Chapter 19 Strongest Sage, Realizes His Lack of Experience in Life

 

Lured by Alma's line of sight that went outside the store, I also looked outside.
There's a girl around Alma's age with blond hair--
C....Cute!

"Alma, did you have any luck with this store? I couldn't get any myself. Maybe getting a magic sword augmented by tomorrow is--oh my? The gentleman over there is...."

"This is Mathi-kun. He's gonna do the magic augmenting for me!"

It was a perfect strike.
No wait. The other party is 14 year old y'know? Think of my age. My age right now is.... Huh? It's 12. There's nothing weird about it.
Let's forget about that. First, I need to calm down and introduce myself. Be natural, natural....

"I-it is an honor to have met you, my name is Mathias Hildesheimr..."

"Why'd you act so polite all of a sudden...."

Alma retorted me. She's exactly right.
What am I getting shaken for anyway. Even if the current me is 12 year old, the fact that I have a thousand and several hundred years worth of memory doesn't change.

I'm going to use my experience in love affair from my past life here--Huh?
When I think about it again, my experience in the past life mostly didn't have anything related to love.
No. Let's think about it again, carefully.

I was alive in my past life for a thousand and hundreds years.
Time without a girlfriend, a thousand and hundreds years (equals, my lifetime in my past life + my lifetime in this life.)

I see. It's only natural for me to be like this then. Even Biffgel's experience in combat is still slightly better compared to my experience in love.
For now, I've got to introduce myself. When I think again, I should just do it like I did with Alma earlier.

"I'm Mathias. Mathias Hildesheimr. I might have a family name, but I"m the third son of a small noble household. In short, a commoner. I've got no field to plow so I went out of the village. Call me Mathi."

Alright. T'was a perfect self-introduction word-to-word identical to the one earlier. This is nothing if I just calm down.
But.... There's no response.

I look at the girl, her face is red with a blank expression.
....I wonder why. Did I anger since I recycled my introduction.
No. Her expression is too unusual for it to be that. Perhaps, a magic criminal lurking in the city used a hidden mind magic on--.

"Are you alright Ruli?"

While I was converging a detection magic, Alma got close to Ruli and poked her cheek.
How enviable--I mean, that's dangerous! Even though they're rare, there are types of magic that can infect with contacts!

"....Ha! I-I'm fine. M-my name is Ruli Abendroht. I-I don't have a fiance or a boyfriend! I would love it if you call me Ruli...."

I see. She's got no boyfriend huh.
It's a nice information for me, but I wonder if that's something you'd tell in your first meeting.
....Perhaps there's such a custom in some parts of the world. I can't think of any other reason for it.

"Nice to meet you, Ruli."

"N-nice to meet you!"

"Yup, now that we know each other, let's get back to the topic!"

Once we were done, Alma cut in with eyes that looked like she saw something heartwarming for some reason.
....I didn't think about it the first time, but looking closer, Alma is also quite--.
No. Let's not think anything unnecessary, yes let's.

"Mathi-kun would augment the sword for us now, Ruli, do you have that sword with you?"

"Mathi-kun would? Mathi-kun is around the same age as us right? Don't you think that's too much...."

"My common sense also agrees with you.... But my intuition told me to leave it to him."

"I suppose it can't be helped if Alma's intuition says so."

It comes through her with that. Is Alma's intuition really that accurate I wonder.

"This is the broken sword. This sword has been passed down in our family for generations, they said it couldn't be repaired...."

Ruli took out a long sword that had been split in two from its base.
The sword's magic augment is most likely a lesser version of 【Toughening】.
It's considerably better than the magic swords in this store.... But, it still doesn't look like a powerful sword.

"I'm really sorry Ruli. If only I noticed it sooner...."

"The two of us were saved thanks to Alma's intuition. It's unfortunate about the sword, but thanks to Alma and Mathi-kun, it'd make it in time for the exam anyway.... Would it make it in time?"

Ruli asked me that.

"Of course. Once the base sword is complete, I could do it immediately...."

I don't know the market price for the reward.
I actually don't need any reward since it will be done in five seconds though.... But I shouldn't do that.

Augments from a Fourth Crest was equal trash in my past life, or rather, it was treated like a harmful act that would only waste magic stones and equipment.... But if we consider the price of the swords here and their states, it's hard to say that the augment is worthless.
But I feel it'd only lead to problem if I the price I asked turned out to be too expensive later on.... Right, I should do that.

"As for the reward, let's just say that I'm lending you one."

"Y-yes!"

Looks like she agreed to it.
I would probably learn the value of the augmentation later anyway, I can then decide what the compensation would be.
If it's cheap then that's fine, if it's expensive, that means I've lent a favor to a noble family. For someone without any connection like me, it would probably come in handy.

"Ou, I've got the sword ready here."

I turned around and saw the storekeeper carrying a lightweight longsword.
He's much quicker than he promised, but there doesn't seem to be any problem with its quality. He might have said 30 minutes to leave quite some room for any error.

"Then let me start the augmentation. Could I have the magic stone?"

"Eh, you're doing it here right now?"

Alma handed me the magic stone while saying that.
I'm doing it right now, the augmentation won't take any time anyway. It'd only be several seconds.

"Yeah. It'll be over in an instant if it's only this much. The augment magic should be similar to that sword's right?"

After putting the magic stone in the sword, first I synchronize the metal's mana with the magic stone's mana. This is a process called Mana Conditioning.
Next I augment it with magic. The types of magic are... 【Toughening】 and 【Iron Slash】. These two are the most general purpose ones the current me could stabilize.

By the way, the magic swords in this store are most likely augmented without doing the Mana Conditioning first. That's probably the biggest cause of the terrible quality.
A magic augmenter who doesn't know this process is like a blacksmith who doesn't know how to do tempering. They should give up the business at once.

"Well, this should do. Go on and try it."

I said that and gave the augmented sword to Ruli.

"So fast!?"

"Oy oy. There's no way you coulda done it that fast...."

"That's right. Even the fastest augmentation should take 10 minutes at least. If you just swing it like this--"

While muttering, Ruli took the sword and swung it lightly.

"You can easily tell whether it's been augmented...."

This time she swings it a bit more powerfully.
And then her eyes opened wide.

"No way!? It's really been augmented!"

That's what I've been telling you....


























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