∗ ∗ ∗
“Agh, I guess it’s not going to be any good. Well, I should’ve expected that,” I murmured disappointedly, looking at what was in my hand.
Katarina heard me and came closer. “Is something wrong?” she asked.
“You can tell just by looking, right?”
She tilted her head, but she was still quite knowledgeable. She figured out what it was quickly enough. “A broken mana stone?”
I nodded. “Right.”
That was enough for her to understand why I was so disappointed. Mana stones had inherent value. They had a variety of practical uses, such as sources of energy, decorative stones, or materials for magic tools. However, their size affected their value. They weren’t completely worthless in a broken state, but their value dropped significantly.
“But it was necessary to defeat the skeleton king, right? Besides, my reward will be generous,” Katarina said, hoping that would compensate for it.
Well, we had already been guaranteed a reward at the time we received the request to escort them. It was a considerable amount, much more than it was reasonable to pay to adventurers of our class. Of course, she was paying that much because she had high expectations from what she’d seen when we rescued her. In any case, I nodded.
“I know. But if this hadn’t been damaged, I was thinking of using it to make a magic tool. And since the skeleton king was so strong, I was hoping that it’d have another mana stone inside it. Sadly, that wasn’t the case.”
Monsters sometimes had more than one mana stone, and there had been two inside the skeleton king’s body. There was the one in the torso that Mataza had destroyed, and the one in the head that I’d broken. But it was too much to ask for a third one. Considering that it might’ve been even more powerful if that were the case, we’d probably gotten lucky. There was no use in asking for the impossible.
Katarina seemed to reach the same conclusion. “Are there any salvageable materials besides the mana stones?”
She wasn’t an adventurer and therefore wasn’t familiar with monster materials. She probably knew the basics, but she wouldn’t have known the type and value of materials that could be acquired from a skeleton king. They rarely appeared in the first place. You wouldn’t come across them except in special locations or in labyrinths filled with undead.
I answered her, “There are. Well, as you can see, it’s just the bones themselves, but these can still be good materials. They can be used to make magic tools if combined with mana stones from other monsters.”
Bones were the primary material you could obtain from skeleton monsters. You could whittle them into arrow or spearheads, crush them for use in powdered medicine, melt them into a catalyst for construction material, and much more. It was a remarkably versatile material.
However, the black bones of the skeleton king might have been too potent and therefore inadvisable for use in medicine or construction. It’d probably be best to just make my own weapons and magic tools with them. This was what I’d had in mind when I’d spoken, but Katarina had more questions.
“By the way, you’re talking about making magic tools as if it were the simplest thing in the world, but how many of them can you make? Can you easily craft something like those ropes?”
The way she had no doubts that I could make them in the first place made me feel like I was rubbing off on her a lot. But I did have a liking for noblewomen who were fast on the uptake. There were a surprising number of them who stuck to their own logic no matter what might challenge it. Having an open mind was itself a virtue.
I answered her. “No way, as if. That’s pretty high-level stuff. It’s not that easy to make. But I’d like to be able to, someday.”
It was a pretty casual response, but I’d underestimated Katarina’s smarts. “Which means you aren’t the one who made that item. That’s a surprise.”
The fact that she’d immediately hit upon this conclusion made me marvel at her fast thinking.
“Who do you think I am? Well, I wasn’t planning on mentioning it, but my teacher made that for me.” I figured it was okay to tell her this much by now, though naturally I could hardly mention her specific name and occupation. If I said that she was the Church of Astral’s Holy Maiden of Swords, even Katarina might faint. She was just that notorious, feared, and someone who hardly seemed willing to ally herself with anyone outside of the Church. I’d just gotten extremely lucky.
“So that person taught you how to make magic tools?”
Rather than “taught,” it’d be more apt to say that I’d borrowed her skills and made them my own through rigorous practice. But I couldn’t mention that to Katarina yet either. I gave her a vague answer. “Well, I guess you could say that. I did learn the basics in school, but...whoops.”
I’d added a bit of excess information to distract from what I really didn’t want her to ask more about. As I’d hoped, Katarina’s attention was drawn to the decoy, and she skipped asking about the part I wanted to avoid...
“That was too spurious. You wouldn’t let those details slip off your tongue that easily.”
...Except she’d noticed that I’d done that intentionally.
I really can’t let my guard down with her. I replied to her, enjoying the exchange. “Obviously not. Well, it doesn’t hurt to tell you, since you’re already aware that I’m an ex-noble.” Katarina already knew about that, so I decided to just make things easier by saying it outright.
Katarina interpreted this positively. “I suppose so. Can I take this to mean you somewhat trust me now?”
I nodded. “Somewhat. But people can betray each other in a heartbeat. There may come a time when we’re on opposite sides,” I responded.
“That’s awfully pessimistic,” Katarina said, looking a little let down.
I responded with a wry smile. “I’d rather you call it pragmatic.”
These were my actual, honest feelings. People betrayed each other. In a heartbeat. Even family...
Well, I knew that there had been no other option, and there was nothing else to be done about it. But still, the bitterness of being betrayed was still fermenting somewhere inside of me. Maybe I was being too spiteful, but these feelings probably wouldn’t be resolved unless I got to see and talk to them again. Of course, I didn’t despise them with every fiber of my being. I’d just lost everything I’d come to rely on...
There was no way she understood where I was coming from, but Katarina seemed to strike upon an idea. “I’m sure you’ll need some manner of support. I think I’d be ideal for the role.” She seemed willing to become my sponsor.