Chapter of Grim Reality: Hairy Troubles

“Yumi, I have a request.”

“Wha— What is it? Can’t that wait?”

While I was doing my best to cover myself as much as possible, seeing how I was only in underwear, Elina came up to me, an expectant gaze staring right into my eyes.

“It won’t take long! I just, uhm, want your hair.”

Honestly, that sounds pretty wrong…

But, we did come here originally for that so… Her request, rather than reasonable, wasn’t it something we’d do anyway? The timing was just a little… inappropriate, wasn’t it?

Either way, not something we can do without Karen.

Someone had to cut it, after all.

“Don’t worry. I am not interested in your flat body.”

“... You’re awfully blunt, you know that?”

“Huh?”

“That wasn’t my worry anyway. We have to wait for Karen before we can do that.”

Elina stared at me, then tilted her head, looking slightly confused.

“... I got scissors here? Or do you not want me to touch your hair?”

”Nn, it’s not that I don’t want you to touch it but…”

I was a little worried she didn’t have the strength to do so… No but, after I figured out how to make it easier for Karen, maybe others could manage to do that as well now?

“Well, we can try… I guess?”

“Great! Then, come and sit… Ah, here.”

Seeing the lack of chairs, Elina instead stood up from the one she occupied and offered it to me. It had become a little hard to refuse now, hadn’t it? With that said, Karen wouldn’t come back faster just because I was feeling embarrassed.

“Nn, thank you.”

Deciding that it was better to get things done, I sat down, making sure not to sit on my hair, and watched as Elina quickly stood behind me, scissors at the ready.

“Eh, is there any specific length? Or a limit to how much I can cut or so?”

“Not really? Just cut and it grows back.”

“... Is that how it works?”

“Nn.”

I could hear her pondering and murmuring for a short while until she just said a “Well, whatever!”

A moment later, the feeling of someone touching my hair reached me.

“I’m going to start now… okay?”

“Nn, go ahead.”

Time to pay attention now. Actually, she was using scissors, right? Should I… push to the left or the right? Well, I could try both… Or rather, I probably had to since I couldn’t see it.

Just then, Elina was taking hold of some of my hair strands, getting ready to cut. I heard her sharply drawing in the air.

“... Huh? Ehhh? Mhm?”

The sounds of the scissors closing and opening… And the considerably confused noises Elina made as she attempted to cut my hair. I tried to help out by pushing my hair against the cutting edge of the scissors, in both directions, but… No luck.

“Ehhhh? Why doesn’t it… Wait a moment, I’ll figure it out in a second.“

“Nn…”

Most likely she was trying in vain, though…

“I don’t think scissors are going to work here, Elina.”

“... It seems like… that is the case… Uhh, okay, uhm… Karen used a knife right? Wait a moment then…”

Elina went up to her workbench and retrieved a small curved knife.

“Okay, attempt number two. Are you ready?”

“Nn.”

Once more standing behind me, Elina took a strand of my hair again. Again, a sharp breath was audible behind me.

Hopefully, for her, it’d work this time… I could only cheer in my mind for her… Well, outside of trying to do my part, of course.

A weak tug informed me that Elina was starting to… not cut the hair. Even when I pushed my hair against it, nothing happened… In other words, the same result as before.

“Huh? But… Why doesn’t it work? Uhh, it’s so tough… How did Karen do this?”

“Sis is pretty strong.”

Although, I was a little surprised that it didn’t work even with my help.

“But that much… Wait a moment…”

“Nn?”

She was doing something, fiddling with my hair…

“Okay, surely this will work! Ngh!”

A slightly stronger tug pulled my hair this time… Hopefully, that wasn’t her entire strength pulling me there. I threw a glance behind me to see what the heck she was even doing. After forming a loop with my hair, she had inserted the knife and was now pushing it outwards, using all her strength.

“Nnnnngghh”

“...”

“Hrnnnngh!”

“...”

