Chapter 83
The next day.
I was at the laboratory.
The laboratory inside the White Tiger Guild building—the one where I'd given them the mana-stone generator last time.
Chief Researcher Kim Hana greeted me with a bright smile.
“Welcome!”
“Eek.”
Kim Hana clasped my hand tightly and welcomed me as if she'd met some great benefactor.
“What brings you here?”
“I came to sell some wands.”
My bank balance had been wiped out by the air conditioner last time.
I'd bought a fairly good air conditioner, and all the other things I'd bought had naturally caused my expenses to pile up.
In any case, I needed to put some money back into my bare account.
And when it comes to making money, distribution is still the best.
Interdimensional distribution, at that.
The romance of it all is lethal.
“Wands?”
“They're not as good as the ones I showed you last time, though.”
“That's fine! Wand-type artifacts are rare, after all. If you have any, we'd be willing to buy them.”
Saying that, I held out the mass-produced wands from the Empire.
“…How much would they be worth?”
“They're R+-rank artifacts.”
Wands that hadn't even been terribly expensive at School Market.
But they were, without a doubt, wands made in the Empire.
“If they're rare-grade… they'd be worth about this much.”
Kim Hana entered a price on a calculator and showed it to me.
Hmm.
That was a pretty satisfying price.
“I'll sell them! And these too.”
“Those are swords, right? They look pretty high-quality too.”
“Those are swords sold at School Market.”
Robert said that.
“This is what a successful resale looks like.”
“You must be the only person who can distribute goods to a world like this. What on earth are you?”
“I don't know either.”
If I knew, would I be here doing this?
After some time, Kim Hana came out of the appraisal room.
“They have mana conductivity and durability on par with tower artifacts, and their stability is also quite remarkable. The wands are even better.”
“Then they'll sell for a pretty high price?”
“Of course! Though the White Tiger Guild is a martial-combat guild, so we won't sell them—we'll use them here. Just a moment, I'll contact the relevant person and be right back!”
Since a fairly large sum of money was changing hands, they went through a certain amount of verification.
And so, the White Tiger Guild decided to purchase the swords.
“The money's been deposited. Please sell us more next time!”
“…One, ten, hundred, thousand, ten thousand… What in tarnation!”
They sold for way more than I expected.
I'd thought rare-grade artifacts wouldn't be that expensive.
No, Tier 2 is SR-grade.
Considering that, this amount of money might not even be enough.
‘Still, I have received plenty from them too.’
If I saved up a little more, I thought I could get a high-performance car.
Of course, I still needed to make more preparations first.
For starters, I needed a technician.
I didn't have enough Inventory capacity.
“What about mine?”
Sera poked her head out.
She didn't seem to be seriously asking for something of her own.
Actually, given Sera's position, they could probably use the Tier 2 artifacts that had gone to the White Tiger Guild.
Sera was already using a fairly outstanding artifact called Muramasa.
But the things I'd brought weren't only Tier 2 and Tier 3 items.
“Of course I have something.”
I held out a sword to Sera.
A sword in a particularly luxurious scabbard.
“…Huh?”
[Imperial Knight's Rapier (SSR)]
“What do you think it is? It's a gift.”
Did Sera really think I would accept all those favors and then pretend I owed nothing in return?
I wasn't an ungrateful person.
Ah, that didn't mean I was going to let the professors drag me into becoming a research student.
Sera accepted the sword, swung it once, and let mana flow through it.
Sera's uniquely dense personal mana flowed along the blade.
Her widened eyes turned toward me.
She looked genuinely surprised.
“…How did you get something like this?”
“Why?”
“The feeling of channeling mana through it is completely different. No… this is…”
“Pretty good, right?”
“It might be on par with Muramasa.”
On par with an SSR-grade artifact.
For reference, there were several swords like that displayed in the Swordmilia Trading Company building.
“There are plenty of swords even better than that.”
Robert said.
The only reason I didn't mainly use swords was that there were plenty even I found tempting.
Of course, this time I'd bought a balanced model meant as a gift.
“Really?”
“If you wish to purchase one, I can look into a route for you. Though the payment would have to be made through us.”
“I'll think about it. For now… thanks.”
Sera bashfully reddened her cheeks.
“How long has it been since you last gave someone a gift for them to react like that?”
“Shut up.”
As we bickered, Kim Hana asked,
“Come to think of it, have you been using the mana-stone generator you took?”
“Oh, yeah.”
That is, setting aside how damn noisy it was, how poor its efficiency was, and how it had been on borrowed time until my senior repaired it.
Its advantage of not smelling like gasoline more than made up for all of that, though.
“Wasn't it noisy?”
“It was fine once I blocked it off with barrier magic.”
“…What?”
“Let's move on.”
Explaining everything from the existence of barrier magic to how it worked would take the rest of the day.
Kim Hana didn't press the matter and changed the subject.
“If you liked the mana-stone generator, would you like to look at some of our other artifacts? We've made a lot of new ones!”
