"So you're back again, eh kid? They didn't catch you yet? That's a shame really… "
"Nah, don't worry old man, I'll definitely outlive you at least. I'm here for the cartridge tryout, did you already prepare it?"
"I didn't, I asked that new brat to do it, she's in the basement, setting up the targets."
The old man points towards a door and I enter it. While descending the stairs I shout:
"Oi, Alex, you in here?"
As soon as I stepped a single foot onto the damp basement floor an unknown assailant grabs me from behind.
"What the-?!"
I can feel two small yet soft pillows pressed against my back and something sharp digging into my neck, it's a knife.
"Oh it's just you Reo."
The person behind me, who I now can identify as Alex, let's go of me.
"Hey, that was dangerous you know? I could have easily activated some magic as soon as you grabbed me if I didn't have my guard down."
"Oh relax, I just thought you were someone from Black Bear at first. Besides Viktor gave me this dagger specifically to fight against Machia's, apparently it gives off a paralyzing electric shock as soon as it detects the use of mana."
"You almost paralyzed me?!"
"Oh stop crying, it would only incapacitate you for a couple of minutes… Anyways, I laid out all the cartridges you can use here, Viktor said you could only fire every magic one time, we also prepared some mana-recovery potions."
As Alex motions towards the table with all the cartridges, I can see her face more clearly, her hair is now dyed blue and she got a cute eyebrow piercing… She looks good…
"What? See something you like?"
Oh shit, I'm staring.
"W-Well, the new look suits you…"
"Geez, I was talking about the cartridges you flirt."
"I just didn't expect you to go full hipster like that."
"Hey, stop bullying me! Just start the tryout already."
She does a cute pout and we both start laughing.
I take a look at the table in front of me, it has 30-ish cartridges or so. Looks like I'll be here for a while.
"Can I really use those mana-recovery potions free of charge?"
*SIGH* "That old man made a big deal about 'accidentally' ordering too much F-rank mana-recovery potions. He stored them here in the basement and then loudly exclaimed that he hoped they would just disappear suddenly, since it'll save him some work…. Really, that old man can be such a tsundere at times…"
I didn't really need to use every cartridge in order analyze them though… And it kind of feels creepy when the old man suddenly acts nice to me… Maybe he just wants to appear as a good guy in front of Alex?
"Hey, there's a red cartridge here, is it ok for me to test this one out too?"
I don't want to breach a contract I made with a platinum Machia after all… *GULP*
"W-What a red cartridge? W-Well I guess it's natural for me to make mistakes on the first day of my job here, man… It's going to be a pain for me to put it back in the store-room though, *SIGH* guess I'll just leave it there on the table then…"
I look at her with dead-pan eyes.
"…. Tsun…"
"S-Shut up!"
Why is everybody so nice to me all of the sudden? Well, don't mind if I take advantage of it!
…
Fuckk…. I can't go on anymore… Those potions taste so fucking bad… And I had to chug 10 of them!.... Urgh….
Well, at least my notebook is full of useful code and syntax… Alex was watching me the entire time though, so I had to fire every cartridge at least once, otherwise this tryout wouldn't have made sense to other people…
"Did you write down the effect of every magic you tried out here? Are you going to sell that notebook or something?"
"No, I'm going to use it so I have an advantage against other Machia."
"That makes more sense, information about Yellow and Orange cartridges doesn't sell that well."
"How would you know?"
"My dad was a street peddler in this black market you know, of course I know a thing or two about business. If you ever want to sell something, don't be afraid to ask for me~"
Oh, surprisingly, she could come in handy in the future.
"Sure, just don't forget about me when you finally start your business empire~"
I confirmed a couple of things while I was analyzing the cartridges, mainly, what type of magic belonged to what type of talent, cartridges that mainly employed earth magic for example, where all defensive in nature, cartridges such as: Sand wall and Clay hide. Clay hide would form a thin layer of hardened, yet malleable clay around the skin, Alex told me that the magic is also popular with the female Machia to improve one's skin-health…
The most interesting cartridge was the red one that Alex threw in though…