Chapter 45: A Sample of the Common Folk
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 45: A Sample of the Common Folk
“I’m seriously considering confiscating every single one of their rings.”
Morning in the Archduchess’s territory began with Ruri’s grumbling.
She approached Ferda with a look of utter dissatisfaction, her face clouded with annoyance. For Ferda, who was in the middle of breakfast, it was a bewildering start to the day.
“Is that so?” Ferda gave a half-hearted response.
“The workshops you brought in, Lord Ferda, won’t listen to a word I say. Is it really that difficult to follow the rule of not letting a single drop of blood touch this castle?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“Fine, let’s say they spill a little. But those bastards don’t even bother to clean up after themselves before they leave!”
“Is that so?”
“I think they’d fix their habits if they realized just how terrifying a dragon can be. What do you think?”
“Do as you wish.”
Ruri’s constant chattering finally stopped. When Ferda glanced up, he saw her staring at him with a pout.
“You’re the worst, Lord Ferda.”
“Am I?”
“Even now, you’re just giving me these lazy, one-word answers.”
“Indeed.”
“Are you really acting like this just because I gave you a scrub-down once?”
How petty.
She whispered it so softly it was almost inaudible, but Ferda heard it. It would be a lie to say he held no grudge from that day. Since he had already gotten his revenge, he decided to give her a proper answer this time.
“Refining Magic Stones is naturally a time-consuming process. Research doesn’t yield results overnight, does it?”
“Can you even understand that, Lord Ferda? You, who reached the 3rd Circle so incredibly fast?”
“I’ve been practicing looking at things from a commoner’s perspective.”
The old Ferda wouldn’t have understood. However, the current Ferda—who knew his past self and had felt the sensation of breaking through Circles at a rapid pace—could now look down and empathize with the perspective of ordinary people.
“Is that so?” This time, it was Ruri who gave a half-hearted reply.
“So, hold off on the punishment for a little longer. If they bring good news soon, then—”
— Bwahahaha! Hahahaha!
Before Ferda could finish his sentence, a madman’s laughter echoed through Valdrova Castle. The sound grew closer and closer.
“Bwahahaha! Finally! I finally did it! I don’t have to bake these damn Magic Stones anymore! Hahahaha!!”
The madman was Burnell Marquis. With matted hair and his lab coat half-falling off, he sprinted past. Ferda and Ruri’s eyes followed his trail.
Ferda took a sip of his tea and remarked, “Speak of the devil. It seems they’ve produced results.”
The moment to justify why he had brought Burnell in had finally arrived.
* * *
After running around like a lunatic, Burnell did nothing but sleep. He had worked himself to the bone, cutting back on sleep to the point of shortening his lifespan for the Magic Stone refinement research.
When he finally stood before Ferda, he had regained a somewhat tidy appearance.
“I had a feeling it would work today, and it actually did! Hahaha!”
“Will you explain it now?”
“Ah, yes! Of course. So, the way this works is…”
Burnell began a fervent explanation. For a full hour, he rambled on about his research findings, finally placing a period on a chalkboard covered in dense notes.
“You understand what I’m saying, right?”
After listening to the entire explanation, Ferda asked, “Did you?”
“I—I’ve completed everything, of course. I’ve organized it to some extent, and I tried to break it down as simply as possible, which is why I explained it this way…”
“Hmm.”
Ferda thought to himself. I suppose I’m not that brilliant after all.
He realized that reaching the rank of Archmage in his past life must have been purely due to sheer effort. As he listened to Burnell, he had no idea what the man was talking about. Around the thirty-minute mark, he felt like he was staring into the void of the cosmos; he lost consciousness for a moment and only snapped back when Burnell finished.
Ferda glanced at the assistant researchers. Their eyes were sparkling and clear—the kind of eyes a researcher should never have.
It seems no one understood.
These were the people Stephan Pascal had sent, claiming they were quite bright. If Stephan was a shrewd merchant, he would have sent the best of the best to acquire the technology.
At least there won’t be any immediate issues with technology leaks.
Ferda looked on the bright side. Regardless, as long as Burnell understood and could demonstrate it, wasn’t that enough?
“Show me what it is.”
“Yes, sir!”
Burnell brought over one of the many magical devices. It was an object called a Mana Fixer. When mana was infused into it, it used 5th-tier fixation magic to stabilize mana within a certain area in the air.
“If you place a monster corpse here and stimulate it with a bit of lightning magic…”
Mana began to pour out of the dead corpse. It was junk mana—rough, unusable, and floating in the air like a pollutant.
“And then, after heating it to a certain temperature, compressing it, and cooling it like this…!”
Blasting it with fire, compressing it, cooling it… After a complex series of steps, a crystal appeared, emitting white steam. A stone that glowed with a faint blue light had been created.
“This is a Magic Stone!”
Burnell pulled out the result with an ambitious voice. It emitted a soft glow, much like a crystal infused with mana. It was a wondrous moment, but Ferda wasn’t particularly impressed.
It’s cloudy.
Ferda had already seen these in the future. But unlike the ones he remembered, the color of this one was pale, and it felt somewhat crude. Just to be sure, he asked Burnell.
