by Hiro Ainana
“It’s all right,” I murmured, laying my hands over theirs. “We’re here for you.”
“You’ve got me, too!”
“And me.”
“I will defend you, I declare.”
“Mm. Safe.”
Everyone else was just as worried about the beastfolk girls, and they all gathered around to put their hands on top of mine encouragingly.
I think Miss Karina wanted to join, too, but she hesitated too long and missed her chance, so instead she just stood outside the circle looking left out.
“Master, I apologize for worrying you.”
“We’re okaaay.”
“P-Pochi is just fine, sirs.”
The beastfolk girls smiled with a little difficulty and returned to their seats.
And yet, the cries of “Kill her!” were still roaring through the stadium.
Come on, people—read the room a little.
But my snide mental commentary stopped dead in its tracks when I saw the man standing over the bloodied samurai woman with his spear raised.
However reluctantly, he appeared to be trying to stab her in response to the audience’s demands.
“Why isn’t the ref—?”
Before I finished my question, I realized the woman was still holding her broken short sword.
From a refereeing standpoint, that probably meant the fight was technically still on.
The woman rolled to avoid the spear a few times, but finally the spearman trapped the arm holding the short sword under his foot, rendering her powerless.
“That’s it! Kill her! If you do well, the house of Count Bobino will gladly employ you!”
An arrogant voice called out from another section of the luxury seats.
At this, the spearman muttered as if he’d lost his mind. “Golao… Papa’s going to do it…”
Shoot, this doesn’t look good.
“Stop! Golao is watching!” I used my “Amplification” skill to try and bring the man back to his senses.
“Golao…”
Shaken by my cry, the man shifted his spear to the side, the cross-shaped tip stopping just short of the woman’s neck.
“Winner! Spearman Jirau!”
As soon as his victory was announced, the man dropped to his knees. The medical staff came in to help up the samurai woman and carry her off the field.
“Well, I know I’m bored of this now. Should we go back?”
“I agree. This bloodthirsty atmosphere doesn’t suit my delicate senses.”
I wasn’t really bored, but I didn’t like how cruel this was getting.
Besides, the yells of the crowd were probably stressing out the beastfolk girls.
“If Sa—Sir Pendragon is going back, I suppose we shall as well.”
With that, we all headed to the carriages.
Along the way, my “Keen Hearing” skill picked up an interesting conversation.
“Hey! What do you think you’re doing?! I’m a direct descendant of the esteemed Bobino family, I’ll have you know! Foolish knights!”
“Quiet down, please. We are detaining all members of the Bobino family by order of His Grace the duke. Any resistance will be considered mutiny against him.”
The first voice was that awful, arrogant noble from before.
On the map, I confirmed that the duke’s men had surrounded the Bobino estate, where the Wings of Freedom members had been hiding out, and an elite force of imperial guards were facing down the count’s private army.
The duke had made good on his word from the night before, dispatching his troops the very next day.
I’m glad to see he’s so quick to action.
When we returned to Count Worgoch’s manor, I decided to try to comfort the beastfolk girls by preparing hamburg steaks at their request.
The maid of the house was able to get some tofu for me, so I made a test run of a tofu version for Mia as well.
“Pochi!”
“Tamaaa!”
Seeing the steaks, the two squealed and clung to each other joyously. I was glad they weren’t just pretending to be cheerful anymore. Hamburg steaks had been the right choice.
“Satou?”
Mia looked at me doubtfully when I placed the steak in front of her.
“This is a tofu hamburg steak. It may look like a normal one, but it’s made with soy and wheat flour, so I think you should be able to eat it.”
It included eggs as well, but she regularly ate pastries that contained eggs. It shouldn’t be a problem.
“Just try a bite, okay? If you don’t like it, I’ll make you something else.”
“Mm.” Mia hesitantly reached her chopsticks toward the tofu hamburg steak. “Yummy,” she mumbled.
