to have more precision, he thought he ought to use landmarks like the North Star, but this would do for now.
After adding the compass rose to the three sensors, in approximately three hours they were completed. He equipped each one with independent golem brains, and made them able to exchange information with ManaComs.
“Alright, now tune it to my Magic Energy. Let me know about the directions each one senses.”
“My Lord, the largest response is from A:179, B:347, C:61.”
“Mh-hm, they are a right match for me as I’m in front of the research facility. This seems usable. Can you find other golems for example?”
“The number of golems on the island is too large, making finding a specific one difficult.”
“Oh, is that so. Then, how about the air force?”
“Yes, it is possible to pinpoint them. Their locations are…”
“Yeah, you can spare me the details. More importantly, instead of numerical values can you try to represent the information as spots on the completed maps, please?”
“Understood.”
If there was someone he wanted to find, that was surely Elsa. Although to be precise it was the Magi Tool Elsa was holding.
“My Lord, I have a request.”
“Could you build a external human-type terminal for me?”
“Because in that case I could be more helpful for My Lord.”
“It doesn’t need to be as powerful as Reiko-san, just Ann’s power at most is enough.”
“Alright. Do you have any wishes for the appearance?”
Certainly, right now on Hourai Island there were no golems that had the appearance of an old person.
Then Jin decided to promptly build the Automata for Laozi’s use.
Instead he installed Magi Devices like a [Mana Telecam] and a [Remote] so that just Laozi could control it.
For its appearance, for a moment Jin thought to make it like a sage as it was Laozi, but in the end he decided on a butler’s appearance. It felt as if he had added Elsa’s butler Adberg and Reinhardt’s butler Claude together and then divided it with two.
This is confidential, but the reason Jin didn’t simply go with the appearance of a sage was that if it was too dignified it would make Jin nervous.
“One of the targets is taking independent action.”
“Understood.”
In the late afternoon, Jin returned from Hourai Island to Ikasanaato.
“I suppose I’ll try asking Reinhardt for help later.”
Jin gave up on that and returned to the hotel.
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