“My apologies. When all’s said and done, I’m still a merchant at heart. It took blood, sweat, and tears—as well as some intel I acquired from other ruins—to get my hands on this slab. Showing it to you for free would be against my principles.”
“What would I have to do to see it?”
“If this inscription turns out to be the key to stopping the explosions in the Volcanic Miasma Zone, I ask that you repay me by letting my colleagues walk free, even if I must stay.”
He wanted us to let his underlings go. That certainly wasn’t the demand I was expecting to hear.
“Don’t you want to be acquitted, too?” I asked.
“I doubt Prince Osvalt would agree to that. No hard feelings, I assure you.” Harry looked at his minions, who were standing behind him, as he pleaded for their exoneration. “These other gentlemen, however, are essentially victims of my selfish scheme. Oh, I simply can’t bear the thought of them being severely punished on my account.”
No matter how enticing Harry may have been, the trespassers still needed to take accountability for their actions. The law was the law. Under normal circumstances, it would be ridiculous to request that they be absolved of their guilt—but this was no normal situation.
“What do you think, Sir Osvalt?” I said. “I’m afraid that Harry will destroy that stone if we try to restrain him.”
“You’ve seen right through me. We may as well cut to the chase.”
Harry would stop at nothing to get his way. His cunning yet tenacious behavior made that obvious. Nevertheless, it was up to Sir Osvalt to decide whether to accept the terms of the exchange. I left the decision to him.
“Aside from Harry, the main culprit, everyone else was just working for cash?” said Sir Osvalt. “I get it. As long as they answer truthfully when questioned, I’ll make sure they don’t face charges. It was admirable of you not to beg for your own release.”
“Are you sure about that, Sir Osvalt?” I said.
“Yep. If this guy can help us put the explosions in the Volcanic Miasma Zone to rest, I can’t see my brother complaining.” Having pardoned Harry’s underlings, Sir Osvalt glowered at Rick. “But Rick, your case is different. I can’t let you get away with this.”
“O-of course. I understand completely. Uhh, indeed!”
It couldn’t be helped. Rick had betrayed the trust of the king himself. Regardless of his reasons, Sir Osvalt didn’t have the authority to forgive him.
“Are you happy with that, Harry? Show your stone tablet to Philia. I’ll keep my promise, if I can trust you to keep yours.”
“Certainly. You’re renowned for your fairness, Sir Osvalt. I don’t see you going back on your word.”
With a complacent smile, Harry handed me the stone tablet. It was covered in inscriptions in an archaic language. The diagram was a blueprint, just as he claimed.
I spent a while examining the text and the diagram.
“Harry is right. This is a blueprint for a magic tool that can stop the explosions.”
“What? Is that true, Philia? If we could use that tool—”
“Yes. We could stop the explosions in the Volcanic Miasma Zone. This blueprint uses specialized terminology and some parts have been written in code, so I can see why it was difficult to interpret.”
The blueprint for the magical tool was written in an archaic language. Deciphering it would be challenging even for archeologists. Beyond that, I doubted many archeologists knew enough about magic tools to understand the blueprint.
“I see, I see. I take it that decoding this tablet is impossible, even for some like you, Lady Phi—”
“No, not really. I’ve got the gist of it.”
“Huh?” Harry barked out a laugh. “Yet another surprise. Are you telling me you deciphered it that quickly?”
“Well, yes, aside from the most technical details. I think I grasp around ninety percent of it.”
Thanks to my knowledge of magic tools, the inscription wasn’t too difficult to read. I had a rough understanding of how to construct the tool and how it was supposed to work.
“What kind of tool is it?” asked Sir Osvalt.
“The principle is simple. Magic explosions are a common occurrence in the Volcanic Miasma Zone because the mana in the atmosphere is extremely unstable. This is a blueprint for a device that stabilizes the concentration of mana.”
“So it stops the explosions by neutralizing their cause.”
“My goodness. I knew you were gifted, Lady Philia, but not this gifted…”
While Sir Osvalt nodded to himself, Harry gave me a defiant smile. He wasn’t going to be pardoned—in fact, he was about to be arrested—yet something about his behavior seemed off. Why was he so relaxed?