Then, after thoroughly chewing up and swallowing the single bite, her eyes sparkled.
“Delicious! It falls apart in your mouth, and the mysterious flavor is nothing like bread or vegetables. It’s so good—it’s amazing!”
This time, she spoke Elvish to declare her approval at length.
Good, guess she liked it.
For a while now, I’d wanted to make a hamburg steak that Mia could eat, since she always looked disappointed watching the others eat theirs.
“Hamburg steak… I never knew that such a thing existed…!”
Miss Karina trembled with emotion at her first taste of the dish.
“Yummy-yummy!”
“Master, the hamburg steak is delicious, I commend.”
Tama and Nana had limited vocabularies, but they still expressed their enjoyment of the food clearly.
“Oh man, hamburg steak is the best! …Sir.”
“Makes you want to jump up and shout, ‘Aww, yeah!’ right?”
Pochi and Arisa, on the other hand, were a little hard to understand. Arisa seemed to be having a major influence on Pochi’s vocabulary; I might have to do something about that soon.
At any rate, after I enjoyed everyone’s reactions for a while, I soon gave in to their demands for seconds.
“Satou, more.”
“Sorry, Mia. I don’t have enough tofu to make another helping.”
“…Whomp-whomp.”
Mia almost never said sound effects aloud like that. Guess she was really disappointed.
I managed to earn her forgiveness by promising to make her hamburg steak again for dinner.
In the end, everyone but Mia ate too much and went down for the count. They were all flopped out on the floor groaning. Once I got them to take some stomach medicine and lie down properly, I decided to leave them to recover for a while.
I called out to Mia, who was cleansing her palate with fruit water.
“Seems like we have some time to kill. Want to go check out the aristocratic quarter’s magic shop?”
“Mm, let’s.”
The magic shop was within walking distance, but the Bobino mansion roundup was still going on, so I decided it would be smoother and safer to take one of the Worgoch mansion’s carriages.
The magic shop was on the outer edge of the aristocratic quarter, near the lesser nobles’ estates.
There was a magic shop for commoners in the downtown area, too, but I decided on this one because it was the only place that carried intermediate attack magic.
As I entered the store in high spirits, I suddenly ran into an acquaintance.
“Ooh, if it isn’t Sir Satou!”
“Hmm? Is this an acquaintance of yours, Tolma?”
“Yeah, I told you about him before, remember? When that army of monsters attacked Muno City, he…”
Tolma was inside the magic shop, chatting with someone who appeared to be the manager.
He spun the tale of the defense of Muno City as if he had witnessed it with his own two eyes.
The store manager was a large, muscular man with a grim face, hardly the sort you’d expect to run a magic shop. An ax or a broadsword would be more fitting in his hands.
The manager grinned as he listened to Tolma’s excited tale. If his ex
pression was anything to go by, he probably figured that Tolma was exaggerating as usual. He certainly didn’t seem seriously convinced.
“The name’s Kikinu. I was born in a small kingdom in the east, so forgive me if my name seems strange. If it’s too hard to pronounce, feel free to call me Meathead or Manager or Old Man or something.”
“Not at all. My name is Satou.”
“Tsk, tsk, tsk.” Not liking to be ignored, Tolma shook his finger. What was it about him that made me want to punch him so much?
“You really should give your full name, you know.”
I hadn’t given my surname because I wanted the man to speak freely with me, but as usual, Tolma couldn’t read between the lines.
“My apologies. I am Satou Pendragon, an honorary hereditary knight.”
“Oh-ho? You must be fond of heroic legends, eh?” The manager noticed that my name was taken from a fictitious hero.
“This guy’s master is Baron Muno, who used to be called Baronet Donano.”
“I see… That explains that, then.”
Guess Baron Muno was famous for his love of hero stories, even in the old capital.
“Ultimately, I chose the name Pendragon myself.”
“Well, that’s all right. Only fellow die-hards would recognize it anyway.”
