CHAPTER 62: YOU KNOW THOSE PUZZLES WHERE YOU HAVE TO BALANCE BOTH SIDES TO GET THEM TO EQUAL EACH OTHER? WHAT ARE THEY CALLED … OH RIGHT, ALGEBRA.
“The two of you seem really interested in glass.”
Ragnall said after taking a swig from his mug.
It’s just steeped borlas root and honey, since he’s on the job. He’s surprisingly conscientious of not drinking on the job, though I only notice because that’s what Niera told me.
The 3 of us are at The Cave Bear for lunch. It’s not as busy during the day, since most of the Adventurers are busy on the job, either in the Labyrinth or out of it, and bring lunch or buy it from the food stalls.
“Hm… it’s something that succeeded very well in our hometown. With it, we’ve made great breakthroughs, from seeing things so small the eye can’t see them, to seeing the true forms of the stars.”
Seimei-san says this casually.
I choke on my food. Hang on a sec, Seimei-san!
“Heeeh, that’s amazing! So what are those stars in the sky?”
Ragnall innocently asks that, and Seimei-san suddenly realizes the problem with what he just said.
The stars in this world aren’t real! Lights of unknown origin, created by magic, and above all, the Starfall-! These are NOT the stars we know about!
There’s a few seconds of awkward silence.
“That is … the stars here are different than the stars back in our homeland…”
I say, struggling to come up with some excuse.
“Nn, that’s the case. I don’t recognize the formation of the stars in this sky, and that’s why we’re having such problems trying to determine where our homeland is located.”
Seimei-san glosses over the rest of the explanation. It would probably be best to avoid all topics related to outer space in a world with a fake night sky.
Ragnall reads the mood and avoids asking any more questions.
I seriously wonder what he thinks about Seimei-san and me, with our crazy magical abilities and strange common sense. Thank goodness for Adventurers who are only interested in things that directly concern them!
The rest of the day after lunch is mostly just sight-seeing.
I’m a little surprised that I know my way around Nyl City better than Ragnall, but maa, he spends most of his time in the Labyrinth, so I guess that’s to be expected.
I take Seimei-san to various tourist spots that the locals suggested, as well as introducing him to the various artisans I’ve gotten to know.
Ah, but not to Helward’s forge. There’s something like needing an introduction to tour that particular forge. My influence can only go so far, and I shouldn’t make myself a nuisance more than necessary.
“I see. This city is so stable because there’s steady industry. Resources from the surrounding mines as well as from within the Labyrinth are directly turned into processed goods immediately on the spot, so to speak. There’s never a shortage of work, and there’s never a shortage of money flowing in and out. Really a stable, peaceful Adventurer’s city.”
As expected of Seimei-san, he can tell just with one pass through the city.
◇◇◇
“So you think you’ll stay here for a while, Seimei-san?”
[“Ah. Yeah. This is basically the environment I was looking for, so as long as the matter with people aiming for my life gets sorted out, I’d like to stay indefinitely. Won’t you do something about that, Jun-kun~?”]
Jeez. He says it in a teasing way like he’s just saying it to be coy, but you know, that’s what I was planning on doing?
I don’t like some dark, nefarious organization lurking in the shadows either, you know.
[“A-ano… Jun-kun… you seriously… aren’t thinking about doing something … You’ve gone silent, though…”]
“Ah … right, I won’t get in over my head. Anyway, how are those rings working?”
[“Don’t change the subject. I was kidding, so don’t …”]
“Seimei-san, if you want to go into the Labyrinth tomorrow, it would be best if those rings are working.”
[“Fumu… well, according to the gauge, they’re already 1/12 full, all around…”]
Ugh. Already?! Although I somehow used Analyze so that Seimei-san can see how much magic each of the Higher Craeftite had absorbed, relatively, to think that it was so full so soon. If it’s like this, he’ll have to drain and switch the rings at least 3 times a day.
Ah, by the way, that’s not Analyze(iv), that’s Analyze without any sort of denomination. It’s this world’s magic, called “Analyze”. In this world, pedigrees, names, components, etc, there are many things that can be registered with magic, and you can use this Analyze to see them.
