Operations Begin (5)
Marek belonged to a collateral branch of the Greenhilt family.
His household possessed nothing beyond a single house—no title, of course—but their names still appeared in the nobility register.
Time had thinned the main house's blood considerably, yet they still held a respectable measure of mana: laughable by true noble standards, perhaps, but absurdly superior to any commoner's.
Haa...
He had spent a full five years training as a butler's apprentice. In just three more years he would have shed that apprentice label alongside the second son returning from the Knight Academy.
Couldn't even wait for that one moment... No—this is better. Better than serving under that madman Jerry...
Standing watch on Roy's orders, Marek felt a tightness settle in his chest. What on earth was he even doing right now?
He could lament his circumstances forever, but he simply could not stand his present position. Roy was far preferable to Jerry, true—yet the fact that a man of his age was running errands for a five-year-old made him feel utterly pathetic.
He glanced back over his shoulder. The cabin itself hid the boy from view, but the smoke rising from the roof told him Roy was hard at work on something.
His talent is remarkable, I'll give him that.
Saving Marek's life, the magic lesson the other day, and that hearth he had just witnessed—all of it pointed to the same conclusion. This child had been born with extraordinary gifts. There was no doubt about it. Serving under Roy was almost certainly a far better choice than remaining under Jerry.
The only problem was that Roy was still only five years old. Marek looked forward to seeing what kind of man the boy would become—but the thought of another ten years of looking after him made his future look bleak.
If I'd known it would come to this, I should have become a mercenary.
Marek's sighs grew heavier.
How much time passed after that? Roy's voice called out for him.
Crouched and staring blankly into empty space, Marek slowly made his way around to the other side of the cabin. Even then, his eyes held not a spark of life.
"You called for me, Young Master."
"Marek. Take this. It's a gift from me. Ah—don't get the wrong idea. I'm not saying this cancels out the money I borrowed."
"Pardon?"
Roy held out a dagger to Marek—the very same dagger Marek had worn out his feet buying that morning.
"Why this..."
Had this strange little brat somehow read his mind about becoming a mercenary? Marek couldn't begin to understand why the boy was suddenly pressing a dagger into his hands.
"Be careful. The edge should be sharp."
"Yes..."
This dagger wasn't anything special.
Of all things to give me, a cheap dagger...
This wasn't the one that had come in the box. It was the kind that sold the most—worth five silver coins. In monster subjugation, daggers were little more than consumables, and this one was exactly that sort of cheap blade that did its job at a bargain price. Use it roughly and throw it away—that was precisely what "bestseller" meant.
"I'll get you a better one later, but for now I wanted to express my feelings with this. You'll have to make a sheath for it yourself, though."
"Yes... thank you."
"You don't seem particularly pleased?"
Seeing the disappointment on Roy's face snapped Marek back to his senses. Roy was no ordinary child. He had clearly read Marek's mood from his expression and tone.
"Ah, no. Thank you...?"
But something was odd. Roy was looking at him and giggling.
"Why are you laughing?"
"Marek. Would you try cutting this firewood with that dagger?"
"Pardon? A dagger won't manage that. Not without using mana... You'll only dull the edge for nothing..."
"Just trust me and cut it. Stabbing works too."
Well-dried, split firewood wouldn't split further unless you struck it with an axe along the grain. Bewildered by Roy's suspicious smile, Marek did as he was told.
Why am I even doing this...
Without thinking, he gripped a piece of firewood in one hand and gave the dagger a light swing with the other.
Thuk—!
The firewood fell to the ground in two pieces, one after the other. And Marek's eyes went so wide they nearly popped out of his head.
"Th-this is..."
It was truly astonishing. He hadn't used mana—hadn't even put any real force into it. He'd swung lightly, expecting nothing more than a long scrape. But look at this. The firewood had been cleanly bisected. The cut surface where the dagger had passed was as smooth as if by magic.
He hurriedly shifted his gaze to the young boy's face—and the boy was smiling brightly, as if to say, Heehee, surprised, aren't you?
"How..."
Still wearing an expression of complete incomprehension, Marek stood rooted to the spot like a stone statue, staring at Roy. The thoroughly dried, extremely hard firewood had been literally cut in two by a cheap dagger. And he hadn't put any real strength into it. He certainly hadn't used mana.
