Chapter 10: Upgrades and Repairs

“Kenji, let’s get that arm taken care of.” The priestess spoke to Kenji, snapping him back to reality. He had been lost in his own little world with Aito, stunned from what they had just gone through. This last battle couldn’t be compared to his brief skirmish with the Rune Rascals in the forest. He and everyone else could have easily died, and he would have been responsible.

“Yes, of course. I’m sorry.” Kenji tried to wipe the tears from his face with his sleeve, and only then did he notice it was covered in blood. It was too much, he stepped away quickly to vomit in the nearby grass. It actually helped a little.

“First battle my friend?” The guard spoke to him with understanding, patting Kenji’s back.

“Was it that obvious?” Kenji responded with a dry chuckle.

The two of them guided Kenji back to the carriage. It wasn’t even noon yet, but he was exhausted. He knew he couldn’t sleep though, he had to find a way to use his limited skills to turn the damaged carriage into this world’s first automobile.

“I’m sorry, I haven’t even learned your names yet.” Kenji tried to rally and distract himself from his wound.

The priestess spoke first, “My name is Lucia, and my guard here is Marcellus.”

“My friends call me Marcel, I would be honored if you would as well.”

The young blond boy chimed in from where his father was resting. “I’m Crispus, but you can call me Crisp, everyone else does. My father’s name is Varro, but it looks like he’ll be asleep for a while still.”

image [https://i.imgur.com/tqu0Yve.jpg]

Kenji thanked them all and introduced them to Aito, who couldn’t speak after blowing out his speakers during the battle. Lucia wasted no time cleaning Kenji’s wounded arm with some clean water she had ‘blessed’. Sure enough, as soon as her water touched his cut, the pain immediately subsided. She neatly wrapped Kenji’s arm in a fresh bandage, it didn’t seem bad now that she had tended to it. Lucia said it might leave a scar, but shouldn’t need any stitches. Aito nodded in confirmation.

They spoke briefly about their next moves, it seemed worthwhile to manually push the carriage further away from the battle. If the monsters returned, they might focus on cannibalizing the two dead creatures they left behind instead of attacking their carriage again. It took a while, but between Kenji, Lucia, and Marcel they were able to get the carriage what felt like an appropriate distance away. Marcel took it upon himself to collect the two Mana Stones from the Burrowers’ hearts and presented them to Kenji. He inspected them, the red gems seemed slightly bigger and brighter than the one pulled from the giant fish he helped catch. Kenji looked up from the stones after a few moments, and saw everyone else looking at him expectantly.

Crispus seemed the least mentally drained out of all of them, and said out loud what everyone else had been wondering. “Did the Goddess really command you to turn my dad’s carriage into a golem, like Aito?” Kenji squirmed slightly under all the attention on him as he held the two crimson stones. They were looking at him like he was about to move a mountain or make it rain frogs. Crisp continued “Will it be able to walk, and talk, and shoot lightning, and heal the sick? It can carry me in his hand and crush any monster that tries to mess with us.” The boy started stomping around, making some impressive sound effects.

At Crisp’s suggestion, Lucia and Marcellus’s jaws dropped slightly, briefly caught up in the boy’s imagination. Dreams of giant robots were apparently universal between worlds.

Kenji was reminded of his uncle working the shop. ‘Keep the expectations of your customers as low as possible, or they will expect you to work miracles.’

Kenji cleared his throat “Aito is one of a kind, so I can’t do that. The goddess said if we survived, I should try to make a ‘horseless carriage’ that can roll by itself. I’ve never done it before, so maybe you can all help me.” If the boy was disappointed, he didn’t let it show. He seemed eager to get to work. The other two grinned at the prospect as well. Kenji hoped he wouldn’t let them down.

Kenji put the scanner back on, grabbing his trusty marker and sticky-notes as well. “Aito, are we still connected?” His question was answered on the screen.

Yes, we are. Aito could have chosen to communicate through the built-in speakers of the headset, but text was more efficient for now.

“Bring up a list of the runes we know, as well as an image of the mana stone chamber from the farm-golem.”

