A Wand with a Unicorn Horn Core

In a secluded, shadowy alley, an old-fashioned cedar door was set into a bluestone wall.

The damp walls were covered in green moss.

An old, dusty wooden sign stood by the door, with a doodle of a Staff on it. It was probably the shop's sign.

"Is this the place...?"

This was where Rogley's finest wandmaker worked, the place Glenn had told Galan about.

But to be honest, Galan thought the place was almost absurdly shabby.

There was also a shop on the city's central avenue that sold wands to adventurers.

He had taken a few looks at it when passing by before.

That shop's decorations hadn't been particularly eye-catching, but compared to this place,

it could almost have been described as the height of luxury.

Beside the door, a candle lantern, its candle mostly burned down, hung from a lampstand covered in verdigris.

Though the light it gave off wasn't very bright,

it still brought a little life to the place and made the alley look less gloomy.

His shoes were covered in black grime that had seeped out of the cracked bricks underfoot, leaving black footprints on the uneven ground.

When he had first found the place by following the address Glenn had given him,

Galan's first impression was that it looked like an underground black market, like Rock's hideout.

Were all talented people eccentrics?

Why did they all like opening shops in such strange places?

He stopped in front of the door.

Reaching out, he gently pushed the wooden door open.

A clear bell rang from somewhere, seemingly announcing that a customer had entered the shop.

"Good afternoon."

A calm, steady voice came from behind the counter, drawing Galan's gaze.

"Welcome."

Sitting there was a dwarf who looked very old and had a long white beard.

He was holding a magic lens between his fingers, carefully examining a polished unicorn horn.

He had a camel-colored headscarf tied around his head.

His sturdy, exposed arms were visibly muscled from years of exertion.

It made Galan think he looked more like a blacksmith.

Beside him stood a girl with long, bright red hair who looked very familiar.

She seemed to have fixed her gaze on Galan as soon as he entered the shop.

"Ah, Mr. Galan!"

Once the girl saw who it was, she cried out in surprise and delight.

It was Theresia.

Her complexion was rosy now, and she looked to be in good health,

as though she had fully recovered from the last battle.

"Have you recovered already?"

"That's amazing! You were so badly hurt when they carried you back that day."

"I'm a warrior, after all. I recover pretty quickly from injuries like that."

Galan smiled.

He had a fairly good impression of this kindhearted girl.

But when it came down to it, his work as an apothecary had surely helped him recover so quickly.

He normally kept all sorts of potions at home.

It was just that, before he woke up, Duncan and the others couldn't tell which ones would help with healing.

After all, he kept them for all kinds of situations and hadn't sorted the finished potions into categories.

If they had fed him poison by mistake, there really would have been no saving him.

Glenn had also said she and Reno had been planning to visit him.

Now that they had happened to meet, she knew he was all right, saving them a trip.

"Mr. Galan, did you come here today to... buy a Staff?"

After exchanging a few pleasantries, Theresia asked him curiously.

As the city's most famous apothecary and a formidable warrior, could Mr. Galan actually be a mage too?

Countless possibilities burst into her mind.

Apparently thinking her idea might not be so far-fetched, she looked at Galan with an increasingly fervent gaze.

It almost seemed as though sparkling stars were about to appear in her eyes.

The look felt familiar to Galan; he seemed to have seen it in the eyes of fans who followed celebrities to in-person events in his previous life.

"It's not for me... I'm buying one for someone else..."

Perhaps sensing what the girl was thinking, Galan hurried to clarify, lest she go around spreading the word.

"Speaking of which, please don't tell anyone that I'm a warrior."

He leaned close to Theresia's ear and whispered with a serious expression.

"Mm-hmm."

Fortunately, she seemed reliable enough, so he could probably rest easy.

"Are you here to... get your Staff repaired?"

Galan pointed to the Staff set with a red crystal on the counter.

It was clearly the wand Teresia had carried before.

"I poured too much mana into it at once in the last battle, and something seems to have gone wrong with the core, so I brought it to Grandpa Oris to take a look at today."

She seemed troubled as she spoke about it.

"That kind of thing happens if you don't control the amount of mana you use while casting a spell..."

"Luckily, Grandpa Oris is a very skilled wandmaker, so it should be fixed in a few days."

Hearing how highly both she and Glenn spoke of the shopkeeper,

Galan couldn't help looking again at the unassuming dwarf wandmaker.

According to Glenn,

Oris had once been the most famous wandmaker in Eisberg, but he had later left the imperial capital for some unknown reason.

That was how he had ended up moving to Rogley.

"So, have you come to pick out a Staff, sir? Even though you're not a mage."

The dwarf leisurely put down the magic lens and chuckled at Galan, looking very amiable.

Apparently, he really did focus intensely on his work, to the point that he hadn't even heard their earlier conversation.

Galan had no choice but to explain why he was there again.

"I'm here to buy a Staff for someone else... Do you have any recommendations?"

For some reason,

Galan felt that Oris's gaze kept sweeping over him as he spoke, as though examining something.

Is there something strange about me?

"Is that so? Hmm... how about these?"

He turned around, pulled his creations from the cabinets behind the counter, and displayed them before the two of them.

"Cypress wood, with a scale from an Azure Thunder Dragon for the core. It strengthens lightning-attribute magic."

"Walnut wood, set with a Fire Spirit Pearl. It strengthens fire-attribute magic."

"Ebony, with a unicorn horn for the core. It's a masterpiece I made recently."

"It's very flexible, and relatively light."

"Hmm—it has a strong affinity with the wind element."

"According to legend, in the Mythical Era, unicorns even had a connection to the goddess."

"They're also mentioned in the chapter on the Bird of Time's Cycle in the Holy Scripture. I've been researching them lately, but I haven't found anything out..."

"I'll take this one."

"Huh!? Just like that?"

Oris seemed a little surprised too.

While Theresia was still marveling at the many creations laid out on the counter, Galan had already chosen the last one brought out without hesitation.

She couldn't help feeling surprised; she had thought Galan would take a long time to decide.

But Galan hadn't made his choice on a whim just because Oris had called it a "masterpiece."

For one thing, Duncan had said before that Lia was particularly good at wind-attribute magic.

So he had come looking for a model that could strengthen that attribute.

For another, it was his intuition.

Somehow, Galan kept feeling as though something unseen was guiding him to choose this Staff.