thomasdarkrose
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Fabricator V2 - Chapter 2
🕑 Added 2023-06-22 00:34:57 +0000 UTCJunichiro looked at his newly enchanted shiv and pondered what to do with it now. He used to just tuck it in the back of his pants since it's edge was shit. The only somewhat worrisome part of it had been the pointy tip. Now though? The edge was razor sharp, even if one good slice with it would likely dull the edge. That wouldn't be an issue once he could charge the runes he'd engraved on it that would preserve the edge. Just preserve it.
Sure, he knew tons of runes to make the edge even sharper, like monomolecular sharper. He just didn't have anything even remotely close to the necessary resources to pull it off. Anyway, the edge was sharp enough to slice his ass now if he carried it in the usual fashion. Time to improvise.
After setting the shiv down, or did it count as a knife now? After setting whatever it was down, he climbed into the front seat of the rusted out junker he'd slept in. He grabbed some wires hanging from under the steering wheel column and started ripping them out. He didn't own a belt but some wires weaved together and tied off should work.
While ripping the wires out, he started working on his plans for the day. Luckily, he didn't live in Kuoh at the moment so he should be pretty safe from the crazy shit that always seemed to happen there. He could scrounge the junkyard he was in for some basic materials. He knew he could do a lot with simple steel and there was plenty of that. Hell, he even knew a bunch of ways to jury rig a simple coal forge. An engine block could make a crap anvil for a bit and he could conjure a hammer. No, the only thing he couldn't easily rig up a crap version of was fuel, coal.
And... he honestly didn't have a fucking clue where to go to get coal. As he ripped out a length of wire he sighed, “Fuck. I'm going to have to make a gas forge.” He groaned, “I just hope I don't blow myself up with it.”
So... he needed to steal some propane. Or barring that, steal enough money to buy some propane. That seemed more likely. He set down the clumps of wire he'd recovered and dug into his pockets. Between begging and pick pocketing, he had some money to his name. After a quick count he knew he had exactly thirty-four hundred yen to his name. His stomach growled as he put the money away reminding him that he still needed to eat breakfast.
“Okay. Breakfast, theft, supplies, ward stones, rigging a forge.”
Why was he so obsessed with getting a forge up and running? Magical jewelry. His mana reserves were pretty pathetic at the moment, meaning he was of no interest to anyone. He wanted to make a ring to hide any growing his mana might do and an amulet enchanted with a notice-me-not type spell to help hide his presence. Also, it'd be amazing for pick pocketing and was something he dearly wanted. And he couldn't just scratch those semi-powerful enchantments out on some piece of scrap. He'd need decently processed mana enhanced steel for them, at minimum. Silver or gold would be better but there was no fucking way he was getting either of those anytime soon.
Junichiro nodded to himself as he finished his plans and his new braided wire belt. After slipping the belt on and tying it off, he slipped his shiv into the side of it and covered it with this overly large shirt. Now no one would notice he was walking around with a mildly enchanted deadly weapon. It wouldn't do to walk the streets alone unarmed. Sure, this areas crime rate wasn't horrendous, but it still had crime and he needed to protect himself.
He dusted himself off and climbed out of the broken window of the car. All the doors were rusted shut so it was the only way in and out. Once clear, he looked at the, surprisingly unbroken side view mirror. He wanted to make sure he didn't look like complete shit.
Staring back at him from the mirror was an absolutely normal looking Japanese face still rounded due to baby fat. His eyes were dark, his hair was dark, and his face was pretty plain. Luckily it was also pretty clean still. Sneaking quick sponge-style baths in public restrooms was annoying but necessary. He fixed his hair the best he could before declaring himself 'clean enough.'
The junkyard he'd taken residence within was a good quarter mile outside of the city, then it was several more miles to get to the city center where it was busiest. The walk took about an hour for him as he calmly walked with purpose. He'd found that if he acted like he knew where he was going and what he was doing that people would leave him alone. Though he did have to be extra vigilant during the school week. If an officer saw him they'd try and grab him and haul him off. That was not something he wanted to deal with. Thankfully, it was Saturday.
