Chapter 2 Episode 1: An Afternoon Off
The next day.
I opened my eyes to see the sun’s rays shining into the room.
Ahh, what a good night’s sleep... It’s been a while since I pulled an all-nighter... The sun seems to be fairly high in the sky, too... Wait, the sun’s high in the sky? ...Oh no!
“Good morning, Master Ryoma.”
“Sebas, what time is it?”
“Just before noon. You must have been exhausted, since you rested for quite a long time. Would you like to eat?”
“I appreciate the offer, but I have to go to the guild. I’ll eat once I’m back.”
“As you wish, then.”
I got myself ready quickly and headed for the guild. There was no time left... I guess I had only one option here.
“Enshroud my body and divert attention — Conceal.”
I set up a concealment barrier around my body to hide myself, then activated the neutral magic Physical Enhancement. Magic energy wrapped around my body, allowing me to leap up to the roof of a nearby building with my enhanced physical ability. Then I ran along the rooftops as a shortcut. I would use the space magic Teleport whenever I ran out of places to step, allowing me to run towards the guild in pretty much a straight line.
“Excuse me.”
I burst into the guild in a fluster, and was led to a room where everyone else was already gathered.
“You’re finally here, Ryoma. That makes everyone.”
“Sorry for the wait.”
“You’re just in time. Don’t worry about it. Now, it’s time to talk rewards!”
The allocation of rewards was conducted, and I received the original reward for the cleaning job of 3 medium silver coins as well as 30 small gold coins. Everyone else each received 10 small gold coins.
“Hey, hold on, this is rather generous.”
“Ain’t it, though? We’ll take what we’re given, but you do know we were just on lookout duty, right?”
“Isn’t the reward a little too high? I understand there was a risk of contracting the epidemic, but seeing as we didn’t do anything directly with it, just half of this should be appropriate.”
“Nope, that amount is correct. And the reason for that is... Ryoma.”
“Yes?”
“According to you, the epidemic in that pit toilet was the Idake virus, right?”
“Yes. I verified it with Appraisal, so there’s no mistaking it.”
“In which case, I’ve received information that it was a fairly severe situation. I know an old lady who’s familiar with this stuff... She said its mortality rate was relatively low for an epidemic, but it spreads easily and has awful after-effects that leave survivors without mobility, rendering them as good as dead. That’s why the reward is this high. Even if the mortality rate is low, the elderly and children would be still susceptible to death, and those who survive wouldn’t be able to work anymore.”
Everyone broke out into a cold sweat at those words. It really was awful... Depending on the severity of the after-effects, being unable to work meant being unable to make a living. That would have been fatal in this world, where insurance and government protection didn’t exist. In the end, people would die of starvation.
“Thank goodness it was stopped early, nya...”
“In a way, it’s more terrifying than an epidemic with a high mortality rate...”
“At least if you died, that would be the end of it. But if surviving meant living in hell, then...”
“The public office has received a good scolding over this incident, and several people, including the head, have been arrested. Those that remained were making a clamor about how to go about cleaning the communal toilet pits in the future.”
“You can’t leave them to the guys from the slums?”
“Unfortunately not. The head of the public office was fired for withholding pay over this incident, but they no longer trust that they’ll be paid the correct amount. And most of the guys from the slums have found new work already. Unlike other towns, we’re close to the mines so there’s no lack of employment if you’re willing to get your hands dirty doing labor. If they can get money elsewhere, they’re not going to bother with the work cleaning the toilet pits. The fault was with the public office this time, so it’s not like they’re in a position to make demands about quitting working for them. They’ve basically given up on hiring from the slums.”
“So what will you do? It was lucky that Ryoma noticed it this time, but we can’t go through this every time.”
“That’s true... Actually, it was forced upon the guild yesterday — they said they’d pay us to deal with it. I guess I have no choice but to make those who regularly fail at jobs or break contracts to do so as a penalty...”
“We’ll entrust that to you. I’m sure you’ll come up with a solution.”
“Easy for you to say...”
“It’s okay, I’ll keep accepting the requests while I’m in town, so please use that time to think of a plan.”
“That would be great.”
“Nya? Did you come from another town, Ryoma?”
Come to think of it, I hadn’t had the chance to tell everyone yet since I was immediately on the job.
I explained the series of events that led me to Gimul Town.
“Living alone in the forest at eight years old? How reckless...”
“Will you return to the Forest of Gana?”
“I’m not sure... I’m very fond of the house in the forest I inhabited for three years... But I may end up living in the forest around here instead.”
