91. Arcane Device — Rapid Shift

Three days after the battle at the stampede, Shiro was busy.

At the subsequent briefing, it turned out the dragon in question had been sighted, but hadn’t actually done anything directly.

According to reports from the adventuring group and knightly squadron on northern patrol, the dragon was initially headed toward the capital, prompting the beasts to be driven in that direction—but then, somewhere along the way, it veered off in another direction.

The mushroom bloom persists, but the Miasma has vanished—likely consumed during the recent surge in monster activity. Given the expectation of another increase, we’ve decided to continue monitoring it through scheduled patrols.

◇

Shiro led me to the damaged site, saying first we’d repair the capital’s ward.

"This is a mana relay device—or some kind of converter, we think—but it's cracked like this, so it's useless. And this is an artifact. Meaning, we don't have the technology to rebuild it."

And so, the Archbishop of the Royal Cathedral, Eric, explained it to Shiro.

Shiro and the others examine the fractured crystal.

"Shiro, this is a large magical crystal. Looks like the crystal itself is cracked, but the code assigned to it seems to still be intact," Mitoka says.

"Uh, so if we can generate a magic crystal, we can restore it, right?"

"……Theoretically, that's correct," Mitoka said.

“Can you make a magic crystal, Shiro?” Shestia asked.

“Hmm, I wonder… wait, hold on? That Giganto Turtle—didn’t it have a magic crystal on it?” Shiro muttered to himself.

Shiro checks his inventory, disassembles the Giga-Turtle, and extracts the magic crystal.

"Ooh, found it," Shiro said casually, pulling out a massive magic crystal—probably over a meter and a half in diameter—making everyone gasp.

"This is—much larger than the previous one, isn't it?" Eric said, wide-eyed.

"...Shiro, you really shouldn't handle magic crystals so carelessly!" Aria snapped.

"Haha. Is that so? But I just shoved the pile bunker right in without thinking... lucky it didn’t shatter, huh?" Shiro said, visibly relieved.

Shiro examined the pedestal, the shattered crystal, and the scattered parts.

"Right, this is part of the mechanism... Ah, got it. This is a mana-to-magic conversion unit with energy accumulation capability," Shiro said.

"...What exactly is that supposed to mean?" Eric asked.

"Huh? Oh, simple—this metal pipe here is the mana conduction circuit. It connects to this module, then links to the crystal. When the embedded magical program runs, mana gets converted into magic energy and stored in the crystal. The magic energy is drawn out through this Eclir pipe here, and that pipe actually leads to the actual barrier device—seems to run underground. There are four such barrier units installed across the city, right?" Shiro explained.

"Amazing! Is that even possible? The barrier unit locations are kept secret for defense purposes. But, as you say, Shiro, there are indeed four of them," Eric replied.

"Well then, let’s start building the crystal casing," Shiro said lightly.

First, he stowed the cracked crystal and the magic crystal fragments into his inventory, then began analyzing the code.

He gathered the broken crystal shards and used alchemy to regenerate the crystal core, then wrapped it in a new magic crystal shell.

Additionally, Shiro appended the copied code to the crystal. This was nothing more than writing a magic array. Still, since the crystal's size had changed, Shiro adjusted the magic array's code accordingly.

Additionally, install and integrate a new Miasma Spirit, connecting it to the original piping network.

Connect the mana-conducting Ecriel pipe from below to the shell, attaching it beneath the magic crystal, with a hole drilled in the shell. This links directly to the actual artifact of the barrier.

The moment the final artifact connection was established, the city's barrier revived without issue, and Eric could do nothing but offer Shiro a simple, heartfelt thank you.

◇

Shiro felt the need for long-range real-time communication.

Fortunately, this world does have mail.

Two types exist. One is the commercial union city-state of Feliorin, which has formed a pact with the griffins on the land south of its territory, establishing a griffin-based courier system known as Grifon Mail.

The other is the wyvern courier service provided by the northern Dragonfolk Kingdom. A postal delivery system utilizing wyverns, faster than griffins. However, it’s limited in number and expensive. Primarily used for urgent communications between national levels.

The mail flies through the air, so it's fairly quick. Still, "quick" means days—hours to a day at best, even with the fastest wyvern courier.

Plus, there aren’t that many of them, so they’re not always available. There’s a scheduled route between major cities, more or less. Even so, capacity is limited and demand is high, so you’re often stuck waiting.

