WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: LilGuyBlastoise
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ I Made Magic Easier by Changing the Formula ◈
Chapter 4: Cold Eyes in the Midst of Madness
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Noon break.
Rowen’s central district.
The sunlight was scorching, but the cold sweat running down my back had nothing to do with the heat.
Professor Kael’s memo.
Acidic Mist! White Cedar ships! Black Ironwood!
There’s no time. I have to hurry.
A massive stone building.
[Stock Exchange].
The moment I entered, a wave of heat, thick with greed, washed over me.
“Western Trade! Put up Western Trade shares! I’ll pay a premium!”
“The sea route will open soon! The side with the most ships wins, no question!”
“They say the fast ships made by White Cedar Shipyard are the best. I’ll buy 1,000 shares!”
It was madness.
The enormous market board created by mages was covered in red, the color of rising prices.
[Western Trade], especially, had surged by over 30% from its recent price.
Once the war ends, trade volume will explode, so I had expected the stock price to rise tenfold.
But the variable I had seen at the incinerator had shattered that assumption.
Acidic Mist... The White Cedar ships currently in use won’t withstand the fog. They’ll melt away.
I closed my eyes for a moment and imagined it.
The western fleet entered the fog.
The ships began to melt.
They sank, or hurriedly turned back.
And the result?
Trade will become impossible!
Could a trading company make money if its route was blocked?
The [Western Trade] shares those people were buying like mad would soon have no choice but to crash.
Forget a tenfold increase. They might even lose half their value.
The military would panic.
But they could not stop the war now. They would have to cross the sea somehow.
Ships that won’t melt...
The sole alternative written in Professor Kael’s memo.
Black Ironwood.
An outdated material everyone had abandoned because it was heavy and difficult to work with.
It had no magical properties.
It was simply hard and resistant to acid corrosion.
But if the fog disabled magic circles, that brute durability would be the only answer.
Black Forest Timber.
A company that held a monopoly on Black Ironwood production but was going under from lack of demand.
It’s the one and only irreplaceable supplier.
If demand exploded while there was only one supplier...
If I were Professor Kael, I’d have bought up Black Forest Timber shares by the armful.
But Professor Kael did not seem interested in stocks at all.
There was no need to invest in stocks when Kael was already incredibly wealthy.
The only thing Kael cared about was magic.
Decision made.
I pushed through the crowd toward a quiet counter.
“I’d like to place a sell order.”
I pulled the crumpled certificates from my pocket.
Forty shares of [Western Trade], where my entire fortune was tied up.
“Sell all of them? It’s rising like crazy right now, and you want to sell?”
The clerk tilted his head, unable to understand.
Then a low, chilly voice came from behind me.
“Ha ha ha... The judgment of the lowborn truly has clear limits.”
I turned around.
Felix stood there, his neatly groomed blond hair swept back.
He wore the fluttering red silk robe distinctive of the Bergen count’s household.
“Hmph! What an idiot! You finally get your hands on a few shares of Western Trade, and instead of holding on to them, you sell?”
With an arrogant smile, he turned to the children of lesser nobles beside him.
“That’s why poor commoners can only stay poor their whole lives. Isn’t that right?”
“Ha ha ha, exactly, Young Master Felix.”
“Hee hee! Honestly, isn’t even that much wasted on a commoner?”
“Heh... I suppose it is.”
They seemed to be talking about me.
I did not bother reacting.
Instead, I calmly looked at the clerk and urged him on.
“Sell them immediately at market price.”
“Huh. Fine, whatever.”
Sell order filled!
The settlement came to 51 silver and 90 copper.
Even after fees and taxes, I had made nearly a 30% profit on my original 40 silver.
But Felix pointed at the silver coins I received with his chin as though they were filthy waste.
“Tch! To be content with such a paltry sum is truly pathetic. Anyone with sense should know this is an opportunity.”
Felix took a heavy leather pouch from his coat and gently placed it on the counter.
