The Cold Eyes Within Madness
Noon break.
Rowen’s central district.
The sunlight was harsh, but the cold sweat running down my spine had nothing to do with the heat.
Professor Keil’s note.
Acid fog! Blackwood ships! Black ironwood!
There’s no time. Hurry.
A massive stone building.
[Stock Exchange].
The moment I stepped through the entrance, a feverish heat surged over me, thick with greed and hunger.
“Western Trade! Sell me your Western Trade stock! I’ll pay extra!”
“The sea lanes are going to open any day now! The more ships you’ve got, the better!”
“They say the swift ships from the Blackwood shipyard are the best. I’ll buy a thousand shares!”
It was madness.
The giant board the mages had set up was a sea of red, all of it pointing upward.
In particular, [Western Trade] had already soared more than thirty percent from just a few days ago.
Once the war ends, trade volume will explode. I figured the stock could easily rise tenfold.
But the variable I’d seen at the incinerator had shattered that assumption.
Acid fog... If the current frontline ships are made of blackwood, they’ll melt right through it.
I closed my eyes and pictured it for a moment.
The western fleet sailing into the fog.
Ships beginning to dissolve.
Some sinking, others forced into a desperate retreat.
The result?
Trade halted.
Could a trading company make money with the routes blocked?
The [Western Trade] shares those people were buying like mad would soon crash hard.
Not ten times higher—maybe half the current price, if that.
The military would panic.
But that didn’t mean the war itself could be stopped.
They would have to cross the sea somehow.
A ship that won’t melt...
The one and only alternative written in Professor Keil’s note.
Black ironwood.
A heavy, difficult-to-work material that everyone had turned away from, outdated and unfashionable.
It had no magical properties at all.
It was just hard and resistant to acid corrosion.
But if the fog nullified the magic circles, then that brute durability was the only answer left.
Black Forest Forestry.
A company that exclusively produced black ironwood, but had been dying because no one wanted it.
The one and only irreplaceable source.
If demand exploded while there was only a single supplier?
If I were Professor Keil, I’d have bought Black Forest Forestry stock by the cartload.
But Professor Keil didn’t seem to care about stocks at all.
He probably didn’t need to invest in them in the first place; he was already filthy rich.
The only thing he cared about was magic.
Decision made.
I pushed through the crowd and headed for a quiet window.
“I’d like to place a sell order.”
I pulled a wrinkled stock certificate from my pocket.
My entire fortune was tied up in forty shares of [Western Trade].
“Sell everything? You do know this thing’s going up like crazy right now. You sure you want to unload it?”
The clerk tilted his head, clearly unable to make sense of me.
Then a low, chilling voice sounded behind me.
“Hah...! As expected, the limits of the common rabble’s judgment are painfully clear.”
I turned and saw a nobleman with neatly combed blond hair swept back from his face.
It was Felix.
He stood there, his family’s signature red silk robe from the Bergen count’s house billowing around him.
“Tch! What an idiot! If you’ve got a few shares of Western Trade by dumb luck, the smart thing to do is hold them, not sell the moment you get them!”
Wearing an arrogant smile, he spoke on to the lesser nobles gathered beside him.
“That’s why poor commoners stay poor their whole lives. Isn’t that right?”
“Hahaha, exactly, Young Master Felix.”
“Heehee! Though honestly, that’s already too much for a commoner, isn’t it?”
“Heh heh... well, I suppose it is.”
They seemed to be talking about me.
Still, I didn’t react.
I simply looked at the clerk and urged him on, calm as ever.
“Please sell it at market price, right now.”
“Hmph. Fine, I get it.”
Sell executed!
The amount settled was 51 silver and 90 copper.
Even after fees and taxes, I’d made nearly thirty percent on my original forty silver.
But Felix pointed at the coins I’d received as though they were filthy trash.
“Tch! Contenting yourself with pocket change like that is just pathetic. If you had any brains, you’d know this is the moment to strike.”
He took a heavy leather pouch from inside his robes and set it gently on the counter.
