I woke up to a different ceiling above me, so unlike a tent. For a few minutes I lay in bed simply staring at the ceiling not too sure about what I should do next. I arrived back in town the day before, managed to upset the mayor, was saved by Haruhime, met a stunning half-elf, worked at the Dryad and discovered a mystical forest room, met the local toothed wildlife, ate insipid food and sang with the locals. And that was one day! What amazing things would happen with me today I wondered?
The combination of the downstairs morning activity sounds and the smell of reheated dinner reminded me that breakfast was available. Since I already paid for the room, I decided I might as well eat the supplied meal, even if it tasted bland. Arriving at the reception desk a sunny looking Haruhime stopped me.
“Eh, Shane? What’s happening with your face?”
It was the lowest form of embarrassment that I still couldn’t shave with a flat razor. I practiced death by a thousand cuts with my face because safety razors were unknown there. I forgot to heal that. I would pay more attention to it when I finished eating.
“Please don’t expect an answer.”
Was my only reply. I asked myself if I might have to either grow a beard or become particularly good at healing if I couldn’t learn to shave, I guessed it would be healing while answering my own question.
More than half the adventurers that sang so merrily the previous night were already leaving the dining room, having completed breakfast. They started early because the merchants already completed their sales the previous day and were heading back to Shimmerstal. The adventurer with the red coloured armour slapped me on the shoulder,
“See you, Shane. That was a great night, last night. I look forward to drinking with you again. See you in Shimmerstal when you get there.”
I couldn’t even remember his name, but I remembered agreeing to meet him in the Shimmerstal adventurer guild. All the night was mostly a blur to me. From what I could gather from the adventurer’s light banter last night, the merchants dealt in everyday commodities like food, clothing, and hardware. Coming to Obon was essentially a one-way trip for the merchants and wasn't a lucrative trade route. Obon simply didn't have any commodities the merchants could take back with them to Shimmerstal and as such were only making money for one part of the return trip. That meant the merchants tended to raise their prices to make up for the losses, which in turn raise the cost of goods sold in Obon. I watched them leave with a little sadness because despite their rough personalities, they brought life to the inn. Somehow, the place seemed a little quieter when they had all left. The rest left soon afterwards and only a handful would I later see again. I discovered that handful of adventurers worked the local dungeon.
Breakfast that morning consisted of warmed up left over stew from dinner. It filled me but didn’t taste much better than the evening before. Later, I headed to work and found myself refreshed after walking down that quaint Dryad alleyway again. After greeting the old man, he gave me an apron to put on since there was no point in destroying my second-hand clothes, even if they itched like blazes. I still didn't know when I'd be able to afford new clothes, but I'd have to seriously do something about my underwear if I valued my sanity.
The old man taught me how to better use the tools in the workshop and he taught me improved techniques in sharpening and buffing while saying,
“I know that you can transmutate, but that isn’t worth ditto if you can’t read a knife or understand how it should look.”
I looked forward to the day when I could make something that people would pay top silver for. Until then I absorbed everything like a sponge wanting to learn as much as I could and just when I thought I could take a rest, the old man dropped off another crate of old knives on my work bench for me to clean.
“See what you can do with these. I’m heading off for a few hours, if anyone comes just tell them I’ll see them later.”
Well that seemed to be the way things ran there but I was still confused. Since he was the boss and he was paying the bill, I would be the last one to argue with him. It seemed he thought I was good at cleaning knives, so I received any old knife. It was a bit boring honing blade after blade, but as a result I got to know the different makes and types of blades from around the kingdom quite well. Some blades were simple, everyday use types, which any person would use for cutting food or other things. Some were better suited as weapons, typically categorised by chips missing from the blade or in the odd case rusted spots on blades that looked suspiciously like dried blood. Each blade told a story and I had fun imaging the tale behind it.
Between all the blades there was one type which seemed to stand out in terms of quality, blades stamped with a shield icon and two stipes running diagonally across the shield. I would ask the old man about it later. The small similarities I kept noticing between that world and earth seemed too coincidental. I couldn't shake the feeling that world intertwined with earth on more than one occasion. If it wasn't symbology, it was naming conventions. It wasn't just symbols or names, it was how things looked for instance, houses and horse carts looked the same. There was a practical element to it, you needed doors and windows in a house, no matter what world you live in. But there, even people's clothes seem to reflect the Edwardian era, why was that?
