Chapter 16 - Not a Person, but a Tool

Echidna Philiaz.

Age unknown.

She belonged to the Philiaz, but was expelled by her sisters because her ideals did not align with theirs.

Reason for expulsion: sucker for handsome faces and falls in love at the drop of a hat.

Messy black hair, and dark circles that looked like goth makeup.

Black lips and skin so pale it seemed never to have received a single ray of light.

And a gloomy air typical of a witch.

If she kept still, one might think she at least belonged in the category of beauties, but the witch-like impression ruined everything.

So, if one were to ask whether she seemed like a witch...

"Hello. I'm Echidnaaa."

Her childish way of speaking, which was the complete opposite, even shattered that distinctive witch-like atmosphere.

"Ehehe..."

She smiled as if she meant well, but it was so unbearably awkward that even that felt gloomy.

Everything about her made it difficult for her to fit in with ordinary humans.

She accepted unconditionally the moment she saw Zed.

But he still had to explain what sort of work she would be doing, so Ferda entered the witch's house and faced her.

"You said you would do it no matter what, but do you know exactly what kind of work it is?"

"No. But that doesn't matter."

Echidna's murky pupils rolled like a stormy sea.

"I-I'm just happy I get to be with such handsome gentlemen and a cute young lady... Ehehehe. If you order me to, I'll become your dog."

A witch's unique madness began to seep more and more into her voice.

Luri frowned, and Zed felt uneasy enough to shrink back.

Only Ferda remained calm.

"Echidna Philiaz. You are making golems, are you not?"

"Huh? Oh, yes. Why?"

"Can you carry out that golem production at Valdrova Castle?"

"O-Of course. I can. Hehe. If you order me to, I'll become your dog. Woof, woof."

She was truly accepting over and over without asking or arguing.

Even Ferda was no exception to this sight.

'I thought she would at least be a little better in the past, but this was when she was at her worst.'

Compared to the time when he had come to know her, she was such a mess now that the future her seemed almost sane.

"Lord Ferda."

Luri quietly poked him in the side and spoke.

"You came all this way to recruit some bitch who only makes golems?"

"U-Um, I can hear you?"

"Yes, they are only golems."

"I-I said I can hear you?"

Giant creatures made of mud or lumps of stone.

They could barely move at the level of simple walking, and aside from their size and durability, they were corpses.

There was a reason "golem-like bastard" was an insult.

"Do you have a golem you have made right now?"

"Huh? I do have one, but... I-I'm embarrassed because it's not finished yet...?"

"It does not matter. I am not the one who will be embarrassed."

"Ah, then... I'll show youuu!"

Echidna clapped her hands.

Then the wardrobe burst open, and something sprang out from inside it.

It was a wooden doll made in the shape of a sturdy man.

Its eyes were huge and glittered as if they might spew jewels, and its lips were sharp.

It had a face and body like something a child had drawn while fantasizing about a prince.

Seeing the three of them stare intently at it, Echidna twisted her body in embarrassment.

"Ehehe. It's not finished yet, so I'm embarrassed..."

"I suppose you do need to refine the face a little more."

"No. The doll itself is finished?"

"... This is?"

Zed could not hide his astonishment.

That was its completed form?

The golem creaked as it came outside, and its face turned slightly toward Echidna.

Echidna smiled brightly.

CREAK. CREAK.

The wooden golem moved with the sound of stiff joints grinding together.

The golem took some tea from on top of the cupboard and began to brew it.

What was astonishing there was that the golem had accurately picked and chosen a single item.

"There are countless teas in the cupboard, so why did it bring that one?"

"Um, so, how this works is... Ah, this is a bit boring, so I shouldn't explain it too plainly, um, u-um..."

Echidna clenched both hands and stamped her feet.

Ferda opened his mouth, thinking he might answer in her place.

"In other words—"

"Wait. I-I think I can do it!"

It took her about three minutes just to choose her words, and cold sweat poured down her face.

At last, Echidna finished organizing her thoughts and spoke.

"To put it simply, it reads my mood and brings me the tea I like. Today I'm in a good mood, so it brought Darjeeling."

"The golem... does that?"

Luri asked in disbelief.

Echidna scratched her head shyly.

"Ehehe. I wanted to try making it that way. So I'm making the magic."

"Making magic... That means you are drawing the runes yourself?"

"Yes, that's right, little lady! I studied thaaat super hard!"

Even Luri, who had looked down on humans, felt awe this time.

To create an intricate magic circle, one had to learn the process of compressing its meaning, rune making.