Shiro considered the situation urgent—this stampede, the wyvern incident in Sotohaim, the rising miasma, the surge and anomalies in magical beasts, the events unfolding faster than expected.

Handling an emergency like this requires fast communication—but this world, at best, sits at the level of Earth’s 19th century. No reliable real-time communication system exists yet.

So Shiro considered whether a magical device for communication might be possible. Ideally, he’d like to send video too.

At first, he thought a visual mechanism would be needed.

But that’s not it. Visual magic doesn’t require eyes. It’s just a “camera viewpoint,” like in CG software.

So why not just specify a camera viewpoint, and display the resulting video on a crystal screen, same as the UI settings?

Then—how to handle the communication network?

On closer thought, spirit summoning operates like a client-server distributed system. Spirits can talk to each other directly. That’s essentially a communication network. And since it doesn’t rely on radio waves, it’s not limited by distance.

Once that clicked, it was just a matter of speed. Shiro asked Mitoka to create a custom spirit.

He named it the Communication Magic Spirit. And he built a Communication Magic Spirit Network—a dedicated channel between spirits for data transfer, isolated from other spirits. Any two Communication Magic Spirits could communicate freely.

The camera part was simple: just a camera viewpoint. Install the communication spirit into the crystal screen, and designate the front face as the camera viewpoint.

Each crystal screen would also be assigned a unique ID number.

The communication spirit would take incoming data and output it as video on the crystal screen, exactly like the UI.

Shiro programmed that function into the crystal screen.

In the lower-right corner of the crystal screen, a set of number keys lined up, just like a touchscreen.

The system works by channeling magic power, clicking the number key corresponding to the other party, then clicking the communication key—this connects the spirit of communication, allowing video and audio exchange.

Shiro devoted himself to crafting the magical communication device, working through days and nights without sleep.

◇

"Ah, so this magical device allows conversation across distant places?" King Felix asked.

"Yes, the other party’s image appears on this crystal panel. Each device is assigned a unique number. By setting the recipient’s number here and channeling magic power... "

In the royal office, as Shiro explained the system to the king and his court, Mitoka and Shestia flinched, startled—then suddenly shoved their chairs back and stood up.

"Wha—what’s wrong with both of you?" Shiro exclaimed, surprised by their sudden movement.

They stared at each other, serious expressions, then nodded.

"Shiro, we’ve found the third one," Mitoka said.

"The third one?" Shiro frowned. What was she talking about?

"Our soul companions," Shestia whispered, barely audible—just for herself.

"No, everyone, excuse me. Shiro, we’ll talk later," Mitoka said, exchanging a glance with Shestia, then nodding before sitting back down.

The others in the meeting room exchanged confused glances, but assumed it had something to do with the Apostles—convinced, without question.

◇

The next day, news arrived at the palace: the Hero Summoning had been activated. Naturally, Shiro was informed.

Miradia brought the report.

"An urgent message came via wyvern courier from the Mage Academy City. The Hero Summoning spell circle has been located. They’re using it to summon a Hero to deal with the beast king causing trouble near the academy city."

"Hero Summoning? Seriously?!"

Shiro blinks. He hasn’t heard a word about this from Firumia. Not even that such a thing was being attempted—let alone that it was possible.

“…So, what exactly is a Demon Beast King?” Shiro asks.

“A Demon Beast King,” Miradia explains, “is an individual among demons that stands far above the rest in strength, commanding all others around it. A legendary demon, really. They’re common in old tales. There are no records of any actual sightings in history,”

“…So it’s just a fictional monster, then? Then how do we know this one’s real?” Shiro frowns.

“…We don’t know. The letter didn’t go into detail. So we’ll have to ask directly in the Academy City,” Miradia says. Then she adds,

“Also, a request for assistance has come from the Academy City—specifically to you, Apostle Shiro. The Heroes are speaking of you, and they want to meet.”

“Heroes…? Multiple ones?” Shiro asks.

“No mention of numbers in the letter. But the use of ‘-tachi’ implies more than one,” Miradia replies.

“And, Shiro-sama, Firumia-sama received a divine oracle as well. It says… ‘Help the Heroes.’”

Miradia smiles gently.

Shiro feels a chill. Something bizarre is definitely about to happen. Without delay, they all set off for the Academy City.

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