“Ooh.”
It couldn't hurt to see them.
And so Sera, Robert, and I entered the laboratory.
The moment Robert saw the artifacts laid out, they looked around with considerable interest.
“Magitech? It's rather crude, though.”
“…What did you say?”
It seemed Kim Hana had heard Robert's words, translated by the Blessing of Language.
But Kim Hana didn't seem particularly offended.
“May I ask why you think so?”
“Constructing the circuits like this reduces their stability. Robert of House Carter shall explain it all from the beginning.”
Robert began explaining magitech.
Perhaps because they were a merchant's child, they seemed well-versed in magitech.
Their explanation was remarkably easy to understand.
Kim Hana nodded and pulled out a notebook to take notes, as if it were truly helpful information.
…If you're going to explain things so kindly, don't say them like that.
* * *
The first thing I did after that was go to an electronics market and buy engineering calculators in bulk.
I should sell these off to House Dreamwell and House Script.
Gold will come pouring in.
Then I went to a department store, bought a few things, and restocked all kinds of food and the spices we'd run out of.
When I returned to our lodging, Linia said to me,
“Are you taking all this?”
Linia had packed up various desserts and brought them to me.
How many shopping bags were there, anyway?
It seemed she and Aris had gone to the dessert café beneath the building.
But there was quite a lot.
“It won't all fit.”
Just putting three of them in took up quite a bit of space.
That didn't mean I couldn't move them just because they wouldn't all fit.
As long as I moved them to the mountain, I could make the round trip between worlds and bring everything over.
But they'd be a nuisance to carry around, so I tried to solve it with my Inventory somehow…
“Ah, and this too.”
I was defeated the moment Linia brought over an entire blanket.
A cotton quilt that looked incredibly fluffy.
So that's why I couldn't find it.
“Oh, Yumia! Me too!”
Aris joined in.
“Whew.”
Since I was indebted to them as usual, I couldn't exactly refuse.
“I'll give it a try.”
* * *
And so, the short trip came to an end.
It was a little questionable whether it could even be called a trip.
‘Is the exchange event coming up soon?’
I'm going to crush them all.
“Heh heh heh.”
As I lay resting on a bench at school, someone spoke to me.
A soft, sweet voice.
It slipped into my consciousness so naturally.
As a result, it took me a little while to realize who it was.
“Sis, what have you been up to lately?”
“Learning magic, right?”
“Is magic fun?”
“Yep.”
“What part of it is fun?”
“It's cool.”
“Cooler than dragons?”
“Dragons are definitely cooler. But learning magic is fun in a different way too.”
“Enough fun to forget to come see me?”
At that, I looked directly at the owner of the voice.
“Why are you here?”
It was Adrian.
Of course, unlike in the western forest, where Adrian freely released all that tremendous mana, she was releasing only a tiny amount.
Adrian gave a light laugh.
“I was bored, so I came out to play!”
“Were you allowed to leave?”
“Why wouldn't I be?”
“I guess that's true.”
I'd only ever seen Adrian in the western forest, so I'd assumed she lived there and nowhere else.
“It's your fault for not coming to see me, Sis.”
Judging by Adrian's tone and expression, she didn't seem particularly angry.
Even so, it was best to nip any trouble in the bud.
I held out the gift I'd prepared.
“There, there. I'll give you this, so don't be mad.”
“Whoa? Is this a jewel?”
“Yeah.”
What I gave Adrian was a rather luxurious sapphire necklace.
It was expensive enough to qualify as an artifact in its own right.
Honestly, Adrian probably had no need for something like that, but artifacts likely held little meaning for her.
It was better to give Adrian something pretty.
“It doesn't contain any mana at all. I've never seen anything like this.”
“Isn't it pretty?”
“It is.”
Adrian put the necklace around her neck.
It suited Adrian's usual outfit perfectly.
“I like it. I'll forgive you!”
“Mm-hmm.”
I had put quite a bit of thought into choosing it, after all.
“Still, you have to come to the forest regularly, okay? Otherwise, the work…”
Just as Adrian reached a hand toward my eyes.
The most horrifying, crushing pressure I'd ever felt in my life unfolded right beside me.
Between Adrian, who had reached out to me, and me.
“Stay away from the student, King of Wings.”
At Karnarof's voice, I struggled to comprehend the situation.
Adrian's slender arm was warped together with the space around it.
I even had the illusion that I and that other world had been completely separated.
Even the flow of mana had been entirely cut off.
I instinctively understood.
No attack magic I could use in my current state would break through this.
But why was Karnarof doing this?
“What are you doing?”
Adrian asked.
“If you make any further attempt to threaten the student, I will resort to force.”
Karnarof, holding his staff, was pointing it at Adrian.
…What exactly is going on here?
“Hmm? Annoying, but… an interesting situation.”
Adrian smiled as if intrigued.
As if she didn't care in the slightest that her arm was in such a state.
Wait, this seems to be going in a strange direction!