Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 60: Rebecca’s Big Project

 

Herti did not know what her seven hundred-year old ancestor was thinking about at this moment and was doomed to not understand the plans that she thought was too remote and grand. However, she, too, seemed to be affected and motivated as she followed Gawain’s gaze and looked towards the lively and energetic campgrounds.

A land built from scratch, an entirely new order, a promising future—Herti thought she had passed the stage of impressionable girlhood, but at this moment, she still could not help but hope and look forward for better things to happen on this land.

This was what set her apart from traditional aristocrats—traditional aristocrats could not anticipate change.

“Just keep to yourself what I told you today, for now,” Gawain reminded Herti as he whipped his head back suddenly. “These matters are too progressive. The people would not understand if they hear about it, but if the aristocrats were told… and don’t understand it, they’ll regard you as a lunatic, and if they do, they will think you a deadly enemy.”

Herti was startled, but she was intelligent and understood Gawain’s meaning quickly.

The new order, even though there only appeared to be glimpses of it for now, there were enough issues to strike a nerve in the sensitive aristocrats. It might indeed bring prosperity to the land, but that prosperity might not be palatable to the traditional aristocrats.

After all, they were unlike the Cecils, and were still living splendid lives.

“I understand, but can I tell this to Rebecca?” Herti nodded, but pursed her lips and shook her head immediately after. “That child perhaps may not be able to understand something so complicated…”

“No, you’ve underestimated her.” Gawain laughed. “Rebecca is actually smarter than you think, just that her intellect has not been expressed through the right outlet. Recently, I’ve seen her…”

Before Gawain could finish speaking, a little shadow appeared in his vision out of the blue. Betty was sprinting on the embankments of the field towards him. The little maid with her lovely freckles came up to him, panted for a while, before bowing awkwardly. “My Lord! Miss Rebecca is looking for you!”

“What does she want me…” Gawain stopped mid-sentence. “Oh, you must have forgotten.”

“I haven’t this time!” Betty stood up straight and crisply, “She says it’s about to start, and she wants you to see what happens!”

Herti walked up from behind. “What’s about to start?”

Betty thought for a while before shaking her head. “I forgot!”

Gawain and Betty: “…”

“Well, I know what it is.” Gawain did not know whether to laugh or cry as he patted the girl’s head. “She’s been working on the magic circles for the past few days, and it looks like she has finally finished the ‘magic web’— I’d actually thought she needed more time. How about coming along to see it? There’s nothing here that is particularly urgent to settle anyway, why not go and see how Rebecca’s first ‘project’ has turned out?”

“To be honest, I’m a little worried about how she’s doing. After all, for an untalented mage who only knows how to make fireballs to create such a large-scale magic circle… even though those runes are elementary.” Herti smiled as she shook her head and turned towards the wooden shed. “Knight Philip, I’ll head over to the smithy to see what’s going on, so I’ll leave you to take care of things here.”

The young knight stood up straight in an instant and knocked on his breastplate. “Leave it to me!”

Overseeing the reclamation works was only a small job, yet he had declared his commitment so epicly… Gawain could not help but sigh with emotion. How was this young knight behaving so old-fashionedly, to the point of conforming to strict rules like a classic knight… was this really the power of faith?

Gawain and Herti left. Betty looked around and decided that it was nothing to do with her and slipped into the wooden shed. It was still too early to make food and she had already done the laundry, so the bored little maid’s interest was piqued by the things that had many words and pictures on the wooden table.

Knight Philip observed the little lady’s movements and kept a close eye on her, in case she messed up anything of importance—he was ready to stop her at any time.

Meanwhile, Betty was looking at a piece of paper with a drawing of a waterwheel on it. However, her interest quickly shifted to the records with the names and numbers. She moved closer to the table and pointed to the stationery. “May I write?”

Knight Philip moved to shift the stationery away. Looking seriously at the little lady, he asked, “Can you write?”

“I can’t write.” Betty shook her head and added, “I don’t know how to read either.”

“Then you’re not allowed to touch them,” Phillip said a little sternly. “The Lord has spent money to purchase the stationery. It’s not for you to play with.”

Betty paused for a while. Disappointed, she nodded, “Oh…”

Knight Philip frowned as he saw her disappointed face. He thought he might have been a little too stern, but protecting the assets of the Lord was his duty—especially when everything in the territory was in short supply. Even a single piece of paper or pen had to be brought in from Tanzan Town, so he could not let the little lady waste the precious stationery.

In the end, he consoled Betty for a while, but the little lady still went away disappointed and sorry.

