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Chapter 67: Crucible Street (part four)

“Good grief, when I was in the academy, I should have learnt a little about wands……”

Even after arriving at the testing site, Gilbert was turning over the pages of a book that seemed to be a textbook about wands.

In the textbook, there were lots of scraps of calf-pelt papers instead of bookmarks and memo papers, and it seemed that he did his best for this lecture.

It might be better to give him something as thanks before returning to Aurelia territory.

“Which school did Aniki go to? Was it a local alchemy school?”

“Hm–, it was Lindis.”

“What?! The magic academy city!? How nice, I also want to go there.

I wish my father would let me……”

“Aah, if you want to incorporate Hafan-derived magic into the wands in the future, that would be better.

If you go there, you can learn comprehensively including about the unusual power of other areas.”

While preparing the golems, I was listening to the conversation between the two of them.

I would be enrolling in Lindis, so I was anxious about gathering any information about it.

“I was mainly majoring in Alchemy and Magic Creation System.”

“Huh? Master permitted your admission properly. But you didn’t major in Wand?”

“I went to Lindis after I ran out of the house.

My old man didn’t have any say in this……I talked too much. Move your hands, Botchan.”

“Okay, okay.”

Certainly, was there something he wanted to make?

His reminiscence matched with the story Tirnanog heard from the Turm elder.

Anyway, if he didn’t enroll as a son of Viscount Turm, was he a scholarship student?

Or maybe he found some aristocrat to become his patron and entered as a scholarship student.

“Alright, it’s in this page. Yeah, after all it seems that the image is important.

First of all, try imitating from this page.”

I looked into the page Gilbert had opened.

Examples of how to recognize the magic inside the wand were posted.

A method to recognize it as an aggregate of fine sand, a method to recognize it as a paint, a method to recognize it as a metal in a crucible—

I also thought about it by myself yesterday, but looking at this, it seemed that it was fine to be more free with my ideas.

“If you find something that fits with yourself, it seems to be better to study using that method.”

“Understood.”

“Oh, but I guess there is no actual wand. Oo~i, Botchan.”

“Yes, yes. Good grief~, you work your personnel too hard~.”

After Harold finished making the golems, he brought over some wands.

How rare of Harold, these wands were very ordinary.

“If it was me, I can make wands with a more outstanding ability.”

“Since this is a user’s skill practice, how can I use a special wand?”

“That is, well, that’s true.”

I chose the Wand of Magic Missile from among them.

Among the offensive wands, there was an impression that this was not the go-to wand.

I tried several images with the wand in my hand.

Sand, paint, crucible, plant seed, brick, clay.

Each one had a slightly different impression.

And one of the last posted in the textbook.

Coincidentally, it matched with the method I came up with last night.

Yarn.

I came up with an image of the yarn used for knitting.

But what was posted in the textbook was about the thinner handicraft yarn.

So, I decided to go further and think of a thinner, silky yarn.

To be honest, among the things I saw yesterday, there was a nice image source.

Based on the image, I drew out the power charged inside the wand.

“Ohh……!?”

“What is this!? Erica!?”

A thin golden thread of magical power surrounded the wand I had in hand.

I tried to imagine the thread of light which the Rainbow Strap gave out when Harold used it.

“No way, we can see the image of Ojou-san withdrawing power from the wand?”

“……Rather than that, she really seems to be pulling out the magical power.”

I unravelled the thread of magical power that was pulled out and weaved it again in the desired shape.

When I made some knots and stitches, suddenly I felt like the wand hated it, there was an illusion as if it struggled in my hand.

I guessed this was the limit.

I put the magical thread inside the wand once again and aimed the wand towards the golems.

Now then, the first shot.

Three layers of magic circle expanded from the tip of the wand.

The magic circles fused while twisting and turning, and it became one distorted magic circle.

When I shook the wand, the magic circle promptly formed one magic bullet.

I heard a small sound from afar.

One sandbag stuck on the other side of the wall was broken, and smooth sand were spilling out.

When I looked closely at the golem in front of the sandbag, there was a small hole in the part corresponding to the heart.

“What an amazing penetrating power……this, is this truly Magic Missile?”

“Huh? That sandbag, doesn’t it have increased durability by means of special processing?”

I actually aimed for the emeth characters.

