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Wait, you can do that?!
I could feel scales peeling off my eyes as I saw the style of Magic Art Cestlavie used.

He recorded disposable magic circuits in advance on an external medium —in his case, some kind of magic circle drawn with ink mixed with crushed magic stone powder on paper— and used the minimum amount of mana to activate the circuit. The amulets themselves couldn’t withstand the load of mana and burst at the moment of activation, but there was enough time for the stored mana and magic circuit to react with the magicule¹ in the atmosphere, effectively completing all the steps for the Magic Art to take place.

Since the activation happened in the blink of an eye, its output was low and its direction was fixed, meaning it was rigid and couldn’t be tweaked, but the sheer number and speed that this method provided simply made up for that.

“S̲h̲i̲t̲, I spent four months making these cards and I don’t even have half of them left. A single one of them would’ve made 2 silver coins in a magic item shop, but I’ve used up 300 cards already…that’s 20 gold coins. I’m literally burning through my money.”

Cestlavie’s disgruntled complaints came from behind me.

With our backs to each other to compensate for our blind spots, I made a suggestion over my back. “If you would show me how to make those cards, I will compensate you with 40 empire gold coins.”

As I recall, Graviol’s empire gold coins had slightly higher currency value than Livitium’s imperial gold coins (based on nothing but intuition, one empire gold coin equals 30,000 yen while one imperial gold coin equals 26,000 yen), so 40 empire gold coins should cover up the difference even if Cestlavie were to use up the rest of his talismans

In addition, all that money would be coming out of my own pocket. They came from the recipe fees for the sweets I created for Letindüte, the wine export from the elven village, the commission for the maple syrup, and the patent fees for the research on fertilizers stuff. …hang on, I could probably live on my own for the rest of my life without spending a day working, couldn’t I?

…well, that kind of indolent lifestyle doesn’t suit my fancy, so I won’t.

“…50 gold coins.”
“How does 43 coins sound?”
“Take the middle and make it 47 coins.”
“That puts you on the higher end, so let’s just say 45 coins and that’ll be it.”
“—For a noble, you sure hold onto your pocket tight.”
“—And for a clergyman, aren’t you being too obsessed with money?”
““…””

In the end, we settled with 46 gold coins and 20 meal tickets for the third branch of Letindüte that was scheduled for a grand opening in Cilento Imperial Capital.

“Very well then. Once we’re through this fiasco safely, you will teach me how to make and use those cards, and that’s a promise² . Is that okay?”

Incidentally, Letindüte’s second branch recently opened in Conwallis, the Imperial Capital of the Graviol Empire, and was said to be thriving every day.

Putting that aside, “I guess they’re finally losing momentum, huh?” Spoke Cestlavie in a somewhat relieved tone after sensing that the pressure from the oncoming orcs was considerably decreasing. I felt the same.

“I suppose that’s true. The demon beasts so far are kobolds, goblins, and orcs. If they had a Leader backing them up, it must be a superior subspecies from one of them.” Well, it could’ve been a sorcerer or a monster tamer behind them though, I added for good measure.

The most frightening creature in the entire world is people. In the end, the worst enemy of mankind is still mankind.

However, Cestlavie immediately dismissed my concern with a shake of his head.

“I think it’s highly unlikely that a person is behind this. The brute force approach for one, the reckless headlong that gave no consideration for loss of number for another, if they were human, they’d have to be an utter idiot who didn’t know the ABCs of warfare…meaning the leader of this pack has to be a monster as well.”

As if to validate Cestlavie’s speculation, a wild roar, incomparable to any other orcs so far, suddenly rose from behind the line of monsters.

“Speak of the devil—and he doth appear, is it?!”
“Finally, we’re facing the Boss now, are we?”
“The star of the show is here, so you get the gist of it.”

As we both braced ourselves—suddenly, a third voice chimed in without any sign or warning.

““ …eh?””

No sooner had we ascertained that it was a familiar voice, my entire body was instantly bound by an invisible ‘something’. At the same time, a man appeared as if springing out from nothingness in the air.

“The Viper Tail is thinner than spider silk and tougher than steel, your freedom and life are literally at the tips of my fingers. You might turn into meat cubes at the slightest push, so you’d be wise to hold still, Jill missy.”