Put another way, only the names and pedigrees that can be seen with Analyze are considered your “true” names and pedigrees.
I wish Analyze(iv) was as quantifying when it tells us things …
At the same time, Analyze doesn’t give any sort of background information.
While Analyze(iv) gives:
◤
NAME: Filessa Ilyos
TYPE: Human – Female – 130 Moons (conversion: 10 Years)
ANALYSIS: The daughter of a Noble stationed in Nyl City. The current holder of the Lance of Unrestraint.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
ATTEMPTING TITLE ANALYSIS
Daughter of Knight Captain Ilyos of Carnus
Citizen of Carnus
Student of the Jr Magic Academy of Carnus
◣
Analyze gives:
◤
NAME: Filessa
AGE: 130 Moons
CITIZEN: Carnus
STATUS: Heir of House Ilyos (Knight Captain of Carnus), 68th Ranked Student (Jr Magic Academy of Carnus)
◣
I want to find a way to use both at the same time.
Analyze is a difficult spell due to its delicate treatment of magic, and it’s usually used off a limited-use Scroll by Merchants. People who have mastered it are well-paid, working in the government usually, or sometimes as assistants to wealthy merchants. There is even a gate-guard who is called on to verify identities with Analyze, although he’s only summoned in extraordinary cases.
Maa, well, if you can see the flow of magic and control it to a reasonable degree, it’s not impossible to pick it up … un.
Seimei-san does not agree. Instead, I’ve enchanted a pair of khrystel glasses with Analyze. They’re limited-use, but the limit is pretty broad. About 5000 times, compared to the 1-5 times per Scroll.
I have a feeling Lor would object, but well, it’s because khrystel can hold more magic information with enchants than magos fiber paper.
They were also expensive, and if it weren’t for my connections with the Crafters of Nyl City, who knows how far down the wait-list it would have been to get two small circles of khrystel…
Maa, khrystel was something I definitely wanted to play with no matter what, so I don’t mind shouldering the cost. Quite a portion of the reward from my share of the Crystal Python bounty is gone, though.
Anyway, Seimei-san is now a glasses character. If he runs out of uses for the Analyze spell, I’ll have to disenchant and then re-enchant them, so I cautioned him not to use it for too many things other than checking his rings.
Not that it’s actually that much of a pain for me to do, but running out while I’m not around would be … ah, there’s the item attachment function on Friend Chat, isn’t there? Hm…
But anyway … I think I will have to make a portable magic draining tool as well as the less portable one I have already mostly put together.
The reason I used rings and not a choker or bracelet was partly because they would be less conspicuous to remove and replace, although I hadn’t factored 13 of them, but also because it was just right for the circuit … or I should say, BOTH circuits.
The ring by itself sucks magic into the focal point of the existing circuit, the Higher Craeftite. But plug the ring into this other circuit, engraved into the silver here, and the magic is pulled in the opposite direction, out of the stone and into the uncut Higher Craeftite that you install at the other end of the device.
In other words, the ring is a circuit in itself, but it also completes a different circuit.
Haa… getting the second circuit to work like that with just plug-and-play took quite a bit of trial and error.
By the way, the uncut Higher Craeftite are each mounted in small glass bowls with a craeftite silver fitting.
They’re products of the glass ossans practicing blown glass, at Seimei-san’s encouragement.
He was telling them all sorts of things, about how they can’t view glass like metal-working, even though khrystel can be worked in that way.
I really want to know how Seimei-san knows all this stuff. I wonder if he was a glass salesman… probably not, huh?
Anyway, right now we’re testing the rings and magic draining ring-stand with Seimei-san in his house and me at the Guild’s forge. Something about it being bad if a Noble and a girl were alone together … even though nobody would care at all if we were both men, keh.
“So how is it?”
[“Un, it seems to be going well.”]
To tell the truth, I’ve already tested it out by myself to make sure everything worked, so now I’m just making sure Seimei-san knows how to use it.
[“Haha, it’s like having to recharge my phone every night.”]
“That’s a very un-fantasy way of thinking about it. It seems like they’ll last for a little over 8 hours, so please adjust the timing accordingly for when you sleep.”
