Magical Girl? I’m not sure about this.

Alex thought that this being a magical world, having a yellow cape might let someone fly. Even if it didn’t Merumeru wanted one and it wasn’t like making a cape for a slime girl would be a difficult sewing project. That is what Alex did, got some thick yellow cloth, quickly measured Merumeru, cut it and sewed it to make her a little cape with fitting stylish embroidery flourishes.

To complement her cape, Alex made a human sized one for herself and tried it on to test out the enchantment. Her phone stated:

[Flight +3] for the stat bonus for the cape.

“Not bad.” Fufi stated. “I wonder if I had a cape I’d fly better too?”

“Likely?” Alex regarded the flamingo. “Do other familiars play dress up?”

“I think I might be the first that had a clockwork suit.” Fufi posed. “If there were more of those things, other flamingos could bypass the ruling classes' decrees that we are not allowed in their lands. It is a neat little trick.”

Alex jumped up and down and thought about flying but got the feeling that she was missing something. It wasn’t intent, but some kind of thing that would activate the item. She just wasn’t quite sure what it was. Maybe it was like a hang glider? But jumping off a cliff was scary she didn’t really want to test it out in such a risky way.

“Well even if it is not usable right now” Alex removed the cape and set it next to the smaller one for the slime girl. “Merumeru can have something that she wants.”

“Spoiling her much?” Fufi snickered.

“Maybe?” Alex folded the two capes neatly. “But who cares? She’s been a big help.”

Merumeru celebrated happily when she received the yellow cape.

“Rumeru, meee!” The slime girl vibrated with excitement when handed the cute garment.

Showing she knew the trick, Merumeru tossed the cape on, and took off running at top speed. She jumped into the air and flew off at a 45 degree angle into the sky. She then twisted her legs completely around, a feat impossible for someone with bones to get the cornes of the cape to wrap around them and made a bit of a parachute to land softly back on the ground.

“I know she’s light, but I don’t think that is actually enough cloth to do what she just did.” Alex sounded confused.

“It is the power of friendship.” Fufi cheered. “That and cuteness. Did you see how cute she was?”

Merumeru showed off her new found flight power to everyone on the sky island. Grace watched from the window of her room. And Ariel cheered her on from the ground. All the other people took a moment to watch and enjoy the spectacle.

“Do you want to try out a cape?” Alex thought Ariel would be the most adventurous.

The sea elf shook her head. “No, yellow is not my color. Do you have one in blue?”

Alex took some time to go and find some blue cloth while Merumeru was performing. She made a cape for Ariel in blue and tried it on to see if there was a flying bonus by checking her phone.

[Swimming +3]

“Confusing.” Alex showed the phone to Fufi. “All I did was change the color and it gave a different bonus.”

“Ariel might still want it.” Fufi stated. “A heartfelt gift is important.”

The sea elf loved her gift and didn’t care that it didn’t let her fly.

“We should get back to the water.” Ariel said. “I want to try this out. Are you ready to leave?”

“I guess we could.” Alex considered. “But there is still stuff here to do. Also, it would be nice if we could get Grace to leave with us. You want to go fight demons right?”

“She could get some levels.” The sea elf mused. “But I suspect that she is the closest one to the level cap of any magical girl I’ve ever run across. So it might make it a little bit harder.”

“How so?” Alex asked.

“Well.” Fufi spoke her mind. “I think what she is trying to say is that fighting imps might be little more than practice for her because getting higher level requires tougher enemies as well as more numerous enemies.”

“What do you think could sweeten the deal?” Alex looked for options.

“She needs tools of the trade.” Fufi was the first to speak. “You’ve got an instrument but does she even have a magical girl costume? A magical girl has to dress to fit the part.”

“What kind of outfit would suit her?” Alex considered the options.

“Some kind of sound themed magical girl.” Ariel spoke second.

“Let me see.” Alex searched her memories. “A magical girl that fights with sound.”

They couldn’t think of any ideas. Alex had some memories of various animes but couldn’t quite get her thoughts through all the noise. She decided to go with a victorian inspired frilly shirt and several layered skirts to give a composer look, complete with a little hat. Someone else would have to make shoes though, Alex wasn’t a cobbler.

Alex tried on the outfit to get info on the stat bonuses. It was baggy on her because Grace was taller but it still worked even if it made her look like a little kid.

[+2 cuteness]

[+1 sound damage]

While getting changed back Alex showed Fufi her phone. “Not my best work but I think it’ll work for Grace. It would be nice if we could get some better materials to create garments with one of these days.”

The flamingo agreed. “Getting a powerup for cuteness is huge though. From what I know from Grace’s familiar she never had any magical items but still fought quite effectively for quite some time gaining levels rapidly.”

Alex showed the costume to Grace who accepted it gracefully.

“This is a magical girl costume.” Grace cautiously inspected it. “You shouldn’t have.”

