Back in my room, I took solace in its familiarity. I sat on my bed, staring at the floor. At present, my magic research had run up against a reef. It wasn’t hopeless. I could still detach myself and keep sailing somehow, but I just didn’t know how.
On the one hand, mana felt like it had unlimited possibilities. It was just I who lacked in both knowledge and imagination. I knew there had to be other things I could do with it, but the days kept passing by without any answers.
I’m sure that inventors back on Earth went through this same anguish. Those guys were geniuses blessed with remarkable intellects—unlike me, who was just a normal human. It only made sense that my mental blocks were even rougher than those of famous inventors.
In fact, it was surprising that everything had gone so smoothly thus far. You could say too smoothly. For a hot minute, it seemed like I’d legitimately discovered magic in this world. Now, that pace had slowed to a crawl.
“The big problem is lightning magic, right?” I muttered.
Applying mana to the thundercite had no practical use whatsoever. I could use Flare so long as I had a portable flint on me, but lightning magic had too many conditions—not to mention it didn’t function like I wanted it to. Maybe I had to admit my approach was off.
I needed to change my focus. Rather than focusing on the mana, I could focus on the tools I had available. Basically, how could I change the thundercite to function like a flint?
Thundercite was a mineral that intermittently emitted electricity. This meant that I couldn’t control when I needed the lightning. If I had a tool that could generate electricity, that would solve everything.
Yeah, right. I didn’t even have the technology to make such a tool.
These were my thoughts over the past few days, and as I mulled over them further, I heard a knock on the door. Dad was the only one who knocked, so I assumed it was him. I was surprised when I opened the door.
“Howdy, Shion.”
It was Graste, Dad’s old friend and blacksmith from Istria, who had made Marie’s sword. I overcame my surprise and smiled. “Hello, Mr. Graste.”
“Hello, hello. Sorry to interrupt, but can you come downstairs? I need to talk to you.”
“Talk…with me? O-okay.”
I hadn’t seen Graste since mining the thundercite. I’d been so focused on researching magic, I never joined Dad on his trips to the city. Marie and Mom went with him sometimes, but I ended up staying home every time.
I certainly wasn’t expecting Graste to have any business with me. It wasn’t like I’d done anything wrong to him, so there was no need to be concerned. I followed him downstairs to the living room. Mom, Dad, and Marie were all gathered there. They were sitting down and pleasantly chatting. They didn’t seem worried, but I noticed that Dad was staring at Graste with annoyance.
Ignoring the look, Graste sat down as if everything was normal. I joined Marie on the couch, opposite Mom and Dad, with Graste next to them. I glanced at Marie to see if she knew what was going on. Marie lightly shook her head. She had no idea.
“So, as for what I wanted to talk to y’all about…” Graste swiveled his eyes toward Dad.
Dad sighed in response and cleared his throat. “Shion, do you remember when we mined the thundercite?”
“Yeah, of course.”
“Right. Well, this idiot here started using your peralite knowledge to mine more thundercite. Since it was practically impossible to transport up until now, he started carrying it into town to sell it.”
Graste looked up at the ceiling as if he didn’t have the slightest clue what Dad was talking about. He wasn’t fooling anyone, of course.
“Well, what happened was…eh-hmm, Graste. It’s your turn to talk.” Dad’s voice bristled with annoyance.
Graste gave me an uncomfortable glance and opened his mouth as he scratched the edge of his nose. “Ah, you know. I mean, I’m sorry for using your knowledge for my own benefit. I should have gotten your permission before I started trying to make money by transporting it. My bad.”
Graste’s gaze wavered all over the place as he spoke. Dad listened to Graste talk with a series of approving nods, while Mom looked troubled. I looked over at Marie, who was clueless.
I was too, as I couldn’t figure out what was going on. All I could do was express my honest feeling.
“It’s really not a big deal,” I said.
Graste opened his mouth wide, and Dad raised his eyebrows.
“B-but I stole your idea, Shion.”
“I mean, I guess you technically did. I don’t really mind.”
“You came up with something that no one else knew or could think of. I took advantage of that without so much as asking you! I’d understand if you were upset with me and wanted a cut of the profits!”
I mean…I guess so? I did come up with the idea, but it wasn’t my objective to make money off of thundercite in the first place. I was interested in a different subject.
“Did you make money?” I asked.
Graste looked like he was sucking on a lemon. I supposed things didn’t go very well.
“Well, there is some profit, but not much once you take into account the amount of labor. It’s too dangerous to use thundercite as a light source. At first, some people bought it outta curiosity. Those folks were not repeat shoppers.”
I’d never seen Graste look so down in the dumps. His smile was brittle, and his lifeless eyes stared down at the coffee table. Had he been pouring effort into mining and selling thundercite ever since that day?
“Then I don’t need any of it. If you’d made tons of money, then sure, but it doesn’t seem like things…er, have gone very well.”
I expected the conversation to end there. I’d accepted Graste’s apologies and told him that it didn’t matter to me in the first place. Yet the awkward atmosphere didn’t dissipate, and Graste’s expression didn’t lighten.
I looked at Dad for clues as to what the heck was going on.