Commoner Sample

“I’m thinking of confiscating every last ring.”

The morning in the Grand Duchy began with Luri’s complaints.

She approached him with a look that said something was bothering her.

For Ferda, who was having breakfast, it was bewildering.

“I see.”

So Ferda answered absentmindedly.

“The workshops you called in, Lord Ferda, don’t listen to a word I say. Is it really so difficult to tell them never to spill a single drop of blood in this castle?”

“I don’t know.”

“Fine, let’s say they can spill a little. But those bastards leave without cleaning up any of what they spilled.”

“Is that so?”

“If they knew dragons were scary, you’d think they’d mend their ways a little. What do you think?”

“Do as you please.”

Luri’s chattering mouth came to a stop.

She glanced up and glared sullenly at Ferda.

“You’re the worst, Lord Ferda.”

“Is that so?”

“You’re still giving me half-hearted answers, even now.”

“I see.”

“Is this how you’re acting just because I scrubbed your grime off once?”

Petty.

She muttered it so quietly that she thought he couldn’t hear, but Ferda did.

It would be a lie to say he held no grudge over that day.

Having gotten his revenge, he decided to answer her earnestly this time.

“Refining mana stones is naturally a time-consuming process. Research isn’t something you can finish overnight, is it?”

“You reached the Third Circle that quickly, Lord Ferda. Can you really understand something like that?”

“I practiced looking down from the perspective of an ordinary person.”

The Ferda of the past would not have understood.

But when the Ferda of today, who knew his former self, recalled what it had felt like to break through the Circles so rapidly, he could understand the perspective of ordinary people to some extent.

“I see.”

This time, Luri answered absentmindedly.

“So put off that punishment for a little longer. If they bring us good news soon, then—”

-Hahahaha! Hahahahahaha!

Before Ferda could finish speaking, a madman’s laughter rang through Valdrova Castle.

The sound drew closer and closer.

“Hahahaha! At last! I finally did it! I don’t have to keep baking these damn mana stones anymore! Hahahaha!”

The madman was Marquis Vunnel.

His hair was matted, and his robe was half undone.

As he passed by, Ferda and Luri’s eyes remained fixed on him.

Ferda took a sip of tea and said,

“They say speak of the devil and he appears. Looks like we have results.”

At last, the moment had come to prove why Ferda had brought Vunnel in.

* * *

After turning into a madman and running around, Vunnel slept for days on end.

He worked himself to the point of shortening his lifespan, cutting back on sleep to research mana stone refinement.

Whenever he appeared before Ferda, he came in a neat and tidy state.

“I thought it might work today, and it really did. Hahaha!”

“Now, could you explain it?”

“Ah, yes! Of course. So, how this works is…”

Vunnel began explaining something with great enthusiasm.

He rambled on about the research for a full hour, then put a period on the densely filled blackboard.

“You understood what I was saying, right?”

After listening to the entire explanation, Ferda said,

“Did you?”

“I-I did, of course. I’ve organized it to a certain extent, too, and I explained it this way because I wanted to make it as easy as possible for you to understand, but…”

“Hmm.”

Ferda thought.

‘I’m not as bright as I thought.’

So reaching the rank of Archmage had been entirely a matter of hard work.

As he listened to Vunnel, Ferda had absolutely no idea what he was talking about.

Around the thirty-minute mark, it felt as though he was looking at the universe, and after letting his mind drift for a moment, he returned when Vunnel put a period on the explanation.

Ferda glanced at the assistant researchers.

Their eyes were bright and alert.

They were the kind of eyes no researcher could possibly have.

‘Looks like none of them understood.’

They were the men Stephan Pascal had sent over, saying they were fairly clever.

If he was an exceptional merchant, then he must have selected and sent the best of the best to acquire the technology.

‘At least there won’t be any problem with the technology leaking for now.’

Ferda chose to think positively.

In any case, if Vunnel could understand it and demonstrate it, that was enough, wasn’t it?

“Show me what it is.”

“Yes, sir!”

He brought over one of the many magical devices.

It was an object called a mana stabilizer.

When infused with mana, it fixed a certain area of mana in midair with a Fifth-Tier stabilization spell.

“If we put a magical beast’s corpse in here and stimulate it with a little electrical magic…”

Mana burst out of the dead corpse.

Unusable junk mana, lacking a smooth flow, spewed out like a contaminant and floated in the air.

“Then we heat this to a set temperature, compress it, and cool it like this…!”

It was seared with fire, compressed, and cooled…

After going through a complicated process, a crystal appeared, emitting pure-white smoke.

A stone was produced, glowing faintly blue.

“This is a mana stone!”

Vunnel took out the result with an ambitious flourish.

It emitted a soft glow like a crystal imbued with mana.

It was a wondrous moment, but Ferda was not particularly moved.

‘Cloudy.’

Ferda had already seen this object in the future.

But unlike the one from then, its color was pale, and it gave off a distinctly crude impression.

Just in case, he asked Vunnel,

“What’s its efficiency?”

“Uh… well…”

Vunnel, who had rattled off incomprehensible knowledge with ease, came to an abrupt halt there.

“Marquis Vunnel.”