“Still, even Rick—a dedicated archeologist—found it hard to decipher. You were pretty quick there.”
“The truth is, I’d been working on a tool along those lines myself. That made the tablet easier to decipher than I expected.”
Maybe it was a coincidence, or perhaps it was inevitable. Having experienced the explosions firsthand, I understood what was causing them. It made perfect sense that I might envision a solution similar to what the ancients had developed. The blueprint was largely consistent with the design I’d conceived myself, guided by hints from ancient writings.
“The ancients were proficient at dealing with mana, so the magic tools they created would have been more precise than ours.”
“That explains why some of the excavated relics are referred to as divine objects.”
“Exactly. Their expertise made me optimistic that they’d developed a mana stabilization device. Like Harry, I went to the ruins hoping to borrow some of their wisdom.”
“In other words, the stone tablet Harry found was exactly what you were looking for.”
“That’s right.”
Harry had found the tablet by breaking into the ruins. I was a bit reluctant to admit that he’d found the item I was searching for, but there was no changing the truth.
If I could decrypt the inscription even more precisely, I would be able to create the mana-stabilizing tool.
“And now,” said Sir Osvalt, “if we can build this magic tool, we can stabilize the mana and put a stop to the explosions?”
I nodded. “Yes. That’s precisely it, Sir Osvalt.”
In theory, his assessment was correct—and yet…
“There’s just one problem.”
“There is?”
“To create a magic tool, one needs magic ore. I used it in these bracelets, for example.” I took off my bracelet and showed it to Sir Osvalt. “A device powerful enough to stabilize the mana of the entire Volcanic Miasma Zone will require a substantial quantity of it.”
“A substantial quantity? How much, exactly?”
“At a conservative estimate, I believe we’d need more than double the amount of magic ore that exists in Parnacorta.”
Knowing how the magic tool worked was merely the first step. Procuring the necessary materials could be an even greater challenge.
“Even if we scraped together all the magic ore in the country, it still wouldn’t be enough?” Sir Osvalt scratched his head, looking troubled. “Sounds like we’re in a tough spot.”
His concern was understandable. I’d been so hung up on the problem of designing the tool, I’d ignored all other issues.
Still, panicking wouldn’t get us anywhere. If we had to spend years solving the problem, working on it little by little, it would be well worth the effort.
“My goodness. I see you’ve found yourselves in a bit of a predicament.” Harry, who’d been listening to our conversation, took a step forward. “If it’s magic ore you’re after, may I humbly suggest you entrust the matter to me?”
Harry was said to be one of Ashbrugge’s top merchants. Did he have a way to obtain large quantities of magic ore?
“Go ahead, Harry. If you have an idea, let’s hear it.”
“Of course. Allow me to make my sales pitch. As a matter of fact, I handle the procurement and export of magic ore not just for the kingdom of Ashbrugge, but for the entire continent.”
“Do you?”
“I do indeed. In other words, I’m in a position to secure as much magic ore as you require. Did I hear you say you needed twice the quantity of ore that Parnacorta has to offer? I could gather that amount for you in no time at all.”
I hadn’t guessed his business included dealing in magic ore. It seemed as though we’d been dancing to his tune all along.
“Good grief. I’ve never known anyone so cunning,” said Sir Osvalt. “Well, what’s your price? I bet your freedom is just the beginning.”
“You certainly don’t disappoint, Your Highness. Your wisdom astonishes me.”
Despite feeling taken aback by Harry’s cunning conduct, Sir Osvalt asked him what he was willing to charge—to which Harry responded with a nod of satisfaction.
It looked like Sir Osvalt had figured out Harry’s scheme, too.
“You knew you had a huge bargaining chip for yourself, so you made me promise to release your underlings first,” said Sir Osvalt. “For a moment there, I was impressed. I genuinely believed that you were more concerned about other people than saving your own skin. I feel so stupid now.”
“My goodness. My wish to secure my employees’ safety was rooted in genuine consideration, I assure you.”
“Don’t play me for a fool. You probably suspected that whatever this magic tool was, it’d require a ton of your ore. You only stood up for the other guys to make negotiations smoother for you later on.”