Episode 29 — Topographic Survey and the Photo-Bombing Mage.

That evening.

From beyond the forest where twilight was closing in, I heard the familiar clanking of armor accompanied by a contrasting set of light, rhythmic footsteps.

Bartos had returned from the garrison, bringing Elishua with him.

“Master Zect, we have captured everything! Please, have a look!”

Bartos presented the digital camera with both hands, his expression like a general who had just won a decisive battle.

“You’re done already? That was fast.”

“Indeed! With Lady Elishua’s movement magic, traversing this distance was a trivial matter.”

I see. A collaboration between magic and modern tech.

I took the camera and connected it to my phone via a conversion adapter. An import progress bar slid across the screen, and thumbnails began to populate one after another.

(…Bartos is actually incredibly competent.)

The quality of the photos was surprisingly high. There wasn’t a hint of motion blur, and the compositions followed a consistent set of rules. The river embankments, the state of the bridge piers, the subtle slopes of the land—even as a non-expert, I could tell how valuable this field data was.

…Except for one thing.

“…Hey, Bartos. Why is Elishua in every single shot of the riverbank?”

I pointed to the screen, where Elishua was visible in the frame, smiling elegantly by the water.

In the next photo, she was standing on a cliff with the wind blowing through her hair, and in the one after that, she was striking a pose with her magic staff for some reason.

Bartos puffed out his chest as if he’d been waiting for me to notice.

“Yes! Lady Elishua mentioned, ‘If it is just the landscape, Master Zect might struggle to understand the sense of scale, wouldn't he?’ Truly a wonderful act of devotion!”

(No, she definitely just wanted a photoshoot. There’s even a picture of her mid-jump.)

As for Elishua herself, she was peering at the screen next to me.

“Oh, Master Zect, the lighting in that one is a bit off. Please use this one—the one where I’m caught at a perfect 45-degree angle from the left—as the cover for the documents!”

She was making demands that completely ignored the original purpose of the mission.

“…Right. Got it. Anyway, I’ve received the data. I need to analyze this in detail, so give me a moment.”

Holding my phone and the camera, I retreated to the study alone. Honestly, being exposed to that sparkling gaze was giving me the same kind of pressure I used to feel as a corporate employee when a client would breathe down my neck while watching my screen.

In the quiet of the study, I transferred the data from my phone to my PC and lined up the images on the monitor.

The precision was excellent. I overlaid the “Medieval Drainage Structures” info I’d researched with the actual topographic photos and fed the data into the Translation Printer.

The machine emitted a rhythmic whirring sound, and several sheets of paper slid out.

My crude concepts had been transformed by the printer’s hyper-tech into plausible blueprints, complete with annotations like “New Drainage System with Integrated Magic Circuitry.”

“Good. …And I might as well print these out too.”

I took a few sets of documents and returned to the living room.

“Sorry to keep you waiting. Bottom line: it’s perfect. A hundred points.”

I spread the printed papers on the table, and the two of them leaned in eagerly.

“This is… the ‘New Era Waterway’ envisioned by Master Zect…! What a meticulous formulaic diagram… I sense an unfathomable abyss within these lines!”

Bartos traced the drawing with trembling fingers. It was just a route for sewage pipes, but because the Translation Printer had added professional-looking annotations on its own, it looked three times more profound.

“Elishua, thanks to your photography, the elevation changes are crystal clear. You’ve just taken your first step as the world’s first ‘Civil Engineering Mage.’ I’m expecting great things.”

“C-Civil Engineering Mage…? Being the world’s first doesn't sound bad at all!”

“It’s a vital job—creating the ‘blood vessels’ of this city.”

When I hyped her up with a random title, Elishua predictably stuck her nose in the air. It was the same tactic I’d seen used back in my corporate days to motivate greenhorns.

“So… um, Master Zect.”

Elishua pointed shyly at another stack of papers on the table. Those were the prints of the rejected photos I’d excluded from the documents because she was photobombing them too hard.

“These… if you don’t need them, could I, like, have one? Just one? Please?!”

“Eh? Oh, sure, I don’t mind.”

When I gave my permission, she did a little hop of joy, unable to hide her excitement, and hugged one of the prints to her chest.

It was a photo of her staring into the distance with a magical girl pose against the sunset—a photo that was zero percent useful as reference material.

(That’s your favorite one?!)

I kept the thought to myself. If this boosted her motivation and made tomorrow's construction go smoother, it was a small price to pay.

“Tomorrow, I need you to perform a final field check based on those blueprints.”

“Yes, Master Zect! Understood!”

“Leave it to me, Master Zect!”

As I watched the two of them head off in high spirits, I sank deep into the sofa.

My hack-job blueprints were slowly beginning to reshape this city.

(…For a shut-in’s plan, this is getting pretty grand.)

Tama hopped onto my lap and let out a resigned purr.Episode 29 — Topographic Survey and the Photo-Bombing Mage.