“Because my academy results were good this term, I was granted a bonus in the Bergen family name. I’m buying five hundred shares of the Blackwood Shipyard. I’ll make that money grow several times over. The Blackwood Shipyard will be my first pick.”
As he spoke, his gaze shifted to a man standing beside him in a crisp suit.
“...And the additional funds I promised will go into that as well. That’s possible, isn’t it?”
“Yes, Young Master Felix. Though... the interest is a little high.”
“I don’t care. It’ll multiply anyway.”
At that, the man bent at the waist with practiced deference.
“Truly, you are a son of the Bergen family. The insight of noble blood is on an entirely different level from that of common men. That ignorant commoner boy will never even be fit to touch Young Master Felix’s shadow.”
Felix’s followers glanced at one another, then began blurting out their own orders in a rush.
“I-I’ll buy too! One hundred shares of the Blackwood Shipyard!”
“Two hundred for me! I’m buying first and reporting to my family later! But I’m short on cash—what do I do?”
Felix pointed to the man beside him.
“Ask Dels. I borrowed twenty gold from him myself this time.”
Dels bowed politely again.
“Of course. You shouldn’t miss such a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for lack of funds. The interest is somewhat steep, but if you wish, I can arrange the loan immediately.”
“Haha, I’ll borrow.”
“If Young Master Felix borrowed from him, then I’ll borrow too.”
For a moment, my brow tightened.
Dels...? Don’t tell me it’s that Dels?
The bloodless loan shark who would strip the skin off your body if you failed to repay him.
And that loan shark was standing in the stock exchange, dressed in a suit, lending money out.
They’re all idiots.
They were buying Blackwood Shipyard right now?
And borrowing from a loan shark to do it, too?
So they’ve decided to throw their money away.
I decided it wasn’t worth worrying about any longer.
I should worry about myself. They’ll do whatever they want.
I added the one silver of pocket money my father had given me and placed my next order.
“I’d like to place a buy order.”
The lowest end of the board, a stock buried under dust and ignored by everyone.
[Black Forest Forestry].
- 5 copper per share
“What? Black Forest Forestry?”
The clerk stared at me as if he’d misheard.
“There are only sell orders on that one. No one’s buying it. Rumor is it’ll be delisted soon. I hear their warehouses are stuffed full of rotting black ironwood.”
“Exactly why I’m buying it.”
I answered without batting an eye.
“Take the whole 52 silver and 80 copper. Market order, all of it.”
At once, Felix’s brow twitched.
His face looked as though he’d just caught a whiff of something foul.
“Black Forest? Black ironwood... Ha ha ha! Honestly, you’re beyond saving. That’s not a stock with even the slightest chance of rising in a hundred years.”
“Hahaha! Black ironwood? Who in their right mind would use some absurdly heavy wood like that? The key to a ship is lightness, lightness!”
“Once the route opens, the era of swift ships will begin. If you keep going backward like Hans over there, you’ll go broke and ruin yourself.”
“Heehee... How stupid. He’s going to lose every last coin he scraped together.”
“Heh heh... What would a commoner know? He’s destined to live as a beggar forever.”
As if I were no longer worth speaking to, Felix and the others turned away.
“Let’s go. Just breathing the same air as someone that vulgar is a trial.”
“Yes, Young Master Felix.”
But I didn’t care.
“Please hurry and buy it.”
“All right. Done.”
[Purchase Complete: Black Forest Forestry – 1,057 shares]
Thanks to that, I’ve scooped it all up dirt cheap.
The clerk shook his head and handed me a thick bundle of stock certificates.
* * *
The instant I left the exchange, I ran like mad.
Damn it! The break is already ten minutes over.
“Huff, huff...”
The moment I came in through the back entrance of the library, the air turned cold and tense.
The gatekeeper, who should have been dozing off as always, was standing ramrod straight. That alone was strange.
The librarians passing through the hallway all looked stiff and grim, too.
“Hey, Hans! Where have you been, and why are you only getting here now?”
The head librarian came striding over with a dark expression.
“I’m sorry. I had a stomachache.”
“A stomachache? That’s what you’re worried about right now? Hurry up and go to Reading Room Two. It’s a complete mess in there.”