“No, if you want to live nearby you should stay in town. Why would you go out of your way to live in the forest?”
“I can make a house from magic and hunt for food. It actually makes for a pretty comfortable life, you know? I don’t need any money either.”
“Ryoma, I believe thou may still be too young to discard the world like that.”
“That’s true... I did realize that too, faintly.”
“Well, think carefully about it so you don’t end up having regrets. We’ll be grateful to have you around, but there’s no need to stay in this town longer than you’re comfortable with. You should live freely, the way you want to. At any rate, the guys involved in the embezzlement this time had their assets seized on top of being fired, and those subordinates who didn’t speak up had their pay deducted. That leaves more money to put into the town’s maintenance fees. In the worst case, we can use the money to hire help as needed. Now, I’ve handed you your rewards and said my piece. There’s one last message I have to pass on. The day after tomorrow, a large request will be coming in. There’s a mine that’s closing this year, but it’s pretty much been abandoned since last year. Many monsters have nested inside the mine. They’re all small fry, but the area is large so we’re recruiting a number of adventurers. I hope you’ll all participate with enthusiasm. That’s all, dismissed!”
With the meeting over, everyone went their own ways and I returned to the inn.
The young miss and her family were waiting for me at the inn. Apparently they were waiting so we could all have lunch together. I thanked them and took my seat, when the young miss started talking to me.
“Ryoma, would you like to train together?”
“Why so suddenly?”
“I’m going to start practicing magic from today. That’s why I thought it would be nice for you to join, too.”
“Actually, the trip we’re on right now is also meant to be practical experience for Elia.”
According to them, the Jamil ducal family had a custom of sending their children on a journey once they reached a certain age, sometimes letting them become an adventurer if they so wished.
“Going on a journey to widen your views and knowledge is a good thing. However, there are many things required to do that, like having the strength to protect oneself. We could have just sent escorts with her, but that would have been restrictive. With no hard work put into it, there would only be half as much to gain. That is why our goal is to give Elia the strength to protect herself.”
“Even if she didn’t go on that journey, there would still be times where she may need to participate in exterminations of monsters and bandits in our domain.”
Reinbach and Reinhart explained, surprising me a little.
“Even the young miss?”
“The participation of a noble in an extermination increases the scale, you know? And it isn’t limited to Elia. We have to show the public that we’re protecting our domain, and we also raise morale this way. That’s why she needs strength to an extent.”
I see. And gender differences didn’t matter when it came to magic, either.
“That’s why I’ll be attending school in the capital beginning this year, studying and learning magic. Which is why I wanted to gain some experience before that.”
“I see, so that’s why you came here.”
“That’s right. I was training from morning until just earlier, and I’ll be continuing in the afternoon. Would you like to participate in that training too, Ryoma?”
...Yeah, it sounded like a good opportunity. I had promised to teach her how to play with magic before, and I would love to learn things myself if it wasn’t a bother.
When I said that, they readily agreed to me joining the afternoon training session. With the training being for magic, they were apparently holding it in a rocky area roughly twenty minutes out of town by horse carriage.
■ ■ ■
After lunch.
The carriage arrived at the rocky area, where Jill was waiting for us.
“We’ve been waiting for you, young miss. You too, Ryoma. It must have been a tiring three days.”
“Thank you too, Jill. I heard you’ve been busy yourself.”
“Fairly so.”
“Come on, let’s begin already!”
The young miss said with giddy impatience. She seemed to be really looking forward to playing with magic.
“By the way, which elements can you use? I’ll need to know so that I can teach you how to play as well.”
“I specialize in fire and ice magic. I have lots of magic energy, so if I train more I’ll be able to fire lots of powerful magic.”
The way she said “lots of powerful magic” made it sound like her strength was in firepower. And in fire and ice magic, of all things...
“Is there a problem?”
“Water and earth magic are safer than fire and ice, so there won’t be as much that you can play with.”
“You certainly wouldn’t want to play with fire in a forest.”
“Forest fires are no joke.”
Hughes and Jill muttered from where they were standing at a distance. They were exactly right. Though the least favorable element to play with was actually poison, in my opinion.
“For fire magic, I can only teach you this. Darkness. Little Fire Flower.”
After I used the dark elemental magic Darkness to darken the space above my hand, I pointed using my index finger and illuminated the darkness with little sparks of fire for several seconds. It was a magic based on sparklers.
“It’s beautiful.”