Almost immediately, his display was filled with a few dozen runes that he and Aito had directly translated. “Narrow down the list to ones we might be able to use to create torque, including other simple mechanical forces as well.”

Many of the runes disappeared, such as the ones related to walking and grasping a scythe. But a few remained on the screen.

“Help me break down the image of the Mana Stone chamber into a circuit diagram.”

Nice clean lines connecting different runes floated in front of Kenji’s vision. He and Aito had discussed a few of them when they worked on the farming golem, but they hadn’t had time to truly study them. Kenji jotted down the central rune that was designed to ‘hold’ the mana stone on his sticky-paper. He circled the carriage, looking for the best location to start working. He stuck the yellow note on the front, near where the driver would rest their feet. That would be his engine, for lack of a better word.

Conceptually, the next part was simple enough. With his marker, he drew lines that would connect the mana stone to the wheels. He tried to make the design as simple as possible, utilizing front-wheel drive. The runes to transfer power through the wheels seemed simple enough, but he had to draw the symbols small enough to fit on the slim surfaces surrounding the wheels. Kenji was pleasantly surprised that there was already a rudimentary foot-brake built into the wagon, not too different from a bicycle. It made sense something like that would be needed to prevent running over your own horse.

What he thought might be difficult turned out to be relatively easy. A handful of lines connecting the mana stone to the runes on the wheels. However, there was a hitch. If he proceeded with his design, one of two things would happen.

One: It would work perfectly and immediately start moving forward until it crashed into something.

Two: It would sit there inert, waiting for some outside spark to tell it to start.

Either way, he would need to test it. “Aito, does your arm work well enough to etch these runes?”

If I can get someone to pick me up and hold me in position.

Kenji thought about it. Aito was heavier than he looked, and with his own hurt arm, Kenji wasn’t confident he could hold him still enough to perform the task. Marcellus was strong and tall enough to perform the task, but he was holding a spear and carefully watching the horizon for any threats. Crisp was eager to help, but as the smallest, he would have the same trouble as Kenji. That left Lucia as the best person for the job.

“Lucia, would you mind wearing this scanner? You can use it to communicate with Aito. He needs someone with two good hands to help him etch the runes permanently into place.”

Lucia was clearly intrigued. “You’ll let me use that? Of course!” She nearly teleported over to Kenji’s side, barely able to refrain from yanking the scanner from Kenji’s head herself.

Kenji adjusted the straps for Lucia’s head, and helped her put the scanner on. She was immediately engrossed in looking all around and inspecting everything through the digital overlay. “How do I use this thing?”

“Mostly, it reads your eye movements and will try to guess what you want to do by changes in your pupil dilation, breathing, and microexpressions. By focusing on the icons on the HUD and tapping the sensor on the side you can override all of that as well.”

Lucia looked at Kenji through the digital screen. “I have no idea what you just said.”

Kenji realized after he spoke that many of his words weren’t automatically translating after he said them out loud. “Umm.. Just say what you want, and Aito can change what you see.”

“Okay! Then show me how to sew a wound like Kenji!” After a moment she stared down at her own hands. “I’m seeing everything that you did. It's like I’m you! That's so weird, I see a man’s hands in front of my eyes using a needle and thread. Oh, I even see myself sitting next to you!” Lucia was giggling and laughing, she even gave herself a wave. Kenji knew she was watching a virtual wide-view recording of the events that had occurred earlier that day.

Kenji was momentarily worried that she wouldn’t be able to focus on the task at hand, but Aito apparently had that under control. “Oh my! I can hear Aito’s voice in my ear. Hi Aito! Of course I can.” She quickly picked up Aito, and the two of them got to work etching the wood in the locations Kenji had marked.

Crisp couldn’t hold himself back any more. “Kenji, what can I do?”

“How familiar are you with driving this carriage Crisp?”

“I’m really good at it, I help my dad all the time. I’m pretty much the main person who does it now!”

“Great, I’ll need your help showing me how everything works.”

