2-1 At The Royal Capital’s Adventurers’ Guild

After parting with that mother and child, I searched for an inn on the map.

I was tired of fussing over it, so I just picked a random place nearby that caught my eye.

It looked like a small, ordinary inn, but it cost one silver coin per night.

Hah.

So that was the equivalent of ten thousand yen.

It was basically a cramped business hotel in a small regional city—no bath, no toilet, tiny room—right by the station.

The royal capital’s inns were expensive after all.

Even in Tokyo, this level wouldn’t cost that much.

Still, it was far better than the village inn.

It was a shame the bedding in cheap lodgings was only so-so.

Yeah, but it was good enough.

I’d made it to the royal capital, so I wasn’t going to complain.

I had plenty of money.

Dinner cost extra.

It was two large copper coins—pretty pricey—but it tasted good.

Compared to the frontier, there was a huge gap in ingredients, and especially seasonings.

Or maybe they didn’t have Japanese-style seasonings and it was more about technique—but either way, the difference in flavor was enormous.

I was tired from traveling today, so I decided to sleep early.

On the tenth day of this other world—an endless storm of events—I finally made it to the royal capital.

For now, I visited about five exchange houses.

Since this was the huge royal capital, exchanging a large amount shouldn’t be a problem.

I exchanged the equivalent of one thousand gold coins, and took that portion in large gold coins.

That brought my funds to the equivalent of one thousand three hundred ninety gold coins, plus fifty-five silver coins, twenty-eight large copper coins, and four hundred twenty copper coins.

That was a fortune now.

Like winning first prize in the lottery.

If this were Japan, I’d be wealthy enough—over three hundred million yen in financial assets—that I’d have to file annual asset declarations with the tax office.

Since prices were higher in the royal capital, large copper coins might be more convenient than copper coins.

My immediate goals were to learn offensive magic and obtain magical metals like mithril and orichalcum.

So today, I decided to take a look at the royal capital’s Adventurers’ Guild.

The Adventurers’ Guild stood near the west access gate of the capital’s inner wall, within the outermost general district of the triple-wall defensive structure.

Meaning any resident of the capital—or any visitor—could reach it.

The royal capital’s Adventurers’ Guild was lively enough.

I decided to wait in line at a relatively uncrowded counter.

In the line next to me, a fight had broken out over whose turn it was.

It was between someone who looked like a warrior in leather armor and someone holding a staff who seemed like a mage.

Seriously.

What a nuisance.

Still, I did get to enjoy just how fantasy-like they looked.

I held back the urge to put them down and endured—like a good little patient boy.

That kind of restraint was hard for me, since I wasn’t exactly the patient type.

After twenty minutes, it was finally my turn, so I showed my adventurer card and spoke to the counter clerk, who looked like he was a man in his twenties.

“Hey. I want to learn magic.”

“I see. However, magic requires aptitude.”

“How do you test that?”

“With a magical device.”

Oh, a magical device.

“For what it’s worth, I can already use healing magic to some extent.”

He looked surprised for a moment, then immediately called someone over and had me guided inside.

It was a small room like a meeting room, and they brought out a magical device: a small crystal resting on a square metal pedestal.

“How does the cost work? How much is the usage fee for that expensive-looking magical device?”

“The magical-aptitude test itself is free. As for instruction fees, it’s usually somewhere between ten and one hundred gold coins per spell.”

Huh. That was pricier than I expected.

If you converted the high-end magic tuition into yen, it probably reached the hundred-millions.

One spell costing a hundred million yen in instruction fees.

That was obscene.

…But I was going to buy it.

I had more than enough on hand.

If I came all the way here and didn’t buy it, what was the point?

No amount of money could replace my life.

If I didn’t learn some pricey magic, I couldn’t survive in a world this dangerous.

And anyway, this money came from exchanging gold plates I’d duplicated.

“Got it.

So what do you recommend?”