“Haa… Haa…”

“That’s not going to work.”

“It will… Haa… work… Haa…”

No, seeing this, it most definitely wouldn’t.

“One more! Here we go!” Ngggghhh!”

“Nn? Ahh! Ouchouchouch! Stop pulling! Elina! Stop pulling! Ahhh!”

This girl… she completely forgot who the hair was attached to, didn’t she? There wasn’t much point of forming a loop with my hair and holding it in place if she was jerking me around with said loop. Geez, now the back of my head was hurting.

“Sorry! Is everything okay, Yumi?!”

“Nn… It hurts…”

“I’m sorry! I really am!”

“... Haa… But at least now it’s clear it won’t work, right?”

“... Yes.”

Dejectedly, she admitted it wouldn’t work. Finally. Now more head-jerking hair cutting attempts.

“But how did Karen…”

“Nn, you’ll have to ask her, I guess.”

“Mh… But what do I do until she comes back?”

“... I don’t know? Is there nothing else to do?”

“... We used up all we had already. And working on the materials I already crafted once is not a good idea. Might impact their durability and so.”

“I see…”

Too bad.

“Nn, but I thought we gave you quite a lot already.”

“We used up a lot already on prototypes. And after that, I changed most of the raw materials I had at hand into the ones we’d need, mostly for ropes and all. I kept a small spare amount but when Wanda said we’d call you for more I already worked on that too earlier.”

So, most of the materials had already been turned into the raw materials for ropes, huh…

“I see… Nothing we can do then.”

“Yes…”

Changing the raw materials, huh… The magic craftsmen’s work…

“Nn... Elina.”

“Yes? What is it?”

“What exactly are magic craftsmen doing?”

“What we do?”

“Nn. I know you change monster materials into something others can work on but… What is it exactly you do there?”

A patch of leather was after all quite a jump from… Okay, it wasn’t, seeing how my hair was basically made up of tiny tentacles and therefore not actually ‘hair’ in the traditional sense, but still…

“Mhm… That might be a little hard to explain…”

“Nn? You can try. Not like we got much else to do until Sis is back.”

“Well, in that case…”

Elina sat down on the floor next to me, staring at the tent ceiling.

“You see, all materials consist of very, very small parts. If you were to cut a wood splinter a dozen, a hundred or maybe even a thousand times, you still would end up with something that is not small enough.”

Small enough? That sounded… pretty familiar.

“Do you mean atoms?”

“A… toms? Who is Toms?”

“Atoms. Just atoms. They’re very small parts that make up pretty much all matter?”

“Huh… I didn’t know they were called that. But you know about that?”

Her eyes went wide as she stared at me. Definitely not something she expected.

“Nn, more or less? I know the basics, in a sense.”

“I see. That makes things a lot easier, though. Then, the rest is actually quite simple… Well, explaining it is simple... I think. The job of a magic craftsman is to rearrange the base matter… the atoms...  into something more suitable for our needs, without damaging the mana purity of the material.”

“... Mana purity? What’s that?”

“Every material, or well, rather, every tiny piece of matter contains mana that is relevant to its nature. Of course, mana is not only contained within this matter but also everywhere else. Err, how do I explain this part… You see… These materials have a lot of mana in between the matter… the atoms. Uhhh… Do you understand what I mean? The matter pieces don’t touch each other but are connected by mana instead. It’s like… like glue, I guess?”

“... I think I know what you mean.”

I was a little surprised to hear the mention of atoms but from the looks of it, they didn’t fully understand the topic yet. Unless, of course, the basic physics were different in this world but… judging from my experiences so far, it was at least similar to my old world’s physics. It was probably safer to assume it was the same as it was in my old world, barring the existence of mana. Then again, the only one who could probably give me a definite answer to this… was that monster, Yumias.

“Great! I was a little worried about that part being confusing. Anyway, so, this glue-like mana is often raw, unattributed mana. And we call this mana a mana impurity.”

