Editing Godhorn Tech:Volume1 Epilogue (section)

==Epilogue==

People’s fear led to doubt. The have-nots doubted the haves while the haves doubted themselves.

And they all chose the same method of finding peace: to attack.



After a few days, the chaos in the city had entirely settled down.

The white clouds above the Arsenal Kingdom blocked out the light of the sun. Miyabi Blackgarden slowly rotated one of his shoulders in the bed of a castle town inn.

It was a hesitant movement.

“Somehow, this scares me more.”

“Why?” asked an exasperated Alicia Blueforest as she removed the White Sorcery charm bandage from him. “You had 13 broken bones, 2 ruptured organs, and innumerable burst veins and arteries. That normally would have left you partially paralyzed if you were lucky, and dead if you were not.”

“Yeah, here I am good as new after only a few days! What did you do to my body, you enigmatic elf!?”

“Sigh. I said I know some alchemy, didn’t I? Your village rarely received supplies, so who do you think mixed the medicines there?”

The serpentine writing on the bandages turned to golden particles and disappeared, starting from the end she had undone.

White Sorcery Items were powerful, but they were also single-use no matter how much time went into preparing them. Their effects could not be used as easily as waving a wand like with magic. Just like with a dropped plate, restoring something to its original state was much harder than destroying something old or creating something new. Especially when that something was a living being.

Miyabi realized just how blessed he had been without even knowing it, but then something else occurred to him.

That village clinic had been surprisingly well-stocked with White Sorcery Items, yet Moebius had still needed a wheelchair. Just how badly had he been injured?

After a final check over his body, the redhead boy stepped outside to find the snowy castle town was full of laughter and joy.

“Hey☆ Stop that, Millovannes. Hee hee hee.”

Celina Bodenburg was in a good mood. She had been safely reunited with the delivery harpy after their separation during the riot. Celina herself was happily holding out a hand like she was keeping the summer sun off her face, but…

“I-is it just me or is that harpy trying to scratch at Celina’s face with her talons?” whispered Miyabi.

“Sh! I don’t think Celina has noticed. You wouldn’t want to ruin the dream for her, would you?” replied Helen.

Instead of the harpy suddenly going feral and rebelling, this appeared to be the general state of things between those two. At any rate, they had no reason to remain here now that Miyabi had recovered.

They met Eliza Silverstorm at the city gate where the scars of the battle were still not fully healed.

“Some unrest remains, but the kingdom should be fine now.”

She was smiling.

It was a bashful smile, like she had finally accepted her own sense of shame.

Miyabi was a little surprised to find she could smile like this.

Seeing it made him glad he had risked his life for her.

“My king has come back to his senses and is accepting advice on how to resolve our crisis. Now that the Godhorn Tech is gone, you would think he had recovered from a demonic possession.”

“I see.”

Miyabi’s response was short, but that did not mean it had no meaning.

“If you are willing, I would like to join you on your journey.” The ponytail knight scratched her cheek in a somewhat bashful way. “The Arsenal Kingdom has given up its Godhorn Tech and stopped lending out its military might. We must find a new pillar for our finances, so I have been given a secret mission to travel the world and report back with any possibilities I discover.”

Miyabi did not initially understand what he had just heard.

And…

“Ha ha.”

“Miyabi?”

“Ah ha ha ha ha ha!!”

Before she could protest, he hugged the chosen knight.

The gate guards awkwardly looked the other way.

“Of course we’re willing!! I couldn’t ask for a better party member. Having you around is sure to be useful. I mean, we don’t have a knight who can wield a sword or lance as a dedicated fighter. I end up using anything like a machete, you know? You’ll fill a pretty basic gap in our party!! Ha ha ha!!”

“…”

The ponytail girl never did get any kind of complaint out.

The look on her face said she could not even feel angry when he was this delighted.

“Now, we have something to ask you as well,” cut in Alicia.

The knight herself looked puzzled.

“?”

“Th-that’s right! About my Schwarz- achoo!!”

“Your Schwarz Achoo?” accurately repeated the strait-laced knight.

“U-ugh, this kingdom is much too cold,” complained Celina.

“Maybe if you wore something that covered your shoulders,” pointed out Alicia.

“But that dress is great!! The more skin showing the better, if you ask me!! I recommend 30% at the very least, but I will praise the courage any who go for the full 100%!!”

No one even bothered listening to the radio’s nonsense anymore.

Eliza breathed a white sigh.

“How about we get something hot to drink while we discuss this?”

Miyabi feared that would be a tall order in this frigid kingdom, but the local knew what she was doing. She used a simple lamp and small pot to prepare some lightly-flavored tea in no time.

Celina Bodenburg held the cup between her hands and looked hesitant to actually drink it. She must have been very cold indeed.

“Ahh, that’s much better.”

“You’ll die in your sleep like this,” said the elf.

“Anyway, what did you want to ask?” asked Eliza, her head tilted.

“Oh, right!” Celina leaned forward again. “It’s about my armored train! The Schwarz Schütze!”

Eliza had refused them entrance to the Arsenal Kingdom and used the Icicle Bullet to derail the Schwarz Schütze because a sorcery bomb had been set up on the armored train, but something about how it had played out seemed odd to them. They explained it all, with plenty of gesturing, but the ponytail knight only tilted her head at a greater angle.

“I don’t know anything about that.”

“What do you mean?”

Helen’s sharp question did nothing to change Eliza’s attitude.

“I am saying I was not colluding with the 11th to destroy the company’s Godhorn Tech.”

“B-but! One of my train’s components was only swapped out with the sorcery bomb ''after it had been stopped by you''. That means the 11th knew in advance the time and location that would happen!!”

That was the only way to explain the timing.

But would someone like Eliza really use trickery of that sort?

Miyabi sighed.

“One of us might be misunderstanding something here. I don’t care how trivial it seems – can you give us all the details about how you ended up attacking us?”

“There isn’t much to tell.”

Now that she knew them, Eliza seemed reluctant to remember that attack. She was ridiculously strait-laced through and through.

“I received an emergency notification and moved to stop Celina.”

“An emergency notification? You mean the anonymous letter?” asked Miyabi.

“Yes,” she concisely replied. “But while it was anonymous, letters can be identified from the handwriting and method of sealing.”

“Y-yes, contracts would be fairly useless if appraisal like that was impossible.”

Celina puffed out her cheeks at having to agree with Eliza right now, but determining the veracity of this information was her top priority.

At any rate, that letter would have allowed the sender to push Eliza to attack and then estimate the time and location well enough to lie in wait.

And once the Schwarz Schütze had been derailed, they could sneak up to it and replace an internal component with the sorcery bomb.

“His identity is an open secret, but that is why I felt I could trust him,” continued Eliza. “He is a legendary fixer who is allowed to possess a Godhorn Tech as an individual because he uses its power to resolve any trouble that crops up between countries.”

Yes, she had a clear answer.

“The letter was from ''Moebius Entrance''.”

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