Sudden Fortune Is Terrifying (4)
The interior of the used bookstore had a somewhat gloomy atmosphere. Books of every kind lined the walls from floor to ceiling, overwhelming anyone who stepped inside.
“Ah, the smell of books.”
It was the same bookish scent I remembered from libraries in my previous life.
The shopkeeper glanced at me briefly and spoke. Was this how he always was?
I stepped inside and slowly examined the shelves. Where would the books related to magic be?
I wandered for a long time, looking through volume after volume, but there were simply too many. I couldn’t find what I wanted. Most of the books had no titles written on their spines, so I had to pull them out one by one just to check.
“Excuse me.”
Realizing it was impossible to find the book I needed on my own, I called out to the owner. The shopkeeper merely lifted his head a fraction.
“Um, by any chance… do you have a book that describes a magic that changes one’s gender?”
“What?”
“A magic that changes gender…”
The shopkeeper listened again, then burst out laughing.
“There’s no such magic.”
“I-Is that so?”
“In the past, before magic was properly systematized, there were apparently studies like that. But no one does them anymore.”
Ah, was there some reason for that?
The shopkeeper rose from his seat and headed toward the bookshelf on the opposite side of the shop from where I stood.
“What you’re talking about would be called human body modification, I suppose.”
Human body… modification?
“It’s an old book.”
The volume he brought wasn’t particularly thick. It looked quite ancient—the colors had faded, and the cover was heavily worn.
I took the book and opened it. Inside were contents about human transmutation of the sort I’d seen in comics. The materials that compose a person, the structure of the body, methods to make the human body stronger… and chimeras…….
Even just the early pages were dizzying.
“Heh heh. It’s one of the books designated as a forbidden text four hundred years ago.”
A forbidden book?!
“As wars continued across the continent, mages steeped in madness researched ways to create powerful soldiers.”
Haha… indeed, even the little I’d read was horrific. Transplanting orc muscles to enhance strength. Injecting troll blood for rapid wound healing. Grafting wings to create soldiers who could fly… stories of creating chimeras simply to enhance humans….
“I-I’ll buy it for now.”
“I’m not selling it. Look at it there and leave.”
Well, of course he wouldn’t sell a book designated as forbidden. Then why show it to me in the first place…? I took the forbidden text to a corner and read.
Honestly, the only word for the contents was “insane.”
Still, I gained one small hint: there was absolutely no way to return to being a man through methods like these.
“Thank you for letting me see it.”
“Is there another book you want?”
“I’m not sure.”
I went back to wandering the shelves. The used bookstore didn’t seem to get many visitors; for a long stretch of time, no other customers appeared besides me. Well, there was a large bookstore in the commercial district, so this place was probably less popular.
I spent a long while checking books as I moved. Then I discovered a volume on alchemy. Introduction to Alchemy….
Flipping through the pages, there wasn’t much special content—just things like how to make simple items with alchemy.
“Alchemy, huh…”
It was a subject my previous self had loved. Especially the Atelier series by Gust—I had really enjoyed those games.
In those worlds, you simply put in mana and materials and the item was complete… What about this world? Thinking that, I read the alchemy book.
Looking at the contents, the idea of combining materials and mana, and the existence of attributes in materials, were similar. The problem was that while the book was well-preserved, it was quite old.
“Excuse me.”
“What is it.”
“How old is this book?”
I stood in front of the shopkeeper holding the volume.
“Hmm…”
The shopkeeper examined the book this way and that.
“Did our shop even have a book like this?”
What? A book even the shopkeeper didn’t know about? The used bookstore owner held it up, looking it over carefully and checking the contents as well.
“Huh. It looks like it’s almost a thousand years old.”
Wh-What? The book was a thousand years old? Could books even be preserved that long?
“A-A thousand years?”
“Yeah. See the letters written here?”
“Yes.”
“They’re letters you know, but the way the ends curl upward is unique, isn’t it?”
The ends of the letters were indeed distinctive. Since the content itself had no problems, I’d simply thought it was a type of typeface….
“This is the typeface nobles used a thousand years ago. Moreover, this book is made from monster hide. These days, no one makes books with such precious materials.”
“I-Is that so?”
The pages had been a bit thick… so it was leather….
“These days people prefer cutting them off cleanly rather than curling them up.”
The shopkeeper launched into a long explanation.
About four hundred years ago, when printing magic was invented, typefaces became simpler. Fancy typefaces weren’t very efficient with printing magic, or so he said. Since it was a magic that recognized letters and printed them as-is onto other paper, the letters had to be simple for the magic to work properly.
Printing magic then evolved into printing technology, and now books were printed by machines rather than magic.
“That’s not all. This book is a handwritten manuscript.”
I continued listening. Looking closely, the letters in the book weren’t uniform. So it really had been written by hand rather than with printing magic?
“I see.”
In other words, the alchemy in this book was the method from a thousand years ago.
“Is it different these days?”
“Wait a moment.”
The shopkeeper stood up and brought another book.
“This is modern alchemy.”
I took it and read.
“Wh-What…”
This was alchemy? Techniques for making gold… methods for mixing metals to create powerful alloys, ways to distinguish various metals, and so on. Completely different content from what I’d been thinking—from the book I’d first discovered.
“Heh heh. Modern alchemy is like that.”
To be precise, the main content was combining substance A and B to create a different substance C. Should I call it material conversion? Or synthesis? The fundamentals were similar but subtly different.
“It’s interesting, though.”
Come to think of it, this world had no potions…. There was holy water, but it was no different from regular water. Drinking it didn’t heal wounds or cure internal injuries or diseases.
I should have noticed something strange there….
