After having another hearty lunch, we enjoyed our afternoon tea for a while. Since Rosenberg had joined us for lunch, I decided to ask him about his thoughts on the lost magic documents he had read that morning.
“I understand most of its content,” Rosenberg said. “It is a very different game than its modern-day counterpart...which isn’t that surprising.”
“Right... Its theory seemed rather simple,” I said.
“Is this magic difficult?” Eleonora asked.
The others looked interested in our conversation, and there probably would come a time when I’d ask them to help me with a lost magic project, so I decided to clue them in. “Not necessarily difficult. It uses magical energy in a way that’s completely different from how I’ve used it before. Most magic today uses energy found within the spellcaster themself. Apparently, ancient magic instead sourced its power from nature—outside of the spellcaster’s body. It was almost more like mixing magical potions, if that makes sense. For example, fast-acting potions are crafted with a careful balance of medicinal properties and magical energy. That seems similar to what’s described in the document. What do you think?”
“It describes a hex used on space itself, so the spell and the space around the warlock would be the mortar and pestle, by your comparison,” Rosenberg supplied.
And the ingredient wasn’t herbs but light. The lost curse-breaking spell I’d found involved letting natural light into a preprepared ritual chamber, then casting a hex on that light. It used the Light magical energy found in nature to break a curse.
“You make it sound so easy,” Hudom said.
“It really would be, if I didn’t have to use magical energy found in nature,” I agreed. “None of the descriptions are particularly complex or difficult to visualize. The documents also contained some illustrations of rituals performed in the past. Apparently, they were performed rather casually, during some sort of opportunity for people to congregate—like a tea party or festival—while under a full moon. Taking part in these rituals was as routine as attending church.”
“Oh. So they didn’t have to pay a lot of money for those rituals?” Mizelia asked.
“Nobles would pay a decent sum to the warlock, but commoners paid little to nothing for their services.”
“Why wait for a full moon? Couldn’t they have used sunlight during the day?” Cilia asked.
“Rituals could be performed with sunlight, but there was a risk of damaging people or property in the process when the light was too bright. A minor sunburn might not have been an issue, but this could lead to pain and injury in some cases. On the other hand, moonlight is softened by the dark of night—Dark magical energy. Accordingly, rituals performed under moonlight were safer for this reason,” I explained. Answering questions like this was a good way to review the information I’d learned, and I wanted to address any questions now since I’d be asking for their help in future experiments.
When I first hired them, I had all the adventurers sign an NDA along with their contracts. I trusted them with or without it, but I wanted to set up that safeguard just because I was officially on the job as the duke’s engineer.
“Lord Rosenberg. When and how should we conduct our experiments?” I asked.
“The documents only recommend a cloudless night with a full moon to maximize the effect of the ritual. If our sole goal is to achieve some result from a ritual, all we need is a bit of moonlight—we should be able to start tonight. We would need an open space outside. The cursed ground to the west comes to mind, but the lingering cursed energy in the soil might interfere with the ritual in some way. It would not be a suitable testing ground.”
Then, the lumberyard the goblins were currently setting up sounded like a good fit. There was no cursed energy, and there were no trees to block the moonlight.
When I suggested that idea, Rosenberg smiled and nodded. “Then let us experiment in the lumberyard.”
“Master Takebayashi. Why don’t you expedite the setup of the lumberyard in that case?” Eleonora suggested. “Now that you have assigned more uses to it, its construction should be prioritized.”
She was right. If we were only going to use the lumberyard for its original purpose, I could have continued to let the goblins handle its setup. Since we were going to start using it that night as a testing ground, though, it would behoove me to clear as much of it as possible and level out the ground. “That makes sense. Let’s plan to test out the lost magic tonight. After lunch, we’ll clear up the lumberyard as much as possible to prepare for that. Any objections?” I asked the group.
Cilia timidly raised her hand. “Not an objection, but if you’re going to clear out the lumberyard, wouldn’t it be more efficient for us to take on other jobs? Going into the uncharted west side of the mountain, for example. We won’t contribute much by helping the goblins with hauling lumber and setting up burlaps.”
“I second that,” Mizelia chimed in. “We’ll do whatever you tell us to do, but we’re not gonna be as productive as that many goblins, and we can’t communicate with them, which will make it hard to work together. It’d probably be a pain to try and direct both us and them at the same time.”
Another solid point. Even though giving directions to the adventurers and goblins at the same time wouldn’t be too difficult, the adventurers wouldn’t contribute much—the goblins were really good at tackling simple tasks with their overwhelming numbers. As Cilia suggested, it would be much more beneficial to have the adventurers research the west side to better deal with the cursed energy of the mountain.
“Ryoma. Most of the cursed energy has been cleansed as of yesterday. If we cast some protection on them before sending them out, they shouldn’t be affected by the trace amount of cursed energy that has leaked out of the ground overnight,” Rosenberg said.
“Great! Then I will ask you all to go research the west side this afternoon,” I said, amending our schedule. “It looks like the goblins are taking their lunch too. We’ll give them some more time before heading to work,” I said, seeing that the goblins were napping or having some tea to rest after their productive morning. I would let them get their rest before showing up and spurring them back to work.