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Chapter 21: The Maid’s Secret

 

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After the product launch presentation day, I have been observing Myun even more carefully than before. During the daytime she was always hanging around our house, so it wasn’t really a problem to keep track of her, however the problem occurred when it came night time and when she returned to her own house. I was already staying with my brother and sister in the kid’s room and I managed to create a surveillance type magic.

With that being said, it wasn’t anything too special.

The moment that I was able to detect the amount of experience she had with my appraisal ability, I already started to have suspicions about her, and that’s when I tried my hardest to think up a skill to monitor her. I realized that sometimes she would go out at night time and accumulate around 100 experience points, so there is obviously a need for me to see what she’s doing at night time. Half of the reason I decided to develop this type of magic was because I was really curious how she was able to accumulate this amount of exp.

In short the magic was basically a clapper made out of magic. Rather than actually monitoring her movements, it was more like a bell that would ring and tell me whenever a living being with a certain mass entered and or left the house. Of course, I was the only one capable of hearing this noise. I used a combination of wind magic and void magic to create this spell, but I don’t think that my brother or sister could use this spell because they weren’t very proficient with wind magic. In order to create and invoke this Clapper magic you only needed 8 mana in total (3 Mana from Wind magic, 5 Mana from Void magic), However in order to keep it active for long periods of time, you obviously needed quite a bit of mana invested in the ability. The amount of time the magic will remain active is set before creating the clapper, for it to persist for ten seconds, it would require a consumption of 1 Mana. Just keeping the spell active for 1 hour actually required a huge consumption of 360 Mana.

Well in my case, I had an overabundance of MP so there were no problems in the Mana department. I would create this magic to persist before I slept until around morning time, and it would continue being active for approximately 10 hours, therefore it would immediately consume 3600 MP plus 8 MP totalling to 3608 MP. In all honestly the fact that it is able to immediately consume a huge amount of Mana is such a blessing in disguise for me and I’m really glad to have created such a useful spell. Lately, I have been using most of my MP in creating my rubber type equipment so I don’t really have the time to specifically stand still and just expend my MP. In the case that I do have MP left over, it is just a simple matter of using “Anti Magical Field” and aiming it towards the empty sky, this spell uses a considerable amount of MP so expending MP is a simple matter.

Although I want to boast about creating such a convenient magic, in truth there is a huge flaw to my clapper which reduced its effectiveness by quite a lot. Even if I correctly applied my clapper magic on to Myun, the chance of me realizing it when it activates is actually quite miniscule. Let’s say for example I set the clapper at 7 pm until 12 am. I have to expend all of my MP and then go to sleep. When I do this, I sleep like a log. All of my MP is used up therefore, unless there was a really strong stimulus, within the 4 hours of my deep sleep, there is no way that I would be able to wake up.

Something like a strong flying kick or perhaps a hard slap to my face is required to wake me up. Even if I tossed and turned from my bed and fell down into the floor, this kind of impact would not be enough to wake me up. Naturally, I won’t be awoken by the sound of a mere clapper. Another thing is, even if I did manage to wake up somehow, I would be feeling so sluggish and really fatigued that I wouldn’t be able to move.

Since there is a growth opportunity for Mana until the age of 10, whenever possible I do try to increase my MP. I normally sleep at night and try to wake up after mid night in order to expend my recovered Mana again, however considering that I might have to monitor Myun’s movements, should I perhaps reduce the rate of my MP gain so that I can monitor her movements properly?

At the very least within these 5 years I haven’t been able to detect any suspicious actions from Myun, but is this perhaps because I have been too lax and negligent?  Although it is certainly not a good idea to be over think it, I felt that something was a little different with Myun today. I just have this feeling that she’s about to do something. Though this may be because I’m just being oversensitive.

Even though I’m kind of reluctant, I think that I can afford to skip expending all of my mana during the night if it’s just for a period of several months. In order to make sure that nothing is going on, this may be a prudent action to take. The adult part of my mind noticed that perhaps this curiosity was part of the six-years old child mentality within me. Although I have been able to control my emotions quite well, I feel like this time around the curiosity is only growing more and more.

Tonight, I want to try setting the clapper for 10 hours but I want to make sure that I still have a little bit of MP left over. I think that I will try this for a period of 3 months at max.

By the way, within these 5 years of me expending my MP to its limits, I’ve obtained more knowledge about how magic works. I have already been able to use the four elements in magic (Fire, Water, Earth, Wind) along with Void magic, I wanted to talk to you about how these 5 magical systems work together. Magic ability works in a similar fashion to inherent abilities in the sense that they both have levels to increase. When the level of the four great elemental magic’s is increased, the main thing that increases is the quantity of that certain element that you can produce, however it is a completely different scenario for Void magic. When Void Magic is levelled up, the amount of things you can do increases.

