An Unborn Hero

Hayedalf was focused intensely on a chain of mythril beads, carefully engraving runes into each, when a buzzer sounded on his desk. A simple timekeeping device he'd crafted to ensure he didn't become engrossed in his work to the expense of all else. But he was almost done with the chain; only a few more runes to engrave, which would take less than half an hour. No point stopping so close to the end. He reached over to deactivate the buzzer...

... And then paused and sighed, carefully stowing his tools and standing up before silencing the timer.

The fake tower the demon lord had trapped him in may have been nothing more than a dream, but the lessons it had taught were painfully real. There would always be one more thing. One more small task before a natural place to pause. One last thing he wanted to try that he knew would work. As desperate as he was to build this artefact, he needed to remember that letting himself get sucked into his crafting to the exclusion of all else would counter-intuitively hamper his productivity. Also, more importantly, it wouldn't be fair to Kellela.

Had he never met Kellela, he could easily imagine himself falling into the same trap he had in the dream.

He glanced at the half-finished creation on his desk before he turned out the lights, leaving the series of enchanted components in darkness.

The need for breaks was not the only thing he had learnt from his dream. The basic design and all the ideas he'd had would work. Or more accurately, could be made to work. It was certainly true that an interface to a full-sized human shell would fry itself, but something smaller?

Not that it was obvious what form a smaller shell should take. Even a human child would be too large. There was the option of a human baby, with a giant head and flabby limbs, but that wouldn't be particularly practical. A scaled down human would end up looking like a Grachen, particularly since wings would be required if it was to be able to navigate such difficult obstacles as stairs, and nobody would want to be mistaken for a Grachen.

As Hayedalf left his workshop, he grinned as a mildly vindictive thought crossed his mind. After all, the shell was for Mystery, and the new denizens of the former demonic forest were almost certainly her fault, so if the shell looked like one of them, she couldn't complain, right? Forcing her to wear the shell of a monster or a demon would be cruel, but those things were friendly. Far too friendly, by all reports. Such a shell would fit her perfectly. And it wasn't as if she'd be forced to use it. And it was only until she was born.

The justification came so easily.

"What are you smiling at?" asked Kellela.

"Oh, not much. I just decided on what the Artefact I'm working on is going to look like."

"And you're still not going to tell me what it is?"

"Nope," answered Hayedalf, who partially wanted it to be a surprise, but was also being considerate of Kellela's feelings. She'd been doing a lot better since Dreobeth's intervention, but there was still the chance Mystery had completely lost her memories, in which case creating a vehicle for her astral projecting soul would serve as nothing more than a reminder about what had been lost.

Besides, if he never admitted what he was making, it wouldn't be a disappointment to her if he failed.

"You've been at it for a week already!"

"It's an Artefact, dear. It's going to take me... I want to say a couple of weeks more, but..."

Another lesson from his dream was how easily a couple of weeks could become a couple of years. The only saving grace was that there was no risk of it becoming a couple of centuries, despite [The Final Cycle]; by that point, Mystery would be born, and completing the Artefact would serve no purpose.

"Well, since you're here," started Kellela, before switching to [Telepathy], "... you... can... help... practise..."

"... With... pleasure..." responded Hayedalf, using his own.

Both parents were low levelled, but were working on training the skill whenever they could. Alas, neither had yet managed to obtain a sub-skill that did away with the need for line of sight, but Kellela was working just as hard at upgrading [Soul's Eye] and [Sense Soul] so that she could pick out the soul of Mystery inside herself.

Despite a month and a half of inactivity, she still consumed the lives of her parents. A fact that hadn't escaped their notice, and so the slow, telepathic conversation turned towards mundane household matters. While the kingdom would happily fund them for the rest of their lives for services rendered, neither was the sort of person who wanted to live that sort of life.

"Seriously?" exclaimed Hayedalf as Kellela explained her plan, surprised badly enough that he forgot he was supposed to be using [Telepathy].

"Very serious. You saw everyone at the ball, but it was all so... unsubstantiated. We can't have grown men walking around in... in... little more than lingerie because of unsubstantiated rumours. It's time someone did some proper research."

"Well, you're obviously enthusiastic. I say go for it."

"I spoke to the guild this morning. They were worried it would prove too popular, so rather than advertising, they're going to start with an invite-only class. The first one is on Friday."

"Wait, back up. You've already spoken to the guild?"

"Well, yes. That was the obvious place to start, wasn't it?"

"You could have talked to me first."

"I don't need your permission, and you were locked in your workshop when I decided," replied Kellela, poking out her tongue. "If you're going to keep secrets, don't complain if I do, too."

"Touché."

Despite himself, Hayedalf couldn't help but smile. Kellela leaving the house was another sign of her healing. Leaving the house to hold magical girl classes for adventurers was a little off, but he knew how much Kellela wanted to take part in more practical research, and as much as Rumah Magika would have welcomed her back, she was still annoyed at the way she'd ended up stuck working at a desk.

