Chapter 69. The Good Mage, the Bad Mage, and the Strange Mage (2)
I was holding a bundle of pencils.
My mind went blank.
Soap? Why?
Honestly, nice-smelling solid soap was useful.
But it was not exactly necessary for survival.
What was this strange old man thinking?
“Why aren’t you answering? The soap for the canal... What is that?”
His curiosity immediately shifted to the pencils in my hand.
“This is a pencil. It is a writing tool made using a graphite core.”
“Ohhh. You protected the core with wood. Your hands don’t get dirty either. Clever.”
After satisfying his curiosity, Gaston pressed me again.
“So, will you trade?”
“Only the soap?”
“The telescope too.”
Trading the telescope and soap manufacturing method for an entire canal was obviously a huge win for me.
Marcel lacked the technology to properly manufacture telescopes.
Soap was not particularly profitable either.
“Agreed. But please allow Mother to continue making and selling her own soap.”
“Of course! If it’s Lady Maria, I have no objection.”
What?
Did this strange old man have an interest in my mother?
“The principles and manufacturing method for the telescope are already written down. As for the soap recipe, Mother knows it. I can document it separately...”
“No! I’ll ask the lady personally!”
He was definitely interested.
Then Gaston left my office.
What about the pencils?
I stared down at them and wondered what to do.
* * *
Several days later.
“Diego, make more pencil prototypes, then register them with a guild and request protection.”
“Which guild?”
“Would the Paper Guild work?”
“The Algeciras Mage Tower manages that guild. Gibraltar Castle is nearby, so we can send one of the former Naval Knights.”
At that moment, Gaston, who was lying on a sofa listening to us, joined the conversation.
“Algeciras, huh? That Tower Master is my childhood friend.”
“There is also the expression ‘old friend.’”
“A childhood friend is a childhood friend. Why are you talking about bamboo horses?”
“...Don’t you have anything to do?”
He had finished his inspection and was now waiting for the mages who would actually construct the canal.
He kept coming to my office and lying across the sofa.
It was becoming annoying.
“No.”
“If you’re bored, why not visit the pyramid? It contains the essence of ancient magic.”
“I looked at it. I couldn’t understand anything.”
“Don’t you have anyone to meet?”
“No. Lady Maria went out for charity work... and everyone else is boring.”
Was I entertaining?
Should I be happy?
“Then visit Algeciras Mage Tower. You can see your friend too.”
“He should come here. Why would I go there?”
“Then write an invitation. I happen to have business with that tower, and it would be useful to make his acquaintance.”
“Should I?”
Gaston suddenly sat up.
He grabbed paper and a feather pen from my desk and began writing.
“What should I say? Hmm... ‘To the pupa of Andalusia. I am the Great Cucumber of Le Capital. Come to Marcel immediately.’ How is that?”
“You definitely are childhood friends.”
“I told you.”
“Add a note saying I have business with the Paper Guild and ask him to bring someone responsible for it.”
“Fine.”
Gaston wrote the letter rapidly.
He sealed it with wax and stamped his signet ring.
He behaved like some butcher’s son, but he came from a high noble family.
Naturally, he carried a signet ring.
He handed the finished letter to me.
“Don’t send that Naval Knight. My friend hates knights. Says they’re too authoritarian.”
“That almost caused a disaster. Thank you.”
Unexpectedly, he had actually helped me.
Now I could not even throw him out despite how annoying he was becoming.
Should I teach him Korean janggi or chess?
* * *
One week later.
Gaston spread his cards.
“Full house. You only have one pair, so I win.”
“...You didn’t use magic to read the cards, did you?”
“Ahem. Of course not.”
Suspicious.
But I had no evidence.
He was constantly spreading mana while practicing sensory detection.
I had no way to know whether he was practicing or cheating with magic.
Teaching him Texas Hold’em had been a mistake.
“Tower Master, let’s switch to janggi.”
“No.”
“It’s fun.”
“It stops being fun when I keep losing.”
What kind of mage hated both janggi and chess?
I was beginning to realize intelligence was not actually a requirement for becoming a mage in this world.
Then Gaston suddenly stood.
“He’s here.”
“Who?”
“The pupa of Andalusia. His ship just entered the harbor.”
My office was more than a kilometer away from the harbor.
