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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: Mod7
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“Do I care?”
Machina trembled, hearing Marguerite’s dismissive reply.
Her face contorted, shifting rapidly through a range of emotions, as if something within her had snapped. Then, just as suddenly, her expression became blank, unreadable.
“I suppose not.”
She walked over to the coffee pot, as if on autopilot, filled it with water, and added coffee grounds. She poured the hot water directly onto the grounds, then, without waiting for them to dissolve properly, gulped down the bitter concoction and looked at the group.
“Welcome, again. Want some coffee?”
“…No.”
“Really? It’s good.”
Johan, having witnessed her brewing method, declined the offer and sat down on the sofa.
Machina sat across from him, crossing her legs.
“So, human. What brings you here?”
“Can you turn this on?”
“Hm? Why are you asking me? It’s your device.”
“—Still being uncooperative, I see. Johan, should we just break her legs and get this over with?”
Evangeline said this, flexing her fingers menacingly. Machina, seeing this, quickly backed away.
“No! If my legs are broken, I can’t continue my research! Please refrain!”
“Then stop playing coy and tell us what you know. You won’t get a second chance.”
“Well… why are you asking me how to charge it? It’s yours, isn’t it?”
Machina, having succumbed to the threat, asked Johan, scratching her cheek. Johan looked at the smartphone, then, after a moment of hesitation, realized he wouldn’t get any cooperation unless he explained.
He needed to tell her why he couldn’t charge it himself if he wanted to find a solution, a solution that didn’t involve constantly visiting the Empire.
“I don’t have it.”
“Hm?”
“I don’t have the charger.”
“Huh? Then how did you… create this thing?”
“That’s…”
Johan glanced at Evangeline. Though she seemed to be aware of his otherworldly origins, he hadn’t explicitly told her.
In fact, he had been trying to hide the fact that his unique constitution stemmed from being an otherworlder.
He hesitated, then Evangeline smiled and nodded, giving him permission.
“—This is… a common item in our world. Chargers are everywhere, so we don’t usually carry them around.”
“’Our world,’ huh? Right. I see. I’ll tell you how I charged it.”
Machina took the smartphone and inserted her finger into the charging port, then quickly withdrew it.
The phone powered on.
“…How?”
“Simple. I converted magic power into electricity.”
“How did you do that…?”
“How? It’s hard to explain. It’s… magic.”
Machina then, as if suddenly remembering, introduced herself properly.
“I forgot to mention. I’m the Witch of Machines. A confidante of the Emperor… of this Empire, to be precise.”
The one who laid the foundation for the Emperor’s rule.
“I’m the Minister of Science and Technology.”
The first witch to hold such a high-ranking government position.
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The witches were stunned to hear that Machina was the Emperor’s confidante. They knew she was a minister, based on her business card, but they hadn’t realized she was so close to the Emperor.
The other witches couldn’t fathom how a witch could earn such trust from a human emperor.
“A confidante…?”
“Yes.”
“The Emperor’s confidante?”
“Confidante… I suppose? We don’t see each other as anything more than… tools.”
The witches, hearing her casually refer to the Emperor as a tool, realized she was telling the truth.
“How did you…?”
“How did I what?”
“…How did a witch… join forces with a human?”
“I told you. We’re nothing more than tools to each other.”
Despite holding such an important position, she was just an emotionless machine.
“Humans have begun using witches.”
Just as they had once reduced the monsters that threatened their lives to mere hunting targets.
Just as they had reduced the natural phenomena they once worshipped to mere scientific curiosities.
Humans had finally begun exploiting witches.
The Emperor was just the first. Soon, more humans would follow suit.
Evangeline shook her head, disagreeing.
“—I don’t think so. Witches and humans… can never truly connect.”
“You say that, yet you seem quite attached to a certain human.”
“…Johan is different. He’s not an ordinary human.”
“They all look the same to me. Eventually, humans will conquer even witches and magic. The long era of persecution will come to an end.”
Machina looked at the witches, wondering why they seemed so glum. Shouldn’t they be happy about this?
But the witches couldn’t agree.
Cooperate with humans? Humans conquering witches?
‘Never.’
Witches were cursed beings, and magic was a part of that curse.
A curse bestowed by God. The humans of this world could never bring happiness to a witch.
“We… we are cursed. Cursed with afflictions humans can never understand. To be hated unconditionally, to be invisible, to be feared, to be unable to communicate…”
“…You seem fine to me.”
“Yes. Because we weren’t saved by humans.”
Evangeline said this, pulling Johan closer.
“We were saved… by a savior…”
“M-Master? What are you…?”
“…Wow, are you guys… some kind of cult?”
As Machina looked at them, bewildered, Johan’s smartphone, which he was holding, suddenly powered on.
Johan, seeing this symbol of modern civilization, quickly unlocked it.
A picture of a half-naked woman filled the screen.
“—Ah.”
“…Johan?”
The witches, who had been looking at the phone with him, turned cold. Evangeline, who had been hugging him, clenched her fists.
Johan suddenly remembered that he had set his wallpaper to a picture of a gravure idol in a swimsuit he’d found online.
He hadn’t thought much of it, since it was his personal phone…
‘I’m so screwed.’
He slowly turned to look at Evangeline.
Her eyes were dark, filled with a chilling intensity.
“What… is this?”
A simple question.
But one that filled him with dread.
Johan, with tears in his eyes, deleted the picture.
Bidding farewell to the woman he would never see again…
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“So, it needs electricity—and you couldn’t charge it because there’s no electricity here?”
“Actually, even if there was electricity, it needs to be 220V, and I need a charger to regulate the current.”
“220V… how much is that?”
“…220 volts is 220 volts. What do you mean ‘how much’?”
“I mean, how much energy is that!? Is it like the power of one horse, or the energy of one liter of water falling from a height of one meter?”
Johan couldn’t answer her technical questions. How much was one volt?
It was a universally defined unit, not something one memorized.
Just as most people didn’t know that a second was defined by the number of oscillations of a cesium atom, they just knew it intuitively.
Just as most people didn’t know that a meter was defined by the distance light traveled in a fraction of a second, they just knew it as a unit of length.
Johan couldn’t explain these definitions. His knowledge of electricity was limited to Ohm’s law, something he’d learned in middle school.
“I don’t know.”
“Then I’ll just… make something.”
“…If you can just make it, why did you ask?”
“You were the one who said it needed to be 220V.”
Johan, realizing she was right, clapped his hands together and nodded.
Machina, looking at him with exasperation, stood up and went to her workshop in the back.
She gathered various materials, closed her eyes, and used her magic.
“Fabrication.”
Her mana flowed into the materials, and they began to move, shifting and combining like living machines.
Click, click— Like something out of a science fiction movie, the materials assembled themselves into a single device.
“There. Done.”
Machina, having created a charger in an instant, brought it to Johan. He plugged it into the smartphone and looked at her.
“What do I do now?”
“Infuse it with mana. It will convert it into electricity.”
“Wow, high-tech.”
Johan charged his phone with this magically created technological marvel, a paradoxical device, then opened the camera and took a picture of Evangeline.
Click— The shutter sound echoed, and a picture of Evangeline was saved to his phone.
“What was that sound!?”
Machina and the other witches, intrigued, approached him. Johan showed them the picture and thought,
‘The camera works… which means…’
He could finally film them.
His sex videos with Master.
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Thats what u are thinking? Bro?