Erection... What?
Erection… what?
Mosa jaein, seongsa jaecheon.
It is man who starts the work, but Heaven that brings it to fruition.
No matter how hard a person flails and rants, without luck his skull ends up cracked open in the end.
It was a proverb that suited me perfectly right now.
Because the mines I had bought were spitting out ancient ruins one after another.
"As expected! Young Master, you had already seen through everything!"
"Excuse me?"
"The mana of a mana vein is dense enough to crystallize into mana stones, yet the amount that actually leaks outward is negligible. That was why the prevailing theory held that a mana vein's flow always ran in a fixed direction. But in truth, the mana itself was being consumed to maintain the ancient Magical Empire's concealment magic circles."
"Excuse me?"
"If you think about it, the ancient Magical Empire left far fewer ruins than the records would suggest. Our empire, advanced in magitech, invented a way to recharge mana stones. The Magical Empire, however, kept refining traditional magic circles until they had no choice but to use the mana veins themselves."
"Excuse me?"
"Truly magnificent. You foresaw something not a single scholar ever predicted."
"Excuse me?"
What the hell is this nonsense?
What even is the ancient Magical Empire? What about magic circles? I supposedly predicted something no scholar ever expected? I understood exactly zero of this.
I had no idea how things had ended up like this.
"This is a revolution in human history! The history textbooks will have to be rewritten!"
"Ah. Right. The history textbooks are getting rewritten."
"Yes!"
"That… doesn't make much money, does it?"
The ancient Magical Empire? However brilliant the civilization, it was just another long-dead bunch of ordinary people. Historical value, sure… but that didn't equal money, did it?
In that case I didn't really care.
In the end, a trading company's performance was decided by the ledger.
"Of course it makes an absolute fortune!"
"The ruins do?"
"Yes. The academic value is one thing, but more importantly the ancient magic circles have been preserved intact. The magical concepts and principles sealed inside them could combine with magitech and become the seeds of entirely new technology."
"Still, it's just ancient tech, isn't it?"
"Granted, magic circles can't match magitech in productivity or precision. But some of them provide the key to problems modern magitech simply cannot solve."
"So that means money."
"Yes. Magic towers from all over the country are already lining up with sacks of cash, begging us to let them study the sites."
"Mm. Understood."
I nodded and sent the manager out.
The results were multiplying themselves.
"How am I supposed to clean this up…?"
Fine. Look on the bright side.
The trading company belonged to my sister and it was succeeding, right? That meant I could squeeze a generous allowance out of her. It wasn't even my company. Once I quit I wouldn't have to worry about pocket money ever again.
Haha.
But how was I supposed to quit? The moment Father heard about these numbers he would work me like a slave. Why did everything I touch keep succeeding? Why did the business keep doing well?!
First, shave the numbers down even a little.
It isn't over until it's over. If I could cut the results even a fraction, I could still salvage things somehow. Success couldn't last forever. All I needed was one nice big screw-up.
All right. I can do this!
I called the manager back in.
"Manager."
"Yes, Young Master!"
"Bring me every proposal related to the ancient ruins."
"Yes!"
Magic towers, trading houses, academies—proposals from every organization that wanted to research the sites.
I threw out every offer that simply dangled money. If I chose buyers by price alone I would have no choice but to sell to the highest bidder. Selling cheap what could be sold expensive was embezzlement.
Better to accept a proposal I could later write off as a "judgment error."
This one's from a magic tower…
One proposal in particular caught my eye.
They were developing a magical potion and wanted to study the ruins of the ancient Magical Empire for that purpose. In return they would give us a share of the potion's rights.
An interesting offer.
A cure for Mana Hardening Disease?
Mana Hardening Disease. A condition in which part of one's mana solidifies and clogs the arteries of the mana heart. For all its seriousness, it was surprisingly common.
What does that have to do with ancient ruins?
The proposal boiled down to this:
Mana Circles. An ancient technique that forcibly generated mana vortices to boost output. Abandoned in modern times for being far too dangerous, it was supposedly the key to creating a Mana Hardening Disease cure. And the civilization that had advanced Circle theory the furthest was the ancient Magical Empire.
