Cleaning Up After a Fight
"I see, so that's how it is. Rikka, you come over here too."
Feeling very awkward because she had caused her father and Margine to get into a fistfight, Rikka timidly came over.
"Rikka, do you understand that you're the reason our diner ended up like this?"
"B-But Margine...."
"Margin got angry because you treated Dadd's cooking carelessly, right?"
"That's right, but...."
The proprietress glared sharply at Rikka as she tried to make excuses.
"I'm sorry...."
"Margine, what you said is not wrong. However, you shouldn't yell at a girl who hasn't even come of age yet like that. You also shouldn't take out your frustration on people who have nothing to do with it."
"No, I just...."
*glare*
"I-I was wrong. Rikka, I'm sorry for yelling at you."
"Yeah...."
"Now, Dadd."
"Y-Yes."
"I'll talk to you separately later, so be prepared."
"M-Margine...."
When Boss looked at Margine for help, he turned his face away. The grudge from being suddenly punched was strong.
"So, why did you all become interested in Margine?"
"Well, you see...."
Rocca told the story starting from how Margine saved a girl who was about to be attacked by a pack of wolves.
"I can’t believe this. To think you'd try to lay a hand on a child."
Upon hearing the story, Rikka jumped to the conclusion that Margine helped the girl with ulterior motives.
"Rikka, don't interrupt when others are talking. Besides, what is Margine to you? Your boyfriend? Or are you saying he's your fiancé?"
It was obvious to Millie that her adolescent daughter was jealous seeing Margine with other women. However, Margine only saw Rikka as a little sister figure.
"I-It's not like that! He is just Margine, but beautiful women kept looking for him. Even today...."
“Does it matter to you who Margine meets with?”
*glare*
"N-No, but...."
"Then be quiet."
"H-Hey, Millie. You make it sound like...."
*glare*
"N-No, nothing."
"So, you were looking for Margine because he helped that girl. But surely, that's not the only reason, right?"
Rocca and the others exchanged glances.
"Actually, we thought Margine might be a storage magic user. If you know how to use storage magic, could you teach us?"
"Storage magic? Margine, can you really use such a legendary magic?"
Millie asked knowing that Margine could use storage magic. She was trying to help Margine bluff his way out.
"There's no way I can use something like storage magic."
Margine feigned ignorance.
"Then, what happened to the girl's luggage?"
Rocca and the others pressed on.
"Tch! Keep this secret, okay? I stored them here."
Margine showed them a small pouch that was attached to his belt.
"Is that a magic bag?"
"That's right. Usually, I only use it to store something small like portable food."
"You went all the way to Lionell without carrying any other luggage?"
"You know my profession, right? I don’t need to carry water. I can use cleansing magic, so I don’t need to change clothes. If I had other choice, I wouldn't store that girl luggage in my magic bag because it drained the magic crystal faster."
"I see...."
"Don't ever tell anyone about this. You know where my shop is, right? I will be in a big trouble if the people there find out that I have a magic bag."
“There’s no storage magic user, after all....”
Rocca looked very disappointed, but Vanessa suddenly leaned her face closer to Margine.
"W-What?"
"Tell me where you got that."
"This is something I inherited from my parents. I don't know where they obtained it."
"So, if I go to Margine's hometown, I might be able to obtain a magic bag too, right?"
"I don't even know how to go back to my hometown, so I think it's a pointless idea."
"Oh, I see...."
"Is that all?"
"Hmm? Yeah, we are really sorry about what happened today."
"It's already happened, so it's fine. Lady Boss, since I'm also responsible for this mess, I will help you clean up."
"Of course, you have to."
After the members of Guiding Star left, Margine and the others began tidying up the diner.
❄︎❄︎❄︎❄︎❄︎
Boss asked Margine to stay for some drinks after finishing the cleanup. If he went straight to his bedroom, he would have to listen to his wife's lecture, so he was buying time until she fell asleep.
"Hey, Margine."
"What?"
"I'm sorry about before. I didn't know you got angry at Rikka because she treated the food I made carelessly."
"You should have listened to what I said first. Getting punched out of nowhere would piss anyone off."
"That's why I said sorry. By the way, when I punched your stomach, what were you trying to do? You weren't planning to kill me, were you?"
"If I really intended to kill you, I could have done it with a single offensive spell."
"Then, what was that?"
"That was a buff.... in other words, a body strengthening magic. I thought it would be bad if I took another punch like that, so I strengthened my body."
"Oh, there's such magic?"
"During your time as an active Hunter, have you ever felt a sudden surge of power when things got really dangerous?"
"Now that you mention it, something like that did happen several times."
"That was a buff. You were unconsciously using body strengthening magic on yourself."
“What!?”
"Everyone possesses magic power, so they should be able to use magic. It's just that they don't know how to activate it."
"Is that true?"
"For example, some people can cut hard wood cleanly even with a light swing of sword, right?"
“People who are called swordmasters can do that even if the have become old men.”
"Can an amateur do the same thing using the same sword?"
"I guess that's impossible."
"Right? I know a little bit of swordsmanship, but I can't do something like that. However, if I study swordsmanship more deeply, I might be able to do it, too. It's the same with magic. The amount may vary, but everyone possesses magic power. They just don't know the proper technique to use it."
"So, the magic circle transcription makes that possible?"
"Yes, it allows you to use spells through magic circles. There's also something called magic aptitude. If we use athletic ability as an analogy, there are people who are good at sprinting and there are people who are good at running marathons, or something like that. In short, people have magic they're good at."
"I see...."
"However, light and dark attributes magic cannot be activated unless you have the aptitude, meaning you need talent for this magic. This is something that can't be overcome by effort."
“What kind of magic is light attribute magic?”
"For example, healing magic and protection magic."
