Opportunity
Opportunity
Magic tools never had an indefinite lifespan. Only ancient relics forged purely of Magic Power could achieve something like that.
Mana inevitably weakened over time and with frequent use. It was simply a natural result of Mana depletion or the degradation of spell formulas. Of course, a mage could restore a tool to near-original condition if they knew how to maintain it, but that was a distant concern for those ignorant of magic.
Library Director Seneran had taken a business hint from that very fact. A hint on how to turn even product maintenance and repair into revenue streams.
High-quality magic tools could only be repaired by high-level mages. So the costs of both acquiring and fixing them were generally burdensome. If an item was useful in combat, you could justify it as a hidden trump card, but using such things for the mundane chores of adventuring life was naturally considered absurd extravagance.
So Library Director Seneran drastically lowered that threshold.
She took everyday items—things once treated as the exclusive domain of mages but entirely unremarkable in themselves—and manufactured them to adventurer specifications, designed them to be usable even without the ability to wield Mana, then created Mana cartridges to replace the Mana. She tweaked older-model items so they could run on the scrap magic stones that piled up after a few experiments.
It was an incomprehensible path to mages who always pursued the cutting edge. To deliberately make inferior versions of things that already existed, and then try to make money off it, no less. Most mages scoffed at her endeavors.
What lunatic mage would spend money on a spark or a light they could produce with a single spell. What insane adventurer would bother with such bizarre luxuries.
The reasoning was fair on its face, but they had grossly underestimated the comforts they themselves took for granted.
Light-emitting lanterns powered by Mana cartridges and magic stones—unlike oil pouches and bottles, with no risk of tearing or breaking—secured less light than an ordinary oil lantern, but lasted longer and posed no worry of fire spreading or being extinguished by wind.
Even more, if you used a different cartridge of the same standard, the light vanished but produced faint heat, allowing it to serve as a heater. Its output could never compare to a campfire, but inside a blanket or small tent, it provided sufficient warmth—and again, there was no worry of fire catching.
The fire-starting tool was made of wood and burned up completely after use: remove the lid, press the single button inside, and it produced an ember within 10 seconds. Despite being a consumable that took a full 10 seconds to activate and cost 6 copper coins apiece, mages had confidently predicted that nobody would buy it. Yet it had become so popular that adventurers with money routinely carried five as standard kit.
Every product followed that same pattern. A stone that, once unwrapped and placed in water, generated just enough heat to boil a single cup's worth before burning away entirely. A pebble that did nothing more impressive than glow when struck. A blanket whose only real virtue was decent waterproofing. Prices affordable enough to buy again if they broke or were lost, paired with reasonable performance.
Items of a caliber the library's own mages would never miss, and any back-alley mage could reproduce themselves. Watching Seneran make a fortune off such trifles, most mages meekly conceded their own ignorance and bestowed on her the epithet: the Golden Mage.
And so people began to forget. Or rather, the sheer, unstoppable fortune she amassed through her extraordinary business acumen made them forget.
Why she had suddenly started making money in the first place, and what she had originally been researching when she built the library in the Dwarf District.
When the Seneran Magic Library had actually been established.
A great deal of time had passed since then, but hardly anyone cared enough to wonder what had become of her—now that even catching a glimpse of her had grown rare.
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The employees of Seneran Magic Library shared a small secret. A very small secret that kept them diligently tending to customers. Performance bonuses—separate from their wages.
The conditions were simple. Sell a lot, without lies. Sell high. Sell expensive items. Sell dead stock. Raising or lowering prices did not constitute lying, so it was all allowed. After all, the products of Seneran Magic Library only had recommended prices.
Truth be told, that fourth condition—selling dead stock—was genuinely rare at Seneran Magic Library, so most performance bonuses came from the first three. They weren't even that difficult to achieve. Most customers who came to Seneran Magic Library were people unconnected to magic, and the employees were mages strapped for cash or students from the academy's magic department.
Nelbi was one of those who had confidently walked in, grasped that her side income would be determined by how much more zealous and diligent she was than the competition, and firmly established herself as a top employee.
She studied the tall man and the elf who had just entered the shop, making rapid assessments.
'The elf's likely picked up some magic, but judging by how chummy she is with that human, she's probably young.'
Young elves who ventured out into the world knowing nothing but innocent admiration easily mingled with other races, but as they aged, they learned to keep their distance. Eventually they became almost detached. There certainly were elves who remained close to humans even after living for a long time, but they were not as lively as the elf standing before her now.
"Is it that fascinating to you too, big sis?"
"I haven't often come to places like the capital. Adventures are mostly out on the frontiers, aren't they?"