Once he made it to the city center, he made his way over to his favorite breakfast place. It was just a small stand that served a simple thing that had no official name. It was essentially a big ass hashbrown, some sausage patties, some scrambled eggs, and some peppers all wrapped in a crepe like pancake and deep fried. It was exceptionally Western and not something more traditional people would eat, but younger folks like himself loved it. Junichiro loved it because of the sheer amount of calories it contained for a reasonable price.
As he got close to the cart the vendor smiled brightly, “Ah! Junichiro, good morning. The usual?”
Junichiro nodded with a bright and happy smile anyone would expect a child to display, “That's right!”
As the vendor got to work he chatted with him, “How's your mother doing today?”
“Same as usual. She sent me out to get breakfast and you know how we love your food as something different from a more traditional morning meal.”
The man nodded along as he worked, not really paying too much attention to the conversation with his focus on the food. As much as he would love to, Junichiro couldn't come to this particular stand every morning for breakfast. That would likely raise some red flags as no respectable mother would let her child eat such unhealthy food so regularly.
It wasn't long before there were two steaming lumps of food stuffed into boxes and placed into a bag. Without even needing to be asked, Junichiro placed two thousand yen on the cart, “Thanks mister!”
Junichiro took his food and scampered off like an excited child. As soon as he took the first corner out of sight, he stopped that kind of behavior and started walking normally. He bug one of the steaming hot piles of food wrapped in a crepe and took a large bite out of it. He didn't regret the searing heat as he huffed in and out to try and cool the food off in his mouth. It was just so damned good! Plus, he was starving.
Breakfast was usually the only meal he really ate a large amount at. It was crucial so he could have the energy to get through his day. If he didn't eat enough, he could run out of energy at the wrong times. Without fuel how could he possibly run away from irate business men that he'd gotten caught pick pocketing? He was good at it, for sure, but he wasn't a smooth as many of the older kids on the streets. But they had more practice, so it wasn't a fair comparison. Being able to eat dinner was entirely dependent on just how much cash he managed to steal. Lunch was almost always out of the question, unless hit snagged a whale. He always made sure to save enough money for breakfast. If there was excess and nothing more important to get, then he would get dinner. If there was an unexpected windfall, he would get a small lunch.
Yesterday was one such day, thus the excess money this morning. Hopefully he could get more today, and quickly. But... Either way he was heading back to the junkyard around lunch time to at least scrounge around and see what parts he had for a gas forge and what he would have to find, make, or steal to finish it up.
He continues to munch on his breakfast as he window shops a bit. He stops to look through the display window of an antiques shop. All the shiney brass and gleaming wood drawing his attention as he goes over what kind of cool enchantments he could give things. Well, provided he had the power. Like that cool ass brass telescope. A couple of good runes and that thing would be able to see for miles and have a zoom function. With more power it could even see through things. How cool would that be?!
He could easily turn one of those pirate looking chests into a Chest of Holding. Like a bag of holding, but bigger... and a chest. Still, who wouldn't like more storage space, right?
As he finishes the first half of his breakfast, he catches sight of a small item. It's a nice brass compass glittering brightly in the window. He frowns a bit as he moves through the information in his mind. There were some things he could do with a compass but none seemed all that impressive. Or... wait...
His eyes widen as a bolt of inspiration strikes. What he was thinking of wouldn't be all that useful to most people, but it would be perfect for himself! He glances at the placard for the compass and grimaces when he reads, '35,000.' That was more than ten times the money he had this morning. Well, that's fine. He turns away from the store and starts looking for another one that might sell a more modern compass. As long as the case of the compass was made of metal and not plastic it would work for what he wanted!