And the ability to create runes belonged to the realm of masters, of whom there were not even ten across the entire Serdes Continent.

She was not merely a golem maker or a gloomy witch.

'A Rune Maker.'

She was a witch with the power to create magic.

Luri looked back at Ferda.

Unlike at first, when her gaze had been filled with disgust, this time it held awe.

"How do you know humans like this?"

"I came to know them by chance."

The reason he had remembered her was, of course, born from hatred.

She had been one of the humans wasting her talent to an appalling degree.

'It was enough to make me cough blood.'

Echidna Philiaz liked handsome men to an appalling degree.

How much, one might ask?

That desire was what led her to the Red Circle.

However, because of a witch's distinctive gloom and her lacking interpersonal skills, Echidna ultimately ended up in a situation so severe that she could not meet men at all.

Unlike others, who would have thought she should improve her witch-like gloom or her interpersonal skills, she thought this.

["If I can't date a boyfriend, can't I just make one?"]

Like other witches, making one into a taxidermied specimen or using him as a puppet felt distasteful.

With a mindset somewhere between human and witch, her answer was to create an object similar to a human through golems.

Her efforts led her to begin mastering formula commands and the creation of runes, and she became a Rune Maker.

'Even I, a Great Mage, could not perform rune making, and she used it for something as trivial as making a boyfriend.'

Ferda felt as though he might cough blood even now.

To think she had developed an ability capable of overturning the world just to sit there and make something as trivial as a boyfriend.

'But thanks to that, I learned that golem soldiers capable of moving in response to a flexible command system were not impossible.'

An artificial life-form that could be called the pinnacle of alchemy, the homunculus.

It could learn its own work through study and could even perform tasks in fields humans could not.

However, individual production was limited, and it had the drawback of being impossible to control completely, just like a human.

And then there were golems, which could be mass-produced but had the drawback of being unable to perform complex movements and commands.

Echidna's golems were precisely what took only the strengths of both.

'Driving the monsters out of the far eastern front will not be impossible.'

Technologies as innovative as the magical engineering led by Burnel Marquis could be presented.

"Then it seems the matter is settled. I will give you your letter of appointment."

"A l-letter of appointment?"

"You will be a chief researcher of Valdrova. There is already one other chief, but his field is different from yours, so you will not need to mind each other."

"Ah, i-is that so?"

There was one more.

At those words, her black eyes rolled, and she shyly opened her mouth.

"Um... is he a man?"

Ferda nodded.

Her face flushed, and her fingers fidgeted.

"He is a man."

"Um... is he hand...some?"

Echidna's eyes sparkled as if it were the most important question.

"He looks like an ordinary scholar with glasses."

"Ah, is that so? Well, it doesn't matterrr..."

Echidna looked disappointed.

Her eyes flicked toward Zed.

Being a natural womanizer, Zed reflexively gave her a bright smile.

"Ehehe, ehehehe..."

At that sinister air, Zed's face gradually stiffened.

He wanted to step backward, but there was nowhere to retreat.

"Can you depart immediately? Or do you need time to prepare?"

"No. I have extradimensional storage magic, so I can put everything in and leave right away. Hehe..."

Extradimensional storage magic was 5th-tier magic.

That meant she was currently at the 5th Circle or higher.

And it also meant her obsession with handsome men was tremendous.

"Good. Take a carriage and head for Valdrova Castle ahead of us."

Zed snapped his head around and asked.

"You are not going with us?"

"There is still one person left to bring."

"Then let's go together, shall we? I am your attendant."

"There is no need."

"No, don't say that..."

Zed smiled awkwardly and spoke.

"Let's go together. Please."

Desperation could be felt in that "please."

It meant, Do not leave me alone with that woman.

'I cannot do that.'

Ferda knew.

The completed golem Echidna would create in the future.

Its appearance took the form of Zed Swallow.

The thing that had made her single-mindedly devoted was Zed Swallow's looks.

'So I have to keep them together for a while.'

For Echidna's madness to soften, Zed had to stay near her.

However, it was unclear what future would befall Zed because of that obsession.

And Ferda had no interest in it either.

He would manage somehow.

* * *

And so, Ferda succeeded in appointing three talented people.

The pioneer of magical engineering, Burnel Marquis.

The master thief, Zed Swallow.

The Rune Maker, Echidna Philiaz.

And the last person remaining was...

"The Sage of Water, Hellus Phobidas."

Among the people presented earlier, he was the only human Luri knew.

He was a late-blooming mage in his mid-forties.

