Machinist of Mana

There were no two ways about it, mother was livid. She'd not been so sure about me being there in the first place and my insistence that the goblin was nothing like it was depicted in the paper didn't convince her at all. It wasn't even like I'd been trying to hide what happened, it just hadn't come up how things had gone. She was busy, I was busy with lessons and the like.

Just after breakfast mother had pulled me from my daily activities and to her parents house, it seemed that I was to serve as a witness to her father's guilt and whatever punishment she hoped to heap upon him. Unfortunately for her when we got there we only found my grandmother, sitting prim and proper in her drawing room.

“Where is he!?” mother furiously demanded.

“You will mind your tone Lucille, for though you may think you're too old for me to take a belt to you, you are wrong,” her mother responded calmly as she took a sip from her tea. “As for your father, he felt it would be best to step back for a bit while you calmed.”

The two looked at each other without speaking for almost a minute solid. It was like watching a hurricane slam into a glacier and neither budging an inch. After a time mother sat, still staring daggers but ceasing her yelling.

“He took my son into those tunnels against monsters mother,” my own mother said through almost gritting teeth as a maid came to pour her tea. The staff here had retreated to the sides, but they knew better than to flee and irritate my grandmother.

“No he didn't,” I objected firmly.

“Quiet you,” mother snapped.

“It seems to me we should hear the boy out, being that he was the only one there.” She pointed to a chair beside her and I sat, taking the cup that was made for me. If nothing else this world had excellent tea.

“As I was saying, grandfather didn't take me into the tunnels at all.” One face had her lips draw a thinner and thinner line while the other seemed mildly interested.

“So if you didn't go down there?” grandmother asked, leaving the question hanging.

“The men they sent to look offered to take me, but I was told no,” I explained.

“Good,” mother said harshly. “But you shouldn't have been anywhere near it anyway.”

I snorted at that. “Grandfather knows me mother, and he knows that if I didn't get at least that that I'd have been down there on my own at some point. He's right too, had I not been there I might have.”

“Do you expect us to actually believe you won't investigate on your own?” grandmother said, she too had seen some of the incidents I got into.

“I mean, I kind of want to, but is there a point? They're going to bring in people with all this scandal who would know what to look for better than me, and even if there's something all the people running around will probably scare off any remaining monsters.” I was really curious, but between not being able to and not really being ready for a real fight it seemed silly to try now.

“He still put you in danger,” mother griped.

“Those creatures we expected were known, they are not a major threat. There was no indication that any had attacked anyone, or anything like that. I was kept outside the tunnel, and at the first sign of danger pulled behind him so he could aim at anything that made a move.” I sighed. “There was nothing appearing more dangerous than a standard carriage ride at first, and at the first sign of anything unexpected he pulled me away.”

“Well, that doesn't seem so bad, now does it dear?” grandmother asked.

“You know my son mother, all this will do is encourage him to go down into some tunnel or other.”

“I don't think I'm ready for that right now,” I admitted. I'd been thinking about some of the thing he'd said and shown me yesterday. “Going after monsters I mean.”

I could count the time I'd surprised my grandmother into breaking her facade, and I got to tick one more on there. “Sincerely?” she asked, stunned.

“Oh yes, clearly I'm unprepared. I'd need a team,” I began.

“Ah, there it is.”

“No,” mother said harshly.

“With much better training than I have right now.”

“No!”

“And weapons! We'll need magical weapons and armor for sure, and guns, the best guns!”

“NO!”

“Oh calm down mother,” I complained. “All that would take years. Practice, designing things, safe testing, finding the right people. Not like anyone is going to have me on their team right now, I'm too little.”

“Now dear, let him think. Chances are he'll find something he likes more than chasing beasts if you let him consider it a bit. You know how kids are.” Grandmother waved mother back into her chair.

She wasn't totally wrong either. I was thinking about it now, about the things I would want before going on that kind of an adventure. It would take years and years of work. I was decent with a sword, but really didn't like the firearms available here. That alone would be a beast of a challenge, one I wouldn't be able to tackle without my previous world's hobbies.

In my last life I'd rather liked guns, I'd even made a couple. That was perfectly legal, so long as you stayed within strict strictures. Working out a few revolvers and semi-autos had taught me a lot about their inner workings, and seeing old military pieces taught me a ton too. Sadly I couldn't afford any of the really cool ones.

I was pretty sure I could go gunsmithing again, and with some of this world's materials and ability to skip the worst production processes we might be able to get things done much faster. Some of the tools used were clearly made with magical tools I'd never learned to work with, something I needed to change. Could I even do that? I mean, I wasn't a wizard but rather a physical magic user, questions I needed to figure out.

That didn't even touch vehicles. I wanted some cool rides, and those would be a chore to make too. A car or something was probably just not practical, but maybe with magic worked into it... No, I needed to know more, needed to learn more, needed to practice.

“Hmm, think I need more schooling,” I finally said, even the beginnings of my list looked difficult.

“Well that at least is a good path,” grandmother joked.

I was also still stuck on the known unknowns. Things I knew I needed to know or do. Real problems came from the unknown unknowns, the things I didn't know that I needed to know. Unforeseen problems that older people had run into already and had to solve or suffer and that I didn't know existed. Sadly getting rid of those was a real problem, because you'd never know if you'd succeeded or not.