Kays Translations

Chapter 214: Golem Writer

“That’s amazing, Eto. We only talked about it briefly, but you managed to recreate it like this…”

In this world, most writing instruments are either dip pens or brushes. It’s a bit inconvenient, but it’s not a big issue for everyday desk use. However, when trying to have the golem’s arm write, the process of applying ink or paint seemed quite challenging.

To manipulate something unseen at a distance, you’d need incredibly precise positioning to avoid spilling ink or knocking over the ink pot.

The worst-case scenario involved using something like chalk or charcoal powder on the fingertips to write, but I had mentioned the idea of a pencil when I first suggested this concept.

Eto, recalling that conversation, seemed to have experimented with it.

“How did you manage it?” 

“Basically, I followed what you said. I mixed charcoal powder with mud slug powder and fired it to create the core.”

The mud slug, as its name suggests, is a giant slug-like magic creature with a mud-like texture. When its body is dried and powdered, it becomes clay-like, and when baked, it hardens.

Earth pencils are made by mixing graphite with clay and firing it, so this prototype using charcoal is closer to a charcoal pencil.

“As I said earlier, it’s fine to make it roughly, given the larger size. I just tried a few different ratios of charcoal and mud slug powder.”

Eto casually mentioned the process, but the fact that he could create something so unique just from a brief mention was incredible.

“I think this will probably sell well apart from the magic tools, so I’ll mention it to my father-in-law and Silvio.”

A writing tool that doesn’t need an ink pot is extremely convenient. It’s likely to be popular with professions that work outside, so we should advance it alongside communication magic tools.

“Well, since the pen seems fine, shall we try writing something?”

“Yes, let’s go with a larger sheet of paper for now.”

Eto nodded at Isamu’s suggestion and began attaching several sheets of paper onto a wooden board. Then, he raised the board by inserting another piece of wood underneath, placing it beneath the arm holding the pen.

“I’m not sure about the height, so please try adjusting it.”

“Understood!”

Since the sizes of the operator and the golem’s arm aren’t a 1:1 match, the paper needed to be positioned at the right height. If it was too low, the pen would miss the paper, and if it was too high, it might break the board.

“We need to ensure the position is consistent every time, so I’ll mark it before we start. I think we should make something like an elbow rest.”

It seems that the golem’s arm resets to its initial position when activated, so consistency is crucial for good results. It would be better to determine the initial positions for both the golem and the operator.

“Alright, let’s go!” 

Isamū declared as he activated the magic tool while holding the thin wooden stick in his hand. He slowly raised it a little.

By the way, the makeshift pencil was still in the process of being created, so he was holding a sharpened piece of wood that resembled the right thickness.

Grrr-grrrrr

The golem’s arm followed Isamū’s movements with a mechanical sound, mirroring his actions.

“We’re going to lower it to the writing position now, so please adjust the paper!” 

Isamū called out.

“Got it!” 

Eto replied.

This time, the arm was slowly lowered, and once it touched the desk, Isamū stopped.

“Stay still!”

Eto said, while adjusting the height of the board with the added wood.

“Alright, that should be good! You’re all set!”

After about three minutes of adjusting, Eto gave the go-ahead.

“Okay, let’s start writing!”

Nodding in response to Eto’s signal, Isamū slowly began to move the wooden stick in his hand.

Instead of paper, they were using a thin stone slab created by a magic tool that generated a faux urethane-like stone. The parameters for the bubbles in the stone were set very precisely, so when the stick was used, faint marks appeared.

They planned to experiment with this until the handheld pencil was finished.

As Isamu carefully moved the stick, lines began to appear on the golem’s paper as well.

After about a minute, he had written a few lines, completing the text.

“Phew… This feels right for the first time.”

Seeing the finished writing, Isamu let out a sigh of relief and smiled.

“Hm? What’s written here? This is the script from Isamu’s old world, right?”

Since it was written in Earth’s alphabet, Eto tilted his head in confusion.

Once Isamu stopped the magic tool, he walked over to Eto to take a look at the result.

“Oh! It’s written properly!”

There, in clear English letters, was “hello, world”—the classic phrase often seen at the start of programming books.

“This is something I’d often display first when studying magic circles from my world. The meaning can be interpreted in different ways, but it’s kind of like ‘Welcome to a new world.'”

“To a new world, huh… Yeah, that’s perfect for a new magic tool!” 

