Flag's training was as grueling as forewarned. He did not throw up as had been feared, but his whole body was drenched in sweat.
"You actually pulled this off."
Still, since the sweat he shed now would spare him blood tomorrow, he made no sound about it being hard. Odysseus wrapped himself in a towel so the sweat would not cool too quickly and drank a sports drink.
"So, good work. Do the stretches I showed you before you sleep. From tomorrow we're going intervals morning and evening, so get up early."
"Yes."
Setting that aside, this era was good in that it had so many methods for building muscle safely. It was not as though the era he had lived in had nothing resembling stretching, but such properly established methods had been rare.
"And keep taking in water."
"Understood."
More to the point, how was he to raise stamina that broke into a sweat from a mere twenty minutes of running? Thinking that, Odysseus forced his trembling legs to move. It was time to go to Horn.
"Whew."
Slowly but steadily, the boy walked the corridor while moving the magic power within his body. Just as muscles developed the more they were used, magic power improved the more it was used.
'Strictly speaking it isn't the magic power itself that improves but the magic-control nerves within the body that develop, but.......'
Details of that sort did not matter much. He was no scholar, and either way it came to the same thing: he had to make a habit of using magic power continuously.
KNOCK, KNOCK.
"Horn, I'm here."
"Is that Yul?"
Odysseus opened the door the moment he heard Horn's voice. It was not quite 'slowly,' but far from 'flung open' either: a truly careful opening.
"You are late."
"I was on my way from training."
"...There was talk going around that you are going out on expeditions. Was that true?"
"Yes."
Odysseus put out his answer so firmly that one might wonder whether laughter lay behind it. Horn set down the piece of iron he was holding and rubbed his face with dry hands.
"An expedition is by no means an easy thing."
"I know."
"Do you have any idea how many people die on the first expedition they go out on?"
"I've been part of this place for years. How could I possibly not know?"
There was no need even to experience it firsthand. Just looking at what had driven Yul into a back room two years ago, an expedition was a truly, truly, truly fucked-up thing.
"And knowing that, you say you will go out?"
"Yes."
But so what? Odysseus had spent a full ten years of his life on the battlefield and devoted the following ten to wandering in order to get home.
Which meant there was no reason to be frightened of something called an expedition that in practice was closer to a few days of hunting. He had already experienced the greatest terror he was capable of experiencing.
"You......."
"For the record, I've already decided, and I have no intention of reversing it. So could you just let this subject go?"
Talking beyond this point would be a waste of time. The boy planted his backside in front of his own workbench. It was a workbench for making alchemical products.
"How many magic bullets do I have to make today?"
"...There is what you skipped yesterday and what was used up this time, so you will have to make at least two hundred."
Damn, that's a lot. Odysseus let out something that was not quite a sigh over a production load swollen by half again. Considering he had to go to Aran's room at ten, it was tight even if he set to work this instant.
"What about filters, or anything else?"
What he had to make was not even limited to magic bullets. Magic bullets were not the only alchemical products that could be made by alchemy.
"None. You only need to make bullets."
"You said you wouldn't reduce my quota, but it looks like you cut some out for me after all."
"...That is right, you brat. Since you know it, do it well."
"Yeees."
Starting with bullets and going on to firearms of every sort and armor, and at the least to processed raw materials like thread or dye. Alchemy was precisely what could imitate most objects in existence.
It had the drawback that production was impossible without calculation formulas and preparation methods, but that was the nature of the act of creation itself, so there was nothing to complain about. Nothing can be easily completed until its recipe has been established.
'Magic bullets are so small that engraving them is difficult. Making the circuit, random numbers included, isn't hard at all, though.'
In any case, to return to the beginning: to make an alchemical product, one needs to engrave a thing called a 'magic circuit.' A specific effect is exerted only when magic power flows through the circuit.
TAP, TAP, TAP.
And circuit engraving is literally the carving 刻 of a seal 印. Odysseus set his working chisel against a fixed bullet. It was a scrap of metal with no gunpowder inside, merely imitating the shape of a round.
TAP, TAP, TAP.
For reference, the reason there is no gunpowder inside the bullets is nothing special. The circumstances tangled up in it were that the union city of Thesenia was extremely strict about the circulation and outflow of gunpowder, and that alchemy could replace gunpowder's role.
TAP.
"Ah, my eyeballs are going to fall out."
"How many have you made, that you are whining already?"
Of course, unlike powder rounds, which allow for machine processing, magic bullets have the drawback of being possible by hand alone. The cause was that unless magic power was set revolving from the moment the grooves were cut, the alchemical product would not be properly completed.
"Give me a break. I worked this body half to death today."
"Hmph. It is karma you earned yourself, so why should I give you a break?"
But what could be done about being born in a city where the price of labor was cheaper than obtaining gunpowder? He would have to be grateful that not just anyone could even do this work, and look to the future.
"Ah, I'm out of wire."
"Here."
"Thank you, Horn."
Once the grooves are fully carved, it is time to fill those grooves with another metal. Wire inlay. It was a technique of driving metal drawn out into thin wire into the grooves to fill them, then grinding it clean to finish the surface.
