Hakai Me no Yuuri

Chapter 80: Spell Development

Translator: ShiroiKaze/Soyokaze Translations

The next day, Marle was even more fatigued than we expected, so we took a rest day to give her a break.

Haster and I were also more tired than we thought, and went sound asleep that night without any lover’s talk. Thanks to that, I’m in perfect physical condition.

He went out this morning saying he’s gathering information. I also have things to do, so I guess it isn’t much of a rest day in the end.

Now then, we need a more efficient way to search for enemies while exploring the labyrinth.

A radar would be the standard move, but… I have absolutely no idea how to put together a radar!

Something as well known as a rail gun, sure, but a literature focused man like myself wouldn’t have any reason to know about that. And there’s no Wikipedia in this world either.

Which means I’ll have to use my current knowledge to come up with some way to expand our searching abilities.

“I guess looking for things in pitch darkness would mean infrared sensors, right?”

“Ugyu?”

“But then it would only cover our field of vision, so it wouldn’t exactly be an efficient means of finding enemies.”

“U-ugyu…”

“I guess if we want it to reach places we can’t see, maybe we’ll need ultrasonic waves?”

“Ugyu~”

I considered spell formula options with Yig, who was sitting at the inn.

It feels like he doesn’t understand a thing I’m saying, but worrying about that would be my own loss. Doing this on my own would be lonely, so I need a conversation partner.

“But infrared vision would be convenient to have too. I’ll consider it when I have some spare time for [Enchanting] a spell.”

“Agya.”

“Maybe another useful spell would be [Olfactory Heightening]?”

“Fusha—“

“Yig, you’re breathing heavily. I know you have great lung capacity, now calm down.”

Yig seemed to be saying, “I have confidence in my lungs!” with how heavy his breathing was. After chiding him, I wrote down my options on some paper.

I’m really glad paper is in common use in this world. It’s similar to straw paper in quality, but it’s fine for writing on.

“Let’s see, so the five senses human’s possess are sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. But taste and touch can’t really be used for a radar, so I would really be better off thinking about it based on the remaining three.”

I tap my fingers on the desk, and score out a rhythm.

It’s just a habit of mine when thinking about things, but beating out the rhythm suddenly brought an idea springing forth.

“Of course sight would be restricted by obstacles. If we could knock the walls out of the way, then it would be fine, but…”

If I use “Appraisal” on the [space] around me, then I could even finding enemies in hiding, so it would be useful for enemy searches. But when I use that continuously, the pressure it puts on my head is no joke.

Seeing as my nose starts bleeding after using it for 10 minutes, it could hardly be considered practical.

It probably wouldn’t be very useful if we hole ourselves up in the labyrinth for a long time.

“I guess it really would be best to mainly use sound in finding enemies, like Marle did yesterday. Heck, submarines and stuff rely mostly on sound anyway… Hm?”

Come to think of it, aside from the always-active passive sonar on submarines, they also send out a constant signal from themselves for a high precision view of their surroundings, called an active sonar.

In their case, their enemies could find them by sound too, so there was some danger with it, but in our case the enemies have no such ability. Doesn’t that mean we could use it safely?

“Hum, it might be a little rough to have a constant active search though. If I can search a few hundred meters all at once, and send a signal at regular intervals, then that should keep the burden light.”

If I keep [Olfactory Enhancement] going along with it, then that’ll be perfect, huh?

The spell for [Olfactory Enhancement] already exists, so I’ll just have to alter it for long-term activation, and I’ll try enhancing its effect while I’m at it.

The sound search, on the other hand, is going to be completely self made. I’ve got a little bit of knowledge from bat ecology, so a little appropriation might be in store.

I’ll just rearrange the dynamic magic power use [Transmitter] and [Receiver] spells I used for that time with Yig, and… It will have to receive signals from all directions, so I’ll have to spread a thin film of magic power around…

And like that, I spent until the evening completing the two spells.

~*~

Even though I said the two spells are complete, using them without a trial run is pretty scary.

As such, I decided to head outside of town and give them a test.

Performing the test outside of town means I can figure out the range of the search, and check if I can notice the bugs that I don’t even see.

“There are no walls to blow through or constrict the area here.”

“Agya!”

The surroundings are a wide open plain, with sparse trees growing.

I can even see birds flying through the sky. This should be the perfect location for the test.

“Here I go!”

“Ugyu!”

“Echoing sound of the wind, reveal the nature of the world to me!”

I activated the [Sonar] spell I developed, and included a chant to help me keep the image clear.

I want to see just how wide the search range can be, so the output was at full blast—

The moment I activated it, a powerful CLANG! Sound reverberated through my surroundings.

Leaves from the trees a pretty far distance away scattered through the air, and I think I saw the birds flying high through the air faint, and fall to the ground.

As for me… Blood squirted out my ears, and I fainted.

~*~

“I-I thought I was gonna die!”

“Agya~”

“Did you say something, Yig? My ears are still ringing.”

The regeneration effect of “Golden Ratio” is basically working, but I feel my sense hasn’t fully come back yet.

I’m hearing things kind of like I have some loose earplugs in.

“This is actually attack magic at this point, huh… It’s indiscriminate, so there’s no good way to use it though.”

