08-01 Brother and Sister

On the 2nd of April when spring was in full swing, the Jin-Reinhardt group left Yada Village, and spent a night in the town of Coorz.

The next day they continued east without returning to the main road, finally arriving in the provincial city of Ikasanaato on the border of Celuroa Kingdom.

People who wanted to go from Egelia Kingdom to Celuroa Kingdom, or vice versa, went through here, and this immigration control was picky.

This was because the other party was Celuroa Kingdom; the border of Elias Kingdom wasn’t controlled as strictly as this.

“It may take up to three days.”

“Well, it may be good to rest our bodies.”

Moving on a carriage in itself was tiring. Without having breaks every few days, one’s body couldn’t endure it.

And so, Jin decided to take this opportunity to repair the Automata Ann that was found in the ancient ruins of Keuwan.

On the night of the day they arrived in Ikasanaato, Jin had Ann deactivate temporarily, and with Reiko carrying her they warped to Hourai Island.

He was thinking he might tell the truth already if Reinhardt asked where he repaired her.

“Welcome home, My Lord. Oh my, who is this lady?”

In the research laboratory Laozi greeted him. Then, he saw the Automata Reiko had carried in and raised his voice in curiosity.

“Ah, this is an Automata I found in the ruins of something called Keuwan, her name is Ann. She was pretty hurt so I thought I’d repair her. Please make the preparations.”

“As you wish.”

And then because of Jin, Ann’s repairs begun.

The first thing to do was to mend the Control Core. Jin transferred all the information Ann had to the prepared all-attribute Magi Crystals.

“[Transfer Info].”

By [Transfer Info] Jin made an exact copy. It was an especially close call, as after copying, the original Control Core broke into four pieces.

“Woah, just in time. If it’s like this then I think there’s the possibility that some of the information contains bugs.”

That was Jin’s a.n.a.lysis.

“If you’ve got a minute, Laozi, transfer the minimum information about Hourai Island to her, please. At the same time, also copy the information Ann has.”

“Understood.”

In this way, Laozi happened to gain information of things during the Great Magic War. They decided to simultaneously give Ann the minimum information for working under Jin from now on.

“My Lord, around 20 percent of the information is incomplete.”

Laozi reported after copying Ann’s information. It was as Jin had expected.

“Is that right, I thought so. Please restore as much of it as possible. It’s fine even if it takes a while.”

“I understand.”

Leaving the matters of the information to Laozi, Jinn continued Ann’s repairs.

“Next let’s think the reproduction process and upgrading the materials through.”

From a steel skeleton to a Light Silver one, from the tattered muscle tissue to the same Magical Fibers Reiko used. The skin was prepared out of a Sham Dragon’s wing membrane.

And, after going this far, Jin noticed a material he had never seen before on a shelf.

“Reiko, what’s this?”

“Yes, it is something harvested from a Sea Dragon.”

“Oh, the thing I heard from earlier. I see… I can use this.”

To bring Ann’s repairs to an end for now, Jin resumed the repairs.

Eyes from sapphire crystals. An Ether Converter, a Mana Driver, and s.h.i.+elding. He installed a Mana Tank, and made the hair out of Ground Spider’s silk dyed blue.

After finis.h.i.+ng installing the muscle tissue, next was to be the coating, howeever.

“Making her exactly the same as before is a little…”

Jin was troubled. To tell you the truth, there was something Ann had had installed that Reiko hadn’t.

“I wonder if she was also used for ‘that sort of thing’…”

During the war, within the troops that had had no female presence there had been female-type Automata. The reason can be easily guessed.

“I better not, after all.”

Jin couldn’t see any of his Automata that way. To the very end they were his daughters, and he loved them and that being the case he didn’t think of them as s.e.xual objects.

Finally, the clothes. He had her wear the same clothes as the five-colored golem maids. The color was black and there was no maid headdress.

“Alright, it’s complete. [Activate].”

“Yes, master.”

Ann got up.

“How is it, the state of your body?”

The activated Ann walked around and raised and lowered her hands to check her motions.

“It is very good. Thank you very much.”

“Alright, stay there on standby. Next, Reiko, come here.”

“Yes, Father.”

Jin called out to Reiko.

“Alright, Reiko, earlier you had a hard fight with Gigantes, right? I’ll check your whole body, but how about after that I strengthen you so that something like that won’t happen again?”

“Yes, I couldn’t ask for more. Please do.”

She shot back with a reply immediately. Jin nodded and,

“Alright, got it.”

First Jin had Reiko deactivate, and checked all the parts. And then.

“This is…”

Jin frowned. The reason was that a few places had been damaged.

The skeleton of the right foot looked a little deformed, and the Magical Muscles on both arms too looked to have snapped apart a bit.

There were no abnormalities in the chest cavity, but both the Ether Converter and Mana Driver had deteriorated a bit.

As expected running at 200 percent output appeared to have worked them too hard.

“This needs a complete reinforcement, huh. That and I need to give a warning to Reiko.”

Jin muttered and started working on Reiko’s improvements.

