Infinite Mana (3)
Choi Ayoung glanced at the transformed supermarket directory and spoke up.
“The first floor sells medium-sized magic equipment. The second floor has small magic tools, and from the third floor up, they sell clothing. And apparently there’s a food court in the basement. Senior, where would you like to start?”
“Hmm…”
Serpina thought for a moment. The original reason they’d come to ML Mart was to buy clothes for Heerin to wear to her observation class. And they’d already bought the clothes. If they were just here to browse the late-night magic market, it didn’t really matter where they started.
“Let’s start from the third floor.”
The decision was casual. After all, sightseeing itself was the goal. She figured they might as well sweep through the place from one end to the other.
The elevators weren’t running during the late-night hours. As Serpina climbed the stairs to the third floor, a question suddenly occurred to her.
“Don’t they have to sell clothes at night?”
“That’s true. There are enchanted clothes too, but those are usually ordered online. Plus, buying small magic equipment is usually cheaper than putting magic on clothes anyway.”
“Then what do they sell here?”
“Clothes that don’t necessarily need magic but would be hard to sell normally… I guess? It’s hard to explain. You’ll understand right away once you see them.”
They reached the third floor. The moment they opened the stairwell door and saw the first store, Serpina immediately understood what Ayoung had meant.
The types of clothes they sold were completely different. Robes, wide-brimmed hats, outfits with exposure levels comparable to the rags Serpina usually wore, and garments covered in cumbersome, overly elaborate decorations that looked uncomfortable just to look at.
Staring at a store packed with such items, one word came to mind.
“Cosplay shop?”
It might be rude to call something some people wore seriously “cosplay,” but there was no other way to describe it.
“First-timers say that a lot. Especially about the clothes in that store over there.”
Serpina looked where Ayoung was pointing. It was a shop overflowing with cute outfits in pastel colors, covered in layers of fluffy frills.
“Whoa. People actually wear that? Looking at the sizes, it’s not even for kids.”
“It’s surprisingly popular. They call it magical girl fashion.”
“Magical girl? There are magical girls?”
Even Serpina, who was hard to surprise, was genuinely taken aback this time. She had seen real witches, vampires, and werewolves. But magical girls felt like a completely different story.
“Come on, of course not. There’s no such thing as magical girls. But it is a style that a lot of young witch girls go for around middle school age.”
“Ah, that kind of thing.”
They walked down the hallway, chatting. Unlike when they’d been looking at clothes earlier, this time it actually felt a little fun. It was less like shopping and more like visiting some kind of exhibition hall.
“Senior, what about something like that?”
The outfit Ayoung pointed at was a swimsuit. Not an ordinary one, either—it was a flashy, over-the-top swimsuit that looked like it belonged on a game skin.
“What do you mean, what about it? You think I’d actually wear that?”
“But if we’re just talking about exposure level, it’s not that different from what you usually wear, is it?”
“Uhh…?”
Now that she thought about it, Ayoung had a point. It wasn’t like she wore revealing clothes on purpose, but the end result had turned out that way. For a brief moment Serpina was tempted, but she quickly shook her head.
“No, that’s not it. That was just because it was too much of a hassle to earn money, so I ended up picking up whatever was lying around.”
“Hng. What a shame. I really wanted to see it…”
-Thump!
Serpina gave the babbling Ayoung a solid flick to the forehead.
Next was the second floor, where they sold small magic equipment. This place was noticeably busier than the third floor, thanks to a three-stage transforming robot vacuum cleaner demonstration happening in the center of the mart.
“Parents, you’ve always worried about buying toys, right? After playing with them for a few weeks at most, they end up forgotten in the corner of the room, and it’s hard to justify spending a lot of money on them. Now you don’t have to worry anymore! Once the kids are done playing with it, it becomes a robot vacuum! The three-stage transforming robot vacuum cleaner!!”
A vampire emcee with a pale face held a microphone and rattled off the sales pitch. In front of him, three knee-high robots danced the famous moves of the King of Pop, drawing everyone’s attention. It was the perfect performance to showcase the smoothness and range of motion in their joints.
“Of course, the transformation function isn’t just for changing purposes! Once combined, it can go up and down stairs and even clean on top of tables! And on top of that…”
Serpina and Ayoung let the emcee’s continuing voice fade into the background as they looked around the store. There were all sorts of interesting products: ‘Automatic Pet Hair Collector,’ ‘Wireless Shower Head,’ ‘Portable Mosquito-Repelling Barrier Magic Circle,’ and more. It was genuinely fun to browse.