“Shaa!”

“Yes, I know. I won’t use it like that. But the result was actually a success, I suppose? I could tell exactly where all the falling birds and the leaves and stuff were. On that subject, the birds fell over there, so go grab them for us, Yig!”

“Agya!”

He hurriedly flew off upon hearing about the birds. He sure does have an appetite.

While watching Yig fly away, I tried activating [Sonar] again. This time I made sure to squeeze down the output.

With a clanging metallic sound, the ultrasonic waves and the receiving membrane expanded and revealed the surroundings to me.

The grass around my feet and their rustling.

The birds fallen on the ground.

The bugs hiding in the vegetation.

The leaves shaking in the wind.

The snake approaching me from behind.

—Yep, it’s perfect… Wait, what?!

That last line of information jumped out at me.

At the space near my feet, a snake was rapidly approaching to bite me.

Isn’t that a pit viper?! Well, it does go by a different name in this world, but it’s practically the same type of snake.

Since I at least avoided its surprise attack, dealing with it is simple. Before it could strike at me a second time, I activated [Wind Blade], and sent its head flying.

I’m used to [Wind Blade] enough that I don’t need a chant to activate it. I didn’t even give the snake a chance to ready itself for its next move.

“Whew… And suddenly it turned into a field test. But it let me deal with a surprise attack from behind, so we can call this technique a success.”

The reverberations of the spell are still clear in my mind, allowing me to understand my surroundings kind of like I’ve got a map.

This kind of feels surprisingly good.

After about 30 seconds, as the reverberations dissipated, the map gradually disappeared from my mind.

Outside of my expectations, the search range actually penetrated 30 centimeters into the ground too.

I might even be able to see into the other side of walls with it. With the ringing noise it makes, we won’t be able to get the jump on anything though.

“Mogyu?”

“Welcome back, Yig. No taking bites of the food, okay?”

I welcomed Yig back with the prey he secured, and moved on to test the second spell.

This will be [Olfactory Enhancement] with extra enhancement.

[Olfactory Enhancement] is normally used to check for poison, and doesn’t enhance it all that much so it can be kept in effect.

It can only find poisons with strong odors, and there are tasteless and odorless poisons, so the wide opinion is that it’s only used to give a sense of security.

However, with my magic capacity, I can effortlessly keep it in effect with greater enhancement.

I remodeled the spell to bring my sense of smell to that of a dog… Actually, even beyond that. I slowly began the spell…

“Ughu?!”

I completely forgot, but Yig brought the prey right next to me.

The smell of the blood dripping from those birds.

The stench of the chewed up entrails.

The odor of the excrement extruding from their bellies.

The sulfurous stench coming from Yig’s body.

The remaining scent of Haster on my body.

That fishy aroma suddenly rushed at me.

“Ugueeeh! Ehoh! Gohoh!”

Unable to endure the sudden attack, I reflexively puked my guts out.

And in doing so, I got a good whiff of the vomit, causing me to vomit even more.

That repeated a few times until all that remained was stomach acid, and I finally managed to release the spell.

“I-I will have to… Be really prepared… When I use this…”

“Ugyu~”

Yig looked worriedly over me as I collapsed on the ground, breathing heavily.

“I’m fine. I guess we can say we’ve achieved our goal for now, huh?”

With these two in combined use, we probably won’t encounter any surprise attacks, even in the labyrinth.

I may have messed up a little bit, but the results were great.

We triumphantly returned to Belit.

~*~

Upon returning to the inn, I greeted Haster with a triumphant look on my face, and reported my achievements to him.

“If that’s true, then it’s pretty amazing.”

“Well of course it’s true! If you want, why don’t I try it here?”

I stubbornly refuted him when he responded with some doubt.

As a human of this world, mentioning sonars and ultrasonic waves probably wouldn’t even bring a ping to mind. Let alone pinging.

I performed a weak [Sonar] spell, and [Olfactory Enhancement] at the same time.

Even the positions of the mice in the ceiling were… Hum?

“Haster.”

“Hm? What’s up?”

“… Why is there a woman’s smell on you?”

“Huwha?! N-no, there shouldn’t be…”

He suddenly went into a visible panic when I pointed it out. He couldn’t possibly be cheating, could he?

“Right now [Olfactory Enhancement] is giving me the same sense of smell as a dog. I wouldn’t miss the odors of perfume and makeup, you know?”

“Th-this is…”

“Marle isn’t ready for makeup yet, and it’s different from what miss Levy always has on, isn’t it?”

Naturally, I’m used to and remember the aroma of the perfume miss Levy uses.

“No, um… This is uhh… From the bar.”

“Ohh? The bar?”

“The waitress leaned over me a little bit and stuff… Look, I’m really not doing anything behind your back!”

“… … …The perfume smell is coming from the palm of your hand, isn’t it?”

“A-augh… Sorry, I just… Touched her chest a bit.”

Hearing his confession, I smiled towards him.

He doesn’t appear to be cheating, but he touched the chest of a woman other than me?

“Haster.”

“Yes’m?”

“Punishment time. I’m going to overwrite the smell of your body entirely with my own.”

“B-be gentle with me…”

Things were a bit rough that night.