Celestial Hymn 12 (Patreon)

Celestial Hymn
Chapter 12

-VB-

I put three of my men-at-arms to oversee the levies at the aqueduct construction with clear instructions on how to manage the people there.

Once I did that, I entered my solar and started tinkering.

Well, enchanting.

The first thing I tried it on was a book.

I drew upon mana within me and -!

My eyes widened as my own magic told me that this was going to fail. I tried to draw it back immediately but to no avail. The book crumpled to ash in front of me.

“Ah fuck,” I muttered.

This was one of the three outcomes of a failed enchantment: nothing, cursed, and broken, which also meant that my copy of the Seven-Pointed Book was now ash on my solar’s floor.

“Well, shit,” I mumbled to myself.

I was going to have to order a lot of things from my blacksmiths.

Still, I couldn’t help the grin that started to split my face into two. This was it! This was finally the power that I could use to make some serious moves!

Ah, what should I do first~?

-VB-

“Are you fucking serious?!” I roared as I tossed the seventh shortsword.

I got Enchantment a week ago, but my progress was slow.

Some of it had to do with the nature of how Enchantment worked. It wasn’t like Harry Potter wand magic where if I knew that spell and how to cast it, then I could cast it correctly as long as I was also coherent and able; Enchantment carried with it fickler elements of a different magic system that could not be completely controlled.

There were parts that I could control: intent, desire, and design. Intent came from myself in what I wanted, desire in how I wanted the magic to happen, and the design came from the sword.

A good example of this would be the shortsword.

It was a weapon of war, and so the enchantment I put on it had to be related to war. Well, technically speaking, it didn’t have to be strictly related, but more success resulted from applying concepts that were related. As a weapon of war, I could desire an enchantment that made the blades sharper - cutting through more than it should - or reach longer - striking a target that, physically, was not within range. I could even make it so that anyone who held the shortsword knew how to fully utilize it like a trained Roman soldier could.

And that’s what I wanted for these shortswords.

However, I have succeeded exactly once out of the eight shortswords my blacksmith was able to supply on demand.

The rest?

Well, four were dust, three broke, and only one remained unbroken.

To put that into perspective, iron and steel - especially quality iron and steel - weren’t cheap in medieval anywhere. Stealing a steel sword, regardless of the sword’s condition, was ground enough for summary execution of the thief. At least, if there was evidence.

To tell that story into numbers, I just lost seven men-at-arms’ yearly wage in one sitting.

Even for me, that’s not cheap. Sure, a single artwork I chiseled to life will without a doubt get me more than enough silver and gold to let me buy a thousand swords, but here’s the thing about medieval economy: there are no supply and demand. Iron? That shit came from a territory so fucking far away from me that I couldn’t just walk over and buy more iron. I could send a caravan, but no caravan would be allowed to buy as much as they want. Mines owned by lords and cities limited how much someone could buy at a time.

And if I broke enough steel, then there was a good chance that I might not have enough steel to arm my men when I needed to.

Also, I needed to dispose of the cursed swords safely. There were some … rather nasty curses there, ranging from rapid aging in exchange for strength to instant death.

Which all pointed to one thing: enchanting steel weapons would have to wait.

For now, I needed to enchant other items that wouldn’t put such a strain. What could I choose? I still wanted to enchant weapons so that my soldiers would be better at fighting than most.

… What about the shaft of a spear?

-VB-

I winced as another spasm from the Forge took my attention away from the spear shaft in my hand, and it exploded spectacularly as the flow of mana stopped in my distraction and destabilized the entire structure.

My hand became a discount porcupine from the numerous splinters.

“Fuck,” I hissed in pain as I began pulling out splinters.

ZOOOM!

“EEK!” I yelped in surprise. “FUCK!” I shouted when I clenched my hands in said surprise and let the splinters dig deeper. When I got over the pain, I looked down and saw what was next to me.

It was a laptop?

Sweet.

I ignored it for the moment, continuing to pull out the splinters as best as I could.

When I had all but two splinters left, I finally gave the laptop my attention and flipped it open and turned it on.

It blinked awake and showed me a very beginner friendly manual for what appeared to be…

I blinked and read it again.

“‘Standard Data Relay Intelligence’,” I read.

It was an AI, although the manual was explicit about stating how not very smart this was. It was, in essence, a computer software that could best be described as one capable of following orders and relaying data, as its name suggested.

Understand said orders? Not so much.

It was a good tool… if I was in any world other than a medieval or primitive world!

I eyed some kind of transceiver attached to the back of the laptop. “Umm, so you can relay orders to the servitors outside, right?” I asked it.

For a moment, there was silence.

I felt stupid.

“Yes.”

I jolted up in my seat when the computer answered me.

“Jesus Christ…”

“Invalid order.”

“... Collect data on the servitors, manage their refinery activities,” I ordered with a grumble before setting the laptop aside. “Oh, and silence on. Respond only to me.”

“Affirmative.”

And that was that.

I went right back to enchanting spear shafts.

This, I could break as much as I wanted.

it was just far more painful if I failed spectacularly.

-VB-

“These, milord?” one of my more trusted men-at-arms held one of the successfully enchanted spear shaft in his hands. He and three others stood in front of me.

“Yup!”

“... So it’s true that you practice magic?”

I nodded. “But I don’t shit like blood sacrifices or whatnot. This happens if I fail,” I said as I brought up from my side my own unenchanted spear shaft.

I intentionally broke the enchant mid-way through, and the spear shaft shattered into a million pieces spectacularly.

This time, I wore gloves.

(FUCK YOU, SPLINTERS! I WIN!)

“No weird bullshit involved,” I replied. “But what those successful items in your hands will do is make you supernaturally good at spearmanship. Go ahead, try it out.”

Two of them stepped aside, letting the other pair face off against each other.

And then they blitzed against each other. Only a bit faster than my eyes could follow, the two traded all sorts of blows with their untipped spear shafts. Jon, the shorter of the two, began thrusting in and out, and it wasn’t the kind of spear thrusts you saw on the battlefield but one straight out of mangas: before one second was up, Jon completed seven strikes.

His opponent, a leaner but taller Charles, grunted as he took two hits but evaded and parried the other five before he made a vertical strike. Jon blocked with his spear shaft, but the thwack of the two shafts meeting sounded more like a gunfire than wooden sticks crashing.

“Enough,” I ordered, and the two immediately pulled themselves apart. They bowed, something I instructed them to do, and then turned to me. “How is it?”

Jon was the first to respond after a moment. “It’s powerful.”

I grinned.

So it was.

I gripped the only successful enchanted shortsword in its sheath and hanging from my waist.

So it was.

-VB-

Assistants (1) - 9
Digital Ally, 50 CP, MCU Vol.1

Ready and waiting! This A.I. is not truly sapient, but it is still capable of performing extremely complex tasks like controlling a small army of robots or managing the infrastructure of a technologically advanced base... at the same time as overseeing a battlefield and relaying tactical data to you. You can design its personality and appearance to suit your needs, and even give it a classy accent! If you wish, you may import an A.I. or companion into this role.