"I see. So that's how it is. Tch, this makes it a lot harder to bring up doubling my final payment," Noah muttered quietly, rubbing his fingers together.
Since they were standing right next to each other, Eina clearly heard his grumbling.
Thinking he was complaining about her blurting out the truth, her mouth twitched slightly.
"Are you really this greedy for money at such a young age?"
Seeing her sighing face, Noah just blinked.
Then he asked, "Miss Eina, are you actually from some rich family or something?"
"Eh? What do you mean?"
"Never mind." Noah just gave her a helpless look.
Only someone who never had to worry about money would say shit like that.
Then, he suddenly remembered.
Even though Eina just worked as a receptionist at the Guild, her mother wasn't just Riveria's maid—she was also one of the high elf princess's closest friends.
With a background like that, her way of thinking was obviously going to be totally different from a normal person's!
"The list of adventurers who leveled up this time will be announced tomorrow morning," Eina said.
"Right..."
"Hehe, are you looking forward to it?"
"Hell no. Honestly, I'm just terrified. What if it ends up being 'Strawberry Tart McChicken' or something stupid like that?"
"Strawberry... McChicken... Huh?"
Eina looked completely lost, totally unable to understand the weird terms mixed into his rant.
But she got the general gist of it.
After all, during her training period at the Guild, she had seen all kinds of adventurers—including massive, fierce-looking meatheads who ended up stuck with titles like "Bunny Girl."
"Well, it should be fine for you, Noah. I'm sure you'll get a really impressive title."
"Who knows? I hit Level 2 as a total nobody, after all."
Eina tilted her head, feeling a bit puzzled.
'A nobody? It seemed Noah still hadn't noticed "that whole situation" yet.'
'Even though he was usually super calm and mature for his age, it turned out he could be pretty dense sometimes, too.'
'Looks like he still has a cute side after all.'
"Anyway, Miss Eina, what are you even doing out here at this hour?"
"Ahhh, listen Noah, it's overtime."
"Overtime?"
"The Guild recently got super strict with personnel checks for people going in and out of the city. Junior staff like me and Misha basically became the designated workhorses."
The half-elf girl threw her hands up, looking totally exhausted.
Noticing the deep fatigue between her brows, Noah reached into his bag and casually crushed a recovery potion.
A faint light coated Raven Feather.
Since there was less than three meters between them, he easily manipulated the elements extracted from the potion and directed them straight into Eina.
A soft glow flashed.
Instantly, Eina's complexion visibly improved.
"Huh? My fatigue just completely disappeared! Noah, what did you just do to me?"
"Just a basic healing spell. Think of it as thanks for always looking out for me."
"Healing magic! Noah, you actually have magic too?! That's amazing."
"It's really nothing special."
Noah waved his hand dismissively, said goodbye to the receptionist and finally headed back to the Familia base.
Under the night sky, he felt his messy thoughts finally calming down.
Inspiration started flowing the second he got to his room and picked up his pen to sketch out weapon blueprints.
Just like he'd thought before, the launcher itself couldn't be ordinary.
In a fight, adventurers always lived by the rule of dodging attacks instead of taking them head-on.
Their footwork was crazy flexible and unpredictable, and high-level adventurers had absolutely god-like agility.
Just relying on raw marksmanship wouldn't be nearly enough to hit them with bullets that only traveled at 340 meters per second.
What he really needed was a highly specialized launcher and custom ammo.
The gun barrel absolutely had to be engraved with a whole series of enchantment spells—stuff like "Sure Hit," "Acceleration," "Concealment," and "Transfer."
All of these spells had to be imbued into the ammo the exact second it left the chamber.
That meant the barrel couldn't be too short, or else he wouldn't have enough room to carve the chants.
But if he used orichalcum to make the barrel, the whole thing would end up way too heavy.
Wait, no.
Since the kinetic energy wasn't coming from gunpowder anyway, he didn't actually need the barrel to be perfectly airtight.
He could totally design a few hollowed-out channels along it, kind of like carving blood grooves into a sword blade.
"Hmm... I definitely still want some offensive options, too."
Fire support was technically still support, right?
If you just blow up all the enemies, your teammates can't get hurt.
If he could somehow load a magic sword straight into the gun barrel, the destructive power would be completely insane, right?
Noah's imagination started running wild, wondering if he could actually forge a magic sword into the shape of a bullet.
If he pulled that off, a single sniper shot could pack the firepower of a literal tank cannon, pushing out damage that might even rival top-tier elven magic!
If he succeeded, he could call this attack mode "Artillery Strike."
...
Completely hyped up, Noah stayed up the entire night, using up his very last sheet of paper to sketch out all his designs.
With massive dark circles under his eyes, he stared intensely at the final blueprint in front of him—which he had revised at least twenty times—and finally felt completely satisfied.
He was itching to start building the damn thing right away.
He named the project the "Empowerment Protocol."
Since it wasn't just a single weapon but a bunch of different modules linked together, it was way more accurate to call it a full "system."
By combining the broken effects of Spell-Weaver and Truth Seeker, he had basically custom-built a combat system tailored perfectly to his own fighting style.
This was the Empowerment Protocol.
In theory, depending on what the user needed, the system could handle a huge variety of roles: striking, protection, healing, purification, giving buffs, and inflicting debuffs.
But just as Noah started picking out the materials for the components, a loud voice boomed through the building.
"Noah, my boy!"
Bang!
A wild Tsubaki had arrived!
She pushed open—no, she literally shattered—his bedroom door and barged right in.
Noah could only sigh helplessly at the wreckage. "Tsubaki, you're not a half-dwarf, you're a Minotaur, aren't you? Could you please try not to be so reckless? And whatever you have to say, do not forget to fix my damn door before you leave."
After glaring at the culprit who had just blown up his door, Noah turned his attention right back to the blueprints on his desk.
"Hey, hey, Noah-chan, don't sweat the small stuff! I came to you for something super important. Listen to me..."
"I refuse. I'm not listening to a word you say until you fix my door. Otherwise, I'm going to have to waste my own time and money to repair and reinforce the stupid thing again."
"Eh—?! Is reinforcing it really necessary?" Tsubaki acted as if the broken wood everywhere had absolutely nothing to do with her.
Noah just sighed.
"And whose fault do you think that is?"