“Y-yes!”

“Didn’t I ask you? I asked how efficient it is.”

“W-well, you see…”

Vunnel answered with difficulty, cold sweat pouring down his face.

“It takes the mana of seven mana stones to make one.”

“Then its efficiency is 14.2 percent.”

“Rounded up, it’s 14.3 percent. And even from there…”

It seemed there was still something else to account for.

Perhaps that remainder was unfavorable as well, because he hemmed and hawed.

“There’s mana that leaks away as it’s drawn up to the mana stone’s own capacity… So you have to assume it drops by another half…”

In other words, it took fourteen mana stones to produce the output of one.

“So, roughly 7 percent.”

“If you include the first decimal place, it’s 7.1 percent—ah, sorry.”

Vunnel pointed that out tactlessly and thought to himself.

Ah, I’m screwed.

Looks like my research ends here.

Why use an object with an efficiency of 7.1 percent when he might as well hire a mage instead?

He was passing through the five stages of grief, sentencing himself to death in his mind.

Ferda, who had kept silent for a long while as he looked down at the mana stone, opened his mouth.

“About the efficiency.”

“Yes.”

“Can you raise it further?”

“Yes…?”

“I asked if you can raise the efficiency further.”

Ferda had thought about it from the moment he brought Marquis Vunnel in.

As long as the man didn’t give up, Ferda had never intended to consider it a failure.

Vunnel nodded at the question.

“O-of course. It’s possible. I’ll definitely do it.”

“Good.”

Ferda stood up on the spot.

“Then continue your research.”

Vunnel blinked up at him.

Just when he thought that was all, Ferda added,

“I’ll gather the people who need to hear this. Until then, organize the research and demonstration one more time. Understood?”

“Y-yes, sir!”

Ferda left the room after saying that.

He believed in this research, even though he himself was not certain of it.

So all he could do was his best.

Unlike Vunnel, who trembled with such anxiety, Ferda thought differently.

‘It’ll be useful.’

Ferda knew.

Magitech would advance somehow.

And he roughly knew how arduous that process of development had been.

Even when Vunnel made his presentation, people laughed at it.

They said things like, Who would use that? Why would anyone use it? It’s undignified.

But what happened later?

‘Mages will use magitech more.’

Because it provided convenience on an entirely different level from the magic circles they used for calculations.

The era of monopolizing the mystery of magic would come to an end.

Ferda, who knew that day, had more than enough reason to believe in Vunnel.

* * *

Ten days passed, and honored guests arrived.

They were the old lord, Count Consilius, and the manager of the Pascal Trading Company, Stephan Pascal.

Before them, Vunnel demonstrated the invention and elaborated on it just as he had for Ferda.

Given ten days to organize his thoughts, he did better than when he had first explained it to Ferda.

But it was still difficult material.

“Oh-ho, I see.”

“I see. That was very informative.”

Ferda quietly observed their reactions before asking them,

“Do you really understand? I didn’t, either, so be honest.”

Only then did the two confess the truth.

Their voices had seemed to lack a soul, and he had been right.

“Heh-heh, my apologies. I’ve gotten into the habit of responding along with people. This old man is a complete outsider in that field.”

“I thought it might be embarrassing if I looked like I didn’t know, either…”

As expected, both of them had merely pretended to understand.

Only Vunnel, who thought he had organized it and summarized it more simply, was left flustered.

“Still, from what I understand, it feels like the conclusion is that the efficiency is low. Is that correct?”

“That’s right.”

“Hmm, what an exceedingly ambiguous object.”

Count Consilius muttered as he stroked his beard, while cold sweat poured down Vunnel’s face.

Seeing the count’s negativity, Stephan tried to highlight the positive aspects.

“It doesn’t seem particularly good from an economic standpoint right now, but isn’t it still a useful object in that it can supply mana?”

“Ah, that’s the part I explained… It isn’t an object that can supply mana to a mage. It can’t restore or recharge mana like a potion or elixir.”

“Ah, then it’s rather ambiguous… If it succeeds but doesn’t produce that much efficiency…”

Even Stephan, who had been trying to shield it, took a step back.

Both men had given answers that were nearly entirely negative.

Stephan felt his back growing damp.

Ferda had expected as much.

“Don’t think about efficiency for now. That’s something our chief technician can handle later, anyway.”

Ferda had already anticipated this.

He had shown it to these two for another purpose, knowing that revealing it would only earn negative comments.

“I want to hear your thoughts on what we should make first with this object.”

“What, specifically, would you like us to discuss?”

Ferda held up the mana stone Vunnel had made and said,

“It’s quite literally a power source for a groundbreaking object that will do the things mages can do in their place. Think of tasks that require a mage, and tasks that are more trivial than you’d expect for a mage to perform.”

What they needed was an idea.

Count Consilius and Stephan were men involved in their respective fields.

At Ferda’s words, Count Consilius spoke first.

“If we can imitate a mage with that object… does that mean we could make up for the shortage of infantry at the front with something that can act like mages?”

He was an old man who was a soldier to the bone, raised in a comital family.

So the first thing that came to mind was something that could replace the manpower facing the threat in the Far East.

