The Feelings a Genius Left Behind

“Now that the introductions are out of the way, I wish to first offer you all my compliments.”

Then, settling into a chair that had suddenly appeared and crossing his long legs...... Gyashikinu said this and clapped his hands, pachi, pachi, pachi.

“This secret laboratory...... I left a few hints as to its rough location, but I deliberately left out any details on how to undo the concealment barrier I set up...... In other words, it can only mean that the analytical magecraft technology of you all...... presumably a research team of some sort, has outdone the concealment barrier I built with the very finest of my magecraft technology!”

Apparently, Gyashikinu had prepared this recording on the assumption that whoever found this hideout would be a ‘research team’ made up of several people.

Well, that aside.

“Fuu...... haah.”

Gyashikinu was saying, like, hard stuff.

Sadly, whenever Darakerus came up against someone like that, his body rejected them outright.

Half-listening to Gyashikinu's voice, he picked his nose, and what he dug out...... he quietly wiped somewhere around Fret's elbow.

“No, wait, he's right...... what does this mean!?”

Fret didn't even notice the wiping.

Because right then...... he had realized a serious oversight of his own.

From decoding the diary, he had known that a concealment barrier was set around this hideout.

But how powerful that concealment barrier was...... he hadn't even thought about it.

Fret had carelessly assumed “The barrier isn't working because it's worn out with age,” but......

“There's no way the concealment barrier of the genius Gyashikinu would break in just thirty-some years, is there!? But then why isn't the barrier active!? That barrier alone, if anyone could analyze it, would be an OOPArt worth a fortune!?”

Confused, Fret clawed at his head!

“Hey, you, calm down a bit......”

Darakerus rubbed Fret's back, as if it were a chore, yet as if he cared.

And then, he rubbed a fresh harvest from his nose onto the spot once again.

Covert ops......!

“............”

While stealing a glance at the two of them, Emi was remembering.

Before finding this hideout...... come to think of it, while she was monster hunting to get some meat.

She'd kind of...... accidentally broken a mechanical-looking box with a sunflower drawn on it, hidden at the foot of a big tree, hadn't she...... she thought.

When she used 【Stone Throw】 to hunt a Topopolock, the pebble had pierced through the prey and broken that box hidden behind it.

“I am truly happy! For you all have managed to surpass a part of the technology of a genius such as myself! The technology of the human world...... its progress, above all! Is what truly gladdens me!”

“............”

Looking back, that machine must have been the device generating the concealment barrier.

But seeing Gyashikinu's image smiling so kindly, and Fret falling apart beside her......

Telling the truth felt kind of awkward, so.

For now, she kept her mouth shut and said nothing.

“But naturally, concealment barrier technology is far from the only thing I created! In the basement of this secret laboratory, a mountain of works born of my splendid brain lie sleeping! Most of them are blueprints, mind you!”

At this point, Gyashikinu lightly brushed back his bangs, took a deep breath, and shouted!

“A carriage that needs no horse, faster than the wind! A flying steel ship, hidden away by the Sky Kingdom! And even...... a whistling arrow that reaches the stars! I can make them! I should have been able to......!”

““............””

There was no mistaking the grief, and the anger, mixed into Gyashikinu's cry.

Overwhelmed by feelings they couldn't account for, Darakerus and Fret found themselves at a loss for words.

“......If even those works have become outdated in your day...... that would be lonely, but truly delightful. Well, I doubt that is the case. They are, after all, works of mine, a genius. As if I would let them be overtaken so easily!”

Then, as if to laugh off the outburst of a moment ago, Gyashikinu struck a playful air and winked.

But he immediately put on a serious face.

“How you use them is entirely up to you. But...... do take care. Technology that stands out...... gets plucked. By ‘the ones above’. That is why I, lost a friend...... You must be careful.”

Next came a mysterious warning.

Fret fit that into his own common sense and took it to mean the danger of treading on the vested interests of society's upper crust.

Darakerus wasn't seriously listening.

He was yawning and picking his nose.

“What I mean to say is that my works left in this secret laboratory are, in a sense, dangerous things. Simply by being there.”

His face still grave, Gyashikinu went on.

(Even so!!)

Fret, too, kept listening to those words, with a serious face of his own.

(Even so, I seek your technology, Gyashikinu!! All for...... my glory!!)

His eyes, steeped in greed, glittered.

“Nevertheless, I left this laboratory behind in secret...... without telling even Maju-sensei. Knowing full well it was dangerous. And why? Purely out of my own need to show off. I simply had to leave the heights I had reached behind in this world, no matter what. Irresponsible of me, I know.”

With that, Gyashikinu dropped the serious face and playfully stuck out his tongue.

“Hey, ain't this guy's talkin' gone on long enough?”

And here Darakerus, bored even of half-listening, said that and put a hand on Fret's shoulder.

“Shut up!! You're annoying, you wretch!!”

Fret shouted as he swatted Darakerus's hand off his shoulder!

And then...... he noticed!

“AAAH!! WHAT IS THIIIS!?”

On his expensive suit...... this grimy, vagrant-like mage!

Had been rubbing snot on him!

Because, when he swatted the hand away...... it got on him!

Sticky, someone else's snot!

On Fret's hand!

......Worst thing ever!

“Don't screw with me, you WREEETCH!!”

Fret clenched his fist without thinking and swung at Darakerus!

But......!

“Here, here.”

Darakerus, the coward...... spread his snot-covered hand, ready to catch Fret's fist with it!

“F, filthy!!”

Seeing this, Fret hesitated to punch Darakerus!

Darakerus, triumphant, grinned nastily!

“That you all, who are watching this recording, will use my works rightly, and wisely. That is what I hope.”

To the two grown men locked in their ugly squabble, the projected Gyashikinu said this, and smiled warmly.

Emi looked at the smiling Gyashikinu, looked at the two men making a racket, and then looked at Gyashikinu once more.

“Probably, not gonna happen.”

She said exactly what she thought!

【Topopolock】

A three-eyed monster that lives all over the world.

Its meat is delicious.

【I, lost a friend】

The ‘friend’ refers to the alchemist Inareda.

Someone mentioned only by name in Arcs 3 and 25.