Antikythera looked at the vilger in fascination. He knew that magic existed in this world and confirmed it when he saw the vilger's reaction to his [Gate], but for him to encounter a mage this early? And one with talent? The Supreme Beings must have blessed him with great luck!

  "Are you a mage?" he asked, moving away from the noble. He'd let Neuronist take care of that man ter—he was sure the interrogator would love to have another subject at her disposal. The vilgers parted when he got close, never interfering even as he kneeled beside her. "I asked you a question."

  "Y-yes?" The vilger looked at the other girl standing next to her for reassurance, but the blonde was frozen. This must be Tsuare, then. "Uhm, are you like the leader of Red Drop? The adventurer team?"

  "Why do you say that? Have you seen another like me before?" Despite the girl being a teen, Antikythera decided to adopt the same tone he would use when talking to Mare or Aura. They should be the same in terms of human-to-elf age difference, right?

  "Seen? No, you're the first I've seen, but I've heard of Red Drop and have paintings of their leader's suit in one of my books!"

  That got Antikythera interested. "A suit, you say?" The Automaton straightened—this should be worth his time. "Can you show me?"

  "Okay! Wait here!" The girl stopped. "Oh, by the way! I'm Ninya!"

  "Nice to meet you, Ninya. I am Antikythera," the Automaton introduced himself in return. With a rush, the girl disappeared, leaving him with the rest of the more mundane vilgers. They, as far as he was aware, were not valuable to him, so he did not feel the need to address them.

  "Uhm, is that a suit you're wearing?" The girl's sister—or Tsuare, rather—asked with a meek tone. Antikythera wondered if it was worth his time to answer such a stupid and offensive question and concluded that if he wanted to be in Ninya's graces, then he should converse with those Ninya had a familial association with.

  "No, but my floor creates suits. I am wondering if what your sister described to me is something simir." Because why would a world with medieval-level technology have suits? It could be a knight who possessed magic, but then Ninya would have described it as such.

  And then there was the fact that it was his appearance that sparked the comparison in the first pce. His physical shape was not something that could be viable to wear when turned into armor, but if it was a suit with space to spare?

  "You're not in a suit?" Tsuare paused. "But I thought you were in there somewhere?"

  "I am me. The body you are looking at is myself. I am an Automaton, a species of magical objects that have gained sapience. That—" he pointed at the scouting unit, "—is an Automaton just like me. Where we differentiate is our ability to think. It is, at best, an animal, whereas I am fully sapient, with a thought process far smarter and more complex than you organics could ever hope to achieve." Antikythera expined in length—he did not feel the need to keep wasting his time conversing with the girl while expining in circles.

  "So you're... this?" Tsuare seemed impressed, and Antikythera picked up a sudden spike in her heart rate. "You're not human?"

  "I am not," Antikythera replied. "Do you have a problem with that?"

  "Not at all!" Tsuare quickly corrected. "I don't mind!"

  And Antikythera didn't care even if she did. What he was aiming for was her sister's weird knowledge and her capacity as a mage—the tter of which, Antikythera anticipated, was more than meets the eye.

  Ninya couldn't have returned sooner. "Here!" The relevant page for Red Drop had already been opened, and all it needed was for Antikythera to gnce at it. "Do you see now?"

  "I do indeed." Antikythera gazed at the powered suit and took a screenshot of its drawn figure on the page. The written nguage was unfamiliar to him as well, which begged the question of how he understood the locals. He decided to cache this new question to be answered ter. "Have any of you seen this armor in person?"

  He looked around at the vilgers. None of them nodded.

  "Understood." Antikythera focused back on Ninya. "Now answer me, Ninya, are you a mage?"

  "I'm still learning how to?" answered the girl. "But I have a talent that lets me learn magic faster! I'm a talent holder!"

  "...A talent holder?" Antikythera questioned.

  "Yeah? I'm part of a very rare group of people that have special abilities. Some of us can learn things quickly—not just magic, but also swordsmanship—and some of us are really smart! Some of us can see magic too, others can copy spells and stuff, and uhm..."

  "This... talent lets you learn things quicker in a particur profession?" To Antikythera, that sounded more like someone with a css. And that st one—copying spells? He had something like that in his arsenal, and if someone else in this world was in possession of it, then what did that mean? And Red Drop seemed like they had been in operation long enough to become pages in a book!

  "You are very smart. Do you know that, Ninya?" Antikythera wanted to say useful, but that would not be appropriate in this context. "I can teach you to become a mage if you wish."

  "Really?!" Ninya asked, excited.

  "Of course." Antikythera nodded with confidence. "You can go back to your house for now. I'll come back here and teach you soon. I just have a few things to take care of."

  "Okay!" Ninya ran off. How was she this trusting? Antikythera did not know, but a boon was a boon, and he was not one to compin.

  "Now then," Antikythera set his sights on the restrained noble. "Where were we?" His hand began to spark—eventually, it erupted into a full-blown electrical charge as his [Electric Therapy] spell came into existence.

  The noble panicked and filed. "Please! I'll tell you everything!"

  "Oh, you definitely will." Antikythera did not have a mouth, but if he did, he would smirk. This idiot—did he not know that his words would merely serve as a baseline? Anything he said right now would not have any sort of confirmation and was best used to determine what to do when the other servants of Nazarick conducted reconnaissance on the Eight Fingers.

  "Unit, carry the man to the forest, if you will?" Antikythera commanded the beetle-like Automaton. He followed after it as they made their way toward a location where he could extract information from this man without worrying about sullying Ninya's opinion of him.

  Antikythera gathered a few bdes of... wheat? When they passed by a field of the stuff, he asked the noble, "What is this? What do you use it for?"

  "It's a drug! We make bck dust out of it!" the man screamed.

  A quick scan of the biological makeup of the pnt confirmed that he was telling the truth. It had hallucinogenic properties, and not only that—it was also magical. Antikythera morphed his shape into something more suited for harvesting the pnt and started collecting it in rge quantities. He would be giving these to Asuka when he got back.

  For the time being, he spared a few stalks for himself and used [Consume Resource] to test how it could be used alchemically. He gathered sand from the earth and the air to slowly form gss, then condensed water vapor to fill it. He did this until he had enough to make several prototypes using the pnt.

  Organics—given access to hallucinogens with magical properties, and what did they use it for? Pleasure. It could be so much more!