The Curse of Being Hated Has Been Lifted

31 – What Can Be Done with a Magic Engine

In Royan’s memory, Logan had always been a frightening person.

Always wearing a cold expression, living with thorns for everyone, a frightening person.

She had never thought of him as a bad person.

There was also the fact that whenever she saw Logan, the feeling of fear came first, but occasionally, when the time came to hear his stories, his tone was quite soft, so it was hard to call him a bad person.

However, it was not an easy task to erase the fear of Logan, so Royan kept her distance from him.

In fact, this was not her intention.

Even if Royan did not intentionally distance herself from Logan, the family isolated Logan and Royan, and occasionally, when there were moments when she could approach him, Logan avoided Royan first.

After Logan entered the academy, Royan had been gradually forgetting about him and preparing to become the head of the family, but she was hit with the opportunity to think about Logan not once, but twice.

“He’s not the older brother I knew…”

The aura she felt when Logan visited the family not long ago was vastly different from the Logan she knew.

It was intensely fierce, cold, and even a little unpleasant, but the oppressive atmosphere vanished completely, replaced by a slightly chilly yet warm feeling.

Watching her converse with her parents, the Earl of Astrian, her tone seemed largely unchanged, but the mood had shifted, giving off a very different vibe.

If before, she felt like a fierce and ferocious wolf, now, was she more like a wet puppy?

She didn’t have much to compare with her older brother, but it felt that way.

She wanted to continue the conversation, but Logan had received his allowance from Repaire and left almost immediately, leaving no opportunity to talk.

“He doesn’t seem likely to come back…”

Having missed the chance to talk to Logan, Royan began to hear a shocking rumor.

“What? Logan Aurbernie was cursed?”

“That’s what they say. It was strange. He completely changed overnight.”

The story she heard from Repaire, her stepfather, was shocking.

Logan was under the curse of the worst witch named Stella, and as a result of that curse, he grew up receiving hatred from everyone.

It all made sense to Royan now.

Why her parents left the healthy Aurbernie and chose her as the successor, why her Aurbernie always emitted such a sinister vibe,

and she could understand what wrong she had done to him.

“I didn’t even know about that…”

Royan had always avoided Logan.

From a very young age, she could hide behind others when Logan approached, and even scream if he came close.

Looking back now, it was really a terrible thing to do.

Logan had approached her as a brother would to his little sister, yet she screamed at him like that.

“How difficult must his life have been…”

The Count and Countess of Astrian deliberately kept Royan away from Logan, so Royan didn’t know how terrible Logan’s life had been.

But even just glimpsing into Logan’s life that she happened to come across by chance, she could tell how severe his suffering had been.

“A curse… Logan went through such terrible things…”

“We should take care of him now, he’s a child who didn’t receive proper affection because of the curse.”

The feeling that arose in the Count and Countess of Astrian upon hearing that Logan’s curse had been lifted around the same time was disgust.

“Do they think that my brother’s suffering only came from the curse?”

The curse was the fundamental cause of ruining Logan’s life, but Royan knew well how Logan had been treated in the family.

To go and apologize to Logan for the wrongs done to him would hardly be satisfying when he was blaming it on the curse…

“You said you’d sever the ties.”

Royan understood very well why Logan had severed ties with the Astrian family.

To her, the Count and Countess of Astrian were always warm and kind parents, but to Logan, they were nothing more than tormenting demons.

“Brother…”

Royan made up her mind.

She would grow as quickly as possible and take over the Astrian family.

And she would apologize to Logan and hand over the Astrian family to him.

*****

“Phew, come on out.”

“Stop it now! It’s been more than ten times already. Doing it more won’t make a difference.”

“I think it’ll really work this time, so come out.”

In front of the magical engine Logan had created, Anna and Arua were wrestling.

Arha was staring at the mana engine, with mana boiling throughout her body, determined to stop the magical engine. Anna was blocking her, having thwarted her attempts a whopping nine times.

“This time, I’m using my true power. This is the last.”

“You said the same thing earlier.”

“This is my real strength.”

“Give the order once more. Arha never lets things like this go just like that. I guarantee it. This will truly be the last attempt.”

-Kigigigigik!

After drawing mana from her entire body, Arha quickly spun the mana heart.

The mana circulating around her body soon empowered her.

-Kwong!

The rotating disk could be stopped.

The sound of something bursting was merely the machine overloading, nothing to worry about.

“Hey! You…”

“Huh? This isn’t right…”

The machine exploded, leaving only the motionless disk in Arha’s hand.

It took Arha 10 seconds to grasp what had happened, and her dumbfounded brain finally turned into contemplation as she looked at Logan.

Logan’s face, upon Arha’s gaze, was stern.

“I’m sorry, senior! I ruined the masterpiece you made…”

Seeing Arha kneel and start begging, Logan thought to himself, ‘If forcibly stopping the operation leads to such accidents, I should create a device to stop the machine without causing overload.’

Logan’s machine was an exceptionally efficient one.

It was a simple device that generated power by creating heat with mana, boiling water, and turning it into kinetic energy. However, it required such an optimized heating system and a structure to supply and boil water quickly that it needed a power of advanced labor like Arua’s to produce output comparable to a reasonably priced horsepower stone, preventing the production from being excessive.

“But what can you do with this kind of power?”

Arua invested another five days to rebuild the damaged mana engine.

While it was possible to make several improvements, the delay in the business due to his own fault made Arua treat Logan to all meals with a guilty conscience.

“It’s just a spinning disc. What can you do with it?”

“You’ll see.”

Logan’s curiosity, unleashed from its curse, was at its peak.

Since the Academy had a wide variety of professors, Logan was able to find one well-versed in machines. Over the past three weeks, he had learned a lot from him and was able to create a device that could convert the mere spinning power in a variety of ways.

-Dududududududududu!

“Wow!”

After Logan stopped the mana engine, inserted some gears, and started the engine again, he created a piston motion that continued to shake up and down from the mere spinning disc.

“If we use this power to create an automated production system, we can make automated giant machines at a lower cost, right?”

Redrika confidently spoke, as if she could read Logan’s thoughts.

“No, I just did it because it seemed fun. What we’ll use is the power that’s spinning in this circle, that’s all.”

“What good is it to just spin in a circle? Do you use it for kneading dough?”

“Maybe for interrogating sinners? It seems perfect for torture if you spin it and leave it hanging.”

The words of the two young ones, touching the sword, were not the right answer.

“If you attach a blade-like object to the edge of the disc, can’t you cut anything with it?”

The words of a young one who only uses magic were not the right answer either.

“Give it some serious thought. Among everyday items, there must be things that require such explosive rotational power, right?”

“Oh! Senior, are you planning to implant this machine into a human heart and use it as a Mana Heart substitute?”

Logan couldn’t continue speaking in shock at Arua’s absurd nonsense.

“I’m just kidding! Seriously, do you think I’d believe that?”

“I thought you might actually think that way.”

Since it seemed unlikely for the correct answer to emerge like this, Logan decided to reveal the answer right away.

“I’m going to make a carriage with this.”

“A carriage?”

“Yeah, a carriage that doesn’t need horses. It will be a silent carriage.”

“If it’s a carriage without horses, is it just a vehicle then?”

Logan couldn’t deny Arua’s laughter-filled words.