Reincarnated Into A Dead Woman's Body In Another World-Chapter 470: Arc 6, - 86: Thaumaturgy

Bubbling concoctions corkscrewed through the spiralling glass tubes that were above a flat slab of runes blasting puffs of cold blue air beneath them.

Centrifuges with dark sand-like powder made the constant whirring sounds across the laboratory. Set in a single room with the height of two buildings within, the lab was separated by an upper and lower platform.

Clunky consoles and machinery buzzed and beeped with lights and sounds that could only be identified by those in this room. The dozens of what appeared to be scientists and researchers went about maintaining the space—taking notes, starting or stopping processes.

Too little magic for a Maleficos Ordinate, but too much magic for a military unit. This laboratory was what stood in place of an Ordinate for the country; although, this being only one section of presumably many.

Hanging back a step, Fumeko scanned from concrete ceiling to tile floor while the three detectives headed in a direction familiar to them. "Melcer darling~!" Rose cooed and gracefully rushed up to a man who was deeply indulged in his work before him to even take notice.

Melcer, the man in his mid-40s and in a lab coat, stumbled to one side as he was tackled into an embrace. He mumbled in shock and finally turned to see his visitors. Rose kissed him on the cheek and let go of him.

He cleared his throat and adjusted his circular glasses, "Sorry, I was working on something. Hello, how are you all?" he straightened his posture.

His beard was a reddish-brown with bits of white sprouting through. The short hair atop his head however was much more white than brown. Wrinkles from a stressed life eased up under his eyes as his expression went more neutral.

The average figure, no taller than Rose herself, stood politely with his hands over his lap, having taken a step from his workbench.

Kazuo gave a nod, "Doing alright, all things considered."

"How’ve you been holding up?" Morgana folded her arms.

His voice squeaked a sigh as his brows jerked up, "Good; good. Could be worse, I mean, with all the news and things, seems we’re on a better track for the rest of the year," his demeanour shrunk as he spoke in his stilted low voice.

Many researchers and scientists rolled their eyes and scoffed under their breaths as they saw visitors enter their space and start making more noise than needed.

"How’re my little toys coming along?" Rose hovered her finger over a line of disassembled parts of gadgetry, some with dim purple glows.

"D-don’t touch anything," he warned and swiftly grabbed Rose’s wrist to shoo it away. "Some of it’s done, not all. I didn’t expect for you to go through so many in a single go. I’m surprised you’re alive still."

"Oh, all thanks to your genius work~ And a lot more from the sirens," she leaned against an empty spot on his desk.

"It’s crazy," Melcer said to Kazuo. "We might just see the end of the cult before we kick the bucket. And your daughter’s involved in- Oh," only then did he see the girl standing behind them all. "Sorry, didn’t see you there."

"Maybe you need better glasses," Fumeko snarked while still looking up and around.

"Yeah," Kazuo said with no real agreement with anything while he stepped aside.

"Hey there," Melcer put his hands on his knees and leaned down slightly, only to shake his head and stand upright when speaking to her, "Wow, I haven’t seen you since, well," he then raised his hand up and down, trying to recall her height when she was much younger.

"I haven’t seen a lot of people since last year so," she gave a half shrug. "Fumeko Namora, adventuring detective."

"Oh I’m aware, I’ve read about you in recent papers, just not in the flesh—see in the flesh I mean. I knew that all of you were coming to city hall, but any particular purpose why you’re here?

In the lab I mean?" he then faced her father, "I wasn’t told about making any new designs or gadgetry Kazuo, I don’t have anything at the ready," he put his hands up.

"She’s just here to look around Melcer, don’t worry about it," Kazuo unholstered his pistol and handed it over to the man. "Just maintenance."

Melcer took the pistol and rotated it around his hands, examining it.

"And hellos, it’s been a while," Morgana added.

"Hello, hello," Melcer still kept his eyes on the bronze-gold pistol and the transparent cartridge with purplish dust within. "I’ve been busy, what with all the, you know," he stumbled through the words while he placed the pistol on his workbench.

"You’re telling me I could’ve asked for a special gun beforehand," Fumeko walked past Rose and the mess of a workspace Melcer was working with.

Screwdrivers and pliers of varying sizes, metal plates and discs in no particular assembled order, some leftover packet of potato crisps to the side, several screws strewn about alongside rounded bullets that were coated thinly in a purplish polish.

"Not exactly kid."

"Well, yes, it’d have to go through approval," Melcer replied over Kazuo’s statement, to which Kazuo crossed his arms and stared.

Fumeko’s head turned back with her eyes glazed over.

...

Stuck between two glares, Melcer took a cautious step back, "It’d probably not get approved, but, considering h-her recent actions- I don’t know, I don’t know," he put his hands up and got between Fumeko and his workbench.

"Who even are you?" Fumeko squinted.

"Oh sorry," he rubbed his hands off on his lab coat. "Sir Melcer Vogel, head of magi-technology for the Department of Arcana. Inventor of the mage-piercer ammunition and auto-loading pistol," he gave his hand out. "Also the one who..." he looked to Kazuo.

Fumeko cautiously shook his hand.

"She already knows Melcer," Kazuo stated.

"Right, the entire reason she ran away," Melcer affirmed while he shook her hand. "I’m the one who helped your father get custody of you after the whole fire fiasco. Took me a while, but."

Fumeko retracted her hand, her expression barely changing. "I didn’t know that," she remarked.

"Oh- well-"

"And I don’t care," Fumeko tagged on. "I don’t really care one way or the other, and I definitely don’t care about whatever relationship you have with Detective Chesire," she glanced over at the workstation.