It seemed that I got slightly misaligned when I saw a place that didn’t collapse.

As expected, I should practice the accuracy of my aim.

Second shot. Or rather, the last shot.

I shook the wand towards the ceiling.

One gigantic golden magic circle deployed overhead.

“Geh!? Wait, wait!”

“What is this, uwah!?”

Harold and Gilbert retreated back to the entrance instinctively, looking at the magic circle that expanded on the ceiling.

Ah, I should have explained first that it was aimed properly towards the golems.

Oh well.

I released all the magical power inside the wand and activated the Magic Missile with range extension.

Flashes of light were pouring down.

The pierced golems were crumbling.

Dense cloud of dust was rising.

When the field of view was cleared, all five golems that became targets were destroyed and returned into a mountain of soil.

I nodded after seeing the chest part of all five golems were pierced.

“Even if it got extended extensively, it seems that the element that aimed at the sighted part of the original Magic Missile remained properly.”

“Wait……I feel like you just said something amazing!”

The two people who were evacuating came over to marvel at the destroyed golems.

“How amazing. I cannot do something like this without leaving any trace. If I do this during the creation time, the wand will be broken.”

“To think that you will get the hang of it in just one day. What an amazing talent.”

It was a storm of high praise.

It was both scary and convenient that I could do anything with it depending on the image.

I felt some resistance of the wand when using it, so that had to be the load.

Even if it went well, I thought over it as something to reflect upon.

When I returned, it seemed better to summarize it in a notebook.

After finishing the evaluation meeting inside my brain, I decided to ask Gilbert what I was interested in since a while ago.

“Gilbert-san, is Alteration can only be applied for offensive wands?”

“No, it can be applied for various things. I think it is effective whether you tinkered with the vision, space, or location information.”

“What about past vision or future vision?”

“Well, if you tinker with time and space, as expected the load will also be high.

Before that, it costs huge amounts of money only for one use of past vision or future vision, so we cannot try it at a moment’s notice.”

“I see……so that’s how it is.”

How regretful.

I thought it would be useful if I could look to the past a year ago or if I could see six years in the future.

But, even if I deducted those, this Alteration might be quite a useful technique.

For me who had a high possibility of meeting or visiting a phantom beast from now on, it would be better to increase my attack power as much as possible.

“But, well, how enviable that you don’t have to worry about injuries even if you use an extended-range wand~.”

“Yes, if it’s only this much, it seems to be within my scope.”

“The one I recommended to Ojou-san is the type of wands that can be charged with spells in large quantities.

It’s versatile and relatively inexpensive.

Oh, that’s right.”

Gilbert pounded his hand and drew our attention.

“How about improving Botchan’s wands while having Ojou-san try out the limits of the wand Alteration?

Botchan’s hobby is profitable, surely your research about special wands will give rise to large amount of money.

You can make more variety of wands with that money, and Ojou-san can also use a lot more wands.”

I see.

If Harold could make prototype wands, my storage of weapons will also be easier to get.

If the compensation was not monetary but a report to Harold instead, then that would be even more great.

“That is an attractive proposal.”

I stared at Harold and nodded.

“Ahaha, I did it, Botchan. A wonderful collaborator has been made.”

“Aniki……!”

“See, when you made a proposal, you must appeal not only to yourself but also to your opponent.”

Harold turned red and pushed away Gilbert who was slinging an arm around him.

Well, there were differences between adults and children, so I didn’t think they would need to be shy.

I wondered if I could extend the bargaining power now.

“Isn’t that great, let’s get along well.”

“Yes, please take care of me.”

Harold grasped my hand with both hands as he smiled and said so.

“Alright, with this you have become my partner!”

“Yes……”

‘Partner’ was somewhat an exaggeration and kind of embarrassing though, but oh well.

With this we had become coincident partners of interest.

“Good, good.

If that is the case, Earl Nibelheim will be pleased as well, right, Botchan?”

Harold responded to the words of Gilbert who was looking at our exchange with a smile.

I felt that Harold’s expression was somewhat cloudy.

“No, about my father. He doesn’t want me to use a wand or create it.”

“Eeh~, why is that. Why is the Nibelheim family like that?”

“My father doesn’t like wands very much.”

Speaking of which, Harold seemed to have said similar things before.

Gilbert said to Harold with a knowing look.