[“Roger. Haa… Jun-kun, I’m not going to lie, I’m kind of tired of playing the powerless fool. Now that I finally have the chance, is there somewhere in the Labyrinth I can freely play with my Skills?”]
“I don’t know about ‘freely’ playing with your Skills, and I’m not too familiar with the Labyrinth myself. Ragnall would know better than me.”
[“I see.”]
… Un. I should make a few more rings for back up.
“Hey Seimei-san, what are you going to do now?”
[“Hm? Ah … you mean, in general, huh?”]
“Ah, yeah.”
[“The Labyrinths are things that have existed since the beginning of time in this world, right?”]
“Nn… according to the people in this world, yeah.”
[“Is there any better place to look for lost magic to travel between worlds?”]
“Ah … so that’s what you’re doing.”
[“Yeah. I’m not so sure I’m ready to go back to my overworked lifestyle, but some of the others haven’t given up, so I’m going to do my best to lend them a hand. I came here because there weren’t any leads in the capital of Carnus.”]
… I haven’t even thought about returning. That’s true, though … there are people back home who would be worried, aren’t there?
[“But don’t get me wrong, that’s not all I’m going to do. There’s a chance that we can’t ever go back, so I was thinking I wanted to do something about the health system in this world.”]
“What do you mean?”
[“Hm… it’s, see, there’s a lot of things that are as good as modern day Japan, but there’s also a lot of things that seem like they’re still back in some feudal era. Medicine is one of them. If there was healing magic like in LN, it would be ok, but there’s only surgery on the level of bone-setting here. Medicines are too expensive, and there’s only anesthetics, mana pots, and health potions.”]
Just so you know, the medicine is called ‘health potion’, but the only thing it does is boost the body’s natural recovery.
“That’s true. Though I heard that there are some people that can use that OP healing-type magic.”
[“Fuu-n… no, well, they understand the theory behind it, but no one understands the human body well enough to actually heal. You’d need a surgeon’s knowledge to connect all the blood vessels and everything, and it just doesn’t seem like any one has it.”]
So that information Lor told me about is still all theoretical knowledge.
“… Well, it’s true that I kind of got the impression that people here just slap a lot of magic to speed the healing process on wounds and illnesses, and then they just pray it will go well… But Seimei-san, you don’t have that type of knowledge, like for surgery or whatever, right?”
[“Not only that, but I can’t use anything other than dark-cast magic~!”]
Why do you sound so proud of yourself, oi.
“Then -“
[“But anyway, just knowing or being able to cast healing magic like that – I mean, just having 1 healer won’t change the current situation. What we need is a systematic change. What we need to show isn’t just that it’s possible, but that it’s possible for ordinary people to learn it.”]
“… That sounds impossible.”
[“Is it? There are medical schools in Japan, you know? Although I think they’re extraordinary, I can’t say that med-students are blessed with OP cheat skills or something, right? Through education and hard work, they become people who can save lives. Well, the thing I’m proposing is something along those lines. Methodical data taking to discover symptom correlations and the ways to alleviate them, and hands on knowledge on how the human body works.”]
“Seimei-san … who exactly are you, from Japan? I’ve noticed it all day, but you have some really interesting knowledge on all sorts of things.”
[“Fufufu, just a sales employee of a company that sells hospital and healthcare equipment to high-end hospitals and nursing homes~? Maa, when you have to flatter old, rich geezers, you have to have a lot of information about their hobbies~.”]
… I understand even less about what people in the sales department of a company do now. But, even though I haven’t met all of the others, I do know that Seimei-san was probably the perfect person to “play Noble” out of all of us Japanese.
“But … is it going to go well, do you think?”
[“Mm… well… it’s definitely going to be a long-term project… like, several generations, maybe. I suppose it’s expected, but starting medical history from scratch is …”]
Seriously. It sounds impossible.
[“For now I want to focus on medicines and the magic part of old housewife remedies or something, so I came to a Labyrinth City. Haa… if only there was someone already compiling things like this …”]
… A-are? Hang on. No, I don’t know if he’s been compiling remedies or whatever, but isn’t there someone…
“Ne, Seimei-san, so are you looking for, like, an assistant?”