Cyrus let out a deep breath.
"This way."
Count Avondale's taciturn attendant guided him to the front of the research lab. The sound of tinkering leaked through the door crack.
"Is that thing supposed to turn on?"
"Probably?"
"It won't explode or anything......"
"Of course not."
Cider Claiborne paused briefly before adding.
"Though there are occasional cases like that. Nothing serious has happened."
"Are you joking?"
"You won't get hurt. At worst, the magic circuits might get tangled and we'd have to make it from scratch again."
At that point, Cyrus knocked on the door. The laughter-mixed bickering abruptly stopped.
"Co in!"
When he opened the door and entered, the first thing visible was the brass-colored machine. Gears and pipes were complexly intertwined, and unlike typical chanical devices that placed the analytical engine at the center, this had a total of four analytical engines installed at both ends and the central part. The control panel was positioned at a distance as if turning away from the machine, facing it. And in the middle of the machine was a small space with a door. It was the transport device.
Unlike the previous version that had been shaped after the God of Ti and his scythe, resembling a machine made by a god, this had an overall plain form.
'He wouldn't have had the luxury for such extravagance.'
Whether temporal or ntal luxury.
That wasn't his concern. Instead, Cyrus asked about sothing else.
"Can it operate without the central part?"
"It's only a test operation after all. We can't do the whole thing, we'll just try operating a portion. Additional blood donation will be necessary."
Cyrus silently rolled up his sleeve. A thick needle without any consideration pierced his flesh without hesitation. Soon a bottle the size of his forearm was full. Cider lifted the bottle with blood sloshing inside and loosened the corners of his mouth.
"A mage's body is convenient. Even drawing this much blood at once leaves you fine."
"I'm not exactly fine."
"As long as you can walk around, it's enough. Esperanza, could you help a bit?"
Two large bottles filled with blood, magic amplifiers, converters, magic stones and magic power ters. When all installation was complete, the ter showed an enormous magic power amount of ten million torts.
Cyrus held his slightly dizzy head and watched the scene. Even with that trendous magic power, only a part of the machine could move. To use an analogy, about one arm of a human body.
"Ready."
Cider Claiborne pulled the lever with his back to the large machine. The machine lurched. Magic power was sucked from the bottles packed with blood into the specially refined massive magic stone. Gears began turning roughly. White steam escaped through ventilation ducts.
The screen that had been black took on a sandy color.
"It turned on!"
Cider slowly turned his head. Numbers and letters filling the screen were pushed upward without ti to read them all. And when the rattling machine stopped, numbers reaching ten digits appeared on the screen.
Cider, his cheeks stiff, input sothing into the typewriter connected to the control panel. The machine moved again. The analytical engine began calculations including changed assumptions with a whirring sound.
The numbers decreased.
"What's wrong? Isn't this a success?"
Esperanza, who had been glancing at his stiff face, asked worriedly.
"......That's right."
Cider answered while still unable to take his eyes off the screen.
"Really, once the central part is completed, it'll be finished."
The central part's role was 'transport.' It was practically the most core function of this machine.
Specifying the location to transport to, calculating the necessary magic power, and searching for routes were possible with human power. But transport alone required a special magic stone and a machine with a special structure that could activate the magic stone's function.
"Cyrus. Let's take a look at your 'Golden Claw' first."
Finally.
Cider Claiborne had deliberately not helped with dismantling the Golden Claw even knowing Cyrus was troubled. Now he wouldn't have to carry around what felt like a ti bomb.
But regardless of being pleased, this wasn't the place.
"What's wrong? Is there so problem?"
"I'd prefer to move locations. If we ss up here and create a dungeon like last ti......"
Ah, right. People could be protected sohow, but the spaceti machine couldn't be swept into a dungeon.
Both agreed with that statent, but they couldn't leave the mansion carrying that dangerous object either. After brief discussion, they moved to the first-floor reception room.
Esperanza looked at the golden body that resembled a long horn, fang, or claw rather than a scythe blade. Cider seed to have no intention of opening what was placed on the table, rely stroking over its surface.
She could understand what he was worried about.
"Even if sothing goes wrong while handling that, I won't fall sowhere strange alone, right? Unless we all fall together. Then it doesn't matter."
"It does matter."
Though he replied that way, Cider laughed low. Then he opened the Golden Claw.
Looking at the precise interior like a well-made clock, Cider muttered as if chewing. Barbarians.
"Really, if humans had been used like this, they would have died long ago."
Traces of worn parts being replaced countless tis, yet the wear of the magic stone itself was unavoidable and clearly visible. Seeing how overworked it had been in the hands of humans who used magic tools this way, it seed natural that the Golden Claw had declared a strike and run wild.
"What will you do?"
