Currently, I'm trying to make the first video recorder in this other world.
Back when I was given headaches with Darkness's attempted marriage fiasco with that fatass Alderp, Dust and I snuck into a hotel to spy on his companion, Lynn, about her meeting up with a strange man.
While we snuck around we found a magic camera and then took pictures of Dust. Little did we know that the real reason why they met up was for Lynn to set Dust up with that person.
Traumatic experiences for Dust aside, I haven't encountered a magic camera that recorded video yet. Despite having cool magic this world didn't have the brains or maybe the will to innovate their technology.
I asked Vanir to get me a camera so I can inspect it, and here it is in front of me.
It looks pretty similar to the old fashion cameras that took a picture and used up film. While I was holding it in my hands, I began to fidget with it to see how it works.
Flash
As I held the camera, I pressed a button that was on the right handle. Despite being underwhelming it's as expected from a basic camera.
While I was doodling designs onto a piece of paper, I heard some footsteps coming from deep inside the house.
"Kazuma I'm going out for my daily explosion."
Without turning around I responded to this crazed loli.
"Ok have fun."
"By that I mean come with me, I need someone to carry me back."
As per usual of her straightforwardness, she began tugging on my shirt.
"I'm working on something here, ask Aqua or Darkness to take you."
It's been a few months since we slew the Demon King.
Darkness's family was given another town to govern and she has been receiving marriage proposals non-stop to the point where sometimes we burn some of the marriage proposals in the fireplace. Darkness doesn't approve but we're just helping her out by giving her less people to respond to, that and also we thought it would be funny.
Aqua began preaching more at the local Axis cult church, which believe it or not been growing as of late. Since she is technically the holy artifact I chose, she's stuck with me down here. I just hope that her disciples don't do any forms of propaganda here at Axel, it would be a pain to deal with more of Aqua's kind...
Megumin on the other hand has been going out with Yunyun occasionally to the late Demon King's castle. Even though the Demon King is gone the Crimson Demons are still harassing with what remains of the army and would have picnics at the castle. Her explosion magic has increased in power which scares me, but I hope that loli can contain her chuuni ways.
As for me, business has been booming. I've been selling Vanir intellectual rights to some items I recreated from Japan such as heat packs during the winter, although he does get on my nerves about contraceptives and Megumin. I occasionally go adventuring with the girls but most of the time I'm at home tinkering.
"Remember, earlier Darkness said she was going to the police station to handle some files, and Aqua just ran off as usual."
Oh right, lately we all have been doing our own things, but we do eat and prepare dinner together. Its just been lately we been preoccupied.
"Where's Yunyun?"
"My loner radar isn't picking up."
"Uh huh."
One of the items Vanir is selling are sticky notes. I referred to him the concept and lately, Wiz's shop has been more of a convenience store.
Despite that, they're always in the red.
Using the sticky notes I began to make a stickman flipbook. It looked bad compared to animations that corporations like st*dio gh*bli made though.
Even so, it wasn't half bad.
"What's that?"
"Oh this? Blueprints for a project, although it's hard since I didn't study magic."
"I mean the flipbook you made."
"Oh this?"
She flipped through the animation quickly and gave her comments...
"Too bland."
...more like only comment.
"What are you trying to recreate this time?"
Megumin leaned into my shoulder, checking out the mess I made on the coffee table. sprawled all over the table are pieces of paper, the magic camera, and some office utensils for work.
I began to explain to Megumin how back in my world, the cameras could capture multiple frames per second and would process it into what can be essentially be called an animation. And to top it off it could also record audio.
The difference is that with the magic camera, I can't really tell how many 'pixels' are in each picture.
"Sounds real convenient!"
"Yeah, too bad there aren't any mics here that can record audio..."
While saying this I began thinking about making a microphone for recording audio.
"..mhm..."
Megumin stood behind me, making a face.
More specifically a thinking face.
"You better not make any trouble, taking you out of the police station a few days ago was not a pleasant experience."
"Who said I was going to cause any trouble?! Besides, it was the cocky nobles' that visited and ticked me off..."
Megumin gave a look of reason despite not having any reason to begin with, and then handed me back my poor excuse of a flipbook.
After being handed back the drawn animation, I went back to work. After a few minutes, I heard scribbling from my back.
I turned around and saw Megumin drawing on the couch.
On closer look she seemed to have begun drawing sketches, but for what? I waited for a bit until she took out another piece of paper and place it on top of the sketched piece.
After repeating, it became obvious that she was making an animation. But what is she animating?
While trying to read the text bubbles, somehow her penmanship was gothic and gave me a headache trying to read it. After a certain point I gave up on trying to understand what she was doodling and went back to work.
- - - Days later - - -
It's been a few days since I saw Megumin's animation.
For the past few days she has been staying in her room doing God knows what. She still comes out for meals but other than that I'm not sure what she was doing.
Today though she called everyone in the party for a meeting.
As usual, Aqua is on the couch with me, having her legs in the table, as for Darkness she is drinking tea in a chair next to the couch.
Behind Megumin was some sort of covered object,
"You guys may be thinking 'what did the great genius of the Crimson Demons call me for?' but fret not friends!"
She struck a chuuni pose while giving out her speech, and as usual everyone just sat there in silence."
"I asked you to put aside your minuscule responsibilities so we may appreciate this masterpiece of mine!"
