Chapter 227: A Most Confounding Thing
Kir smiled wolfishly as a tray of very small muffins was placed between Moshui and himself.
They were meeting once more at The Mouse’s Portion, and Kir had taken the liberty of ordering in advance of her arrival. They’d exchanged only polite greetings before sitting and being served as a result.
"Oooh, the ones with the berries are the best," she delicately picked up one knuckle-sized muffin which had a single orange berry resting atop it and popped the whole thing in her mouth.
Because he was practicing the portrayal of himself as primarily carnivorous, Kir had eaten before setting out this morning. He had only the weekend to shore up his plans before the semester started.
He smiled and let her eat for a few more moments before broaching the subject. "What have you got for us?"
"Hm? Oh, the enchantment thing." Moshui reached across and dragged another table over, before pulling up a burlap sack and dumping a trio of metal shards onto it. "Yeah, the thing exploded. I thought just making it spin would be easy but it’s harder than I thought."
"Exploded how?" Kir asked, shifting the three arc shards into something resembling the original sketch of the gear he’d made for her, then picked up the least-inscribed one.
"Well, the bits all ended up wanting to go in different directions whenever it accelerated. I had to use up a catalyst to get enough mana for the third ring. That’s when it flew apart."
"The through-lines aren’t perfect arcs," Kir noted, spotting the places where the first line joining the first and second circles had been etched over.
"You’re asking me to etch steel. I don’t exactly have equipment for stuff this large. I do fiddly little spell circles," she double-forked a new pair of cupcakes, having seized Kir’s fork when it became obvious he wasn’t eating.
Then why take the job?! Kir thought to himself. "The smaller circles are perfect though."