Chapter 79: Secret Workshop (part one)
We were running through the Crucible Street at dusk.
Just as the last chis of the church’s bell were resounding, Tirnanog and I arrived at Turm Wand Store.
It was to et Gilbert, not Harold.
The other person who noticed cobalt oxide was said to be Gilbert.
It was difficult to say whether or not he was going to be inside the wand store, but it was better than looking for him blindly.
『As usual, there is no sign of a custor.
The store owner doesn’t seem to be in the store, but there is a sign of the redheaded brat.』
“That’s rather convenient.”
Even when I went inside the store, no one ca out to greet .
Looking around, Harold was polishing the shelves quietly with an almost dead facial expression.
He shouldn’t have to clean anything at tis like this.
No, perhaps it was more painful for him if he didn’t distract himself by doing sothing.
“Harold, are you okay?”
“Ah……? Aa, Erica, welco.
What is it? Have you found a wand that match your taste?”
“You don’t seem to be fine. Unfortunately, we’re not here as a custor.”
『Is Gilbert in the back?』
“Aniki? Aa, Aniki ca back a while ago.
It seems he was going to make sothing difficult that he couldn’t afford to fail, so right now he’s shutting himself inside the storehouse, but……”
After all, it was as we expected.
When I exchanged looks with Tirnanog, he nodded.
“Harold, this is sothing you also need to hear. Let’s go together, okay?”
『Even if you say no I will force you to co with us.』
“Eh, ah, wait……, the store! There is only manning the store!”
“We are your only custors in these two days, right?”
“T-that’s true, but! Aah, jeez, let lock the door first at least!”
As Tirnanog manhandled him, Harold was kicking and struggling.
We let him go to lock the store, then we headed to the storehouse in the back of the store.
☆
“Yo, everyone, what’s the matter?”
Gilbert seed to have just completed the preparation, and was about to clear up the alchemy tools spread on the desk.
I glanced at the container placed on the desk.
Gilbert quickly hid it in his bag.
Again, Gilbert seed to be keeping secret about the blue pignt that he had found.
Because Harold knew nothing, so sohow it felt like that.
In a sense, it could be said that we t him just in ti.
It would be difficult to et him after he went sowhere else to make it.
Tirnanog rolled an indigo blue glass bead on the table.
Gilbert reached for it with a relieved expression.
Tirnanog’s hand caught his stretched hand with a lightning-quick movent.
『As expected, I knew you would recognize it at a glance.』
“We co to talk about it.”
When Tirnanog and I pressed him, Gilbert cast his eyes down and laughed.
“Hahaha, you caught . Even though I thought that I would be able to evade questions until the prototype was completed.
Not only you are aware of the identity of the slt, you seem to be able to make the actual thing in just a few hours.
As expected from the daughter of the head of the alchemists. You cannot be asured by ordinary ans.”
Gilbert muttered thoughtfully.
No, no, it was because my friend was a phantom beast, I myself was just an ordinary and diocre girl.
But I couldn’t say that.
“W-wait, what are you talking about! Are you leaving out of loop?”
『Wait, wait, Harold. Let’s explain it in order. I will let Gilbert explain it.』
“Mister, so you’re leaving it all to .”
Gilbert smiled bitterly and lowered his hip back on the chair again.
When he put the container in his bag back to the table, Tirnanog released his hand.
Gilbert breathed a sigh while gazing at the glass bead through the light of the lamp.
“Aah, after all it’s a fine coloring.”
“Is it a blue glass? It’s certainly rare to see such a thing.
What’s up with this glass?”
“This was made of the waste inside the barrel that was kicked off by Botchan.”
『To be exact, I made a blue-colored glass rather than the glass itself.』
“Hee……?”
“This is a rather rare tal on this continent called cobalt oxide.
Far from a waste, it seems to be worth twenty tis that of silver of the sa weight.”
“E, eeeehhhhh—!?”
Harold cried out with his eyes wide open.
He had to be surprised because what he thought was just a waste turned into treasure.
“That……what a coincidence.”
“Indeed, it’s an amazing coincidence.
Surely the proportions of the tals contained in the ore deposit and the slting thod thought of by Earl Nibelheim have ended up producing this result.”