“My Academy grades were good this time, so I received a reward from my family. I’ll use it to buy 500 shares of White Cedar Shipyard. I intend to multiply it several times over. White Cedar Shipyard will be the first stock.”
Then his gaze shifted toward the gentleman in a neat suit standing beside him.
“...And I’ll use those promised funds to buy more as well. That can be arranged, correct?”
“Yes, Felix. However... the interest is somewhat high.”
“I don’t care. I’ll multiply it several times over anyway.”
The gentleman immediately bent at the waist, flattering him.
“As expected of the Bergen family’s young master. The insight of noble blood is on an entirely different level from ordinary people. An ignorant commoner boy like that could never even step on Felix’s shadow.”
Felix’s followers exchanged glances, then eagerly cried out.
“I-I’ll buy some too! One hundred shares of White Cedar Shipyard!”
“Two hundred for me! I’ll buy first without reporting to my family! But what should I do if I don’t have enough money?”
Felix pointed at the gentleman beside him.
“Ask Dels. I borrowed twenty gold this time too.”
Dels bowed politely once more.
“Of course. One should not lack funds at an opportunity like this. The interest is rather high, but if you wish, I can provide a loan immediately.”
“Ha ha, I’ll borrow some.”
“If Young Master Felix borrowed money, then I will too.”
My brow tightened slightly.
Dels...? Could that be the Dels?
The heartless loan shark who would skin people alive if they failed to repay their debts.
That loan shark was lending money from inside the exchange while dressed in a suit.
They really are idiots.
Buying White Cedar Shipyard in this situation?
And borrowing from a loan shark to do it?
They’re determined to ruin themselves.
I decided not to care anymore.
I should worry about myself. They can all do as they please.
Adding the one silver allowance my father had given me, I placed my next order.
“I’d like to place a buy order.”
At the very bottom of the market board was a stock no one even glanced at, gathering dust.
[Black Forest Timber].
- 5 copper per share
“What? Black Forest Timber?”
The clerk could not believe his ears.
“There are only sell orders for that. No one is buying. There’s even a rumor it’ll be delisted soon. They say its warehouses are overflowing with Black Ironwood.”
“That’s why I’m buying it.”
I answered without blinking.
“Buy as much as you can at market price with the full 52 silver and 90 copper.”
Felix and the others’ brows twitched.
They wore expressions as though they had smelled something foul.
“Black Forest? Black Ironwood? Puhahaha! You really are beyond saving. Isn’t that a stock with no chance of rising even in a hundred years?”
“Ha ha ha! Black Ironwood? Who would use such stupidly heavy wood? The key to shipbuilding is lightweight construction!”
“Once the sea route opens, it’ll be the age of fast ships. If you go backward like that fool Hans, you’ll lose everything.”
“Hee hee... What an idiot. He’ll waste every last coin he worked so hard to save.”
“Kekeke... What would a commoner know? He’s destined to be a beggar forever.”
Felix and the others turned away as though I was no longer worth speaking to.
“Let’s go. Even breathing the same air as such a vulgar person is a trial.”
“Yes, Felix.”
I did not care.
“Please buy them already.”
“Fine. It’s done.”
[Purchase Complete: Black Forest Timber, 1,058 shares]
Thanks to them, I swept them up for next to nothing.
The clerk shook his head and handed me a thick bundle of stock certificates.
* * *
The moment I left the exchange, I ran like mad.
Damn. Break ended ten minutes ago already.
Huff, huff...
The instant I entered through the library’s back door, I sensed an unsettling atmosphere.
The guard, who should normally have been dozing, stood ramrod straight.
The librarians walking through the halls also wore tense expressions.
“Hey, Hans! Where have you been? Why are you only getting here now?”
The head librarian approached with a grim face.
“I’m sorry. I had an upset stomach.”
“An upset stomach? Is that the problem right now? Hurry to the second reading room. They’re packing everything up.”
