The Commoner Sample
“I’m thinking of confiscating every last one of their rings.”
Morning in the Grand Duchy began with Ruri’s grumbling.
She had come up to him wearing the unmistakable look of someone thoroughly displeased with the world.
For Ferda, who was in the middle of breakfast, it was a rather awkward start to the day.
“Is that so.”
He answered half-heartedly.
“The workshops Your Lordship summoned refuse to listen to a single word I say. Is it truly so difficult not to spill even a drop of blood inside this castle?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“Fine, let’s say a little blood gets spilled. But those brutes don’t even clean up what they leave behind before they go.”
“Do they now?”
“If they knew how terrifying a dragon can be, they might finally mend their ways. What do you think?”
“Do as you please.”
Ruri’s chattering mouth snapped shut. She glanced up at him, then fixed Ferda with a sullen glare.
“Your Lordship is the worst of all.”
“Is that so.”
“Even now—this very moment—you’re giving me the most half-hearted answers.”
“Indeed.”
“Is this how you treat me just because I scrubbed your back once?”
Petty.
She muttered it so softly it should have been inaudible, but Ferda heard every syllable. It would be a lie to claim he held no grudge over that day. Having already taken his revenge, he decided this time he would answer her properly.
“Refining magic stones has always been slow work. Research never finishes overnight, does it?”
“Your Lordship reached the third circle so quickly. Can you really understand something like that?”
“I’ve practiced looking at things from an ordinary person’s point of view.”
The Ferda of the past would never have understood. But the Ferda of the present, who still remembered that former self, had felt the dizzying speed of his own circle breakthroughs. That memory let him look down upon the ordinary with a measure of patience.
“I see.”
This time it was Ruri who answered half-heartedly.
“So put off their punishment just a little longer. Once I bring you good news soon, then—”
—Hahahaha! Hahahahahaha!
Before Ferda could finish, a madman’s laughter rang through Baldrova Castle. The sound drew steadily closer.
“Hahahaha! At last! At last I’ve done it! I never have to bake these damned magic stones again! Hahahaha!!”
The madman was none other than Bernel Marquis—hair plastered with grease, lab coat half-shed and flapping. Both Ferda and Ruri locked their eyes on the trail he left behind him.
Ferda took a calm sip of his tea.
“Speak of the tiger and he appears. It seems results have finally come.”
The moment that would prove why he had brought Bernel here at all had arrived at last.
After racing about like a lunatic, Bernel slept for a solid stretch. He had been shaving years off his life, cutting sleep to the bone while refining magic stones. When he finally stood before Ferda, however, he appeared neat and composed.
“I thought it might work today—and it actually did! Hahaha!”
“Care to explain it now?”
“Ah, yes! Of course. So the way this thing functions is…”
Bernel launched into an earnest explanation. For a full hour he rattled on about the research, then finished by placing a final period on a blackboard crammed with notes.
“You followed all that, right?”
Having listened to every word, Ferda replied,
“Did you understand it yourself?”
“I—of course I did. I’ve organized most of it and tried to explain it as simply as possible, which is why I—”
“Hmm.”
Ferda thought to himself, It seems my mind isn’t all that sharp after all. Reaching the rank of Archmage must have been pure grit and nothing more.
He had listened carefully, yet he could not grasp a single thing Bernel was saying. Around the thirty-minute mark he began seeing the cosmos, drifted off for a moment, and only returned when the final period was dotted. He glanced sideways at the assisting researchers. Their eyes were bright and sparkling—the kind of eyes no true researcher should ever possess.
No one understood a word of it.
Stefan Pascal had sent them claiming they were reasonably clever. If Stefan was the outstanding merchant he claimed to be, he would have hand-picked the absolute best for the sake of acquiring the technology.
At least the risk of an immediate leak is low.
Ferda chose to look on the bright side. In the end, as long as Bernel understood and could demonstrate it, that was enough.
“Show me what it is.”
“Yes, sir!”
Bernel selected one device among the countless magical apparatuses. It was called a mana stabilizer. When mana was supplied, it cast a fifth-rank fixation spell and locked a fixed volume of mana into the air.
“You place a monster’s corpse inside and stimulate it with a little lightning magic, and then…”
Mana burst forth from the dead flesh. Rough, unusable junk mana, thick as pollution, drifted through the air.
“Heat it to a certain temperature, compress it, then cool it like this…!”
Scorched by fire, crushed, cooled… After the elaborate process, a crystal appeared, exhaling pure white smoke. A stone that glowed with a soft blue light had been born.
“This is a magic stone!”
Bernel presented the result with triumphant voice. It shone with the gentle radiance of a mana-infused crystal. A wondrous moment—yet Ferda felt no particular awe.
Crude.
He had already seen the finished product in the future. Compared with that, this one’s color was pale and the workmanship felt distinctly rough. Just to be sure, he asked,
“What’s the efficiency?”
“Uh… well…”
The man who had poured out impenetrable knowledge without pause suddenly choked.