“Well. For practical usability: Air Cutter, Air Bullet, Ice Lance, Thunder Ball, Earth Lance, Stone Bullet, and Magic Arrow. Fireball is popular, but fire magic depends on where you use it, so it’s discounted a bit. Next are support spells. I recommend the common, versatile, practical ones. Fast, Slow, Arrow Boost, Attack, Strong, Hard, Impact. Those are beginner spells, so you can learn them for ten gold coins each. Assuming you have aptitude for them. Also, spell power depends on your mana capacity. Alright, let’s measure you now. Th-this is…!”

The staff member stared at the results with wide eyes.

“W-what is it?”

Don’t just go silent.

You’re going to make me nervous.

Don’t tell me, at this point, that I can’t use anything except healing magic.

Please, no.

I definitely had aptitude for all magic, didn’t I?!

“Amazing. You have aptitude across many elements. I’ve never seen someone like this. Normally people have one at most—two if they’re lucky. Three is extremely rare. However, when someone has too many aptitudes, it can lead to being a jack-of-all-trades, master of none.”

Oh, seriously?!

…Well, I’d like to cover that with sheer mana capacity, thanks.

“For now, I want to learn everything you listed. That was fifteen spells, right?”

“U-understood. That will be one hundred fifty gold coins. Please note: even if, due to aptitude or other factors, you fail to learn a spell after instruction, we cannot issue refunds. We can continue instruction until you learn it, but if it takes too long and the instructor judges you have no prospects, instruction will be terminated.”

“Yeah, that’s fine.”

I counted out the money and handed it over immediately.

Fifteen large gold coins.

“Also—do you have weapons made of mithril or orichalcum?”

“We have mithril in stock, but it’s expensive. A knife is two hundred gold coins. Orichalcum items rarely circulate. If we had one, the guild would want to buy it.”

I’d hoped I could at least get the raw orichalcum material, but no luck.

It really was that rare.

I’d have to ask somewhere later if I could borrow some.

“Then give me a mithril knife too.”

I handed over an additional twenty large gold coins.

Haha… a single knife for two hundred million yen.

That really was a fantasy world.

The price scale was unreal.

Like item prices in a game.

At least there was no sales tax—small mercy.

“Certainly. We’ll prepare the knife first, so please wait.”

That left me with sixty-five large gold coins, three hundred ninety gold coins, fifty-five silver coins, twenty-eight large copper coins, and four hundred twenty copper coins.

Man—no sooner had I arrived in the royal capital than I was spending hard again.

Well, it was exactly what I’d planned to spend it on, so it couldn’t be helped.

After waiting quite a while, that same clerk brought me the knife.

Because it was special, he probably needed multiple approvals from superiors to take it out.

In the meantime, the people who’d been behind me in line kept glaring at me as they gradually dropped out one after another.

But since it was guild staff handling it, nobody dared complain to me.

It was a relatively large weapon, but it was still just a knife.

And it was clearly secondhand—well used.

A new one must be much more expensive.

I only wanted mithril material anyway, so I didn’t care.

Mithril shone with a pale silver-white luster, whiter than silver.

When I appraised it, it read: “Mithril Knife.”

Alright. No doubt about it.

I pretended to tuck it inside my clothes, then stored it in my item box.

And I immediately tried copying it.

Ohhh!

I could copy mithril.

But the mana consumption was enormous.

So magical metals really weren’t ordinary substances.

“Now we’ll begin magic instruction, so please follow me.”

We went to a training ground in the back.

Apparently they called it a practice yard.

Several people who looked like adventurers were lined up waiting for me there.

They were probably the instructors for each element.

“They’ll demonstrate once each, so watch carefully.”

At that, I activated my observation skill from the Seventh Sense.

Everyone took turns demonstrating the spells.

Good—I used the magic-learning skill and learned them all.

That observation skill really was derived from an “ability I already had.”

Though, to be honest, the Seventh Sense wasn’t something you could neatly call an “ability” at all.

It wasn’t really a “Seventh Sense power,” and I wasn’t some suspicious “Seventh Sense psychic” either.

That was just a convenient label.

I was just an ordinary person who happened to be “together with someone called the Seventh Sense.”

