Kanna no Kanna Volume 3 Chapter 25

Hi readers! Here it is, another bi-weekly chapter of Kanna and an early one at that. This one is also small, but the next chapter will be large. About twice as large. I hope I’m getting it ready on time since I also want to do some chapters of the other novel.

Enjoy your read.

Tl: Jun

ED: Jun

Chapter 25 Does that kind of teacher exist in reality though?

Speaking of why I hardly had any conversations with Kiska until know. That wasn’t because of coincidences, but partly because she intentionally avoided me or something. Being of the same s.e.x as Faima, she is an escort closest to her compared to Agaht and Rand. For that reason alone she made it a point of paying close attention to Faima's protection while keeping conversations like chats to a minimum. At the same time, Faima and Rand have already put some trust in me, but me and Real are still outsiders working together with them. There's been not just even a remote possibility of betrayal, thus far have they completed their observation of us.

When I ask why she's having a conversation with me at this stage in that case, Kiska said she seemed to have judged with her eyes that we're trustworthy people. I had as many opportunity as I like if I were thinking about doing Faima harm. But I didn't show any behaviour of trying to harm Faima and I also put my body in the masked men's attack for the second time and protected Faima. They were convinced that there's no more room for doubting us.

Well, now that I finally got the proper interactions with the three attendants out of the way, the next problem rose to the surface.

"Are these the harmful effects of real fantasy!?"

"You really do shout ambiguous lines sometimes. Is this also culture from the other world?"

"…………You're not wrong about that I guess."

What's spread out in front of our eyes is the 『wreckage』 of the goblins. Of course, they were the ruins of what once were the magic beasts intercepted by Rand's party and Real's musou mode.

If it was a game, then the monster corpses would disappear right away, but they won't naturally disappear in a realistic fantasy world of course. The corpses of magic beasts will remain normally and when time pa.s.ses it would obviously decay. And then the decayed corpses could cause an epidemic, or possibly transform into an 『Undead』 type of magic beasts.

I'm sure that 『Disposing』 eliminated magic beasts is appropriate etiquette and responsibility as far as adventurers and travelers are concerned. And so we, in present continuous tense, are executing said responsibility.

　ーーーーOr more like, the corpses piled up too much and is blocking the way of the carriage.

"I didn't know why we had a shovel inside the carriage, but it was for this reason right?"

"It's not that bad if it's just several corpses, but it will take too much time if we don't gather them in one place with this tool and burn them all at once."

Just as she said, Real scoops up the goblin corpses with the shovel in her hand and put them all on the roadside in one place. And as for me, I make a shovel with ice and do the same work. I don't think of it as sweeping bodies, I just tell myself I'm disposing of red and green snow and immerse myself with my work. If I don't think like that it'd be a little tough.

"There's nothing around us that can burn so it's fine, but what are you gonna do if it's inside a forest? It'll be a wildfire if we do it poorly."

"If it's inside the forest then the magic beasts living in there will deal with it on its own for us. And even if it decays, that will become fertilizer instead and become part of the forest so there are no problems."

Depending on the magic beast, there are cases where parts of the corpses becomes raw material for producing various tools and some adventurers earn their bread with 『hunting magic beasts』of whose materials are requested. I guess it's the standard course of events around this part. By the way, the goblin corpses is practically useless and though the weapons they own extremely rarely are valuable, it has a low probability where you probably won't get one after hunting hundreds of them or something.

"Dealing with corpses of magic beasts is the duty of the subjugator, but there's essentially no problem if you leave it as it is. Like I had said, it's because the magic beasts living in the area will dispose of it as food. It's just that that with this amount they won't be able to dispose of them as you would expect. Also becoming fertilizer is difficult on dry areas like here. In this case there's no other choice but to burn it either way or bury them."

And with that said, me and Real diligently gather the corpses in one place.

If you’re asking what Agaht and Rand is doing in the meantime.

Agaht is standing by Faima's side and is in the middle of his guard duty. We were able to repel the masked men who attacked Faima if we only limit to those who appeared in the beginning and include the four from just now. However, additional masked men may come, so we strengthen our vigilance all the more. He's on alert together with Kiska on the cargo stand.

And as for Rand, he's examining the three dead men and the last one who still hasn't regained his consciousness. He's investigating whether or not there is any background on the perpetrators of the attack with their personal belongings and looks. It looks like he will interrogate the unconscious guy as soon as he regains his consciousness.

