Cider turned the pages and Esperanza wrote them down. They shed together perfectly as if one body was moving.
"DAN. Page 31, fourth."
"Green."
The interpreted sentence was: 'Green suits red-haired girls.' Complete nonsense.
"The next sentence is, hmm, from here the subheadings and cipher don't match?"
"We'll need to change books. If we take this sentence as a hint."
The thod of tornting people was also quite petty. If you found the right book like Cider and Esperanza, it was a cipher that could be solved plainly from beginning to end, but if you started with the wrong book, you would have to keep changing books with no content.
"Let's contact Millen."
Thus the role of turning pages fell to the poor attendant who had been organizing the study. Cider connected a gramophone-like machine with a microphone that looked closer to a fan.
"Millen. Find the books as I tell you."
—...Yes, understood.
The answer was a beat late. He must not want to do it. Esperanza quietly clicked her tongue. Due to the distance between the laboratory and Glailly House, and because Millen wasn't as excellent an assistant as Cider, it took a bit more ti to interpret the next sentence.
The next line was: 'The two-faced gentleman, no one knows his second face.'
"Ah, this is that thing!"
The next line. The cipher itself was frustratingly easy.
"But like this..."
The cipher was structured so you couldn't skip the middle. The previous sentence was the key to the next sentence. The problem was that it was just a key. Nothing more aningful or informative.
"What on earth was the intention behind such useless work?"
Making it possible to read the sa cipher in two different ways depending on the key would have been extrely delicate work, but the content was too poor in comparison. At this rate, the people who intercepted the cipher would beco suspicious.
"Let's continue."
Cider didn't seem inclined to stop. Esperanza also silently wrote down what he dictated. It was actually quite enjoyable work. They went through several more books like that. They were generally famous literary works published 10 to 20 years ago that any wealthy person or intellectual would have at least one copy of.
"Hmm. This is the last sentence. Surely another book won't co up?"
Perhaps having gotten the hang of it, Millen's speed of turning pages had increased.
—My.
"GEN. Page 3, forty-fifth word."
—Please wait a mont.
Millen fumblingly counted the numbers. Since he had miscounted several tis, Esperanza leaned back on the sofa and waited for Millen to properly count to 45 this ti. Cider laughed quietly.
—Sincerity.
After going through several more such crises, they obtained a complete sentence.
"My sincerity will remain like a burn under hot flas."
Considering the generally straightforward flow of the cipher so far, the aning of this sentence, which sounded like a passionate love letter, was also predictable.
Different colored eyes t. Cider took out a lighter from his jacket.
"Shall we try?"
Just as he was about to light the fla and bring it to the letter, Esperanza swept away the hand holding the letter paper.
"Wait. Sothing feels strange."
Sothing felt like it shouldn't be done. Esperanza examined the paper carefully. It had no magic power and was just ordinary paper. No. It wasn't a problem with the paper.
"The ink... doesn't seem like ordinary ink."
"May I take a look?"
Cider cut out a letter from one corner of the letter with a knife and lit it on fire. The fire that had been nibbling at the corner spread in a flash and blazed up hugely in an instant. Esperanza hastily struck Cider's hand to knock it away and stamped on the flas. Bang bang, she stamped hard enough to shake the floor below, then lifted her foot to reveal only charred marks.
"It's for destroying evidence."
That's right. If they had trusted that sentence and brought fire to the letter, the letter would have disappeared. Even if the content had been copied, the evidence that it was a letter sent by the Duke would disappear. It was a cunning thod to make the interceptor burn the evidence themselves. Daria's wariness had grown to its limit, so there was no need to worry about the degree of thods anymore.
"It's quite ticulous. Did Duchess Sherbury really make this?"
"According to what I heard from Lady Perth. When she was an exiled princess, she humiliated people who had ostracized and ignored the Duchess like this. She would lure them to the wrong place with invitation cards like this, then leave them standing for hours to make them a laughingstock."
"And then when the other party complained, she would retort asking why they alone solved the cipher with the wrong key?"
She didn't seem like soone capable of such thinking. Though she had quite good intuition, that was only the agility characteristic of the weak.
"She seems to have talent for tornting others. You almost fell for it too."
At the words spoken while tapping her hand, Esperanza belatedly nodded.
"Co to think of it, that's right."
There was such an incident. Though it was probably the Duchess who actually suffered embarrassnt.
"Well, anyway, it was an interesting cipher. I hope we never have to make or solve such things again."
Cider burst into laughter. It seed he had quite enjoyed it. Though it was hard for Esperanza to understand.
"Good. Now that the cipher problem is solved, you need to help ."
"That's not difficult, but why do you need my help?"