SCRAPE, SCRAPE.
"Is that it?"
Having come this far, it was fair to consider it nearly finished. The only work left was the injection of magic power.
"...What is this. You said your eyes would fall out, and yet you finish it in no time."
"Even so, that's only one so far."
Odysseus put the finally completed bullet into the basket. The number remaining was one hundred and ninety-nine. He still had a long way to go.
"By the way, Horn."
"What."
"Do you know any magic? Battle magic would be even better."
"Hah, are you asking me that now?"
"It's not as if I can ask the captain or Bro Flag."
To begin with, neither the captain nor Flag was a magician. They could merely strengthen their bodies with magic power.
'Well, from certain points of view it seems physical enhancement is counted as a kind of magic in its own right, called fighting arts or enhancement arts, but.......'
It made no difference. Fighting arts might be regarded as magic, but those who could do nothing but physical enhancement were not treated as proper magicians.
That much is plain from the very title that groups them together: biomancer. The biomancer as this era defines it is not a magician.
"...If I had anything I could teach you, I would have taught it long ago. You goddamn whelp."
"That may be so, but... do you really know nothing?"
"Damn it all, yes! I know nothing!"
"Wow, how disappointing......."
"Why, you brat?!"
Horn stopped shaving a bullet and shouted. But knowing he was not the sort to raise a hand, it was not particularly frightening. And even if he really did hit him, well... as long as he did not stab a vital point with a blade, it made no difference. He had passed through far too many jaws of death to tremble at merely being struck.
"...Come to my room when you have time."
"Why?"
"You asked me to teach you!"
Now what is he flaring up about again.
Odysseus tapped his chisel as he watched Horn blow up once more. It was true that he was deliberately acting like a rude little shit, but even so, he thought the man was awfully easy to scratch. The Horn that Yul had seen seemed to have been a bit more... grown-up than this.
To the eyes of a fellow man in his fifties, he was nothing more and nothing less than a son of a bitch who could not act his age.
"You said you know nothing."
"Argh, you really are......."
Meanwhile Horn, who had gone through raging and swallowing his anger and getting irritated all on his own, finally spat out the rest of it.
"I have no proper knowledge, but I do have research I have done."
"Oh."
"You are smarter than I am, so... you might be able to get something out of it."
"Sounds good. I'll come by once I've finished today's lesson."
"Lesson?"
"The vice-captain said she would pass on the knowledge needed for expeditions. At ten."
"...Will that not run past midnight? Piss off! Do not come!"
"My esteemed Teacher Horn. Don't be so heartless."
"You only call me esteemed at times like this! And what about that is an attitude of respect?!"
As if he didn't go to bed past twelve anyway. Odysseus let Horn's words in one ear and out the other and worked his hands diligently. The number of bullets he had turned out mechanically while they chattered was ten. He still had to keep moving briskly.
***
Vice-Captain Aran's room was located on the topmost floor in consideration of her race. Taking a Harpyia's average height and wing size into account, the room's area was also larger than Captain Songha's.
"You have come."
But watching the nest in the corner and the vice-captain herself moving about the room raised the illusion that even this vast room looked small. It felt all the more so because she happened to be spreading her wings and preening her feathers.
"Sit."
"Yes."
Odysseus marveled at the sight anew and sat on the cushion that had been set out. There was nothing in this room that could be called a chair, so there was no helping it.
The vice-captain, on the other hand, took a posture closer to squatting than to sitting. It seemed to be because flopping down would bend her long wing feathers and tail feathers. That a Harpyia's leg joints did not suit a cross-legged position surely played a part as well.
"Do you know what the definition of an expedition is?"
In any case, as soon as the ground for conversation was laid in that manner, Vice-Captain Aran asked abruptly. For Odysseus, who had grasped most of this world's foundational knowledge, it was not a very difficult question.
"The act of going outside the city and bringing back supplies that the city doesn't produce."
"Correct. You know it precisely."
Expedition, Odyssey. The act of risking one's life to go outside the city and hunt, excavate, and the like.
"I am an expedition member of a sort."
"Yes. You are an expedition member as well. But in today's lesson I will not treat you as a formal expedition member."
"Hmm. In what sense?"
"It means that no matter how much you know, I will start from the beginning as though teaching a newly arrived recruit."
"Ah, I see."
"If you understand, let us begin the lesson."
But Aran, with her strong streak of principle, did not know how to let things slide at a comfortable pace.
Her grain was quite different from that of Odysseus, who liked flexibility, yet she was a type of person he rather liked. A stickler for principle might be stifling at times, but she rarely stirred up needless discord.
"To know how this practice came about, you need to learn the history of this world first."
While the boy was chewing on such stray thoughts, Vice-Captain Aran held out a book. The title was ⌈Let's Learn About History 3 -The Age of Darkness-⌋.
"The world was turned to a ruin through the Fourth World War. And the contaminants that spread amid the chaos of war transformed the land and every life living upon that land. In the most horrific and cruel form."
She stretched out one foot and turned a page. What she used were the two lesser toes among her six, small enough in size to allow fine movement.