When the level of the Elemental Magic’s is increased the things you can do with it is still the same, just because of this one factor, when someone levels up their Void Magic, they will feel as if they have grown stronger as a magician.

As an example, if your earth magic was LV 0, you would only be able to produce a miniscule amount of soil. At LV 1 Earth Magic, you would be able to produce around 1 cup’s worth of soil. And each Level you increase, you will be able to produce more soil, that’s about it. To put this simply, the amount of soil you can cast is increased whilst the amount of Mana expended stays proportional, so essentially you are basically raising your ‘limit’ in terms of how much of that particular element you can control. Similarly, for water magic, it’s the amount of water you can produce, however for fire magic it isn’t the amount of fire you can produce, instead each level will increase the temperature range of fire. For Wind Magic the amount of Wind you can produce along with how much wind pressure it can produce is increased. Well Wind Magic and Fire Magic is a little bit of an exception to the rule, so I think that I will explain it in more depth the next time I get a chance.

However, going back to Void Magic, whilst Void Magic is unable to produce anything in specific, it is able to affect things that are already created. Previously I have already briefly explained how the magic Flame Thrower works. Flame Thrower works by using ‘Harden’ and ‘Continuation’, but if you also combine it with ‘Diffusion’ and ‘Guidance’ than it can become exceedingly useful. In this case the words ‘imagination is really important for magic’ stands true. For example, Sharl might like to use ‘Harden’ to cast her spell, but for me I may prefer to use ‘Fusion’ and ‘Direction’ as this would better fit the description of the spell in my opinion.

In reality, my Flame Thrower would obviously be able to work in the same way as Sharl’s Flame Thrower, however it would surpass hers in several ways. Not only would I be able to increase the force of the fire, I would also be able to make it fly much further, Additionally, it’s directionality will also increase, I can even gather the fire to a certain point creating something akin to a high temperature burner. If I wanted to pour more of my magical energy into the spell, it would be possible for me to create an ultra-high temperature burner, that was 1 cm in diameter with a reach of 10 m for at least one hour. By the way, if I added ‘Guidance’ I could even start making that ultra-high speed burner into the shape of a snake and I could start to wield it as a sort of Flame Whip. It is also possible to combine magic fire magic with the other types of elemental magic. If I added “Launch” to the mix of Void spells, I could probably make it spring up like a snake and then launch itself, the moment it reached its target, the snake made out of flame would coil itself around its target and burn the target. Well, I haven’t tried these out personally though.

It seems that I may have gone a little off topic.

Before going to sleep I would wash my face, and it was at this moment that I also looked towards Myun’s house which was about 300 m southwest and set up the Clapper. The time it will persist for is 10 hours. If nothing happens until the morning, then I would as per usual eat breakfast and practice my magic in order to expend all my MP and go to sleep until midday, in the afternoon I would test out the durability of my rubber products and try to improve the models. And finally at night, I would reset the Clapper so that I could monitor Myun. The amount of times I can fully expend my MP has been restricted to once a day, but I suppose this can’t be helped.

For argument’s sake, even if I didn’t manage to find out where she went, or who she came into contact with, as long as I was able to find out how she managed to secretly increase her experience, this will have been worth it for me.

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Sure enough, several days later I think at around 9 PM, my Clapper reacted. I was already asleep at this point in time, but because I didn’t expend all my MP I was able to wake up quite easily. I quietly got out of bed and pretending that I wanted to go to the toilet, I sneaked outside. I already secretly placed sandals inside of the bushes so I quickly put those on and fixed the strap to it. As I stood up I also invoked appraisal, when I looked towards the Tobasu House that Myun was in, she was already out of the range of my Appraisal and I couldn’t find her.

Crap. Don’t tell me I just failed. I don’t know which direction Myun went to….

Just when I thought I failed, I suddenly sensed a shadow of a person walking in the moonlight just 200 meters east of the Greed Household. Judging from the height, it may well be Myun. Because I could still activate target selection mode in Appraisal, after using my Appraisal I found out that it was indeed Myun.

Whilst trying to suppress my excitement I tried to follow her footsteps carefully. Just in case I created a wall of wind 10 m in front of myself, just to create a sound proof wall to nullify any loud footsteps that I might make. Also in order to make sure that I didn’t lose track of her again, I increased the brightness of Myun using my Appraisal mode, she was about 150 m apart from me walking through a field. I was still quite short and below 1 m in height, so I used this to my advantage, and it kind of brought back memories of my training in the self-defence force. Myun didn’t even look behind her or around her, it was like she was walking in daylight she had a firm stride as she walked.