So Mr. Kikinu was a fan just like Baron Muno.
“Anyway, what’s a swordsman like you doing in a place like this? Collecting more scrolls, I suppose?”
“Well, yes, but I also wanted to see the spell books.”
“Spell books? Why?”
“Some of my traveling companions use magic, like this one here.”
I gestured to Mia, who was hiding behind my back.
Briefly raising her downcast eyes to peer at Kikinu from under her hood, the elf briefly mumbled “Mia” by way of introduction.
“A beginner’s book for the little lady, then? I might have a few that would work.”
“No, no need for that. Could you show me any intermediate or higher books, please?”
Mr. Kikinu raised his eyebrows. “I think those would be too difficult for a child…”
“Mrrr.”
Mia didn’t like being treated like a kid. She shifted her hood slightly, showing the man her pointed ears.
“A-an elf?!”
“Mm.”
“Mia is an elf of the Bolenan Forest,” I explained on her behalf.
“I-I’m terribly sorry for my rudeness!”
Kikinu ducked his head with such vigor that it almost smashed into the counter.
“Okay.” Mia was apparently moved by his sincerity, and her dour expression quickly vanished.
“I didn’t know you were a fan of elves, too, Kikinu,” Tolma said.
“I don’t know about ‘fan,’ but… Did I ever tell you that I’m from the Black Dragon Mountains?”
“Oh yeah.”
“The monsters from the mountains often carried plagues into our villages.”
Kikinu began explaining his background.
“Black Dragon Mountains” sure sounds like an exciting name.
“Every year, villagers fall ill to these plagues, but thanks to the Tree of Healing Rest that the elves planted long ago, people rarely die.”
“Mm. Good tree.” Mia nodded wisely.
“Huh. I bet you could profit off a tree like that if you cut some roots from it.”
“Impossible. One fellow did try to plant it somewhere else to make money, but it withers if planted anywhere but where the elves put it.”
Kikinu shook his head.
“Not enough spirits,” Mia whispered to me, explaining the real reason for the replanting failure.
I guess you needed spirits for a Tree of Healing Rest to grow. Come to think of it, the land around the dwarves’ home of Bolehart City was withering because of a lack of spirits or mana, too.
“Regardless, that’s why I feel indebted to the elves.”
After chatting amiably with Mr. Kikinu for a while, I had him show me his lineup of scrolls and spell books.
Naturally, the variety of a major city’s magic shop turned out to be extensive.
“This one looks good.”
“Really? These books here are old staples, but that one’s practically a joke…”
The volume I was holding was called Rotation and Romance. It was by the same author as the magic-tool-creation book I’d found in Sedum City in Kuhanou County.
“Oh, I don’t know about that. Some of Professor Jahado’s inventions are pretty remarkable.”
Until now, I only knew the author’s name from the cover of the magic item book, but the author bio in this one revealed that he was an old professor living in the royal capital. I would love to meet him once we got there.
There were other books by the same author, who seemed to be fixated on a certain theme: Where Rotation and Reciprocating Motion Meet and New Magic Born of Rotation.
The “old staples” the manager recommended were Foundations of Staffs and Catalysts, Gems and Cores, Thirty Circuits for Use in Magic Tools, Magic Tools and Carving Magic, How to Engrave Runes, and From Seals to Magic Circles.
Every one of these titles grabbed my attention, so I decided to purchase all of them.
Unfortunately, there was nothing about how to make scrolls.
“I’ll take all of these, and one of each kind of intermediate spell book, please.”
There were also manuals for Explosion Magic and Destruction Magic, the two that Miss Ringrande was said to have revived. Unfortunately, I didn’t see any on Space Magic, Gravity Magic, or anything that might be considered taboo.
“Th-that many?! …Oh, right. I almost forgot, since you’re a friend of Tolma’s and all, but would you mind showing me your noble identification papers, please? And you need a certain license to purchase any books containing spells that could be used for military purposes…”
“Will this do?”
