"So what? This creepy bird is our 'personal mascot from the magical land'?" (Reina)
"...Unfortunately..." (Mile)
"Aren't magical girl mascots supposed to be cuter?" (Pauline)
"...Unfortunately..." (Mile)
"Couldn't they have done something a little better at the very least? Well, you know, visually..." (Mavis)
"...Unfortunately..." (Mile)
Now everyone was making comments.
Last time, it was just there to guide the Slow Walker, so no one commented on its appearance. ...As a consideration for work partners
However, if it were to accompany them from now on, it would be a different story.
...Well, since it did look like a "small bird," even if people thought it's a monster, they probably wouldn't see it as particularly dangerous. They'd probably think of it as a tame pet.
But, aside from the fact that it looked cute or cool, with its appearance...
"Mile, choose between chasing this creepy bird away or pretending you tamed it!" (Reina)
"……Eh?" (Mile)
Reina pointed her index finger at Mile, leaving her dumbfounded.
"I don't want people to think that we're keeping them as a hobby! That's why I'm telling you to say that you're keeping it for your own personal use! It has nothing to do with us, it's just your hobby!!" (Reina)
"Same here!" (Pauline)
"I also agree with Reina, you know!" (Mavis)
"Whaaaat?" (Mile)
Following Reina, Pauline and Mavis also made cruel sentences...
"Little Mecha-Bird-chan, are you going home?" (Mile)
[In that case, I will lose my reason for existence and will be dismantled...] (Bird)
"Whaat! ...But then what about that mechanical wolf?" (Mile)
[That one was assigned to guard the base. Unlike me, which is disposable.] (Bird)
"Oh, thank goodness... I was about to lose sleep over the guilt... But if you say something like that, I can't turn you away! It's the same as blackmailing, it's cowardly!!" (Mile)
[Grin……] (Bird)
"Who programmed you to react like thaaaat?!" (Mile)
"...I guess there's no other way, huh? Give it a provisional employment offer." (Reina)
"Eh?"
Reina blurted out something from the side.
"We'll wait and see for a while, and if it seems useful, we'll adopt it as pets, but if it gets in the way we'll send it away." (Reina)
Reina showed her tsundere side here.
Reina, who didn't really understand what robots are, probably interpreted 'chasing them away' as 'being dismantled as useless robots'.
And no matter how creepy it might look, it's still a bad feeling to think that something harmless that was intelligent enough to converse with humans was being dismembered because they were chased away.
[I'm so happy, so happy, so grateful. What an amazing leader, great judgment!] (Bird)
Although Little Mecha-Bird was always grinding sesame seeds, the leader of Crimson Vow was not Reina but Mavis.
[...And now, I have a favor to ask...] (Bird)
"That's so sudden! Mou, are you sure you're already hired? But, well, just say it." (Reina)
Mile also thought that if Reina had made the decision, then the job was confirmed, so she went ahead with the conversation.
[I want a name. Until now, I was called by my serial number. So, even though you call me 'Little Mecha-Bird', aside from that, 'creepy bird' is unacceptable.] (Bird)
"That's true."
"...I'm sorry..." (Reina)
Reina was the kind of girl who would apologize properly if she thought she had been wrong, whether the one she was apologizing to was a bird, a robot, or a creepy bird.
"Mile, of course, you should name her." (Reina)
No one could disagree with Reina's words. So, Mile was chosen to name it, but...
The problem was that Mile had absolutely no talent for it.
"Hmm, my name... It's Little Mecha-Bird, so let's shorten it to 'Mechako'. 'Mechabird'..." (Mile)
[......] (Bird)
"......" (Other 3)
The Little Mecha-Bird looked clearly dissatisfied.
Then, Reina and the other two began to regret that they had made the wrong choice.
"Chika is bad, and Chiko will be blamed for 'Where did that Chi come from?!'" (Mile)
"No one is blaming you! And why is 'Chika' bad?" (Reina)
"You can just name it whatever you like..." (Pauline)
"I don't understand..." (Mavis)
Mile ignored Reina and the other two's comments.
And…….
"Until we can come up with a good name, we'll call you 'Little Mecha-Bird (temporary)'!" (Mile)
[Okay. I'll be patient...] (Bird)
Thus began the trial period for Little Mecha-Bird (temporary)...
"Oh, Little Mecha-Bird-chan, is there a base nearby with a lot of Scavenger?" (Mile)
[17 days at the average human walking speed] (Bird)
"Hmm, I think a human can walk about 30km in a day. So on the 17th, it's about 510km? If I remember correctly, the straight-line distance between Tokyo and Osaka is about 400km, and if I travel by road or Shinkansen route, it's about 500km. If you drive at 100km/h on the highway, it's about a 5 hour drive. It doesn't seem so far away..." (Mile)
[...Keep walking without rest.] (Bird)
"Without sleep or rest?! If you do that, you'll die!!"
There was no such thing as sleep or rest for a machine.
By explaining that point clearly, Little Mecha-Bird understood humans and was excellent.
"For a human, eight hours of walking a day, excluding breaks, is a lot, and there are slopes as well... If you take 17 days without sleep and don't count the lost time up the hills, the actual distance is three times that, or 1,500 km you know!" (Reina)
Up until now, there had been a few words in Mile and Little Mecha-Bird's conversations that Reina and the other two didn't understand, but it was too late for them to worry about that now. Still, it was better than they could somehow guess what Mile was trying to say.
"It's a bit far to go casually..."
"Oh, yes. Maybe someday, eventually, right?"
As Reina said, the 1500km one-way trip, or 3000km round trip, was a little too far for the Crimson Vow, whose only meant of transportation were walking or horse-drawn carriages. It might have been a different story if they had stopped by on their way to somewhere in that direction, but making the round trip just to get there was just too much work.
"Well, as long as we're using this city as our temporary base, it's impossible for us to go, right?" (Mavis)
It was as Mavis had said.
If the Crimson Vow moved...
(Well, if I'm on vacation and travel by myself using the "horizontal drop" thing, it should be fine... If that's the case, it's possible to do it as a day trip...) (Mile)
And that's what Mile was thinking.
Mile had decided that she would only use this method of moving around, which involved bending the direction of gravity and falling horizontally, on her own.
As expected, it was too stimulating for Reina and the other two, and she thought it would be far too problematic for the Crimson Vow to start using it regularly as a means of transportation...
In the first place, if the nobles and royalty were to find out that it was possible to travel so quickly...and that it was possible to transmit information...it was unlikely that they would overlook the military and political value of such a device.
So that was a secret...
Author's Note
The fifth chapter of the "Potion" spin-off comic "I Shall Survive Using Potions! ~Hanano and Lotte's Journey~" by Sukima-sensei, who is in charge of the illustrations for the novel version of "Potion", has been updated on Kodansha's free web comic magazine "Wednesday's Sirius" (within Nico Nico Seiga). (^^)/
Added on April 28th.
Sorry, I forgot to announce it.
I will be taking my usual Golden Week holidays for two weeks, next week and the week after.
I'm taking two days off. (^^)/