Jin was busy performing maintenance on Merine, the Chief Golem Maid.
First, he removed her exterior casing to inspect the interior.
"Um, do you not need to verify the design base?"
Justa, the First Technical Officer acting as witness, spoke up.
"No, there are no issues at all with this specific structure."
Since this unit had been crafted by Beena—meaning it followed the Adriana-style—it posed no challenge for Jin. He could have handled other formats just as easily, but this was familiar territory.
"She’s very faithful to the basics. The effects of 'Strengthen' and 'Stabilize' are still lingering. The reason her performance dropped was... ah, I see. A misalignment in the ether converter."
"..."
Justa was lost in a state of utter confusion, barely grasping half of what Jin was doing.
Wait, what? What is he even doing? he thought. Okay, disassembly is standard. But 'Strengthen' and 'Stabilize'? What are those?
Due to the disruption in technical knowledge caused by the Magic Federation, seventy percent of the new techniques Jin and his companions had developed had been lost to time. Jin's 'Strengthen' spell and the 'Stabilize' spell devised by Stearena were no exceptions; they had not been passed down to the current era.
"The magical muscles are fine....But the skeletal material is bronze. Even with 'Strengthen' applied, the base strength is just too low. That’s what caused the warping."
Jin muttered to himself that she should have at least been made of light silver. Then, he turned to the officer for confirmation.
"Justa-san, would it be alright if I remade the skeleton using light silver?"
"……Huh? Er, well, I suppose that would be fine."
Still half-dazed, Justa gave his permission reflexively, only to panic a moment later.
Oh no! Replacing the entire skeleton? That should take at least a day. Won't it be a problem if the Chief Golem Maid is out of commission for that long?
However, before he could retract his statement, Jin had already finished the decomposition of Merine’s frame. The skill was so effortless and precise that Justa could only let out a small, stunned "Ah."
"Reko, pass me the light silver."
"Yes, Big Brother Shin."
Reko followed Jin's instructions, retrieving an ingot of light silver from the material shelf.
The unit price of light silver—which in this world was titanium rather than aluminum—had dropped to a mere twenty Toll per kilogram (roughly two yen) thanks to the smelting magi-devices Jin had created centuries ago. Jin imagined Merine must have been built before the price had plummeted so drastically.
Without giving Justa a chance to intervene, Jin used that light silver and the duplication process to fabricate skeletal components of the exact same dimensions, without a hair's breadth of deviation.
Duplication required immense spatial awareness—the ability to perceive an object perfectly in three dimensions. Next, one had to grasp every minute measurement. It was said that master craftsmen could sense differences on the scale of microns through their fingertips; Jin’s process was much the same.
By making full use of Analyze-type magic and shaping the material with Forming, he worked with incredible speed. In essence, he was comparing the original part to the new one and correcting it in real-time. As a Magi Craft Meister, Jin performed dozens of these comparisons and corrections almost instantaneously.
It was no wonder Justa couldn't believe his eyes.
"Th-this is..."
"Tremendous" was the only word for Jin's work speed. Furthermore, because Reko was pre-cutting the necessary amount of light silver using Separation, Jin could focus entirely on the shaping, which only accelerated the process.
"There, that's done."
"..."
The one who let out a long sigh was not Jin, but Justa. He had been holding his breath while staring at the display of craftsmanship.
"Now, I'll apply an adamantite coating to the joints... and done."
"Wha!?"
Justa was floored by the fact that Jin continued working without taking a single break. For Jin, this was simply business as usual.
"I think I'll add a second circuit to the magi-circuits while I'm at it."
Of the existing wiring, one specific line had been completely severed.
"And apply 'Strengthen' as well."
Jin carried out the repositioning of the muscles and the wiring of the nerves in parallel. With Reko's assistance, he finished in about three minutes.
"I should probably upgrade the shield case in the chest too."
The shield case served as a defense against Master-Slave Rewrite Magic. He increased the purity of the mithril and gave it a two-layer structure to enhance its effectiveness. Finally, he turned his attention to the ether converter and the mana driver.
"Ah, just as I thought. Because they prioritized efficiency too much, her tolerance for high concentrations of free ether is too narrow."
Muttering to himself, Jin picked up a magi-crystal.
"I could just replace it... but since there's plenty of internal space, let's go with a twin system."
A twin system didn't try to make a single ether converter handle every density of free ether; instead, it used two converters in parallel—one optimized for low concentrations and one for high. He avoided a switchable system because those tended to become unstable near the crossover point.
"I'll also add a mana bombe so she can handle momentary power-ups or temporary shortages of free ether."
"..."
Justa looked as though his eyes were about to roll back into his head.
"I'll swap the exterior to light silver as well, but I'll keep the color exactly as it was."
And so, the Chief Golem Maid Merine was restored to a state that was practically as good as new.
"Thank you, Shin-sama. I feel in excellent condition."
Having been woken up, Merine bowed deeply to Jin.
"Think nothing of it....Oh, that's right. Since I'm here, I might as well fix that broken repair golem."
"That would be a great help. This way, please."
Merine led Jin to a storage room at the back of the workshop—which was little more than a pile of junk. There, lying among several broken magi-devices, was a single golem. It bore a striking resemblance to Jin's Smith units.
It looks like Beena modeled it after the Smiths, Jin thought.
At a glance, it was quite well-constructed. Highly advanced repairs would certainly be possible. The only shame was that only one had been made. Jin felt that if there had been two or three, they could have maintained one another and survived through the years.
However, Merine offered an explanation. "There were originally three of them, but two were presented to the royal family at the time."
"Is that so?"
"It happened about 200 years ago. Failures of magi-devices and golems were occurring one after another in the royal capital, and the royal magi craftsmen alone couldn't handle the load. Our house contributed our repair golems to assist."
"I see."
Following Jin's instructions, Reko helped carry the repair golem out.
"And they were never returned," Merine added.
Apparently, in the wake of the appearance of Markitus and the rise of the Magic Federation, those two golems had eventually been destroyed.
"Right then."
Jin listened to Merine's story while laying the repair golem on the workbench.
"Hmm... how exactly was this thing broken?"
Jin had reason to be puzzled. The repair golem was in a wretched state: its head was crushed, its right arm was missing from the shoulder down, and its right leg was mangled below the knee.
"86 years ago, a bandit group—or rather, a band of former mercenaries—attacked this land. They brought several combat golems with them, and a fierce battle ensued. This repair golem was out on the field at the time and..."
It had evidently been caught in the crossfire.
Hmm... shouldn't a repair unit have been kept in the rear where it's safe? Jin wondered. However, not knowing the specifics of the situation back then, he kept his mouth shut and focused on his work.
"Since it’s for repairs, the material used is relatively soft bronze... and the fingertips are even made of brass."
He assumed this was a deliberate choice to prevent the golem from scratching the materials it worked on.
"Reko, more light silver."
"Yes."
He felt that using bronze even for the skeleton was overkill, but this was another relic from the days when light silver was prohibitively expensive. It was likely a matter of cost.
"I'll fix this one up using the duplication process as well."
Leaving Justa standing there with his mouth agape, Jin moved forward with the repairs with practiced efficiency.