“Huh… Then, mana purity means how little raw mana there is in between?”

That made sense. Or not? They considered it like glue, right? Then draining it wasn’t...

“No, not quite.”

“Nn?”

“Or rather, it’s not wrong but you probably misunderstood it a little. While you can change the amount of mana flowing between, it is nearly impossible to get rid of all the mana. Even if you could do that, the material would become weak and brittle. Mana purity doesn’t exactly refer to the amount of mana but the relation between raw mana and attributed mana flowing between the atoms. The more attributed mana to the raw mana, the higher the purity.”

“O… kay…”

The relation, huh…

“The amount of mana in general between those atoms is what we call mana density.”

“I see.”

That already made more sense… Not that it didn’t before but… Ehh, anyway… She was explaining it to me. Better listen. I asked for it after all.

“Monster materials generally have a very high mana purity in that regard. And mana density, too, of course. That is what makes them so incredibly strong. And depending on the attribute of the mana, some might even have special characteristics.”

“Nn… Can different attributes mix in there as well?”

“Yes, they can and they usually do. Most often they are related attributes, though. Like… Silver Moon? It’s Silver Moon for her, right? A material with mostly Silver Moon attributed mana can also contain iron and diamond mana but rarely contains other types of mana. Rarely you see metal-attributed mana or even jewel-attributed mana.”

Metal and Jewel… Anything was fine if it was about attributed mana, wasn’t it? Also, did she make that example because of Karen?

“Sometimes... Very rarely, there are very interesting mixtures of attributed mana causing a special characteristic to appear on the material that wouldn’t happen without both types.”

“Nn, so you could mix them?”

“If you’re able to create more of that type of mana, sure. But that’s not something a regular magic craftsman could ever hope to do, you know? There are too many attributes and most of us aren’t all that good at using actual magic. Hence, we’re often not counted as actual magicians.”

But, what they were doing was basically magic?

“Anyway, to get back on track: When we magic craftsmen work on a material, we use mana to shift around the matter in a way that turns it into a material more suited for processing. Though I say it like this, it’s not even remotely as complex… It’s usually just connecting things and smoothening them out. However, because we also use mana, there’s the danger that it leaks into the material itself and lowers the purity. Furthermore, unskillful manipulation of the arrangement can also damage the material and cause it to break apart. It takes a lot of effort, diligence and training before you can even turn a single material.”

That meant… They were manipulating the atom arrangement in the material to something else… It sounded… quite crazy, honestly.

Also, while it didn’t quite surprise me to hear that those materials were jam-packed with mana, I hadn’t really considered that it was mostly attributed mana...

“Ah, while it isn’t as common, we can also do a little more than just rearranging it. For example, we can form additional matter to make the material heavier. Or we change the shape a little to fit better with the other pieces of matter.”

“Huh…”

Then, it was more like the manipulation of atoms in general? Wasn’t that actually quite dangerous?

“Could you turn it into any kind of material then?”

“Of course not. If it doesn’t fit with the attributed mana, we’ll just break the material. That’s why your hair is so weird. Usually, you can’t make leather out of hair-type materials. They’re too different.”

“Ahahaha…”

Totally not because my hair wasn’t proper hair.

“Nn, anyway… You said you could also change the weight?”

“Yes. We create new matter with the attributed mana.”

“Nn… You… create new matter?”

“Yes.”

And that… sounded just as dangerous as the other one… But apparently, there were restrictions to it so maybe it wasn’t that dangerous.

“Wouldn’t you be able to create really strong materials if you can increase their density?”

“Ehh… No. The most strength comes from the mana itself. Creating the matter uses up a lot of the mana inside so it actually weakens the material and more often than not damages the mana purity. It’s only useful in case you need to create something with a lot of weight.”

“Nn. Is that so.”