However, he was famous for seeing through things with brilliant wisdom and insight, and thus earned the name "Sage of Water."

He had built a mansion in a rural village and lived there.

With the belief that he must always be with water, he was an ascetic who belonged nowhere.

"How do you plan to persuade a human who said he would refuse even if the Arken Empire gave him a fortune?"

Ferda's current recruitment score was two successes and one pending.

Since she had not known his opponents before, predicting him had been difficult, but this time the other party was someone she could predict to some extent.

Luri judged that with Ferda's abilities, persuading him would be difficult.

'I do not think he will bring him by establishing authority or threatening him...'

She could not help but wonder inwardly what kind of brilliant idea he had.

Ferda answered like this.

"I have no interest in the Sage of Water."

Luri furrowed her brow.

"Then why did we come here? You clearly wrote Sage of Water, and we came all the way to the Sage of Water's house, yet you are saying you are not trying to bring the Sage of Water?"

"What I am looking for has no name. So I merely used the name Hellus Phobidas as a substitute."

"Did you deceive me?"

Luri narrowed her eyes and glared at him with a venomous expression.

"Only halfway."

Ferda glanced up at the mansion.

The windows were wide open, and the back door used by the servants was slanted open as if it had not been closed properly.

Looking at it, Ferda asked.

"When ordinary women do laundry, where do they usually do it?"

"Why are you asking me that?"

Ferda looked her up and down.

What he saw was an expressionless girl wearing a maid outfit.

"You are a servant, are you not?"

"Servants have ranks too. And I handle everything with magic. I am not some child beating laundry with a bat by a stream."

"A stream, then. Thank you."

Following Luri's advice that was not quite advice, he headed for the stream.

As she had said, he was able to find it without difficulty.

"You damned idiot of a bitch! You can't even do that!?"

In a place where only the sound of flowing water should have been quiet, a middle-aged woman's abuse rang out.

There stood one plump middle-aged woman and one skinny girl.

For country folk, their clothes were extremely neat.

It was clear they were a noble's servants.

The plump middle-aged woman jabbed a finger at the girl's laundry and shouted.

"If you beat the laundry and wring it out, you have to put it in there. Why do I have to tell you that every single time before you understand!? Beat it! Wring it! Put it in! Got it!?"

The blonde girl carefully nodded.

"Good grief, I can't believe I'm stuck teaching such an idiot! What punishment did I receive from heaven to deserve... Ugh!"

The middle-aged servant struck her own chest and frowned.

The girl did not look frightened.

She merely looked down at it with empty eyes, then silently repeated the task the woman had ordered.

"Is she a troublemaker?"

The middle-aged servant jumped in surprise and rose from her seat.

Her eyes quickly swept over Ferda, and a smile appeared on her lips.

"Oh my, my lord. I apologize. I have shown you something unsightly. Haha. I was only educating one of our foolish servants and ended up raising my voice..."

"Was that education?"

"Of course, a noble lord like you would not understand. Unless I shock her like this, how will she understand at all? That is why I do this."

Ferda's eyes slipped toward the girl.

He held his chin and let out a sound.

"Hm. That looked like nothing more than venting irritation to me, rather than education. And there is no need to educate that child either."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Do you not think your order was simply wrong?"

The middle-aged servant blinked and asked.

"I apologize, my lord. I do not understand..."

"From what I saw and heard, you made her repeat beating and wringing the laundry. But it seems you did not tell her where to put it afterward. Had you told her that, she would certainly have continued working."

"Oh my, must I tell her every single thing like that? If she were human, she should have some sense and manage things on her own, but she is so unbearably dull..."

The middle-aged servant glared at the girl.

The girl merely kept kneading the laundry, as if she had no interest in their conversation.

"Yes. The problem is that you see her as a person."

"What do you mean? Are you saying this child is some kind of tool?"

"If you had thought of what you were handling not as a human but as a tool, it would have been different. Do you not think expecting a tool to think is too much?"

The servant looked as if she did not understand those words.

Luri, who had been quietly listening, also did not understand what Ferda meant.

"What kind of tool in the world eats and sleeps? If she were a tool, we could just shove her in a storage room or throw her away..."

"Why did you not throw her away?"

"Would throwing her away mean she would be thrown away? She is someone the Sage of Water cherishes."

"Hm, is that so?"

"That bitch is like a stray dog pup he picked up from who knows where."

The servant poured out curses without stopping.

Ferda listened calmly, then asked this.

"If you dislike her so much and find it hard to throw her away, how about handing her over to me?"