The God of Gravity part 2: Olympus

Oasis

-

*

"How did you know about the sword?" asked Jasper in a serious mood. Mustafa looks confused and nervous that he failed to answer immediately. "Come on, Mustafa. I just pacified your family's anxiousness, to make them believe that everything will be fine. Everything will be fine as long as you don't lie and honestly answer my questions."

Mustafa swallowed before answering, "A man taught me decades ago."

Hiroki gasped as he realized something. "Is the man a missionary?" he asked Mustafa.

"Yes," answered Mustafa confusingly.

"Did you ask him if why he knows this much?"

"Yes."

"What did he answer?"

"He answered, 'I just know'."

"Just like Mato told me," he said while rubbing his chin, looking down to the ground, and getting deep in his thoughts.

"Who's that man you're talking about?" asked Jasper.

"The leader of the tribesmen-"

"I mean the missionary."

"Oh, we don't know. Mato didn't know the man's name."

"But did he described what he looked like?"

"He didn't."

"Another mystery.....," muttered Jasper. "This is quite a strange coincidence. Two small communities that knew the secret sword, Tamashi no Ken. I never knew about its secret until I tricked my sister and her friend to let me see the magnificent relics locked away deep in the Depths of Tartarus. Among the rows of relics, I saw the name of the sword on its pedestal but the sword itself is gone. I also scoured the library of the underworld, and I deciphered its secret. A secret that even the gods of Olympus never knew. If you really know the secret of the sword, tell me, Mustafa. What is the secret of the sword?"

He looked at Jasper's cunning face and got no choice but to answer. "It.... Its... Its secret is.... absorbs the soul of its victims."

"Oh...," grinned Jasper. "Correct."

Hiroki is surprised but Jack is a little bit confused because this is the first time he heard about this.

Jasper continued: "So I guess there's no point in hiding the fact that I am a god and our Lady's identity for I assume that you know who she really is. Does anybody in the village also knows about this?"

"No," answered Mustafa. "I'm the only one who knows about this."

"Good. We don't want to make Olympus gain interest in us. Can you swear to keep it a secret and for your people to keep their lips sealed about our temporary presence here?" He grinned.

"I swear."

"Well, then! Let's talk about this village. I know a little bit about the problems in this village, but I want to know the exact details from the words of their leader."

"Why would you want to know that?"

"Our Lady wanted us to help you. She said she doesn't care if we stay another day delaying our journey so that we can make sure that no child will die of starvation and thirst after we leave."

"She said that?"

"Technically, not exactly those words. She just answers in nods and single sentences and it is up for us to figure out what she really means. So, get to the point and tell us the problems."

"Water," plainly answered Mustafa.

"And?"

"That's all, my lord."

"Hm," scoffed Jasper. "Are you sure?"

"Yes, my lord. We are fine with food because we trade the rare gemstones we find at the rocky plain beside our village for food and water. The problem is water - it is hard to transport across the desert so we must carry lesser food and more water. We can't work well enough to mine the stones because of thirst and we couldn't get water anywhere. We tried to dig our well after it collapsed but with the cost of lives. A lot of my people accidentally got buried alive when trying to dig the well so I stopped it."

"I can build a pump," suggested Hiroki.

"What?" asked Jasper.

"It's easy, really. I can use my 3D printer to build almost anything."

"Human trinkets are impressive."

"We just need a lot of metals for the deep well tubes and for the hand pump."

"We have junk metals near the well we used to dig," said Mustafa.

"Okay," nodded Hiroki. "and of course I need your help, Jack," he said to him. "Is that okay?"

"Definitely," answered Jack.

"And we need Lady Sayuri's power to dig us a hole so we can insert the tube"

"Alright," said Jasper standing up from his seat while clasping his hands. "Let's go! I'll tell Lady Sayuri, you guys go to the well and start doing your thing."

Jack and Hiroki nodded and they went outside. They didn't mind Mustafa as they went to do their errands.

"My lady!" knocked Jasper at her door after he entered the house. He waited with a smile on his face until the door opened slightly. She's there looking through the slit - the barely-opened door made.

"My lady!" he exclaimed. "You look as beautiful as ever!" She narrowed her eyes and frowned because obvious flattery he makes. "We need your help to make a water pump for the people."

She opened the door forcefully, made her katana fly from her bed to her hand, then walked past Jasper. He quickly went to the door before her and opened it for her at the same time she tied her sheathed sword on her belt.

He went ahead of her and said, "Follow me, my lady." with a smile.

Beside the well, Hiroki deployed the small 3D printer that looks nothing more than a long tube-like arm then he made Jack sit on a chair with all of his systems shut down so that Hiroki can harness the power from his battery - that is located behind him. While carefully dismantling Jack's power system, Hiroki marveled at the technology.