"I wonder if he will obediently disclose it to us. That fellow who employed them to   somehow a.s.sa.s.sinate her."

"Don't think so. Even so, there are things like information we can just read from their behavior and way of speaking. Interrogation is outside my area of expertise so I can't say any more than this, but we can't do anything aside from entrusting this part to Sir Rand."

I recall a certain scene from a police drama. A scene where the detective in charge is interrogating the suspect in an interrogation room. A scene where Rand in a suit is investigating the masked man was floating in my mind. A dandy good looking guy is also splendidly wearing fashion coming from the other side of the dimension.

That sort of delusion in any case.

"Real, how do you see this time's attack?"

"It's likely the same as what you had expected. a.s.suming the goblins were lying in ambush is, well, understandable."

"So we're a.s.suming."

"I've told Agaht, but it's an unusual case. It's rare. It's just that beyond that, it's impossible for this many goblins to rush on together like that despite how many are of the same tribe. Even if they acted as one group, it was too excessive of a crowd."

Corpses in perfectly good health are scarce, but even so there are more than hundred goblin corpses scattered about if I roughly estimate it.

"At most 20 to 30 would gather. Any more than that should produce various conflicts even if they are of the same tribe. Turf wars and food shares and the like. There's no doubt it's not a natural phenomenon, but some external cause."

The expectation, or rather my case is that I judge that the mood I felt from the whole goblins doesn't harbor any instinct, but some kind of intentional something.

"You got any idea on the external cause of this?"

"In this world there are people called 『Magic beast tamers』. There exist a technique that uses some sort of method to subdue and employ magic beasts. I myself could similarly exchange contract with a specific individual dragon and arbitrarily call them for use. This is roughly speaking also one of the frameworks of a magic beast tamer."

If I state the conclusion based on what I hear, then it seems like it's possible that the behavior of the magic beasts were controlled to some extent. There are animal tamers in the real world too.

"It's just, the『contract』 I mentioned needs a mutual understanding between the contractor and the contractee. For that, advanced intelligence is needed from the contractee. That's nearly impossible with goblins. There are also contracts that forces the right to control to one party though."

In the first place, goblins have nothing but the lowest ranking ability as magic beasts. There's no advantage in binding a magical contract with them.

"If they manipulate at least this amount, then it would've been much more efficient to just subdue a much higher rank magic beast."

"Although" Real adds as she glances towards the carriage.

"Though they're goblins, I don't think even Faima and the others will be able to last if they're hit with this amount without us. And if the a.s.sa.s.sin's attack and such happens there, then there won't be any defense if you hadn't noticed them. It's because all the members were concentrated in front of the goblins. Well, I suppose it's justified considering the situation."

"Which means, the guy who instigated the goblins and the one behind the a.s.sa.s.sins can be linked with an equal sign, is that what you mean?"

"It's natural to think like that, you see. There are still various mysterious points left though. All the evidence is circ.u.mstantial and it's also possible that both parties are entirely separate."

There'll be no end to this if you end up saying that. We temporarily end the investigation of facts at this moment. I also wish Rand will find out some information from the masked survivor.

We then spend around an hour after that and finally the goblin corpses in one spot. It was a work that both shovels away the goblins that couldn't end up as snow shoveling(that sounds wrong) as well as my mind.

The finished goblin corpse mountain has become quite the size. The sight of green arms, legs and heads sticking out from the mountain surface is really gross.

"Okay then, stand back a little."

Being told by Faima, we withdraw behind her. After confirming us, Faima then goes towards the goblin mountain and holds her hand above her head. When she mutters softly, a geometry pattern like that time the masked man was crushedーーa spell floated in the inside of it. Also one on each hand.

When the spell on her right hand first unleashes a light, wind then blows towards the corpse mountain. An aggressive phenomenon where it cuts them up and blows them away didn't occur.

Wind continues to blow for about a minute and then a fireball is unleashed from the spell on her left hand. The size is a little larger than a fist. It's a little small for a source to set that heap of corpses on fire.

But the instant the fire ball touches the heap of bodies, it made a roaring sound and it furiously blazed. The size of the fire swells up in one go and it spreads and swallows up the acc.u.mulated dead flesh.