“What is the efficiency?”
“Uh… well…” Burnell, who had been fluently spouting incomprehensible knowledge, suddenly stammered.
“Burnell Marquis.”
“Ye-yes!”
“I asked you a question. What is the efficiency?”
“The—the thing is…” Burnell wiped away cold sweat and answered with difficulty. “It takes the mana equivalent of seven Magic Stones to create one.”
“Then the efficiency is roughly 14.2%.”
“If you round up, it’s 14.3%. And then there’s also…”
It seemed there was more. Burnell hesitated, as if the remaining news wasn’t good either.
“While drawing out the capacity of the Magic Stone itself, there’s mana that leaks out… so you have to consider the efficiency drops by half again…”
That meant it took fourteen Magic Stones to produce the efficiency of a single original stone.
“So it’s roughly 7%.”
“If you go to the first decimal place, it’s 7.1%… Gulp, I’m sorry.”
As Burnell tactlessly corrected him, he thought to himself: Ah, I’m screwed. This is the end of my research. Who would use something with 7.1% efficiency when they could just hire a mage?
Internally, he was already going through the five stages of grief, awaiting his death sentence. After staring down at the Magic Stone in silence for a long time, Ferda finally spoke.
“About the efficiency.”
“Yes.”
“Can you raise it?”
“Pardon…?”
“I asked if you can raise the efficiency further.”
Ferda had decided this from the moment he brought Burnell in. As long as the man didn’t give up, Ferda had no intention of letting this end in failure.
Burnell nodded vigorously at the question. “O-of course. It’s possible. I will make it happen, no matter what.”
“Good.” Ferda stood up from his seat. “Then continue your research. I’ll gather the people who need to hear this story. Until then, organize your research findings and the demonstration once more. Understood?”
“Ye-yes, sir!”
Leaving those words behind, Ferda stepped outside. Burnell was relying on Ferda, who believed in this research even when Burnell himself lacked confidence. Thus, Burnell had no choice but to do his absolute best.
Unlike Burnell, who was trembling with anxiety, Ferda’s thoughts were different.
It was used quite well, after all.
Ferda knew. Magitech would develop one way or another. And he knew roughly how arduous that process of development had been.
Back when Burnell first announced it, he was met with ridicule. People asked who would use such a thing, why they would use it, and claimed it lacked dignity. But what happened later?
Mages ended up using Magitech even more.
It provided a level of convenience that was on a completely different dimension from the magic circles they had to calculate and cast manually. The era of monopolizing the mysteries of magic was coming to an end. Knowing that day would come, Ferda had plenty of reason to trust Burnell.
* * *
Ten days passed, and distinguished guests arrived: the old lord, Count Consilus, and the manager of the Pascal Trading Company, Stephan Pascal.
In front of them, Burnell performed the demonstration and gave supplementary explanations, just as he had for Ferda. Having had ten days to organize, his explanation was better than the first time. However, the content remained incredibly difficult to grasp.
“Ho, I see.”
“Indeed. That was excellent content.”
Ferda watched their reactions quietly before asking them, “Did you actually understand? I didn’t understand it myself, so be honest.”
Only then did the two reveal the truth. Ferda had suspected their voices lacked soul, and he was right.
“Haha, my apologies. It’s become a habit of mine to just play along. This old man is a complete layman in that field,” Consilus admitted.
“I also thought it might be embarrassing for him if I looked like I didn’t know…” Stephan added.
As expected, both had been pretending. Only Burnell, who thought he had summarized it even more simply, was left feeling awkward.
“Still, based on what I’ve gathered, the conclusion seems to be that the efficiency isn’t very high. Is that correct?”
“That is correct.”
“Hmm, a truly ambiguous object,” Consilus muttered while stroking his beard, causing Burnell to break out in a cold sweat. Seeing Consilus’s negative reaction, Stephan tried his best to highlight the positive aspects.
“From an economic standpoint, I don’t think it’s great right now, but isn’t it a good thing that it can provide mana?”
“Ah, that’s the part I explained… it’s not something that can provide mana to a mage. It can’t be used for recovery or charging like a potion or an elixir.”
“Ah, then it really is a bit ambiguous… Even if it’s a success, if the efficiency is that low…”
Even Stephan, who had tried to defend it, took a step back. With both of them giving answers close to negative, Burnell’s back was now soaked with sweat. This was something Ferda had expected.
“Don’t worry about the efficiency for now. Our chief engineer will take care of that later anyway.”
Ferda had already anticipated this. The reason he showed it to these two, even though he knew they would react negatively, was for something else.
“I want to hear your thoughts on what we should create first using this technology.”
“What specifically do you wish to discuss?”
Ferda held up the Magic Stone Burnell had created. “This is the power source for a revolutionary invention that will replace the tasks mages currently perform. Think about the tasks that required a mage, or the tasks that are actually quite trivial for a mage to be doing.”
What he needed were ideas. Count Consilus and Stephan were men deeply embedded in their respective fields. Count Consilus was the first to speak.
“If we can mimic a mage through that object… does that mean we can fill the shortage of infantry on the front lines with mages?”
