A Tool, Not a Person
Echidna Philiaz.
Age unknown.
She had once belonged to the Philiaz coven, only to be cast out by her sisters for clashing with their ideals.
Reason for expulsion: hopeless pretty-boy obsession and instant infatuation with looks.
Messy black hair, dark circles that looked like gothic makeup, black-painted lips, and skin so pale it seemed never to have touched sunlight. She carried the classic, brooding air of a witch. Left alone, she might almost have passed for a beauty—yet that very witch-like aura ruined everything.
And if one asked whether she truly felt like a witch—
“Hello. I’m Echidnaaa.”
—her childish, slurred way of speaking shattered even that atmosphere.
“Ehehehe…”
She smiled as if she meant well, but the smile was so awkward it only made her feel more unsettling. Everything about her made it hard to fit in with ordinary people.
She had accepted Jed’s offer without a second thought. Still, they needed to explain what the work actually involved, so Ferda stepped into the witch’s house to face her properly.
“You said you’d do anything, but do you even know exactly what the job is?”
“Nope. But I don’t mind.”
Echidna’s murky pupils swirled like a storm-tossed sea.
“I-if I can be with such h-handsome gentlemen and a cute young lady… I’m just so h-happy… Ehehehe. If you tell me to, I’ll even be a dog.”
A witch’s characteristic madness began seeping into her voice. Ruri’s face twisted in distaste; Jed flinched and drew back as well. Only Ferda remained unfazed.
“Echidna Philiaz. You’re building golems, aren’t you?”
“Huh? O-oh, yes. Why?”
“Would you be willing to continue that work at Baldrova Castle?”
“O-of course! I can do that. Hehe. If you tell me to, I’ll be a dog. Woof-woof.”
She kept accepting without a single question or condition. Even Ferda found the sight exceptional.
I thought she might be a little better in the past, but this is when she was at her worst.
By the time Ferda had first met her in his previous life, she had already pulled herself together somewhat. Right now she was a complete mess.
“Lord Ferda.”
Ruri jabbed him lightly in the side.
“You came all this way just to recruit some girl who makes golems?”
“H-hey, I can hear you…”
“Yes. Just golems.”
“I s-said I can hear you!”
Massive constructs of mud or stone. At best they could walk; strip away size and durability and they were little better than corpses. There was a reason “golem” was used as an insult.
“Do you have a golem you’ve made?”
“Huh? W-well, I do, but… i-it’s not finished yet, so it’s a little embarrassing…”
“Doesn’t matter. I’m not embarrassed.”
“Ah—then… I’ll show you!”
Echidna clapped her hands. The wardrobe doors flew open and something tumbled out: a wooden puppet shaped like a sturdy young man. Its eyes were large and sparkling as if they might spit jewels; its lips were finely carved. The face and figure looked like something a child would draw while fantasizing about a prince.
Watching the three of them stare at it, Echidna twisted her body in place.
“Ehehe. It’s still unfinished, so it’s embarrassing…”
“The face could use a bit more work.”
“No. The doll itself is complete, though?”
“…This is finished?”
Jed could not hide his astonishment. That was the finished product?
The golem creaked its way outside and glanced at Echidna. She smiled sweetly.
Creak—creak—
With stiff, grinding sounds the wooden golem moved to the cupboard, took out tea leaves, and began preparing a cup. What was remarkable was how precisely it selected one item among many.
“There are so many kinds of tea in that cupboard. Why did it pick that one?”
“Um, so the way it works is… a-ah, it’s kind of a boring story, so I won’t go into all the details… um, mmm…”
Echidna clenched both fists and stamped her feet in place. Ferda was about to answer for her when she cut in.
“In other words—”
“Wait! I-I think I can do it!”
It took her a full three minutes just to choose her words; cold sweat beaded on her forehead. At last she finished organizing her thoughts.
“Simply put, it watches my mood and brings the tea I like. Today I was in a good mood, so it brought Darjeeling.”
“The… golem did?”
Ruri asked, unable to believe it. Echidna scratched her head bashfully.
“Ehehe. I wanted to try making something like that. So I’m creating the magic for it.”
“Creating magic… That means you’re drawing the runes yourself?”
“Yes, that’s right, little miss! I studied reeeally hard for it!”
Even Ruri, who normally dismissed humans, felt a spark of awe this time. To craft intricate magic circles required the art of condensing meaning itself—Rune Making. Those capable of it numbered fewer than ten across the entire Serdes Continent; it was the domain of true masters.
