Thousand Tongue Mage

Chapter 80 - Proto-Pioneer



There were dozens of them. Maybe a hundred. Zora could smell their thin lacquer and drying chitin, barely scrubbed clean of the wilds they were torn from, and there were so many tiny shapes: angular, insectoid, wire limbs tucked into clamps, wings molded into fan rigs—a collection of monstrosities tamed into charms and tools.

And the little artificer herself, perched on her stool with her knees tucked up and her hair still mussed with dirt, began speaking in a quiet voice bright as morning dew.

"I… like capturing bugs," Eria whispered proudly, "and then taking them apart and putting them back together into things like this! They're called Swarmsteel! Look!"

She reached for something with both hands. The faint clink of bone tools rattled in her workbench, and then there was a soft scrape of a latch opening. Moments later, she pulled out a flat device: a clicking, twitching brooch made of dragonfly legs and antennae.

"This one's a vibration filter," she explained. "It… uhm, it lets you hear through walls if you clip it straight onto your collarbone! Just here… see?"

Zora didn't move. Neither did Enki. They listened to her voice instead; the awkward shuffle of her feet; the thrill in her breaths.

"You connect this glyph to this one," she continued, "and then… and then it makes this weird echo-chamber effect when you hum into it. Sort of like how some cave beetles locate their nests."

Surely, she had no idea if they understood anything she was saying, but she kept talking anyway.

That was how Zora knew it mattered to her.

He'd taught enough children to know what passion sounded like. Their voices would rise without realisation, words would tumble faster than their thoughts, and their bodies would sway unconsciously while explaining something utterly confusing to someone who probably didn't care. His students back at Amadeus Academy used to do the same. One of his boys once spent a week trying to translate a forgotten merchant script from pre-Swarm Elve tongue just to prove a joke written in a bathroom stall to another boy.

Eria's expression of passion was no different.

He listened to her rummage again, opening another drawer, creaking another hinge, and she held something else aloft with a proud ta-da in her breath.

"And this one," she said, "is a stinger-gland tube! If you slot it into a shoulder joint, and you time the glyphs right, you can shoot acid five metres!"

Zora tilted his head. "Terrifying."

Eria giggled. "Only if it hits the eyes. The acid's mostly goo. It's just to blind bugs so you can run away."

"Practical," he mused. "Did your seniors teach you how to make all of this?"

She paused.

The sound of her hands slowed.

"Oh… no," she said, voice dimmer now. "They don't really… talk to me."

Zora waited. She didn't meet it with silence.

"I mean… the students here, they're all… Noble-Bloods, right? And Noble-Bloods don't really like Swarmsteel," she said, fidgeting with a hinge. "They like… wielding weapons made of bug parts. Having it. Wearing it. But they don't like making it."

Her hands tightened on the edge of the desk.

"Swarmsteel's dirty," she mumbled. "You have to rip bugs apart. Clean their guts. Strip their wings and carve into their carapaces while they're still fresh. You have to shape flesh and metal together and smell… all of it." She wiped her gloves on her thighs subconsciously. "The Six Swarmsteel Fronts are literally named after Swarmsteel, and the systems that give them their powers are Swarmsteel as well, but I… I think I might be the only one here who doesn't really like to fight. Not properly."

She trailed off, shrinking a little under the weight of her own words.

"Everyone else trains to kill bugs, but I like being the backline. Making support tools. Swarmsteel rigs. Trigger bioarcanic glyphs. Stuff that helps other people win. That's what I like. But…"

Her voice faltered as she looked between him and Enki, and then came the question, barely above a breath.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

"Are you… disgusted?"

Zora frowned.

He was about to respond when Enki suddenly reached out and picked up a gauntlet from the middle of the workbench. The two layers of shell-hardened plating rattled faintly in his hand, flexible but heavy with soft ridges along the inside seams.

"What is this?" he asked flatly.

Eria blinked.

"That's… a prototype. Firefly parts." She leaned over on her stool, pointing quickly to the inside and outside of the gauntlet. "It's two gauntlets layered over each other. Half of the glyphs are etched onto the inner layer, and the other half is on the outer layer. When you block an attack, the force makes the outer layer press into the inner layer, briefly completing the glyphs for a moment."

Then she tapped her fingers together, mimicking the contact.

"And since firefly carapaces have a biological tendency to spark lightning when faced with strong impacts, the glyphs being connected creates a big discharge!" she said, miming a small explosion with her hands. "Basically, whenever you block an attack with this gauntlet, it'll let out this really sharp shockwave, like—foomp!—and then it'll stun and damage whatever just hit you!"