First was revising the whole body. He included things he had realized while inspecting Ann’s structure.

An Adamant.i.te skeleton. Hollow, with the core having a spongelike structure. With this both lightness and strength could coexist.

For the muscles he used a composite of the fibers of a Sea Dragon’s leather and the existing Magical Fibers.

By just rotating Magic Energy through Sea Dragon’s leather it wouldn’t deteriorate, and on top of that its high-power output was three times that of Magical Fibers. But controlling it was somewhat difficult, so he made it into a composite material.

For the skin he used a Sea Dragon’s wing membrane. It seemed to be twice as robust as a Sham Dragon’s membrane.

The result of using these materials was that somehow Reiko’s weight lightened by 15 percent. Dragon-type materials should be feared.

“Hm, it’s as I hoped. Like this the output can be increased.”

Jin said, and added a second Ether Converter and a Mana Driver to Reiko. In other words, she could double her output.

“Even with this, against Gigantes I’d be little unsure.”

Jin then started working on the final points of improvement he had thought about after that fight.

That was boosting the output.

It would be different if he had Elradrite, but to work without it Jin thought of something called a ‘capacitor’.

Jin wasn’t very well-versed in electronic circuitry, but he was aware that a capacfitor was something that temporarily stored electric power.

In other words, normally unused output was temporarily stored and released as necessary, that was the theory.

For that purpose, he planned to install an ultra high performance version of a Mana Tank to Reiko. It would surely be useful when going south to where there was little Ether too.

Theoretically, it could be expected to have a momentary output of 1000 percent. He couldn’t think of a use for it though.

“This thing will take all the weight I reduced earlier, though.”

After finis.h.i.+ng up, Reiko’s weight became precisely 30 kilograms. The reform took back the weight gained in the previous remodeling.

“Alright, Reiko, [Activate].”

Jin told the details of the improvements to Reiko who stood up.

“Understood. From now on, I’ll limit myself to 3 percent output in normal use.”

“Mh-hm. So, how’re you feeling?”

“Very light. Thank you very much.”

“Alright, in that case I’ve got something to say to you. Sit down ofer there.”

“Yes?”

Jin had Reiko sit down. After thinking he then scolded her.

“Reiko, I’m happy that you fight for my sake. However, just taking the brute force approach is irresponsible so stop it. Okay?”

“Eh? The purpose behind Father repeatedly enhancing me, was it not so that I could use that force?”

“What the…”

Jin was greatly perplexed and silenced. It appeared that the enhancements he had given to Reiko in good faith had just made her more devoted to strength.

“That’s wrong. I only enhanced you because I didn’t want you to be broken even in the worst case scenario. Put more thought into fighting from now on.”

“Yes, I understand.”

Then Jin, Reiko, and Ann were about to return, when Laozi called out to Jin.

“My Lord, I have a proposal to make.”

“Hm? That’s unusual. What is it?”

“Yes. Now that the amount of subordinates My Lord has has increased, there’s a possibility that by some accident or such they fall into someone else’s hands.”

What Laozi said was reasonable. When Jin heard that something popped into his mind, but he first motioned Laozi to continue.

“And so, I propose that just in case, we install a function for information erasure.”

“I see.”

What Jin had thought of in the spur of the moment was a self-destruct mechanism, but this was a much gentler idea than that. In the first place, even though it was Jin’s idea, he didn’t want to install something like a self-destruct mechanism to the golems that could be said to be his children.

Even the safety measure installed in Laozi was a destruction device only Jin could activate, so it wasn’t a self-destruct mechanism.

Those golems of Jin that did not use rare materials couldn’t possibly bring out the same performance as those that did. Currently just imitating Lotte was difficult.

On the other hand, concealing as much information about Hourai Island as possible was necessary.

“Alright, with Laozi as the guide enact that plan.”

“Understood.”

And like that, after this Laozi would add security measures to each one of the subordinate golems.

This time Jin returned to Ikasaato. He had stayed quite a while in Hourai Island, and when so he dozed off for a bit, or at least thought so, morning had come.

“Good morning.”

While rubbing his sleepy eyes Jin went to the dining room for breakfast.

“Good morning, Jin.”

Reinhardt gave morning greetings to Jin, then looked at his face and,

“Did you not sleep well? Your eyes are red.”

He said. Jin nodded, and replied that he missed sleep while thinking about various things.

“Good morning, Jin-kun.”

“Good morning.”

Elsa also greeted him.

The three went to eat.

“What are today’s plans?”

Jin asked Reinhardt.

“We’ll go handle the formalities. I can handle that alone, so Jin and Elsa, you two can do as you like.”

At that moment, the door of the dining room opened, and a military-ish man came in.

That man looked around restlessly, but finally walked towards Jin’s group. Then,

“Elsa, it’s been a while!”

No sooner had he said that than he hugged Elsa who had just finished her meal.

“Brother!?”

Elsa was surprised.

“Yeah, that’s right. Has it been two years? You’ve become prettier, Elsa. But best of all you look healthy.”