(Lyze POV)
The next morning was back to work as usual although not in the dungeon. I decided that I needed a little bit of time away to focus on my other endeavours. When I was not diving, I was looking for ways to generate more money for my income.
Although we were a Familia, each individual adventurer was given free way to do with their money as they pleased as long as they gave the appropriate cut to the Familia's own coffers back. Thanks to the Loki Familia being so large and already possessing first class members, the demand was only a mere 10%.
While the number would still be huge and probably spark outrage in any situations back on Earth (I mean back home in Britain, the basic income tax was 20% anyway so the people would probably not be as mad), I made a small fortune every time I went into the dungeon.
Drop items went for a whole lot more than monster cores did, and judging by my observations, I already had quite a high luck rate even without the Developmental ability. Half the time, my hammer-space would be packed with papillo wings, claws, horns, teeth, hides, ears and all other kinds of monster parts.
What would probably make any adventurer cry though was the amount of jackbird eggs I had at the moment. Let's just say that if I wanted to use them to make the golden armour myself instead of collecting them from Beasts in the dungeon (if there were any. I mean Claw was there and I had the golden chainmail, so the others also had to be down there), I would easily make one suit and probably still have some more left to make a few others.
Like, seriously, I had a 'lot'. Each egg was made out of pure gold and went very high in the market because monarchies and noblemen around the world pined for them. They were so pure, I believed a new measurement would be needed because 24 karats still has a chance of containing small impurities. However, those eggs were also quite despised by companies and noblemen that owned gold mines around the world.
I suppose luckily for them, the chance of finding those eggs were so rare that it didn't affect their business. Otherwise, if they came in an abundance they would make the gold market crash and the value of gold would drop so low that those men would probably become impoverished, at least in their perspectives. They'd still have money to live better than the ordinary plebian.
Anyway, back to the subject. Any money that an adventurer made outside of dungeon diving was their own property. The downside was that if they fell in debt, they were solely responsible which was fair.
And well, I'd already sent two shipments of Moonlight to the Hephaestus Familia and boy were they paying through the nose for it. I chalked it up to Hephaestus's fascination with the new metal. As a goddess of smithing, it made sense that a completely new metal would enamour her and she would spend days trying to figure out different things to do with it.
I had a tiny suspicion that I was probably individually richer than anyone else in the Familia barring the executives. There was no way that they didn't pay fortunes for their equipment, like Finn's Fortia spear for example. Still though, it turned out that even in another world with great ambitions weighing over my head, I still had a raving thirst for money if there was chance for me to get it.
I'd previously mentioned an idea I had for monster cores. I hadn't paid extreme attention to the particular event, but I remembered Ban once using some sort of marble on either Jericho or Princess Veronica or maybe someone else. The marble contained a spell and when struck upon a person, the spell would be released on them.
In Ban's case, he healed the girl. Like I said, I couldn't remember exactly after which battle it was but it got me thinking. The marble had to have contained mana to fuel the spell, in my theory at least. And monster cores were just literally crystallised magical energy that acted as the heart of a monster.
So what if I carved runic magic on a monster core using magic, would the result be the same? And because I had a love for aesthetics, I spent time trying to figure out how change the cores into spheres. I searched for a way for quite a long while until I settled upon a method.
I had to melt the core completely into liquid, and because the magical energy created some sort of forcefield that pulled all the material into its centre, I dropped the molten matter into ice water. The magical attraction would pull the core matter inwards and because water comes in at all sides, a perfect sphere would be formed. It reminded me of those school practicals where you dropped alkali metals into water, because the results were quite similar.
Once the new monster marble was formed, I simply carved runes of healing magic on the marbles using hieroglyphs. One to dictate where it would pull magical energy from to use the spell and one that acted as a command which only made the spell activate if it was intentionally thrown on a person to create an effect, like striking someone with a staff or a wand.
The results were perfect. Just like in Brittania, the marbles would disappear after one use because of how much of the stored magical energy in the monster core was lost in the shaping process. If they kept breaking like that, then my clients would keep coming back to me for more.
