"Get the strings off before the body warps further," Sorakumo-san barked.
He gave the impression of a lead surgeon in the operating room, and Konrad was quick to comply. Grabbing the tuning keys with trembling hands, he unwound them.
The owner stopped him with a shake of his head.
"Faster to cut," he said, taking a clipper. "Won't use them again anyway."
Konrad cringed at every snip.
Those strings alone were more expensive than his daily wage.
And despite the swift action, the top never returned to its original shape.
"Hmm, this can only mean two things," the owner noted. "The glue let go, or the centerpiece cracked, too. How strong was that throw?!"
"Very," Yuki said, tiptoeing to look over her father's shoulder. "It was one hefty ball, Oto-san."
The man sighed.
"Then this'll be trickier than expected."
"Can't we take off the top?" Konrad asked. "Swap the broken part out, then glue everything back."
Sorakumo-san laughed.
"The ES-335 doesn't work that way," he said, grabbing a sheet of paper. "It's not a solid piece like the Les Paul or the Stratocaster, nor a full box like your acoustic."
"It's the best of both worlds," Yuki chimed in. "Or the worst in this case."
The owner nodded.
"A solid core for rigidity, the rest plywood. All assembled and glued together under a press."
Meaning, it was impossible to take it apart without destroying the whole thing.
They had to fix it as a single piece, and all they had to work with were two small f-holes. And, well, the pickup cavities if they took the humbuckers out. But that was it.
Like an actual surgeon, operating blind.
"Yuki-chan, can your phone camera fit inside the f-hole? Let's see what the damage is like on the inside," Sorakumo-san said, pulling her closer. "You can also use the flashlight on mine."
Konrad had no idea why they needed the extra steps until he saw how narrow that space was.
The pictures were hard to make out, and only one thing was certain.
"It's busted," the emo girl announced, zooming in on what looked like a broken tree trunk.
"Seen worse," Oto-san noted, tapping his chin as he pondered. "We can inject some glue and press it back together, but it won't hold the bridge. The string tension would be too much."
Yet another obstacle, and they hadn't even started.
"What if we didn't screw the bridge to the top, but to the bottom?" Konrad asked, drawing their gaze. "Mean, like, uh, one of those big boxy guitars in the far corner of the store."
"From the Jazz section?" Yuki-san asked, raising her eyebrow.
"A floating tailpiece, huh?" Sorakumo-san asked, too. Whatever that meant. "The bottom is the strongest point of the guitar after all. It can work—but it has some drawbacks."
"Like what?"
What was a bigger downside than not having a working guitar?
Anything else, he was fine with. But now that they offered the finished guitar up to him for free, he wanted the ES-335 back together.
"A more mellow sound and worse sustain," the owner explained.
At least he understood one of those terms.
"Plus, it would no longer be a factory default Gibson anymore."
Oh, well.
"Still better than a Gibson with a hole in it," Yuki pointed out before Konrad did. But even with that settled, the work was still difficult and tedious.
They had to clear the debris, sand down the centerpiece, and add braces, too.
All that from the inside, through those tiny holes.
"I'm surprised how good you are at this," Owner-san noted when it was Konrad's turn to suffer.
Of course, he wasn't a sorcerer for nothing.
Reflecting and refracting light, he didn't have to feel things out with his fingers.
He could actually see with them.
Shaping the wood was much simpler through basic spells, too.
They burned through his mana, but once the guitar was whole again, he'd recharge it all anyway. Working inside the instrument made their connection even deeper, more intimate.
He attuned to it—and would continue to do so during the long and arduous process.
By the end of his shift, they had cleared most of the damage.
On Sunday, the glueing and clamping could finally begin.
While he didn't have a shift on Monday, he still visited the store to watch the guitar dry. And if he was already there, he helped Sorakumo-san put up the security cameras at last.
Everything to keep an eye on Yuki-san, of course.
And as if to confirm his worries, Kaede texted him on Tuesday afternoon.
[R Kaede] Another hitman. No corpse this time.
Konrad read it right after he secured the floating tailpiece to the bottom of the ES-335.
He would have been happy with that info, too, if it weren't for the next message.
[R Kaede] I disintegrated the bastard. Praise me.
Sure. Right after hell froze over.
[Konrad H] How do you even have the mana for that?!
The girl typed at lightning speed.
[R Kaede] Practiced. A lot. Starting to get a feel of it. Where's my praise?
That was hard to believe, but he wanted to—with every cell of his body. She was eager, too.
[R Kaede] Group practice when? You never looked my way in school.
Yeah. And he had a good reason.
When not working on his guitar, Konrad spent all his time deciphering the Demon Lord's spell.
It was their ticket back to Kasserlane—if he had the mana to cast it.
And for that, they had to perform well on that weekend band battle thing. He practiced on his acoustic alone for the lack of a better tool, hoping the ES-335 would be ready by then.
Thus, Wednesday was another session of problem-solving.
"We have to replace the bridge pickup," Sorakumo-san announced. "Better we did both, though. And to combat the mellowness—why not use single coils instead?"
"What? But, but—the holes are humbucker-sized," Konrad pointed out.
The guitar's look has already changed.
He didn't hate the floating tailpiece. It gave the Gibson a more elegant, classy look. But to leave huge gaps in the body?! It had to look at least as good as it sounded.
No compromises there.
"Then, how 'bout a set with separate output wires? Like a double-single coil, that you can use as a humbucker, too. Or shift the phase between parallel and serial with a push-pull knob, and—"
"Uh, sure. Why not?" he muttered, hoping he didn't make a huge mistake.
But those went way over his head.
Konrad was neither a luthier nor an electrician.
"And then we'd have two, push-pull volume poties instead of the four tone knobs. And a main volume that adds extra treble when turned down to compensate for the mellowness—"
There was no stopping Sorakumo-san.
But he worked on a guitar that Konrad could have, and he did it for free.
Nerd out all he wanted; the Duke of Halaima would drink up all his words.
The extra wiring took all day to sort out. They had to fill in all the unused holes next, then the whole guitar was finally repainted. This was on Thursday, drying through Friday.
And that was it.
That's when they gathered for one last group practice before the big event.
Konrad's skin prickled before he even touched the old-new instrument.
It was reborn almost the same way he had been.