She was no mere golem-maker or gloomy witch.
She was a Rune Maker—a witch who possessed the power to create magic.
Ruri looked back at Ferda. The contempt that had filled her eyes at first had been replaced by wonder.
“How do you even know people like this?”
“I just happened to learn of them.”
What had made him remember her was, of course, hatred. She had been one of those humans who wasted talent so egregiously it made him cough blood.
I nearly spat blood over it.
Echidna Philiaz was obsessively fond of handsome men. That longing had even guided her toward the Red Circle. Yet her witch-like gloom and abysmal social skills left her in such a dire state that she could never actually meet a man.
While other witches might have tried improving their interpersonal skills, her solution was different.
—If I can’t date one, why not just make a boyfriend?
Turning a man into a taxidermied specimen or a puppet, as other witches did, felt distasteful. Caught between human and witch ways of thinking, she decided to craft something human-like through golems. That became her answer.
Her efforts eventually led her to master spell-command languages and rune creation, and she became a Rune Maker.
Even I, a great archmage, never managed Rune Making… and she used it just to make a boyfriend.
Ferda still felt as though he might cough blood. To develop a power capable of overturning the world merely for the sake of building a boyfriend…
But thanks to that, I learned that golem soldiers capable of responding to flexible command systems were not impossible.
The pinnacle of alchemy: artificial life-forms known as homunculi. They could learn their duties through training and perform tasks beyond human capability. Their drawbacks were limited production numbers and incomplete control.
Golems, by contrast, could be mass-produced—but could not execute complex movements or commands.
Echidna’s golems combined only the strengths of both.
Driving monsters from the eastern front is no longer a fantasy.
Technologies every bit as revolutionary as those pioneered by Bernel Marquis in Magic Engineering could now be proposed.
“Then I believe we’re finished talking. I’ll give you a letter of appointment.”
“A-a letter of appointment?”
“You will be a chief researcher of Baldrova. We already have one other, but your fields differ, so you needn’t worry about each other.”
“O-oh, is that so?”
There was another one. Hearing that, her black eyes rolled about, and she spoke shyly.
“Is… is it a man?”
Ferda nodded.
Her face flushed; her fingers fidgeted.
“Yes. A man.”
“Is… is he… h-handsome…?”
Echidna’s eyes sparkled as though this were the most important question of all.
“He looks like an ordinary scholar who wears glasses.”
“Ah, is that so? Well, it doesn’t really matter…”
Echidna looked disappointed. Her gaze flicked sideways to Jed. Ever the natural playboy, Jed reflexively flashed a charming smile.
“Ehehe… ehehehe…”
Under that ominous aura, Jed’s face gradually hardened. He wanted to step back, but there was nowhere to retreat.
“Can you leave at once, or do you need time to prepare?”
“No. I have spatial storage magic, so I can pack everything and leave right away. Hehe…”
Spatial storage was a 5th-Circle spell. That meant she was already at least 5th Circle—and that her obsession with handsome men was truly formidable.
“Excellent. Take the carriage and head to Baldrova Castle ahead of us.”
Jed whipped his head around.
“You’re not coming with us?”
“There’s still one more person I need to bring.”
“Then let’s go together. I’m your attendant, after all.”
“That won’t be necessary.”
“No, wait—don’t do that…”
Jed forced an awkward smile.
“Let’s go together. Please.”
The “please” carried pure desperation. It meant: do not leave me alone with this woman.
I can’t do that.
Ferda knew. The completed golems Echidna would create in the future all wore the face of Jed Swallow. It was Jed’s appearance that had plunged her into single-minded devotion.
So for the time being, I have to keep them together.
Only by keeping Jed at her side would Echidna’s madness gradually ease. What sort of future that obsession might bring Jed was unclear.
And Ferda did not particularly care.
He would figure it out himself.
Thus Ferda succeeded in recruiting three talents.
Bernel Marquis, pioneer of Magic Engineering.
Jed Swallow, the great thief.
Echidna Philiaz, the Rune Maker.
And the last remaining figure was—
“The Sage of Water, Helus Fobidas.”
Of all the candidates presented so far, he was the only human Ruri already knew.
A late-blooming mage in his mid-forties. Yet through keen intellect and insight he was famous for seeing through the essence of things, earning the title “Sage of Water.” He lived in a mansion he had built in a rural village. Guided by the belief that he must always remain near water, he belonged to no faction and practiced pure detachment from desire.
