Chapter 58: City of Canals (part five)
TL: clover
ED: clover
With Harold’s lead, I went into the back of the store.
We passed through the backyard of accumulated wands and classified materials into the space for living.
When I looked carefully around the dim room, like inside the store, I noticed that strangely expensive items were stored.
Especially, the eight porcelain dishes decorating the wall.
After reincarnating, I could count the time I saw porcelain with one hand.
In Spring Palace, there was an old pot that seemed to have been purchased on the behalf of grandpa, but it was stored away except when inspecting and cleaning it.
Of course, never mind using it, people would hesitate to decorate their place with it, since porcelain in this world was very expensive.
The technique to make porcelain was now lost.
All the existing porcelain was made when there was a great empire that once spread over Karkinos and Ichthyes.
Those porcelains were made on the far away eastern continent and was brought in by trade by the empire.
Since the trade with the eastern continent had discontinued completely, there was no way to obtain a new porcelain.
On the contrary, it seemed that it was uncertain whether the technique for making porcelain still exists on the eastern continent.
Attempts to reproduce the manufacture of porcelain seemed to have been done many times.
A while ago, a nobleman of Ignitia confined a promising alchemist until he managed to produce a white porcelain.
However, never mind completing the porcelain, no one had seen the appearance of the alchemist ever again.
That was the rumor.
The dishes displayed here were drawn with detailed drawings and a flashy color, all eight pieces were gorgeous artworks.
Given the value of the porcelain itself, one piece could probably be exchanged with a small castle.
As expected from the wealthy merchant Tulum, even in the corner of such of a small shop, there were ridiculously valuable things lurking around.
“Ara? But this……”
“Oya, you have discerning eyes. Does it worry you?”
One of them seemed to be a repaired dish that had broken once.
“I’m sure, this technique to seam it with lacquer and hide the crack with gold leaf……it’s golden joinery.”
“Heeh~, Erica is also knowledgeable, huh.”
“It’s just something I heard once.”
Since it was something I had known in my previous life, I couldn’t boast that much.
Because of the golden joinery, the design wasn’t really clear.
Considering the barely discernible designs of horns and hoofs, it might be a drawing of an auspicious beast.
“My Master seems to like it, too.
Sometimes he will stare at it until he forgets about time.”
I nodded.
Perfect beautiful goods were not bad either, but dishes that once broken and repaired had unique beauty.
In spite of myself, I also lost my words and stared at it.
“Oops, my bad.
We almost arrived at our destination, over here.”
Harold pointed at a solid mahogany door.
He took out a sparkling key from his pocket, inserted it in the keyhole and turned it.
“Yosh……”
When he opened the door, a cluttered large room appeared.
There were four long tables in the center of the room.
On the table were a glass bottle filled with complicated labware such as various reagents and specimens, and a small blackboard with calculation formula on it.
And then, many sheets of vellum papers and scraps spilled over and fell from the table.
There were hundreds of medicinal herbs hanging from the ceiling beam.
Similar doors were built on each side of the room.
There was a cabinet on the wall by the doors, and boxes of alchemy materials were packed tightly.
In the corner of the room were stacked herbal bags, empty bottles in cases, wooden boxes with tags on them, etc.
Unlike my brother’s Wunderkammer, it was a lot messier but it had a familiar atmosphere.
“Is this your workshop?”
“Yeah, I owe it to my Master. As expected from a person of Aurelia Ducal to recognize it at a glance.”
“My brother also had a workshop like this.”
“This room is connected to another room, wait a moment.”
Harold said so and pulled out another key.
It seemed that this room was a multiple space transfer facility.
That old man who had something like this, and Harold who was entrusted with it, were not ordinary people.
It was too expensive to be handed over to a child who was entering and leaving the wand store.
I followed Harold around bypassing the room in a roundabout way so as not to step on the bottled preserved specimens or ink bottles.
Suddenly, my eyes fixated on the desk where many books were stacked.
The cover of the top notebook was turned up.
For no particular reason, I read the letters written there.
Harold Nibelheim’s Research Journal—
(Eeh!? Why is there a son of a Count in a place like this!)
I became confused by the sudden appearance of a capture target.