Well, convenient was convenient, so fine.

I stepped forward and cast the spells I’d learned, one after another, to show them.

A gasp went up among the guild people.

“T-this is—!”

Uh-oh. That might’ve been too much.

If you learn spells just by watching a demonstration before the instruction even begins, of course they’ll be shocked.

But it was a hassle, and I didn’t really care.

“I told you I had healing magic, right? I’ve already learned the trick to learning magic. Also, can’t I learn higher-class spells too?”

Maybe because I’d been battered by this world, I could rattle off excuses as smoothly as breathing in and out.

Back in Japan, I was bad at this kind of thing—but I guess everything comes with experience.

“There are about five intermediate storm-type spells across the elements. That will be two hundred fifty gold coins total.”

I didn’t hesitate—I handed over twenty-five large gold coins on the spot.

That left me with forty large gold coins, three hundred ninety gold coins, fifty-five silver coins, twenty-eight large copper coins, and four hundred twenty copper coins.

Among the adventurers there, someone who could use intermediate spells demonstrated them for me, and I quickly learned them all as well.

They seemed to have plenty of power.

Since the training was happening in a practice yard, the instructors were holding back, so I couldn’t really tell the true destructive force.

“Truly splendid. I’ve never seen anyone who can use so many types of magic—and learn them so quickly.”

Yeah… I might be standing out a bit too much.

But whatever.

I needed ways to protect myself.

“By the way, I didn’t encounter a single monster on the road from the frontier to here. Are there even monsters on the highway?”

I did encounter them in the frontier, though.

That first contact had been the worst.

“Really? Then you were lucky.”

“Instead, I ran into a big bandit gang. Apparently they were tough—former mercenaries and the like. I wiped out forty of them.”

“That must have been difficult.”

Yeah. It was beyond difficult.

I never wanted to acquire this world’s version of “blood-soaked initiation” in the first place.

“Can I learn advanced magic?”

“Yes.

However, those are rare spells, so we need to coordinate schedules with someone qualified to teach them. It won’t be immediate.”

“Understood. Then I want you to arrange it. We’ll do that later.”

After that, I looked over weapons in the guild shop.

I wanted proper gear.

“How about this sword?”

The clerk recommended a greatsword.

Also a short sword.

And spears and short spears as well.

Proper weapons really were impressive.

They felt western in style, but even western swords varied widely by country and purpose.

Some were large two-handed blades meant to smash metal armor, others seemed specialized for cutting people.

In sharpness, my Japanese knife would probably be far better.

That wasn’t a blade that was expensive for no reason.

The weapons altogether cost six gold coins.

Next was leather armor.

After having it adjusted to fit me, it cost two gold coins.

Even after paying that, I still had funds equivalent to seven hundred eighty-two gold coins remaining.

Next came recovery items: potions.

Heal potions for injuries were common, but there were also mana potions for mages, cancel potions to cure status ailments, and poison potions specialized for detox.

I bought one each of beginner, intermediate, and advanced versions of these.

The prices were: large gold coin, gold coin, and large silver coin, respectively.

Advanced heal potions rarely came in, so they were usually out of stock.

Apparently they happened to have one today, so I got lucky.

Well, that was probably the Seventh Sense at work again.

My remaining funds were thirty-four large gold coins, three hundred ninety-seven gold coins, one hundred seventeen silver coins, twenty-eight large copper coins, and four hundred twenty copper coins.

I’d spent a lot, but it was worth it for magic and good equipment.

It also helped that I could copy the potions properly.

After returning to the inn, I copied the purchased equipment in mithril, and my mana level rose by one—up to Level 8.

My mana climbed to nearly 343.6 billion MP.

That growth was absurd.

Were all rare visitors like this?

When I checked my status, my HP had risen to 100,000 HP.

Level 6.

Unlike MP, this number rose much more slowly.

Maybe it was linked to physical enhancement?

I should try leveling physical enhancement.

I wanted to level offensive magic too, but with my MP becoming something unreal, if I was going to do that, I might need to find a practice ground reserved just for me.