Despite her words, Esperanza, who had gotten up from sitting for a long ti and was stretching her stiff body, showed excitent. Finally, from Cider's research where she had no idea what was being done and machines just changed from this to that, there was a result Esperanza could recognize.
"You'll know when you see."
What is it?
Cider opened the door. Inside the room where machines filled three walls, the sound of parts turning was loud. A large tal wing was set up on a stand, and the space under the wing that had always felt sowhat empty was now packed with chanical devices.
"Is it completed?"
Esperanza said while gripping the wing tip.
"No. But an important technology is at the stage just before completion. I called you because I need an experint."
"Are you going to draw blood again?"
"It's not that."
Esperanza, who had been familiarly rolling up her sleeves, blinked. No, I didn't even ask for it, so why was I about to give it?
"Put your sleeve down, shall we try just one side?"
Esperanza glanced at one wing that was longer than her arm and filled with heavy chanical parts. She rembered it being trendously heavy even before completion.
"Wouldn't it be better to try wearing both? I think I'll fall over because the balance won't match."
Of course that would be nice if possible, but Cider pointed to the room and said.
"It's narrow."
"Then there's no choice. I'll try leaning against the wall."
Cider lifted one wing and fitted it on the shoulder of Esperanza leaning against the wall.
"Try putting in magic power. About half of what you put in guns, slowly."
The sound of parts turning could be heard. It tickled as if real wings were sprouting from her shoulder. The slowly infused magic power spread to the wing tips and flapped once largely. The densely woven tal feathers rippled like waves.
"How do you control direction or speed? Is there a separate remote control device?"
"Try controlling it with magic power."
Huh, no way? Esperanza looked back and forth between the wing and Cider.
"Uh, this, uhh? It works? How does this work?"
Speed was one thing, but direction control was possible too? Just by changing the direction of magic power a little like extending an arm in a different direction?
Like moving arms and legs, the wing moved as one body just by moving magic power.
"It's new technology."
"It's useless new technology. So..."
From the perspective of magical engineering that extracted and used magic power stored in magic stones with chanical devices. Even if the technology existed, there was no one who could use it.
So this was technology for the one and only magician.
While it was true that everything Cider had made for her so far were magical tools that Esperanza, who possessed strong magic power, could easily use, if magic stones were inserted in their place, other people could also use them. Just like how people in dungeons who knew neither magic nor magical engineering used magical weapons from Esperanza's inventory. But this was different. This was made only for Esperanza.
Esperanza, leaning against the wall with a steel wing on one shoulder, slowly moved the wing once more. It felt like wings that hadn't existed before had sprouted.
Cider, who had been watching her flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes for a while, clapped his hands. When their eyes t, he smiled.
"Now, young lady. I think I ntioned this isn't completed yet. There's sothing to check, so stop moving now."
Ah, right. That's right.
Esperanza slowly spread the wing. When it beca the sa shape as when first seen, Cider connected other machines. When a ringing sound occurred, Esperanza frowned.
"I'll just check a few things. It won't take long."
A blueprint appeared on the large screen. When the graph drawn below it was torn off, blank paper remained.
"Try lifting the wing upward. Like that. Now don't do anything and just put in magic power."
The chanical devices turned complexly but nothing happened. Cider narrowed his eyes. He wrote sothing on the paper, then suddenly said.
"You have extrely delicate magic power control?"
"Uh, I suppose so?"
"Good. This ti the sound will be a bit loud, try folding the wing."
"Fold it?"
"Like a bird folds its wings."
"But there are other machines here... they'll break."
"Don't worry about that."
Anyway, when it's like this, no words get through. She didn't have confidence to persuade him either. Thinking he would handle it sohow, she gathered the magic power that had been spread wide inside the chanical device, as if folding wings.
The machines connected to the wing made a loud noise. Sothing was busily turning, and there was the sound of parts hitting each other. It was a sound that reminded her of anxious mories of waiting in dental clinic waiting rooms. Esperanza unconsciously shrank her body.
"You can spread it again."
"Is it okay?"
"Ah, there was an original error. I wondered what the problem was, but I think I roughly know. Just need to fix a few circuits and it'll be done."
"So you're saying those machines that were making breaking sounds are okay?"
Cider shrugged.
"If breaking sounds were made, they probably broke? Don't worry about it. I told you to try it knowing things would break."
How can I not worry? Esperanza glared at Cider, but he really nonchalantly helped remove the wing from her arm. Though it was sowhat easier to lift with magic power, it was really heavy. Her arm felt light like a sandbag had been removed.
"Is it all done now?"
"Just need to finish up. Looks like you'll have to go in alone tonight."
What?
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