My glorious form lands on the deck! With a roar I—

{Fuckin’ keep it down!}

“F-forgive me.”

I transform back into my human form.

My name is Aureos, the Dragon Knight, partner of my Princess, Eagle Samantha Burnheart. My back hurts.

{Can’t you just land normally like everyone else?}

It is early in the morning. Sir Grey, though his tone is of mere annoyance, his anger is obvious and understandable. I, myself, would have obliterated the ruckus myself.

“F-forgive me. I have not stretched my wings for so long…”

{Hahh, it’s okay. Whatever—you got time?}

“Why, I do. What is it, Sir Grey?”

{C’mon, head to the Operations Room.}

How curious. Sir Grey never explicitly calls upon me. Wait—shall I be punished for my early morning transgression? T-then, I shall face my fate! I am a dragon knight! I am—

***

“Ohhhh, Sir Oreo!”

“Madame Colada, it would be you?!”

I am shocked. My executioner is most terrifying.

Madame Colada springs to her feet with a reddened face. No doubt, it is red from anger.

“H-huh?! I-it would be y-you for m-me—w-what are you saying! Sit down!”

Obediently, I sit on a stool by the bar. The ambience light is swinging above my head.

“I understand that it is my fault. Please do to me as you wish.”

“D-do to you a-as I—no no no no no no noooo, you’re misunderstandiiing! Greeey! Heeeelp!”

Madame Colada is collapsed on her knees and planting her face in the ground, hitting it with her fist.

{I-I’m sorry, I really don’t want to make it stop—}

“Greeeey! You’re so meeaan!”

I could not understand what was happening, but somehow it was resolved.

“T-then, as we were saying…” Madame Colada continued. “Sir Grey and I’ve been talking about the next big thing for him, aaand we wanted your input on it!”

With such a big smile, she looks to me for my reply.

“I do not understand. I am but a mere Dragon Knight. The likes of naval engineering are far beyond my expertise.”

{Instead of that—what would you say, as a man?}

W-what?! Shocking words from Sir Grey! My heart—has it been seen through?!

I reorder myself. It seems that my body had shifted on its own from the sheer verbal shockwave perpetrated from Sir Grey’s intent.

“M-maybe not as a man, but—as a Dragon Knight, I highly enjoy large explosions.”

I say nervously, but when I look to Madame Colada, she is nodding agreeably with crossed arms. Am I saying the correct things? Then, I shall continue.

“However, not just large explosions, as there are such things as being uselessly grand. Oh! I had once seen an impressive explosion—blue in color, yet betrayingly small in size, as the scale of a heart. It was after five of us Knights joined our breaths onto one point?”

My view was of the ceiling as I said that. I realize this may be rude—eye contact is important for knights and nobles as another channel to display strength, after all—and so I look back to Madame Colada.

… Madame?! Your face is fear itself!

She starts with a low laughter.

“Ehehehe…”

But eventually,

“EHEHEHE—” {Ohohoho}

Sir Grey as well!?

{“MUWAHAHAHA—”}

I flee the Operations Room, my pride as a Dragon Knight be damned.

***

USS Dick here—or should it be Royal Merikan Ship Dick? RMS? No, that’s a Brit way of doing things… Merikan Royal Ship? MRS Dick? No, that doesn’t read right…

Anyway, Oreo went full superhuman and zoomed straight out the door. I kinda feel sorry, but in my defense, I didn’t even know I could laugh like that!

{Ah, we scared him off.}

“O-oh… we’re a danger duo, huh.”

{I wanna say no, but…}

“A-anyway!~ I think we’ve got our next project!”

{I’m finally gonna get nukes, huh.}

“What’s a ‘nook’? A-anyway, Sir Oreo clued me in, and I think I can make a magico-resonant explosive circuit!”

Hm? ‘Magico-resonant’? If it’s anything like a nuke, that sounds pretty nuke-like to me.

{Actually, I’m sorta surprised no one’s thought of doing it yet? Isn’t it sort of obvious that if you put a bunch of magic together that something’d happen?}

Marge wiggled a finger.

“It’s not that simple, Dear Grey!”

She pulled down a slideshow reel. Huh? I don’t remember anyone sneaking that in—

“Magic can interfere with each other, but it’s usually only addition or subtraction, y’see?”

{Uh-huh.}

“But magico-resonant effects are multiplicative, m’kay? You can’t just smoosh fire and ice together and expect something amazing to happen!”

{Uh-huh.}

“Lots of people have always wondered if such a thing was even possible, myself included, but no one’s ever actually made it work—so! Sir Oreo just sort of casually confirmed that it exists!”