I dubbed this entrepreneurial invention, a Spell Sphere. Yeah, I didn't really have anything better. Naming things is a pain in the ass.
There was one problem though. They were too good. Using hieroglyphs to create the spells would raise a lot of questions as even Riveria didn't know I had completely cracked that language. If word got out that I had, every mage in the world would probably be after me to know the secret of the 'Divine Language' when it was honestly just backwards Japanese.
More than that, I needed to sell them through a Familia dedicated to healing for more credibility of my product. People would not just up and buy stuff from me just because I was from the Loki Familia. Plus I didn't want to have to pile on more paperwork for my Captain.
So I needed to go through a Familia known for healing. One was the Dian Cecht Familia who would be the obvious choice if I actually liked the pompous, lecherous old baboon.
The other would be the Miach Familia but there was a problem again. They were a potions dedicated Familia and their members were continuously being poached by the former.
Then there was an even bigger problem...Evilus. Someone was obviously going to reason that if you could imbue a healing spell in a monster core, then why don't you imbue attack magic too. I didn't want to land a new set of weapons in their hands.
It totally had nothing to do with the fact that I'd already developed such things too and had actually seen how dangerous they could be.
It was honestly quite a dilemma and I was sympathising with some people who realized that their brainchild could be just as much of a curse as a blessing. Truly a 'chaotic' situation to be in.
It was a project I was going to have to put a hold on. In the meantime though, I could still develop some for personal uses...
Besides, there were still another project I planned on beginning, and that was where I needed to get back to my classes with Tsubaki.
---
I opened the door to Finn's office as he tiredly looked up at me.
"Hey Captain." I said as I stepped in. As I'd suspected, there was a heap of paperwork piled on his desk, and there were visible bags under his eyes as he set down the quill in his hands. It was no secret how much he hated doing that particular chore.
I don't think anybody did really. Arguably the worst position to hold in any Familia was the position of Vice-Captain as the Captains tended to foist off these kinds of tasks onto their shoulders.
Finn was no exception to this rule except that this time around, he hadn't managed to pull that on Riveria. The elf was currently engaged in her study group again and although Vira had asked me to join again, I just could not be bothered. I may have snapped out of whatever phase I was going through but I was not sitting in a room with those bigots if I could help it.
"Good morning Lyze." The Pallum tiredly replied. "Heading off to the Dungeon are we?"
"Not today. I'm going to the Workplace to meet with Tsubaki. It'll be just another one of my classes, after which I'm probably going to do a bit of sightseeing."
"I see. Well, was there any particular reason you came to my office?"
"Not really. Just wanted to say goodbye since Loki has gone to the Denatus and everyone is giving you the cold shoulder." I walked up to his desk and set a cup down. "I also thought you might want a drink."
Finn looked relieved as I offered him the drink and he gulped it down quicker than I could realize. No like literally, his hand blurred and suddenly the cup was gone. He must have been feeling really bad if he was going to use his adventurer's strength just to simply have a drink.
I took the liberty of peeking over his desk at exactly what he was working on. From what I could read from a brief skimming, he was tallying up something in numbers.
"What exactly are you dealing with, Finn?" I asked curiously.
"Bills, taxes, forms, expenses. As well as requests from outside the Familia, things like that. It all revolves around me doing the worst part of this job." He picked up his quill as he seemingly shuddered. "Calculation."
I perked up a little at that. I was no math wiz but I wanted to see how good people exactly were at arithmetic in this world.
"Mind if I have a look?" I asked. He raised an eyebrow before lifting a seemingly random piece of paper from the table.
"Sure." He said.
I took it from him to examine exactly what he was finding so difficult...
.
.
.
...and cringed extremely hard.
'THIS is difficult? These are barely elementary grade problems! I've known babies that could have done these!'
Yet again, it seemed as if another trope became reality. I'd heard of isekai situations where people in a medieval world were extremely bad at maths by modern standards.
I didn't expect it to be this bad though.
"Captain?"
"Hm?"
"Mind if I help?"
Finn looked surprised.
