WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Dionysus
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ The Wizard's Memoir ◈
Chapter 23: Mule
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Books were one way to see just how much better the world had become.
Only a hundred years ago, no one could imagine making a book out of anything but parchment. A single book required anywhere from 100 to 250 sheepskins, so one book cost as much as a hundred sheep. There might be a little exaggeration involved, so let’s not ask what happened to the meat and wool.
As technology advanced and civilization developed, paper was created to replace sheepskin.
Paper made from reeds or hemp had existed before, but cotton-fiber paper was the first kind that could be bound into books and preserved for a long time.
For those hungry for knowledge, it was an invention as great as the bow or the stirrup. After all, an age had arrived when someone could sit and read in a backstreet of a northern city.
“Oh! Basic Lectures on Transmutation! I used to read this every day when I was little...”
Etran, who now thought he was all grown up, excitedly pulled out one book after another.
The selection was so broad that it was hard to believe this was a provincial city(?). There were educational books for children, such as A Young Sapling’s Guide to Becoming a Magician, as well as specialist works like Origins: Similarities Between Forgotten Dragon Magic and Elven Magic of Ancient Times.
“I haven’t seen this one before. Is it a revised edition?”
“How would I know?”
The bookseller remained relaxed as the young boy raided the shelves.
One good thing about a bookshop like this was that customers could pay a few dena and read freely without having to buy anything.
They even lent books to people whose identities they could verify, but they were reluctant to go that far for an outsider. Given his profession, Etran couldn’t afford to carry more luggage anyway, so taking books with him would have been a problem.
Once he had picked out all the books he wanted, Etran sat on the floor and began turning the pages one by one.
As someone called a genius, he could speed-read. He could even perform the remarkable feat of opening three books and reading them at the same time. But he didn’t read that way unless he was cramming the night before an exam.
It was disrespectful to the authors, and it left little room to reflect on what he read and develop his own ideas. Above all, he didn’t want to rush through such a happy time.
The bookseller served the first new customer they’d had in a while a complimentary cup of tea. It wasn’t expensive tea from the East, just an herbal tea brewed from flower petals, but it made the smell of paper all the sweeter.
It was nice to see a child who loved books, unlike most children these days. Of course, children in the old days hadn’t read much either, but memories tended to correct themselves, so there was no need to examine that too closely. In any case, gaining another regular customer was a good thing.
“Ah...”
The bookseller should have given a little more thought to the fact that Etran didn’t simply love books. He loved magic books.
While reading the revised edition of the book whose seventeen-sentence title was shortened to Basic Lectures on Transmutation, Etran suddenly let out a cry.
“I could run it backward, couldn’t I?”
The bookseller gave him a puzzled look. Etran didn’t notice the gaze and snapped his fingers. Snap!
“A m-mage?!”
Several of the regular customers were mages, but this was the first one the bookseller had seen without wrinkles. It was startling. Still, it was too early to be surprised. Keeping his eyes on the book, Etran drew a magic circle in the air. He seemed to be planning a quick test, but his manners left something to be desired.
“Fire! Fire! Fire!”
He had produced the very thing that required the most caution in a bookshop. It was only the size of a thumb, but it was a lively flame.
The bookseller considered throwing the tea over it, then remembered it was magical fire and began to panic. They had once heard of a fire that grew larger when water was poured on it. Etran paid no attention, lost in his own world.
If magic could produce light without heat, the reverse was possible too.
Putting that into practice required an extremely complicated circuit, or magic circle, but he could leave that to distinguished Wizards and focus on the essentials. He had reversed basic Light Tracery and turned it into flame.
‘Flamma.’
This was basic magic too. It wasn’t as large as Fireball, nor did it explode over a wide area. It was more a spell for everyday use than an attack spell. But it could be adapted, just as Light Tracery could draw magic circles and Floating Disc could make multiple copies.
The revelations that often appeared in heroic novels weren’t anything special. A true revelation was less about some grand philosophical truth and more about recognizing a bad habit or discovering a new use for something. In that sense, Etran had gained a revelation.
‘If I adapt it through Light Tracery, it’ll have duration and direction, so I can control the fire itself. The problem is how much mana it gathers. The heat output I can get from a Light Tracery circuit is... about this much...?’
As though expressing the bookseller’s burning anxiety, the flame grew larger. Now the size of a newborn’s fist, it went Fwoosh! It wouldn’t have been particularly frightening anywhere that wasn’t surrounded by paper. Which meant it was very frightening right now.
“H-hey! I mean, excuse me! Look here!”
The bookseller’s voice rose to a shriek. Etran finally emerged from his thoughts and turned.
“Yes?”
His blank voice took the wind out of the bookseller’s sails. Irritation and anger promptly filled the gap. Pointing outside, the bookseller shouted firmly.
“Out!”
@
The shop would have closed at sunset anyway.
Open flames were strictly forbidden, so even reading by candlelight was impossible. He wouldn’t have been able to read inside the bookshop.
“Sigh...”
Etran looked up at the sky, then down at the ground.
The tall buildings, three or four stories high, blocked his view of the sun, but the twelfth hour was approaching. When the Church rang its bell, it would be sunset. From then on, the night hours, the watchmen’s hours, would begin.
‘Should I go back to the Guild Pub?’