“It’s possible. If you process it into a weapon, using magic won’t be difficult.”

He told them the name it would one day be known by.

“Under the name of magitech infantry.”

“Oh-ho… magitech infantry.”

Count Consilius’s eyes seemed to light up.

A mage was a being capable of demonstrating efficiency in almost any situation.

Among those situations, they were especially effective against monsters.

The Far East was a land with more magical beasts than ordinary monsters.

It was the region in greatest need of them.

Yet, as is true of any front line, it was little different from a place of exile for mages.

The only mage who had both skill and motivation was Thesalos Waltzer.

“Good. The mere fact that it could fill the gap left by mages gives us hope. If we can solve the efficiency issue, it would be best to turn it into weapons first.”

Count Consilius showed his enthusiasm.

As befitted an old lord who could not stand by and watch infantrymen sacrifice themselves, he clearly wanted to push that option through quickly.

Stephan objected then.

“Count Consilius is right as well. If infantrymen could freely convert to mages, it would certainly help. But wouldn’t it also be important for transportation?”

Stephan had already laid down his stake when he invested in this project.

“Transportation?”

“Yes. The most important element of a battlefield is always supplies. Even if the firepower is excellent, wouldn’t it be useless if supply became an immediate problem?”

“That’s true as well. But many magical beasts are already dying in the Far East. If we focus on producing it from those beasts here, we can put that difficult problem off until later.”

Count Consilius and Stephan did not yield an inch, each emphasizing the importance of what he wanted.

‘As expected, asking these two was the right choice.’

Even from the back-and-forth alone, it was clear what each of them wanted and what the problems were.

Stephan wanted to reduce the costs he was already feeling in transportation, while Consilius wanted to increase the survival rate of the soldiers in the Far Eastern territories.

There were definite reasons neither of them would back down.

“Since the two of us don’t seem likely to reach a decision, it seems right for the Grand Duke’s regent to make the decision on this matter.”

“Yes. I was thinking the same thing.”

The arrow fell on Ferda.

“I think it would be best to leave it to the chief researcher in charge of all development.”

“Pardon?”

And Ferda promptly threw that arrow toward Vunnel.

“Me?”

Vunnel stared blankly, wearing a foolish expression.

But just as Ferda had said, they were waiting for his decision, and Vunnel had no choice but to choose.

“Uh, well, I…”

Vunnel was a pacifist.

He was a man who wanted to create things beneficial to people right away rather than make weapons.

Vunnel carefully drew out what he had been thinking.

“I-I still think it would be better to start with weapons…”

“You think so too, don’t you?”

“Of course weapons are important, but let’s think about this a little more. I’m the one responsible for supplying the magical beasts.”

The winner laughed heartily, while the loser attempted a second round of persuasion.

“At first, I also thought it would be right to develop something else. But… after seeing the lands ruled by Count Consilius, I changed my mind.”

When he visited Count Consilius’s domain, he had been hovering between life and death due to mana overload.

He saw the people of the count’s domain and witnessed the pain and sorrow of their losing their families.

“I think we need to make weapons first and stop the magical beasts trying to destroy our homes.”

“Ugh… I understand. If that’s what you say…”

Stephan finally backed down.

His priority had been pushed back, but in any case, Stephan would still get what he wanted.

“That’s why we’re developing weapons alongside it for now. We’ve also been studying the traits of magical beasts, so we’ll be able to bring you good news.”

“Heh-heh, thank you for your hard work. Your research will be the light of our Far East.”

The mood seemed to be coming to a warm conclusion.

“Now, about that weapon…”

Ferda began, as if pleased with the outcome.

“Will that weapon also be as difficult as what you explained?”

“What? Uh… I’m not sure about that, but I suppose… probably.”

“That’s good to hear.”

Ferda already knew.

Marquis Vunnel.

That his first invention would be incredibly complicated and difficult.

He could bring complicated things to life and create miracles, but he did not understand the importance of simplicity.

“As it happens, I have a very good sample for you.”

“Uh… a sample?”

“Yes, a sample. Come in!”

At Ferda’s shout, a man waiting outside entered.

The moment they saw him, they were startled.

Wearing armor, he was performing a military drill.

When his left foot moved, his left hand rose with it, and when his right foot moved, his right foot rose.

A man came striding in proudly, presenting that awkward routine as though it were a proper drill.

The moment Vunnel saw him, he felt a chill.

“Malcolm of Peach Hill! I came at your summons!”

“Good, you came. I have something for you to do.”

“Give me your orders!”

With a hand laid over his chest, he looked like an enthusiastic young boy.

It was not a particularly pleasant sight.

“What’s two times two?”

“Easy! Four.”

“Correct. Then what’s seven times six?”

This time, too, he answered as if it were easy.

“Thirteen!”

“Well done.”

“Haha, you flatter me!”

Malcolm wore a proud expression, but everyone around him felt a chill.

They all wore expressions that seemed to say, Where on earth did he find this guy?

Ferda patted Vunnel on the shoulder and said,

“Make it simple enough for this fellow to understand and use.”

“Pardon?”

“I believe you can manage that much.”

“…Yes?”

Vunnel felt his mind go blank.