"I appreciate the gesture Lyze but these are very difficult, and I really can't afford you to make a mistake or anything-"
"Just let me do it." I said a bit more firmly. I may or may not have brazenly shoved him out of the chair and plopped down on his seat like I ran the whole gig but before he could even reprimand me, I got to work ignoring his words of objection.
He began to quieten down though as the quill flew over the pages and the pile of unfinished paperwork began to glow smaller. Within half an hour, the giant pile of papers had completely vanished into another stack, with Finn's jaw hanging over it.
"Y-you actually did it?" He mumbled.
"Yep." I said as I dropped the quill into the inkwell. "Just pass it to the scribe and get them to verify if you don't believe me."
I gave him a salute and left the room, leaving him to keep gawking at the papers. Finn rubbed his eyes and sighed.
"Well...at least I'll get some sleep now."
---
"That's it kid. Just like that." Tsubaki encouraged as I quenched a replica of Grigor in a barrel of oil. I held it up aloft as I admired my handiwork. It looked more majestic than it did before.
"You really are getting the hang of this Lyze." She grinned. "I'm honestly surprised with how easily you've progressed. It's a shame you didn't join us."
"I'm a fighter at heart Tsubaki." I said to her. "I do enjoy smithing but I don't pour my soul into every weapon like a true blacksmith. I'll only ever value my exceptional creations, and not every single pocketknife I hang on my wall. Weapons are just tools to me, and that's where it ends."
"Yeah, Hephy would not have appreciated that." The half-dwarf closed her visible eye and rubbed her head. "You are a good smith though. As much as you downplay your work as a smith, being able to create magical weapons is no small feat."
"So I hear. That reminds me, I once heard of a family that were rather infamous for creating magic swords with remarkable power." I prodded at this to see if I could gauge any reaction from her. I didn't know exactly when Phobos began arranging for Welf's escape. It took considerable time for an individual to travel from Rakia to Orario, especially when the former was a war state.
"You mean the Crozzo Family?"
"That's the one." I replied while observing her. Nothing in her behaviours gave away anything about Welf.
"Well, it's true that they were once a family of great smiths. But somewhere along the line they were cursed, and their descendants lost that talent. To my knowledge there is no Crozzo alive today that can make the weapons their ancestors were so infamous for."
"It's a shame isn't it?" I commented. "The descendants of the personal smith of the Argonaut can no longer perform something that was considered the prideful hallmark of their bloodline. I wonder what the first Crozzo would have thought of that?"
I knew exactly what he thought of that. Sometimes I couldn't help but laugh when it came to the background of Welf Crozzo. Imagine being the reincarnation of your own founding ancestor. How weird would that feel? You are your own descendant.
I mean Anos Voldigoad didn't seem to have much of a problem with it...so maybe Welf wouldn't be that freaked out if he ever knew the truth. Then again, unlike Anos, Welf was not attracting women that would actually be his descendants in a way.
Reincarnation really sucks sometimes. And this is coming from me who was on his second life.
I couldn't fathom the feelings of Elizabeth and her 107 reincarnations.
"It is a shame I guess." Tsubaki said before cuffing me lightly on the head. "Stop thinking about them though, and focus on what you're doing. Try and channel magic into that sword like you said you would."
I shrugged and channelled lightning magic into the counterfeit Grigor. Within moments, the sword exploded into fragments which embedded themselves in the floor and the walls. The two of us just stared in silence as the pieces fizzed with electricity. Tsubaki sighed.
"Or maybe you're not as good as I thought."
"It's my first time making a magical weapon that was not a dagger. Cut me some slack."
"Just start again." She said as she handed me another minotaur horn from the small mountain I'd procured on the floor.
I began the smelting all over again as sweat rolled down my skin. I was being honest when I said that I enjoyed fighting more but I couldn't deny that there was an element of fun to shaping weapons. Sitting shirtless in front of a roaring fire wearing just my pants and sandals with a woman like Tsubaki leaning over me to direct my hands.
I was rather enjoying this isekai life. I hoped Loki was setting me a good alias. It would become my name after all.
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