“Got it. Thanks. We’ll try there.”
“If you tell them I sent you, you might get a little discount too,” the old guy said and handed Father a letter of introduction.
With that, we headed over to the magic shop.
When we got to the magic shop, a middle-aged pig started oinking at us suspiciously. But the pig’s expression quickly softened and it started to oink in a friendly tone.
“Ah, hello there,” Father said. “We’re looking for some magic thread for special clothes. Can you help us with that?”
“Oink!”
“Your magic types are healing and support, Father!” I declared. There was no need for me to see any further since I already knew what Father could do in previous go-arounds. Father had mastered some first-rate protective spells back in the day!
The pig let out a series of oinks and squeals.
“Well, even if you let us take a look, we don’t exactly have a lot of money at the moment . . .” Father trailed off.
Yes, that was our problem. In order to make money, we needed to buy a bunch of stuff in order to complete our peddling preparations.
The pig continued to oink for several moments.
“A magical orb? What’s that?”
Oh, I remembered that, I say. After the false accusation was successfully launched against Father, Trash took the remaining heroes, including myself, and gave us a jewel that helped us acquire magic abilities. They were especially useful for beginners.
I remember back then when Melromarc would give me anything I wanted. Life was much easier back then.
Still, if you learn magic through a magic jewel, your power won’t be as strong as it would be if you had learned through a tome. You’d have much less control and it would probably be impossible to learn a Liberation-class spell with a jewel alone.
I explained to Father about the magic jewels.
“So you’re saying that they gave it to us back at the castle?”
“They gave out the magic jewels to the heroes after you left, Father,” I said.
Father frowned. “They really did try to screw me over every time they could.”
“Once we get some money, it will be better to just purchase some tomes, I say!”
The pig oinked at us. Keel was examining some of the crystal balls in the store. Sakura was clinging to Father like an escort. She really looked so different and mature!
“Oink!”
The pig appeared to be willing to show us around the store. After that, I started to look all over the store myself. After a while, I saw something that brought back memories.
It was a device like a spinning wheel. If I wasn’t mistaken, you could use it to make thread infused with magical power.
“But how much does it cost, Motoyasu?” Father asked after I pointed it out.
The pig chimed in with a series of oinks and squeals.
“Oh, you’ll give it to us for free?” Father asked. “Wow, thanks so much.”
It appeared that the old guy had made some arrangements to really help us. I wondered if this was in exchange for how I had given the old guy some free materials before.
“Thank you very much,” Father said.
“Do you think you might also be able to throw in a magic tome?” I inquired.
The pig oinked.
“Motoyasu, she wants us to buy that,” Father said.
Well, at least I tried.
I did want Father to learn some magic, but getting the hang of it was far from easy. I figured it would be best to take our time learning magic down the road.
The pig started oinking again.
“Okay! Just a moment!” Sakura said.
Then Sakura went into a corner of the store to take off her clothes and transformed into her filolial queen form. Father politely turned around when Sakura was getting changed.
Ahh, so close! It turns out she really did have a different coloring from Filo-tan, after all.
The shop owner looked very surprised for some reason.
Sakura slowly turned the spinning wheel to wind out thread and applied her magical power to it. Sakura was just as calm and relaxed as she had always been, so everyone got bored watching as she slowly spun the thread. Fortunately, she didn’t seem to get as sleepy as quickly as she had in previous go-arounds.
“Sakura, you’re too slow,” Yuki scolded.
“You think so?” Sakura whined.
“Everyone’s different, Yuki,” Father said. “Be patient.”
“But Sakura is . . .”
“Oh yeah,” Father interjected. “If you’re bored, why don’t you go with Motoyasu to get a carriage for us? Sakura will probably be done by the time you get back.”
“We should acquire one soon,” I agreed. I hadn’t forgotten about it, I say! But getting a carriage was bound to be annoying. You couldn’t really just buy a carriage without everyone seeing exactly what you were up to. In fact, it would be fastest to just make it yourself.
Even faster than that would be attacking a thief who had already procured a stolen carriage and just stealing theirs, I say! Hmm. Perhaps we should fix up an ordinary cart as a stopgap measure?
Ultimately, I decided it wouldn’t be too hard to get wood from the forest and make ourselves a carriage!
“We’ll build one, I say!” I declared.
“I’ll leave it to you,” Father said.
“Yes, sir, I say! How big should it be?”
“Well, we all have to fit in it, so it should be pretty big.”
“Understood, I say!” I turned to Yuki and Kou. “Let’s go!”
“At once!”
“Ooookay!”
Yuki, Kou, and I left the magic store to go about our carriage-crafting.