“Don’t tell me you spread your mana all the way to the harbor.”
“I did. If I spread it extremely thin, it works.”
What the hell had I taught him?
This strange old man had become a human radar.
If war ever broke out, I absolutely needed to keep him on my side.
Anyway, we headed to the harbor to welcome the pupa, I mean, the Algeciras Tower Master.
“Javi! Over here!”
Gaston shouted his friend’s name and waved while running toward him.
“Gaston. It’s been a while.”
“Hahaha! You’re still old!”
“You bastard. We’re the same age.”
Watching the heartwarming reunion between two old men, I used [Convenient Lesser Appraisal].
[Javier, 72]
[Sixth son of the late Esteban, a serf of Andalusia. Tower Master of Algeciras. Worships no god.]
Tower Master Javier came from a slave-like background. How did these two become friends?
I became slightly curious.
Still, registering the pencil came first.
“Welcome. I am Eric Marcel.”
“Good to meet you. I am Javier. Marcel is a beautiful territory. I came while taking vacation. May I stay for some time?”
Unlike Gaston, he was extremely polite.
“Of course. Let’s get into the carriage. I have food prepared.”
“Javi, Javi, have you ever eaten squid? There’s a really disgusting squid dish here...”
“I have. There’s also a squid restaurant near our Mage Tower.”
“Then what about wrapping a living octopus around a stick like this...”
“I’ve eaten that too.”
“You lunatic. How do you eat something that disgusting?”
“You’re the lunatic. Weren’t you the one who just suggested eating it?”
“Anyway, let’s go. The sauce is delicious.”
I led the two noisy old men toward the seafood restaurant.
* * *
“So this is the invention called a pencil. Hmm. It is extremely easy to make. Copies will spread everywhere outside the Northern Continent.”
That was Tower Master Javier’s opinion after examining the pencil in my office.
He had a point.
Even if I registered it with the Northern Continent guild system and the Berber Kingdom, enforcing protection over something as trivial as a pencil would be difficult.
There would not be enough profit to justify it.
“I’m not expecting to make much money. It is enough if people recognize it as a Marcel product.”
Like the scurvy medicine and soap, the pencil was so simple that anyone could guess the production process.
I had created it to tempt Gaston.
I did not expect major profit from sales.
“In that case, naming it ‘Eric Marcel’s Pencil’ would be appropriate. After the scurvy medicine, diarrhea medicine, and compass, this will raise your fame even further.”
“Does that mean you’ll register it?”
“Of course. The more you mass-produce it, the cheaper the unit price becomes. Even lower-class people could use it. However...”
Apparently, he had found a flaw.
“The core is too hard for current paper. Make it slightly thicker and softer.”
“Understood.”
“In exchange, I’ll order the Paper Guild to develop cheap paper specifically for pencils.”
Javier seemed unusually interested in the lives of ordinary people.
He had a tendency to focus on affordable products.
He was the classic kind, considerate, polite old man.
At that moment, Gaston interrupted with something completely unrelated.
“Hey, Javi. What do you think of Marcel? Can’t you feel the mana vortex?”
“I noticed it. The pyramid at the end of the harbor is the center of the vortex. The feng shui here is excellent.”
“Move your Mage Tower here.”
“You’re insane. Move your own tower.”
“You first.”
“I’m not falling for that.”
These old men were noisy.
For a while, I should probably avoid my own office.
* * *
Algeciras Mage Tower mainly researched tree magic.
Not only trees.
They also studied crops and medicinal herbs.
I personally guided Tower Master Javier around the territory.
He became extremely interested in how aggressively I used trees.
While inspecting the factory producing charcoal and wood vinegar,
“What is that building? The one prisoners keep entering and leaving.”
“That is the laboratory researching anti-inflammatory painkillers made from white willow. It looks like they’re performing clinical tests on prisoners.”
“Ohhh! Could I observe the production process?”
“I apologize. Security is extremely strict there.”
The anti-inflammatory painkiller had not yet been registered with a guild.
We kept it under strict protection.
Javier looked slightly disappointed.
I worried he might insist on seeing it.
The kind old man simply accepted my refusal.
“By the way, Viscount Marcel, why do you use beech instead of oak for charcoal?”
