A few rapid knocking on the door in the middle of the night sent B walking up, before she knew what was happening, her hand was already reaching for the dagger underneath their hay bed.

Her caretaker, the one who decided to pick Mimic up from the massive graveyard, slowly woke up from his sleep, put on a cape, then answered the door. Outside, thick fog surrounded the area, despite all the lanterns being lit up nothing really seems to help alleviate the situation, the bandits already in full armor weapons in hand,

“The child inside, Mimic. Who was he?”

“Right now? My son. What about him?”

“Some of his ‘admirers’ came to us with some gifts for him, his eyes only.”

“So you woke the whole place up just because some random folks showed up? Either way, have them wait, it’s the middle of the night for fuck’s sake.”

“It’s the royal army, at least hundreds of them, I don’t know what to do.”

“Well just have them drop the gift and leave or wait till morning then”

Man it feels nice to wake up and not feeling like death

He stretched out his body as usual, enjoying the stamina and other perks of an extremely young body, as he stepped out of the room to get some water from the well, he was greeted with what could only be described as ‘a shit ton’ of wooden crates.

All neatly stacked beside the house, crackling with electricity, the mark of the royal family printed on each side, along with some arrows painted upwards, on every crate there is a hand painted black, around it written in English where the words ‘Touch to deactivate’. A few chunks rodents clearly couldn’t read, laying dead around the perimeter of the boxes, completely blown away.

While he made the way to the well the others looked at him as if he was just brought in yesterday, whispering and pointing towards him as he walked past, not entirely a great feeling, but nothing that couldn’t be managed.

“Mimic!” Primus woke up next, making his way outside only to be greeted by the boxes stacked only slightly lower than the house “Holly shit.”

“Yes, they are here. Do me a favor and touch help me deactivate these will you?”

“Deactivate? Deactivate what?” He looked around, tossing a twig towards the crates, and watched as electricity burned the whole thing down as soon as the twig touched both the crate and the ground “Oh hell no, she trapped all of this?”

“Probably just the lower ones, no reason for her to use more than necessary” Mimic walked into the house, grabbed a tall chair and started working on the higher rows.

“Wouldn’t she just send the materials straight to the testing ground?” Primus asked as he laid his hand on the last one of the first row “What is in this anyways?”

“I don’t know, computer? Smartphone, the new gaming console, could be anything” Jamming his dagger into the lid of the top crate, pushing down on it hard popping the top off. What he discovered was a pile of shaved woods, pushing away those and digging deeper, finally feeling a cold glossy touch.

“Well?”

Pulling the whole content out, glass bottle, wax sealed off the top “Wine I guess?” Handing it over the Primus and pulling another similar one like before

“Maybe there is a note somewhere?” Primus asked, looking at the bottle, slightly confused “I mean we do need alcohol for the drug, but why would she put it in these?”

Moving along, they opened some more crates, containing various different items, mostly preserved food, salt, and sugar.

“What are you guys doing?” B came around after checking in on the progress of the engines “The materials are already back there, these are just food.” She watched as Primus slowly passed a chunk of ham back towards Mimic, pretending the box opening had nothing to do with him “There are labels on the side, did you not read?” She slapped the side of the crates.

“Yeah, um we know, just curious.” Mimic said, putting the meat back into the box “So yeah, today we do setup and some test run, that’s it?”

“We’ll set up some of the stuff, go explain yourself to the others. Right now their reaction seems to be fairly tamed, no roaring for your head to be removed so that’s a good sign at least.”

He wandered directly towards the small podium where every morning the tasks were assigned, crowds spreaded as he walked past, murmuring different hypotheses about him. After getting permission from his adopted father, he was allowed a brief moment to speak to the whole village.

Clearing his throat and looking at a few dozens of different people, his heart went into overdrive “I speak fast, listen.” he glittered, straightening up his back and pushing his chest outwards, projecting himself as a competent speaker “I was dead and asleep, thank you for keeping me. Army I know, they friend of me, no worry. My speak bad now, soon my speak better, I tell you again. Box of food for you, questions?”

He stood there for a while, preparing to answer anything, but seeing no hands pop up nor hear any talking, thinking he has done his job he hopped off the podium then disappeared into the bushes.

Over at testing ground it was an unboxing fest for Primus and B, jars of chemicals were lifted from the box and organised according to the synthesis order.

“So what we are going to do is dump everything in there, that’s it.” Primus said, pointing at the lineup of different bottles “Well, with care.” He added.

“So that’s it? Just dump everything in there?”

“Yes that’s it, you and Primus can start it up already, I’ll use the restroom and be back soon.”

“I have to say, this is getting more and more sketchy by the minute. Esther got all these and not just put it all together herself?” Primus said as he checked the hardwares for leaks of air “Bring me the lube will you?”

“I mean not into men, but sure why not. This thing right?”Mimic aske, Holding up a small jar of milky white substance lid already half open “Is this just fat?”