“Haha, since the previous Earl Nibelheim made a profit with the munitions, did he and the current Earl not get along well?”

“My father and grandfather were very close.”

“Eh~, I thought they would have a troubling parent-child relationship.”

“Rather, in my house, my relationship with that person is pretty strained.”

Harold closed his eyes while sighing as if in resignation.

“But, well, I’m pretty sure that was my fault.”

Then, Harold began to talk bit by bit about the accident that occurred to himself.

Harold, who was a 3-years-old, was a curious child.

It seemed that he loved to secretly sneak into his father’s Wunderkammer at that time.

It was a mountain of treasure for a small child.

Lots of alchemy materials, used compact athanor, brand new beakers and test tubes for compounding, lead solidified by casting, and shavings of brass.

Harold said he could spend hours just watching the storehouse.

The day when that accident occurred.

A special wand that happened to be familiar to the Nibelheim family was rolling on the floor.

Earl Nibelheim was always carrying it around for self-defense.

Perhaps since he wasn’t using it, he planned to charge it at that time, and maybe that was the only salvation.

A curious three years old child loved his cool father’s wand.

If you saw your favorite adult’s treasure falling on the floor, everyone would surely do the same thing.

Harold’s father, who was surprised by the loud sound, came running only to see the ruined room and the figure of his son who fell down limply.

His right hand was burned red, and it seemed that the magical power was still smoldering like a flame on his skin.

Harold’s father hurriedly brought him to a doctor’s house for first aid.

The doctor who finished the treatment told Harold’s father to give up on his complete recovery.

Although the superficial injuries would be healed, it was difficult to pull out the extraneous magical power that stuck in his body.

Therefore, this child’s right hand will remain limp for a while, he said.

Harold’s right hand couldn’t move a twitch for about two years.

After that, he earnestly requested Turm Elder, who had started his retirement, to perform medical treatment for one year.

Finally, when he was about six years old, his right arm could move like ordinary people.

“Since then, that person ceased creating wands that he was doing as a hobby, and even stopped carrying a wand for self-defense.”

“That’s……that’s a heart-breaking story.”

The topic that was brought up casually was unexpectedly heavy.

Gilbert scratched his head but didn’t look sorry.

“However, while I was at my Master’s store, I was becoming completely addicted to creating wands.

After that, that person and I kept passing each other.

I admire him and I love him, but……

For that person, I seem to be a difficult child.”

Harold rubbed his right hand with his left hand.

Perhaps there was still an after-effect, or maybe that was a habit when he was feeling uneasy.

“Well, he is busy at work, so I haven’t got a chance to speak properly with him.

Now there’s hardly any reason to talk.

He has been struggling for the mining rights of the new silver vein for the past year.”

“Mining rights……?”

“Aah, the silver vein in the Nibelheim territory seems to end up withered and in low quality.

If we cannot gather any ore at all, there’s no point in developing a new refining method, right?”

A warning bell was ringing in my head at the words ‘mining rights of the silver vein’.

Although the collapse of the County of Nibelheim was involving silver vein fraud, I wondered if it was fine.

“But the mining rights of the silver vein……there’s going to be a big money fluctuation.”

“We have only bought the mining rights of the high-quality silver vein recently at last. We borrowed money with the territory as a collateral.”

“Hmm, high-qualtity, huh. Where is the silver vein located?”

“At the County of Argene. There seems to be an unspoiled high-quality silver vein that was originally part of the royal territory.”

County of Argene.

Those were words I had heard before.

And if that was certain, then Earl Nibelheim had already been scammed.

Well, since I was already chasing after the scammer, the topic had never been brought up.

“No, the rights to dig up the silver vein of Argene is never going to be sold.”

“What?”

“Hmm, what do you mean, Ojou-san?”

Harold and Gilbert stared at me with a surprised face.

I knew that the mining rights of that silver vein was never put out for sale.

That was because I planned to inherit it from my deceased mother.

“The heiress that’s going to inherit that territory and the peerage hasn’t reach ten years old yet, so she shouldn’t be able to exercise her rights.”

All of a sudden, I felt as if the temperature had dropped a few degrees.

I could see blood drained from Harold’s face.

Have you noticed? Aurelia –> Aurum which means gold, and Argene –> Argentum which means silver.