Eto responded.

“Haha, exactly. But I’m really impressed that it worked so well.”

“Yeah. I was worried the pen might fall off, but it was all for nothing.”

Looking at the written text again, it seemed a bit forceful in places, but Isamu handwriting had been successfully reproduced.

As Eto mentioned, there had been no issues with the pen falling or breaking.

“I think the thickness ratio of the pen probably has some margin for error, but it seems to work fine.”

“Now that you mention it, yeah. Since the operator’s movements are directly amplified, the error should also get amplified… But it still worked.” 

Isamu wondered aloud.

“Could it be that it automatically compensates for some errors?” 

Willem asked, puzzled.

“Automatic compensation… Well, it does seem like that’s what’s happening.” 

Eto agreed.

“Let’s test it. How much of an error can it handle?”

If there’s indeed an automatic correction function, the operation would become much easier.

Isamu and the others immediately began experimenting with different thicknesses of sticks to test it.

“It’s incredible…”

“It seems like it can handle quite a bit of variation…”

“Yeah. It definitely seems like some kind of automatic correction is at work. I have no idea how it works, though…”

After their experiments, Isamu and the others could only marvel at the results.

The arm clearly didn’t have any cameras, and they had no idea how it was correcting itself. It might have some kind of sensor function built into it, but he decided to chalk it up to “magic being amazing.”

What mattered was that the operation was becoming much easier.

Then, based on the results, they experimented further, and it turned out that the height of the arm and the paper could be adjusted to some degree.

“Wow, magic tools—or magic in general—really are something else…”

“Really… But with this, the operation has become much more realistic.”

“Indeed. So, what’s next? Should we test distance?”

“Yes, I think we should look into distance and obstructions.”

“Obstructions… That’s right. If something is flying, it’s interesting to think about what would happen if there were walls or roofs in the way.”

Isamu’s understanding of magic waves wasn’t very clear, but based on his knowledge, things like radio waves tend to weaken when there are obstructions in the way.

If the magic waves followed the same principle, the greater the distance, the more obstacles would interfere, so they’d have to figure out how to work around that, such as by setting up the system in high, open places.

The experiment moved to the third phase, which would test effective range and lag.

“Wow!? Is this the teacher’s paw print?!”

“Nyafoo.”

From the dining hall of the knights’ dormitory, Mizeroi’s delighted voice could be heard. Orihime on top of his head also seemed satisfied.

“Yeah. If it works well even in this distance and situation, it seems like we don’t need to worry too much about obstructions.”

Looking at the paw print drawn on the paper, Isamu also nodded in satisfaction.

For the experiment concerning distance and obstructions, Isamu and the others had set up the arm-side in the dining hall at the deepest part of the knights’ dormitory, and the operator-side was brought into the magical stone mine at the lowest level of the city for testing.

The dormitory was located at the highest level of Klaufendam, and it was carved into rock. The magical stone mine, as expected, was deep beneath thick rock layers.

If they were going to test the maximum distance and obstruction within the city, these would be the conditions.

“How did it go?”

Fifteen minutes later, Willem rushed into the dining hall, breathless, with Tiramisu trailing behind him.

Willem had been operating inside the mine, and Tiramisu was in charge of transporting them via a magic vehicle.

Although the city was not large, it was still spacious enough that walking would have been quite a challenge.

“Ah, Willem, good work! Look, it’s perfect!!”

Isamu said as he showed Willem the paper with the paw print.

“Oh! It looks great!”

“Super cute!”

Willem and Tiramisu both smiled broadly. By the way, it was Tiramisu who had requested the paw print.

“Knowing that there seems to be no issue with obstructions is a big relief.”

“That’s right. If it can’t be placed indoors, it’ll inevitably be seen by people.”

It was certainly convenient to have more flexibility in where to set it up, but as Eto said, being able to place it in a hidden location was invaluable.

This world-first (almost) real-time communication device should first be operated by a select few people, at least initially.

“Now, next is the distance.”

“Yeah. I think, if we don’t mind the time lag, we could probably achieve quite a long distance.”

Isamu responded calmly to Willem’s statement.

“Let’s start by testing within the territory, then we’ll get help from Dafyd-san and Maraine-san next door.”

“That seems like a safe bet.”

“Alright, I’ll head over to Selfers-san to report the results and get permission to take it outside.”