“Yeah that, don’t know, smells kind of funny though.” he said as he applied a thick layer of the substance on the glassware, connecting it to a condenser.

“This should be simple, right?” Mimic watched as he examined every single connection point, finally drawing out an outline around the area.

Pointing towards three jugs of clear liquid and a torch nearby, a face sized round flask suspended in a pot of water, “Shouldn’t be hard, I’ll check the connection over there one last time, just dump the vinegar and alcohol into the thing inside the water bath, light the fire below and connect the condenser to the small one beside it.”

“That’s it?”

“Oh toss in the smallest one as well, there should be one near... yeah that. That’s sulfuric acid, if something goes wrong there is a bucket of water close to you, you know what to do.” Finishing up final touches on the next section, one flask on each side, connected by two condensers, inside one of the flask a piece of metal spring hung “So yeah, all that’s left is wait for someone to come charge this whole thing up, and we are good to go.”

“You are putting quite a lot of faith into something that is manufactured by hand and held together by fat.”

“Well, you know what they say. If we made this work, that’s nice, if something went wrong, it wouldn’t be my problem to worry.”

The process of making acetate was essentially watching paint dry, however neither of them felt like leaving the system unchecked and lead to a possible failure or worst a forest fire. Sitting beside the boiling water, they took turns reading from the data set while the other watches over the progress.

B was supposed to come back a long time ago yet neither of them questioned, they didn’t really care enough to do anything at the moment.

A few hours later the acetate was finished cooking, following the instructions, Primus dumped in a bottle of clear liquid, as well as a large sum of black, viscous tar. Mimic on the other hand loaded the second system with acetic acid, sealed everything off with fat, then went off to get the horse, careful not touching it all the way so that it would still have mana.

Leashing it besides what could be best described as a ticking gas canister, he drew the runes around the horse to extract the mana, then a few more strokes just to connect it to the glassware, which is just resting on the ground, held up by a few sticks and reinforced with some fat to prevent the gas from leaking out.

“So um…” Realizing the lack of fail safes, such a device was only designed to be turned on and run till it has depleted any of its resource, Mimic, being the one with lesser magic knowledge turned his head towards Primus “This thing would at least deactivate if the horse dies, right?”

“Yeah, that’s the theory.” Knowing fully what they are about to do, Primus hovered his hand over the horse, ready to shut the whole thing down in case of a misfire. This method of producing ethenone was simple, heat up and evaporate the acetic acid that Esther provided, let the vapor pass through a red hot iron spring, then the whole thing is done, there is just one small catch.

Ethenone, or ketene as it is commonly known, can kill someone with 5ppm, assuming it leaks out; To put it into perspective, hydrogen cyanide, the thing that was used for death penalty, needs around 50ppm to do sevear harm to anyone. As for the reason for such suicidal act is simply because, it can produce antibiotics with the least amount of hassle, and neither B nor Esther had gotten lucky enough to capture any useful fungus that could be used for such drugs.

With the horse in place and the system checked, Mimic connected the whole magical circuit, then bolted towards a tree far away, where Primus is already making his way up.

A few reactions are taking place far down there besides the horse, one of course is the production of a deadly gas, the other being the jar of liquid that Primus was messing with, which combined tar, acetate, and hydrochloric acid, and should produce aniline, the last being the production of acetic anhydride, which was made by bubbling ketene into another bottle of acetic acid. With the mana source secured, the system slowly lit up, first the rune carved under the bottles, then the spring, lastly the condenser.

With two hands gripping the beach above, Mimic leaned forward from the tree, keeping his eyes peeled for accidents.

As they took turns monitoring the horse, small bursts of sound could be heard echoing the mountain, sounding like firecrackers, yet a bit more contained as if it was stuffed into an enclosed tube of some sort. Above them birds hovered in a circular pattern, looking down on the village like vultures looking for prey, quite an odd sight as those didn’t seem to appear till a few days prior to the bombing.

Fast forward a few more hours, with the horse still standing and the two bored out of their minds, Mimic was first to drop down from the tree and checked on the system, seeing one side of the system almost empty, a joyful feeling rushed into his heart.

“Finally, some good fucking news.” He chuckled as he disabled the rune that is responsible for heating the metal spring by shorting that specific part of the circuit, leaving only the condenser and the heater underneath working, such was done to fish out some ketene residue, just in case there were some present.

Seeing Mimic still alive and kicking, Primus went ahead and got started on the next section, yet was stopped by the setting sun as well as the still hot product that Mimic was holding, stashing their results into the tent then destroying the runes on the ground they headed back towards the village.

B was still nowhere to be found, when asked, Aeiger mentioned her asking for some more components to be made, as well as handing over a few designs that he received from her then headed off with the finished gun barrel

“Fucking hell” Mimic whispered, a quick flip through the stack of paper told them everything they needed to know, mortars, gun components, as well as some drawings for a two stage detonation system and some rocket engines. Within a year, she is already planning on making a hydrogen bomb as well as a fully functional rocket.