Myun was walking a path cutting straight through the village towards the south. After walking for about 30 minutes she was no longer walking along the fields and she was walking into the main road away from our village. Beyond this point was a river bank which continued towards the south, and after a while there should be a road that curved towards the east. I was actually wondering at this point in time whether it was worth it to venture this far away from the village as it could become more dangerous, however considering that I’ve come this far by throwing away my opportunity to grow my MP, I thought that it would be such a shame to just turn back now. In the off-chance that I did encounter some sort of monster along the main road, I was sure that I could use my magic to deal with it somehow, and I supressed my fear and decided to proceed onwards.

I strengthened my resolve and I was maintaining my distance of approximately 150 m behind Myun. Following the road down south for about one hour, we reached another river that flows towards the southwest. The main road had a path that lead to towards the east. I was looking at Myun whilst keeping low. I hid myself in the root of this tree that was just perfect for my size waiting to see what she would do. Myun was looking around confirming that nobody was around and she took something out of her pocket and she headed from the main road towards the river.

I quickly Appraised the item that she took out.

【Korisaru Pellet】

【Korisaru Grass】

【Condition: Excellent】

【Generation Day: 11/12/7434】

【Value: 100】

【Endurance value: 8】

【Taking the leaf of the Korisaru Grass, drying it and then turning it into fine powder, Additionally an earthworm is mixed into the powder and pressed together to make this item】

【If you load it up with magical energy and then place it into the water, it will soak up the water and change into a red jelly substance. Depending on the amount of magical energy poured into it, the gel should be able to persist for a couple of days before breaking down. It is a harmless substance】

This is what came out of Appraisal…

I don’t think that this Korisaru Grass is anything special. If I used my Appraisal on the surrounding shrubberies, I could easily spot some of these plants growing around the woods, but seeing it in its pellet form was a first time for me. What is she planning on doing with such a thing? I think it would be better if I watched the situation for a bit longer. Just when I was thinking about this, I realized something. That piece of gel was most probably used as a method of communication. The gel is swept away and flows down the river and I’m guessing that someone will be on the other side to spot the gel. Even if it did get caught up somewhere, after drifting along for a while it should be able to reach its destination. After a few days, the gel would decompose leaving no tracks behind.

It is likely that this wasn’t an emergency type thing, and it was more like whenever Myun acquired some information, or if she obtained some goods, she would request for the other party to come and meet her, and this red jelly substance would be used as the signal to indicate her desire to meet….

If I am not mistaken, this river will continue to flow to the southwest, and will end up at a tiny sandy beach which will converge to the sea. I don’t really know exactly how fast the speed of the gel will travel across the water, but judging from the slow flow of water of the river, it shouldn’t be that fast. If there was someone that was waiting for a signal downstream, then it probably had to travel slowly so that it would be noticeable, right? Anyways, right now the time is around 10 PM, even at the fastest time, it will still need to flow down the river for approximately 7~8 hours.

What should I do?

My first option is to just do nothing and continue to watch what happens. The merit of this option is that including Myun, no one will be able to discover that I’ve been tracking her. Meaning that Myun is convinced that no one has realized that she has been trying to get into contact with someone outside of the village. However, the disadvantage of this option is that this may turn out to be bigger than I expected. And in this case, Myun would have contacted someone from the outside, and potentially leaked out some very valuable information.

Another option is to follow the gel down the stream without Myun’s notice and retrieve it. As long as it didn’t go too deeply into the water, because I have magic, I should be able to retrieve it. In this situation, I could probably pull it off once or twice, but after a while Myun would realize that her communication was not effective and she might try to find another method to get into contact with the people in the outside. Well before that happens, I could also report Myun and hand her over to Hegard, but unless she was caught red-handed, it would be really troublesome to explain how I managed to figure this out.

The last option is for me to challenge and stop Myun here and now. The only merit in doing something like this is the possibility that everything is settled by tonight. The disadvantage is that I may not be able to get a clear proof of her actions and in the worst case I may actually have to fight her in battle. Even though Myun’s true level is actually level 9, if I went full out and used all the magic in my disposal, I could probably knock her down if push comes to shove. To begin with, if I wasn’t confident in my ability to win against her, I wouldn’t even try to track her down.

It’s just that no matter what choice I make my relationship with Myun will probably break apart.

When I thought about it simply, it was not good of her to try and contact someone from the outside. Even in terms of the rubber, although I did have plans to spread this product and sell it to a large audience at a later stage, if she leaked out the manufacturing methods of certain products or the method in which to collect the sap from the rubber tree, this could become really bad for me. Even within our family, Hegard has tried to keep this as top secret as possible, and the important things have always been kept within the Loyal Samurai families and not spread to the public.

In the worst possible scenario, I may have to restrict Myun without killing her and take away her freedom to act. Even today, after expending a huge amount of mana in creating my Clapper, and then using mana during the afternoon to improve and repair my rubber products, I still had over 1000 MP in my arsenal. According to the scenario, I may even be able to enter negotiations with her and settle this peacefully.