“You an, if we sell this rare tal called cobalt oxide, we can regain even the loss of the fraud!?”
“I wonder about that.”
“Well, that’s what one would think. That’s why I couldn’t say it.”
Harold who recovered from his shock raised a voice full of joy.
Gilbert and I shrugged and exchanged glances.
“It’s not about how much you can sell, the problem is how to sell it.
For example, if you sell it as a material for blue glass, there is only a limited demand.
If you sell it to the temples, churches, and part of the aristocrats and rchants, the consumption will reach the limit.”
“If they know that cobalt oxide can be made as long as the silver ores in the northwest areas haven’t been exhausted yet, its value will be lower than it is currently.”
“No way……”
“You shouldn’t sell the cobalt oxide itself, but the added value born by it.
Just as how the Nibelheim territory isn’t just selling a mass of high-purity silver, but a high-quality silverware.”
“Hahaha, you are still a child but you sure know your stuff, Ojou-san.
That’s why I also thought that I want to pitch in and help my important younger brother.”
『After all, what kind of person are you, Gilbert.
You are not just an ordinary youngest child of a wealthy rchant.』
“I’d like to return those words to mister as it is.”
Gilbert smiled wryly at Tirnanog’s pointed question.
“To begin with I didn’t collect the slt for so insight I had.
When I used analysis magic because I was worried whether harmful substances were mixed, I discovered it by chance.
But mister, you didn’t use any magic or anything.
You are not just an ordinary escort of a duke’s daughter.”
『I am a very ordinary guardian. And my old friend was a famous alchemist.』
Tirnanog continued to sidestep the question without lying as usual.
Gilbert shrugged his shoulders at his response.
『What were you doing before you returned to this place?』
“I was pursuing my dream. It took ten years for that dream to co true halfway.”
“Specifically, what is that dream?”
“That is……well, I will show you. Keep it a secret, okay?”
Gilbert took out the white silk packet from his bag.
He gently put the sowhat flat packet on the table and carefully unwrapped it.
What appeared from the white silk fabric was a white plain dish.
It wasn’t pure white, it was tinged with a faintly pure and translucent bluish color.
When it was looked under the strong yellow-colored light, the whiteness felt more prominent.
“Is this porcelain?”
“Correct. As expected from the duke’s daughter, you can recognize it at a glance.”
No, it was just that in my previous world porcelain was not unusual.
I couldn’t say it though.
“Ooh~, certainly, this is similar to the dishes Master is collecting!”
“Right, right, this is similar to that dish.
There is a broken one in that collection, right?”
“It is a dish with a picture of a beast.”
“Actually, the one who broke it was .”
Harold was frozen in shock for a mont, his chair moved back a few centiters.
I understood his surprise.
Even if it was a used item in pristine condition, it was at least worth a castle.
When he saw our reactions, Gilbert laughed with an expression like a mischievous boy.
“Uwah……that kind of thing……Aniki, I guess you were very angry?”
“You’d think so. But actually it was a bit different.
Maybe because I was a child that born when my old man was already old, I was very spoiled.”
Gilbert murmured in nostalgia that he was a brat in those days.
It seed that he felt a sense of satisfaction by feeling cherished from the reaction, as he did various mischiefs to attract his father’s attention.
At so point, he himself forgot the reason why he broke a dish that was the Turm elder’s precious dish.
He would only know about it after a long ti had passed, but it was a dish that was expensive enough to be able to buy a small southern island with one piece of it.
Nevertheless, there was no wrinkle between the eyes of the Turm elder.
“Instead, he was worried whether or not I got hurt.”
From the eyes of Gilbert who was only a child at that ti, he also found that the eyes behind those lenses were sad.
Although he was trying hard to care about his child, Gilbert seed to have received the impression that he had sowhat emptied a hole in the heart of Turm elder.
Perhaps, it might have been a dish that had been cherished next to his thirteen sons.
Thinking so, Gilbert beca frightened and thought to apologize again.
“So, I said it clearly.
‘When I beco an adult, I will make the sa dish’, I said.”
Turm elder was furious when he heard those words.
You don’t have to risk your life to make that kind of thing.
Use your ti and talent for more aningful things.
