Chapter 12: The Jeweler

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Chapter 12: The Jeweler

Charlie was absolutely certain that there was something about this man named Vic that just didn’t sit right with him.

The knight apprentice was about to take Charlie for his examination when Vic asked to observe, claiming that he was “interested.” Anyone could tell that he simply wanted to watch the show. The knight apprentice looked troubled, but the administrative official spoke up.

“What? It’s only a routine examination. Can’t it be observed? The knight order certainly has quite the authority.” It seemed he was taking the opportunity to vent all the anger he had been holding inside.

The administrative official answered directly to the city lord, while a knight apprentice was nowhere near important enough to cross a noble. Naturally, he didn’t dare argue. So what should have been nothing more than a routine examination ended up with Charlie having two unexpected observers.

Charlie still wasn’t entirely confident. He didn’t know whether he could control how brightly the crystal ball lit up when activated. If he couldn’t, then he would have to reveal the secret of the curse himself.

After all, it had been the Grand Mage in the last mage tower who told Charlie that he was under a curse. Once a secret was already known to an outsider, it could no longer really be called a secret.

With that explanation, the fact that his elemental perception was improving day by day would seem perfectly reasonable, and he wouldn’t technically be lying.

“Please.” When they arrived at the examination room, the knight apprentice brought out a crystal ball and asked Charlie to place his hand on it.

Charlie did as instructed. He closed his eyes and carefully controlled the amount of magic elements he sensed. When he opened them again, he was delighted to see that the crystal ball was emitting only a faint glow. It proved that he possessed some elemental perception, but had yet to reach even the threshold for entering the path of magic.

The swordsmanship examination was even simpler. The knight apprentice tried a few moves against Charlie and immediately knew that he was a frail young man who couldn’t even fight off a chicken.

“That will do.” The knight apprentice rolled up the parchment he had been using to record the results and put it away. “Come with me. Captain Salomon wants to see you.”

Charlie nodded and followed behind him. As they passed Vic and the administrative official standing by the wall, the knight apprentice bowed to the official. The official still looked thoroughly displeased, while Vic’s gaze remained fixed on Charlie.

“What a pity.” Vic smiled.

At such close range, Charlie could even see the silver necklace beneath Vic’s open collar. In that moment, Vic, who had the advantage of being half a head taller, looked down at Charlie with an unmistakable force of presence. The inexplicable pressure made Charlie instinctively resist him. Yet in the next instant, that pressure vanished without a trace, like the first snow melting beneath the sun.

When Charlie looked at him again, Vic had already started chatting with the administrative official as they headed outside. After only a few words, he had the other man grinning from ear to ear. The two of them looked almost like a pair of conspirators.

Once the two groups had gone their separate ways, Charlie lowered his voice and asked curiously, “Who were those two gentlemen?”

The knight apprentice had clearly been irritated by the administrative official, so his attitude toward Charlie had improved considerably. “The city lord’s yes-man, and a black-hearted jeweler from Pato City. Hmph.”

A jeweler?

No wonder he was covered in jewelry.

Charlie started up the stairs to the second floor, then glanced back again. The two men had already reached the entrance. From Charlie’s vantage point, he could still see an attendant stepping forward to drape an extravagant cloak over the merchant’s shoulders.

Compared with that cloak, Charlie’s outer robe looked like the village headman’s finest clothes for celebrating the New Year.

On the second floor, in the office at the end of the corridor, Charlie finally saw the knight captain with the eagle-like eyes again.

The same sharp, scrutinizing gaze met him. Even prepared for it this time, Charlie still found it difficult to withstand. He had no intention of putting on some display of fearlessness now. He simply lowered his eyes. If he didn’t look, there was nothing to withstand.

Salomon didn’t press him with his gaze. He got straight to the point. “Tell me about buying the book from the guru. Start from the beginning.”

Charlie thought for a moment before answering. “About ten days ago, she stopped me at the market and tried to sell me the book. She knew I wanted to become a mage. Everyone on Gray Hat Street knows that, so I was probably the only person who would buy it. She initially asked for twelve copper coins, and I talked her down to ten. A lot of people at the market saw it. After I bought the book, I went home, and I haven’t seen her since.”

Salomon followed up. “Did you see anything else at her stall?”

Charlie answered slowly, often pausing to think, but without stumbling over his words. “Her regular stall… seemed to have only a crystal ball. People often went to her for fortune-telling because it was cheap, so she seemed to do fairly good business. She secretly pulled the book out from inside her mage’s robe and gave it to me. That was the only book. I didn’t see anything else.”

Only then did Salomon bring up a specific type of item. “Did she ever wear any jewelry?”

Jewelry? Charlie immediately thought of the jeweler. His expression remained unchanged as he slowly shook his head. Then, as if he had suddenly remembered something, he asked, “Does a gold tooth count? She had one gold tooth.”

“No.” Salomon pondered for a moment and tapped his fingers against the desk. “Now tell me about the barber. You went to see him the day before yesterday and arranged to undergo bloodletting at nine that evening, correct?”

Had he changed his strategy? He had given away the appointment time right from the start.

Charlie hesitated before asking, “Mrs. Macken next door suggested that I see the barber. I wasn’t feeling very well, so I went. But everything seemed perfectly normal when I saw him. Later, I went back at nine, but he wasn’t there, so I left. Did something happen to him? Everyone on Gray Hat Street says he fled overnight because of some romantic trouble.”

Salomon stared at him intently and answered with a question of his own. “Didn’t you see another doctor?”

Charlie shook his head. “I heard physicians in Magipo are very expensive, and that barber was the only one nearby. Besides, I wasn’t seriously ill. A little rest was all I needed. The barber also prepared a bottle of tincture for me. It was quite effective.”

