Chapter 71. The Good Mage, the Bad Mage, and the Strange Mage (4)
You could not visit another lord’s territory and say, “Goodbye,” on the very same day.
Even if it was only empty formality, it was proper etiquette for the host to provide lavish meals for at least a few days, sometimes as long as two weeks.
Naturally, we were invited to dinner with the Margrave of Liguria.
“Viscount Marcel, please do not think too badly of the Genoa Tower Master.”
“Is there some story behind his actions?”
“Two mages died while stopping the troll invasion. He probably wanted someone else to blame.”
That could not be the only reason.
The Tower Master had definitely suffered losses because of me.
Financial losses.
Even if the Margrave knew the full story, he probably would not tell me.
The two of them were on the same side, after all.
He had also quietly allowed my envoys to be detained.
This man probably held a grudge against me too.
Gaston, who had been listening, asked with a puzzled expression.
“Why did the mages die? The standard tactic is for knights to block the front while mages attack from behind.”
“The trolls ran all the way to the shipyard. The incident happened before the knights could arrive.”
“Hahaha. I see. The shipyard must be located very, very far out on the frontier.”
“Ahem.”
Gaston was clearly mocking him.
The man was a Margrave, yet his knights had failed to arrive in time to defend his own territory.
I shook my head.
“Forgive my rudeness, but we will depart early tomorrow morning. We need to find another shipyard.”
“...There is no helping it. I only hope you will not hold this incident against us.”
I already have it stored very deeply in my heart.
We ended the uncomfortable dinner early.
After returning to our lodging, I called Chloe.
“Do we have anyone who can remain in Liguria for a while and gather information?”
“Just in case, I brought two agents disguised as passengers aboard the lord’s ship. They are currently staying at an inn.”
“Good. Leave them here. Find out why the Genoa Tower Master bears hostility toward me, and why the Margrave of Liguria quietly allowed it.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“And I’ll send Sir Pirel to Veneto as an envoy. Find out whether there’s a direct route.”
I had decided to simply look for canal ships in Veneto.
If necessary, I would buy used ones.
* * *
The Catalonian liaison voluntarily left for Veneto with Sir Pirel.
Watching him abandon his actual duties and wander around with us was ridiculous.
Then again, he was the Marquis’s distant nephew.
If I had been appointed as a liaison to another territory when I came of age, I might have acted exactly like that.
Captain Adrien approached after finishing preparations to depart.
“My lord, are we returning directly to the territory?”
“Yes. But stay as close to the coastline as possible.”
“So you intend to look at the Great Forest.”
“Even if only from a distance.”
Booooo.
The Benedikta departed.
We passed in front of the Ligurian shipyards, then slowly followed the coastline with the Great Forest on our starboard side.
I examined the forest using one of our telescope prototypes.
Nothing unusual stood out.
“Do you see any trolls?”
“No. Tower Master Gaston, about that mana sensing technique. Can you spread it as far as possible in that direction?”
“Easy enough. Give me a moment. Haaah!”
Why the battle cry?
He even stretched both arms forward like he was firing some kind of energy blast.
He truly was a strange old man.
Tower Master Javier tilted his head.
“What is this thug doing? Why is he spreading mana everywhere?”
“He spreads mana extremely thin and wide to detect unusual individuals. Apparently, that’s how he noticed your ship entering the harbor.”
“Ah, so that was it. What a ridiculous technique. Is it something like this?”
Javier was a genius.
After only a few attempts, he copied it.
When both mages spread their mana, even Martin and Raul noticed.
“You two can feel it?”
“Yes. My skin is tingling.”
“It feels like insects are crawling over my body.”
Were two high-powered human radars slowly cooking us like sausages inside a microwave?
Anyway, truly talented people were sensitive enough to notice.
Ironically, even though I used the technique myself, my senses were not that sharp.
I felt slightly jealous of people born as geniuses.
Then,
“Hm? Pupa, did you find it too?”
“Yes. Judging by the size... probably a troll.”
I approached the suddenly serious Tower Masters.
“So another troll appeared?”
“Not one. Around fifteen.”