If these things were possible in my old world… That’d be pretty crazy. And dangerous. If this world reached that level of technology… That was a scary thought. But with magic in the mix, the moment they reached that level of technology, things would go really badly anyway in a war… On the other hand, knowing what was possible even in my old world, whether there was magic or not would probably make little difference. Even without magic, they could devastate their planet. And honestly, while I hadn’t seen any… large-scale battles or anything, I wouldn’t be surprised if even now magic could be a devastating weapon. The fact that the Empire was seemingly scared of Aldreigh’s magician army was probably proof enough of that…

“You okay?”

“Nn?”

“You seemed lost in thought.”

“Ah, sorry. Was just thinking about something.”

“I see. Well, I guess that wraps up about everything in regards to this part of a magic craftsman’s job anyway so… Any questions?”

“... Yes. ‘This part,’ you say… There’s more?”

This wasn’t all that they were doing?!

“Ahahaha, of course, there is!  Magic craftsmen also create magic tools, you know?”

“Huh… That sounds like it’d be quite different, though.”

“It actually isn’t that much different. They share a lot of techniques.”

“Nn. Then, since Sis is still not here, I want to hear about magic tools then.”

“If that’s what you want.”

It was.

“Let’s see… Do you know what magic tools are?”

“Tools that cast magic.”

“Ahhh, that’s… not quite right, but I guess that’s how most see it.”

“Nn?”

It wasn’t right?

“A tool by itself cannot exactly cast magic, you know? Magic needs something like an intent. A tool doesn’t have that.”

“Now that you say it… But it still does something.”

“It does. Well, let me try to sum it up without going too much into details.”

Elina started fishing around in her waist pouch and retrieved a small apparatus, barely as wide as her palm.

“This is still a work in progress. It’s something I worked on in my free time for fun. You know those magical lanterns, right?”

“Nn, I do.”

The lanterns that lit up. Well, obviously a lantern would light up, otherwise, it wouldn’t be one. Just, it did so without a flame. It was a magic tool for creating light.

“Good, I’ll explain it with them as an example. There are, in general, only two key components in a magic tool: The mana crystal and monster materials.”

“Monster materials? In the tools?”

“Yes. A magic tool is actually very simple in structure. You have a mana crystal that sends mana into the monster material. The attributed mana inside the monster material activates and in this case creates light with the supplied mana.”

“... It activates?”

“It does. Don’t ask me about why it does, though. If you connect the mana crystal with a monster material, a processed one, and then send mana through it, the attributed mana usually activates. However, it only works with mana from a mana crystal.”

“Hm…”

Curious…

“From there, you can do many things. Depending on the attributed mana, you can create things, burn things, light it up and so on. As long as you got the materials, of course.”

“Mhm… Still sounds quite magical to me.”

“It still is done without a magician, though.”

True. But for me, it was still magic. The whole thing surprised me a little. Hearing about atoms and things like that in an explanation about a magical profession…

“It’s too bad that it only works with a mana crystal… Well, but it works as a storage for mana too so we’d probably do it like this anyway.”

Elina poked the little lantern in her hand.

“The mana crystals grow in size the more mana they have so it is nearly impossible to make a tool this size. It just immediately runs out of mana.”

“Nn, so that’s why you want it to work without?”

“Yes… Haaa… Anyway, there’s not much I can do about it, really. Got to find another way then.”

“Nn, good luck.”

“Thanks.”

Elina smiled a little awkwardly and scratched the back of her head.

“Still, the job of a magic craftsman is quite diverse.”

“It sure is. And you need to know a lot of things. Probably also a reason why it’s an unpopular profession. Even though it pays really well.”

“Does it pay that much?”

“Well, a simple magic tool can easily go for a silver or even more. And I could make dozens of them in one day.”

“That’s, indeed, rather profitable.”

And she wasn’t a full magic craftsman yet. Still in training, and so.

“If you’re skilled, you can easily earn several gold coins a day.”

“...”

Several gold coins…

That was a lot of money.