At first, Kenji thought that he was asking Crisp to do something that would just entertain him and make him feel useful, but Crisp demonstrated that there was a lot more to the art of driving a carriage than Kenji realized. Kenji found himself completely engaged in Crisp’s eager demonstration of the craft, as the boy held the reins, demonstrated the brakes, and discussed the tricks to getting a horse to follow instructions safely.

Kenji didn’t hesitate to pick Crisp’s brain on how the carriage should operate. Soon, the design for the carriage started becoming more elaborate in Kenji’s mind. Crisp and Kenji crawled under the carriage and started examining the existing simple mechanisms. Kenji was embarrassed that he automatically assumed the whole thing was just a wooden box on wheels, and that there was nothing ‘under the hood’ of something so primitive. Kenji explained what he needed to happen, and Crisp seemed to grasp it intuitively. He showed Kenji which pieces could be removed, swapped out, or were irreplaceable. With Crisp’s help, Kenji was able to rig up a way to cut the circuit connection between the Mana Stone and the wheels when the brake was engaged.

Crisp, Kenji, Aito, and Lucia all worked together and before long the carriage was covered in etched runes and lines connecting them with plenty of daylight to spare. There was nothing left but to test the contraption out. They all cleared the area in front of the vehicle, with Crisp holding the reins. Currently, the carriage lacked any sort of steering, but Kenji didn’t want to ruin the boy’s harmless fun. Kenji was up on the carriage next to Crisp, ready to try inserting the mana stone, and also ready to pull it in case anything weird happened.

Holding the mana stone close to the socket he and Aito created, Kenji felt the familiar pull of the mana stone. It brought him a unique joy to see their runes glowing in the magical stone’s presence. As he loosened his grip on the stone, it snapped into place, and the nearby runes started to grow a little more brightly.

And then… nothing happened. Kenji wasn’t completely surprised by that, his design still lacked the complexity of the one and only golem he had briefly studied in this world. The farm golem had been covered in runes that were specific to its task, such as tend, walk, and grasp. Kenji sat down and thought about the problem for a minute.

“Is it ready now?” Crisp asked, eager and glancing over at the mana stone that was now embedded into his father’s carriage.

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Before Kenji had a chance to say ‘no’, Crisp sat down in the driver’s seat and grabbed the reins and yelled “Yah!” The carriage then actually lurched forward with a sudden force, as if an invisible horse had just woken up. Kenji knocked his head pretty hard on the wood of the driver’s seat he shared with Crisp.

“Hmm, it’s pretty slow Kenji.” Crisp said, failing to hide his disappointment. The carriage was moving even slower than a person could comfortably walk.

Kenji was nursing the bump on his head, but was overall pleased that Crisp was able to start the machine. “We aren’t quite done yet, I’ll need to inspect the runes to see if everything is working properly. We are making something I don’t think anyone on this world has seen before.”

Relieved that this wouldn’t be the final form of the golem they had designed, Crisp yelled “Whoa!” and the carriage stopped moving. Kenji jumped down and inspected his design. Marcel, Lucia, and Aito joined him.

Even Marcel, who had been busy on guard duty, noticed the problem. “The marks further from the stone aren’t glowing very bright.” Lucia and Aito nodded in agreement.

Looking at it, Kenji knew he shouldn’t be too surprised. The power, which he supposed he should just get used to calling mana, wasn’t flowing through wood as efficiently as metal. “Wood isn’t the best conductor for mana it seems. It still flows, but a lot of it is being absorbed into the surrounding structure.”

Kenji was lost in thought for a minute before he spoke. “One obvious solution would be to add more mana stones, but I’m not sure that golems can even be designed that way. Or we redesign the entire front to have minimal surface area, maybe hacking away at the excess wooden material.” After saying that, he felt a tug on his pant leg.

Kenji looked down and saw Aito holding a bag. His little friend gave the bag a quick shake, and Kenji heard the clinking of the coins inside. It was the remainder of their small fortune after giving their gold and silver to Maela. Kenji understood Aito’s meaning right away. “Copper? If mana is similar to electricity then that might work.” He held his hand against the glowing wooden structure. He wasn’t electrocuted, and the wood was still cool to the touch. However, he did feel the familiar thrum of power, the same steady vibration mana stones made when held close to runes.