There was a window at the front of the shop providing light, even then it was difficult to see what I was doing at my work bench, which was some distance away from the window, frustrating me no ends. A small flame lamp gave me some light, but it didn’t really improve things for me. While I was sitting there ruminating about the building' s light inefficiencies, the light levels suddenly improved.
“Yes, like that. That’s so much better, now I can finally see the blade.”
It only dawned on me then that I was the only person in the building, and no-one was around me to supply a light source. When I looked around to find the source of the light, it promptly disappeared leaving me back in darkness again. No matter how I looked I couldn't find the light source or anyone who could have provided it. Personally, it freaked me out a little. Then a radical thought occurred to me, was it possible that the light source came from me?
As soon as I strained my eyes to look at the blade again, the light returned. Because I was paying attention, I discovered that the light was coming somewhere from my hand, to be more specific, from my finger. When I looked at it, it snuffed out again, but I managed to get a good look at it. I remember watching fireflies at the river near my home in the evenings, it reminded me of a firefly sitting on my finger during those sweltering summer evenings. It seemed that when I had a need for light, it created itself, but when I focused on the light, it disappeared. I recreated the light a few times until I was able to keep it shining while studying it on my finger.
“Huh? That’s weird.”
My finger was glowing, but it sure didn’t seem to do much or hurt me in any way. It seemed to be on some low setting because it only lit up dimly. What if I imagined the light as much brighter, I wondered?
“Ah, crap! Not good…”
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It confirmed my well-placed concern as a light, brighter than a phosphorus flame lit up the room. I couldn’t see anything anymore. it was as if the light was probing through my eyelids. Even with my eyes closed, and my arm covering my eyes the light penetrated straight through. I wish that light would…
“STOP!”
Suddenly there was darkness, the light stopped. That light was so intense. What just happened there, I wondered. The next time and decided to check again, I covered my hand with a cloth. If I couldn't stop the light and it got out of control, the class should manage it to some degree. It also seemed easier to activate the light when I issued a clear command.
“Ah, light?”
Initially I didn’t see anything. Perhaps if I envisioned the word and pictured how I wanted it to look in my mind? It seemed to work because I could see a dull light about the same intensity as the mood lighting in a nice restaurant. Now that made me miss my home. Not that I would have gone anywhere in particular at the time because I didn’t have anyone to go out with. With all the work was busy with I didn't get much time to socially interact with my friends. Much to my mom's dismay, she always berated me for not spending more time getting to know people. I think she just wanted me to get on with making grandchildren for her. I was tired of the mood lighting, and I wanted to increase the light intensity slightly. In my mind I envisioned my finger with the brightness of a small battery torch like the ones we use for emergency training. It worked.
“Stop.”
Yes, success, the light went off. That created a conundrum in my mind. There were three material states I could control, gases, liquids, and solids. Those three states, I inherited through the rings from the ogre general I killed. Transmutation, appraisal, and healing seemed to be skills that I acquired my own. According to my latest self-appraisal, I could add light skill to that list.
I didn't know what scared me more, thought that I could create anything my imagination could dream up or that it was possible for me to create a black hole. The idea both thrilled me and gave me chills at the same time.
Yes, I could, and the options were endless. Although I had to stay with the basics, creating tons of skills wouldn't help me because I would spend more time trying to remember which skills I had created, rather than utilising them. Which brought me to a question for Ara.
I could understand what Ara was saying, but there was something about understanding the basic physics principles that gave me an edge above others. One thing was for certain, nothing would stop me now from experimenting with other new skills, and the first one on my list was fire.
By the time Grenfell returned, I just managed to put out a minor fire in the workshop after I played around with a fire element. I created fire it by exciting oxygen atoms around the top of my finger while introducing isolated atmospheric hydrogen, the result behaved more like super-heated air. An intense, small blue flame appeared on the tip of my finger. Just when I started to get all excited about making that, a sudden pain in my finger reminded me that it was receiving third-degree burns. I got such a fright that I instinctively flapped my finger around like a wounded bird while trying to put out the fire. Of course, I didn’t think to first turn the flame effect off, so sparks of fire from my finger shot around the workshop like a firework display gone horribly wrong and one spark ended up in a small open clay container full of flammable cleaner I used on the blades.
