Chapter 9: Chapter 9: My Master and Working from Home

Now, since I got a cheat skill, my life changed … in no significant ways.

I mean, it’s only 7 minutes. For example—

When going to fetch water; I put a huge amount of water in a tub, and while bringing it back my time limit ended and I got crushed.

Working in the field out back; I was swinging the hoe around, and the moment the effect wore off, it flew out of my hand, into master’s room and hit my sleeping Master.

While on the roof to repair the ceiling, my time ran out and I couldn’t get back down, so master had to help me.

Using a grinder to craft a ring, I dug my nose in, my magic power ran out, I fell forward and scraped my forehead.

So, well, due to the heavy consumption and short effect time, there was no practicality to it.

In short… I’m still a weakling.

~*~

Switching gears, today let’s talk about my Master.

His full name is Haster Albine.

I think he’s somewhere in his mid-fifties? I don’t know his exact age.

Black, his hair is the very definition of raven black hair, which he wears all back. And he has a beard around his mouth.

I only see this sometimes after he bathes, but when he lets his hair down he looks pretty young. He looks frighteningly like a 20 year old. What kind of monster is he?

He’s tall, with a perfect body, but his physique gives off a gentle and dignified impression.

However, I know that… his beard is actually fake!

He’s trying his best to seem dignified by growing a beard, but instead of growing it out as you think, he’s deceiving you with that fake beard!

If he takes away his fake beard and lets down his hair, isn’t he in his twenties? This guy…

Master’s abilities also show excellence.

He has high physical abilities, magical talent, and talent in creating magic tools.

Having a lot of abilities that a country would kill for, in a way he’s more of a cheat Sage than me.

Especially, the “Ring of Mental Resistance” is a best seller. Master creates them specially and makes a stupidly huge profit on them.

In this world there are things like demons, vampires, and dragons. They release “fascination”, and make you shudder with a “roar” etc. And it seems there are many adventurers who are defeated by these attacks on their spirits.

These rings that have a high probability of canceling those effects are said to be essential if you are skilled. If this item is equipped, then it’s seen as proof of that person’s abilities.

The ring is only sold at the foothill village and isn’t sold wholesale. It has become a specialty good that is most clearly supporting the village’s economy. Adventurers from all over the world visit the village.

Moreover, since the ring breaks after receiving above a certain amount of power, demand for the item doesn’t go down.

“So basically, the supply has no way of keeping up with the demand.”

Says me, while I make silver rings at the soft grinder.

Are spells for making the rings a bad idea or something for some reason?

Behind me on the work bench, Master is carving [Resistance] type magic into the rings, and injecting magic power into them.

“We need to have 10 rings ready to sell at Gusta’s place tomorrow, so give it your all in making them.”

“This is one of those things that piles up every day, isn’t it? Master, were you the type that put your summer break homework off until the last day?”

“What’s a summer break? Well, but I do tend to postpone annoying jobs until later.”

Scrape, scrape is heard as I grind the silver and process it into rings.

Of course, I’m not using reinforcement right now, so the ring is a little awkwardly formed. But the finer processing and [Resistance] application through [Enchantment] are things that my Master does, so I don’t mind doing this much.

“Master, I have finished 3 of them.”

“… I’m pretty sure there aren’t any giants with 5cm thick fingers among my customers, right?

“… … … Might there be some unexpected demand for it?”

“No.”

Well, I have to redo one out of two.

Also, lately Master has been careless.

“Even so, Master, you can also make a ring in one hour, then turn it in for 100 gold coins, huh.”

“That’s the cost of life. Moreover, this is actually pretty tough. With my magic power I can only make about 10 in a day. Besides, only a little bit of that actually gets to my wallet”

The rings are handled for us by Mr. Gusta in his shop.

The wholesale price is 50 gold coins. Aren’t you being ripped off, Master?

“Well, Gusta takes care of lots of things, including the delivery. I don’t mind letting him make a little extra money.”

“Master’s sense of economics is broken after all, isn’t it?”

“Rather than gold, what I want right now is labor. So hurry up and make the next ring.”

Shall I explain the money in this world too?

In this world there are three general types of coins in circulation; copper, silver, and gold. With 100 of any type of coin, it goes to the next value.

Further above that is platinum coins, and bank notes issued by each country, but I have never seen those.

In a common person’s daily life, their wallets get quite heavy, so these monetary units are pretty rough.