"It's my specialty."
"Pardon?"
"I've got a few tricks up my sleeve. But I don't want anyone else knowing for the time being, so only you can know about this, Marek. As I told you earlier—if you betray me, I'll have no choice but to take revenge."
The eyes Marek looked into were utterly still, without the slightest tremor. The face was smiling, but the words were completely sincere.
Gulp.
Marek swallowed dryly and asked Roy with careful formality.
"H-how did you do it?"
"I used magic I know to enhance the dagger. That's all I'll tell you for now. I don't fully trust you yet, you see."
"......"
"You don't need to look so serious. Trust is something that takes time by nature. You and I have known each other for a long while, but we've only actually spoken for a few days, haven't we?"
Listening to the voice coming from Roy's mouth, Marek found himself doubting whether the being before him was truly a five-year-old child.
"I've given you a gift, so now I should make my next request."
"Pardon?"
"Three of them failed, but seven succeeded. You keep one, Marek, and sell the remaining six back to the weapons shop where we bought the daggers. Get as high a price as you can. Ah—ten times the original price for the cheap ones. And for the expensive ones, since they were already quite costly to begin with, four times or more should be fine."
"Uh... that..."
Marek's mind raced. If he sold every dagger at the prices the boy had just named, roughly twice what they'd spent today would come back.
H-he's really going to double the money...
Of course, he hadn't sold the daggers yet. That picky shopkeeper would try to haggle, and there was no guarantee he'd buy every single one.
No...
Hadn't he just seen it? The performance of the daggers the boy had created. With this, even that weapons shop owner might be so shocked he'd pay up.
"Ah! And use the money from selling the daggers to buy more cheap daggers and the same materials we got today. We need to make as much as we can before Father returns."
Gulp.
Marek swallowed dryly as he looked at the daggers lying on the ground.
"Then those daggers are all..."
"Yes. They all have the same magic on them."
"Hah..."
Marek couldn't begin to estimate what those daggers might be worth.
"If we sell them cheap this time so buyers can experience the daggers' performance, we'll probably get priority in negotiations from then on. That's when we start making real money."
"Ah..."
Marek realized he wasn't conversing with the boy before him as an equal—he was just repeating answers with a dumbfounded expression. But what could he do? It was that astonishing.
Isn't this the kind of thing you can only get by going deep into an ancient dungeon?
He couldn't manage his expression at all.
"Ah, if a buyer tries to lowball you, you can channel a little mana like this and show them directly."
The moment Roy sent mana into the dagger, the cheap-looking blade suddenly began to radiate a razor-sharp blue light. Roy brought the edge of that dagger against the blade of a broken dagger that had failed the enhancement process, lying nearby.
"Against the cheap daggers they sell there, like this..."
And the edge of the broken dagger was sliced through as lightly as paper. A dagger made of solid metal, cheap though it was.
This time Marek's eyes weren't the only things wide open—his jaw dropped as well.
Based on Marek's current reaction and the stories he'd heard after their trip into town, Roy realized that at least within the Greenhilt Barony, there was no craftsman like himself. There was even a chance none existed in the entire Steel Kingdom.
Not a technique just anyone can imitate.
How much toil and effort had he poured into mastering this skill in his previous life? With the desperation of coughing up blood, he had tried everything to overcome his insufficient mana.
The various artifacts I made back then should still be sleeping somewhere...
And not just the artifacts. What about the enormous fortune he had amassed?
Hmm... I should go looking for them someday. At the house, and at the laboratory...
In his previous life, Roy had made a great deal of money through this technique. But back then, great merchants hungry for the technology—and various nobles—had fought tooth and nail, blood flying, to claim him for themselves. To survive in that chaos he had fled, swindled, attached himself to one faction then another—it had been a truly exhausting life. In the end he had caught the eye of the absolute authority, the Emperor, become an imperial official, and eventually received a title, rising as high as Viscount.
"Hoo..."
Emerging briefly from his reminiscence of the past, Roy spoke to Marek.
"Marek. Could I ask you to clean up here?"
"Ah, of course."
"Then I'll go rest now. Please make sure Miss Misha keeps her mouth shut as well."
Watching Roy gradually walk away, Marek thought—that being tasked with looking after this boy might just be the greatest stroke of luck that had ever come his way.