What We Need Most (3)
Back in his room, Oscar settled naturally onto the sofa.
Money... money, huh. How did people earn that again?
Rummaging through his memories, he could recall roughly three ways a mage made a living: research, lectures, and commissions.
First, research — you publish your findings and receive grants and royalties...
That one was out. The procedure was considerably complicated, and it took the longest of the three for any money to actually arrive. More to the point, the whole reason the tower needed money was that the tower itself was broke; expecting funding to come out of the tower would be robbing Peter to pay Paul.
Second, lectures, then.
That was equally impossible for now. What lunatics in this world would pay to hear a lecture from a Level 2 mage?
Which leaves commissions.
Even there, lucrative named requests were a pipe dream. All a Level 2 mage could really handle were the trivial jobs that trickled into the tower — finding a runaway cat, say. And that kind of thing pays pocket change at best.
Given his grand ambition of restoring the tower's finances, he needed a venture that could bring in serious money.
A venture, hm.
Let's think from the tower's perspective, not that of a single mage. Which department used to rake in the most money back in the day?
His head posed the question, and his mouth answered it.
"The potion manufacturing department."
That had been the White Tower's reliable cash cow in the old days. The Blue Tower had only stolen that crown recently — back then, the White Tower had held a near-monopoly on the potion market.
The reason we lost it is obvious without even looking.
The demon invasion twenty years ago had burned the potion recipes to ash. Fortunately, every one of those recipes remained perfectly intact inside his own head.
Then let's start with the potion business.
Try as he might, he couldn't think of a single venture with lower risk and more certain returns. The real question was which potion to make.
Ideally we'd produce a whole range of potions and flood the market all at once... but that's a fantasy on the White Tower's current starved budget.
In other words, he needed focus — one bet, all in. For now, he had to choose the single potion that simply could not fail.
Over the past twenty years, what potion did those Blue Tower bastards fail to replicate?
After a moment's thought, Oscar picked up the thick stack of newspapers piled high on one corner of his desk. A newspaper was, after all, a collective of information — there might be a hint in there somewhere.
◈ The Rising Powers: Black Tower and Blood Tower locked in a fierce struggle for admission to the Four Great Magic Towers.
◈ Archbishop Baldwin of the El Terra Order abruptly alters his schedule while visiting Shilin Territory on pilgrimage; blessing prayers expected to last up to one month.
◈ Mayor of the Free City of Baran found dead in his home; the criminal organization known as the Violet Brigade suspected.
◈ A string of misfortunes for the White Tower? Shilin, once called the continent's greatest herb-growing region, surrenders its crown.
◈ Vince Territory enacts a sudden lockdown decree; merchants and travelers erupt in protest.
As Oscar skimmed the assortment of news, his eyes snagged on one headline and refused to move.
...A territory lockdown decree?
Short of outright war, sealing off a perfectly healthy territory's borders was no everyday occurrence. His interest piqued, Oscar read the article in detail.
The Lord of Vince has abruptly ordered his territory sealed. Rumors are already swirling that the decree is connected to the severe influenza outbreak that struck Vince mere days ago. If that proves true, it raises the possibility of the 'Cadena Flu,' the virulent illness that sweeps the continent once every few decades. As of now, no definitive cure exists for the Cadena Flu; the most recent epidemic occurred twenty-seven years ago...
"Ah!"
A cry of realization burst from Oscar's lips.
Of course — the Cadena Flu.
Twenty years ago, the White Tower alone had held the monopoly on its cure. A golden product that recorded staggering sales every few decades — the Blue Tower had envied it to the point of madness.
And if there's still no cure, that means the Blue Tower never managed to make one...
Resting his chin on one hand, Oscar deliberated long and hard.
If this influenza ravaging Vince Territory turns out not to be Cadena, I'll have wasted my efforts for nothing.