She struck another pose while taking off the cover of the unidentified object.
The now revealed object was what is essentially a large sticky note with a leaf blower prototype I made.
Judging from how the leaf blower is facing, this is essentially a large flipbook.
"H-Hey at least say something..."
Megumin, becoming unnerved started looking at each one of us.
"How did you hide that?"
Aqua was the first to talk, but instead said something useless.
"Why did you attach my prototype to your project? It's not finished you know."
"It's fine! I have faith that it'll work out great, my Crimson Demon blood says so."
Darkness became curious and asked what it was.
"What is it Megumin? I have a meeting with a neighboring town to discuss tourist control."
Darkness cocked her head, while Aqua just ate some snacks with wine.
Lately, I've noticed more tourists invading the town.
"A couple days ago, Kazuma was trying to redesign a magic camera to capture multiple frames per second, so that way it can record what is called 'video.' I figured since we don't have any 'videos' here why not make an animation!"
"But what did you animate?"
We all asked the same question.
"You'll see..."
As she said this, Megumin flipped the prototype's switch.
Vrrrrmmmmmmmm
Making a high pitch sound similar to a vacuum.
It started off small, and barely blew any air.
I forgot why I stopped working on the prototype...
I'm getting a bad feeling about this...
As I wondered whether I should've stopped this trouble-making loli, the machine started to pick up pace and we all watched Megumin's artwork.
The first frame showed a small frog, and frame by frame the frog got bigger and then extended it's tongue to the outside of the board. When it retracted it had what seemed to be a girl in its grasp.
On closer inspection, it looked like Aqua.
"Hey is that me!"
Aqua exclaimed at Megumin, in which her response was that of a 'shush' as if we were at the movies.
Aqua pouted and resumed watching.
The priestess started glowing brighter and brighter, and started levitating; using some magic she released some sort of pulse and knocked the frog out of the board, showing a victory sign and doing a funny dance.
Another woman walked into frame. She was a tall woman with a tough build, and she had 'big personality' as she walked up to the glowing girl. With a big sword at hand, she took a defensive stance.
"Is that person supposed to be me I assume?"
"Shhh!!"
Megumin did a louder shush and directed Darkness's attention to the large flipbook.
The two girls started to get smaller in the frame, probably signifying what would be the camera is zooming out. As we zoomed out, a large mob of goblins appeared to the right-hand side of the animation and started firing spears and arrows towards the magical girl, but were stopped by the defense of the strong girl.
But alas defense means nothing without offense.
Although her defenses were impenetrable, the stalemate wasn't going anywhere.
As if on cue, an arrow was shot from behind the priest and crusader. The shot was very accurate and pierced three goblins onto the back of a tree.
The priestess looked behind and waved towards an unidentified archer, and slowly each goblin was pierced with their own or a shared arrow.
Walking up to the girls was an average-looking guy, didn't look the part but seemed to be the one that took out the goblins. As the priestess and male high five each other, the crusader gave a thumbs up and they advanced further into the right side.
I smiled and looked at Megumin, who seemed to be enthralled by how well the viewing is.
As I looked back at the animation, all of a sudden the average guy did a double-take and took a step back. The priestess tugged onto the guy's arm as if to protect herself, and the crusader took a stance.
As the camera panned further, bit by bit we saw a rather familiar mob.
...I-Its a rookie killer..!
Rookie Killers are smart wolf-like creatures that usually stay close to creatures such as goblins, using the goblins as bait they trap and kill rookie adventurers.
If we use this logic, the rookie killer is here to kill these adventurers.
While the beast slowly got into a stance, the priestess and guy started arguing and the crusader seemed to have opened her arms and accepted her fate.
I quickly glanced at Darkness and saw a slight blush on her face.
"Ooh here it comes..!"
As Megumin began to squirm and her eyes lit up.
Slowly walking into the frame is a small petite girl, wearing a witches' hat and swinging her staff. The archer dude ran up to her and began telling her the situation. As if knowing what to do she began to chant some sort of magic.
Judging from the theme of the characters I can only imagine that this mage only has one spell in mind.
Just as the chant was finished, the sky turned red, and crackling can be heard from the surroundings. Everyone in the party instinctively braced themselves for the impact of the dumb and overpowered spell.
The power could be felt from just the chant, but the smoke already began, I started coughing and went to look at Megumin who just did her explosion spell-
Wait we're no adventuring right now.
Why do I smell smoke?
Just perfectly when this thought appeared in my mind, a loud pop could be heard from the prototype leaf blower.
Hiss...
We all looked at the machine and it started to get more and more powerful. It started reaching the fireplace and then the fire place grew larger and larger.
"Oh no!"
"Wait what?!"
The action film Megumin drew started to light up just as the drawn explosion was starting, seems poetic but it doesn't matter now.
We all got up and put out the fire, it was mainly Darkness who was putting it out since she was the most heat resistant. She seemed to enjoy some of the sparks and burns.
Aqua could've drenched it but knowing her she also could've flooded the living room.
"Aw man..."
Megumin clutched the half-burnt cell animation she drew and gave a depressed look.
"H-Hey it was a good piece of art!"
"Yeah! It looked really good!"
"Its not bad, although the film ending in flames was pretty cool."
For the rest of the day we laid back at home and stop worrying about tomorrow's troubles temporarily.