“Bernel Marquis.”
“Y-yes!”
“I asked you a question. How high is the efficiency?”
“W-well, you see…”
Bernel answered with cold sweat pouring down his face.
“It takes the mana of seven magic stones to produce one.”
“So roughly 14.2 percent efficiency.”
“Rounded up, 14.3 percent. And then there’s also…”
Something more remained, and from the way he hesitated it was clearly nothing good.
“While raising the capacity of the magic stone itself, some mana leaks out… so you have to cut that figure roughly in half again…”
In short, fourteen magic stones were required to obtain the efficiency of one proper stone.
“About seven percent, then.”
“To one decimal place it’s 7.1 percent… hup, my apologies.”
Bernel corrected him without reading the room, then thought to himself: Ah, I’m finished. My research ends here. Better to just hire mages. Who would ever use something with 7.1 percent efficiency? He was already walking himself through the five stages of grief and a mental death sentence.
Ferda stared down at the magic stone for a long while before speaking.
“About that efficiency.”
“Yes.”
“Can you raise it further?”
“Pardon…?”
“I asked if you can raise the efficiency any higher.”
From the day he first brought Bernel Marquis in, Ferda had already decided: so long as the man never gave up, he would never treat failure as the end.
Bernel nodded at the question.
“O-of course. It’s possible. I will make it happen, without fail.”
“Good.”
Ferda rose from his seat.
“Then continue the research.”
Bernel blinked up at him. Just when he thought that was the end of it, Ferda added,
“I’ll gather the people who need to hear this. Until then, reorganize the research notes and the demonstration once more. Understood?”
“Y-yes, sir!”
With those words Ferda stepped outside. He was placing his trust in research that even he could not fully believe in. Therefore he had no choice but to do everything in his power.
Unlike Bernel, who trembled with anxiety, Ferda’s thoughts ran differently.
They made excellent use of it in the end.
He knew. Magic Engineering would advance no matter what. And he roughly understood how brutal that path of advancement had been. When Bernel first presented his work, mockery had swirled around him—Who would use such a thing? Why bother? It lacks all dignity. Yet what happened later?
Mages themselves came to use Magic Engineering more than anyone.
It offered a convenience of an entirely different order from the magic circles they calculated by hand. The age when mages monopolized the mystery of magic came to an end. Knowing that day would come, Ferda had every reason to believe in Bernel.
Ten days passed, and distinguished guests arrived: the elderly lord Count Consiler, and Stefan Pascal, branch manager of the Pascal Trading Company.
Before them Bernel performed the same demonstration and supplemental explanation he had given Ferda. With ten days to organize his thoughts, the presentation was better than the first time. It remained, however, thoroughly impenetrable.
“Ho, I see.”
“Indeed. A fine presentation.”
Ferda watched their reactions quietly, then asked,
“Did you truly understand? I certainly didn’t, so speak honestly.”
Only then did the two men confess the truth. He had thought their voices lacked all soul, and he had been right.
“Heh heh, my apologies. Nodding along has become a habit of mine. This old man is a complete outsider to such matters.”
“I simply felt it would be embarrassing to look as though I didn’t know…”
As expected, both had merely been pretending. Bernel, who had believed he had summarized everything more simply, looked utterly helpless.
“Still, piecing together what little I do understand, the conclusion seems to be that the efficiency is not high. Is that correct?”
“It is.”
“Hmm. A rather ambiguous object, then.”
Count Consiler stroked his beard and muttered. Cold sweat poured down Bernel’s face.
Stefan tried hard to highlight the positive side against the count’s negativity.
“From an economic standpoint I can’t say it looks promising right now, but the mere fact that it can supply mana makes it a fine thing, doesn’t it?”
“Ah, that part I already explained… It is not an object that can supply mana to a mage. Unlike potions or elixirs, it cannot restore or recharge anything.”
“Ah, then it is rather awkward… Even if successful, if the efficiency remains this poor…”
Stefan, who had tried to raise a shield, took a step back as well. Both men had offered answers that leaned heavily negative. Stefan’s back was growing damp with sweat.
Ferda had expected as much.
“Don’t concern yourselves with efficiency for now. That is something our chief engineer will handle later.”
He had already anticipated this. The reason he had shown them the stone at a stage when only criticism would follow was for something else entirely.
“I wish to hear your thoughts on what we should create first with this object.”
“What specifically would you like us to discuss?”
Ferda held up the magic stone Bernel had produced and said,
“It is, quite literally, a revolutionary power source that can perform the tasks mages once handled. Think of the work that required a mage—and the work that was too trivial for a mage to bother with.”
What he needed was ideas. Count Consiler and Stefan were men steeped in their respective fields. At Ferda’s words, the count spoke first.
“If that object can imitate a mage… does that mean we could fill the infantry ranks that have always been short on the front lines with mages?”
He was an old soldier to the bone, raised in a count’s house. The first thing that came to his mind was a way to replace what the far eastern threat had stripped away.