Enki turned the gauntlet over once, then twice.

"Can I borrow it for the rest of the tournament?" he asked.

The question landed like a stone tossed into still water, and Eria blinked. A gulp seemed to catch in her throat—and slowly, her whole face lit up like the fireflies she'd carved that gauntlet from.

"You… really?" she whispered, eyes wide. "You want to?" Then she clutched her hands together, fidgeting with the corner of her sleeve. "Aren't you… Are you not—"

"When I used to fight as a soldier," he said, voice flat as cold iron, "Swarmsteel was sacred."

No flourish. No sympathy. Before the flush of shame in Eria's voice could turn into something brittle and small, Enki spoke, and Zora listened.

"Bug meat is not efficient for getting stronger," Enki continued. "When you kill an F-Rank Giant-Class bug, you only get around ten points' worth of meat, which must be shared with the other soldiers in your battalion, so realistically, you only get one points' worth of meat per bug slain. However, the same bug can be carved up, disassembled, and butchered to make ten F-Rank Giant-Class helmets with more toughness than that one point can get you—and there are more inedible parts in a bug than there are edible parts."

As Enki slid the firefly gauntlet over his forearm, the plates gave a soft clack—one layer shifting over the other with a snug, mechanical fit. He turned his wrist once, flexed twice, then said without looking up:

"Without the weapons and equipment Swarmsteel Makers create, the Attini Empire falls," he said plainly. "Why would a Swarmsteel Maker be someone who is shunned?"

Zora heard it then: the faint crack in Eria's breath. A hitch behind her teeth. Her gloves creaked as her hands curled in on themselves. She was shaking, just slightly, but the silence that followed wasn't hollow.

She started sniffling, but Zora wasn't sure if Enki even noticed it as he continued playing with his new gauntlet.

Sighing through his nose, Zora raised a hand and brushed the top of Eria's tangled hair with his palm.

"Now, now," he murmured. "No tears, young lady. It doesn't suit a Swarmsteel Maker, and certainly not a student of the Royal Ayapacha Military Academy." Then he lowered his voice and added, "And don't be waking Kita now. She has an early battle tomorrow morning for the second preliminary rounds."

A watery 'okay' immediately came from her lips, barely audible. She wiped her nose on her sleeve, and the cloth was stiff with tool grease, but she didn't seem to care.

As Zora's hand lingered a moment longer atop her head, and as Enki began turning away with his firefly gauntlet, Eria's voice piped up again.

"Wait. Um.. I actually… have a few requests," she blurted, the words tumbling over each other as she spun to her workbench with renewed energy. The sound of her rummaging filled the momentary silence—drawers shuffling open, tools clinking, parchment sliding free—and then she pulled out a few thin sheets of notes, holding them out for Enki to read and Zora to not read. "I have a checklist for all… my prototype Swarmsteel. They're things I've always wanted to test, but…"

A pause. A breath.

"But no one knows about my hobby," she said. "Not even Kita. And if I can't see my Swarmsteel used in actual battle, I don't know if they actually work. I just… I wanna know if they work. That's all." And her voice was small but clear as she mustered the courage to look them both in the eye. "I'll lend you everything I've ever made. In return… if it's possible… could you help me test if their functions actually work in battle?"

Zora didn't hesitate. "Fair bargain." He offered his hand. "Shake on it?"

Eria grasped it without thinking, both hands wrapping around his in a firm, glowing grip. Her joy crackled in the air like static—so bright it seemed like it nearly tugged a small smile from Enki too, though the boy only turned away again in silence, nodding absentmindedly in response.

"Now," Zora murmured, lowering his voice as he pulled his hand back. "Go to sleep. A young lady mustn't be awake at this hour of the night."

"Right!" Eria whispered, beaming. "Right. Sorry. Sleep. Immediately."

With that, Zora turned as well, walking in step with Enki across the room as the air settled behind them. Eria's joy lingered in the stillness like perfume, and for the briefest of moments, he thought to himself that was the first time she'd sounded truly happy since they met.

… Even still.

A Regional Lord's daughter with a hobby of making Swarmsteel?

That was strange, whether Enki thought it was or not.

Very strange.

And now that he was thinking about it… he didn't actually know which branch of the Salaqa Household Eria claimed she came from.

Maybe I should look into it a little.


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