It took two hours of wandering and several stores, but he finally found what he wanted at a model gun store, also known as airsoft. He'd found other stores that had camping sections, but all of their compasses were plastic. Plastic is great for tons of things, just not magic things. The compass he found looked like brass, but was likely just painted zinc or a zinc alloy, not that it mattered. What mattered was that it was only eight hundred yen! That left him only six hundred yen, for now.
He quickly ducked into a dark alley and hid himself behind a large dumpster. He didn't want to do his work out in the open. Thanks to a nice breakfast and the hours that had passed looking for the compass, he was back to full mana reserves. Good thing as he needed it now.
With a thought he created the low quality engraving tool. It took a little focus to build up the rune sequence he wanted to use within his mind, but once it was ready he began carving into the exterior sides of the compass. It was definitely just painted zinc, once the engraving tool scraped little slices of metal out, he could easily see the silver color of the zinc. How weird was it that almost all metals had the same silver coloring?
Regardless of the tangents his mind went on, Junichiro diligently carved the runes around the outside of the compass. Unlike his little shiv and its three runes, this schematic used ten different runes and took him over an hour to carve. Once he put the final touch on the last rune, he dismissed the engraving tool and checked his mana reserves. He had just over half, he hoped it was enough to fully charge the compass.
Taking a deep breath, he placed his finger tip on the first rune he carved, it was essentially the 'battery' rune that would hold the charge for the rest to do their work. He carefully pushed what remained of his mana into it causing the rune to give off a light glow for a bit before fading.
Junichiro held his breath and watched the compass with rapt attention, all of his focus now on the red half of the needle. It took nearly a minute but the needle began to twitch, slowly pulling away from the 'north' indicator. After nearly a minute it seemed to lock onto a new 'north.' See that it stopped moving and held steady caused Junichiro to let out a whoop of joy!
Junichiro quickly hopped to his feet and strode out of the alley. He split his attention between watching the compass needle and where he was walking. It was awkward since the needle just pointed to the destination and he couldn't just walk in a straight line. Ya know, 'cause there were buildings in the way. His walk was pretty short, less than two blocks. When he got close to his target he actually walked past it causing the needle to spin a one-eighty and point the way he just came from. He quickly stopped and turned around. A little back and forth to narrow the results and he found himself digging through a clump of dirty wet leaves.
“YES!”
After digging for a bit, Junichiro dropped the trash and held his hands up with a dirty, wet, slightly moldy two thousand yen bill stretched between them. He stuffed the dirty money into his pocket and kissed his new compass, which was already pointing to a new direction, which he happily bagan walking in.
What he'd made was known as a 'Loot Compass,' at least that's what he was calling it. The runes were weak, very weak, runes of divination meant to guide him towards items of value with no owners or that were lost. Sadly it had a limit of about ten thousand yen. Anything worth more than that was beyond the scope of the compass. At least at his current level. Still, hunting down lost items, dropped cash and coins, and so on was a lot safer than trying to pick pocket someone. Less illegal too!
His next hit turned out to be a one hundred yen coin, it was something but... eh. With his new magic item to help, Junichiro spent the next three hours walking around and collecting things. Lots of small change dropped coins, a few one and two thousand yen bills, and a couple of rings, costume jewelry most likely since they couldn't be worth more than ten thousand yen. What was really amazing was that, all told, he'd found ninety-two hundred yen!
The last time he'd had this much was when he pick pocketed a guy with a ten thousand yen bill in his wallet. That was a nice day. Well... it was nice once he managed to lose the police officer the guy sent after him. That had been a hell of a workout.
Well, regardless of past exploits, his compass was currently out of juice and the day was wasting away. He made his way toward a camping supply store he remembered passing. He wanted to check out some portable grills. With some modifications and a bit of rune work, he could turn one into a decent, not excellent mind you, gas forge. He was definitely too young to buy propane legally, so he'd just steal some... somehow. Which looked like it might be impossible without hit notice-me-not charmed necklace. They kept the large tanks of propane chained up and the small camping ones in locked cases. No way they wouldn't notice him trying to steal either of those.