“Haaa… Well, less competition is better anywa—” Yumi!”—y for us…”

A shout interrupted our little talk and the curtain of the tent flew open with Karen storming inside. For some reason, she looked a little dishevelled…

“Sis? What happened?”

“I found your clothes.”

“... Ah, right.”

I nearly forgot about this… Scary, how quickly you could get used to some things...

“Here you go, Yumi.”

“Thanks, Sis.”

I quickly donned the one-piece dress that Karen handed me.

Thank god or whoever else that nobody else had come in or something like that while we talked. Wanda was busy working on her stuff and completely ignored us anyway.

“Mh? Yumi, what were you doing?”

“Nn? Ah, Elina was trying to cut my hair and she couldn’t manage it. We were waiting for you to come back.”

“That’s right, it even damaged my knife.”

Elina held up her knife to show it to Karen. There… really was a nick in the blade. Did that happen when she tried it with all her strength?

“It didn’t work?”

Karen raised an eyebrow and turned to me. I shook my head to affirm Elina’s words.

“That’s… surprising.”

“Nn, well… A little.”

Even Karen had some problems in the beginning before I figured out how to help out. And she was a lot stronger than any of us. Not all that surprising that Elina would have problems. But seeing her fail had surprised me a little as well.

“Let me do it then. Is that okay, Yumi?”

“Nn. Of course, it is.”

I faced forward on the chair so that Karen could get to work behind me. Before I turned around, I saw that she took out her knife from a small leather sheath on her waist. When did she get that? Together with the other equipment, maybe?

“I’m going to start.”

“Nn.”

Karen’s hand stroked my hair a few times before getting to work with the knife. I could feel the knife pushing against my hair and I responded in kind.

“Ah. So easily...”

Strands of my hair fell to the ground the more Karen cut off. A short while later and I was sporting significantly shorter hair. Down to the shoulder, which was still longer than most people. Not for long though.

“And there it is again… Does it always just… regrow like that?”

“Nn.”

Didn’t she watch us before already?

Well, not like it mattered all that much. Karen continued to cut the hair that regrew and slowly but surely a small pile grew below her feet.

“Elina, how much do you need?”

“Uhm… A little more than that, I guess?”

“Then I’ll do one more, okay, Yumi?”

“Nn.”

Good thing that it just grew like a weed. Seriously, would it ever stop if we continued? I had the subtle feeling I’d starve first.

“And we’re done, Yumi.”

“Nn.”

Karen tussled my hair gently and affectionately, stroking it and playing around a little.

“To be honest, I am a little glad.”

“Nn?”

“That she didn’t manage to cut it and that I had to. Like that, I get to keep it all for myself.”

“... That’s a rather odd thing to keep for yourself, isn’t it?”

The privilege to cut my hair couldn’t be that important, right?

“That’s fine. I’m still glad it’s mine.”

“Well, if you say so.”

No more experimenting with other people either then. Not that I had even planned to after this. It wasn’t likely anyone else would manage either way. I was curious why Karen had a relatively easy time, though… Was it really just because of her strength?

“For now we should scoop this up, though.”

“... Nn.”

Seeing so much of my hair on the ground… I had thought that before but it really was astonishing. Not something you’d ever get to see usually.

“Let that girl do that herself,” interrupted a voice from behind suddenly.

I turned around and saw Wanda looking towards us, having turned on her chair.

“You two still got places to be, don’t you? We kept you more than long enough, I think.”

“Nn, are you sure?”

Not that I’d complain but…

“It’s fine, I can do it. If you still have things to do, then leave this to me!”

“Well, if you say so…”

I threw a glance at Karen and she nodded to me.

“Then… Until later, Elina, Wanda.”

“Until later! Was nice to talk with you.”

“Nn, it was.”

Wanda had already returned to her work, completely ignoring us. After Karen said bye as well, we left the tent, into the fresh air.

“Oh?”