As the article noted, the Cadena Flu was an unusual virus that surfaced only once every few decades. What if he went ahead and brewed the cure, only for it not to be Cadena?
Then I'd be sitting around sucking my thumb, waiting for an outbreak to happen.
Honestly, with the last epidemic twenty-seven years behind them, the time for another outbreak was about due. It was just hard to say for certain — there had been a forty-year gap once before.
Not certainty, no. But if I can find even the smallest supporting evidence, it's a gamble well worth taking...
Frowning, Oscar went back over the newspaper — and froze.
Archbishop Baldwin of the El Terra Order abruptly alters his schedule while visiting Shilin Territory on pilgrimage; blessing prayers expected to last up to one month.
An article he'd glossed over without a second thought now read entirely differently.
Hamel Grimwiz, Deputy Tower Master of the White Tower, loved this hour of the day above all others. It was the time he set aside for tea he had brewed himself, and for a book.
Unfortunately, today he had intruders. Two of them, no less.
"I'm not letting it slide this time. We're talking outright embezzlement."
"Granted, that part was plainly wrong of him. But the boy is deeply remorseful, isn't he?"
"So we just let it go? Have you never heard that the needle thief grows into the ox thief?"
"On that score, you needn't worry. Our tower has needles aplenty, but nary an ox."
"Not one word of sense from you! Fine, then just throw him into solitary training and be done with it!"
"Absolutely not. What exactly is a Level 1 mage supposed to gain from secluded cultivation?"
"...Heh heh."
To think this was the conversation of elders mere years shy of their two-hundredth birthdays. Listening to the bickering between Elders Maxim and Fidelina with the serene expression of a man long past worldly cares, the Deputy Tower Master finally spoke.
"Listening quietly as I have, I find that neither of you is entirely wrong."
At that, both sides nodded along at once.
"See? Even the Deputy Tower Master agrees with me!"
"However, the solitary confinement is excessive. For that child it would be nothing but pointless torture, with nothing gained."
"Ugh..."
"Yet issuing no punishment at all would set a poor precedent."
"That much I concede as well."
With both of them behind him, the Deputy Tower Master delivered his verdict.
"Oscar's discipline shall be repayment of triple the research funds he used for personal purposes."
"A measly three times..."
Fidelina stuck out her lips in a pout, but didn't put up much of a fight. Even that much was, in truth, a crushing penalty for a Level 1 mage.
"Then let us move to the next agenda item. Elder Fidelina?"
Catching the Deputy Tower Master's gaze, Fidelina heaved a long sigh.
"...The tower has far too little money. It's time someone made a decision, if you ask me."
"Hmm."
The Deputy Tower Master knew exactly what 'decision' she meant, and a groan escaped him. Fidelina pressed her case all the harder.
"Half the facilities in this tower sit unused. We could sell off the equipment from the potion workshop alone and cover three months' worth of operating expenses."
"..."
It was an argument she had been making for months now: sell off the equipment from the facilities no one used — or, to put it precisely, the ones no one was left alive to use.
Fidelina pressed on with all her force.
"Deputy Tower Master, we are truly headed for ruin. Come next month, we won't even have stipends for the mages working out in the field. People have to eat."
"..."
The Deputy Tower Master, who had been silently turning his teacup in his hands, bowed his head at last after long deliberation.
"I cannot permit it."
"Deputy Tower Master!"
"I understand your heart, Elder Fidelina. I know full well that the one who grieves most at seeing her kin go hungry is the one who must manage the money."
Tough as nails in temperament and sharp-tongued as she was, Fidelina was soft at the core. He understood completely how it tore her apart to write the two characters for denied on yet another desperate petition for stipends.
"But this is a magic tower."
A place where mages gathered to pursue the mysteries of magic. A place where their knowledge pooled together and blossomed into new truths. That was what a magic tower was.
"No new wind blows through a sealed room. We cannot sell off tomorrow's future to fill today's stomach."
"...And where exactly is this future of ours?"