Since that seemed to be out, it was back to a coal forge... or... He looked at the large selection of charcoal. Granted it was nowhere near as good as actual coal but... with enough airflow and some runes it should work... maybe. Well it would have to work since he grabbed a twenty pound bag, the largest he could easily carry with his small frame, and bought it and some duct tape. He got some curious looks, but got away with a simple explanation of, “Dad is grilling tonight!”
He got some compliments about being a good dutiful son but brushed them off. He'd never once met his father and he had no decent memories of his mother. He was pretty sure he was better off without either of them. So, with a twenty pound bag of charcoal resting on his shoulder, he calmly walked back to the junkyard. All comments were ignored or, if he was bothered, he gave the same excuse about his dad grilling. No one questions little children who seem to be helpful!
Once back in the junkyard, Junichiro takes the charcoal over to the car he slept in last night and sets it down.
“Now I just need to find a base of some sort and something that can blow air...”
Grumbling and muttering to himself he begins his scavenger hunt. Over the next two hours he hunts down things that could be useful. Once he has it all piled up he starts going through it to make a plan, “Cast iron pan, check. Broken satellite dish, check. Folding chair missing its seat, check. Broken hair dryer, check. Tubing, check.”
He grabs the extremely rusty cast iron pan by what's left of its broken handle and sets it flat on the ground. With some of his, once more, recovered mana he conjures a hand drill. With the drill formed, he takes his tubing and sets it about the center of the pan and scores a line around it with the drill bit's tip. That way all the air holes will be in the right spots. With that done, he gets down to the tedious and energy intensive process of drilling through the cast iron. Lucky for him there was only one hand drill that could be summoned. Due to the drill being unbreakable and ever sharp, it worked pretty well regardless of material. Though he did have more powerful options for harder materials. No way anyone was everdrilling through Adamantine by hand!
The only plus side of the tedious work was his slowly recovering mana. Which was good because once he finished drilling the last hole and dismissing the drill, he summoned his inscribing tool once more. He started with the cast iron pan by inscribing runes on it that would give it some protection from heat by helping focus heat into a smaller area. Next he got to work on the busted hair dryer since he obviously had zero access to electricity, so even if it did work he'd have to enchant it.
Unfortunately that meant breaking it apart somewhat to get to the electric motor inside. Plastic couldn't be enchanted so the exterior casing was in the way. The motor though, that was mostly metal so he could inscribe runes on it. Just another simple set that would force the motor to turn as long as mana was applied.
With that done, he began assembling his forge. The chair was unfolded with the busted home satellite dish placed where the seat used to be. He stabbed a hole into the dish and fed the somewhat wide hose through it. Once the hose was in position he taped it up nice and good then set the cast iron pan on top. He made sure the holes he drilled matched the position of the hose for unobstructed airflow. After that he taped the hair dryer to the other end of the hose. He now had a really, really, super duper, crappy forge. It'd likely melt in just a few uses, but those few uses would mean a lot to him.
He pat the forge gently and made his way into the rusty car. The sun was beginning to go down and dark would arrive soon. He had nothing to see with at night so it was time to call it quits. After he got himself some breakfast and loot tomorrow morning, he would come back and begin forging his first item. It was definitely going to be the notice-me-not amulet. With that he could move about much more freely, as long as he didn't do something crazy.
That though put a smile on his face as he wrapped himself up in his threadbare blanket and rested his head on a pillowcase stuffed with ripped teddy bears. Life was definitely looking up for him!
Comments
Green223
I know this is probably asking to much but can you either not have him become a devil or have him find a way to become pure angel/ devil hybrid. I think I would prefer him to stay HUMAN because becoming a devil is just too cliche and over used
Victor Gonzalez
Love it