Kenji gathered everyone around and explained the situation. Marcel brought out the tools he had used earlier, and started hammering the coins into thin sheets. Kenji cut the sheets into strips and handed them to Crisp. Crisp ran them over to Lucia who wedged them into the indentations made by the etched circuits and runes. Aito cut and slightly melted the material even further, leaving just enough metal within the wood to act as a makeshift copper wire. Once they got started, it was clear that the mana was beginning to flow much more strongly through the carriage. Confident that the updated design would work, Kenji removed the Mana stone from its hub. He wanted to avoid having his creation run someone over suddenly.

When they finished, the group gathered around the front and inspected their work one last time.

image [https://i.imgur.com/dMprZ6I.jpg]

“It’s actually kind of pretty.” Lucia seemed pleased at the intricate copper designs. Marcel smiled at her reaction and nodded in agreement. Kenji had been thinking of it as a crude rushed job, but after taking a step back he had to admit it looked nice, at least from a distance. With a little bit of trepidation, Kenji placed the Mana stone back into its socket. The warm glow of the stone visibly spread through the circuits, but this time all of the runes were glowing strongly, not just the ones closest to the stone. Everyone took an extra moment to appreciate their work.

"Me first!" Marcel gave Crisp a big grin and a wink, teasing the boy slightly. As the tallest and most athletic person there, he had absolutely no trouble getting hold of the reins first. He still reached down and gave Lucia a hand up as well. Including Aito, the five of them were eventually squished side-by-side in the seat that was designed for two and a half people.

“Okay let’s go!” Marcel announced. He gave the reins a shake and shouted “Yaah!”, but nothing happened. He looked down at his hands, clearly confused at what he had done incorrectly.

Lucia grabbed the reins from him. “Not like that Mar, like this.” She took a deep breath and with a little flick of the wrist commanded “Yeah!”. She seemed offended that the carriage didn’t obey her either, as she shook the reins a few more times.

Crisp wasn’t going to let the adults take all their turns before him. “You all don’t know how to drive a carriage very well. Let me show you how it's done.” With an expert flick of the wrist and a voice that seemed larger and deeper than normal, he declared “Let’s go!”.

image [https://i.imgur.com/hE9X24d.jpg]

Immediately, the carriage sprang to life, with much more power than the first time. Everyone except Crisp was surprised by the sudden movement and they grabbed hold of each other to avoid tumbling from the seats they were crammed into. The carriage was gaining speed quickly, and seemed to be moving much faster than if it were being drawn by a horse. Crisp steered it towards a flat stretch of land, and then he really let loose.

‘It shouldn’t be able to move this fast without breaking apart.’ Was what Kenji was thinking as he and Lucia both grabbed onto Marcel for support. Marcel was clutching the wooden seat between his legs with both hands, acting like a human seatbelt. His knuckles were going white at the effort of keeping three adults from flying from the vehicle.

Crisp wasn’t struggling at all. In fact he wasn’t even trying to stay seated. He stood mostly straight and balanced, holding the reins with a light touch. His legs moved with the wooden floor like a surfer riding a board into a big wave. He was grinning wildly and focused on the task, but when he looked at the grown-ups and saw the desperate looks on their faces, he confidently pulled back on the reins and shouted “Whoa!”. The carriage responded to his command and soon slowed down to a gradual halt. He didn’t even need to engage the braking mechanism. He started laughing, “That was awesome!”

Kenji wasn’t sure if he was ready to agree with Crisp, as it felt incredibly dangerous to him. He hopped down from the driver’s seat. That was an untested roller-coaster, and in hindsight they should have approached it much differently. However, Marcel and Lucia didn’t seem to share that sentiment. Marcel reached up to the seat from the ground, and hoisted Crisp onto his shoulder and was laughing and cheering along with him.

image [https://i.imgur.com/6fOnzVM.jpg]

“Crisp, you have a real Gift!” Lucia was giving a genuine round of applause. “So young, but so talented. Congratulations!” Marcel brought Crisp down and gave him a hearty pat on the back.