He was an old man who had grown up in a Count’s family and was a soldier to his core. Naturally, the first thing he thought of was an element that could replace the threats in the Far East.
“It’s possible. If we process it into a weapon, casting magic is no trouble at all.” Ferda told them the name it would one day be called. “Under the name ‘Magitech Infantry.’”
“Ho… Magitech Infantry, you say.”
A light seemed to shine in Count Consilus’s eyes. Mages were beings who demonstrated efficiency in almost every situation. Among those, they were most efficient at dealing with monsters. The Far East was a land with more monsters than common beasts. It was a region that needed them more than anyone else.
However, as is often the case with the front lines, it was no different from a place of exile for mages. The only mage with both skill and motivation had been Thesalos Wolcher.
“Excellent. Just filling the void left by mages gives me hope. If the efficiency can be resolved, I think it would be best to process it into weapons first.”
Count Consilus showed great enthusiasm. As an old lord who couldn’t bear to watch the sacrifice of his infantry, he seemed to want to push forward in that direction immediately. At that moment, Stephan countered.
“Count Consilus’s opinion is valid. It would certainly help if infantry could freely transition into mages. However, wouldn’t transportation also be important?”
Stephan already had something in mind when he invested in this venture.
“Transportation?”
“Yes. The most important element of a battlefield is always logistics. Even if your firepower is superior, if supply becomes an issue, wouldn’t it all be for naught?”
“That is also true. However, many monsters are already dying in the Far East. If we focus on manufacturing them here using those monsters, we can push that difficult problem to a later date.”
Count Consilus and Stephan didn’t back down an inch, each emphasizing the importance of what they desired.
I was right to ask both of them.
Just through this back-and-forth, Ferda could see what they required and what the problems were. Stephan wanted to reduce the costs he felt in transportation immediately, while Consilus wanted to increase the survival rate of the soldiers in his Far East territory. Both had clear reasons for not backing down.
“It doesn’t seem like the two of us can reach a conclusion, so it would be best for the Regent of the Archduchess to decide on this matter.”
“Yes. I was just thinking the same.”
The arrow of responsibility fell to Ferda.
“I think it would be better to leave it to the chief researcher, who is responsible for all development.”
“Pardon?”
And Ferda promptly deflected that arrow toward Burnell.
“Me?” Burnell stood there with a dazed, stupid expression. But as Ferda said, they were waiting for his decision, and Burnell was forced to choose. “Uh, well, I…”
Burnell was a pacifist. He was a man who wanted to create things beneficial to people rather than weapons. Burnell carefully brought out what he had been thinking.
“I… I think it would be better to work on weapons first…”
“As I thought!”
“Of course, weapons are important, but please think about it more. I am the one in charge of the monster supply.”
The winner chuckled, while the loser attempted a second persuasion.
“At first, I also thought it was right to develop in a different direction. But… after seeing the territory Count Consilus rules, my mind changed.”
When he had stayed in the Count’s territory, he had been hovering between life and death due to Circle Overload. He had seen the people of the territory, and he had seen the pain and sorrow of those who lost their families.
“I believe we must first create weapons to stop the monsters that are trying to destroy our home.”
“Ugh… Fine. If you put it that way…” Stephan finally backed down. Although his priority had been pushed back, he would eventually get what he wanted anyway.
“So, for now, we are also proceeding with weapon development. I’ve been researching the characteristics of monsters as well, so I’ll be able to bring you good news.”
“Haha, please work hard. Your research will become the light of our Far East.”
The atmosphere seemed to be wrapping up warmly.
“Right, about those weapons…” Ferda spoke up as if everything was going well. “Are those weapons also going to be as difficult to use as your explanation was?”
“Pardon? Uh… I’m not sure, but probably… I expect so.”
“That’s perfect.”
Ferda already knew. Burnell Marquis—the first inventions he created were incredibly complex and difficult. He could manifest miracles by implementing complex designs, but he didn’t understand the importance of simplicity.
“I happen to have a very good specimen for you.”
“Uh… a specimen?”
“Yes, a specimen. Come in!”
At Ferda’s call, a man who had been waiting outside entered. The others were startled as soon as they saw him. Wearing armor, he was attempting to perform a military march. When his left foot moved, his left hand moved with it; when his right foot moved, his right hand followed. A man entered with dignity, showing off a march that was awkward in every sense of the word.
The moment Burnell saw him, he felt a chill.
“Malcolm of Peach Hill! I have come at your call!”
“Yes, welcome. There is something you need to do.”
“Just say the word!”
With his hand over his heart, he looked like a young boy overflowing with passion. It wasn’t a particularly pleasant sight.
“What is 2 times 2?”
“That’s easy! It’s 4.”
“Correct. Then, what is 7 times 6?”
Again, he answered as if it were easy. “It’s 13!”
“Well done.”
“Haha, you flatter me!”
Malcolm wore a proud expression, but the people around him were feeling a chill. Their faces asked: Where on earth did he pick up a guy like that?
Ferda patted Burnell on the shoulder and said, “Make it simple enough for this friend here to understand and use.”
“Pardon?”
“I trust you can do at least that much.”
“…Pardon?”
Burnell felt his consciousness beginning to fade.