“No pressure.” Alex tried to sound disarming. “Ariel wants to form a team. What do you think about that?”

“I can’t impose forever. I suppose I should at least try.” Grace placed the costume on her chest.

When the sun went down they met in the dining hall to discuss plans.

“How do we want to do this?” Ariel started the discussion. “We have all the demons to defeat and then some. Hopefully they are done with the refit of the flying cloud and we could go start raiding the ports like we were doing in the Jass kingdom.”

Yvne shook her head. “While that would put the pressure on them. I think it might just drive the demons closer together and help them form a united front. What about Professor Copperpot's plan?”

Octavius spoke. “His plan is good, but much more needs to be built up to implement it on the scale that would tip the tides. A few airships are not enough to spread pestilence to all the demons in Terre.”

“How many do you think we’ll need?” Alex asked.

“Hundreds, perhaps thousands to reach every land that humanity occupies this summer.” The gnome stated seriously. “And there are problems that even if we can build them, keeping them going is problematic.”

“How so?” Yvne regarded the priestly short man.

“The veins are good.” Octavius stated. “We can’t handle the biting cold but Merumeru could relocate the pipe inside a mine. If we dig deep enough then it won’t be as much of a problem. With the right machines that could be solved. However this is the bigger limiter.”

The gnome produced one of the cutely decorated candles that Alex had made in the past. “These things need tallow to make. There is not near enough livestock to keep the production of candles at a sustainable rate.”

“Where is Merumeru?” Alex looked around but didn’t see the slime girl.

“She went to go bomb swamps with mosquitos.” Ariel casually stated.

“That troublesome girl.” Alex huffed. “I wish she wouldn’t wander off like that.”

“She did tell me what she was doing.” Ariel shrugged. “You were busy sewing. She’s probably at the swamp. Sailing the skies at night is a bad idea in such a small vessel. As for the tallow. That can be made from pigs right?”

Everyone nodded.

“Candles are not hard to make.” Yvne explained. “It is just usually pigs don’t grow in a few months.”

“Short term.” Octavius presented an idea. “Perhaps we could use that big tank that used to have the fuel in it? Alex can turn it into a card and a whole lot more swamp water could be transported to spots around the kingdom that general is holed up in.”

Alex shook her head. “That’s a semi truck trailer. Pulling the flat bed or the camper with the clockwork carriage is already sketchy. The brakes are no where need good enough to stop something that heavy.”

“Would combining the two be able to make a card?” Octavius asked.

“I think it would” Alex considered. “But replacing a huge engine with something that runs on magic and springs. I’m not an engineer I think there would be hundreds of problems that would rear their ugly head at every step of the process. Also, if there are larva in the water, they can’t be transported in card form.”

Octavius nodded. “My kin can work with this limitation. With enough of those toy ships it can be lifted. Also, a barge could be used in deep enough water. If we use that tank to transport the bugs then the toy airships could stage there and it would greatly reduce the time needed to spread them all around the borders of the kingdom to the south. When the pig population explodes butchers can increase lard collection and hopefully we can get more of the airships going.”

“But I’m only one person.” Alex pointed out a flaw. “I can only decorate so many candles.”

Octavius pointed out something important. “Your cement creating dolls and the gear creating doll contraptions. Can something similar be made to create candles?”

Alex paused. “I think so? I just haven’t gotten around to doing it. Decorating them isn’t very time consuming but you do have a point.”

They were delayed a few more days. Alex made several assembly lines to heat lard, have some hand sized dolls render the fat and feed a roll of wick into the candles. It would make a long cylinder and then use a mould to decorate it cutely. Couriers were sent out from the sky island to deliver them to the gnomes and humans set up on the new island. Apparently there was some unsanctioned trade going on already with the Jass kingdom.

The gnomes dragged the semi truck and the carriage into the shop. Alex couldn’t watch them tear it apart but with their mechanical skills they had the carriage’s wind up key and spring replacing the engine. The fuel tanks were repurposed for water and the design was a bit less of the former tacked-on style. The drivers seat for the semi was still where it was but the guts of the carriage were moved mostly higher up.

The gnomes struggled with the electrical systems. Luckily, there was a service manual that explained how to replace broken parts. With some explanation of fundamentals from Alex they were able to do some creative inventing to get those functional as well.

“Here goes nothing.” Alex tried to turn the almost 100 foot long combination of carriage and semi truck into a card and much to her surprise it worked. “Wow. This feels like cheating.”

“We are going to have to cheat like crazy if we want to defeat the demon queen.” Ariel proudly said.

The engine from the semi truck was strapped to the back of the tanker. The gnomes wanted to take it home to study. However the gnomes were going to stay on the island. They were all in very high spirits likely because all the new things to learn and do was doing great things for their levels.

The group of three magical girls headed out, going through the portal pipe to Bob and Martha’s farm then from the nexus to the island full of refugee humans trying to coexist with gnomes who had their homes destroyed by an earthquake.