*
He could use it as leverage. He was not sure if the lone girl in front of him possessed anything like honor, since she was blatantly looting his master's workshop. But he needed to try.
"..." (Leman)
"... I want to avenge my master, you're a magical girl right? Can you help me?" (Harald)
He thought it better to be truthful and earn some sympathy points, he'll use the tiny amount of leverage gained from her guilt, but if he keeps strong arming her with her guilt, then she might not be so receptive. So he thought it would be far better to come out and ask for help. No shame in trying, she knows he's a harmless human, and he'll take advantage of this acknowledgement.
"Help you? I... Ran... If I could defeat the rogue so easily and save everyone, I would have done so. But at this rate, I'm not a real magical girl. I'm hovering around D to E grade, and the rogue... She was at least C maybe B grade. It would be like... Asking you to fight me. Want to try? "(Leman)
The corner of her mouth lifts into an insulting smirk as her palms open in a casual manner. She had already forgotten...
"...Ugh... Even if you're not transformed right now, I doubt I would be able to do anything. Can't you see the current state of my body?" (Harald)
Her gaze shifts down to the bottom of the crutch that makes contact with the ground. Then it shifts up again and she sees his arm desperately wrapped around them like a lifeline. Her face contorts in shock, mouth wide open as she brings her fingers up to cover it. Uwah... Sucks to be him...
She was a super weak magical girl and her skills weren't suited for fighting, in fact she was under another group called 'production type magical girls'. It was a label for anyone with the power to create, and their main job was to rebuilding of civilisation. That includes the restoring of culture, furniture, architecture and food production. But even so, she would never get sick and she was still far superior to normal humans. She could no longer imagine getting injured or experiencing pain, but she was clumsy enough to break her own furniture and feel sad about it.
She genuinely enjoyed her job, and people's company. So she frequently participated in community bonding events. Her spirits are lifted up when other people are happy, so she tries to make things as fun as possible... Well, she has all this free time to spend with people in the first place, because there were little to no customers placing orders on her...
Most magical girls are content with making their own weapons from their own skills, boasting them as the strongest and what not while indulging in their own pride. She didn't really need food and water either, and no one would dare snatch her property from her... Since she was such an amicable personality in the neighbourhood, she was well liked by everyone...
"Mhmm... Sorry... I want to take revenge too... But I'm simply incapable of doing so." (Leman)
She shifted her gaze back down, her mood visibly dropped and her voice was disheartened. Her fingers fidget with one another, as if they were toying with the idea itself. They trembled, clearly she was more than just physically shaken by the idea of it.
"... You know about the rogue, did you encounter her...? No... Do you know her?" (Harald)
He made a little guess. There could be any reason to why she was convulsing while thinking about the rogue... Was it right to ask her about it? What if she gets mad? Uh oh... He had asked her while he was in the heat of it, a little curiosity and resentment had worked him up. He didn't go crazy or anything, but he recognised that it was insensitive to ask about it...
Usually he wouldn't give a rat's ass if someone got their feelings hurt, but this was a magical girl standing before him. He could get killed and everyone would be none the wiser about it. He was in a heavily desolate area, a portion of the ruins left in the rogue's wake. There's nobody around to protect him... If he died here... It would be karma for his hubris...
Yes, he understood what he did was wrong. But he wouldn't regret it because it was wrong. He would stand firm behind it. So he stared resolutely into her eyes. Unexpectedly... She wasn't mad. Her face was a little flushed, likely from how hard her brain was thinking. He could almost imagine smoke coming out of her ears. When she noticed his gaze, she looked back into it and mouth gaped open like a fish. She wasn't sure how to react to someone staring so intently at her...
"N... No! I... I hid from the rogue. I could hear her from further away than normal humans, and faster too... But I... Only hid myself... I jumped into the sky and hid there until she was gone... I... I... I'm a coward!!!" (Leman)
She screamed the very last word, her tone carried the state of her soul, leaking a miniscule amount of anguish. To be honest, Harald didn't really care about her right now. He wanted to head home and cry to sleep, then continue to mourn about his master the next day by bringing flowers. But he saw something bigger then himself, something that would come about their cooperation.
"I'll place an order. Make a weapon that could help me kill the rogue. I'll do anything to help out." (Harald)
Seeing as he had practically ignored all the suffering that she put on display, she was a little surprised. She really came here because she was interested in how other people forged metal without magic. Her skill substitutes the function of a furnace, any tempering is done by putting magical particles into her skill. As such, she only needed to shape whatever material she was working with by utilising her trusty hammer.
This omitted the need for a workshop or a fixed location where she could do her work. She normally has a room for it in her home, perhaps that could be her workshop. But it was barebones, it held only display racks and an area where the floor and walls were reinforced, so she doesn't set her house on fire. She couldn't really be called a professional, and she has no license or qualification for her occupation. She really just did whatever she wanted... Some would call her a neet if not for the fact that she plays with the children and visits the elderly.
