Strike while the iron is hot, they said.
Rosemary believed that this was the perfect ti to legitimately set foot inside this club. Or rather, it felt like she wouldn’t ever be able to co in here if it wasn’t now.
Every club room in Tilette were private areas, places there were difficult to enter if one wasn’t a mber or the supervising professor.
Of course, Rosemary was able to use her ability and see inside without difficulty. But even so, it was near impossible to get a proper look at the whole room.
The source of Scope’s magic was electromagnetic waves, a spell that sent out electric and magnetic fields in all directions and visualized the information that ca back. And these electromagnetic waves had a very hard ti penetrating conductors.
Getting an electric field to pass through a conductor was like trying to pluck a star from the sky. But it wasn’t impossible, technically, only that the penetrable depth was very small.
There was only one place in the room that was surrounded by these conductors, and Rosemary knew that Aether and Verl had frequented this space throughout the sumr break.
She didn’t know whether it had been for rendezvous or conspiracy purposes. There was no guarantee that she’d find any decent clues just by taking a look inside, either.
But there was one thing that Rosemary wanted to check.
Is that elf here?
It was a reasonable assumption, because Verl Horde hadn’t been seen no matter where she looked.
She just had to personally check the places that were impossible to explore remotely with her own eyes. Mind made up, Rosemary opened the door to the club room.
And.
“Wh-what is this?”
It only took three seconds for the ‘modest noble lady’ façade that she’d been maintaining to crumble along with her expectations.
A capsule-looking, spindle-shaped steel structure lood in front of Rosemary. There was sothing eerie about the mysterious column-like structure that was about four, five ters tall.
What was this, really?
Just then, warm sunlight ca in through the south window and shone in Rosemary’s direction, casting a pillar-shaped shadow over her face. Her head spun like a top.
Rosemary asked with urgency in her voice.
“S-sis.... What in the world is this?”
Aether let out a ‘haaa’, as if she was reluctant to talk about it. But Rosemary was in such a panic that she couldn’t read Aether’s ever-indifferent face.
She didn’t know what this was.
But she could tell that it was dangerous.
“It’s a bomb, duh!”
It wasn’t Aether who answered. A purple-haired brat wearing a large hat popped out from behind the structure.
She was a girl with sharp eyes like a fox, but her face looked soft like a nicely stead bun. Her still chubby cheeks seed as if they’d stretch like rice cakes if one pulled on them.
Although she was only slightly shorter than Rosemary, it made a subtle difference. If Rosemary was a graceful lady who was about to transition from a youth to an adult, Freyr was the very model of a kid who was far from graceful.
A b-bomb?
There wasn’t ti to collect her thoughts.
“Hey, so why are you in here?”
Freyr snapped at Rosemary with a sharp, high-pitched voice.
Not only did she look young, she still had a juvenile way of speaking. Rosemary didn’t like her very much.
But she couldn’t be ruffled in front of a child like her. Regaining her composure, Rosemary ‘hmph’d and replied.
“Aether said I could co in.”
“Really?”
“If you don’t believe , you can ask her yourself.”
Freyr looked back and forth between Aether and Rosemary with sharp eyes. Black, then ultramarine hair ca into view in turns.
Black. Blue. Black. Blue.
“Hm.... Well, if it was Aether, then whatever.”
Soon, Freyr ignored Rosemary and went back to what she’d been doing. Rosemary stared at her.
Picking up an iron ore, Freyr sorted out the pure materials from the stone without a transmutation circle. She pulled out the pig iron and combined it with other stones to form sturdy iron bars, even changing the shape before adding it to the ‘bomb’.
She was building the bomb’s shell like so kid playing with clay. But despite what it looked like, her Earth Magic skills were comparable to that of a Grand Mage. Rosemary stood there watching dazedly for over five minutes.
“... This is a bomb?”
“Yeah! We’re going to submit it for the Culture Fest!”
“The Culture Fest...?”
Rosemary could only tilt her head in puzzlent.
“What, you’re planning to enter next year yet you don’t know about the biggest event held at Tilette?”
“Do you think I’m stupid? Of course I know!”
The Culture Fest was Tilette’s big, month-long autumn festival that was held once a year.