“How do you intend to persuade a man who refused even the Arken Empire when they offered him a fortune?”
Ferda’s current recruitment score stood at two successes and one deferred. The previous targets had been unknown quantities, making prediction difficult. This time, however, the opponent was someone whose reactions could be anticipated to a degree.
Ruri judged that Ferda’s usual methods would struggle to win him over.
He doesn’t seem the type to be brought in by authority or intimidation…
She found herself unable to suppress her curiosity about what clever idea Ferda might have prepared.
Ferda answered simply.
“I have no interest in the Sage of Water.”
Ruri’s brow furrowed.
“Then why did we come here? You wrote ‘Sage of Water’ right on the list, came all the way to the Sage of Water’s house, and now you’re saying you don’t intend to recruit the Sage of Water?”
“The person I’m looking for has no name. I simply used Helus Fobidas as a convenient stand-in.”
“You deceived me?”
Ruri narrowed her eyes and glared at him with a venomous expression.
“Only half.”
Ferda glanced up at the mansion. The windows stood wide open, and the servants’ back door hung ajar as though carelessly left that way.
He asked,
“Where do ordinary village women usually do the laundry?”
“Why are you asking me that?”
Ferda looked her up and down. Before him stood a blank-faced girl in a maid’s uniform.
“You are a maid, after all.”
“Even maids have ranks. And I solve everything with magic. I’m not some little brat beating laundry with a paddle at a stream.”
“A stream, then. Thank you.”
Following Ruri’s unintentional advice, they headed for the stream. Just as she had said, it was not hard to find.
“You damned half-wit! You can’t even do that!?”
In a place that should have held only the quiet sound of flowing water, a middle-aged woman’s abuse rang out. There stood a plump middle-aged woman and a painfully thin young girl. Both wore clothes far too neat for country folk; it was clear they were servants of a noble house.
The plump woman jabbed a finger at the girl’s laundry and shouted,
“You beat it and wring it, then you put it in! Why do I have to tell you every single time before you understand!? Beat it! Wring it! Put it in! Got it!?”
The blonde girl carefully nodded.
“Ugh, to think I’m stuck teaching an idiot like this! What sin did I commit… Ugh!”
The middle-aged servant thumped her own chest and scowled. The girl showed no fear. With empty eyes she simply looked down and quietly resumed the task she had been ordered to do.
“A troublesome one, is she?”
The middle-aged servant jumped and scrambled to her feet. Her eyes quickly scanned Ferda, and a smile bloomed on her lips.
“Oh my, my lord! I’m so sorry. I’ve shown you something unsightly. Haha. I raised my voice while trying to educate one of our dim-witted servants…”
“That was education?”
“Of course a noble lord like yourself wouldn’t understand. You have to give them a shock like this or they never learn, you see? That’s why I do it this way.”
Ferda’s gaze drifted briefly toward the girl. He rested a hand on his chin and murmured,
“Hmm. From what I saw, it looked less like education and more like simple irritation. And there’s no need to educate that child in the first place.”
“What do you mean by that, sir?”
“Doesn’t it seem to you that your own instructions were the problem?”
The middle-aged servant blinked.
“I’m sorry, my lord. I don’t understand…”
“From what I observed, you made her repeatedly beat and wring the laundry—but you never told her where to put it afterward. Had you explained that, she would certainly have continued working.”
“Good heavens, do I really have to spell out every little thing? If she’s a person she ought to have some sense and figure it out herself, but she’s so dull…”
The servant glared at the girl. The girl paid their conversation no mind and simply kept kneading the laundry.
“Exactly. The problem is that you keep treating her like a person.”
“What are you saying? Are you claiming this child is some sort of tool?”
“If you had thought of her as a tool rather than a human being, things would have been different. Isn’t it rather excessive to expect a tool to think for itself?”
The servant looked as though she could not grasp his meaning. Even Ruri, who had been listening quietly, failed to understand Ferda’s words.
“Where in the world is there a tool that eats and sleeps? If she were a tool you’d just stick her in a warehouse or throw her away…”
“Why didn’t you throw her away?”
“As if I could just throw her out! The Sage of Water is quite fond of her.”
“Hmm. Is that so?”
“Some stray mutt he picked up from who-knows-where.”
The servant continued her stream of curses without pause. Ferda listened calmly and asked,
“If you dislike her so much and yet find it hard to discard her, how about transferring her to me instead?”