Rimuru’s Elegant Escape Play – 11
The night of the third day.
I had just enjoyed a long overdue and most satisfying meal, and was now soaking in a luxurious bath.
Marsha has used the magic cards I had given her and combined them to create a simple bathtub. She had also prepared the water and adjusted the heat.
“This really is so useful. The right combination and your imagination are all you need to perform complicated magic.”
“Heeey, where did you get those magic caaards?”
Aina asked as Marsha sighed in awe.
It wasn’t surprising that she would wonder about this.
It was such a convenient magical tool and you would not be able to find them anywhere, no matter how hard you looked. It had the kind of overpowered features that didn’t even exist in ancient Artifacts.
“About that. It was something that Master William received from an old friend. He let me use it as an experiment to test its abilities. He said it would be perfect for helping Satoru.”
“Hmm. I seeee… But, you learned to use them in just one day. Are they reeeeally so easy to use in spite of being so highly effective?”
“Exactly! There is no way that such complicated magic could be controlled by such cards! If I had to guess, there must be a degree of the procedure built-in already, and the Anagram works to activate the magic? But then again, that would be complicated as well…”
Not only Aina, but the other students were also very interested now.
And as was expected for elite students, they had a vague idea of how the cards worked.
It was both correct and yet, incorrect.
The part of achieving different effects through the rearranging of meaning was correct, but merely having the procedure built-in was not enough to be able to activate magic.
Instead of doing that, the words, which were the power itself, were integrated, ensuring that the procedures would not interfere with each other.
To put it simply, the words would rearrange themselves according to the user’s imagination, automatically creating the magic.
That was why it was necessary to select the card with the right meaning.
To be blunt, it was not possible with the current magic technology.
From my perspective, Marsha was a complete amateur, and so seeing how much use she could get out of it helped me understand the level within my troops that I could place it in.
Of course, it was all a state secret.
Well, I was keeping it hidden from everyone, so it was just my secret.
If word of this item got out, people would say, ‘We want it for our army!’ I could see it coming from a mile away.
I didn’t want people to have such high hopes when it wasn’t even finished. Besides, it would be troublesome if my carelessness allowed it to be discovered.
Also, if the decision was all left to me, then it would look like I am favoring some, so I would need a good reason for it.
I thought that I would just randomly pass it on to someone to experiment, but Marsha was not my subordinate and was the perfect specimen.
And in regards to keeping information secret, this island was the optimal test site.
The only thing left was to prevent the students from talking, but I could think of that later.
I wasn’t that serious about hiding it, and at worst, I would just need to hurry up and finish it. Then there would be no need to keep it a secret.
Currently, it was a magic item with no plans to be revealed to the world. But it was interesting seeing the reactions of the students.
Perhaps I should just distribute them around the academy and have it established as a new form of magic.
If I did that, the statuses of magic users would skyrocket, and so it will be necessary to have certain restrictions.
I thought of all of this as I soaked in the bath and listened to them talk.
“Buuuut, did you really receive it today and also understand how it wooorks?”
Marsha chuckled at Aina’s question.
.
And said,
“To be honest, there was a memo inside of the instruction manual. There were some examples for adjusting heat of hardening earth and gathering water. They were very detailed explanations.”
Marsha said as she scratched her cheek.
“I was quite surprised because it was the magic we needed in our situation.”
She said and then laughed.
“Whaat! So then Master William just told you about it quietly then!”
“That’s true. It would probably take days of research to discover the combinations!”
“Still, to think that he was helping you from the shadows like that. Master William is quite dashing, isn’t he?”
“Huh? But he’s so old…”
The students said.
I felt like their conversation was going a little off course.
And surely William wasn’t that old?
It was me who had prepared the memo. Of course, I had William write it, so it would like it was he who had secretly helped the students.
And of course, I was glad that they took the bait just as I had planned, but I wished that they were a little more grateful to William.
As for the memo, it goes without saying that I had it written because I wanted to take a bath.
It seemed unnatural for such instructions to be in the manual, so I had to think a little.
It all had to be natural. And so the memo was a good way of allowing Marsha to use the magic with ease.
And my efforts were well worth it, because I was able to take a bath after three days.
I did not want to bathe with the girls originally, but regardless of who I bathed with, I could not have my body seen, and so being able to cover myself with a towel was at least an advantage here.
“Still, if we had magic like this from the beginning, it makes our desperate attempt to get water on the first day look rather stupid.”
Marsha said with a laugh.
Whether it was making it rain and gathering it or creating ice and then melting it, preparing water with magic alone was quite difficult.
Of course, it was an inconvenience that nobles, who had magic tools for that very purpose, were unaware of.
Well, we were now able to collect water without such troubles. And so we were able to bathe like this.
As this was training, there were some girls who had brought soap for everyday use.
I borrowed some to wash my hair and felt very refreshed.
That was really a matter of feeling.
My body was now made like any other human, which meant sweat. Of course, if I could no longer stand it, I could just turn those features off.
But right now, I wanted to enjoy this life, and so I left them all on.
And because of it, I felt very good now.
Living like this once in a while was not bad at all.
And so, with Marsha and the others’ voices in the background, I continued to enjoy this long-overdue bath.
◇◇◇
I was able to get out of the bathtub without my identity being exposed.
But then again, I had declared to all that I was male, but it seemed like no one believed me.