A world without the potions commonly found in fantasy novels…. My guess was that this was a world where the alchemy needed to make potions hadn’t developed.
“Could I purchase this book?”
I said, holding the volume that contained the alchemy from a thousand years ago.
“100 gold.”
Gah! 100 gold was enough money to live idly for almost a year! My hands trembled at the enormous sum.
But it was a necessary expense. I saw hope in this alchemy.
“I-I’ll buy it.”
I started taking money out of the coin pouch inside my clothes. My hands shook and my head spun every time I pulled out another gold coin, but I finally managed to produce 100 gold.
“Kahahahat! I thought you wouldn’t buy it if I named a high price!”
Had he just been teasing me? The used bookstore owner checked the amount and laughed heartily.
“Alright, take it.”
I carefully put away the Introduction to Alchemy book.
“This is a freebie.”
The shopkeeper held out the modern alchemy book I’d been looking at earlier.
“Huh? Can I take it?”
“Why? Don’t want it?”
“No, I’ll take it.”
He’d clearly overcharged me, but there was no reason to refuse a freebie like this. I snatched the book from his hand and hugged it carefully.
“Come again.”
“Thank you.”
Honestly, the shopkeeper’s explanations and help had been significant, so I thanked him properly. When I left the used bookstore, the sun had already set.
“Ugh, I need to hurry back.”
I carefully hugged the two books and returned to the inn.
Back in my room, I placed the books on the table and fell into thought.
“Alchemy, huh…”
My previous self had loved alchemy. Equivalent exchange, alchemy that performed magical feats.
The mystery that couldn’t be explained by science, the miraculous power, and even the part about creating necessary items when needed to overcome situations—I had liked all of it and delved deep.
To think I’d find a fragment of it here….
“If I delve into alchemy, maybe I can return to being a man?”
I recalled works featuring alchemy. Fullmetal Alchemist, the Atelier series by Gust, and the alchemy items that appeared in them—the all-powerful stone, the omnipotent power, the alchemy item that could create the miracle of eternal life: the Philosopher’s Stone.
With that Philosopher’s Stone, couldn’t I return my body to being a man?
Of course, creating the Philosopher’s Stone wouldn’t be easy.
In some works, it was a dangerous item created from human lives.
“Hmm…”
But if it was the Philosopher’s Stone that could achieve anything, wouldn’t it be possible? That thought kept circling in my mind.
However, there was no content about the Philosopher’s Stone in the alchemy book. If even the concept existed, it would have been introduced early on, but there was nothing.
“In other words, it might be the first challenge…”
It would be a difficult path.
“Should I set it aside for now?”
It was far too distant a goal. A goal where I couldn’t see even an inch ahead, so I decided to leave it as a secondary option and look for other methods first.
For several days I wandered around bookstores and magic tool shops gathering information. And what I realized was that there was no way to return to being a man.
Still, I learned various things, like the origins of magic.
“So magic first appeared a thousand years ago…”
It was said that a saint of the Metis Church established the theory.
“Metis here, Metis there.”
The Goddess of Wisdom, and all her apostles are geniuses too…?
They spread various knowledge across the continent but didn’t monopolize it. Saying that all people should enjoy it equally, they freely released the knowledge. As a result, the Metis Church’s reputation soared to the heavens, but the church’s power was rather ordinary.
Because they didn’t monopolize knowledge and wield it as power.
“What an amazing church.”
In my previous life, there had been plenty of religious people who sold the name of god, and in novels or other media, whenever a church appeared, they were always shady behind the scenes….
Was it different because gods actually existed in this world? No—there were plenty of cases in novels where gods existed too….
Well, it was a world where things like a Holy Kingdom formed by various churches banding together existed, so who knew.
“I’ve searched hard for ten days, but no clues…”
Inferring from the information I’d gathered, the background of alchemy’s decline a thousand years ago was magic, or something like that.
Various methods of using mana arose, but when magic appeared, other techniques that used mana declined. If you were going to use the same mana, it was better to use the more efficient and well-systematized magic.
“Looking at the alchemy book, it’s the same.”
Even combining a simple ointment required materials and mana.
Ointments made from herbs would have existed even in that era. But was there a need to use mana to make them? You could make them without using alchemy.
Was that all? After magic was established, recovery magic was also born. If you were going to use mana, rather than making ointment, why not just use recovery magic directly?
That was why alchemy had no choice but to decline. The recipes in the alchemy book included ointments for healing wounds and stimulants for combat support.
Probably in that era, battles with monsters or wars had been fierce. If magic suddenly appeared in such an environment, it would have been a revolution.
“Well then.”
Additionally, it was interesting that the holy power of priests and mana were almost the same force.
More precisely, holy power was said to be a power created by mixing the grace bestowed by the gods with mana.
“Well, holy power seems to have various characteristics.”
The characteristics of holy power differed depending on the god one believed in. The holy power of those who served the Goddess of Earth was advantageous for using earth magic or excellent at blessings, while the holy power of those who served the God of Light was advantageous for using light magic and excellent at recovery abilities.
“Even though I’ve been in the city for a year, there’s still so much I don’t know.”
Since I didn’t possess mana or holy power myself, I hadn’t been interested.
Moreover, cases of priests becoming adventurers were rare in the first place. Of course, you could borrow a priest’s power if you paid money, but it cost a lot.
“It’s difficult…”
I couldn’t find a way to return to being a man, and only increased my knowledge of this world that I hadn’t been interested in. The process of delving into it was somewhat interesting, but… realizing there was no way to return to being a man was painful.
“Is alchemy the only answer after all?”
With my current knowledge, the only way to return to being a man was to create the Philosopher’s Stone. Even that was at the level of a wild dream….
But I should try it for now, right?