And so it was in a much better mood that Hayedalf returned to his workroom, finishing off the runes on his mythril beads. His tools seemed to glide effortlessly across their surface, and what he expected to get done in half an hour was completed in a quarter. Days passed, and the pile of components grew, and the shell which would contain them took shape.

Kellela—who hadn't been at all perturbed at finding Melody and Platus in her first class—discovered that wearing magical girl clothing while not transformed didn't help, and nor did skimpiness, although colour-matching regular clothes surprisingly did, which went some way to explaining how the rumours may have got started. It was a detail Mystery hadn't got around to sharing with them, given the reliance on [Cosplay] to share her image, coupled with the fact they'd remained transformed inside the demonic forest.

And one more month later, Hayedalf slotted the very last component into his metallic winged kitten.

The fact that he'd transformed himself into his magical girl form beforehand, coupled with his creation being inside a heavily warded magical circle, was purely out of an abundance of caution, and not at all because he had any real fear it would explode. Likewise, the way he dived behind a desk when a ding chimed inside his mind didn't at all imply he was on edge.

And then he read the message. A simple notification of an earned achievement. A mere four words in total, but telling him everything he needed to know.

"YES!" he yelled.

"Are you okay in there, dear?" called Kellela from elsewhere in the house.

Hayedalf, in his excitement, rushed out of the workshop, embraced Kellela without a word, lifted her from the floor and spun her around.

"I'll take that as a yes?" she asked, mildly confused. "You finished your Artefact, then?"

"Yup!"

"And does that mean you'll finally tell me what it is?"

Hayedalf opened his mouth to reply, but paused before he did so. After all, yes, it was functional—no way would it have been recognised as an Artefact if it wasn't—but conversely, it was only functional. He'd made an appropriately shaped shell, but it was only a casing. There was still cosmetic work to do on it. It needed... purple fur. And glitter. Lots and lots of glitter.

As much as he hated to admit it, that wasn't his area of expertise.

"Tomorrow," he promised. "Or the day after. The end of the week at the worst," he added, because he didn't actually have any idea how long it would take to wrap a small metallic golem in fur.

Kellela laughed. "I have no idea why you're so insistent on it being a surprise, but fine. I'll hold you to that. The end of the week."

It ended up taking two, because after discussions with a clothier, he ended up enchanting some fabric with a sparkle effect rather than relying on glitter. After all, if Mystery's gift left real glitter everywhere, it would soon run out, and he didn't fancy designing any sort of reloadable glitter cartridge. Not to mention the horrific mess it would make. Magic was really the only sensible answer.

A piece of logic which, despite being so incredibly obvious, he found very difficult to put into real words.

"I'm sorry," asked Kellela, staring at the glittery, purple, winged kitten, "but why? Your Artefact is a model of one of the cat-like things from the demonic forest? Complete with sparkles? Again, why? What does it do?"

"On its own, nothing whatsoever,"

"Have you built an Artefact cuddly toy?"

"On its own, nothing. But, with a soul to drive it..."

"A soul? Why in the world would... you..."

Kellela froze as realisation dawned.

"You built a body for Mystery?"

Hayedalf nodded.

"That is a body for Mystery?"

Hayedalf nodded again.

"You do remember that Mystery is human, right? Unless there's something important about yourself you haven't told me, and I have to say, I've had a pretty good look at you, so I doubt it's a disguise."

Hayedalf looked at the model in his hands, which was indeed rather unlike a human. His logic had been perfectly sensible at the time, but now that it came to explaining it to another person...

"It had to be really small," he explained. "Making it human wouldn't work. Or rather, it would, but it would have been Grachen-sized."

Kellela gave that the consideration it was due.

"Fair enough," she admitted. "We wouldn't want Mystery being mistaken for Grachen. Dreobeth has it hard enough. But... why one of them? Wouldn't an ordinary house cat have worked? Wouldn't being mistaken for one of those things be almost as bad as being mistaken for Grachen? People would be worried she was about to break out into a sermon about... friendship..."

Kellela paused to carefully inspect the upcoming end of her sentence.

"Okay, on second thoughts, it's perfect," she agreed. "So, what does she do? Can she talk? Fly? Does she have sensors?"

Hayedalf grinned as he explained his creation, amused by Kellela already referring to the empty shell as 'she'. Powered by the mana of the inhabiting soul, it did indeed have conventional senses, as well as a couple of more magical ones. It spoke naturally, via a tongue and voice box. The feline shape of the mouth was likely to leave it with a strange accent, but it shouldn't be too bad, and if it was, there would be no harm in making some post-inhabitation adjustments.

"It's amazing," said Kellela, stroking the fur as if it were already alive. "A perfect gift for Mystery to celebrate her reawakening."

"Oh? That sounded almost optimistic."

Kellela gave a little smile. "After what I've seen these past few weeks... Knowing what she's caused... She damn well better come back to take responsibility."