"I said I could do it."
Cider took out a toolbox from under the table. Cyrus looked at Esperanza as if asking why a toolbox would co from there, but Esperanza was seeing it for the first ti too and had nothing to say.
Cider, who had taken out tools for handling small parts like clock components, quickly unscrewed the central control device that was the Golden Claw's core with swift hand movents.
"Wow......"
The order of screws, the order of parts—he didn't hesitate for even a mont. It was as precise as a pianist pressing keys. A red light on the parts blinked twice and went out completely. Cider soon extracted several parts.
This was sothing other magical engineers 13 years later had also accomplished. He couldn't relax until the central control device was separated. Cyrus, who had been pacing in front of it, grimaced as if being hit whenever magic power leaked from the magic stone.
However, Cider quickly cut off the magic flow and separated the parts as expected. After removing several parts around the central device, he suddenly raised his head.
"Esperanza, that big guy constantly going back and forth is distracting, so could you take him out?"
"I'll stay nearby in case sothing happens."
The only things they could do quietly in the reception room without disturbing Cider were embroidery or gas. Since neither had interest in embroidery, they sat at a chess board where they barely knew the rules and struggled through a ga that would bore even a ten-year-old.
It was when Cyrus, having lost to Esperanza twice in a row, was starting to look for other gas.
Bang. At a sound like magic power exploding, Esperanza quickly drew her gun. Pointing the barrel toward where acrid smoke was coming from, she urgently asked.
"Are you okay? Are you hurt?"
"I'm fine."
An answer ca back a beat late. When the smoke cleared, Cider with reddened eyes showed what he held in his hand.
It was a magic stone.
"Did you succeed?"
"Yes. So it would be good to put away the gun."
Esperanza, who had roughly thrown the gun into the air, strode over. It really was a success. What Cyrus had attempted for years gathering nurous scholars but failed at, accomplished in just a couple hours.
Cyrus's fingertips twitched. While fortunate, it felt like a hole had been punched through his chest. He just stared blankly at Cider and Esperanza handling the magic stone.
"Then what do we do with that now? If we just leave it......"
"Magic power can't touch it. Without the machine, it probably can't summon sothing as big as a dungeon."
A clear solution ca out as if he'd already thought about that part too.
"Esperanza. You still have the insulator you brought from Pinent House's dungeon last ti, right?"
A simple thod. If magic power getting through was the problem, just block it. When Esperanza held out the insulator box, Cider put the magic stone inside and closed it.
"Is this enough?"
Cider shrugged. Monster leather was superior to animal leather for magic transmission. Humans from other worlds were superior to humans from this world at handling magic power. By the sa logic, nothing had performance as excellent as insulators found in dungeons for blocking magic power.
"If this doesn't work, there's no other way."
Esperanza checked that the lid was properly closed, then put the box in her inventory.
Cyrus, who had been watching the box disappear from her fingertips, let out the breath that had been completely blocked.
It really was over. The problem that had tornted him for so long, so simply. Looking at Cider, he was restoring the Golden Claw without the magic stone to its original state with a calm face as if he'd already forgotten the previous danger. Putting the dismantled parts back in order like rewinding a video, he seed to have morized all the part positions.
"How did you do it?"
"It wasn't difficult. Probably other people would have done it quickly too if they'd known the thod. The reason they didn't know the thod was because they weren't the creator."
Simply put, he'd twisted the logical system once to hide a simple separation thod. Esperanza nodded but didn't understand.
"I was worried because many parts had been changed in the middle. If the structure had been modified too, I wouldn't have been able to separate it my way. Then we really would have seen a dungeon in the mansion."
"Wasn't it dangerous?"
"Since the structure wasn't changed, it's fine. Though parts were changed...... future magical engineers were quite conservative."
Cider added with a not-very-pleased expression despite achieving his goal.
The ti it took to restore the machine structure was only half the ti it took to dismantle it. Except for the missing central magic stone, it was perfectly identical to before, including the central control device.
"Why did you restore it?"
Cyrus asked belatedly. Cider answered while closing the machine so the interior couldn't be seen.
"We might need it, you know? It's not dangerous as it is now. Here."
Esperanza, who had received the Golden Claw unexpectedly, glanced at Cyrus while reaching for her inventory.
'Is this okay?'
It seed like she was taking away things Cyrus had brought one by one.
But Cyrus was so absorbed in the successful dismantling of the Golden Claw that he paid no attention to whether Esperanza took the machine or not.
Since it was originally a machine Cider made, Esperanza rationalized to herself as no one listened, smoothly withdrawing empty hands from her inventory. Seeing her uncomfortable expression, Cider made a mischievous smile. It was an accomplice's smile. Finding it absurd, Esperanza smiled a little too.
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