“I do? I have a Gift?” Crisp’s eyes were wide.

Marcel congratulated Crisp as well, and looked to Kenji who was the only one with a serious expression on his face. “Don’t forget to congratulate our young Crispus, Kenji.” He said it with a smile.

Kenji was already deep in his own thoughts regarding the world’s first working automobile, so his resting-bitch-face was putting a wet blanket on the impromptu party the others were throwing. There was some cultural context that Kenji was lacking, but he did his best to not be a jerk. “Congratulations Crisp. Uh, what's a Gift?”

The three of them looked at Kenji with confused smiles. “A Gift is a Gift.” Lucia explained. “Crispus here clearly has a real Gift for driving carriages!”

Kenji considered what she was saying, and it finally clicked for him. Kenji designed the circuits himself, but there was no logical reason why the carriage worked so well for the boy and no one else. “Oh, so you mean he can use magic?”

Crisp’s expression showed that he clearly liked that description, but Lucia interjected. “I suppose you could think of Gifts as magic, but most of us are taught that they are blessings from the Goddess.” The priestess frowned slightly. She didn’t seem offended, but was confused that someone apparently as pious as Kenji didn’t know the nuances between a blessing, a Gift, and magic.

“Getting your first Gift is a big deal!” Marcel was clearly proud of Crisp. “We will need to celebrate when we get to town.”

Kenji was catching on, but one answer just raised more questions. “So everyone gets a Gift? It's part of growing up? So does that mean you have a gift for using a spear or sword Marcel?”

At that last question, Marcel actually looked embarrassed. His dark skin took on a rosy flush. “Not exactly.” He mumbled.

“I think you have a wonderful Gift Mar, you should be proud of it!” Lucia chimed in, pointing her finger at him. “Go ahead, tell him or I will.”

Marcellus sighed, and he avoided eye contact as he answered. “I don’t have a Gift for the sword… at least not yet. My first Gift was for using a sling. As a boy, I would play with it all the time. Eventually I was able to help our orphanage by hunting small game.”

“Because of him, we could feed ourselves without only relying on the kindness of others.” Lucia smiled at the memory, but then her face fell as she remembered something else. “I gained mine before I joined the orphanage. My parents were soldiers who were wounded in the same terrible battle. The medics and nurses were overwhelmed, so they didn’t turn away anyone who was willing to help. For days, I rushed back and forth bringing water to the wounded and doing my best to change their bandages. Eventually, my hands started moving on their own, and those I tried to help started thanking me for easing their pain. The nurses recognized that I had a rare Gift. When I rushed to tell my parents, they had both already passed. They seemed to rally at the end, and were still holding each other's hands. Both of their wounds were worse than anyone realized, but they looked peaceful.” Having finished her story, tears were streaming down her face, but she didn’t seem self-conscious about it. Marcel seemed familiar with her story, and gave Lucia a supportive hug with his unarmored arm. Crisp and Aito gave each of her legs a hug as well. “Thank you guys.”

image [https://i.imgur.com/ZtplRuO.jpg]

Kenji was out of his depth again, and wasn’t sure what to say. “I’m sorry Lucia. You have an amazing Gift. I’ve already seen you save Crisp’s dad, and I’ve only known you for a day. I’m sure your parents would be proud.” Kenji hoped he wasn’t sounding like a complete ass, or making it worse somehow by rambling.

The priestess nodded and thanked Kenji. “Well, not every Gift has a happy story behind it, but it’s still part of who we all are. A person shouldn’t hide from it.” She elbowed Marcel as a small smile returned to her face, letting her guard know that the last part of her statement was for his benefit before turning back to face Kenji.

Suddenly recognizing that everyone was expecting him to take his turn to talk about his own Gifts, Kenji wasn’t sure what to say and he scratched his head. “I don’t know if I’ll ever get a Gift myself.” He understood this was a topic with some deep cultural significance, so he was worried that his new friends would look at him like he just admitted to being a mutant, or pity him as someone with a crippling birth-defect.

