Chapter 184 Magic Particle Cannon
Edited by: Kanaa-senpai
――Magnus Magic Nation――an emergency assembly meeting
The air in the chamber felt heavy the moment Merveille, the Chief of Magnus, took the speaker’s seat. “Now then, everyone… I’m sure you’ve already heard whispers of this,” he began, his voice weighted with lead, “but it’s been confirmed that several of our Magic Particle Cannons—our nation’s military secrets—have gone missing.”
At that, silence draped over the council like a thick black cloth.
”Report,” Merveille said sharply, and at once a bureaucrat shot to his feet with a crisp “Sir!” and began explaining, clutching a stack of reports tight against his chest as if they might escape otherwise.
They had first noticed the absence half a month ago. Magic soldiers, led by a military officer, had sent several first-generation Magic Particle Cannons to a military workshop for routine cleaning and maintenance. But when the cannons were returned and the armory checked the inventory, several were simply… gone.
Naturally, an immediate investigation followed.
It turned out those missing Magic Particle Cannons hadn’t been sent to the workshop at all, but to a fake subcontracting workshop newly founded by a man named Keimas—one that advertised its “safety” as a selling point. From there, the cannons had been discreetly broken down into small, simple components through a basic Decomposition process, shipped out through the southern ports of the Laine Federation on the central continent, and then vanished somewhere in the eastern kingdom of Rostic.
But when they searched for Keimas himself, they found something even worse—he had died long before founding any workshop. He was buried. Dead.
Groans rippled around the table as every council member gripped their heads. Yes, their own nation’s sloppy security systems were partly to blame… but this wasn’t something a single person could do alone. Whoever was behind it must’ve planned this carefully, patiently, and with an entire organization behind them.
And stealing state-class military equipment like this would be impossible without the strength of a whole government. The shadow of foreign powers crept across everyone’s minds.
Which country… which government’s high-ranking bureaucrats could be behind this…?
To target old-generation Magic Particle Cannons—easy to disassemble thanks to their age, yet simple enough to fully understand—showed just how deep the enemy’s understanding of magical weapons went. It was clever. Scary clever. Even if they were outdated, they were still classified national weapons, and stealing them should’ve been next to impossible. And yet… someone had done it, slipping through the cracks of their laws and systems like smoke.
(Who in the world is the mastermind…?)
* * *
While Chief Merveille of Magnus let that thought sink deep into the pit of his chest, far away…
”Ahhh-choo!”
Ayumu let out a tiny, almost cute sneeze inside a weapons development lab deep within the Land of Yugan.
”Ohhh… so this is the infamous Magic Particle Cannon they say Magnus deploys, huh?”
”Whoa… this is insane! But… how could anyone even sneak something like this out?”
Their voices trembled with excitement and disbelief, and who could blame them? What stood before them wasn’t a neutered export model. These were the real thing—original first-generation Magnus-made Magic Particle Cannons. Not just one, either. One fully reassembled and two still in simplified Decomposition form, all lined up under the sterile glow of the lab lights.
Needless to say, all three had been smuggled here by Ayumu to reverse-engineer for Yugan’s own domestic production.
Right about now, the Magnus investigators were probably chasing “Keimas” all across the continent. The man existed in their documents, listed with a birthplace, birthdate, years of tax payments to the magic guild, even an old registry entry.
But in truth, Keimas was nothing more than an elaborate fake Ayumu had created—paper and ink wearing a man’s skin.
The trick went like this: first, bribe a local official in Magnus to find a recently deceased, lonely soul and a batch of old first-generation cannons scheduled for maintenance. Next, bribe that same official again to forge documents—tax receipts, guild forms, even personal letters—pretending the man was still alive and simply paying off his unpaid head tax.
Then, have an operative use this revived identity to buy a workshop, register “Keimas” into the magic guild, and quietly build up a fake subcontractor company. They even had the ghost workshop do a few real jobs to earn trust and reputation.
And when that fake trust had piled high enough, Magnus’s bureaucrats and military—always eager to cut budget costs—foolishly shipped their old Magic Particle Cannons right into the waiting hands of Ayumu’s operatives.
By the time Magnus authorities arrived at the workshop, it was completely empty. A hollow shell. And “Keimas” himself? Just a poor, friendless serf long dead and buried, with no ties to magic or machinery at all.
No one at Magnus would’ve ever imagined being robbed by a corpse.
* * *
The reassembled Magic Particle Cannon was rolled out onto the firing grounds under armed escort. Every movement was slow, cautious. Then—*whummm*—a near-futuristic surge of energy ripped through the air, and through the telescopes they saw it: the beam hit, and part of the Gynsar herd simply… vanished. Gone. The only thing left was a faint mist of glowing particles slowly fading from the air.
It was exactly as rumored—a siege-class weapon. Terrifying.
After several more test shots, the team began carefully disassembling one of the Decomposed cannons piece by piece, labeling and photographing every part, building a full inventory to understand its structure. The data they gathered screamed of Magnus’s unmatched mastery in magic engineering.
Even Yugan’s brightest prodigies whispered in awe: how such efficient mana supply plates and amplifiers could be packed so small yet still deliver and maintain such incredible output was almost unbelievable.
