Karma
Karma
Shadow Foot.
He wasn't exactly a specialist in ownership transfers—no, he was a fairly seasoned scout adventurer.
"Well, I do a bit of thieving on the side now and then, but that's only when I'm raiding actual thieves' dens, so don't worry about it."
He'd said it with a good-natured grin, and his adventuring career spanned a solid fifteen years. Mr. Balkun, who'd been listening beside me, didn't say anything to contradict it, so it didn't seem like an exaggeration.
"In my experience, bastards like that are almost always racists. And I hate racists."
Shadow Foot tossed out that staggeringly prejudiced remark as if it were nothing, but since it was something that helped me, I honestly didn't care either way. His tone was less like he was speaking from the heart and more like he was just shooting the breeze anyway.
"I was genuinely worried about how we were going to track them in secret, and now that problem's been solved. How much should I pay you as a down payment?"
"Ah-ah. This is pure goodwill."
"Then all the better. I'd like you to accept my goodwill—a gesture of repayment at a reasonable rate for Shadow Foot's pure goodwill."
"Bwahahaha! Walked right into that one! You've got quite the silver tongue, sir!"
He made a show of reluctantly accepting, but the down payment he suggested was a single copper coin. The payment to be received upon completion was also a single copper coin.
"Isn't being an adventurer about earning money according to how difficult the job is? Catching the tail of bastards like that isn't even work for me. If I took any more than that, I'd dishonor my name!"
I'd heard his people were extremely rigorous about monetary value, but I hadn't known they were this stubborn, so I couldn't help but be genuinely impressed.
Since the man himself had decided, I figured I'd accept it for now and ask Asilie later if there was any way to quietly add a bonus on top.
"So. How far do you want me to dig? Is it their home base they'll be heading back to?"
"Yes. Judging by their light clothing, I believe it must be inside the capital, but I'm not certain."
"No problem, no problem. That's what I'm here to find out. Got a feeling this is going to be a fun job for the first time in a while. I like it."
"Hmph. The little one's intuition has an annoying habit of being right..."
Looking none too pleased but having finished his work, Mr. Balkun returned my sword to me and spoke.
"The edge is naturally undamaged, and even the core is unaffected. If anything, it's taking Mana a little more readily now. I don't know what it is, but it looks like some beneficial function I wasn't aware of developed while you were fighting that mage. If you ever get it enchanted, it should take the enchantment easily."
It seemed my use of Magic Power had triggered some kind of mysterious magical reaction.
"Thank you. Ah, that reminds me—this gauntlet also supposedly incorporates dwarven craftsmanship. Could I trouble you to inspect its condition as well?"
"I was already curious about it myself, so I'm glad you brought it up first. My fingers were itching."
From what Marquis Bende had told me, dwarves had been involved in its production, so I'd figured getting it checked by Mr. Balkun might be wise. I'd brought it up and it turned out he'd already noticed it from the start and was showing great interest.
Just as before, as I watched the popcorn-worthy spectacle of my fine gauntlet transforming with a wobble like a metal slime, Mr. Balkun stroked his beard and spoke.
"Where in the world did you get this?"
"I received it as a gift from the Empire."
"You went all the way to the Empire and back in a week? And a gift, you say? Who in the world from?"
"A noble of somewhat high standing, I suppose."
"Heh. You're quite the remarkable fellow."
Now scratching his head instead of his beard, Mr. Balkun continued his explanation.
"You've probably heard a fair bit from the person involved already, but the enchantment placed on it is military technology. They'd have given it out assuming it might be taken apart like this, so it's probably technology they no longer care much about protecting. Still, considerable effort went into making it, and... it's an early test piece. Those prototypes often have everything thrown into them without regard for cost. It was made around an interesting idea, but... hmm. A mage doesn't really need it, and a non-mage would have a hard time using it. It's one of those awkward things that's hard to either value or dismiss."
To 'perfectly' block an offensive spell, you'd have to deploy a higher-level defensive spell, or perform the insane task of analyzing and countering the spell in real time.
Naturally, unless you already had a full grasp of every spell the opponent was using, ordinary warriors would have no way of knowing whether the incoming spell packed a power of 2 or a power of 3—so the object created to overcome that problem was supposedly my gauntlet.
"The problem is the efficiency is atrocious. Mana and aura are both refined energies produced by refining Magic Power, aren't they? An object can't hold aura, so this thing absorbs it, converts it back into Magic Power, then goes through the ridiculous process of activating the spell built into it. There's no way that could be efficient."
And this was exactly the part I'd been most curious about.
The efficiency issue Marquis Bende had also mentioned.
But I used Magic Power, didn't I? I'd been really curious whether this was actually a piece of armor with no such drawback for me.