It was also interesting to see that many of the items were ordinary human-world tools that had been given special magical functions, rather than tools developed independently in the magic world.
Amid all that, one particular shop caught Serpina’s eye. It was a magic weapon store—something you’d never see in the human world.
Serpina looked at the magic wands displayed all over the shop and frowned. They were rods about thirty centimeters long with magic stones embedded at the tips. No matter how she looked at them, they had zero concealability compared to the other items.
“Aren’t these things way too obvious?”
“They are. That’s why most people who use these have completely cut ties with the human world. Or they use wand cases like those.”
Ayoung pointed to another display shelf. There were long, ordinary-looking objects like umbrellas and hiking sticks.
“You carry them around inside those, and when you need to use them, you just pull out the wand.”
Ayoung picked up one of the hiking sticks and twisted the handle. With a soft click, a sample magic wand slid out from inside.
“That actually looks pretty cool. Not bad.”
“Really? I wasn’t sure… Oh. Just a moment.”
Ayoung put the hiking stick back and walked over to a display labeled For Rank 4 Mages, beginning to examine the items carefully. Her old selfie-stick weapon had been destroyed in the fight against the cat-type magic beast, so she needed a new one.
“Hmm…”
But choosing a weapon wasn’t easy. Ayoung’s mana capacity was already on par with a proper Rank 4 mage. Ordinary Rank 5 weapons couldn’t handle her mana output and would break quickly. That was why she was looking at Rank 4 gear now.
However, her actual magic skill was still firmly at Rank 5. If she picked a Rank 4 weapon that didn’t have enough mana operation support, she might end up producing even less power than before.
And there was one more thing. Ayoung fidgeted with her fingers. She couldn’t forget the feel of the training wooden rod she had used so effectively in their last fight. The practice weapon, made with precise knowledge of her abilities, had accepted her mana without issue. At the same time, if she focused properly, it could draw out one hundred percent of the magic imbued within it.
In other words, it was a custom weapon personally crafted for her by Serpina, an existence far beyond normal standards. Now that she had experienced something like that, Ayoung could no longer go back to how things used to be. She had become someone who could no longer be satisfied with cheap, mass-produced magic weapons.
Still, she had to buy something. No matter how good the wooden rod Serpina had made for her was, carrying it around on the street was something only elementary school kids could get away with.
“I’ll take this one.”
After much deliberation, Ayoung chose a selfie-stick-style magic weapon similar to her previous one. A familiar shape was simply easier to use.
While Ayoung was buying her new weapon, Serpina was staring at a product displayed prominently in the middle of the store.
“Mage Beginner Kit?”
“Are you interested in that product, ma’am?”
A man who looked like the store manager approached and spoke to her.
“This item allows even ordinary people who cannot sense mana to feel it.”
“That’s possible? Even without talent?”
Magic was a skill. Anyone could use it if they learned how. Just like in any other field, some people could learn one thing and achieve ten, while others could achieve a hundred. But in the end, if you learned it, you could become a mage.
The one difference from other fields was that a minimum amount of talent was required. No matter how untalented you were at soccer, as long as your body and mind were fine, you could still kick a ball. No matter how bad you were at games, you could still click a mouse. But if you had no talent for mana, even entering the world of magic was impossible.
Yet this kit claimed to make it possible.
“Of course! However…”
The manager, who had answered confidently, lowered his voice.
“It’s not a one hundred percent guarantee. You know how important talent is in our industry. Still, this is a verified product that has been proven effective through numerous tests. If you’d like to see the exact test results…”
“Ah. I see.”
The manager continued with a long-winded explanation, but Serpina had already lost interest. In the end, all it did was slightly lower the talent requirement needed to begin learning magic. That was something every mage family in her previous world had done. They would pour their own mana into children who couldn’t sense it themselves, helping them feel the foreign sensation.
The principle was a little different, but if you compared it to martial arts novels, it was like bone cleansing and marrow washing. Of course, this version couldn’t further enhance existing talent, so it wasn’t exactly the same.
She couldn’t deny that turning that process into a convenient kit form was impressive, but it still wasn’t enough to pique Serpina’s interest.
“Senior! I’m done shopping!”
“Alright. Let’s head to the first floor now.”
“…Thank you for visiting! Please come again!”
Serpina and Ayoung left the store, leaving the manager’s voice behind them.