The Steel Horse

Kyle’s head rotated in every direction his neck would allow as the lapis lazuli amulet around his neck continued to shine with a brilliant blue light. It was quite concerning for anyone watching. But with everyone else busy working the fields, the only one who could was Kari.

“My goodness! Are-Are you alright?” she asked.

…pulled through field…steel blades cut and turn over….

Kari tenderly reached out to prod Kyle’s shirtless chest. “Sir Kyle?”

…energy generated through magic stored because no alternative fuel…

“S-Sir Kyle!” Kari was embarrassed but she put her hands on Kyle’s bare shoulders and tried to shake him.

With a gasp, Kyle snapped out of his apparent trance. But his legs hadn’t caught up and collapsed under him as Kari shook him, sending him tumbling forward into her.

Kari fell back onto the ground, with Kyle’s head landing firmly on her ample chest.

-----

With a few minutes’ effort, Kari helped Kyle back to the cottage.

“You took your sweet time out there. I was about to – whooooooooooooa.” Abagail was still sitting on the bed, book in hand as she saw Kari help an unconscious Kyle in, still shirtless. Abagail snapped out of it and wiped the drool off her chin. “Did you two go for a tumble in the hay or something?”

“N-No!” Kari denied. “He was having the food I provided, he talked about ways to make his work easier, then his amulet started shining and he did this!”

“Oh. The amulet.” Abagail scooted over to the side of the bed, letting Kari lie him down. “He looks exhausted. We’ve gotta work on that stamina of his; using magic requires a whole different kind. Unfortunately.”

Kyle slowly woke up with a grimace. “Ugh, my everything.” He looked down. “Where did my shirt go?”

Blooby floated nearby and was ready to point at the tunic in Kari’s hand, only for it to suddenly and without warning spontaneously burst into flames.

Abagail whistled innocently. “You must’ve lost it outside.” She winked at Kari.

“Y-Yes, Sir Kyle. It was lost outside when you fell into a trance. Your amulet was shining.”

“Oh.” Kyle slowly started trying to get off the bed. “Right. Well, I need to get to work. I’ve got this amazing idea and –”

“Nope.” Abagail pushed him back onto the bed. Kyle couldn’t put up even a token resistance to her hand. “You used so much magic with that thing that you knocked yourself out. I don’t even know how you did it; that thing’s lapis lazuli. It can’t be enchanted like a normal gem.”

Kari placed the amulet in her palm. Her magic staff flew across the room, chiming gently as it came near. “I can sense the magic in it. It is unusual for a gemstone like this to be enchanted, but not impossible.”

“Really.” Abagail deadpanned.

“It is true,” Kari stressed. “They lack the same overall usefulness as enchanting a precious stone of course, but they have a variety of uses depending on the gem.” She ran her thumb across the lapis lazuli’s surface. “I believe this is an amulet of wisdom. It has the power to give whoever wears it knowledge they have not learned, so long as they already understand it in principle.”

Abagail huffed. “You’d already have to know about it to learn? No wonder nobles don’t use it. They’re the best educated people outside of magicians and monks. They wouldn’t see the point because they’d think they already know.”

“As I said, its use is considerably more limited and less obvious.” She moved her staff to touch Ed’s chest. “You’ll need to hold still for some time, Sir Kyle. I shall accelerate your recovery.”

Kyle laughed. “You’re the best, Kari.”

“T-Thank you, Sir Kyle.”

----

The sun started to set by the time Kari deemed Kyle having recovered enough to resume work. But he did not return to the fields.

Abagail found him wandering through town, picking up scraps of metal from the blacksmith, debris, and a few spare wagon wheels.

She knew what Kari had said, and that he must have learned how something worked. But that would lead to its own trouble if she didn’t nip this in the bud.

“Hey.” Abagail called out. “What do you think you’re building?”

Kyle smiled. “If we had more resources, we’d use livestock to pull a plow instead of doing it by hand. What I want to build is a machine that one of us can take across the field and have it drag the plow.”

“That’s an idea,” said Abagail. “That what popped into your head when that amulet went off?”

Kyle nodded.

“Which means you understood all of that before the amulet went off.” She came up to Kyle, coming face-to-face. “That’s a complex magical machine you’re trying to build. You’d need to invent a way to ride it, to create something that could power it without livestock, not to mention whatever kind of plow it would have use. How?!”

Kyle looked off into the distance at a nearby mountain. He wasn’t a gearhead in his past life, but he knew the basics about how cars worked. Including the very basic idea of an internal-combustion engine. Of course, this world hadn’t created gasoline yet. But an engine that ran on magic would avoid the problem of having to find an alternate fuel source like wood or finding somewhere that had coal.

“I don’t think you would believe me if I told you,” said Kyle.

“Try me.”

He took a deep breath. “I lived a life in a world where one existed, I died, and I was reincarnated here as a peasant.”

Abagail stared at him a few long moments, then cracked a smile. “Great joke. Ten out of ten.”

He tried telling her. Kyle kept moving to pick up more materials.

“Hey. You’re not going to try and build that thing, are you?”

“Yup.”

“You know you’ve got next to no magical stamina on account of your never having used it before, right?”

“Yuuuuup.”

Abagail stopped him. “How’s about I teach you a few things. Help you learn the basics of how not to kill yourself trying to cast simple spells.” She cracked open her flask and sipped at its contents before wrapping her hands around his waist. “It’ll go a lot faster and fun that way~”

Kyle had to admit she was right. He didn’t need to knock himself out and spend the night sleeping face down in the dirt.

-----

The next morning saw the peasants of the village continue to work the field. No one had noticed that Kyle was absent. The work was the work, and that was all they needed to focus on.

An hour into their work, some could hear a low humming noise. It was almost like something was whining, but no animal made a noise with that consistent a tone.

Rumbling onto the field was a contraption no one alive had seen the likes of before. A metal wagon rolled forward on four wheels, with a large steel plow cutting through the earth tethered to its rear.

It went a fair distance through the field before it was forced to stop. The workers were running towards it, unsure at what they were seeing or why Kyle was perched on a seat at its top.

Kyle slid off the seat and jumped down to the ground.

Francis was amongst the group. “Kyle, what in the heavens is it?”

“This,” said Kyle, “is called a tractor. It does the same thing that we do when we plow the fields. But instead of us having to get an oxen or a horse to drag it through, we drive this.”

Everyone around looked at the tractor in amazement. “If you didn’t shove an animal in there, how does it work?”

Kyle grinned. “It stores magic energy. When you activate it, there’s a device in here called an ‘engine’ that turns the stored energy into mechanical energy, which makes it move. After a hard day’s work, we store it away and it’ll recharge that spent energy from the magic that’s already in the air. Think of all the time we’ll save plowing the fields!”

The peasants cheered, with Francis climbing aboard to get a crack at driving. As Kyle watched everyone follow him and the plow around the field, he couldn’t help but wonder what else he could do with that amulet.