This was lucky, but my heart wasn’t prepared.
Even though we had planned on the premise that we wouldn’t meet the capture target this time.
(But, if he is the son of the Count, then it isn’t weird for him to have such a luxurious facility……)
I didn’t recognize Harold’s appearance because he was significantly different from how he was six years later, but there were many parts that were the same if I thought about it now.
Both Harolds had a protruding tooth, and the shades of their hair and eyes were familiar.
He would become the six-years-later-Harold that I knew of when he grew taller, grew his hair, and became wilder after his life was ruined.
Well, about the last one, I didn’t want such a lively child to experience something like that.
“You should be able to shoot the wand here.”
The second door was connected to a room that was as big as a small gymnasium.
The ceiling was two stories high, and the walls seemed sturdy.
On the wall across the entrance, sandbags were stacked up to three times the height of average adults.
The characteristic was at our feet, where soil was spread evenly all over the room.
“How amazing. Is this Harold’s work?”
“In truth, it seems that Master made this room for his youngest son.
But now that he had ran away, Master lent this room to me.
Even though his father works with wands, that guy doesn’t like the idea of it, what a waste—”
It was the family circumstances that I had heard earlier, huh.
I recalled the grim face of the old shopkeeper.
It seemed that there were many circumstances in this seemingly successful family.
“Now then, I have to prepare it.
Please wait as I prepare the target.”
Harold shouted happily and kneeled on the ground.
Before I knew it, he was taking off his coat and wore a work apron.
He also wore oggles on his forehead and a tool holder around his waist.
He changed into a craftsman outfit and wrote something on the ground with an athame knife, not minding that he dirtied his outfit by doing so.
“Is that a golem? So you can make it even without the core part.”
“You understand that too, huh. Then this will be quick.”
Harold was making a basic golem that could at least walk.
He finished engraving the letters and breathed out at the end.
The breathed out magical power became blessing, and the golem began to move as if imitating God’s work.
The golem that got up was about 3 meters high.
It was like a fat person without a neck.
Twelve golems got up one after another and they walked to the point where they were ordered to go.
Six of the golems lined up in a similar formation like bowling pins, while the rest of them seemed to be waiting on either side of the room.
“Alright, Erica. First off, the Wand of Gust.”
I received the first wand from Harold.
It seemed that the distribution of the material was somewhat different from the Gust of Onii-sama.
It had old characters of northwest area which were inscribed directly on the wand, and I couldn’t read the content.
“This is……isn’t it a little too heavy?”
“Nope, it was made like that to raise the output, you can try it.”
The wind produced by this Wand of Gust was adjusted to blow objects about 10 meters away.
However, that was only based on human size.
It seemed that the golems were weighed at least 1 ton each.
……This, wouldn’t it be impossible to blow them away?
“Brace your legs firmly.
This wand still hasn’t been checked for the balance of its recoil.”
Before I knew it, Harold was about 5 meters away from me.
“Can you tell me about the recoiling reaction in more detail?”
“No, no, no, I’m certain that it’s absolutely safe.”
“If it’s absolutely safe, I think you should watch over from behind me instead from over there.”
“Nope~, that is……”
“If you are nearby, won’t you be able to get better data?”
“Uh……”
When I was smiling sweetly, Harold went behind me with a groan.
With this, he would become a cushion even if I collapsed.
Even if something happened, it would happen to both of us.
Well, I didn’t want anything to happen though.
I stared at my favorite alchemists’ silk gloves.
I would believe in the performance of these gloves that Eduart-oniisama had gave me.
I pointed Harold’s wand towards the golem standing in the front.
“Blow—”
The moment I shook the wand, a mass of air exploded at such a pressure that I couldn’t open my eyes.
When the whirlwind hit the golems directly, they were blown off their feet.
The six golems were blown by Gust and crashed into the sandbags placed on the opposite wall while spinning.
A deafening sound roared.
The golems who seemed to have their emeth characters damaged by the impact, broke into pieces and returned into lumps of soil.
“—away?”
“Oooohhhh!!!”
Harold’s delighted cheers could be heard.
Eh? This, was this truly Gust?
It looked more like an amazing offensive wand.
“I did it~~, it was as calculated!