With that, Isamu took the paper with the drawing and left the knights’ dormitory to head to the lord’s mansion.

The lord and his wife, after hearing the report, were amazed by the results. This part had become a kind of formal process by now.

After receiving their instructions to handle the device with care, Isamu, with the help of the knights, conducted a communication experiment with Baron Dafyd Yansen in the capital city of Yanseil.

While it would have been fine to conduct the experiment with the magical vehicle still loaded, it was too risky to move it in an unstable state. So, they stopped at two towns on the way, gradually increasing the distance while also checking for any time lag.

The bells, which rang at pre-determined times during the journey, served as a signal for when they would be able to check the time lag.

As a result, it was confirmed that communication could occur without issue between Klaufendam and Yanseil.

It was also discovered that there was a time lag of about three and a half minutes.

The distance between Klaufendam and Yanseil was about 90 kilometers using the main road, or roughly 70 kilometers in a straight line.

Assuming that, the speed at which the magic waves travel would be around 330 meters per second, almost the same as the speed of sound.

Though the speed of sound sounds fast, when you consider that a 150-meter distance results in a 0.5-second time lag, it becomes clear that this method is unsuitable for real-time applications.

This is also why this system was not used in the operation of the magic giant golem.

Continuing on, they moved on to testing the communication with the capital city of Bisselichein in the territory of Maraine Bisseling, but by the time communication with Yanseil was confirmed, Isamu was already moving on to the next task.

“Hmm, this one uses the same thing.”

“Ah, so it’s like that, huh?”

Isamu, Eto, and Willem were all staring seriously at two long, string-like objects, comparing them closely.

One was the artificial muscle-like material that made up an arm part from the ruins of the Rock Desert.

The other was the artificial muscle-like material taken from the arm of a destroyed first-generation magic giant golem.

As Eto had pointed out, the thickness and texture were nearly identical.

“Hmm, is it perhaps the beard of a Serabim or something?”

“Serabim?”

“Yeah. It’s a type of monster. It has long antennae or whiskers, kind of like a rhinoceros beetle.”

Willem, holding one of the objects and examining it from various angles, pointed out the origin of the material.

As Willem described, a Serabim was a monster resembling an oversized woodboring beetle, known for its long antennae.

Though rare in these forests, it was said to be quite common a little further south.

It seemed that the long, flexible antennae of the Serabim were being bundled together and stretched to reproduce the human-like movements of the magic giant golem.

“In the end, we’ll test the Serabim’s antennae, but for now, it’s great that we can reuse materials from the first generation.”

“That’s right. The first generation is large, but if we’re just making arms, we can probably get quite a few parts from one golem.”

What Isamu and the others were working on was a prototype for mass-producing arm parts.

The one they were currently experimenting with was the only one available, and it was much larger than a human arm, making it too big for everyday use.

Thus, instead of copying it exactly, they planned to downsize it to the same size as a human arm and mass-produce it.

They had already copied the magic circles drawn on the original parts, so all that was left was to combine them with suitable materials for the prototype. It was fortunate that the materials they had on hand were usable.

After discovering that the materials from the first-generation golems were suitable, the three of them immediately began the prototyping process.

Having thoroughly examined the original arms and copied the structure and magical circles, they were able to assemble the new arm in less than half a day.

The base to mount it on was also quickly crafted by Eto within a few hours, as it was just a matter of adjusting it to human size.

“Hmm, this size seems perfect. No sense of awkwardness.”

“Yeah, it wouldn’t feel intimidating if it were just in a room.”

“Though, if you put a sleeve over it and left it lying around, it might startle someone.”

They laughed together while discussing this and then proceeded to conduct the activation test.

“Yeah, looks like there are no issues.”

“Wow, it’s so much easier to work with human-sized ones.”

“That’s true. Plus, this one probably consumes much less mana than the first one.”

“Oh!? Really?”

“Yeah. I can’t be completely sure since we’ve only tested it for a short time, but the way the crystal clouds is definitely slower.”

It seemed that downsizing had produced an unexpected benefit.

Since the magic device would mostly be running continuously, having better energy efficiency was incredibly welcome.

The next day, they received news that the communication with Bisserlichein had successfully been established.

Thus, the first semi-real-time long-distance communication magical device in the world of Aetheria, the “Magic Giant’s Scribe Golem Writer,” was born.

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