The first thing that I noticed… was the surprising activity in the camp. Men scuttling about left and right. The news must’ve gotten around now, huh…

“It’s always impressive seeing the camp so busy all of a sudden.”

“Especially when it was relatively quiet before.”

“Nn.”

They could switch gears so fast that I felt a little jealous, to be honest.

“So, where to now, Yumi?”

“Nn, dinner? And then Ria’s.”

“Sounds fine to me.”

“Then let’s do that.”

I took Karen’s hand into mine and we started to make our way through the camp towards dinner. We walked for a while in silence until Karen suddenly spoke up.

“Hey, what did you talk about with Elina?”

“Nn? She told me about her work as a magic craftsman.”

“Her work as a magic craftsman?”

“Nn. How she processes monster materials and how the magic tools work.”

They had been quite interesting topics. Furthermore…

“Hey, Sis.”

“Yes?”

“After we’re done at Ria’s… Or actually, we can ask her too when we’re there… I want to try something.”

“Try something?”

“Nn. Talking with Elina gave me a bit of an idea.”

Especially the talk about magic tools.

“Did you know that magic tools only work with the mana from magic crystals?”

“Mh? Yes, I did.”

“So you did…”

Well, I hadn’t known until Elina told me…

“She also explained that what magic tools do is strictly not magic.”

“Not magic?”

“Nn. The mana from the crystal travels through the monster materials and activates the attributed mana… or so she explained.”

“I see?”

Karen tilted her head a little, probably confused.

“So, I thought… if it needs a mana crystal to work… Maybe the way monsters use their magic is similar to how magic tools operate?”

“...”

Maybe it was a bit of a stretch… Or maybe it was actually quite close. I’d have to look into it to find out.

“Mhm… I don’t know… Even if it does, what would that change?”

“Change?”

“Yes.”

“...”

“...”

“That’s a good question.”

Yeah, even if it was similar… How would that help me?

“How to say it… Maybe it’s more of how I imagine it?”

“Imagine?”

“Nn. To be honest… Outside of changing my body and directly manipulating the mana, magic feels a little… I don’t know… abstract, to me?”

My body as well as the mana I could directly control, they were both things I could actually feel. There wasn’t a real need to understand it in detail. Of course, I wouldn’t say no if someone was able to teach me.

Just, everything else I was doing was… Not going so well. Okay, the tentacle growth was doing quite well even without my help. Point being, it wasn’t really a solid feeling in my head. It was more like something vague that somehow works… Thinking about it… There wasn’t much I did besides that one time I used that Charm magic. And even that had been unintentional. Most of the things I did were the dolls and the tentacle growth. Neither of which was easy to understand.

Speaking of the dolls, they were running all over the place as well, helping out.

“Nn, I wonder. Maybe it could help me figure out a few things that feel a little vague to me. Also, there’s one more thing.”

“One more?”

“Nn. That one is probably a little less of a… vague idea. You see, Elina told me what monster materials made so strong.”

“Oh?”

“Apparently, it’s the attributed mana inside. It’s what gives the material the strength.”

“The attributed mana?”

“Nn.”

I nodded.

“You see, maybe that also applies to, well, me too. Most of the mana in my body is being absorbed, right? So, in other words, there’s not much mana in my body since it always gets dragged into the mana crystal inside me.”

“... Yumi, are you saying that you’re so weak because your mana gets drained?”

“Nn. It’s just an assumption for now, of course. That’s why I want to try it later.”

The area where dinner served finally came into view. I couldn’t quite see what dinner was today but seeing how the mercenary men were quite motivated to get their food, it was probably something good. Maybe courtesy to the job. A nice meal before we had to move out and couldn’t afford one.

“That’s why I want to try stopping the mana crystal from absorbing all my mana. If I can do that… maybe I can do a little more.”

Rinne

I wish you all a good new year and hope you will continue to support me over the next year! A big thanks to you all!

Rinné