By the Grace of the Gods (LN) - Volume 4 - Chapter 19

Chapter 3 Episode 19: The Magic Item Market 1

After dinner, we returned to the inn in a pleasant mood. I gave my slimes some ale I bought as a gift, then we continued our previous conversation.

“For your music boxes, I think you would be best off leaving that matter entirely in someone else’s hands,” Serge said.

“That sounds like the only thing I could do,” I agreed. I couldn’t produce enough on my own, and didn’t have the knowledge required to mass-produce them. But that left the question of who I would ask for help. Serge’s company could put them up for sale, but I didn’t know who could create them.

“I have many ideas as to who you could ask, but why don’t you try approaching Dinome first?” Serge suggested. “He certainly has the skill required, and thanks to his work on magimobiles, he has an understanding of magic items like these. He also simply likes new things, so I think he would be a safe bet.”

“That makes sense, but wouldn’t this be a burden to him?”

“That depends on how you approach it, but I’m sure it will be fine. Dinome also has three disciples. Also, even I was able to understand the structure of this music box, so as soon as they’re put on sale, imitations will undoubtedly begin to circulate. To prevent that and defend your rights as the original creator, you would need a patent. I believe we discussed this with regards to the waterproof cloth.”

“Yes, I know all about patents.”

He had explained it before, but the patents were more or less the same as on Earth anyway. You requested one at the artisan’s guild, and if it was approved, you could clamp down on unpermitted use of your creation. But in order to do that, details about the product and all the technology used to produce it had to be shared with the entire artisan’s guild. They couldn’t restrict use of the product without that information, so you couldn’t refuse to share it if you wanted to request a patent. And if someone paid a usage fee and got permission, they could legally use the technology. Whether to get a patent and publicize everything about your creation or to keep it to yourself was up to the creator. In the case of my waterproof cloth, Serge provided an outlet to sell it and that made it easy enough to secure customers, so I chose not to get a patent for that. It wouldn’t be that bad if people found out how to make it anyway, since it might provide a little ray of hope for slimes.

“As soon as the music boxes go on sale, others will want to sell them too. There’s some chance that Dinome will receive a huge rush of orders for music boxes and be burdened by that,” Serge said.

“I suppose that makes sense.”

Then Serge suggested that I should request a patent this time.

“Do you have some reservations?” he asked.

“You said that I would have to register with the artisan’s guild first, right?”

“Yes, that’s correct.”

“I don’t know about registering just for that. You know that I’m registered with the tamer’s guild too. There are no jobs I can take, though. I feel kind of bad about being part of the guild without doing any work for them.”

My limour birds could have delivered letters, but there were specialists who dealt in that, and it goes without saying that they had no jobs for slimes. Taylor was nice to me anyway, but that only made me feel worse. I wanted to at least do the lowest level work available, but between adventuring and running my store, my hands were full. Maybe I could squeeze it into my schedule somewhere, but the duke’s family warned me not to overdo it, and I didn’t want to disregard them. I couldn’t believe that I was thinking like this now, though. Every time I had a task that could be taken care of by overexerting myself a bit, I threw myself at it to get it dealt with as soon as possible. Maybe I had grown.

“I’ve got an idea,” I said. “If I’m going to have someone else manufacture the music boxes anyway, why not have him request the patent? That would save me some time.”

“That’s, well, it’s possible, but I don’t know if you should.” Serge was suddenly grasping his head like there was some problem. “Anybody is allowed to request the patent, but Dinome may object to the idea of stealing the fruits of someone else’s labor.” It sounded like his pride was the issue. “Besides, if you have someone else make the request in your place, you will not have the rights to your creation. In the worst case scenario, you may not even be able to profit off it. What do you think about that?”

If we wanted to talk about the proper rights holder, then it wasn’t me and I had no right to profit off this invention anyway. It was somebody from ages ago on Earth. I just copied their creation here, and it turned out to be something that might be worth selling. And there was nobody around to criticize me. I was in a lucky position, but that was all. I didn’t care that much about having the rights to music boxes or profiting off of them. With that said, though, I didn’t have the sense of justice or pride necessary to reject an opportunity sitting right in front of me. If I could use this for something, I would. I didn’t want to dismiss Serge entirely, but that was my reasoning.

“Regardless of who does it in the end, I don’t plan on taking that much of the profit,” I answered. “But seeing as how I’ll be asking someone who creates magic items, they may eventually have something that I need on an adventure. As long as I get favorable treatment when it comes to buying magic items off of them, that’s all I need. Hopefully they’ll be willing to cooperate, but if it turns out that they don’t show me much respect, I actually have an idea for another, similar product.”

“Not simply in that it plays a different song, I take it?”

“I don’t even have a prototype for it, so I don’t know if it’ll work. But if it does, it could be even greater than the music box. Great enough to lower the music box’s value,” I said. Serge put his hand on his chin and thought about it.

Even at the store, I thought a bit about making a phonograph and records. They were first developed after the music box, and it’s said that they even ended up taking the place of music boxes. If I could perfectly recreate them, I would have a hit on my hands.

“So if you do happen to lose your rights to the music box, you plan to outmatch it with this other invention?” Serge asked.

“It’s possible, is all.”

There were even magazines that came with simple phonograph construction kits meant for kids, so I had some knowledge of how to build one. It didn’t seem like anything I wouldn’t be able to make with magic. The bigger question was whether I could create records. I only had a vague idea of how to do that. Maybe I could make something that worked, but I didn’t know if it would be good enough for it to catch on.