The second reading room.
When I opened the door, a chaotic sight greeted me.
Professor Kael’s books and experimental equipment, which had been piled on the desks, were being moved into several boxes.
“Move.”
Professor Kael was just about to leave, robes fluttering.
Kael passed right by me without even looking my way.
“Dale, take care of the rest yourself. I’m going to the Imperial Capital.”
Bang.
The professor left as though there was not even time to return my greeting.
Only Dale, the assistant who had been organizing the luggage, and I remained.
Dale scratched their head with an awkward expression.
“Uh... Hans. You’re here.”
“What happened?”
“The professor has to go to the Imperial Capital on urgent business. They have to leave today. Ah... and you don’t need to come in starting tomorrow.”
“What? What do you mean?”
Dale cleared their throat uneasily.
“With the professor gone, the library budget has been frozen. It’s effectively shut down.”
The budget had been frozen?
Was that why I had lost my job?
“I’m sorry. Orders came down from above to reduce personnel. Your contract ends today.”
“So I’ve been fired.”
“As you know, you weren’t an official librarian. You were temporary staff hired with the professor’s personal research funds. Now that the budget is gone, there’s no money to pay you.”
I stood there blankly.
Unemployed overnight.
Dale pulled a pouch from their coat and held it out to me.
“Here. Take it. Your final pay.”
It felt heavy.
“I put in a good word for you. I told them you’d worked diligently this whole time. So I got them to add ten copper, making it forty copper.”
Dale patted my shoulder as though taking credit for it.
“Pack your things and leave quietly.”
Dale hurried away with a box of luggage.
I packed my own things and left the library.
The iron gate shut with a thud, sounding especially loud.
As I trudged home, an even greater regret welled up inside me than the shock of being fired.
I can earn money some other way.
But the library was like the root of knowledge to me.
The advanced information Professor Kael and the noble mages carelessly let slip, the spellbooks I glimpsed over their shoulders, the treasure-like notes I picked out of the trash.
Every opportunity to learn had been cut off as of today.
No matter how many thousands of books I remembered, knowledge would rot if left stagnant.
I needed to keep encountering new things.
No. Think positively.
I shook my head and steadied myself.
I could not spend my whole life secretly dusting books.
The time had come when I could focus entirely on my own magic research without worrying about anyone else’s opinion.
* * *
I barely ate dinner before going straight down to the basement.
My father had looked worried when I told him I had been fired, but he did not say anything in particular.
Click.
I locked the basement door and stood in front of the workbench.
“Now, let’s do this properly.”
Rustle.
A single ragged scrap of cloth.
It was discarded, low-grade fabric, stained and frayed.
[First-Tier Composite Formula: Tear Mending + Grime Cleansing]
I applied Professor Kael’s formula optimization theory, which I had watched at the incinerator yesterday, in my own way.
It really was different.
The flow of mana is much smoother.
After a while, a pure white handkerchief was completed and fell onto the workbench.
“One.”
Without even wiping my sweat, I picked up the next piece of cloth.
“Two.”
A tedious repetition.
Sweat running down my forehead stung my eyes.
My fingertips grew numb, and my head throbbed, but I did not stop.
It looks like simple labor, but...
To me, this time was training.
Tsk!
With my low mana sensitivity, I could not even dream of grand magic that spent mana by the handful.
Instead, I had to realize the ultimate efficiency of using the one mana I possessed as though it were a hundred.
This sewing magic was the finest training, tempering my mana core as hard and precise as steel.
Thinner. Faster. More perfect.
I lost track of time.
As the light from the depleted mana crystals grew dimmer, pale handkerchiefs piled neatly beside the workbench.
My mana core became slightly stronger every day.
My speed improved as well.
Being driven out of the library had turned out to be a blessing instead.
Several peaceful days passed like that.
Then, one dawn, far beyond the western sky...
A massive wave began to rise.
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