A Small Result
“It was found in the house where I used to live.”
“Then in America?”
“Yes. In the yard of a home in Texas.”
In that instant, an ordinary house yard in Texas was transformed into a legendary archaeological site.
“Oh! How did you discover the relic?”
“It was when I was a child. Digging in the dirt was so much fun that I kept going deeper and deeper. That’s when I found it.”
“Wow.”
It was the perfect answer to anyone who liked to say, “Go dig in the dirt and see if a single ten-won coin comes out!”
“The house is gone now, taken by a hurricane, and all that’s left is the empty lot, but even now there should still be traces of where I dug.”
When James was living in Las Vegas, a hurricane had swept through Texas, but not to the point of tearing the house apart. And yet his Texas house had vanished without a trace.
…I didn’t want to sell the house that still held my parents’ traces to anyone.
Because no one lived there, it had become difficult to maintain, and James had decided to deal with it by magic. But he couldn’t use magic without establishing some kind of cause and effect first.
I moved fast when I heard the hurricane was coming.
James had timed it so that, just as the hurricane passed through, he put the entire house into his inventory. So after the storm was gone, only the lot remained, and he had left it abandoned ever since. That was why the house James had lived in was safely preserved inside his inventory, intact and unbroken.
“Then you only found one coin?”
“……”
James considered how much Arthur’s coin might fetch at auction before answering.
“Including the coin I showed you, there are five pieces in total.”
“!!!”
Five! There are five of them?
James estimated the value of five gold coins.
If we assume four million dollars apiece, that should bring in roughly twenty million dollars for the set.
He was basing that figure on the fact that coins of Alexander the Great had once sold in the range of 1.5 to 2 million dollars, so for a rarer and more valuable coin belonging to King Arthur, he was doubling that estimate.
It was the amount needed to buy a house in Korea.
“Now tell me. How much can I expect to get?”
“Ah, well……”
It wasn’t easy to estimate an expected auction price when they hadn’t even confirmed the items’ authenticity yet.
“If we assume this is genuine……”
Still, if the coin really was authentic, he could at least determine the minimum auction price.
“I think we could start the auction at three million dollars.”
“Hmm. Within my expectations.”
“Perhaps……”
“Go on.”
“That place in Texas……”
“Where you found the coin?”
“Yes. Would it be possible for us to buy it?”
“?”
Jake was certain there had to be something else buried where Arthur’s coins had been found. If five coins had come out, then other things might be there too.
“Usually I wouldn’t ask so directly. The moment I make a proposal like this, it risks giving you false hope.”
“False hope that something else might still be there?”
“Exactly. But James is a famous magician in Las Vegas, and he doesn’t seem especially attached to relics, so I’ll be frank. We’d like to buy the land from you.”
“I dug that place up so much there’s probably nothing left……”
He had started by digging with a needle, then brought in a shovel, and in the end, once he awakened to mana, he had created a cave so deep the bottom couldn’t even be seen.
“We’ll have to explore it ourselves to know that.”
“There really isn’t anything there. You’d just be buying useless land.”
After all, Arthur’s coins hadn’t actually been found in Texas to begin with.
“Failed investments are an everyday occurrence.”
“…Shouldn’t the first priority be confirming whether these coins are real?”
“Then if the authenticity is confirmed, would you sell the land?”
“…Fine.”
James didn’t have any lingering attachment to the Texas lot anymore. He had already been thinking of clearing it out soon, so handing it over wasn’t difficult.
“I’ll set the price at three times the transaction value.”
There’s really nothing there at all……
He felt a little guilty, but since the loss would fall on the auction house and not on Jake personally, James nodded.
“…All right. Do that.”
“Haha. Thank you, James. I knew we’d be able to talk.”
“So how do you plan to verify the coin’s authenticity?”
“We’re planning to send high-resolution photographs of the coin to the British Museum and the Vatican.”
“Ah! In that case, they’d be able to tell whether it’s genuine.”
If there were two places that claimed to possess Arthur’s coins, then confirming authenticity would not be difficult.
“It’ll also help us secure clients for the auction later.”
And if they acknowledged the coins as authentic, then they would surely attend the auction to bid on them.
“Haha!”
“Once the authenticity is confirmed, make sure the rest of the coins are……”
James realized the conversation was nearly over and held out his hand.
“?”
“Didn’t I say I’d show you a magic trick?”
“Ah!”
James showed the palm of his right hand, then raised his left and swept it over the top.
“!”
Another of Arthur’s coins appeared in his empty hand.
“I’ll leave this one here……”
This time, his right hand swept over his left palm, and yet another Arthur coin appeared.
“Gasp!”
“That makes three now, with two more added.”
He intended to give the remaining two later.
“I was thinking I might go to Christie’s if this conversation didn’t go well, but for Jake’s sake alone, I’ll have to come back.”
“Christie’s? Absolutely not!”
Christie’s was Sotheby’s major rival.
“Haha. Didn’t I already say I wouldn’t go?”
“Let’s get the auction contract taken care of first.”
“Good.”
After James signed the documents Jake had brought, the two of them shook hands.
“Contact me. I’ll be waiting.”
“It won’t take long. Leave it to me.”
The moment James left Sotheby’s, Jake, who had been smiling brightly the entire time, hardened his expression and broke into a run.
Tap, tap, tap.
Authenticity first.
He needed to send the photos of the auction item to the British Museum and the Vatican and have them confirm the coins immediately.
If they’re real... at least five million, maybe more.
The value Jake had in mind for the coins was far higher than the amount he had let slip out loud.
* * *
After returning from Sotheby’s, James took his time going back to the hotel, then went to meet Colt.