Reading Room Two.
When I opened the door, a chaotic sight met my eyes.
Professor Keil’s books and lab tools, which had been stacked on the desk, were being packed into several boxes.
“Move.”
Professor Keil was in the middle of leaving, his robe flaring behind him.
He brushed past me without even glancing my way.
“Dale, handle the rest yourself. I’m going to the imperial capital.”
Bang.
He was gone before I even had a chance to greet him.
The only ones left were Assistant Dale and me, while he kept sorting through the packed belongings.
Dale scratched his head with a troubled look.
“Uh... Hans. You’re here.”
“What happened?”
“The professor’s had to go to the imperial capital on urgent business. He has to leave today, right away. Ah... and you don’t need to come in starting tomorrow.”
“Pardon? What do you mean?”
At my question, Dale gave a helpless little cough.
“With the professor gone, the library budget’s been frozen. In practice, that means it’s shut down.”
Budget frozen?
So I’d lost my job?
“Sorry about this. They sent word from above to cut staff. Your contract ends today.”
“So I’ve been fired.”
“As you know, you weren’t a regular librarian. You were a temporary hire paid out of the professor’s personal research funds. With the budget cut off, there’s no money to keep paying you.”
I stood there, stunned.
Fired, just like that.
Dale reached into his robe and held out a pouch.
“Here. Take it. Your final wages.”
It felt heavy in my hand.
“I put in a word for you. I said you’d worked hard and faithfully all this time. So I got them to add an extra ten copper and make it forty.”
Dale patted my shoulder a few times, as if expecting praise for it.
“Pack your things and leave quietly.”
He hoisted his box of belongings and hurried off.
I gathered my things as well and left the library.
The clang of the iron door slamming shut behind me sounded strangely loud.
On the trudge home, the disappointment I felt was greater than the shock of being fired.
Money I can earn another way.
The library had been, to me, a place like the root system of knowledge itself.
High-level information that Professor Keil and the noble mages let slip without thinking, magic books I could steal glances at from over someone’s shoulder, treasure-like notes rescued from the trash.
All of those chances to learn had been cut off as of today.
No matter how many thousands of books you could remember, knowledge would rot if it stood still.
I needed to keep encountering new things.
No. Think positive.
I shook my head and steadied myself.
There was no such thing as living forever by secretly brushing library dust off books.
The time had come for me to focus entirely on my own magic research, without having to read anyone’s expression or work around anyone else.
* * *
I barely ate dinner before heading straight down to the basement.
My father looked worried when I told him I’d been fired, but he didn’t say much.
Click.
I locked the basement door and stood before my workbench.
“Now then. Let’s really get started.”
Rustle.
A single scrap of tattered cloth.
Dirty, frayed, and thrown away like worthless rags.
[1st Tier Composite Formula: Mending Worn Cloth + Cleaning Stains]
I applied the formula optimization theory I’d stolen from Professor Keil at the incinerator yesterday, but in my own way.
It was definitely different.
The flow of mana has become much smoother.
After a long while, a pure white handkerchief finally dropped into my hand.
“One.”
Without even pausing to wipe away my sweat, I reached for the next piece of cloth.
“Two.”
Endless, tedious repetition.
Sweat ran into my eyes and stung them.
My fingertips went numb, my head throbbed, but I didn’t stop.
It looks like simple labor, but...
For me, this time was training.
Tssht!
With my poor mana sensitivity, I couldn’t even dream of flinging around grand spells that devoured mana by the bucketful.
Instead, I had to learn the pinnacle of efficiency: how to use one unit of mana as if it were a hundred.
This sewing magic was the best training there was for sharpening my mana core until it became as hard and precise as steel.
Thinner. Faster. More perfect.
I lost track of how much time passed.
As the light of my spent magic stones gradually dimmed, white handkerchiefs piled up neatly beside the workbench.
My mana core, too, grew subtly harder each day.
My work speed increased as well.
Being driven out of the library had, in a strange way, been a blessing.
And then, on some quiet dawn after a few peaceful days had slipped by, far away beyond the western sky, a colossal wave began to rise.
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