Chapter 10: Magic ore store Eruzumagie
At the Golden Wall"s pavilion, Eldor contacted the Jackberry house once and took us to the magic ore shop right after. They didn"t end up asking too many questions, and the master of the Golden Wall Inn gave us a location of an Ore shop.
The brick streets of Maaken weren"t too different from the city of Jackberry. The lights were arranged in an equal interval across both ways of the street, and the lights on each corner were decorated with small ornate stones. The pavement was also smartly dressed with stones of various colors.
Some magic carriages also diverted from the main street into the side roads. Over there in contrast to the main street were a lot of small stores lined up.
As expected, outside was quite hot… We only just stepped outside the Inn, but I could already feel the sweat on my forehead. Even though the city of Maaken is located farther to the north than Jackberry city. The heat is pretty much the same. It must be a tough season for all fatties.
"Use this."
Eldor quickly took out a cold towel and gave it to me. Oooooh! Feels good! I don"t know where he took it from, but I instantly feel refreshed.
"Shall I freeze your head?"
"Hmm?"
When I turned around, I saw Riley preparing a water spell.
"Are you trying to kill me?!"
"Nah. I just thought about taking the heat from your body."
"My life would be taken away instead!"
"It"s okay; it"s okay. It"s not that big of a deal."
"It is a big deal! Also, don"t use magic in a place like this."
"I didn"t use it on the main street, right? Ku ku ku."
While laughing mischievously, Riley stopped his spell. Eldor and Trian were also holding down their laughs. Good grief, this is not something to laugh about!
We pa.s.sed a flower shop and a general store made of bricks and stopped in front of a three-story building while Elder confirmed the signboard. The signboard was a round wooden board surrounded with metal fixings that appeared like ivy. Metal chains connected it to the wall of the second floor. The rim of the metal fixings is decorated with glowing ores.
[Magic ore store Eruzumagie]
It seems that this is the place. After Eldor opened the door, a bell hanging just above it echoed with a *riririn*. After entering, small faint sparkling ores came floating towards us like fireflies. From left to right, the shop was decorated with display shelves made of wood, and each one was filled with ores that were all lined up closely together.
"So pretty…"
Riley tried to grab some of the floating ores, but they quickly escaped from his grasp and disappeared to the bas.e.m.e.nt of the shop. On the other side of the shop, a good mannered old lady appeared behind the counter. I wonder if this little old lady is the shopkeeper?
"Welcome, may I ask what you"re looking for?"
"Greetings, we heard that we could find lots of ores here that can"t be found with regular mining. Are there any ores for repairing an accessory?"
"If that"s the case, how about the ones in the right corner over there. They might be small, but we just picked them yesterday."
The shopkeeper stretched herself out and took down a basket with some ores in it from one of the shelves in the right corner. Inside the basket was a great number of small ores of about 1cm in diameter.
"Lease. What about these ores?"
Eldor took one of the red ores. By the way, the aliases that we picked were made up by Riley and me, but we didn"t really think it through that much and as such Eldor ended up being "El, " and Trian just stayed as Trian. We weren"t on guard, so we didn"t care that much. Even though we"re in a hurry because I became impatient, I still wanted to somewhat think of Eldor"s safety. Since his appearance is so good after all. If something happened to Eldor, I would really cry out, and that"s why I tried my best to make him look modest and not stand out too much.
I feel that he already stands out in a lot of ways but being able to notice it or not makes a big difference… Or at least, that"s how I feel.
"Let"s try setting up some necklaces. Shopkeeper, could we use some stones?"
"But of course. You can use this tray if you"d like."
The shopkeeper hands over a warm tray made of grain wood. I lined up the magic gem from Ariane with the shop"s ore on the tray. Then I slowly cover them with one hand on both of them and began using some magic power.
"Is it going alright?"
I gathered some magic power at the palm of my hand. As I did so, the jewel and the magic ore on the tray began to shine a dim light from the inside.
"It sparkled!"
"It"s so pretty."
"Looks like there is no doubt about it. This jewel is made from this city"s magic ores."
That they"re sparkling with the same color means that they have a good compatibility. If the compatibility were bad, only one of them would shine or in some cases, neither of them.
"Is it possible for you to repair it?"
"Yes."
"And this is the first time you have done it?"
"Yes. It"s also my first time buying magic ores."
"Is that so. If that"s the case, if you wait a little longer, the magic ores of today"s pick should arrive anytime now. Small stones similar to these are brought directly by the miners. The ones in the shop are mostly brought by my son and grandchild. They both should be back soon so would you like to take a look at those too?"
The level of freshness of this magic ore should be more than enough but if we can obtain stones that are picked up today the result should be even better.
"Well then, we will take you up on that offer and wait."
"Please do. Because for repairs it"s better for the magic ore to be as fresh as it can be since it will increase the success rate."
The shopkeeper headed towards the bas.e.m.e.nt of the shop and returned carrying enough black tea for all four of us.
"It"s not much, but there are some tea and snacks. If it"s okay with you, you can sit over there and have some."
"Thank you very much."
Riley, Trian, and Eldor sat down as they were advised to. The shopkeeper turned her face towards me who was still standing up.
"Oh, you don"t like black tea?"
"Oh no, I like it a lot. It"s just I still want to look at the magic ore"s in the shop a bit more."
I smiled as much as I could to avoid the question. You can tell, right? That it looks like if I sit on that chair, it would most likely be crushed under my body"s weight.
Hey, Riley. You noticed and are holding back your laughter, right? Even if you turn away, I can still tell since your shoulders are shaking and all! d.a.m.nit…
I looked towards the shelf with magic ores lined up on it. After looking around it for a while, I could tell that they have a couple of nice and big jewels as well.
Won"t they get robbed? If something were to happen, I think it would be dangerous with just this little old lady here.
"Is there something you"re interested in?"
"Won"t they get stolen? It"s quite easy to take them and all."
"All the magic ores in this store are protected by an anti-theft magic. If they are forcibly taken, the magic ore will break itself and become unusable."
So that"s why. Even a shop as small as this doesn"t have to worry about theft.
"These cookies are delicious."
"The tea is also from Brandy. It smells so good."
How long have I been watching the crystals? The shopkeeper began to nervously check her clock.
"They seem to be quite late today…"
The sunlight coming from the windows started to fade slowly, and the flower vases at the window started casting some huge shadows towards the interior of the shop.
"I really apologize for making you wait…"
She said that as if implying that they should have returned by now while serving another batch of tea. Straight after that…
*BANG!*
We could hear the sound of impact echoing from outside. There was some commotion outside the shop.
"The mine…"
"… there has been an accident…"
We heard screams telling things along those lines. After taking a look at each other’s faces, we all dashed outside.