"I hear Ms Faima's forte is her wind attribute spells, but to think you could also use the fire attribute this far. I'm amazed."

"No, not at all. Like I had said before, What I'm learning is centered on wind magic spells. I've obtained the minimum level necessary for adventurers on the other three, you know. Naturally, this includes the fire attribute."

"But this firepower is at the intermediate level for fire attributes, you know?"

"I only devised a wind magic spell and used that, you know. Kanna, you could probably understand this, don't you?"

Being asked by Faima, I recall the contents of the science lessons from long ago after thinking about it a little.

"With the wind magic at the beginning, you gathered a specific gas didn't you? So, the fire ball that comes next flares up in one go."

"Correct!"

Faima briskly snapped her finger.

"I disa.s.sembled the components in the air and only gathered the oxygen. It takes some time until it has effect so it's unusable in battle, but it's quite a handy method for when you want a large source of fire you see."

Even after receiving the explanation from the redhead sorcerer, Real doesn't quite seem to understand, so she only tilts her head. It's a science experiment every middle school student knows about if it was the real world, but is this rare knowledge to this world's people?

"Incidentally, I've gathered the oxygen in the center this time, but if I replace them with hydrogen, then it would become powerful enough to blow away the area around here."

"Hydrogen, huh…………Stuff like hydrogen fuel would seem to be usable then, wouldn't it?"

A new technology is being developed in the real world by using hydrogen as fuel, but the number one bottleneck is the supplying situation of hydrogen. It looks like it costs quite a lot to take just the hydrogen from the air, but it looks like you could easily provide hydrogen if you could use magic from the fantasy world.  

Faima's eyes shone strongly towards such mutterings of mine. Her eyes changed so much it really seemed to be shining. It's a sudden change of state transforming a herbivore into a carnivore.

"Excuse me, give me the details on that topic just now."

"Wait, what?"

Both my shoulders are firmly caught by Faima.

"Hydrogen as fuel? I never had that idea. I guess that is right, that explosive power is certainly effective. In a foreign country, some 『steam engine』 is developed after all. New power that uses heat already exists. In that case, just use heat as it is instead of steam. A great amount of energy isn't guaranteed from just burning oxygen, but it won't be a problem with hydrogen's explosive power, right?"

Ah, it's the same face Faima had that time I used spirit arts in front of her for the first time. Curiosity and research ambitions are running wildly.

"I still have long ways to go. I can't make fun of the country's imperial court magicians. I too can't see magic as anything other than tools for war in the end. My opinion is to stop that by any means. That's right, the thing we call magic should be liberal. Things like offensive magic is after all nothing more than a part of the field called magic. That it is tied to the development of magic is a fact, but some theories, however unnecessary and discarded they are, could be vital components in other fields. What is important is inventiveness that explores every single possible solution without getting caught up by existing preconceptions. It's necessary for future magic development. That liberal inventiveness that is!"

"Calm down."

Bonk!

"Hau!? …………Ah."

After her head took a hit from me, Faima became herself again. She noticed me and Real's indescribable warm eyes and blushed.

"I, I'm sorry. Dear me, it's all because I unconsciously stop looking around me when there is something interesting in front of my eyes…………"

"No, it's fine though."

I wouldn't mind leaving her alone though, if it weren't for the scene of a mountain of corpses burning in the background. The stench of burning flesh is slowly about to go over the limits of my discomfort index.

"Sorry, but can we wait until we get out of this ravine? I'll let you hear about it as many times as you want once we settled down in a somewhat safer place"

"That's…………right, I guess. Now is not the time to be doing this sort of conversation."

At least it's not a topic to be going nuts for by the side of the goblins' cinders.

"Ms. Faima, I'd also like you to teach me about 『Psy-ens』 like 『Oxie jen』 or 『Hidro jen』 though. It's somehow lonely if I'm the only one not keeping up with the conversation."

Real raised her hand and let out that sort of request. She's like a kid wanting to ask the teacher a question in the cla.s.sroom I thought quite amusingly.

"Oh, if it's that much, then with pleasure. I'm happy even if it's just taking interest in science"

And this one looks like a teacher answering that kid's problem doesn't she, is what I also thought. I wonder if I would be taking cla.s.ses more seriously if I had a young, beautiful, big b.o.o.bed teacher like her.

I then draw the conclusion that b.o.o.bs would bother me too much for me to get taught anything.