Setting aside the absurd amount of mana that would be needed to power either one of those, they are more concerned about the effects that could follow.

“Those wouldn’t work right?” Taking over half the stack of papers, Primus was greeted first by a few artillery designs, then some jet engines, lastly, missiles. Having experienced first hand just how much mana was needed to power that crappy system moments back only raised more questions, B would have never passed these off to anyone given the state of things.

The action of introducing guns to the people here alone was borderline insanity as it essentially introduced a bow that could fire none stop, using slightly more mana, yet gaining accuracy, effective range, cutting back on the labor of pulling back strings, making so that anyone with a functioning brain can use such weapon, and it can be used while lying down, providing a lower profile to the user, preventing them from being spotted as easily, all that with the extremely low price tag.

“No, humans can’t use these.” Having read ahead in the dataset, Mimic knows that the plant is littered with different species, most with different rates of mana regeneration and their own soft mana cap.

Humans, while boasting a lower mana regeneration rate than average, have a higher soft cap due to the also slow rate of mana dissipating from their body, which in terms make them better for things that require huge bursts of mana in a short period of time and less suited for tasks that require constant mana output for long periods of time.

As opposed to one extreme, which is the pixie, having extremely high mana regeneration as well as essentially no mana reserve to speak of, those are well suited for powering engines as well as maintaining certain defence infrastructures. Something that as of this moment is living in god knows where.

Thanking the blacksmith and handing back the blueprints, Mimic pulled Primus aside. “Just keep these under the covers for now shall we?” He could feel his heart rate slowly climbing, goosebumps ripple over his skin.

What B mentioned was to have him handle the politics side of this place, yet here they are, a few weeks later, himself stuck on a side of the mountain with the whole village questioning his background while she introduces them to firearms. Probably just doing it out of her nature, given the past record of her declaring herself as a management algorithm, but still an overstep non the less.

When asked why by Primus, since he has not a single clue as to how he stands on the matter, he quickly wrote it off as just B doing her job, declaring his faith in B’s decision.

Later that night, lound chearing was heard from the front gate. B came back with the hunting groups, behind them a huge boar was carried in, pulled by all half a dozen horses, despite laying on it’s side, still towering over the height of most people living in the village, one could only imagine what it would looked like had it stood up straight.

The side of such a beast is littered with small holes, it’s front leg nowhere to be found, and a few golf ball sized holes on it’s chest tells the story of its last minutes on this planet, as well as one epic tale for the hunter.

Sitting on top of the prize, B waved to the crowd as they slowly made their way into the village center, a radiant smile on her face, her eyes looking around for someone.

Doesn't take a genius to figure out, Mimic walked up close towards the path which they were traveling down, making himself easily identifiable for B. As he predicted upon seeing him, B hopped off the boar, grabbed his hand and started marking their way towards the center, while walking, she gave him the brief explanation as to what happened.

“No, you can’t just say I’m some royal family that no one has heard of to justify why I know how to use a gun, as well as the resource dump earlier this morning.” He whispered

“That is technically the truth, you did at one point rule over a large number of people.” Giggling and dragging mimic into the parade as if he played a crucial part in the hunting of the beast. “Oh, Deus is your family name, and Machina would be your name don’t worry, despite that they speak sounds like latin, as you know by now the words carry different meanings. Just say thanks and expose nothing will you? This took me long enough to set up, don’t mess it up” She said as she pushes him towards the front of the parade, disappearing inside the crowd herself.

“Deus Ex Machina? The fuck? I can’t even solve the problems in my past life.” Looking around, all he saw was everyone looking in awe, as they drew close to the bonfire, the man who seemed to be in charge of the hunt ordered the team to stop.

Turning towards Mimic, he single handedly lifted him onto the cart, having him stand right next to the huge tusk.

“Today!” Announcing in a thundering voice, he quickly grabbed the attention of everyone standing around “With the brave souls of our people, and the gift from Machina, we are able to hunt ��d�w���. Say something boy!” Nudging on his leg, he passed the stage to Mimic.

Well shit, the fuck am I going to say?

“Um… yes, me from Deus, um…” What was the word for family again?

“Ah, I from Deus family. My family dead from war, thank you for your care, I do what I can to help you.” Stopping for a brief moment, pondering if he should crack open the ‘You are like family to me’ cliche, it is really effective, but then again…. Yeah fuck it. “You like me two family, thank you for pick me up.” He said, squeezing out a few crocodile’s tear just for effect, then walked down from the cart.

“Shit dude, someone give this guy the oscar.” Giving him a few solid pats on the back, Primus already heard the briefing from B “So, who are you? Prince? King?”

“No fucking clue.” Laughing as they slowly made their way out, his mind still focused on the schematics that B gave Aeiger, yet this is not the time to confront her, not yet.