The two toes, which in terms of Odysseus' hand might be likened to a thumb and an index finger, turned the page delicately.
"Those who survived then built safe zones on the scale of cities in order to plan for the future. The Thesenia we live in is one of them."
Vice-Captain Aran turned two pages in an instant, then looked the boy straight in the face. The head feathers that existed in place of hair swayed gently with the motion of her head.
"Afterward humans agreed to call the world outside the cities the contaminated zone and the creatures living in the contaminated zone mutants... and for the sake of safety they resolved to refrain from going outside the cities."
"Yes."
"Now then, let me ask you here. Do you think those who once commanded the world were satisfied with a life confined to cities? And do you think the cities they built satisfied every desire of the humans they held?"
"Hardly. There's absolutely no way."
"Yes. As you say, they absolutely were not. It is precisely for this reason that the concepts of the expedition team and the expedition were born."
Some people were desperate for supplies that could not be obtained in the city, and some people craved money more than life.
And the product of the compromise between the two was precisely the expedition team, Odyssia. Beings who risked their lives to go outside the city to obtain supplies or excavate relics.
"What an expedition team does differs slightly from team to team, and from the city it belongs to. In our case, hunting mutants and reselling the by-products is the main business."
Only, by this point Odysseus felt subtly odd every time he saw the words written on the page. It was a part he had passed over without thought on the first day, but words like expedition and expedition team sounded exactly like his former name.
'It's a word derived from my name to begin with, so I suppose there's no helping it.'
Well, as a result there was no helping his mood turning restless every time he heard it. All the more so because in one light it was glorious, and yet thinking of the origin often made him a little hot under the collar.
"We sometimes sell the alchemical products you or Horn make, but most are consumed within our own expedition team. This will be a part you already know."
"Of course."
In any case, since it was Captain Songha's iron rule that there must always be a reserve, if a conflict broke out he could count on working nights all that week. The amount used up had to be replenished as quickly as possible.
"What is important here is that the thing dangerous enough for humans to carry out district separation is that outside:the contaminated zone, and that our main stage is precisely there."
"And it's dangerous to that degree. Yes, I know. I've steeled myself."
"Yes. You would not have volunteered in ignorance of that part, so I will say no more."
Vice-Captain Aran let out a long breath and closed the history book. It seemed to be because history beyond this point had no bearing on the birth of the expedition teams.
"Then......."
"But what of the resolve to kill a person? When an enemy appears, can you kill him without hesitation for the survival of yourself and your comrades?"
And she cut Odysseus' words off in a voice blunt to the point of coldness. The boy's mouth pursed, then curled up at one corner.
"Yes."
"Anyone can say it easily."
She was not wrong, but he really could kill a person.
Odysseus tried to reckon how many lives he had killed in the past. He did not know the exact number, but it would have been at least three digits.
"Try shooting."
But the vice-captain did not know that, and so she handed him something new. It was a pistol about the size of a twelve-year-old boy's hand.
At the appearance of a weapon he had known only as knowledge, the boy's lips curved strangely.
"And the target?"
"You may shoot me."
After handing over the gun, Vice-Captain Aran flew lightly to the veranda that served as both window and outer entrance. What she muttered as she did was rather shocking.
"Will that be all right?"
"Have you forgotten that I am a Harpyia? I know how to handle wind, and as a biomancer I can strengthen my body as well."
"Hmm. Still, that's not enough to stop a bullet fired at close range, is it?"
"Do not worry. Even if I am hurt, I will not hold you to blame."
Was that so. Odysseus shrugged at Aran's confident declaration.
BANG!
"Then I won't hold back."
The gunshot, which went out faster than his words, scattered just as it was, right before it could strike Aran's chest.
Had the wind not surged up in between, and had the distance between her and the boy not been open to about 5m, there was no telling what would have happened.
"...No hesitation."
"You told me to shoot, didn't you?"
"Yes. I gave the order."
No, in fact Aran would not have died even if the wind had not risen. What he had fired was a cartridge with no projectile.
"More to the point... I thought you'd have gone with leaving the chamber empty, but unexpectedly it's a blank."
"...You anticipated that it would not be a live round?"
"Setting everything else aside, you said 'even if I am hurt,' not 'even if I die.' In that case it's one of two things: a blank or an empty chamber."
If a subsonic round were used it would not go so far as penetration, but in that a bullet still burrows into the body, it is just as much a serious injury. Which meant it was not a matter to open a gambling table over carelessly.
"Well, I'd have shot even if it were a live round."
"You say that brightly."
"Because it was the vice-captain who told me to shoot."
If she said she was fine with it, was there any reason for him to decline?
At Odysseus' words Vice-Captain Aran let out a hollow laugh.
"You pass. From tomorrow I will teach you step by step how a hunt proceeds, along with the other rules you need to know and which factions to be wary of."
"Oh, that's it already?"
"I have no intention of being harsh from the first day. Go and sleep."
"Well, all right. Have a good night."
"Yes."
So this was the end of fastening the first button for the expeditions.
Odysseus returned the pistol and left the room. Last came his turn to go and receive the research journal from Horn. The long night had finally reached its tail end.