Second place in the second year of the Academy’s Magic Department. Kim Sera is a player.
“In the game modeled after <Diaros Academy>, the academy she attends.”
“Miss Sera. About that thing you showed me before…”
“Oh, that. I made it in advance.”
“Sera! It worked just as you said! With this, we can speed up the experiment schedule overwhelmingly!”
“Yes, yes, Professor. Don’t get too excited and let’s also consider the control variables for the next experiment…”
“Sera, the magic reagents you ordered have arrived.”
“Ah, thank you!”
As a player, she possessed more knowledge and abilities than others. It was natural for her to know things others didn’t, and she had many peculiar abilities that people might find alien.
Alchemy and Thaumaturgy utilizing game abilities were among her most outstanding skills, and they were also the ones she used the most.
It was a kind of force ability that produced ‘results’ without any ‘process’ when materials were inserted. The only drawback of this ability was singular.
Items not unlocked systemically could not yet be created.
“Hoo, at this rate, when will I max out my Alchemy level?”
Even that was just a matter of time; after some time passes, her level would eventually rise and restrictions would lift, making it practically a meaningless limitation.
Originally, with this ability, she would’ve become the continent’s greatest sorcerer, an alchemist leaving her name in history, or a merchant plundering the wallets of the rich.
But now, she couldn’t do that.
“The Finger of the Evil God? What’s that?”
Even she, boasting knowledge worthy of mastering the game, heard for the first time about some boss mob that Kail had defeated.
That alone was surprising enough, but apparently, tens of thousands of people—specifically, nearly 90% of the duchy—had died just from that boss mob appearing.
Events that never existed in the game. Due to them, Sera found herself grinding away unexpectedly.
“Making what I made again, making what I was making again-.”
Her alchemy was a cheat code that skipped processes, but it wasn’t so overpowered that she could instantly produce tens of thousands of Evil God Cult detectors.
The magical tools she could make were one at a time. Even then, it required several seconds to dozens of seconds of work.
For tens of thousands of them. Which amounted to hundreds of thousands of seconds, she had to blankly stare at the system window and grind. A situation modern people who like things fast absolutely detest.
But she had to do it.
“Really, with people dying… I can’t not do it just because it’s bothersome…”
The more she rested, the more people died. With a structure where she couldn’t just quit because it was bothersome, all reason aside, she had no choice but to do it.
If you asked whether the process of making them helped her even a little, well, it didn’t, so she decided to take satisfaction in the experience points accumulating like ant eyes.
“By the way, Kail, this guy should stop causing trouble…”
All the plans she had laid out were being disrupted because of Kail. Sera trembled as she thought about how many things had gone awry.
Probably right now, in a place she didn’t know, the butterfly effect caused by Kail was creating another storm.
Thinking that, she focused to finish this task as quickly as possible.
* * *
Krik, krik-.
A small girl’s arms are fitted with steel prosthetics twice the size of her body.
At this point, one might think these weren’t prosthetics but rather robot arms torn off a super robot. The girl slightly frowned looking at her now enormous arms.
“Too small…”
“Too small? That can’t be.”
“It’s small! My original arm was bigger than this!”
After pondering for a moment on the girl’s words, Hephaestus smacked her back hard, convinced otherwise.
A sharp pain etched across her back, yet with her giant arms, she couldn’t even scratch it.
With nothing else to do but groan in pain, the girl gritted her teeth and trembled until the pain subsided, then sprang to her feet.
“You bastard—do you want to die!?”
“Your speech is the same as before, but your new appearance is surprisingly cute.”
“What—? Cute? I’m a man!”
“Yeah, that was true before. Not anymore. —Jerard.”
Hephaestus spoke while looking at the girl. Jerard, called by that name, glared at him, displeased with her current form.
But there was nothing she could do. Her original muscular, two-meter-tall body had been shredded into pulp, leaving only her head intact.
Rather, she felt like she should be praised for being revived using his brain.
“Damn it… why did you have to put me in a girl’s body?”
“I carefully selected this host body. Can’t you feel the aura flowing within it?”
“Well, I can feel it, but…”
Though grumbling, Jerard tried controlling the aura flowing within her body. The aura moved according to her will.
Its quantity was small, but for someone like Jerard, the amount of aura wasn’t much of an issue.
What mattered was control. With that, regaining the aura quantity of her original body wouldn’t take long, and the aura control of this body—
“…I don’t like it compared to my original body.”
“That’s because it wasn’t yours. You’ll get used to it.”
“Tsk. So you expect me to go around looking like this?”
Jerard raised her arms as she spoke. Both arms were steel prosthetics larger than her entire body. Even in the Pragia Kingdom, where prosthetics weren’t rare, her appearance was bound to attract attention.
However, Hephaestus smirked, unfazed by the size.
“Why do you think I chose this body among many others?”
“Are you some pervert who gets excited seeing a young girl’s body?”
“…Say one more word, and I’ll kick you out naked.”
“One word.”
Kicked out naked, Jerard wrapped herself in scraps of cloth scattered in the alley and stepped onto the street.
The sight of a young girl with disproportionately large prosthetic arms covered in rags was quite curious, drawing stares from everywhere.
To avoid those gazes, Jerard did something she’d never done before: hunching her shoulders. And here she was, acting like some idiot…
“Ahh, I’m a girl now.”
Realizing anew that she was reborn as a girl, Jerard did her best to avoid the stares. Soon, she understood why Hephaestus gave her these arms.
When she hunched her shoulders, the flow of aura weakened, and her arms gradually shrank. Though she didn’t understand the principle, Jerard realized why her arms were shrinking and immediately blocked the aura flowing to them.
Once her arms shrunk to a size suitable for a girl, Jerard smiled in satisfaction.
“This might actually be useful.”
Her thoughts were interrupted as unidentified men blocked her path.
Tilting her head and looking up, the men, after scanning her face, exclaimed in delight.
“Little girl—where are you going alone?”
“…Why do you care?”
“Such a foul mouth. Our little girl needs some education, doesn’t she?”
The men casually drew their swords and pressed the cold blade against her cheek. Ordinary people would be terrified in this situation.
Terrified, the girl would be kidnapped and subjected to unspeakable horrors.
But she wasn’t ordinary. She was Aura Master Jerard, who spent her life in combat.
Piiing-!
“…Huh?”
“I was just thinking of testing something.”
Releasing the blocked aura, her arms inflated like balloons. Soon, a pair of prosthetic arms larger than her body emerged.
Seeing this, the men sensed something amiss and began backing away. But it was too late. They should’ve fled the moment they saw Jerard.
“—Turbo Fist.”
Thwack! Accompanied by a loud engine sound, the fist shot forward, turning the man into a pulp.
Watching a human disappear cleanly, Jerard realized these prosthetics were far more incredible than she thought.
“Fun.”
“Aah, aaaah-aaaaargh!”
“Huh? Running away?”
Watching the thugs flee far away, Jerard didn’t chase them but clenched her fist standing still.
She had been utterly defeated by Kail. Why? Kail could attack him from afar, but she couldn’t.
Recognizing the problem, fixing it was simple. Great inventions often start from small ideas.
“Rocket Punch.”
The moment the named fist launched, an aura-formed punch obliterated the fleeing thugs in an instant.
The finishing move was complete. Satisfied, Jerard smirked.