The market streets were still crowded, but their almost crazed energy had eased. With fewer customers and the workers heading home, some shops were already closing up.
For the first time, Etran could take a proper look at every corner of Northern Ridge’s market. There was a bakery, a cloth shop, a butcher’s shop, a general store, and just about everything else a market needed. What caught his eye at once, however, was a food stall still open for business.
It wasn’t a proper restaurant or pub.
It was a street stall with a few simple stools and braziers, serving bits of meat on skewers. He couldn’t identify the meat, and the cleanliness of the skewers was questionable, but anyone who worried about such things wouldn’t be able to live in a city. Etran sat in an empty seat and ordered as casually as he could.
“One skewer, please.”
“Two for one dena.”
“What if I only want one?”
“Bring me a cup of barley. Or find some scrap metal.”
Such a transaction was unthinkable in the royal capital, but it happened often enough in the countryside.
Etran handed over one silver piece and ordered two. It wasn’t a bad choice. There were so few pieces of meat on each skewer that one wouldn’t have filled him up.
“Hmm... Is this rabbit?”
Naturally, there were no expensive seasonings like pepper, garlic, or sugar, and only a little salt had been sprinkled on it. Still, it was surprisingly tasty. The stallholder pointed with their chin toward a corner of the alley.
“Rat.”
“...Can I return it?”
“A young gentleman raised in comfort, eh?”
Etran said he was joking and finished both skewers. If he continued adventuring, he would probably end up catching and eating such animals from time to time.
“Beer?”
“No alcohol for me, thanks.”
“So you are a young gentleman.”
As the sun sank, the heat eased.
To a mage who had come from far to the south, it hardly counted as heat at all. The locals, however, were desperate for cool beer brought up from deep underground.
“Etran? Having something tasty all on your own?”
There was a familiar face among the people out enjoying the evening air. Etran called out happily.
“Olivia?”
“I’m here too! Don’t say it’s because I’m small!”
“I haven’t said that yet.”
Olivia and Dahlia walked over from the far side of the market.
He had thought they were resting at the Guild Pub, but they were adventurers after all. Or perhaps it was because they were women. Unable to sit still, they had gone shopping. In that sense, he had to object to the “on your own” part.
“Did you eat here?”
“Yes. It was good.”
“They sell three for one dena over there.”
Both women held meat skewers in each hand. Etran turned a sharp gaze on the stallholder. The excuse came at once, as though this happened often.
“Those are sewer rats.”
“Yours are rats too!”
Grumbling, Etran returned his empty skewers. Olivia laughed and drew him into their group.
“We were going to take you along, but we couldn’t find you all day.”
“What about Rolf?”
“Wanted some time alone. A lonely middle-aged soul, you know.”
“Not quite middle-aged yet...”
If they ignored racial lifespans and counted years alone, Dahlia was much older, but Etran didn’t mention it. That sounded like trouble.
“What did you do out on your own? You can’t have spent all that time eating skewers.”
“I did some reading.”
“Books? Booooks?”
“Food for the mind. They fill you up in a way bread and meat can’t.”
Etran snapped his fingers. Snap! A flame appeared, familiar yet somehow unfamiliar.
Olivia took a bite of meat and watched with interest. This was the first time she had seen Etran use fire. Was it a spell to replace flint? He looked strangely pleased with himself for something like that.
“I’ll show you some results soon.”
@
After spending a day resting in their own ways, Olivia’s party gathered again in the first-floor hall.
It had only been a day, but that was enough to check their physical condition and inspect their equipment. In other words, it was time to decide on their next journey.
“I’m in.”
Dahlia raised her hand first. That was expected from a halfling seeker who agreed to anything that earned dena.
“I’m in favor too.”
Rolf didn’t raise a hand, but agreed as well. Olivia glanced at Etran and nodded. There was no need to ask him.
“It’ll take a whole day just to get there. We’ve got a lot to prepare.”
“Are there no villages nearby?”
“I hear there’s a temporary camp for adventurers, but it won’t be cheap.”
Whatever they needed, the camp would charge several times the usual price. They had to bring as many supplies as possible if they wanted to return without making a loss. Etran’s shoulders were already drooping. Then an unexpected lifeline appeared.
“We should buy a mule.”
“Huh?”
“If there’s a camp, there should be someone who can look after livestock. Otherwise, we could take it into the dungeon. We can keep one animal under control.”
Mules weren’t as large as horses or as ill-tempered as donkeys. They ate all sorts of things and rarely suffered from minor illnesses. For adventurers who wandered everywhere from mountaintops to the depths of underground caves, they were the best livestock there was.
“There’s no reason we couldn’t, if the price is right...”
Olivia murmured as she considered the party’s shared funds. Including their earlier savings, they had a little over 8,000 dena. That was enough to buy a packhorse, never mind a mule.
“Saving our strength would make our exploration more efficient too. I suppose this is an investment? All right! Let’s go to the horse market.”
Etran cheered silently. Why silently? Because Dahlia’s cheers drowned him out.
However, their departure for Elf Garden would have to wait a few more days. Adventurers were members of society too, and even they couldn’t escape politics and intrigue.
“The margrave’s been murdered! The lord of the north has been assassinated!”
A different kind of heat from yesterday rose through the city. It was a summer thick with the smell of iron.
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