To Ayumu, it was a completely alien kind of technology, something that simply didn’t exist in his original world—and even he, a total amateur in this field, could tell just how advanced it was.
”Hmmm… we’ll have to drop the design specs… maybe lower the performance requirements too…”
* * *
In the end, their attempt to develop a domestic Magic Particle Cannon technically succeeded… but—
”It kinda sucks compared to Magnus’s.”
For starters, their version was about three times bigger, thanks to failing at miniaturization. Technically, they could shrink it—but then it would lose power, seize up after one shot, or just break down entirely, which killed its reliability. The barrels overheated and melted, so they had to bolt on a clunky water-cooling system to match Yugan’s tech level. They even had to add a limiter to keep the firepower down to a medium level just so it could survive sustained use.
Since their tech couldn’t quite keep up, they redesigned it for actual battlefield flexibility instead: the cannon barrel was mounted on a turreted carrier, with separate vehicles for mana supply and for coolant water, so if one unit broke at the front lines they could still run the whole system by swapping pieces.
In the end, they covered the tech gap with clever design tricks—and even though the final product couldn’t match Magnus’s original performance, the usually cold-eyed higher-ups actually smiled at him for once. And honestly, that alone made Ayumu feel like he could finally breathe again.
Soon—very soon—the Keldan Domain Army would be marching in, their banners snapping bright against the sky, for the grand military review and parade where even ordinary townsfolk would be allowed to watch.
Just imagining it set a faint buzz through the halls of the Yugan research institute. Somewhere down the corridor, a hammer clanged on steel in a crisp rhythm. Papers rustled as aides scurried past with armfuls of diagrams, all whispering about polishing turret plating or tightening the water-cooling lines on the new Magic Particle Cannons so they would gleam perfectly under the sun.
Outside, the main boulevard had already begun to change. Rows of flags hung from the lampposts, catching on the warm breeze that drifted in from the southern hills. Children darted between the soldiers painting white lines across the cobblestones, their laughter mixing with the sharp calls of drill instructors echoing from the distant training grounds. Even the usually quiet air carried a restless spark, as if the whole city was holding its breath for the spectacle about to come.
Ayumu, leaning on the second-floor balcony railing with a half-eaten sweet bun dangling from his mouth, watched the bustle below with a faint squint, crumbs dusting his uniform jacket. He could already hear the steady stomp-stomp-stomp of synchronized boots in his head, see the polished formation rolling past in perfect lines, the Magic Particle Cannons crawling down the street like silent monsters dressed in ceremonial ribbons.
”…Guess it’s gonna be a show,” he muttered around the bun, a crooked grin tugging at the corner of his mouth.
And honestly, he was kind of looking forward to it.
Ayumu let out a long breath as the last of the paperwork slid into the stack on his desk, the edge of the top sheet still warm from the lamp beside him. The quiet hum of the research bay hung in the air—no more shouting engineers, no more frantic clatter of tools, just the soft ticking of the cooling pipes around the room. Outside the glass wall, the hulking shape of the finished Magic Particle Cannon sat like some sleeping giant, its blackened barrel faintly gleaming under the workshop lights.
He stretched until his back popped and let himself sink back into the chair, staring at the ceiling like it might applaud him for surviving this whole nightmare. A tired grin pulled across his face anyway. For all the chaos, for all the late nights and botched tests and barrels that melted into sad puddles on the firing range… they’d done it. Somehow.
”Haah… finally done,” he mumbled, voice a lazy drawl as if the words were drifting out on their own. His bangs drooped into his eyes, and he didn’t even bother pushing them away.
Across the room, someone let out a muffled cheer, quickly stifled as if afraid to break the strange calm that had settled over everything. The smell of machine oil lingered faintly, mingled with the sharp tang of the water-cooling fluid they’d spilled on the floor during one of the final tests. Even the blinking runes on the mana gauges seemed slower now, like they were sighing with relief too.
Ayumu reached out, fingertips brushing the cold metal rim of the cannon’s main focus ring. It had been nothing but stubborn problems from the start—too big, too hot, too unstable. And yet, there it was, whole and humming softly with stored mana, a beast tamed just enough to roll out in public without burning the city down. He gave it a light tap, and the metal sang back with a low, satisfying clang.
”Good enough,” he whispered with a crooked smile, finally letting his eyelids droop. If the upper brass wanted perfection, they could build it themselves. This one was his.
And for tonight at least, that was enough.
Notes:
• Magnus Magic Nation – A major nation led by Premier Melvey from the south.
• Merveille – Magnus Magic Nation premier. ch184. Stern, weighty presence at the council table; silver-haired elder statesman, voice measured yet heavy. Opens the emergency session on the stolen Magic Particle Cannons.
• Laine Federation – Represented by Rufred, a delegate from the southern region.
• Keimas – Fabricated identity. ch184. A ghost craftsman invented by Ayumu’s scheme; on paper, a solitary Yugan-born artisan, supposedly founder of the ‘Sada’ workshop. In truth long dead, a poor serf buried years earlier—his name used as a shell for smuggling.
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Edited by Kanaa-senpai.
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