The adventurer hunch turned out correct, though their attire was conspicuously neat. Young, adventurous elves who rarely set foot in the human capital were some of the easier customers. Their curiosity alone was enough to pique their interest, and Seneran Magic Library was full of items that looked intriguing at a glance, though they'd prove unremarkable upon close inspection—like a street magician's sleight of hand.
Nelbi mentally ran through the list of popular adventurer items at speed, this time shifting her gaze toward the man.
'As for the man, in comparison... oh my.'
He didn't seem that old. Maybe eighteen—twenty at the oldest?
His gaze was a touch threatening, true, but politeness and affection practically dripped from his treatment of the elf, and while his clothes were much the same as any adventurer's, they were very neat. But what had truly seized her attention was something else entirely.
The build revealed the moment he shed his outer coat, having sensed the library's heating—Nelbi found herself staring with eyes unconsciously tinged by personal interest.
'Dear gods...'
Unlike his tall frame and slender face, his coat had struck her as unusually baggy. Seeing those broad shoulders, it made perfect sense. His forearms alone looked to rival her own thighs, while his waist, cinched sharply beneath his latissimus muscles, seemed almost corseted compared to the rest of his build. Even though his upper garment was by no means thin, the fleeting outline of his abdominal muscles visible with every step stole the gaze of not just Nelbi but every other woman present.
'What is he, some kind of barbarian warrior...'
There were plenty of men out there with muscles even larger than his—men for whom the phrase "muscle pig" felt barely adequate. It was all too common for such types to throw their bulk around with booming voices and crude behavior, causing chaos.
Maybe that was why. The contrast between his gentlemanly conduct and those explosive muscles left Nelbi feeling dazed. Looking again, even that sharp gaze seemed handsome. Well, with a body like that, it made narrative sense for him to walk around with an elf at his side. So what if his face was a little lacking? Everything else was well above average.
Her acceptance came swiftly, but it was quite some time before Nelbi regained her composure.
"This lantern's magic stone combustion efficiency isn't very good. Given other products in this line are similar, is this typical at this price point?"
"It's a good product, but conversely, it's too good for my needs. There must be something with roughly mid-range performance—could you check for me?"
"So instead of enchanting the fabric, you used magic during the weaving process itself? I'd like to buy two of these tents... Huh? Only buy one? We'll just be cold anyway since it's winter no matter what? Is that so? Still, thinking about next year..."
"By then it'll be well past the thaw. It's not like buying ahead makes it any cheaper, right?"
"That's... also true...?"
The elf, despite her initial curiosity, wore an amused smile as she filtered out unnecessary purchases, while the man had a sharp eye—grasping the products and their pros and cons before the explanation was even finished.
'I can't even sense Mana from him, why's he this sharp?'
Contrary to his build, the man's eye for goods was so keen it made her wonder if he secretly had dwarf blood running through his veins.
She'd initially sized him up as easy prey, planning to quote slightly higher on cheap items and slightly lower on expensive ones, steering him with the psychology of 'since the price is similar, why not pay a little more and get the better one.' Instead, he picked up an item precisely in the middle of the previously seen product range, asked the price, and ended up buying it for less than cost.
Only then did Nelbi admit she had misjudged this customer's capabilities. But in that short span, he had only bought two items that way, and Nelbi had been forced to weep tears of blood on the inside.
Had the man not shown interest in the music box—classified as one of the dead-stock items—she might not have been able to sleep that night.
"...Isn't this a music box? Doesn't seem related to travel supplies."
"That product is a music box crafted by a dwarf artisan. It's not a travel item—it just has a somewhat... unusual function."
"An unusual function?"
"It was made for the purpose of training Mana control. When you open the box, the music plays once, and after that, you must channel Mana directly into the internal mechanisms to make them move. Most of the components are made of a special metal impermeable to Mana. The tool's objective is to inject the precise amount of Mana only into the conductive cogwheels and play the tune at the same tempo as the original music."
Given the assessment that it was disgustingly difficult, on top of which nobody even knew if it was genuinely effective—meaning the single unit they had hadn't sold for years—Nelbi deliberately omitted those extraneous details.
"How much is this?"
"One Itisel gold coin."
Nelbi didn't bother lying about the price. Padding dead stock would only increase the odds of it not selling.
But even after hearing the words 'one gold coin,' the man bought the music box without a moment's hesitation. And the elf beside him merely tilted her head, offering no objection, so Nelbi had been handed the perfect chance to fully redeem her earlier mistakes.
Of course, if she'd started pulling tricks from the beginning instead of being distracted by his looks, she might've been wrung dry to the marrow and dragged into a dire situation requiring her to call upon Seneran, the library's owner. But there was no way Nelbi could have known that.