"When you say conversion... then wouldn't it also be impossible to use a magic tool that already contains Mana or Magic Power?"
"That's not the case. Hmm... think of it like a border crossing. Kingdom citizens pass right through, but foreigners need all sorts of paperwork. Something like that."
I'd been worried I might blindly shove Magic Power into it and break it, so I hadn't even tested its performance, but thanks to Mr. Balkun the mystery was solved. My intuition had been right after all.
"Mr. Balkun, you've really got a knack for making explanations click. I understand."
I didn't know about other things, but anyone learning techniques under that man might fail to learn due to lack of talent or effort, but they'd never fail because they couldn't understand the explanations—that much was clear.
After that, I received my gauntlet back, which had returned to its original form, and concluded my business with Mr. Balkun by handing over a modest consultation fee.
"Then I'll be taking my leave for today. I'm much obliged."
"Come by anytime if you run into more trouble. You're welcome here."
"Thank you. Shadow Foot? I'll leave it in your hands, then."
"Don't you worry!"
Shadow Foot cheerfully took on what was anything but a cheerful task, waving his arm with exaggerated motions and boisterous laughter. Mr. Balkun stood beside him offering a composed farewell. I stepped outside, stretched long, and scanned the surroundings.
Still, they weren't visible even when I looked openly, so it seemed they weren't completely brainless.
Well, what could I do! Now I just had to trust the expert and leave it to him! Without any further worry, I set my feet toward home.
Because I'd returned much later than expected, by the time I got back to Ogatorf Manor, both Asilie and Sheryl had already arrived home. Still, from what Asilie told me, Sheryl had come back not long before me—she was still washing up when I arrived.
"You took surprisingly long, Eldi?"
"A whole lot happened. Ah, speaking of which, I've got something to ask you, big sis. I ended up meeting a Pulling."
I gave a brief account of that cheerful fellow Shadow Foot and asked if there was any way to give him additional compensation. But what came back was Asilie's laughter and a cute shake of her head.
"If a Pulling says that, then that's how it is. If you want to repay him, you'll just have to save it for later. The only way is for Eldi to help him with something of equal value, or to mention it when helping another Pulling who knows him and accept the same value in return. If you try to give him extra, he'd probably sneak into the manor, return it, and leave."
"Just how utterly free of material desire is he..."
The more I learned, the more incredible Pullings seemed! He apparently even enjoyed returning extra money as if it were a prank, so for now it looked like all I could do was express my gratitude. After that, I picked out and recounted the string of utterly preposterous incidents I'd experienced that day, and Asilie's eyes went wide as she shook her head for an entirely different reason.
"In that short span of time, you managed to go and pull off that much. It's honestly terrifying to take my eyes off you."
Well, given that I'd been one hair's breadth away from slitting a duke's throat and becoming a fugitive, I couldn't really deny the phrasing of 'pulling things off,' but regardless, I was unashamed.
"Conviction is conviction precisely because you don't bend it. And I did benefit from it in practice."
"That's true enough. Making contact with an information broker is no easy thing."
"Speaking of which, how did it go for you, big sis? Was your acquaintance still in the capital?"
"No. As the war intensified, it seems they eventually went to the front lines. It's dangerous, but the rewards are definite, so I suppose a fair number of people confident in their skills have gone."
Her acquaintances were adventurers, it seemed. Still, judging by how she spoke, they weren't dead or anything, so I decided to consider that alone a relief.
"So we don't really have anything we can do until this Shadow Foot person shows up, right?"
"At least that's true for me. I wonder if Sheryl had any results?"
"Her expression didn't look very bright."
Well, that was entirely possible. Unlike Asilie and me, Sheryl was just a genius noble. That phrasing was a bit odd, but it wasn't wrong in this situation.
No matter how fast Sheryl learned or how exceptional she was, that only applied to her education. She also had a station to uphold and a family line to continue. Her position was completely different from mine, where I weighed things up and then charged ahead anyway, or Asilie's, after years of working as an adventurer.
Asking nobles for assistance was something Lord Ekaf would likely end up handling, so what Sheryl could do was purely, genuinely, pounding the pavement or asking her school acquaintances a few questions—that was about what I figured.
It wasn't a difficult thing to predict that she wouldn't have any proper results.
"It honestly feels like I've got a little sister who gets huffy and sulks whenever she's bored."
"You're the same age, you know."
"The kid's experienced fewer failures, so she's still young."
Sometimes things just went that way, but the moment she felt she was even a little lacking or that she'd failed at something, she'd immediately get gloomy—it was exactly typical for her age.
As I clicked my tongue with a disapproving look, thinking that, Asilie simply stared at me as if dumbfounded.