Lake's Staff Mage Guild Flagship Store (2)
Catherine was a sage-level archmage. The staff she carried was no ordinary piece either. Whether she had visited before or not, the staff's gazes shifted the moment they spotted her.
"Looks like a VIP."
The comment slipped out the instant she waved off the dedicated attendant who approached.
"Well, it is a high-end establishment run by the capital's only mage guild, after all."
Catherine dismissed the attendant and examined the pamphlet she had been handed, tapping her staff lightly. The writing on the map printed across the pamphlet flickered and changed in a blur.
"Don't tell me even the pamphlet has magic on it?"
"Of course it does. This is the mage guild."
Come to think of it, even the junk room in Winterhome's vault had been full of all sorts of peculiar magic tools.
"Turning something as disposable as a simple guide into a magic tool is just another form of advertising—showing off how skilled the mage guild here really is."
"I get the feeling the prices won't be anything to sneeze at."
"Magic tends to run expensive by nature."
The cheapest magic materials on the first floor, after a rough look around, still ran several silver shillings just for a single unidentifiable shell fragment.
The clerk manning the shelf gave them a look reserved for country bumpkins, but Karem could not quite hide his shock.
"A single shell costs that much?"
"This might actually be an opportunity for you, Karem Hubae."
"Huh? For me?"
"You're always complaining that no matter what you buy, the payment comes out of business expenses, so your savings never go down. I know exactly how much is sitting in your piggy bank."
For reference, the piggy bank was large enough that Alicia could probably curl up and fit inside if she tried.
Between the ten crowns he had managed to keep after suppressing his salary raises, plus bonuses, rewards, dividends, and tokens of gratitude, he was reaching the point of needing a second piggy bank—or a bigger one entirely.
Even at this very moment in Pen Draig, his savings were still growing.
"...How do you know how much I have saved?"
"Who do you think cleans your piggy bank and the money inside it?"
Mary glanced for a moment at Catherine, who was holding the pamphlet and asking a clerk something from a short distance away, then leaned her head toward Karem.
"What kind of cleaner in the world cleans a piggy bank?"
"For the sake of cleanliness, I polished the coins until they gleamed and squeaked."
No, what kind of person who was not even a collector cleaned money? Come to think of it, even collectors would never risk damaging the coins by cleaning them.
Still, setting aside that absurd claim, Mary had a point.
Even the cheapest magic tools on the first floor ran to several dozen silver shillings, just as one would expect from a high-end establishment. And right now Karem's inner pocket held a pouch stuffed with silver coins and a few gold ones he had brought along precisely because they were heading somewhere department-store-like.
"A gift prepared in secret for your lover."
"Mm!"
"It's a chance to step out of always being on the receiving end and buy something with money you earned yourself."
"Mmm!!!"
A gift prepared in secret for his lover. A strange, resonant satisfaction thrummed deep inside Karem as he looked at Mary. She raised one eyebrow as if to ask, well?
"Hmm. Must be out of season. The quality isn't particularly good."
Catherine returned, apparently finished with her questions.
"What are the two of you doing over there?"
"We were waiting for you, Lady Catherine."
"Just getting through the door is a kind of identity guarantee here. Feel free to look around."
"Well... for now I'll stick with you and look around a bit. I don't know where anything is yet."
Choosing a gift required care.
For the moment, this was reconnaissance time.
Catherine, still studying the pamphlet, lifted her gaze just enough to meet his eyes, then gave a small nod.
"True enough. You're not exactly familiar with this place."
She folded the pamphlet sharply with one hand.
"In that case, let's kill some time and take a full tour—from the bottom floor all the way to the top."
Fortunately, unlike the days of his previous life when he had been dragged around like a floating weed against his will, Lake's Staff was packed with things to see in every direction. His instincts felt no particular resistance.
Where the department stores of his past life had displayed ordinary clothes, bags, and accessories, here every shelf and stall was crowded with magic tools, scrolls, grimoires, and more.
He saw the same sorts of things every day in Winterhome's mage tower, yet—perhaps because of his previous life—they still struck him as marvelous every time he looked.
If anything, there was so much to see that choosing a gift became harder.
"You look like a novice adventurer walking into a blacksmith's for the first time."
"I can't help it. It's amazing no matter how many times I look."
"Even after seeing them every day at Winterhome?"
"Yes. Seeing them on display like this has a different flavor..."
"Don't get so distracted listening to sales pitches that you get completely taken in."
Catherine examined the labels on the books lining a shelf, then rapped Karem's arm lightly with the pamphlet.
"Of the items on display, the ones that immediately catch the eye and have flashy names are bait six times out of ten—meant to hook pretentious rich folk and nobles who care only about appearances."
"For bait, the craftsmanship and detail look pretty solid."
He had lived in the Felwinter mage tower for over a year now.
From what he had seen coming and going, he could at least gauge external quality.
"That's exactly why they can charge more for them. Keep your wits about you."
"Come on. Even if I did get distracted, I could just put Mary on it. Why would I lose focus?"
"True, that workaholic house elf is tenacious enough..."
"So don't worry about it."
They finished the relatively inexpensive general exhibition hall on the first floor, then took the lift past the second floor's consumable magic tools, the third floor's grimoires, and the fourth floor's everyday magic tools, arriving at the fifth.
The fifth floor sold magic materials.
Shrrrrrrrrrrrk—!
Cheep! Cheep! Cheep!
Heeheeheeheeheeheeheehee! Heehee—!
Bwoooooong—!
Some of the specimens were still very much alive and raw.