As he watched the disappearing silhouette of Betty on the embankment, Phillip could not help but remember what he had heard in the conversation between Grand Duke Gawain and Lady Herti earlier.

To teach them to read and write.

To teach everyone to read and write.

Could this really happen? Was it really possible? Would they really do it?

If they really did it, then the little maid would be able to write too.

Upon his arrival at the “smithy”, Gawain discovered that this had become a construction site. The wide yard was filled with many busy “construction workers” and there were a few soldiers guarding the pile of various resources in a corner of the yard. Rebecca was standing in the middle of the yard with a bunch of papers in her hand, familiarizing Hummel the old blacksmith with something, while Hummel’s disciples stood by, listening attentively.

It looked like it was important, and it was also evident that Rebecca had only called for Gawain to come after the construction had begun successfully.

“Ah! Lord Ancestor!” Rebecca spotted Gawain’s almost two-meter tall frame from far away before noticing Herti beside him. “And Aunt Herti…”

This girl was quite in awe of Herti.

“I wanted to come and see your progress..” Herti smiled mildly. Even though she still did not know how well Rebecca would perform, she felt like she had to at least smile and encourage her because of how orderly the place was. “Looks like you’re very confident.”

“Yeah! I’ve been at it for a few days!” Rebecca placed her hands on her hips as she said. Even though she had burned the midnight oil and seemed a little out of it, she was still full of energy. “This magic circle is super awesome! And those formulas… Lord Ancestor, let me tell you how easy it was to use them! They’re so much better than those rigid rune permutations and spell models by a hundred thousand times, and they are applicable to anything, and this magic circle even…”

“Stop, stop, stop. We didn’t come here to hear you brag,” Herti quickly interrupted Rebecca’s boasting. She knew that her niece was very good at calculation and theory, but she was afraid that she would bore her ancestor to death by talking so much. “Just tell us how you intend to complete the magic circle.”

With that, Rebecca nodded vigorously. “Oh okay, I’m going to bury it under the ground…”

“Bury it under the ground?!” Herti was stunned. “I saw all the holes you dug, but you’re really going to bury it under the ground?!”

Gawain had seen Rebecca instructing people to dig those ditches in the ground as he walked into the yard. The lines were curved, straight, crossed each other or were parallel, and formed the rough shape of a magic circle. Also, there were stakes placed around as markers where nodes seemed to be, with auxiliary white lines drawn around them and considering that all of the laborers were illiterate, these guides and markers must have been placed by Rebecca herself.

Firstly, she would draw the lines on the ground before telling the laborers where to dig and how deep to dig. This was probably her work process.

After hearing Herti’s words, Gawain shifted his attention from the ditches and looked at her curiously. “What’s wrong with burying the magic circle underground?”

“No… there’s no taboo regarding that.” Herti shook her head. “It’s just that most magic circle are exposed, because on the one hand, it would take more effort to bury it, and on the other hand, it would be troublesome since the mage would need to control how the circle operates and monitor it.”

What she said was common sense. As a third-level mage (even though she only knew how to cast fireballs), Rebecca should know this. However, she still did this, which meant that jumpy brain had lost control once again… Herti was feeling uneasy and was afraid that Gawain was going to scold Rebecca because of this, which might unfortunately destroy her hard-earned confidence.

However, this child had been through many hardships growing up. She should be fine after a while, right?

Just as Herti’s thoughts were running wild, Gawain spoke again, “Let’s not talk about why you’ve decided to bury the magic circle underground first—I want to know how you managed to get it precisely onto the ground.”

Rebecca was stunned for a moment, not understanding what this old ancestor meant by his question.

Gawain had actually asked this question with great dismay.

Rebecca had drawn a magic circle full of geometric shapes with high precision on a plain up to a 100 meters in diameter using only her naked eyes, which should have produced errors!

In Gawain’s home world, such a thing was not difficult at all. They had countless mapping instruments and mathematical tools which could draw out such diagrams. In this world where magic existed, these things could be accomplished as well—mages usually used the Eye of the Mage or Eagle Vision to obtain an aerial view and then completed their large-scale magic circles, which were both simple and crude methods. However, could Rebecca even use them?

Except for a few stakes and auxiliary lines, she had no advanced tools. No perfect mathematical or geometric system existed in this world to help her either, and other than fireball casting, she was ignorant of other forms of magic.

She was not even capable of casting the Eye of the Mage, a second-level mage skill.

Then how did she do it?

Gawain repeated his question once more. “How did you draw it out on the ground so accurately?”

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