What he didn’t expect was for the others to start laughing. If Lucia’s story brought a damper to their earlier celebration, Kenji’s statement revived the party. “What’s so funny?” He asked, seriously.

“You don’t know if you’ll ever have a Gift?” Marcel raised his hands and gestured at the vehicle they had just upgraded. For a moment, the handsome young man resembled a model presenting the grand-prize for a game show.

Lucia was actually sitting on the ground laughing and coughing, trying to catch her breath as tears of a different type ran down her face. “He said it with such a straight face!” The combination of happy and sad tears on her face were causing her short red hair to stick to her cheeks.

“I’ve never even seen a Golem-Maker before!” Crisp declared, taking Kenji more seriously than the adults were. “If you don’t have a Gift, then no one does.” He waved his arms wildly as he spoke, unable to keep his voice from cracking. Incredulous of Kenji’s ignorance, he struggled to explain the obvious to the oblivious.

Kenji still didn’t get what was so funny about the situation. “But this isn’t magic, this is just something that anyone could learn.”

“Then who taught you how to build Golems?” Crisp asked, ready to pull his own hair out. If the Gift of Golem-Making was so easy, he wanted to learn how to do it too.

“Uh, well, I just sort of saw an old golem and did my best to fix it.” Most of what he had applied was fairly common knowledge nowadays mixed with a little deductive reasoning, nothing nearly as complicated as the work that he put into designing Aito. “But it wasn’t magical, I just looked at how other people each tried to fix it over time. The symbols all have a specific meaning and purpose behind them. I was able to figure them out, but what I’ve learned would probably fit on a single page of paper.”

“That isn’t something that people just do Kenji!” Lucia shook her head, realizing that Kenji wasn’t intentionally trying to crack her up. She was still trying to suppress her laughter though, not wanting to be impolite.

Kenji didn’t want these guys thinking he was some sort of miracle worker sent by God, or rather Goddess. He didn’t think they would understand if he tried to explain that some of his own family members were dangerously close to considering him a college drop-out. He was lucky his own parents had been as understanding as they were.

“Really though, think about it. I didn’t even do most of the work, you guys did. My arm’s busted.” He pointed at the arm that was still tightly bandaged. While it didn’t hurt, he had been careful not to move it around.

Kenji finally seemed to raise a good point to the others. Lucia and Marcel furrowed their brows and looked at each other, trying to combine their brain power silently. Crisp looked down at his own hands. From his expression, he was clearly wondering if he was the one with the magical Golem-Making powers all along.

Marcel, who Kenji was learning had a quiet and thoughtful streak, finally broke the silence. He spoke slowly, with a sense of gravity behind his words. “Kenji my friend, that just makes your Gift all the more impressive.” Lucia and Crisp nodded as they shared Marcel’s epiphany. They were both momentarily awed at the wisdom-bomb that was just dropped.

Kenji was also stunned, he nearly smacked his forehead in frustration. He had been completely defeated. By trying to explain it, he just made himself look even more like a miracle-worker to the others than before. There was still something circular about the reasoning that led everyone to see him as magically Gifted, but he was too tired to fight their perception of him any more for one day.

He looked down at Aito, and wondered what his friend would say in this situation. Kenji shook his head, he knew exactly what Aito would say in his shoes. Kenji couldn’t help himself, as he blurted it out. “You guys win, I’m actually amazing. I just didn’t want you rookies to feel bad about yourselves. Don’t worry about it, just think of Kenji Sato as your new big bro. Now let’s try to gain some more distance from this place while the sun is still up.” Aito nodded at Kenji’s false bravado, and gave him his signature no-thumbs-thumbs-up sign.

Everyone else grinned and jumped to work like their commanding officer had just shouted an order. After loading themselves into the horseless carriage, Crisp took the reins and they started driving East, making excellent time as they raced the sun that was now starting to fall in that direction.

image [https://i.imgur.com/PgoX3Qh.jpg]

End Chapter 10: Upgrades and Repairs

Next: Chapter 11: The Golden Goose and the Butcher

image [https://i.imgur.com/2qLnHgg.jpg]