I showed him the silver plate denoting my nobility and the permit I’d received from the duke the day before.
“An unlimited permit? And with the duke’s official seal?! H-how on earth did you…?”
I couldn’t bring myself to tell the speechless Mr. Kikinu that I got it as payment for some tasty tempura, so instead I flashed him a trademark Japanese smile.
Next, I had him show me his scroll collection.
“You could just buy these directly from our workshop, you know.”
“Hey, Tolma. Don’t try to steal my customers.” Mr. Kikinu smiled drily, evidently accustomed to Tolma’s oblivious remarks.
“Don’t worry, Lord Tolma. I have all kinds of strange scrolls to order there when I visit.”
In fact, I was planning to try to get custom scrolls of my self-designed spells, so I figured I’d buy the ones that were available in-store first.
The general scrolls Mr. Kikinu showed me were no different from the ones I’d bought in Gururian City, but I bought quite a few military magic scrolls.
They were all lesser or intermediate level only, but I got attack spells like Fire Storm, Laser, and Explosion, two communication spells called Whisper Wind and Telephone, and a magical interference spell called Break Magic, to name a few.
Ah, if I’d had all these spells before, it would’ve been so much easier to defeat the demon lord.
Unfortunately, though, there weren’t any scrolls of a few other spells I wanted, like Aqua Heal, Remove Poison, Cure Disease, and so on.
According to Mr. Kikinu, the scroll versions weren’t very effective, so potions were considered much more reliable.
“What about spells like Magic Hand, Lock, and Unlock?”
“I’m sorry, but—”
“Sir Satou,” Tolma interrupted, “making scrolls like Lock and Unlock that could be used for crimes is strictly prohibited.”
So military spells are all right, but not those…
Other spells like See Through and Clairaudience were also forbidden, since they could be used for spy
ing. I was told that nobles often had special constructions on their grounds to prevent that kind of magic.
Mr. Kikinu added that some of the books I’d just bought, like Magic Tools and Carving Magic and From Seals to Magic Circles, contained spells that could be used for spying, too.
Incidentally, the Magic Hand spell I asked about was supposed to be similar to telekinesis. As it turned out, though, when it was used from a scroll, you couldn’t do much more than lift a pen for less than a minute, so it wasn’t exactly in high demand.
Tolma added that Viscount Siemmen’s warehouse had a Magic Hand scroll, though, so I’d have to see if I could get it from him.
Once I’d collected a good number of things I wanted, I decided to wrap up my shopping here.
I paid a rather substantial amount using gold coins from my Garage Bag and put away all of my many purchases.
“Oh-ho? Is that an Item Bag? How fitting for a noble.”
“Do you carry these here, too?”
“Sometimes, but we don’t have any in stock at the moment. They’re high-class made-to-order items. It can take years to get one in.”
Oh-ho-ho?
I had assumed that it was the kind of relic you could find only in a labyrinth or an ancient empire, but from what Mr. Kikinu said, they were still being made in magic tool workshops.
Come to think of it, I guess Miss Karina did mention back at Muno Castle that she had a Magic Bag, too.
I asked Mr. Kikinu a little more about their functionality and learned that even the highest-quality Item Bags held about the same amount as the Garage Bag I’d found in the haunted fortress in Muno Barony.
So the one I first picked up from the Valley of Dragons was unique after all.
Once we finished our business at the magic shop, Tolma showed us around the bookstores and trading firms of the nobles’ quarter, then guided us to the other magic shop downtown.
The reason I wanted to visit the trading firms was to buy a cask of wine to send to Elder Dohal and the dwarves. I also sent a special high-grade sake set to Mr. Garohal, who had sold me the Forge scroll that helped me defeat the demon lord.
At first, I smiled blandly when Tolma commented, “The old capital is like my personal garden!” but it turned out to be truer than I expected.