He was planning to tell him about today’s contract.
Swish.
But the hand James had raised to knock on Colt’s door paused in midair.
“……”
He could feel someone else’s presence in the room besides Colt.
“You couldn’t even hold out for that long……”
The noise coming from inside was the kind of moans made when a man and a woman were deeply entangled.
You thought I was joking?
Rustle.
James drew on mana and opened the tightly shut door.
Click.
Colt, you’re definitely getting castrated today. This is all your fault!
James shouted as he burst into the room.
“Colt! I clearly warned yo—”
He had to quickly withdraw the castration spell he’d started to cast.
Thwip.
“Wah!”
“Kyah!”
In an instant, James caught a glimpse of the woman’s face as she wrapped herself in the blanket to hide her naked body.
“…Oh, when did you get here?”
The face he had just seen wasn’t a stranger’s. It was Hojung’s.
“Hey! You don’t even know how to knock?”
“N-no. I thought maybe you were……”
“Maybe I was what?!”
“Tch.”
“Jimjim. Get out!”
“Sorry. Sorry. You go ahead and finish what you were doing.”
“……”
Hojung stayed hidden under the blanket and didn’t come out until James had left. Only then did she timidly reveal her face.
“…Is James gone?”
“Yeah.”
“Phew.”
The two of them were finally making up for the affection they hadn’t been able to share when they reunited yesterday.
“I told you I’d made up my mind, didn’t I……”
“Still, thanks to James I can relax. If Colt meets another woman besides me, he’s done for immediately.”
“……”
“Heehee.”
“You’re really……”
Hojung didn’t know it, but Colt was deeply wary of James’s magic.
He said the bastard might castrate me……
Whether out of resolve or because of magic, Colt couldn’t bring himself to meet another woman.
“…Why are you shrinking all of a sudden?”
“How should I know!”
He had simply cowered without meaning to, overwhelmed by the fear that he might be castrated.
* * *
James, the source of Colt’s worries, entered his own room with a satisfied expression.
“If Hojung’s with him, there’s no reason to worry about Colt.”
As always, James reached into his inventory and took out the spellbook. His time was always spent with magic.
“Oh. So that’s why Teleportation used so much will and mana before.”
High-level magic allowed him to use spells efficiently, unlike the way James had previously forced them into use.
“Like this……”
With the hand not holding the spellbook, James began drawing a Teleportation magic circle while studying the advanced spellbook.
“Ehh. Doing this with one hand is a little……”
James let go of the spellbook and, reading the floating text in midair, began drawing the magic circle with both hands.
Shrrk.
James completed a perfect Teleportation circle and scattered it with the back of his hand.
“Clear.”
He was learning the advanced spellbook as easily as if he were working through a set of driving test questions. One by one, he tried out the spells, and as he moved backward through them, a new one made his eyes light up.
“Oh, this one!”
The spell recorded in the book was an ultimate-tier spell of the same kind, one that only a magician who had mastered Teleportation to the extreme and possessed sensitivity to mana greater than anyone else could use. His master, Mercia, had written in the book that this was not yet a spell for him to learn, but that simply confirming its existence should be enough to make him reflect on his own place in the world. It was an ultimate spell recorded deliberately to keep descendants from becoming arrogant as they learned the book.
“This looks fun!”
James immediately drew the magic circle needed to activate the ultimate spell. For someone who had already used Teleportation even before learning the advanced spellbook, it wasn’t difficult.
Chalalalalak.
As James twisted his hands and arranged the mana, a vast, dazzling magic circle appeared in the air before him, with a diameter of a full three meters.
“I made it myself, but it’s way too cool.”
The rest depended on mana sensitivity. For James, who handled the sea of mana, it was actually the easiest part.
Click.
James closed his eyes and placed his hand on the magic circle.
Is there some decent target around here?
James’s will had already reached some distant place through the magic circle. Then, a meteor drifting through space was caught in the net of mana controlled by his will.
Got you.
He had caught a meteor wandering beyond the Earth, out in space.
James kept one hand on the magic circle, maintained the net of mana, and drew another Teleportation circle with his other hand. A Teleportation circle invisible to anyone else was appearing high above the Republic of Korea.
Meteor Strike. Action!
Kwooooh.
The small meteor crossed through the Teleportation gate and revealed itself in the skies above Korea. Yet it was so small and cute that it hardly matched the grand magic circle that had summoned it.
Whoosh.
But small as it was, its speed was just as great as it had been in space.
Shuuk.
The meteor continued falling under the force of gravity without burning up in the atmosphere or losing its shape. If it reached the ground like this, an unexpected accident was certain to occur.
There was no way the meticulous James would fail to anticipate that.
Reverse Action.
Another magic circle appeared along the meteor’s path, and the meteor had its trajectory flipped, bouncing upward into the air instead of toward the ground.
Shuu.
As the meteor broke through the air using the remaining kinetic energy, it paused for a moment in midair. Then, once more, a Teleportation circle appeared directly beneath it. James was using Teleportation magic as easily as if he were breathing.
Shuk.
And the meteor, passing through the Teleportation circle, appeared inside James’s hotel room.
Paah.
“Ooooh.”
The meteor, held aloft by James’s mana and floating in the air, was a little larger than he had expected. It was just a bit bigger than a bowling ball, and it was packed full of some unknown metal. It was a small result from magic practice.
“…This is really fun. So fun it’s insane. Hahaha.”
James was learning magic with genuine delight, and because of that, he was mastering it quickly.
“I’ll keep this.”
The meteor vanished into his inventory, and James hurried on to the next volume. There were still mountains of spells waiting for him to execute.