"Lloyd-kun, could you help me take the Demon Sealing Vessel apart for a bit?"
Connie called out to me as we were on our way back from Noah’s room.
I see; she intended to disassemble it to grasp its internal structure.
It was incredibly dangerous to use a magic tool without even knowing how it was built. Misuse could lead to malfunctions or, worse, unintended consequences. Thus, the fundamental approach to any mysterious magic tool was to first disassemble and understand it.
"Of course. I would be glad to help."
I nodded immediately, as if the answer were obvious.
The same principle applied to magic. Since it was extremely risky for someone to use magic without fully understanding the spell formula, whenever I learned something new, I would disassemble, analyze, and reconstruct it over and over, often modifying it to suit my tastes.
To be honest, this was easily the most enjoyable part of the process for me. I’d have joined in even if she hadn’t asked.
"Fufu, I thought you’d say that, Lloyd-kun. Well then, shall we go?"
And so, we headed to the academy's Magic Tool Club.
The place was a chaotic mess of various magic tools, components, and implements, but it was a sight I had long since grown familiar with. We placed the Demon Sealing Vessel on a pedestal and began stripping away the outer casing piece by piece.
"Ho-ho... as I thought, the interior is filled with spell formulas I’ve never seen before."
"The way the circuits are laid out is so unique, too," Connie remarked, groaning as she studied the intricately intertwined formulas and the circuits connecting the various parts.
Right. Since we were about to take it apart, I should record the blueprints first. I picked up a pen and paper and began fluently sketching the diagrams.
"Wow, Lloyd-kun, you're quite the artist."
"I'm merely replicating it through magic."
It was nothing to boast about, but I was actually a terrible artist. I was simply using control magic to perfectly replicate Albert’s artistic talent.
"There, how does this look?"
I looked at the finished blueprint and nodded, satisfied with the result. Albert’s artistic skill, which he had used to create the designs for the Diguardia, was truly impressive.
"Thanks, Lloyd-kun. With this, I feel like I can take it apart to my heart's content."
Connie adjusted her glasses, picked up her tools, and began disassembling the device at an incredible speed. As always, her dexterity was staggering. Having a Magic-Housed Constitution that prevented her from possessing mana, Connie had instead acquired extraordinary manual skill.
"Whew. That’s most of it apart."
"I’ve finished copying everything on this end as well."
In no time at all, the Demon Sealing Vessel lay in pieces. Connie began scribbling various notes onto the blueprints I had drawn, while I enjoyed deciphering the formulas engraved upon the components.
I was using the Translation Spell Formula I had been developing to decode magic languages. Now that I had collected enough samples of Holy Magic and Ancient Magic, I was finally able to put this kind of translation formula to use.
Though the results were a bit clunky, it had been made by humans in the end. As long as I could grasp the creator's intent, I could understand it well enough.
...I see, I see. So it had this kind of structure. That made sense.
Next to me, Connie was also lost in thought. It seemed she had reached the same conclusion I had. Namely—
"Regrettably, even if we use this Demon Sealing Vessel as it is, it seems unlikely we can save the village."
Connie nodded at my assessment.
The Demon Sealing Vessel had quite powerful restrictions placed on it; it didn't seem to be designed for wide-area use. Its current effective range was roughly a three-meter radius. At that rate, it would only help the people in the vessel's immediate vicinity.
"I suspect it’s to prevent the land's mana from being depleted too much. History shows that land stripped of its mana is prone to disasters like landslides and floods."
"Erasing mana over a large area would be dangerous in general, too," I added.
For instance, if the vessel were activated while a mage was fighting a monster nearby, they might be killed without ever knowing why their power had vanished. Beyond combat, magic was vital for the supply of water and fire for daily life, and was even heavily used in transportation. If all of that suddenly vanished one day, it would undoubtedly cause chaos.
"I think we could remove the mana from the entire village if we took off the limiters, but it’s scary not knowing what the side effects might be."
"Couldn't we just mass-produce them and give one to every household? That might work out."
It was a good idea, if I did say so myself, but Connie shook her head.
"That would be difficult. There are many parts whose roles I don't even understand, let alone their structure. We can't replicate something like this at our current level."
"If that's the case, then it can't be helped."
Magic tools weren't my specialty, after all. I only really understood the spell formulas.
Incidentally, I had already ruled out the idea of installing mana control formulas into every single villager, as I had done for Ren and the others. Nearly a thousand people lived in Connie's village, and making every one of them follow instructions would be a hassle... I mean, a challenge. I doubted they were all perfectly compliant.
Additionally, such formulas would require maintenance every few years, and engraving them into the elderly, children, or the sick might actually be dangerous due to the physical strain.
In the first place, the progenitor of magic had deemed these things dangerous enough to label them Forbidden Tools. If we tinkered with them poorly, something catastrophic might happen. However...
"We can't trade the villagers' lives for caution, right?"
A letter had arrived from the village a few days ago, and Connie had been pushing herself even harder in her research ever since. I hadn't seen the contents, but the situation was likely grim.
"...Yeah. It sounds like my mother's condition has taken a turn for the worse. We don't have much time left. Let's go. It might be a trial by fire, but we can't afford to dawdle."
"Right!"
I agreed with all my heart. You couldn't trade human life for anything, after all. Yes, quite right.
"You say that, Master Lloyd, but I suspect you just want an excuse for an experiment..." Grimo muttered.
"That said, we can hardly fathom what the best course of action would be in our position..." Jiriel added.
The two were whispering something or other, but we only had one path forward. We would experiment, verify, and then head to the village to fix the situation. Nothing ever got done without taking action. Yes, quite right.
In a farming village a few kilometers away from the city, an old man sat on a path between the rice paddies. Looking like an ordinary peasant found anywhere, no one paid him any mind as they passed by.
Wiping the sweat from his forehead, the old man muttered to no one in particular.
"Hmm. It seems that brat intends to leave the city with the Vessel, eh?"
The old man was actually Ganjit, one of the Four Heavenly Kings of the Demon Army, in disguise. He had transformed his appearance and blended into this distant village to scout the movements of Lloyd and the others.
"Even so, what a stroke of luck that they possess the Demon Sealing Vessel. That tool only causes human mana to vanish. It has no effect on us demons, which is why it was once sealed away. If I head there first and time it well, it may even be possible for me to activate the Demon Sealing Vessel myself. Once he loses his mana, even that brat... Heh-heh-heh, it seems things are going even better than I anticipated, eh?"
Ganjit smirked and vanished as if melting into the air. Not a single soul saw him go.