Back on earth I'd seen movie clips of large fireworks displays that went terribly wrong. The workshop incident reminded me of those scenarios where misfired fireworks shot off everywhere causing morbidly fascinating mayhem. Luckily, my common sense quickly kicked in as I systematically put out the fires. I wasn’t sure if my forefinger would fully recover to its former glory though, but luckily my healing skill was able to resolve that. When I explained to the old man what had happened while going through a re-enactment of the near disaster, I expected him to be angry. Strangely he just laughed till his sides hurt. What if he wasn't angry with me, I supposed that was a good thing.
I proposed the concept of creating a modern razor design to Grenfell a while ago introduced a few new technical challenges. He told me that the level of detail required to fabricate the razors needed more dexterity than he could offer. Afterall, he was more used to making tools that removed people’s heads rather than shaving hair off them. Dwarfs were better equipped to help us. They could mass produce razors if it turned out to be worthwhile. Dwarves, apparently, were not inclined to quickly jump into business with humans. There were enough reasons for them to be like that, most of them hinged on human’s fickle natures and dwarves’ short fuses didn't contribute to improving the situation either.
But before we could go to the dwarfs, we needed to make a workable model. With no plastic in that world for making handles and receptacles, I could only make the handle from a light, cheap metal. It took a few evening sessions for us to put it all together, but we eventually ended up with a workable model.
The razor head required fine work to make but could be easily modularised and assembled once we made the basic components. The handle screwed into the head and there was even a basic swivel movement to follow contours. I couldn't shake the feeling I was blatantly standing on somebody's patent back on earth, but thankfully that world had never seen a razor design like that.
We used a light alloy to make the metal parts for everything but the blades. The blades were thin and flexible but also tough and durable. They were pressure stamped as soon as they came red hot out of the kiln to give the metal its flexibility. The old man and I could only make a half-capped facsimile of a razor, but luckily the dwarves were particularly adept at making things and wouldn't find it an insurmountable technical challenge. After we pitched the idea to them, the amount of interest they showed in the new razors took me by surprise. But when I thought about it more carefully, and about how much hair covered a dwarf, it wasn't too surprising really. I was however, never brave enough to dare ask specifics about their interest and just accepted that they bought into the concept.
Strangely enough, the old man didn’t see much potential in that product and although he was willing to help me assemble the prototype parts, he was reluctant to go wholesale into it. Making a prototype was one thing, finding the funding for fabrication and production was all different ball game.
My opportunity appeared sooner than I expected. One day someone turned up at the Dryad’s door. A neatly bearded man in his mid-thirties, walked in. A merchant type judging by his gown and his floppy hat arrangement. He looked slightly taller than me and carried a bit more flair about him as compared to the merchants I met at the inn the other night. Perhaps it was because his gown looked more expensive that I considered that. Grenfell greeted him with a cheerful smile and the two chatted cordially, as if they were old friends. I realised I would be a spare wheel in that conversation, so I just left them to chat as I carried on with my knife cleaning. Somewhere in the conversation I overheard something about merchants coming under attack from monsters. That wasn’t too strange considering the events we went through at the woodcutter’s camp. Then I heard some bartering, laughing, and then money changing hands.
“Ah, Shane, can you come here for a moment? I would like to introduce you to an old friend of mine, Schneider. He is a merchant from the capital.”
The man nodded in my direction.
“Hello Shane, as Grenfell has already introduced me, I’m called Schneider, a merchant from the capital. Judging by the quality of your work, I look forward to doing business with you in the future.”
I found out that Schneider came about every fourteen days to trade with Grenfell. The quality of Grenfell’s equipment was well known in the capital and Schneider also saw a lot of promise in the items I made. I suspected that that contact would still bear me a lot of fruit in the future.
I bowed to him.
“Pleased to meet you.”
Schneider looked a little uncomfortable and asked,
“Ah, please excuse me for asking this, but what’s happening with your face?”
Bad memories of shaving with a blade are still haunting me. I really miss my safety razor, I just never realized by how much. Plus, I had forgotten to heal my face that morning.
“Mr. Schneider, would you perhaps be interested in a proposal I have for you?”