“Because we also make diarrhea medicine while producing charcoal. Oak is mostly used for barrels.”
Javier moved his lips as if he wanted to say something.
Probably another request to observe.
“The diarrhea medicine workshop can be inspected.”
“Really? I’d very much like to see it.”
We entered the workshop where wood vinegar was distilled.
The alchemists working as managers greeted us.
“Explain the production process to the Tower Master.”
“Yes, my lord. The distiller you see over there heats the sticky oil extracted from the wood vinegar to 230...”
Javier listened with sparkling eyes as the alchemist explained.
The explanation lasted about five minutes.
Then Javier said,
“Viscount Marcel, if a major epidemic occurs, could our Mage Tower also produce this medicine? We could save many lives.”
Exactly the response I expected from a man who cared about common people.
Unfortunately, I was not a kind man.
If a diarrhea epidemic spread, I wanted to make a fortune.
I had no interest in some unrelated mage becoming famous from my medicine.
“How could I pursue money during an emergency? When I registered it with the Pharmacists’ Guild, I already informed them that ‘the medicine will be discounted during epidemics.’”
“Ohhh! You truly are merciful!”
Fortunately, he did not ask exactly how large the discount would be.
I planned to vary prices according to the territory’s ability to pay.
Rich territories would pay more.
Poor territories would pay less.
During an epidemic, everyone would have diarrhea and medicine supplies would be limited.
As long as hoarding was prevented, profitability would still be fine.
After touring the factory, we visited villages near the Great Forest.
I even showed him how sap was collected from sugar maple trees and turned into Canada.
“White willow, beech, oak, and now sugar maple. Marcel uses trees extremely well. I’m jealous.”
“Thank you. But Algeciras has many forests too, doesn’t it?”
“Nothing like this Great Forest. Our climate allows plenty of trees, but there isn’t much variety.”
I used [Convenient Lesser Appraisal] on a tree Javier pointed toward.
[Cork Oak. Its bark grows thick to protect the trunk. While the outer bark grows, it absorbs carbon dioxide and methane gas. Distributed throughout the southern regions of the Northern Continent.]
Carbon dioxide and methane.
Greenhouse gases that had caused so much discussion on Earth.
But more importantly,
This is cork.
Come to think of it, I had never seen a cork stopper in this world.
I rarely entered kitchens.
And because I was still nineteen, I had not drunk much alcohol.
I can’t believe I never noticed cork stoppers were missing. I’ve adapted too much to this world’s inconveniences.
I shook off the thought and spoke to Javier.
“The bark of this tree doesn’t allow water through. It is soft and elastic too. Ah, it would make excellent bottle stoppers.”
“What do you mean?”
I drew my knife and removed a small piece of cork oak bark.
“Dry this, cut it to match the shape of a bottle opening, and insert it.”
“Let us test that. [Dry].”
Javier instantly dried the bark with magic.
I took it back and cut it into a round shape with my knife.
Then I took an expensive bottle of wine from one of the attendants’ lunch baskets.
I removed the existing stopper and forced the cork inside.
“With this inserted properly, even if I turn the bottle upside down, not a drop comes out.”
“Incredible! Let me try!”
Javier struggled to pull out the cork.
Pop!
“Hahaha! Even the sound when it comes out is pleasant!”
He spilled quite a lot of expensive wine while removing it.
Still, he looked delighted like a child.
As expected, mages could not resist interesting things.
“For insertion, make a tool or have strong workers do it.”
“I can insert it myself... Ngh, it won’t go in.”
I pointed toward the cork oak.
“This tree is rare in this region, so we cannot produce many here. But you said Algeciras has plenty. Have poor people make the stoppers. If they manufacture and export large quantities, it can become seasonal income during periods when farm work is scarce.”
I was taking credit.
I would not make them myself.
I would not even help.
Yet I would still be praised.
Javier’s eyes filled with emotional tears.
“What a merciful noble! We will name it ‘Eric Marcel’s Bottle Stopper’ and spread it everywhere!”
“No, just call it ‘cork’...”
“Praise Eric Marcel’s Bottle Stopper!”
My attendants, confused, joined in.
“Long live Eric Marcel’s Bottle Stopper! Long live! Long live!”
Damn it.
That name is way too long.
Just call it cork...