“If it’s not able to outsell the music boxes, it would be due to my lack of judgment, foresight, knowledge, and skill,” I said. “I’ll deal with it if it happens.” In the end, there was no knowing until I tried.

Serge sighed. “Very well, then we should discuss this assuming that’s the course you will take.”

“Are you sure?”

“It’s fine. I’m a bit surprised, though.” I wanted to ask what was so surprising, but he seemed to see the inquisitive look on my face. He smiled and answered me in advance. “For one, there’s the fact that you have an idea even greater than the music box. But I also didn’t expect you would be willing to use that idea to steal customers from a competitor. I thought you would prefer a more peaceful approach.”

“That would generally be ideal, but I can take a more hardline approach when I have to. Like when I’m attacked, for example. I’ll admit that I have a tendency to take it easy, though.”

“Perhaps I still have more to learn about people. It seems I misread you. But this is rather interesting.”

“What are you talking about now?”

Serge chuckled. “I’m saying that now I expect even greater things from you in the future.”

I didn’t know what I said to make him think that. Maybe he was drunk. We had finished talking and I was starting to worry about him, so we called it for the night. I saw Serge to his room, confirmed that our plans were still on for tomorrow, then returned to my own room.

■ ■ ■

After a nice breakfast the next morning, we headed out to town. Main Street was even busier than yesterday. Carriages passed by right next to us on the narrow street as we pushed forward with a whole crowd of people on the sidewalk until we finally got to the central square. This was where each of the year’s markets were held. There were lines of numerous tents. No carriages were allowed to enter. Any luggage in the carriages was moved to carts that were pulled around manually, allowing customers to walk around freely. Standing in front of all the tents, clerks shouted to us about their products. One claimed to have the latest magic items from the capital.

“I don’t know where to go first,” I said. “What should we do?”

“I simply go wherever catches my fancy,” Serge said. “Is there something you’re looking for in particular?”

“Not especially, but if there’s something that could help with making a furnace at my house, or something that’d make it easier to maintain the mine, or just anything that’d be useful on journeys, I’d like that.”

“Then let’s search for magic items that fit the bill.”

We wandered from tent to tent.

“Are these all farming tools?” I asked.

“Farming tools enchanted with physical enhancement magic, I believe,” Serge said. “They make the job easier at the cost of mana. These are always in demand.”

“Interesting. Something like this could help with maintenance.”

“Welcome, do you want something?” the clerk said.

“Do you have any axes for chopping wood, or sickles for cutting grass?” I asked.

“We have a few types of axes, but this is the only sickle we’ve got.”

“A scythe?”

“Regular sickles are small enough to handle easily without even using the enhancements. We did have some in stock, but they sold out,” the clerk explained. It looked like it would work for cutting plants over a large area, so I would just have to get used to using it.

“That’s fine. I’ll take the scythe, an axe, and, oh, that pitchfork too.”

“One type uses a magic crystal, the other has to be powered by your mana. Which do you want?”

“The one that uses my mana.”

“That’ll be 29000 sute.”

“Here. I’d like change back, please.”

“Thank you, come again.”

I paid three small gold coins and got back one medium silver coin. I stuffed my purchases in my Item Box and moved on to the next store.

“What’s this store?” I asked. The function of their products wasn’t clear from their appearance.

“It seems this store is meant for workers,” Serge said. “For example, this is a magic item that would be used in construction.” He pointed to a metal stick with seven round bumps spaced out along it from top to bottom. I had no clue how this would be used. “Each of these round parts is enchanted with the earth magic spell called Break Rock, each at a different level of power. You would use them on a wall or stone from weakest to strongest in order to test its resistance to earth magic. You could use paint that resists earth magic, but if left neglected, it degrades over time and its effectiveness drastically reduces.”

“I didn’t know there were tools like this.”

“By the way, I checked all that stone you sold me using this exact item. Its resistance was quite decent.”

“That kind of brings back memories.”

“It hasn’t even been a year since then, has it? Wait, hm?”

“Is something wrong?”

“I found an interesting store.”

Serge headed to a corner of the market, where there were a few products set on a carpet. He stooped over to check them.

“May I look at these?” Serge asked the young man working at the store.

“Y-Yes!” he said, apparently nervous. He watched Serge closely examine the products.

“Are you the one who enchanted this mortar with Spin?” Serge asked.

“Yes! I enchanted everything here!”

“May I ask what workshop you work for?”

“Oh, none, at the moment.”

Serge smiled when he heard that. He bought the mortar, took out a piece of paper, and handed it over. The man looked at it, bowed his head deeply, and saw us off as we left his store.

“Serge, that looks heavy. I can put it in my Item Box for you,” I offered.

“Thank you.”

“It’s nothing. By the way, who was he?”

“Did you notice how his store didn’t have a tent? The tents are lent out by the market’s steering committee for workshops and large businesses who apply. When you see a store without a tent, that means it’s run by an individual. Sometimes they do it to express that they’re looking for someone to work for or train under. He was likely driven out of some workshop for being a poor learner. I can see that his enchantments are still rough, but this mortar does spin at a considerable speed. He appeared to take his work seriously, so if he finds a proper place to train, maybe he can change.”

“Was that sheet of paper a letter of introduction for some workshop?”

“Yes, for Dinome’s, in fact.”

“You want him to work on powering the magimobiles?”

“It does seem like he has that kind of potential.”

Even if he was hired, that would probably still be a long way off. I guess Serge wanted to take any chance he could get. We continued to chat as we walked around the magic item market.