{Uh—huh?}

“Yep. Happens all the time. That’s why you gotta keep your eye out, m’kay? People can live their lives doing things that are obvious to them, but groundbreaking for someone else~”

Huh, this girl’s actually secretly amazing. Ah, well, her rep considered, she’s amazing by default, but I didn’t expect her to have an eye for people. I wonder if she’s speaking from experience? I mean, she basically lived all her life as a genius, right? So wouldn’t she count as a person living her life doing things obvious to her, but groundbreaking to basically 99.9999% of people?

Huhh, if it’s like that, her self-awareness is kinda impressive…

“Anyway, I gotta go find that Sophia person! Can’t do this without her!”

{A’ight, watch your step—} “FU—” {… never mind.}

***

My husband, Anton, is busy training with the other recruits. Meanwhile, I have been contracted to work under a famous person.

“Mrs. Sophia~ Where are you~”

Her voice is here again, haunting me.

“Oh, there you are!” she says, waving hello through the door. I am still in my room, but only tying my shoes.

“Señorita Colada, it will be a short moment. Where will we be going today?”

“Mhmm! We’re going to my place!”

Oh no.

I take my time tying my laces. However, time moves nonetheless.

We move through the dark bowels of the ship, and we come upon the entrance to her laboratory.

As soon as I enter, I am besieged by many loose wires hanging precariously from the ceiling, and waiting to ensnare me from the floor. If I breathe the wrong way, a box will collapse, and the ensuing avalanche will possibly set off an experimental device and kill us all. Look, my apron is already snagged on a pin. Wait, isn’t this a hand grenade? What is this ordinary thing doing here!?

Mama, why was I born a farmhand, only to become an explosives research assistant? The pay is glamorous, but is it worth it?

“A’iiight, welcome to the project onboarding~”

Hm? Project onboarding? ¿Qué es?

“Señorita Colada, esto—ahh—onboarding, what is it?”

She is laughing. I expect a pay raise after this.

“We’ll be building the most powerful explosive known to man and demonkind!”

“Ahhh, I see, I see—what do you mean?!”

And so I am told that we will build an amazing device that will obliterate thousands of demons at once.

As crazy as it sounds, as fantastical it may be, if it may help avenge our daughter, then I will lend my aid.

Also, I have received a pay raise. Señorita Colada is not entirely unreasonable.

***

I have been showing Señorita Colada how I create my usual spellcores. I am not entirely sure why, but she is highly interested in them. I cannot help but suspect that she will base her fantastical explosive on my spellcores, but I do not see how such puny things, which failed to defend myself and Anton from that demon in the desert, would ultimately destroy thousands of them at once.

I mean, all I am doing is inscribing many layers of concentric magic circles around each other. And they are not even fancy magic circles—they really are only plain circles.

“W-what an elegant design!”

¿Ha?

“Señorita, I’m sorry, but why is it amazing?”

She crosses her arms and has a smug expression.

“You don’t realize it, but the complexity of your spellcore is off the charts!”

Again, ¿ha?

“Still confused, huh? Look at your circles closely. Do they look perfect to you?”

“Forgive me, señorita, but I know my circles are very much imperfect—”

“Did you know, Sophia? Magic circles for military explosion magics are always perfect. In fact, we use geometry magics just to get them as perfect as we possibly can, because everyone knows: the more perfect the circle, the more concentrated you can get the explosion to be.”

Mhmm, sí, that makes sense. That good wyvern rider who saved us surely displayed a weapon that used concentrated explosion magic.

“But you see, we always thought that an ultra-super-mega-concentrated explosion was needed to achieve magico-resonance, so we tried things like stacking magic circles in cylinders, and then into spheres! And then multi-shell spheres! Just so we could concentrate the explosive magic even more! And guess what? None of it worked!”

She throws her arms into the air in a victory pose—what victory? There is a tear in the señorita’s eye. She must have been working on it for a very long time.

“Hey hey, Sophia, remember when we first met?”

“Señorita, you dragged me to the edge of the ship and had me throw spellcores and explode them in the water. Anton also fell overboard. I am not sure I can forget that.”

Señorita laughed.

“That’s right! And you know what? Your spellcores were 5% more powerful than they’re supposed to be, y’know?”

What a laughable amount—just as I think that, Señorita continues.

“No no, more like—they’re 5% more powerful than what’s theoretically possible for the amount of mana you put in? Yep, that’s about right.”

¿Ha? Me? Breaking the laws of reality?

“I am not sure I understand…”

She points at me with a happy smile. “It’s because your circles are irregular! In other words—chaotic!”

She turns around and jumps like a child, shouting “Chaos! Chaos! What we needed was chaos all along!” as she somehow evaded all of the loose wires and dashed out of the laboratory’s door. Sí, I can still hear Chaos! Chaos! echoing from the hallway.

… Ahh pera pera—was I just left here? In the laboratory filled with tripwires and explosives? Mama, if you see me soon, it was from me trying my best.