Considering that Myun has yet to realize my presence, I could use Earth Magic, in order to completely bind her movements and covering her entire body only allowing her head out of the soil to allow for breathing. I could also use Water Magic, using water to accelerate the growth of the plants and vegetation around her in order to bind her movements, however, if I used this method, she could have a knife and just cut her way out. I think it would be safer to go with the Earth Magic as I could just launch the mass of earth and press it together to tightly seal her movements.

Whilst thinking about these things, Myun was inserting magical energy into the pellet. The pellet she took out was held in her right hand and her hand was shining with the faint blue color of magic. There is already no time left…

In that case, I should strike whilst the iron is still hot! I immediately invoked a huge amount of soil which is about 1 m in height and 10 m in all four directions right above Myun’s head and using Void magic I shaped it into a circular shape, and caught Myun inside of it. Myun was totally surprised that a large amount of soil suddenly appeared above her head, and I made sure that the soil didn’t bury her head whilst quickly tightening the circle of soil around her body. She was about 150 m away from me so it took roughly three seconds for the soil to travel above her, and it took another one second for it to harden into place. That just now, took around 40 MP from me, but I still had plenty more where that came from. If you were a normal magician, you probably wouldn’t be able to cast anymore magic after this.

After coming this far… ah, I realized that I have another option of just returning home and informing Hegard about the current situation. But on second thought scrap that idea.

Myun’s whole body was covered in the earth and I slowly approached her from behind, using a murky voice to question her. Of course, I also made a wall of earth, just in case she turned her head around.

「Hey, what are your objectives for doing this?」

「Eh? Who are you? I haven’t done……..」

Is she trying to play dumb? This can’t be helped I suppose….

I used my Void Magic and then specifically retrieved the Korisau Pellet from her right hand, the moment I took this from her, I closed the hole again.

「Then tell me, what is this?」

「Hmm, I wonder, what could it be?」

「You don’t need to feign ignorance. Why did you have such a thing in your possession?」

「That voice….Is it perhaps, Al-sama?」

Myun’s voice was filled with surprise.

Oh man, I even purposely used a deep murky voice, but isn’t she finding out it was me way too easily? What’s the point of me even creating this wall and hiding behind it….

I proceeded onwards without replying.

「Answer the question」

「Doing something like this so suddenly, I’m going to tell on you to your father you know?」

「Ahh, I don’t mind if you do. That’s if you can tell him. First, you need to answer my question」

「Al-sama, if this is a joke, you’re going to far desuyo. Please, hurry up and let me free」

Umu, She’s already found out that it’s me, I guess it can’t be helped…

I turned around to face Myun head on whilst lowering the wall of earth.

「Hey, you know I wouldn’t do this kind of thing as a joke or if I wanted to play around. Quickly, please just answer my question」

「Even if you say that, all I have been doing is going out for a nice stroll」

「Going on a stroll? Don’t you know that this is the middle of the night? Did you think you could trick me with those kinds of lies?」

「Along with taking a nice walk, I was also planning on throwing out the garbage」

Humph. Now she’s using garbage as an excuse?

「Myun, although you are just planning on throwing rubbish away, you needed to use magic for such a chore? Just before, I clearly saw you gathering magical energy」

「……」

「And also look……..Status Open…….Myun, you don’t seem to have any magical skills judging from your status. However, I am certain that just now you were using magic. How do you expect me to see this situation then?」

「……」

「Are you trying to stay silent? By the way, I can also use water magic. If I started to create a water bubble in this situation and immerse your head in the water, what do you think would happen?」

「Are you planning on killing me?」

「Hmm~ I wonder~?」

「Even if you threaten me, you won’t get anything out of me」

This is getting pointless. No matter what I say it doesn’t seem to be working…

Well then, how about this…

「I already know most of it anyways. Myunerin Saguaru-san. Not just the fact that you can use magic, you even lied about your age, right? In truth you are 24 years of age aren’t you? The fact that you are pretending to be 2 years younger, aren’t you just a fraud? Do you know who Dangle is?」

Myun’s complexion changed. After all, I just blatantly told her that I could see through her hidden status window. Should I continue asking leading questions?

「In the past I’ve always thought that it was weird. I saw that some of your status had something different about it. In truth I bet that you can also use Wind magic, and even Void Magic….. There is also another thing I found strange. Sometimes during the day, you would forget about your duties and skip work, right?」

Naturally, the things I was saying was a lie. I am only merging what I already know about her to create something believable. However, Myun seems to have given up after my questioning.

「Have you already noticed it?」

「What?」

「The fact that I am able to disguise my Status」

「I already pointed that out a while ago. So why don’t you start telling me the truth?」

Myun gradually began to talk. (Light Novel Illustration: Myunerin Caught Red-Handed by Alein)

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