I guess 1 copper coin would be equivelant to 1 yen? Over here the value is too low, so I have not seen any in circulation.

By the way, my jaw dropped when I saw that Master has about 50,000 gold coins rolling around in his basement warehouse.

“If you master [Enchantment] soon, Yuuri, then I’ll be able to take it easy.”

“Will you be the one shaving the rings down, Master?”

“Will we really have to work together after all…? Nah, with Yuuri’s magic power [Enchantment] would hardly put any strain on you right?

“Well then, let’s carve the magic circle!”

“Stop?!”

I’m clumsy, so I’m bad at carving the magic circle in.

Constructing with magic power is something I’m so good at that Master is also amazed by it, but… It’s probably thanks to “Peerless Magic”.

“Hmm~, but since since I have the magic power, if Master carves the magic circle, and I do the [Enchantment], wouldn’t our efficiency go up?

“… … That’s it!”

I’ve been thinking this since the other day, but Master may be a surprisingly carelessperson.

For that reason, I learned about [Enchantment].

~*~

“First of all, for spells, you mold magic power inside your body. At the same time you think about what kind of effect you want it to have, and give it direction. Release that into the air…”

“With the released magic power, form the magic circle… that’s when I chant to induce the image, isn’t it?”

“Right, basically if you have a clear image, then the chant is actually unnecessary.”

“And then, the phenomenon will occur in the constructed circle. This is what spells are.”

First, we reviewed the basic concept of spells.

I can already use spells to a certain degree, so this is easy enough.

“If the magic circle is carved into an item, the user of the item doesn’t need to be the one who made the magic circle.”

“As a substitute for constructing a magic circle, and while omitting the chant, you can invoke a fast and persistent effect. That’s the strength of a [Magic Tool].”

“Hmm, however, tools can’t mold magic power. Magic power can’t be fixed in place, so wouldn’t it diffuse soon enough?

“That’s where the [Maintenance] operation is incorporated. For example, if you want a replacement for a light at night you would probably make something like a [Ball of Light] right? It would be a problem if that were to suddenly disappear, so it actually has [Maintenance] incorporated.”

“[Body Reinforcement] also uses [Maintenance] then. So it was something I was already familiar with…?”

“As long as the spell user remembers the magic circle, it’s probably not a big deal though.”

Even though it’s likely nobody knows about it, I guess there are some things that aren’t a big deal.

Is this one of those Columbus’ egg1 ideas?

“Basically you incorporate [Maintenance] into the magic tool, and the magic power is retained?”

“Right, and since there’s only so much magic power from outside that was maintained, when that magic power expires, it’ll break. That’s the problem with magic tools. But they’re easy to handle.”

Is it that magic tools are easy to use that makes them worth 100,000 yen?n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

I guess it takes a lot of money to be an adventurer.

“Is there no way to refill the magic power on a finished product?”

“Finished products are called that precisely because the particular product is finished… But, hmm… If it’s purposely left unfinished, and room was left to fill, then?”

I’ve put doubts into Master’s head. Did he have the idea in his head that what he sells has to be a finished product?

“That will need more research. It was an interesting suggestion.”

pet, pet…

Using a feather broom lifted with [Telekinesis], Master pets my head.

Isn’t that thing dirty?

“please stop. Aren’t you getting me dirty?”

“It’s because you can’t handle being touched directly. I want to show my appreciation through skinship, so accept this as a compromise.”

After that, I learned the [Enchantment] magic circle from Master, and tried doing the [Enchantment] in his place.

I poured too much magic power into two of them and split them apart, but they were safely completed.

My Master is crafting the rings, and carving the circles, and I do the [Enchantment]. With that combination, in half the normal time, about 4 hours, we finished 10 of the rings.

“Master, there’s enough magic power to fill about two times this amount?”

“You’ve been endowed with a stupid amount of magic power. Since this is the limit of the magic circle’s strength, maybe I could find ways to improve it?”

“If an ‘Improved Version’ is completed, will you raise the price? Or since the labor required has decreased, will you lower it?”

“It wouldn’t be fair to sell something with a higher performance at the same price after all. I would feel bad for all my customers up to now, so in reference to the ‘Normal Version’, we’ll sell the ‘Improved Version’ for about 20% more.”

Like that, “Ring of Mental Resistance (Improved Version)” is being sold to Mr. Gusta wholesale for 60 gold coins, and he sells them for 120 gold coins.

… Huh? Isn’t there something strange going on with that profit?