She still held a curiosity for 'normal' forging that burned in her heart like a fiery ember, she wanted to see what it would be like to craft normal metal tools that could help people. No one would outright call her a useless member of society... But she herself couldn't stand it. She couldn't stand how all she had was her material heating magic... It was slow and it had to be done through something solid like metal...
So it couldn't really be used for anything like attacking monsters. The best she could do was prepare some metallic balls that she could preheat, then throw it and hope it out kills the monster. Seeing as Harald had extended his hand, it was very tempting to just lose herself in this ephemeral ambition, to try her best and forge the ultimate weapon, a weapon so powerful it could help a human kill a C grade.
"You'll do the fighting, right?" (Leman)
"I'll do the fighting." (Harald)
"... If you don't mind me asking out of curiosity... Why don't you just leave it to the Rising Knight order? Why must you take it into your own hands?" (Leman)
"... I don't know about you... But as the sole survivor in that area, could you really let it go? Do you not have the urge... To avenge your neighbours... Your friends... Your customers... The people who made this post apocalyptic hell slightly easier to live in by being there...
I can not imagine it. I... Practically owe my life to them. When my business couldn't survive, they spread word on their own to garner more customers... They told their relatives, their friends... Basically everyone knew about it, and out of their own will they chose to help me.
I can not forgive such a being that could rob that kindness from me. " (Harald)
" I see... Then you have a deal. " (Leman)
She grabs his hand, giving it a firm shake. When told to imagine, she couldn't either. His works added oil to the fire, it was just the right push at the right time.
***
The first thing they tried was to buy monster materials. If they couldn't buy magic scrolls that replicated someone's attack skills, then it was best to start with something simple like monster hide or monster bones. There were plenty of monsters that have assimilated with minerals to become semi inorganic lifeforms, their metallic flesh can be melted down and reshaped with her magic. In the meanwhile, Harald taught her about the forge and they borrowed his master's, Donyard's workshop for their work.
The weapons came out... Average. They exhibited the natural abilities of the monsters to some extend, putting in magical particles, Leman could make the metallic flesh harden and sharpen. If she added even more magical particles, it could even become deadly enough to cut through a magical girl's flesh. However that was it, it worked its job well as a weapon in cutting down living things, but it did nothing to improve speed or strength, so Harald had to bear the full brunt of its weight, which was frankly impractical.
They might as well wait until the Rising Knight order came back with the good news. Time was a luxury that they didn't have, so they tried and tried again. Varied the composition of the materials to see if it had any effect. There were some successful products that raised his might, however they were percentage based buffs. In other words, they raised his human strength from 1 to 1.6, or even 5.
There was another issue other than that, there needed to be a constant source of magical particles for the weapon's effects to stay active. Without such a source, the weapon only stays active for a bit of time, and Harald wouldn't even be able to activate it. In the end, Harald was the one who was fighting, not Leman. This was a drastic issue that heavily plagued their constructing process. Without the ability to operate her magical weapons, even giving all of them to him wouldn't accomplish anything.
"... Looks like the most obvious issue is strength and stamina. We need a type of magic that could raise both, that way we can simply rely on the weapon to defeat the rogue at the end." (Leman)
".... Is it really so simple? What if she simply stayed out of range? I need a weapon that could make me on par with a magical girl, so I could keep up with the rogue. Not only do I need to be able to react to her, I'll also need to be able to follow her at the same speed. " (Harald)
"... Hmm... Typically a magical girl's skills are decided by their magic signature, making almost everyone have different skills.
Even their augmentations are formed from their magical signature. In other words, augmentations are just as unique and irreplicable. " (Leman)
"... We'll have to find another way. But aren't we already on the right track? " (Harald)
" Yeah, we are. Unlike magical girls, when monsters die their circuits, skill magic circles, wells and everything don't disappear. It's not like anyone could transplant these things into themselves either, there's compatibility issue and the magic would eat them from the inside like a cancer. " (Leman)
" So that's why there aren't any corpses that could be identified as magical girls... When they die, they all end up as normal humans...
There's also no compatibility issue for me because I don't have my own mana signature... So I just need the monster parts to assimilate me into it's overall body system... " (Harald)
"..." (Leman)
She nodded promptly and continued working on her project. She stayed silent and focused on her work. Harald on the other hand was too fascinated by the trivia that he learned. As far as Leman cares, it was just another facet, another extension of the law of magical girls. It's uploaded into the mind of anyone who awakens as a magical girls, to make sure they understood their limits.
Despite the law of magical girls mainly being a set of limits... It was similar to the question of gravity, where does this restrictive force come from? A person might say that it has arised from super dense mass, but how? How does mass curve space time? Why does the universe obey this set of rules?
No average person would see it that way, as they find the laws of physics 'natural' and haven't had a need to challenge it. But for magical girls who constantly reach new heights, it was like a wall that said 'smash me down! '. Well... At least that was the gist of it.
The workshop fell silent, all that could be heard now was the rhythmic clashing of the hammer against some monster material.