Kapitel 27: A small slipup

Eliseline and the bishop fell into thought, before glancing at each other again. Eliseline used the noise-cancelling spell again, and the two started talking. This time, it was Eliseline who was facing Savine.

"I think it's worth a try."

"…"

"I don't know… Maybe she'll take hold of most of the 20%? Maybe she'll take half of it."

"…"

"Yes. Even if the duke isn't included in the contract, we must pay him at least 5%."

"…"

"It's for our duchy's future."

"…" the bishop's arms flailed around, spit flying as he talked.

Eliseline's face turned deadly cold.

"Shut. Your mouth."

'Hmm?'

"…" the bishop murmured something under his breath.

"…"

"Don't forget your position," Eliseline added coldly and finally, her expression became normal.

'What just happened?' Savine wondered with interest.

The bishop said something that truly angered Eliseline. Even now, Savine could feel her wrath oozing from her eyes. But even if she was deathly curious about their conversation, Savine Gift was not at its best.

"Regardless… we'll send a letter to the Head Temple and maybe send a few samples of Savine's inventions as well."

"…"

With that, Eliseline cancelled the spell and glanced at Savine.

"Can you make us some samples?" she asked.

"Sure. Do you have magic molds?"

"Magic molds?"

"Those things inside that light-creating magic tool you had. The thing that records magic."

"Ah, the Registrars. We've got enough of those, don't worry."

"Registrars, huh? A cool name. Anyway, then aside from that… find me a few woodworkers and blacksmiths. Or, just get me ten more Vasas. That way, I can make the device myself by tomorrow."

Eliseline stared at Savine for a few seconds before speaking. "I'll ask for them from the Head Temple when we send the samples. Right now, even if we wanted to give you the Vasas, we don't have them."

"Sure," Savine shrugged.

"But why would you need Registrars? When they run out of mana, a mage must prepare the spell and supply it with mana. Even if the magic tools are extremely useful, what will the other Duchies do after they run out of energy? Send them back to us so we can prepare the spell for them?"

"Of course not," Savine smiled. "The Registrars worked by me will be a bit special as a mage doesn't have the prepare the spell. They just have to supply it with mana. It doesn't even have to be a mage. You can just chuck in a mana stone into it and it should work."

Eliseline expression turned both surprised and grim.

"Are you serious?"

"Yes, yes. I'm sure given a couple more years, someone in the world would've thought of doing the same. Don't make such a big deal out of it," Savine waved her hand dismissively. "I can show you after I fully tame my mana with these two Vasas, which will probably take about a week."

Eliseline was still glaring at Savine for dropping a bombshell like that, but Savine continued as if she said nothing of importance.

"So, take your time when gathering the craftsmen. For now, we can go to a few farming lands and those animal sheds at your leisure, and. Ah, we must see a blacksmith for the brand, anyway."

"…Let's go see a blacksmith, then. Wear something casual."

With that, Savine got Zuri from her room, changed into a loose dress, and with Eliseline got into a carriage and headed towards the craftsmen's corner of the city.

The beauty was wearing a blouse and a loosely fitting dress underneath. She looked like a young miss of a rich family, but not quite like a noble. Without the priest's garbs she looked refreshing and sunny.

<Look, it's Lady Eliseline.>

<Ah, we're blessed.>

<Ah, she looked at me. I feel like I understand why I was so unlucky today. It was because I used up all my luck for this.>

<There's the white-haired kid too. I told you she was with Lady Eliseline.>

<That's why it's weird. I have this urge to go up to her and dedicate my everything for her… that kinda feeling.>

Compared to the more traditionally residential areas, the craftsmen's corner was a bit more spacious, with distances between houses much larger than it needed to be. And from a glance, Savine could see that a few craftsmen of a similar profession lived close to each other in clusters and that they were sharing some of the heavy-duty equipment with each other.

The three came to one such cluster, one with a giant furnace and the rhythmic sounds of metal striking metal. One of the cluster's houses seemed to work as a shopfront, so the two entered that.

A burly looking man was wiping the dust off the products lined up on the wall. Most of them were kitchenware, some were gardening tools, and there was a small collection of hunting daggers.

"Good day to you, ladies!" he said, briefly staring at Eliseline. "What can I get for you?"

Savine was impressed with his ability to contain his emotions. On the way, not a small amount of people stood on the streets staring at Eliseline. The process usually started with them noticing Savine's white hair, then noticing Eliseline's face and just getting stuck.

"We're trying to make some brands, but the shape's somewhat unusual," Zuri spoke up and showed a drawing Savine made.

The shape of the rune was a perfect circle with two lines crossing each other in the middle, expect the lines were somewhat curved.

"The lines here must change its thickness just like how it's drawn on the picture."

The blacksmith looked at it and frowned. "This ain't that difficult… but."

"The shape must be the exact same as the drawing, please."

The blacksmith harrumphed. "Even if I do it perfectly, it'll be hard to recreate it exactly the same as the picture, aye?"

"Please simply do your best," Zuri urged. "You can forge and then sand it and we'll see how it turns out."

"But why's it gotta be this shape exactly?"

"It's a magic rune."

With the mention of magic, the blacksmith's expression went a drastic change.

"With all due respect," he coughed. "There are blacksmiths who specialize in magic tools in the bigger cities. I'm afraid I don't have the skills nor the rights to make such things…"

"The reason why you don't have the skills to make them is because you don't have the mana stones to work with them. We'll provide you with that. And, the reason you don't have the rights to make them is because the Sovereignty holds absolute control over the existing magic tools," Zuri said. "But the key word there is: existing. This brand here is something my mistress designed from scratch. There's no other copy elsewhere, so there's no reason for you to be punished."

The blacksmith looked unconvinced. As far as he was concerned, Zuri was just lying about the brand being her own design.

"Ah, in that case, why not do this?" Savine said. "You'll make the brand out of simple metals and sell it to us. After that, we'll add the mana stones ourselves. That way, you only made a brand for us. You didn't know we were making a magic tool."

"We'll pay you handsomely, of course," Zuri said, shaking a bag of coins. "We understand these things take a considerable amount of skill."

Seeing the money, the blacksmith conceded.

"I'll take a try."