Hmm. This smells like a scam.
Plausible medical and magical jargon. Confidence that success would print money. It looked like a classic scam no matter how I sliced it.
A Mana Hardening Disease cure? If it were that easy someone would have developed it already. Circle theory might be obsolete, but that didn't mean no research had ever been done.
These people were shameless.
Daring to try and snatch someone else's ruins with pretty words.
"Manager."
"Yes!"
"Contact the magic tower that sent this proposal. Let's negotiate the terms a little."
"Understood!"
Since they were so shameless, I would give them everything I could. Take my money! Take. My. Money!
The manager's face was grave. Clearly the Mana Hardening Disease cure we had invested in had crashed and burned spectacularly. I barely managed to keep a straight face while listening to the report.
"The results are not good."
"Is that so?"
"Yes. Clinical trials showed it wasn't completely without effect… but it demonstrated no meaningful improvement over existing magical potions. At this rate it has zero competitiveness."
"Well now… that's a problem."
"Further refinement could raise the efficacy, but the strain on the mana heart would become so severe it might actually endanger the patient's life. It would simply inherit the same limitations as traditional Circle theory."
"How unfortunate."
See? There was a reason it had failed all this time.
Magical potions were an all-or-nothing market. Without competitiveness you might as well have gotten nothing. A perfect investment failure.
Of course I had still made far more than I had lost… but if I kept failing one by one like this, someday I would erase every scrap of my results.
As the saying goes, chip away at a mountain and eventually you get dust.
"M-Manager! Young Master! Emergency!"
"You—how dare you interrupt a report so rudely…"
Just as the manager was finishing, an employee burst into the room.
W-wait. This situation felt familiar. Nah, no way.
This time something truly catastrophic must have happened.
Right. Nobody succeeds forever. Sometimes you have to fail…
"The Mana Hardening Disease cure we invested in—"
"Did they find some serious side effect?"
"—is apparently effective for treating erectile dysfunction!"
"Excuse me?"
Erection… what? Erectile dysfunction? Why was that suddenly coming up?
"Here's the report from the magic tower!"
I snatched the report the employee thrust at me. Exactly as he said, the front page was entirely about treating erectile dysfunction.
A mana vortex formed by a magical potion that mimics the action of a Mana Circle forces mana to pool in the cavernous body where mana arteries and mana veins adjoin.
This makes erection easier and longer-lasting while enhancing rigidity.
The mechanism is similar in principle to a knight's physical reinforcement.
Efficacy in treating erectile dysfunction has been confirmed. It is estimated to produce the same effect when used to enhance the virility of ordinary people or mages.
Ah. I see. This is a scam. Definitely a con.
There's no way some miracle drug like this just pops out of nowhere.
"Has this been properly fact-checked?"
"Yes! The clinical data is all summarized on the next page."
"Mm. I see."
This wasn't a scam? Why? How? It was supposed to be a Mana Hardening Disease cure—why had it suddenly turned into a virility drug? Wasn't this a breach of contract?
"What happens to our contract then? For example, since the investment was specifically for a Mana Hardening Disease cure, shouldn't we renegotiate the terms—"
"No need to worry! The company's legal experts have already reviewed everything! Their unanimous opinion is that we can exercise every right originally promised to us!"
"Ah. Is that so?"
Fast. Even the part where they crush me is fast. Hope? Already broken.
"The erectile-dysfunction market is hundreds of times larger than the Mana Hardening Disease market! It's basically just another name for the virility market! Every man who struggles at night is a potential customer!"
"Yes, yes. No need to explain further."
Just listening was giving me heartburn.
"Ah, apologies. I got carried away."
"It happens. It's fine."
Ahh. I want to quit. I don't want to work. Please let me be reborn next life as some rich family's spoiled brat.
"By the way, what was the name of that magic tower and the drug again?"
"Pardon? Ah, that would be—"
Who the hell are you people.
I will remember you. Every last one of you.
"It's the Heizer Magic Tower's Viagra."
"Ah…"
That name sounds like something that would invent a corona vaccine.