...Well, department stores had pet sections too, so I suppose there's no reason living things shouldn't be here.
A swarm of bees the size of sewer rats beat their wings threateningly inside a cage. Plants swayed without a breath of wind. A horse made of water thrashed wildly in its display chamber.
"Is that a hippocampus?"
"Precisely. The guild purchased it early this spring from a visiting seller."
An attendant who had overheard Catherine approached and answered.
"They normally live only in the Intermediate Sea near Servianus, but whether it was driven from its herd or caught in a current, the seller was lucky enough to capture it alive."
Since long before the founding of the ancient Palatino Empire, legend held that hippocampi had drawn the sea god's chariot—creatures like the Pegasus of the ocean.
For ornament, experiment, reagents, magic tools, or equipment crafting, anyone with a bit of money and skill would covet one.
Catherine sounded impressed.
"Huh. That seller must have been quite the expert."
"He had the skill to be hired directly by His Grace the Duke of Southcoast, but from what we heard, luck played an even larger role."
"Luck?"
"Yes. It was completely exhausted when he found it."
Hippocampi brought storms and tidal waves with them at sea, so without considerable skill, tracking one—let alone capturing or hunting it—was nearly impossible.
"As Your Grace can see from its size, it is not yet an adult. The guild's best guess is that a curious individual strayed from its herd, lost its way, and was eventually caught."
"So is there a buyer?"
"Once the exhibition period ends, this hippocampus will be sold at auction exclusively for distinguished guests. If Your Grace Atanitas would grace us with your presence—"
"Hmm. I'll think about it."
Catherine flicked her hand dismissively and turned away.
It would be a lie to say she felt no temptation.
Still, she did not want it that badly.
If she mentioned it to her patron and lord, Alfred, it would take time, but something of this caliber could always be obtained.
Still, the youngsters might be curious...
"...Wait. Where did those two go?"
Catherine whipped her head around, scanning the area.
Until she had begun speaking with the hippocampus attendant, the two of them had been standing right behind her. Now they had vanished completely.
I've told them over and over not to get distracted.
She never expected Mary to join in. There shouldn't have been anything here that would catch that one's interest. Catherine planted her staff on the floor and searched.
When a noble couple passed by, the two figures who had been hidden behind them came into view two sections over.
"I distinctly warned you."
Catherine looked at the object sitting between Karem and a clerk.
A small, knobby egg that would fit in one hand rested atop a case filled with large and small stones, gravel, and soil, clearly visible through a transparent cover.
The air inside shimmered like a heat haze, so the temperature was easy enough to guess.
"Are you coveting a salamander egg right now?"
"What? Excuse me? No!"
Karem, mid-conversation with the manager, jumped at Catherine's sudden voice beside him and protested.
"Even I haven't gone so far off the deep end with appetite that I'd crave a spirit's egg."
"I don't know about that. Given the track record you've shown so far, Hubae, the suspicion doesn't seem entirely unreasonable."
Well... when she put it that way.
Still, Karem felt genuinely wronged.
Of course he was curious what a spirit's egg might taste like, but that was not the case right now.
"I was interested in the warmer keeping the egg."
He grumbled with a touch of grievance.
"What exactly about this container—"
"What would I use it for?"
Obviously cooking.
He was a chef, not a monster tamer.
"So this warmer purely maintains a constant high temperature inside, nothing else?"
"Yes. Among the four great elemental spirits, salamanders are the only ones that reproduce by egg. The eggs are extremely sensitive to mana, so the interior is kept warm by pure heat with no magical interference."
"Meaning I could put other things in it? Say... meat?"
"...Ahem. Of course. As I explained, the temperature is maintained by pure heat alone."
The clerk tapped the transparent incubator.
"Salamander eggs are highly sensitive to temperature as well as mana. Without a warmer like this they spoil quickly. Anything else you put inside would simply burn or cook—"
"Then how do you adjust the temperature?"
"Turn this rotary dial to the desired temperature—"
Catherine, who had been watching with a deadpan stare, walked over to Mary, who was watching with equal blankness, and asked,
"So how exactly did this situation come about?"
"Originally, Karem Hubae planned to quietly look for a gift for his contractor while we were going up."
"I see... Wait, what? A gift?"
What a thoughtful idea. Catherine turned eyes bright with interest toward Karem, who was still holding forth to the increasingly pale-faced clerk.
"But then he muttered 'barbecue machine' while we were walking past and drifted over here like someone possessed by a ghost monster."
I tried to stop him, Mary's shrug seemed to say.
Catherine's gaze returned to normal.
Then she fixed Karem with that same deadpan look once more. Whatever a barbecue machine was, the cause and reason for Karem's behavior were obvious.
Having prepaid half the warmer's price, Karem was delighted at how affordable it had been and requested delivery.
"So, how does it feel to say you were buying me a gift and then wander off down a completely different path?"
"It wasn't that expensive, though. I still have one gold coin left... Wait, how did you know about that?"
"Mary reported the current situation in full detail."
She betrayed me! Karem whipped his head around to stare at Mary. She folded her elbows and turned both palms skyward in a deliberate shrug.
"You never asked me to keep it a secret."
"Ah, damn."
Catherine covered her mouth and laughed softly, then smirked and tapped her staff.
"We'll pick out that gift of yours together."
"No, listen, Lady Catherine. A gift is something that has to be chosen without the recipient knowing—"
"So you claim you know what I like?"
"...Sweet desserts?"
Not wrong, but not the answer she wanted in this situation.
"Stop arguing and follow me."
"Yes, ma'am."
Well, maybe this wouldn't be so bad either.