“You…?! —You’re that peddler old mister from some time ago!”

Standing beside us seemingly out of nowhere was a man with black hair, narrow eyes, and a large bag adorned with arabesque patterns on his back. His unremarkable yet distinctive features were familiar to me—I hadn’t seen him in a long while, but I wouldn’t forget him as he was the shady merchant who had given me Vier’s egg. A voice mixed with confusion and astonishment leaked out from my mouth, the only moving part of my body.

Unable to even squirm, my magic wand slipped from my powerless hand and fell to the ground.

“You could drop the ‘old’ and just call me mister.”

The self-proclaimed ‘young’ peddler mister laughed cheerfully. Much like last time, he was only outwardly a peddler, yet here he was, in a place with zero business prospects. Claiming he just happened to pass by would be a stretch, and that wouldn’t explain why he had to use an element of surprise to bind me in the first place.

“Who the hell are you?!”

Cestlavie leaped back and prepared a card. As if to swap places with him, “Bad guy! Vier saves master!” Vier shouted and leaped at the man without hesitation.

“…Ah, to be bitten by the dog you fed. Well, I guess you were an egg at the time, so you wouldn’t remember.”

Good grief…the man shrugged his shoulders carelessly. Out of reflex, I warned Vier not to come closer—but before words even formed, as if a shadow was cast around him, in an instant, my entire vision was black.

““???””

Cestlavie and I blinked, not believing our eyes as Vier disappeared like mist right in front of us.

“NO—!”
“I’m just isolating your pet away. I’ll return her to you once things are settled, so rest assured.”

“Was that a Magic Art in the line of Shadow? For that part, the activation was instantaneous, and I felt no mana…” Cestlavie kept his frustrated gaze on the peddler who stood behind me as if gauging him out.

“Well, the answer is one part years of training and one part trade secrets. —Do forgive me, but I’ll have to take Jill missy with me for a while. Ah, Missy, you’re not our target, so we won’t do anything to you as long as you stay cooperative.”

Spoke the peddler, despite no one asking.

“…so I’m the target, huh?”

Cestlavie snarled, but the peddler theatrically waved his index finger at him.

“Tsk tsk tsk. I have the duty of confidentiality, so that remains a secret. —Welp, we’ll be away from the stage for a while, so stay steadfast and do your best for the remaining half of the show. If you ask this mister, I’d say ‘lil prodigy will awaken his inner chuuni-level abilities and become peerless after running into impossible odds, so best of luck!”

After speaking his mind, the peddler lifted me by the hip with a single hand while I couldn’t move—even a slight twitch instantly tore my skin. I’d been secretly using Healing Art to heal the tears, but with enough pressure, I would really become roasted ham— and we both instantly leaped off high into the sky as if there was some kind of cartoony spring under his feet, passing over the numerous monsters and into god knows where in the forest.

The figure of Cestlavie, left alone amidst a crowd of monsters, quickly became smaller and smaller.

“H—hang on, what are you doing?! Drop me…drop me off!!”
“Once upon a time, in a faraway land…”
“I didn’t say drop me a story!”³

Without breaking his pace in the face of my frantic cries, the peddler ran like the wind through the dense forest with me in his arms.

Author’s Note:

You know he’s great since he made Jill play the straight man (`・д´・ ；)

I’ll be correcting typos and omissions all day tomorrow (there are lots of them♪) so the next update will be on Friday night, the 21st.

Translator’s Note:

In manzai, the boke is the funny man who says stupid things and the tsukkomi is the straight man who, well, straightens them. Usually, it’s Jill who’s the boke.

Also…author, there are still lots of typos and grammar mistakes you missed…

1. Mab: 魔素

   魔 Magic
   素 Foundation/basis/origin/source/ingredient

   the rubytext from further chapter seems to indicate that this reads “mana” but we’ve been using mana for 魔力 so I’m using something else.

   Also, it’s not in the prequel, and it has never appeared before either. Author literally just pulled this out of nowhere.

2. Mab: recall to the first promise they made that Sylitanna failed to fulfill.
3. Mab: The Japanese pun is “Hanashite! (let me go/tell me(a story)” and that’s why Black starts telling a story. I hope this is a good enough translation.