"Fidelina! Mind your tongue!"
"Stay out of this. Someone has to say it."
Shooting Maxim an icy glare, Fidelina bit down hard on her lip and pressed on.
"Haven't we already waited twenty years for this so-called future?"
Shrugging her shoulders, she looked around the room.
"So why is it that I still can't see it?"
"..."
"Deputy Tower Master. It's time to accept the truth. Even if such a genius does exist... he isn't coming to the White Tower."
"..."
A heavy silence settled over the room like fog. Head lowered, the Deputy Tower Master gazed at his own sunken eyes reflected in the teacup.
...So that's what it's been.
Had the thing he'd been chasing all along been nothing more than a stubbornness — a lingering attachment wearing the name of 'future'?
He drew a long, deep breath, and just as his heavy lips parted—
Knock, knock.
Two polite raps on the door snapped all three of them to attention. The Deputy Tower Master glanced at his two elders for a moment.
"Come in."
The person who entered was not who any of them expected. He looked at the three of them and gave a small, formal bow.
"Good afternoon."
"Ah, Oscar. We were just speaking about you, as it happens."
"About me...? Oh — the discipline, I take it."
Such quick wits made him remarkably easy to talk to. Of course, it also meant one had to watch one's own words carefully.
"That's right. Did you come to me about that as well?"
"No. I've come to make you a proposal."
"...A proposal?"
The Deputy Tower Master's expression turned enigmatic. Not a plea, not a favor — a proposal. From the very boy who had caused a major incident days ago and was awaiting punishment, no less.
Curiosity got the better of him.
"Then I should very much like to hear it. What kind of proposal, exactly?"
"As I understand it, the White Tower's finances are not in the best of shape."
"Says the brat who embezzled funds knowing full well."
grumbled Elder Fidelina from behind. The Deputy Tower Master quelled her with a light glance and turned back.
"Shameful as it is to admit, I can hardly deny it. What is it you wish to say?"
"I want to run a business."
"A business... Don't tell me you've come to me for venture capital?"
"Yes. I need money."
The moment Oscar nodded, Elder Fidelina burst out laughing.
"Ahaha! The sheer gall of it! Deputy Tower Master, surely you aren't actually considering this?"
"Hmm."
"...Wait, you're deliberating? That boy embezzled research funds — days ago!"
"I'm well aware. But look at it from the other side: wouldn't the fact that he can make such a request even under those circumstances suggest there's something solid behind it?"
"You read the situation exactly right."
Oscar sensed it instinctively — this was the moment to unveil his business proposition. He drew a newspaper from inside his coat and spread it across the desk.
"According to this article, a virulent influenza has broken out in Vince Territory, and a lockdown decree has been issued."
"...I saw that as well. People suspect it may be the Cadena Flu."
"Precisely. To put it bluntly — I want to make the cure and the vaccine, and sell them."
At those words, all three of them turned to stare at Oscar as if bound by a pact.
"The cure? Surely you don't mean the cure for the Cadena Flu?"
"I do. My intent is to restore the remedy the White Tower once held exclusive rights to sell."
"Well, this isn't even worth listening to."
Elder Fidelina let out a cold, scornful laugh.
"As everyone here knows, that recipe was lost twenty years ago. Since then, countless magic towers and pharmaceutical companies have tried to recreate it — and failed, every single one."
Her sharp eyes fixed on him.
"A cure that even factions with enormous capital and high-level mages couldn't reproduce... and you're going to make it? A green whelp of twenty?"
"..."
It was a reasonable suspicion, and Oscar nodded along slowly.
"I agree with everything you've said. It's true that every other faction failed, and it's true that I'm a green whelp of twenty. But — forgive me for saying this myself..."
A soft smile slid across his lips, slow and easy.
The single weapon possessed by this shabby, fragile body he had opened his eyes in after twenty years existed for precisely moments like this.
"I'm a genius, you see."