I thought it would give out this much power unless I thought about the recoiling reaction.”
“Recoil……indeed if you don’t restrain the recoiling reaction of a wand of this class, it will be too dangerous to sell for personal use.”
“Ueh~, Erica also has the same opinion as Master?
I finally got somebody to trial shoot this wand, and it gave out the output as I wanted it to, so I’m quite satisfied with this.”
Eduart-oniisama’s gloves almost completely alleviated the recoil, so this time I came out fine.
Not everyone had a cheat item made by Onii-sama.
The reputation of this store would be affected if he was untactful.
This was something that Harold’s Master had admonished him for.
However, it might be excellent like this.
For me who could use Onii-sama’s gloves, it was just a powerful wand.
Since there was no ounce of elegance in it, I would have to close my eyes on occasion.
Also, I would like to emphasize on smaller rotation and make its power more within common sense.
“Even so, there wasn’t any recoil.
How strange……I should have added more……”
“More what?”
“No, no, don’t mind me.”
Harold averted his eyes unnaturally.
How suspicious.
“Ah, speaking of which, you were staring at those gloves earlier.
By any chance, were they custom made?”
“Yes, these are the works of a genius alchemist.”
“How nice. I mean, I want one too.”
Speaking of which, he said that he had a constitution that was more susceptible to the recoiling reaction.
If he wore something that prevents recoil, he should be able to use wands.
Because he loved wands so much, perhaps he wanted to use one himself.
I took off my gloves and offered them to Harold.
“Would you like to try it once as well?”
“Well, I guess. I think if it’s just for a little while, I can do it.
I, I made a great mistake when I was a kid.
Both my father and Master told me that I will never be able to use wands……but……”
While hesitating, Harold reached out for my gloves.
“If these gloves, me too, surely—”
With an excited look, Harold wore my gloves.
The hands of the small boy seemed to fit perfectly with my gloves.
Harold held the Wand of Gust and made the remaining golem to line up in a formation.
“……Yosh, I will blow away the rest of the golems!”
Harold put a serious expression as he put on his goggles.
Aiming carefully, he glared at the foremost golem as he held the wand aloft.
“Blow—”
At the next moment, Harold’s figure disappeared.
Only the sparkling magic circle formed by the wand remained on the spot, and it slowly collapsed and disappeared.
The golems were standing on the other side of the room as if nothing had happened.
An unpleasant sound as if something broke could be heard from behind.
(Eeehh~~~!?)
I panicked for a moment, but I managed to recover.
In retrospect, I saw the broken door barely hung by its hinges and was swaying.
I turned back to the workshop half-running.
“Harold?!”
When I opened the door and stepped in, the broken door fell from its hinges.
Inside was in an amazing state.
It was as if a storm had gone by—no, a storm did pass by.
Two legs were sticking out from the stacks of herbal bags in the corner of the room.
Those sturdy boots should have been Harold’s.
“Are you alright? Still alive?”
“O, ow-ow-ow, it huuurts……I, I’m still alive, but……it’s painful everywhere……”
I pulled Harold out from beneath the herbal bags.
Shaking his head like what a soaked dog would do, the dried herbs were scattering everywhere.
It seemed that there was no big injury.
It seemed that the herbal bags became a cushion and he was saved because of that.
“N-no~, I’m glad that I didn’t clean up these herbal bags.
Aah, mou, that wasn’t cool of me—”
“I’m very sorry. I didn’t know that it’s going to be like that.”
“No, no, it’s fine. It’s because of Erica’s gloves that I got away with only this degree of pain.
This is why my constitution is awful.”
“But—”
Harold stopped me who was still trying to apologize.
“It’s my fate. It cannot be helped.”
Harold made a smile and said so.
However, a sad atmosphere seeped out in his expression and attitude.
At that time, a noise sounded suddenly.
In addition to the sounds of moving objects, there was a sound of rustling clothes.
I picked up the Wand of Gust dropped by Harold and aimed it towards that person.
“……Who are you?”
“Who is it? Is anyone there?”
What appeared from behind the door was a redheaded youth in a brand new dress suit.
“Well, that’s supposed to be my line. Little boy and little girl.”