When he raised his voice as he said this, Turm elder gazed at Gilbert with eyes that had a deeper anguish than when the plate broke.
“That was the only ti my old man yelled at .”
I guessed he was probably worrying about Gilbert’s future.
However, on the contrary, Gilbert’s heart was captured by the existence of porcelain.
He wanted to triumph over his old man by any ans. And then, he wanted Turm elder to laugh as he saw the dish that he made.
“That’s why, I purposely chose a porcelain collector that was particularly on bad terms with my old man, and got myself a patron.”
It was said that the noble was a powerful aristocrat from Ignitia.
Without telling anyone, Gilbert got on a ship to the South and left Knot Reed.
“I used that noble’s connections and enrolled in Lindis under a pseudonym.
It was a short and exciting free ti to learn the minimum necessary knowledge and skills.
After I got a personal laboratory in Ignitia, it was a life that would make wanted to say that it was a confinent.
Well, I thought that it was not bad, since I finally able to make this, with my youth as the compensation price.”
“Wait, Aniki……don’t tell , the white porcelain alchemist that is rumored to be fleeing an Ignitia aristocracy is……?”
“Because I was nearly killed. What is it called, research policy disagreent?”
Gilbert was wearing cordovan shoes.
According to Harold, those were the Ignitian aristocratic shoes.
I didn’t notice until I was told, but the hint had been there forever.
“I wanted to reproduce the blue in my mory, but he wouldn’t let .
That person wanted to have a collection of levels that he could appreciate.
But, I wanted to reproduce the technique in its complete form.
I wanted to revive the ancient colors on this one. I wanted to make the real deal, not an imitation.”
Gilbert looked towards the South in nostalgia for a mont.
He seed to be feeling so respect and sincerity for his Ignitian aristocratic patron.
It might have been a strong feeling to the degree that it wouldn’t go away even if he got killed.
“Just a little bit longer, and I might have to say goodbye to my neck and torso. But it seed that my luck had not run out yet.
I was able to escape due to the great chaos caused by the prince.
When I was desperately running away, I had no destination in mind, but for so reason I reached my hotown, Knot Reed.”
The rumors about the white porcelain alchemist seed to have been true.
He was able to escape by taking advantage of the massive ntal interference because he was Gilbert, whose blood was a mix of the eastern mage and the Visitor’s Clan.
One never knew what will change things for the better in which ways, huh.
Gilbert picked up the blue glass bead that was rolling in the corner of the desk and held it up to the light.
『That blue is the blue that is in your mory, right.』
“Aa, that’s right, mister……if this is the case, it can be reproduced.”
『The blue you were looking for was in your hotown this whole ti.』
“It’s an ironic thing……”
Gilbert closed his eyes and placed the blue glass on the table.
Taking a deep breath, he opened his eyes with a serious look.
“Say, Aniki, can this be produced in our territory?”
“Aa, it can. As long as one knows how to handle the furnace. I have spent my life for that.”
“Then, if this story spreads, there will be no lenders that will withdraw their money from the Nibelheim family!?”
“No, you need the actual things, not just lip-service.
Just as how I resigned to talk when confronted with Ojou-san’s blue glass.”
Harold’s bright voice and expression finally ca back, and Gilbert backtracked.
“I wanted to make money for furnace and pignts sohow and tried to sell the white porcelains that I had.
But, not even one was sold.
It seems that a scam aid at an antique art dealer was rampant so ti before I ca.
The scrutiny for artworks in the northwest area has beco considerably severe.”
“No way……”
“Oi, oi, Botchan. Don’t be looking like that. I didn’t say that I cannot do it.”
“But, Aniki. Even if you start making porcelain from now, ultimately you won’t be able to make it in ti……”
“No, that’s not true.
Oops……it’s going to be done heating up soon.”
Gilbert murmured so and stood up.
Huh? Didn’t porcelain take more weeks to make?
Harold looked up at Gilbert with an absentminded blank expression.
I was certain that I was making a taken aback face that wouldn’t lose out to him.
“This is just right. Everyone, follow .
I will show you the magic that I……no, we assembled over a decade.”
That said, Gilbert laughed a lot with confidence.
Reviews
All reviews (0)