Once the annoying customer who had thoroughly annoyed Dorn was gone, Ryuji turned to the retreating back of Dorn and asked something that had been on his mind since the first spell. “Master Dorn, A moment, please? I was just wondering, was all of that an illusion? I looked where the first spell landed and despite the ice spike landing among the shelves there was no damage.”
Dorn chuckled and complimented him on a good eye. He then went on to explain an enchantment cast over the entirety of the store and its contents. The specifics of the spell were a bit advanced but the gist of it was that spells that hit the store were rendered back into magic to feed the enchantment and it had to be strengthened every few days. He then told Ryuji that, for that reason, practicing his spells wouldn’t hurt the store. He told him to avoid fire spells for now because they might not hurt the store but he wasn’t included in that immunity.
After that, Ryuji decided that he needed a plan to keep from having to bother Dorn. He could tell that the old dwarf wasn’t upset with him but he still didn’t want to have to bother him again. He quickly settled on a demonstration that would stop all but the most determined of pests from causing grief. He opened the book on spell circles and spell geometry to a random page and placed it on the counter next to the book he was reading. He then went out and got a cup of dirt and placed it and a damp rag on the counter.
The next three customers were greeted by the sight of an unfamiliar sun-elf sitting behind the counter reading. Before they could ask the obvious question, he had dipped his finger into the cup on the counter and without looking drew a rough circle in the air beside him. The first guy wasn’t a mage but a merchant and this simple display was more than enough for him to realize that this was a wizard and not to be crossed.
The next guy that came in was a wizard apparently. Ryuji figured that out when he made a low comment about the circle being a little unstable. His look of amazement when Ryuji flared his mana and the circle straightened was priceless. only then did Ryuji “Notice” him standing there. The last customer of the day was left in such disbelief of this that he asked if he could see that done again. His look of bewilderment only grew when Ryuji not only righted the next circle inside the first but also the third and they all aligned themselves perfectly.
In the end, it was the busiest day the shop had seen since Ryuji had started. The old dwarf was quite pleased with the two small gold and almost three large silver the store made that day and when Ryuji told him how he had handled the customers' questions about his apprenticeship he thought the old guy was going to die laughing. He was wheezing by the end.
After making sure that The now jovial old dwarf was okay, Ryuji excused himself for the day. He didn’t realize until he was at the vibrant green, double-swing doors leading into the Old Sleeping Tree Inn, just how hungry he was. As he ascended the stairwell in the corner of the common room, he reflected that he hadn’t eaten anything for lunch. He wasn’t sure what was cooking but it smelled marvelous.
When Ryuji got to his room, he doffed his belt and everything on it save for two items. There were two things he carried with him tied to the thongs of his pants and tucked into them. One was the key to his room and the other was his endless coin pouch that would have, at this point, one large copper in it every time he placed his fingers into it.
With his necessities in place, he descended the stairs into the now familiar atmosphere of the eatery or maybe tavern that made up the base level of the inn. As soon as Karen spotted him, she grabbed a tray stacked with two portions of whatever the soup was tonight and headed towards where he was settling at the table. She smiled happily at him as she laid out his food and a portion next to him where she promptly settled. Even the glares from many of the patrons were tapering off as the flirtatious antic of the pair were becoming routine.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
They didn’t have as much to talk about as the previous few days but that didn’t seem to matter much to Karen. She happily sat next to Ryuji and chatted about rude customers and how they were a problem for everyone. He had of course told her about apprenticing to the old wizard but she didn’t seem to believe him at first so he didn’t make mention of the magic shop again. He figured he would save that as a surprise visit one day. Either he would invite Dorn over to the inn for ale or he would invite Karen over to the shop to see his progress in magic studies.
Soon enough, the bowls of bean, carrot, and venison stew were gone. He reflected that this was the first stew that he had tasted after arriving at the inn a little over an eightday ago, the local equivalent of a week. Things had been really hectic over the past ten days but it looked as if it was finally going to calm down a bit. He still wanted to talk to and acquire a few businesses that he could then launder money through. He was certain that he would be able to use the general store to funnel a lot of his money claims through. Overall though, it looked like things were going to settle down a bit.
He took his leave of Karen but just before going upstairs he checked to see if anyone was paying attention and when he saw nobody looking, he brushed a quick kiss on her cheek. She flinched like she had been hit with a sudden static discharge and began turning crimson. Ryuji made his way up the stairs but stopped and winked at Karen who was still staring at him while holding her cheek. As he left the common room Karen let her hand drift from her cheek to her lips and remembered the passionate kiss she had given him the night before. Did he know, she wondered?
Ryuji closed and locked his door and began to pull out the books from his massive satchel that he had commissioned from the old cat beastfolk named Gato. There were several books in here. Once Ryuji had gotten the gist of reading the language he took to it like a fish to a pond. He had finished the first book and read all the way through a much smaller second book and began on a third. The books in question he opened and began taking notes from and writing them into his magic primer.
He called it that but it was also his diary and more. He had decided he needed to write down as many things as he could remember about most of the subjects from his schooling. A lot of it would be useless but he wouldn’t know what was or wasn’t until he was put in a situation where it applied. He had years of math and science knowledge stored away as well as Japanese, literature, history, and even English studies. He decided that he would only give the last one a cursory summation since he really didn’t like that course and didn’t retain much. He’d honestly learned a lot more English talking to foreign exchange students than studying in class.
Tonight he was going to expand the section on things he’d learned here in this world though. He already had a section set aside for the magic he was learning from Dorn. The things he was writing into his primer tonight were the spell glyphs and hand flourishes used to write them into the spell circle quicker. This was valuable information and the book was full of it if you could pull it out of the writing.
He was thankful to his classical literature teacher now. Moroha sensei was the one who had the class study the Konjaku Monogatarishū, a collection of very old stories from other countries. She made the class find the morals of the story and even had them find useful wisdom and identify where their cultures influenced early Japanese culture. Without her class, he doubted he would have been able to get nearly as much from this book or even be able to pick up the language as quickly.
One of the biggest problems he was facing was the writing. The ink he used was pretty good but the writing quills were a real pain. He thought to himself, not for the first time, I really need to see if I can fix these pens. The quills were apparently made from some kind of fairly common monster. He dreaded meeting the kind of creature that had quills like this but he might have to if he was to fix this problem. He still had no idea how he would make the ballpoint though. A problem for later.
After roughly an hour or candlespan he corrected himself, he was done and ready to go to bed. After blowing out the lamp and laying on the bed he began thinking on all the things he might bring to this world and wondered if it was right for him to contaminate their culture like that. In this way, he drifted off into a dream of Japan and an elf teaching magic at his high school.