“That’s right.”
“Oh, it’s gone.”
“It feels a little sad to see it end.”
Well, sparklers had that effect too. There was no point to this magic other than being pretty to look at. I wanted to recreate large fireworks too, but my magic wasn’t quite good enough for that yet.
As for ice elemental magic, there was ice skating and ice sculptures to play with. After making the first piece of ice, magic was only used to keep it cold, but the scale was rather large. And while I could make ice sculptures with my experience as a part-time sculpting assistant in my past life, it took time to learn and do well. Depending on what was being sculpted, stamina would be required to stack the blocks of ice, and there was a risk in getting hurt if the stack collapsed. Although that was what made the pay good... And it also kept the cave cool when I left it in the corner on a hot day.
Something smaller-scaled would have been making a lens from ice and using it to gather light and spark a fire, but that honestly wasn’t something that could be enjoyed for very long... If you wanted a spark, it would be a hundred times faster to just use fire magic anyway... Hmm...
“How about water, then? I’m not good at it, but I can use water magic too.”
“In that case, there’s something. For example... Bubbly Water.”
I joined the fingertips of both hands and created water inside the circle. But that water was more viscous than normal water, creating a membrane across my hand. I blew gently at it to create a bubble the size of a head and released it into the air.
If I used the wind magic Breeze to blow a stronger wind at the remaining membrane, countless smaller bubbles would float upwards.
The clear blue sky could be seen in the background. Nothing obstructed the sunlight shining on the bubbles drifting softly through the windless air. The light reflecting off the surface sparkled like iridescent starlight. Eventually, they popped and disappeared.
“Oh my, that was interesting. They looked like soap bubbles.”
“It’s beautiful.”
The water that could create bubbles seemed to be a hit with the women. Soap was used by the general population, but it was expensive so they wouldn’t use it on this. The men looked like they enjoyed it as well.
“This is a water magic that gives the water viscosity. For example... Water. Wave.”
I used my hand as a cup to pour water in, then moved it with a different magic.
“Wave is a basic magic that creates ripples on the water surface, but this is done by using water magic on water magic to make movement. That’s why when you practice it... here!”
With a shout, I launched the water in my hand up high. Normally, gravity would bring the water back down, but it didn’t fall at all. Everyone around me looked up to see the sphere of water floating above my head. Of course, I was using the magic that moved water to keep it there.
Since there was a water magic called Waterball that launched a sphere of water as an attack, the reactions around me were still lukewarm. That’s why this was only the start.
“Ooh!”
I moved the water until the shape changed into that of a goldfish, causing light voices of surprise around me. After three years of boredom, my water goldfish was accurate down to the last scale. When I moved it through the air while bending it periodically...
“It looks like it’s swimming through the air!”
“How clever.”
Everyone applauded me, but that just made me feel shy.
“Well, this is just one way of using water. When I was thinking of a way to put magic into the water for viscosity, I made the Bubbly Water earlier. I imagined connecting the individual droplets of water together.”
“Like this? Bubbly Water.”
The young miss was able to make a water viscous enough to create a membrane between her hands. But it would break as soon as she blew lightly at it.
“Use a little more water elemental magic and imagine the water being like a sticky slime’s sticky solution.”
She was already halfway there, so I tried giving a more concrete example.
Then, the young miss eagerly released her magic energy as she chanted the spell.
“Bubbly Water.”
This time, the water that was created was clearly more viscous. She blew into the ring she made with her fingers and a new bubble danced into the sky.
“I did it!”
“The size will vary greatly depending on how hard you blow, and with a little more practice and magic control you can even do this.”
Once again, I made another bubble — this time with more magical energy. I stopped it at the size of a basketball and made it float before me... then lightly smacked it.
“Here!”
“Huh?!”
The bubble distorted heavily, but didn’t pop as it floated over to the young miss. The young miss, who had been watching with interest nearby, caught the bubble and juggled it from hand to hand.
“This one... didn’t disappear like the others.”
“If you use more magic energy, the bubble becomes strong enough to stay intact even if you touch it. It will pop under a large enough force and disappear eventually, though.”
For the record, this bubble was purely made from water, so it was safe for both humans and the environment. Even if a young child ate one, it wouldn’t hurt them at all.
“For some reason, it’s starting to look like a slime to me.”
The young miss poked the bubble and gleefully watched it wobble.
Seeing her enjoy herself made teaching her worthwhile. If I had a chance in the future, I’d teach her some other elemental magic tricks too.
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