"This is awesome!" he exclaimed. "I can't believe that you have this perfect nuclear battery! You designed this?"

"No," answered Jack while unable to move. "the engineers and scientists of my company did."

"This is genius! The nuclear battery isn't actually a battery but a generator that charges the real battery to store it for the use of your capacitors in your shoulders to create a burst of energy for your railguns!"

"Wow, you know my weapons more than I-"

"Okay! Let's power-up that 3D printer and furnace!"

"Furnace? When did you build that?"

"Well, it's just a simple coil of very thick copper wire that will be powered by high-frequency AC to melt metals then feed it directly into my 3D printing machine." Hiroki panted after saying that long sentence.

"Then what if it solidifies inside your machine?"

"It will not because the machine itself has heating built inside it that can heat-up to two thousand degrees Celsius! The nozzle itself also has a cooling system so that the molten intake can be instantly cooled into solid! That is why I love and glad that I bought this little machine!" Hiroki giggled as he went to his small 3D printer.

"You sound like the people who made my weapons," said Jack but Hiroki didn't hear him.

Sayuri, Jasper, and Mustafa along with other villagers are already watching what Hiroki is making. She just watched at the distance while sitting on a boulder and Jasper went to talk with Jack - who is immobilized for a moment.

The 3D printer is the same size as Hiroki's head, has a funnel on top of it, an extra-long arm that looked like a metal hose, and a nozzle at the end. Hiroki wrote instructions in his small laptop that is connected to the 3D printer. He installed the thick copper coil on top of the funnel and turned on the power. There was a buzzing sound from the copper coil and the 3D printer. He fed a piece of metal inside the coil and it just floated inside and glowed red hot. It is rotating and the shape changed over time. Then he cut the power of the furnace and the molten metal fell into the funnel like water. Then he started to run the program for his 3D printer using his laptop, then the hose moved like a snake and started to print circularly over a flat metal truss, gradually rising and made a two-meter tall pipe with threaded ends. The machine stopped and Hiroki kicked the hot metal pipe aside and started the same process. Every two-meter pipe is made within two minutes and it took five hours for Hiroki to print a hundred fifty pipes and the amazing 3D printer never overheated.

It is already afternoon when he fixed Jack after printing a handheld pump so that he can walk again on his own. He helped Hiroki in connecting the pipes easily because both ends of the pipes are threaded to fit like screws. Using large amounts of improvised sealant, they made sure every pipe doesn't have leaks. They made a hundred and fifty long continuous pipe across the rocky terrain. Sayuri stood up when Hiroki told her how to dig a very deep hole as wide as the diameter of the pipe and slide the pipe into that hole. She summoned a thousand tiny blades that lifted every bottom surface of the pipe so it won't bend. She made it stand very high that the people from the town saw it as the free blades went inside the pipe like birds. Then lots of sand, pebbles, and rocks came out of the top end and the ground shook in the process. The blades swirled inside the pipe without making contact with it. Hiroki and the others went away from the area full of dust and debris, while Sayuri floated on top of the dust cloud using her wide sword she summoned.

The pipe gradually got shorter as it fell into the hole. until an hour later, she stopped bringing it down when there is only a meter-long left of the pipe portruding from the ground and mud came out from it. She raised both of her hands and the blades sprouted from the pipe along with the remaining mud and debris and finally, a fountain of murky water that got lit up by the afternoon sun - a sight of a lifetime for the villagers thirsty for water. Hiroki treaded over the mud while carrying the handheld pump. He installed it on top of the pipe with the help of Jack then tried it.

The eyes of the people widened as the muddy color of the water coming from the pump gradually became clear. Hiroki drank water from it and put a thumbs up to everybody that watched.

They cheered loudly as they lined up with their bottles and gourds and some drank happily on the spot. Everyone cheered on Hiroki as they lifted him up and he was nervous that he could fall. They knelt before Sayuri while offering her gifts like food, fabric, silverware, and money but she ignored them while walking away. They were not offended and just assumed how generous she is to not require a reward for a good deed. But then she returned and grabbed the food they offered her, went to her room, and shut the door. She enjoyed her food alone in peace. The people admired her even more.

"Good job, Hiroki!" praised Jasper as he put her arms over Hiroki's shoulder. "You're a hero of the town!" he laughed and Hiroki couldn't help but laugh too.

In that single afternoon, the hopeless faces that burned from the heat of the sun became brighter than the sun itself. After so long of enduring the painful mitigation of their water, the people used water to their heart's content from this new-found oasis.

*

-