"You can use healing magic?"
"Yes. However, my healing magic can't cure diseases. To cure a disease, you have to know what kind of disease it is and what to do to cure it. That's why I couldn't save Tabitha..."
"I see...."
"You need medical knowledge in order to cure diseases. But unfortunately, the current medical knowledge has not very advanced yet. All I can do is heal injuries, relieve pain, or reduce fever. In some cases, reducing the fever will bring harm to the patient's body, so I tend to avoid it as much as possible."
"What about dark attribute magic?"
"For example, debuffs and spatial magic. The buffs I mentioned earlier increase the target's physical abilities, while debuffs lower the target's physical abilities or causes status ailments. You use it to put the enemy at a disadvantage, such as by paralyzing or forcing them to sleep. By the way, storage magic is one of dark attribute magic, and the most advanced of them is teleportation magic."
"Teleportation magic? Does fairy tale magic really exist?"
"Yes, it does. This magic consumes an enormous amount of magic power depending on the distance, and you also need to know and specify the place you want to teleport to."
"Don't tell me you can use teleportation, too."
"It's not that I can't use teleportation, but I choose not to use it. I get teleportation sickness when I use teleportation, after all."
"Teleportation sickness?"
"It's like motion sickness, but much worse. After teleporting, I won't be able to move for a while. If there's an enemy at the destination, there's nothing I can do."
"That's no good."
"But, you know, some people have no problem with it. Even among the members of the Hero Party, I'm the only one who get teleportation sickness."
"That's the Hero Party for you."
"Yeah, everyone is an expert in their own field."
"Does that include you too?"
"Of course, I'm a magic expert!"
"Hmph, for someone calling himself a magic expert, you are ignorant about magic bags."
"Ignorant? What do you mean?"
"I'm talking about that pouch you called a magic bag."
"Is there something wrong with it?"
"It's common sense that the capacity of magic bag is only two to three times of the physical bag. But even three times of that pouch's capacity is not that big, right?"
"Is that so? But I can put all the tables and chairs here into the pouch. In fact, the capacity of this pouch is as big as that of a warehouse."
"Huh?"
"I don't use usually use magic bag because if I put things in it, I have to rummage around to take them out."
"W-Where did you get something like that?"
"Where? I made it myself, of course."
"Huh?"
"Oh? Didn't I tell you? I can make magic tools, too. I used to develop all sorts of handy magic tools with my magic teacher back in the days. It was more of a hobby than a job, though."
"Does anyone know about this?"
"If even Boss doesn't know, I probably haven't told anyone about this. If there's a magic tool you want, I can make it, but securing the magic crystals is a real pain."
"What's wrong with magic stones?"
"For a simple magic tool like a mixer, magic stones will be enough. However, for something like a dishwasher that uses multiple attributes, unless you use magic crystals, you will have to replace them often, which is a hassle. You need to use high-purity magic crystals for magic bags. However, the monsters nowadays have low-purity and small magic crystals, so even if you use them, the capacity of magic bags will be small."
"Are monsters that different in the past?"
"You can eat monster meat after draining their blood, right?"
"That’s right."
"Back then, you also need to remove the miasma to make monster meat edible.
"Miasma?"
"Maybe it's better to call it high concentration of magic essence."
"What is magic essence?"
"Magic essence is the source of the magic power contained in the air. It's something necessary for those who possess magic power, but if the concentration is too high, it becomes poisonous. Especially for people with small magic power pool, the effects are more severe. Do you know about the magic core, a monster's weak point?"
"Yeah, strong monsters have something like that."
"When such monsters dies, their magic core will turn into a magic crystal."
"Really?"
"Yes. That’s why you won’t find a magic crystal from a monster you killed by destroying their magic core. Instead, the destroyed magic core will turn into miasma, which is poisonous."
"I had no idea...."
"That's understandable. In the past, monsters also stored miasma in their flesh, which is why their magic crystals were purer and larger."
"Is it that different?"
"For example, can you tell what monster this magic crystal came from?"
Margine took out a dark red, almost black, magic crystal about the size of a golf ball.
"What kind of color is this...?"
"High-purity magic crystals look like this. As its magic power decreases, it will turn into a more familiar color."
Margine extracted the magical power from the crystal and it gradually changed to a ruby-red color.
"W-What did you do?"
"I extracted the magic power from this magic crystal. It's a spell called Magic Drain. Originally, it's used to make monster meat edible."
"What!? Then, where did the extracted magic power go?"
"I release it into the air."
“You threw it away?”
"Yeah, I guess."
"What a waste. And this is such a rare magic crystal too...."
"I have tons of these, so don't worry about it."
"Huh?"
"The first monster I defeated after I learned magic was Demon Wolf and I even obtained a magic crystal from it, which made me even happier. From then on, every time I defeated Demon Wolves, I would collect their crystals. However, it gradually became such a hassle, so I stopped collecting them. I still collected magic crystal from bigger monsters, though.”
"Do you have bigger magic crystals?"
"Wanna see my collection?"
Margine took out a stack of magic crystals from his item box, more than he could hold in both arms.
"Pretty amazing, right? This one is a magic crystal from a big lizard that lived in the demon territory. I was surrounded by a bunch of them...."
"Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait! What do you mean a big lizard? There's no way a lizard big enough to have a magic crystal of this size existed."
"No, they really did. Despite being big, those guys were also pretty fast. I was taking them down one by one, but when I got surrounded, I blasted them all with lightning magic. Even then, they didn't die, so Maverick and Gain had to cut down the lizards that couldn't move one after another."
Margine recounted the story with a cheerful expression.
"I have a lot of these too, do you want some?"
"No, thank you...."
Boss felt a strange mix of emotions as Margine showed off his collection of magic crystals that even the royal family had not seen.