While it was a festival, it was also similar to a contest or exhibition so there were events like invention contests and art exhibitions.
“Who submits a bomb to a contest or an exhibition?”
“That would be us. We’re entering it for the art contest!”
It was a bewildering statent. Hoping that Freyr was joking, Rosemary turned her head in Aether’s direction. As she demanded an explanation with her eyes, big sis sighed once more.
“Freyr’s right.”
This was insane.
That was the conclusion Rosemary ca to after so deliberation.
The mbers here were collectively crazy.
“What’s wrong with that? Everyone’s going to love it!”
“No, no they won’t?!”
“Then everyone except you!”
Frustrated to the limit, Rosemary dragged both hands down her face. She was starting to get it now, why sis had been quiet even though she had banned Flare.
When she’d been with the Demon Army, Aether hated having her research disrupted more than anything else. If Flare had been necessary for her research topic, then she would’ve definitely co after Rosemary.
So it was only now that she was able to co to a conclusion.
Flare was just bait.
This was the real research.
“Sis.... why don’t you reconsider? The prize money for the art fest may be high but this clearly won’t even make it past the preliminaries if you enter it.”
“I’m just trying it out.”
“Who considers a bomb as a work of art?”
“I saw that last year’s contest winner was a toilet.”
Rosemary had even studied modern art history in order to play the role of a Duke’s daughter, but it only went as far as filling her head with information. The ever-changing aesthetic sense of humans was sothing she still had trouble understanding.
Rosemary ran the calculations in a last ditch effort and determined that she shouldn’t stay here any longer.
Right, I’ll leave after taking a look inside that room.
She could talk about the rest when she was alone with Aether; it’d be better to have the conversation after collecting her thoughts.
“Sis, can I see that room over there?”
“Go ahead.”
The response was surprisingly prompt.
Of course, there was no reason for Aether to hide that elf here with her mories regained. Although she had said she wasn’t on the side of the Demon Army, she also said that she wasn’t on the side of humans.
She could think about why she was making this enormous bomb later. Rosemary opened the door to the room that she had been curious about.
“You’re here, Lady Blanton?”
The first thing that she saw was Lotte.
And Lotte, who’d been scratching away with the etching pen used for scroll fabrication, smiled brightly like a full moon as soon as she saw Rosemary. It was an unnecessarily kind smile for a human.
“I apologize for not standing as I’m in the middle of sothing. So.......”
There wasn’t ti to pay attention to Lotte’s words. Rosemary quickly scanned the inside of the room.
It was a small room about 6~9 m2 at most, plastered on all sides with tal sheets. As expected, there was a reason why Scope hadn’t worked.
“... so that’s what happened. This was supposed to be a secret between us, but you can co in and watch since Aether gave permission.”
“No.... I’m fine, so....”
Being a cramped, dark space, it was starting to provoke her trauma. Shaking her head, Rosemary took a step back.
But for so reason, her body was moving forward.
“... Huh?”
As the sound stupidly left her lips, she realized that Freyr was pushing her from behind.
“Hey, you ca all the way and you aren’t going to see this? My friend’s pretty good at making scrolls. You should watch!”
With the voice that was completely void of any malice, Rosemary ended up inside the tiny, tiny room.
“Right! This scroll needs to be fabricated inside a clean and enclosed as much as possible, so you have to keep the door closed if you want to keep watching. Okay?”
Click.
“Ah, ah, ah....”
“What’s wrong, Lady Blanton? You look rather pale....”
She didn’t even have the ability to see what scroll Lotte was making.
The heart that had beco like an internal combustion engine from the curse of ironization was beating quickly. Her unfocused pupils shook violently, and her hands and feet trembled as if they had the tremors.
Bang!
The mories of the night before slowly surfaced. With her legs barely supporting her, Rosemary yanked open the door like she was going to break it.
“Lady Blanton?”
“I-I just rembered sothing that I have to do...! I’ll be going first!!”
After shooting a burning glare at Freyr who didn’t know anything, she rushed out of the room. She was so fast that Aether’s hair fluttered from the wind pressure.
Aether sighed a third ti and started walking.
“I’m also stepping out for a minute.”
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