"Careful darling, I don’t have anything like that going on," Rose chimed in with a wag of her finger.

"T-that’s true, she knows she can get more out of people by being, well, her," Melcer agreed.

The short brunette looked back, "Like I said, I don’t care." Fumeko held a hand to her chin, "What I do care about is everything that’s going on here. You’re the one who made the mage-piercers, which were the bullets used in the Burntish Courthouse earlier this March.

Namely, used by the Deuctus Cult members to shoot up the place after a dragon crashed in and ate the chief justice. So you tell me why and how your experimental technology was used by cultists.

And to add to that, how exactly do the guns Mrs Aetherton and my dad use work? Could be crucial; if one patented technology’s already stolen, then," Fumeko turned.

Melcer’s eyes narrowed through his glasses at her. "Under what authority," he muttered to himself and then glanced over at Kazuo Namora. Then his eyes darted to his daughter, and then back to Kazuo, "Just like you, this one.

You were worse still," he complained to Kazuo who gave an exhausted shrug. Melcer then turned to Morgana, "Mrs? Doesn’t she?" he hushed a smidgen.

Morgana’s eyes waned and she simply raised a brow; the message was clear to him.

"I’m... not answering out of, interrogation? I’m answering out of courtesy here. Y-yes, I know about the information breach about the mage piercer ammunition," his arms moved around while he paced throughout his workspace with his eyes to the floor. "All of the department has been investigated, we haven’t found a source of the leak.

I suspect, that the leak may just be so deliberate that it can’t be traced. Or that there isn’t a leak at all," he bumped into a trolley rack to stop.

"You think someone could’ve magically spied on your work?" Fumeko crossed her arms.

"Definitely not while in here, there’s enough defensive magics to prevent any sort of intrusion."

"What if the cult’s magic’s more powerful than the magic here? The cult’s already has that going for them," the brunette proposed.

"That’s," Melcer grunted as his fingers curled in like claws. "Listen, what I do here is study magic, and more specifically the improvement of everyday technology via magical means.

The challenge we face, is that magic is fundamentally uncooperative with science—there’s largely a difference set of rules, but," he said popping his lips and pinching his fingers together, "It does have a base to work off of.

That’s why there’s different categories of magic. Even a weaker defensive spell can protect against a stronger offensive spell, because it specifically is for that purpose.

So stronger or weaker, still have to contend with whatever school of magic you’re dealing with, and even then you have to factor in a dozen other variables- Sorry, tangent," he held the bridge of his nose. "Even if they did intrude, we’d know, alright?

The reason I theorize that there isn’t a leak, is that, although I’m the proud creator of them, the principles of my idea aren’t revolutionarily new.

I just found a way to refine mana dust into a gel coating that’s added in during the casting of bullet rounds. Even then, highly inefficient—half of it evaporates into the air.

What I do know, is that in that refined neutral state, it’s easier to produce and supply in larger quantities for the use of the GAS. And when refined in a specific process, it can neutralize reactive mana—reactive mana being a spell or an enchantment. Thus, making it a magic-piercing bullet.

Is it extremely powerful? No. Is it replicable? Absolutely. Some of the GAS have already been using it before February, so if the true culprit needs to be found, we have to trace back weeks of recorded logs, some may not even be recorded, who knows?

Maybe someone higher up already knows, and I’m just in the dark? Maybe? Probably. But what does it solve now? Nothing. I’m not the first person to use refined mana dust, I won’t be the last," he sat down in his wheeled office chair and slid back.

"You couldn’t’ve led with that?" Fumeko replied.

"He’s got a delicate process," Morgana mocked.

"You all come into my office, with this hostility," he waved his hands in front of him at them. "I’m going to get to the MID-s and you can all go about your business," he rolled forward to his work desk.

"Oh come on darling, you’re a genius~ What about all the fun stuff you make for me, hm? Those aren’t brilliant inventions?" Rose leaned her hip onto the desk.

"Prototypes. Experimental," he was starting to disassemble Kazuo’s gun. "Hardly useful for most people, GAS included. I’m surprised they all function and you’re not dead," he put bluntly.

"That’s just how much I trust your brain," she tapped a finger onto the side of his head.

"I’m already finishing up the rest of your equipment, you don’t need to lay it on so thick."

"Well darling, maybe more grease next time, half of the time this thing jams," her charm was dropped, just like the crossbow she dropped onto his workbench.

"Grease? D-do you think I use greas-" he swivelled in his chair and groaned. "You know you could’ve just had Peter send me whatever you needed fixing and I can send over whatever you all need."

"We were already coming," Kazuo walked over and examined his disassembled firearm. "Besides, I worry about you; always cooped up in your lab. When’s the last time you saw the Sun?" He placed one hand on the headrest of the chair and the other on Melcer’s shoulder.

Distant thunder bellowed from outside.

Melcer checked his own pale hands and checked his wristwatch. "Burnetrout? Sun? Who are you trying to trick."

Kazuo patted his shoulder twice and leaned away from him, "Nice to see you mate."

"...Is this why she’s here?" Melcer said after a long exhale, pointing to Fumeko.

"I’m here on a whim; I turned down food for this. But a case’s a case and it’s one that’s not over yet. Any piece I can get, the better," Fumeko replied.

"I’m letting her have free rein, she deserves it," Kazuo hushed and backed away from the scientist.

"What’s an MID?" Fumeko was two seconds away from swiping an interesting looking device on the trolley.

Melcer sighed and gave a nod to himself.

"And then he said, your end will come! But he’s the one getting arrested into the back of a carriage," Ben’s voice came echoing into the lab, while he was surrounded by amused, laughing GAS agents.