“There is also one extremely powerful individual. Liguria’s knights may suffer casualties.”
Trolls were monsters that rarely abandoned their habitats.
Long-Armed Blue Trolls occasionally appeared in Ronalp too.
But normally they only ate sheep or shepherds.
They did not invade human settlements.
That meant the current situation was unusual.
“Why are they doing this?”
“I cannot say for certain, but perhaps they lost a territorial struggle against another group.”
“Hmm. I agree with this thug. The behavior of beasts tends to follow similar patterns.”
“Then this will continue.”
I tended to think of monsters as different races.
The two Tower Masters thought of them as animals.
Still, their interpretation made perfect sense in the current situation.
Even in my previous life, scholars often compared human territorial behavior with that of animals.
I immediately called Captain Adrien.
“Adrien Assel! Turn the ship around. Send a flag warning to Liguria Port’s observation station, then we return home.”
“Yes! Hard turn to port! Heading 190 degrees!”
The Benedikta tilted heavily as it turned.
I held the railing and looked toward Liguria Port.
The city still appeared peaceful.
It had no idea what kind of hardship was approaching.
No matter how much I disliked the Margrave and the Genoa Tower Master, human lives were at stake.
As an ordinary Korean in my previous life, I could not simply ignore it and sail away.
What kind of people were we?
Apparently, the two mages found my behavior unexpected.
“If it were me, I would have ignored them and left. You really are a true noble.”
“I already realized how deeply you value human life. You truly are an example of a merciful noble.”
That is slightly different.
Still, I let them believe whatever they wanted.
* * *
Several days later.
The agents I had left in Liguria returned.
Chloe organized their information and brought me a report.
“The trolls we discovered attacked the shipyard. According to rumors, five knights were killed, twelve were injured, and around forty workers became casualties.”
So they had barely listened to our flag warning.
They probably responded carelessly and were trampled by the trolls.
I silently prayed for the dead for a moment.
“What about the Genoa Mage Tower? Did we learn anything?”
“Until recently, the largest customer of the Ligurian shipyard owned by the Mage Tower was Cagliari. New pirate ships, fishing boats, modifications and repairs to captured ships, and even modifications to acceleration magic items were all handled there.”
I had not merely destroyed Pirate King Luca’s organization.
I had also taken away nearly every fisherman and resident of Cagliari who wanted to leave.
Apparently, that had severely reduced the Genoa Mage Tower’s income.
Of course he hates me because of money.
“What about the Margrave of Liguria?”
“The reason he is wary of us is similar to Catalonia. As Marcel Port develops, fewer vessels enter Liguria Port. And because of the compass...”
“Several transit routes disappeared.”
“Yes, my lord.”
No matter how complicated the process looked, the root cause was money.
Only a few months ago, I had complained about how materialism was spreading among nobles.
Now I was complaining about yet another noble for exactly the same reason.
If they simply focused on their own work and made money without causing trouble for other people, who would criticize them?
* * *
Sir Pirel, who had gone to order ships, remained in Veneto.
The Catalonian liaison returned.
But he was not alone.
Ceramic craftsmen and their families had immigrated with him.
I immediately summoned Administrator Ricardo, Pascal, and Diego.
“Pascal, guide the new craftsmen to their housing and workshops. Actively mediate so they don’t fight with the existing craftsmen. Ricardo, inspect the process of establishing the ceramics company. Diego, prepare a demonstration for producing the new ceramic.”
Pascal and Diego immediately left.
Ricardo remained and asked,
“My lord, we still haven’t decided on the company name or trademark.”
If I left this alone, I could already imagine a name like ‘Eric Marcel’s Fucking White and Strong Ceramic Bowls.’
I needed to choose something specific.
What should I call it?
My naming sense might be terrible, but I could not simply use the name ‘bone china.’
The word ‘China’ did not exist in this world.
“How about ‘Bone Marcel’?”
“What does it mean?”
“Marcel made from bones... Ah. Never mind.”
“I think it would be better not to mention the bones. It might remind people of undead.”
Good point.
Then should I borrow the style of tableware brands from my previous life?
Not something like Portmeirion or Villeroy & Boch.
