Zig quickly defended himself. “Wait, hang on. Don’t get it twisted. I kicked the barrier, not the magic item.”
Even if he didn’t care about his reputation, he didn’t want to be seen as a savage who just kicked anything he didn’t understand.
“I don’t think you’re that dumb,” Gantt said and sighed loudly.
It irritated Zig, but going by Sciezka’s wry smile, it looked like he was the one being unreasonable.
Gantt proceeded to lecture him like he was a child who was slow on the uptake.
“The piece is definitely second-rate. But in another sense, it did its job. It’s small, and the barrier it made could be strong enough to fight monstrosities. And you kicked it so hard you broke it… Are you actually human?”
“Don’t look at me,” Zig scoffed. He folded his arms and turned away. “The guy who made it must be third-rate.”
“Well, that’s suspicious. You’re not some kind of humanoid monstrosity, are you?”
“If I were, I’d start with massacring you. Now stop being dumb and look into it. I don’t care if you have to disassemble it.”
“All right, all right, no need to pout.”
With his jokes made, Gantt carefully took the magic item apart. Removing the clasp and slowly opening the cracks, he peered inside with his loupe.
“Do you know where it was made?” Zig asked.
“The methods of manufacture are quite orthodox. Common design… That’ll make it hard to pin down. No engravings of the guy who made it either.”
Some blacksmiths and goldsmiths inscribed their names on their work. The distribution was about fifty-fifty. Gantt himself was among the ones who didn’t sign his work.
“Uhh?”
Just as Zig thought it was going to be hard to get information out of the bracelet, Gantt let out a confused noise as he inspected the cracked cover.
“Did you find something?”
“Well, there’s nothing strange about the magic item itself, but… Brush.”
“Here.”
Sciezka handed him a brush. Gantt’s eyes remained fixed on the magic item. He held his breath so whatever he found wouldn’t be blown away and carefully brushed the inside of the broken cover, collecting its contents onto a plate. Two small particles fell upon it.
Gantt picked one up with a tweezer. “What is this?”
At first glance, the hardened white powder looked like a sugar crystal.
“Did it get in through the seams?” Zig asked.
“No. While the construction isn’t watertight, it could mostly keep water and moisture out. There’s no way something like this would slip through the seam.”
The fragment was the size of the point on a pen. Even if the item was cracked, it seemed unlikely that the particle was in there by chance. Whatever the substance was, it was placed inside the bracelet during its creation.
“I take it back. This guy’s worse than third-rate. He was having lunch while engraving a magic seal! I’ll beat the shit out of him if I see him.” Gantt clenched his fists as veins popped in his temples, unable to stand the shoddy craftsmanship any longer.
Meanwhile, Zig took a closer look at the white particulate. He pressed it between his fingers. It was hard. He smelled it—odorless. He nicked a piece of it with his fingernail and licked it. It held a unique bitterness. However, he recognized it and immediately understood that it wasn’t meant to be ingested in its pure form.
“Whoever made this wasn’t having lunch. His head was probably in the clouds when he made this.”
“In the clouds? What are you… Ohhhh.” Gantt slapped a palm to his face when he realized what Zig was talking about regarding the white particle. He wore an exasperated look.
Sciezka looked hatefully at the white particle.
“So that’s what it is. But can you do precision work like seal engraving when vacationing on the moon?”
“Some types let you do that.”
Drugs could be roughly categorized between stimulants and depressants. Some dulled the pain, some sharpened the senses, some chased away fatigue. But most fell into one of these two types.
“The drug forces the user into an awakened state,” Zig said, “allowing them to work for long hours with greater precision.”
“It does sound like it would benefit precision work,” Gantt mused. “Doesn’t sound sustainable, though.”
“Of course,” Sciezka said. “There is always a price when pushing the body past its natural limits. Besides, Gantt, you do excellent work even without it. Hard work fits humanity best.”
Relying on them too much is dangerous, so I just use them like a tool.
Although Zig knew there were long-term consequences, they meant nothing if he couldn’t survive today. For him, drugs were tools to be used when the occasion arose. Using everything at his disposal was the best way to get out of a sticky situation, of which he had gone through many.
However, Zig kept these opinions to himself.
The fact was that not using drugs altogether was the best option, though many who used them wanted a means of escape during a war.
“As for what this substance is…I guess I’ll have to ask a professional,” Zig said.
“Wait,” Sciezka said. “I’ll write to Katia as well.”
“Thanks.”
Katia, the daughter of one of the mafia dons, seemed to have some kind of relationship with Sciezka. They weren’t exactly friends, but they were on speaking terms and seemed to be stuck with each other. Each was in a place where they could pull a favor or two from the other.
“It’s not really a favor… I’m just going to say, ‘Can’t you manage your territories properly?’” Sciezka said, her tone a cold bite.