“It is possible. If forged into weapons, casting magic becomes no great matter.”
Ferda gave them the name that would one day be used.
“Under the name of Magic Engineering Infantry.”
“Ho… Magic Engineering Infantry.”
A light seemed to kindle in Count Consiler’s eyes. A mage was efficient in nearly every situation, and nowhere more so than against magical beasts. The far east was a land with more magical beasts than ordinary monsters—the region that needed them most desperately. Yet like all foremost front lines, it was little better than exile for a mage. The only mage of any skill and drive they had possessed was Tessalos Wolcher.
“Excellent. Merely filling the absence of mages already gives us hope. Once the efficiency is solved, I believe it would be best to process them into weapons first.”
The count’s enthusiasm was plain. As an old lord who could not bear to watch his infantry die, he clearly wished to push that path forward at once.
Then Stefan objected.
“Count Consiler’s opinion is sound. If infantry can freely convert into mages, it would certainly help. But would it not be just as important for transport?”
Stefan had already laid his own stakes when he invested in the venture.
“Transport, you say?”
“Yes. The most critical element of any battlefield has always been supply. Even if firepower is outstanding, if supply becomes a problem at once, it turns useless, does it not?”
“That is also true. Yet many magical beasts are already dying in the far east. If we concentrate on producing from those beasts here, that difficult problem can be postponed.”
Count Consiler and Stefan refused to yield an inch, each stressing the importance of what he desired.
I was right to ask them both.
Even this simple exchange of blows made clear what each man required and where the problems lay. Stefan wanted to cut the transport costs he felt so keenly; Consiler wanted to raise the survival rate of the soldiers in the eastern territories. There were solid reasons neither would step back.
“It seems the two of us will never settle this, so on this point it is proper that the Grand Duke’s regent decide.”
“Yes. I was just thinking the same.”
The arrow fell upon Ferda.
“In my view, it would be best to leave the decision to the chief researcher who is responsible for all development.”
“Pardon?”
And Ferda promptly flung that arrow straight at Bernel.
“Me?”
Bernel wore a blank, idiotic expression. Yet just as Ferda had said, everyone was waiting for his decision, and he had no choice but to choose.
“W-well then, I…”
Bernel was a pacifist. More than crafting weapons, he was a man who wished to create things that would immediately benefit people. He carefully drew out the thought he had been holding.
“I… I still believe it would be best to begin with weapons…”
“See? Just as I thought.”
“Of course weapons are important, but please consider a little further. I am the one handling the supply of magical beast materials.”
The victor chuckled; the loser attempted a second round of persuasion.
“At first I also thought development in other directions was the right path. But… after seeing the territory governed by Count Consiler, I changed my mind.”
When he had visited Concilus County, he had been near death from mana overload. He had seen the people of the count’s land, and he had seen the pain and grief of families torn apart.
“First we must craft weapons and stop the magical beasts that seek to destroy our homes.”
“Urgh… Very well. If you put it that way…”
Stefan finally yielded. Though his priority had been pushed back, he would still obtain what he wanted in the end.
“Which is why weapon development is already underway as well. We have been studying the characteristics of magical beasts, so I expect to bring you good news.”
“Heh heh, work hard. Your research will become the light of our far east.”
The atmosphere seemed ready to close on a warm note.
“Yes, about those weapons…”
Ferda spoke as though everything had gone perfectly.
“Will those weapons also be as difficult as the explanation you just gave?”
“Pardon? Uh… I’m not certain, but… probably, yes.”
“Excellent.”
Ferda already knew. Bernel Marquis. The first invention he produced would be extraordinarily complex and difficult. The man could realize miracles through complexity, yet he never understood the value of simplicity.
“Fortunately, I have an outstanding sample ready for you.”
“A… sample, sir?”
“Yes, a sample. Enter!”
At Ferda’s call, a man who had been waiting outside stepped in. The moment they saw him, everyone started in surprise. Clad in armor, he was attempting to perform a formal military stride. When his left foot moved, his left hand rose with it; when his right foot moved, his right foot rose again. With that awkward parody of drill, the man strode in with absolute confidence.
The instant Bernel laid eyes on him, a chill ran down his spine.
“Malcolm of Peach Hill! Reporting as summoned!”
“Good, you’re here. I have a task for you.”
“Please give your orders!”
Hand pressed to his chest, he looked like an overeager young boy. It was not a pleasant sight.
“What is two times two?”
“Easy! Four!”
“Correct. Then what is seven times six?”
Again he answered as though it were nothing.
“Thirteen!”
“Well done.”
“Haha, you flatter me!”
Malcolm wore a look of pure pride, while everyone around him felt a cold dread settle over them. The expression on every face said the same thing: Where in the world did he dig up this specimen?
Ferda clapped Bernel on the shoulder and said,
“Make it simple enough that this fellow can understand and use it.”
“Pardon?”
“I trust you can manage at least that much.”
“……Pardon?”
Bernel felt his mind go blank.