The words “quite effective” weren’t particularly convincing coming from someone whose face was still noticeably pale. Still, judging from Charlie’s lifestyle, he wasn’t exactly well-off. Apart from leaving home to study, he rarely interacted with outsiders and hardly went anywhere. Going out of his way to find a doctor somewhere else didn’t seem like something he would normally do.

Salomon had already reached his own conclusion. “Was that your first time seeing the barber?”

Charlie nodded again. “Yes.”

Salomon asked another question. “Have you seen anyone suspicious around Gray Hat Street these past few days?”

Charlie fell silent, thinking.

Salomon leaned forward with both hands braced on the desk. There was scrutiny in his eagle-like eyes, but also encouragement. “Anything will do. Don’t worry about getting yourself into trouble. In Magipo, the Black-Armored Knights will protect your safety.”

Charlie slowly tightened his fists, as though making up his mind. “When I went to see the barber, I waited there for a while. There was no movement inside the shop, but to my right… yes, on my right, there was a carriage parked there. The driver seemed to be dozing while waiting for someone.”

Salomon frowned. “A carriage? Did you see anyone get out of it or get into it?”

Charlie answered firmly. “No. I wasn’t watching it the whole time. It was rather creepy out there at night. And the carriage disappeared pretty quickly. Then I headed toward the Oak Tavern.”

From Charlie’s description, Salomon could already picture exactly where the carriage had been. He questioned Charlie about its details, but it had been dark and the carriage wasn’t particularly close, so Charlie hadn’t been able to see much.

“Are you sure there was no one inside the shop?” Salomon asked at last.

Charlie nodded, then shook his head. “It was too dark to see clearly, but there really wasn’t any sound coming from inside. Did something happen to him… the barber?”

Salomon looked at him without answering. The person before him was a young man, perhaps more accurately a youth, pale and frail but with remarkably clear eyes. Judging from the information they had gathered earlier, he also seemed to possess considerable resilience.

The questioning ended there.

Salomon took the book from his drawer and returned it to Charlie in person. Charlie thanked him, then immediately confirmed once more, “This book isn’t stolen property, right?”

“No. But I have to give you a word of warning, Charlie Blaze. Becoming a mage by following the methods in this book isn’t realistic.” Only then did some of the severity finally leave Salomon’s expression. His gaze toward Charlie now carried a hint of admonishment.

“Rather than relying on an unreliable magic book, perhaps you should first train your body, stay healthy, and cultivate a strong will in the process. Then you can forge your own path. The knight order offers basic swordsmanship lessons to the public. You could give them a try.”

Charlie’s hand paused as he took the book. In the end, he maintained his polite smile and reaffirmed the persona he had created for himself. “I’m sorry, Captain Salomon. Thank you for your advice, but I still want to become a mage.”

Salomon gave him a disapproving look, as though he were staring at some stubborn junior who simply refused to listen. Even after leaving the office, Charlie had the distinct feeling that Salomon might call him back at any moment and give him another eight hundred words of advice.

“Phew…”

As he made his way downstairs, Charlie finally breathed a sigh of relief. Somehow, it seemed he had made it through this hurdle. As for what to do with the barber in his basement, he’d have to think of something.

During his conversation with Salomon, when the captain said that the Black-Armored Knights would protect him, Charlie had wavered for a moment, wondering whether he should tell him where the barber was.

But Charlie was, after all, suspicious by nature.

Salomon wasn’t going to tell him the truth about the case, so naturally Charlie couldn’t tell him everything either.

Just then, hurried footsteps came from ahead.

Charlie glanced over curiously and saw several Black-Armored Knights hurrying back and forth, apparently busy with something else. He paid them little attention, merely stepping aside and instinctively perking up his ears to listen to the conversations around him, hoping to pick up something important.

Unexpectedly, he really did hear something useful.

“…I almost thought the crystal ball was broken just now, but fortunately it worked normally the second time… Honestly, the knight order should replace it. They’ve been using that crystal ball for so long that it’s barely even transparent anymore.”

“Wasn’t that because you drank too much last night and your hands were shaking? Hahaha…”

Two robed men were walking over from the direction of the examination rooms. Apparently, they had also just undergone a routine examination.

Listening to their conversation, Charlie suddenly had a bad feeling. The crystal ball had clearly been working perfectly when he took the test. So why had that man said he had almost thought it was broken?

This shouldn’t have had anything to do with him, yet Charlie couldn’t shake his unease. As he walked toward the exit, he sorted through his thoughts, and the more he thought about it, the stranger everything seemed.

That man had been deliberate.

The jeweler named Vic had happened to encounter him and shown an interest in him. There was nothing particularly strange about that on the surface. But judging from the way he had spoken with the administrative official and from his status, he was clearly a man who knew how to get along with all kinds of people.

Which made the moment when Vic had deliberately exerted that pressure on him rather abnormal. That brief exchange seemed to have been something only the two of them understood, a subtle form of communication.

So what exactly had happened with the crystal ball?

Had Charlie really controlled the intensity himself, preventing the crystal ball from revealing his true magic level? Or had someone secretly interfered and given him a helping hand?

Why?

And what did they want in return?

Charlie suddenly felt his scalp prickle.

There were no passenger carriages waiting outside the knight order. Charlie glanced from side to side, then quickened his pace. His unease continued to grow. After crossing an intersection and leaving Emerald Street, he continued toward Gray Hat Street. Suddenly, the curtain of a carriage parked by the roadside was lifted.

“Charlie Blaze?” A somewhat familiar voice called out to him.

Charlie turned around and saw the face of the jeweler, Vic. With the hand wearing the emerald ring, he held back the carriage curtain and smiled. “Need a ride?”

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