Maybe Royal Albert, Royal Copenhagen, something like that.
“Let’s call it ‘Royal Marcel.’”
“Would the royal family dislike that?”
“We’ll say it means the king of tableware.”
“Understood. I’ll inform Tower Master Gaston immediately.”
“Why Gaston?”
“You didn’t know? Roches Mage Tower manages the Ceramics Guild.”
So the earth-element Mage Tower even managed things made from clay.
Actually, that made things easier.
The Tower Master and his mages were already here.
Registration should be simple.
* * *
As expected, Gaston said he would personally register it.
However,
“May I watch the demonstration?”
“I cannot show you the ingredients or the entire process.”
“Come now. We are close, aren’t we? Show me.”
We were going to register it with the guild anyway.
Maybe I could show him a little.
A mage who valued honor would not steal the manufacturing method.
“Then I’ll only show you the part where we press it into molds and fire it.”
“How stingy. Fine. I’ll bring the pupa too.”
It sounded simple when explained verbally.
In reality, it was a process that took several days.
The old men would probably become exhausted and leave before the end.
On the day of the demonstration, I gathered the ceramic craftsmen.
Several sacks filled with mysterious white powder were stacked in front of us.
Our brand was still in its early stages, before any market dominance existed.
If the manufacturing method leaked to another continent, it would hurt badly.
So I pressured the craftsmen.
“You do not know what this powder is, and you do not need to know. Understood?”
Experienced craftsmen would figure it out quickly.
What I really meant was, pretend you do not know.
The quick-witted craftsmen answered together.
“Yes, my lord!”
The white powder was bone ash.
It was made by thoroughly cleaning cattle bones, burning them, then grinding the remains into fine ash.
Every trace of fat and sticky impurities had to be removed first.
Because of that, I had built a separate cattle bone processing factory.
For security, and because burning bones smelled terrible, I intentionally placed it near the public crematorium.
“Mix around thirty percent of this powder into the clay mixture. Add water, make the paste, press it into molds, then dry it. After that, the process is similar to ordinary ceramics.”
“Apply glaze after the first firing, then fire it again?”
“Yes. But you must establish the proper ratios, viscosity, firing time, and number of firings through experience.”
“Yes. We’ll create a chart, vary the numbers, and test them in order.”
As expected from craftsmen recruited from an advanced city.
They were smart.
Far better than randomly guessing.
As the craftsmen began preparing the mixture, Gaston asked curiously,
“Where exactly did you learn all these strange techniques?”
In my previous life, the internet stopped working inside Gates.
So I used to download huge numbers of web novels for offline reading.
Several of those stories involved protagonists making bone china and getting rich.
But answering, ‘I read it in a novel,’ felt ridiculous.
“Pottery uses kaolin, doesn’t it? Good kaolin is difficult to find on the Northern Continent, so I searched for substitute materials.”
“Hmm. Sounds like bullshit. Anyway, understood. Just remember to pay the protection fees.”
That was close.
I ignored it and moved on.
The demonstration reached its fifth day.
An exhausted Gaston finally came to complain.
“Viscount Marcel, why is this taking so long?”
“The first batch all cracked. We’ve been adjusting the ratios.”
“I’ll register even the cracked ones, so please just bring something already.”
“Actually, we finally produced some pieces that didn’t crack. Come look.”
The craftsmen brought around twenty completed pieces.
I had assumed they were making identical bowls.
Instead, they had already produced new molds and created more than ten different types of tableware.
They had even painted designs onto them.
There was a reason they were called craftsmen.
Javier and Gaston were shocked when they saw the finished bone china.
“Ohhh! It truly has the color of milk. I cannot believe such a beautiful surface can be made.”
“It is certainly light, and the strength is excellent. This is extremely practical.”
Listening to the two Tower Masters shower it with praise made me proud.
I added,
“Because it is mold-pressed, it can also be mass-produced. Marketability, productivity, and high added value. It will be an excellent product with no obvious weakness.”
“Hahaha. I’m becoming more jealous of your talents every day, Viscount Marcel.”
I felt slightly embarrassed.
Thank you, unknown English inventor from my previous life.
