Backlogged Goods

Of course I knew!

Because I had transmigrated from that place that "changed the era"!

Angell thought with his eyes lowered.

That was right, Angell was a transmigrator.

In his previous life, he had been an unlucky game planner. His boss scolded him in real life, players cursed him in his games, he didn't deserve to have a mother, and he worked overtime every day. In the end, he dropped dead at his desk.

Angell had no attachment to his previous life. Besides, he had been lucky enough to transmigrate into a magical world. What gaming nerd could resist the temptation of becoming a Mage? So Angell had entered the Mage Tower without hesitation. Yet perhaps because he had failed to fulfill a transmigrator's duty—if such a duty even existed—there seemed to be another transmigrator in this world, one who had launched the Industrial Revolution and changed the entire era.

Only after Angell lost his job and returned home did he consider going back to his old trade.

But this world's technology had only developed as far as the Vacuum Tube Computer. Electronic Games were still a long way off.

So Angell had no choice but to rely on himself, using magical Runes as the core to develop magical Arcade Machines.

For this era, Arcade Machines were not outdated at all. They were products of the future.

If there was a problem, it definitely was not with the Arcade Machine itself—

"The product's market research was insufficient. The early Design direction needs to change," Angell sighed, unconsciously pressing a hand to his liver. "Looks like I'll have to work overtime again."

There was no problem that overtime could not solve. If twelve hours was not enough, then work twenty-four!

"That's not what I mean, meow!"

It seemed she could not avoid making herself clear. The Black Cat sighed. "Magic Items can't be sold anymore. If it really comes down to it, converting the Workshop to some other use... is also an option."

The Black Cat said those words with extreme difficulty.

She did not want this either.

The Black Cat Mithril was the guardian beast of this Alchemy Workshop, an artificial one.

During the Magic Era, any Alchemy Workshop with some foundation would create such mascots to prove its strength. They attracted customers, guarded the Workshop, and assisted with management.

The living trademark of Magic Gear was the Black Cat Mithril.

For nearly a thousand years, she had helped every owner of the Workshop manage this Alchemy Workshop. She had accompanied it through its most glorious years and watched helplessly as it declined.

But the Workshop could not continue operating, and the people involved could not go down with it.

The Alchemy Workshop had nearly changed hands before, and Mithril had deeply regretted it. That was why she could not help nagging Angell a little.

"The Workshop's only remaining advantage is that the storefront is in a fairly good location. Maybe you could turn it into a hotel or something," Mithril said despairingly.

"A hotel?... Selling drinks to supplement the household income is a good idea." Angell froze for a moment, then nodded.

Until now, he had only been making Arcade Machines and had not considered how to run the business.

But on second thought, he had not even finished his first game. Opening an Arcade Hall was a little premature. Turning it into a bar first sounded good. The storefront was already here, and the old Workshop had left behind some furniture.

Angell pondered, "Making it into a game experience store sounds good."

"A game? You still haven't given up?" The Black Cat's fur stood on end.

She had felt complicated emotions when Angell had agreed so readily, but when she realized he had no intention of giving up at all, she became even angrier.

Angell had no idea what the cat was angry about. "This was only a minor mistake. It was a prototype to begin with. We just need to identify the BUGs and fix them. It hasn't reached the point where we need to give up, has it...?"

"Meow! Do you still have money to keep developing it, meow!?" The Black Cat struck right at the heart of the matter.

"...Ah!" Angell immediately froze.

After a long while, he said with difficulty, "Then, then how about we open the hotel first?"

"You think opening a hotel will make money right away?" Mithril pressed. "And you still want to continue development. Where will you find the time?"

At that moment, Little Enlise timidly said, "I-I won't go to school anymore. I'll come back and help."

Though she said that, Enlise's eyes still reddened uncontrollably.

Naturally, she did not want to drop out.

Angell took Enlise's small hand and sighed. "It hasn't come to that yet..."

"But..."

The large and small pair, their sleep-deprived dark circles facing tear-filled big eyes, looked utterly pitiful.

"Meow! Why does it look like this cat is bullying you two?!"

Mithril cried out, stretching her paws straight.

Unable to bear it any longer, she jumped down from Enlise's head, raised her tail, and walked deeper into the Workshop.

"Follow me!"

Magic Gear occupied a vast area.

After all, it had once been one of the best Alchemy Workshops of the Magic Era. The storefront alone had nine floors, with five different production areas behind it. The buildings still retained the Magic Era's grand and magnificent splendor. Even though its glory was gone, its weighty history could not be erased.

Unfortunately, Angell had left home at a young age and had not spent much time in the Workshop. Enlise was merely an adopted orphan—legal child labor—and had no right to enter many areas, so she was unfamiliar with the Workshop's interior as well.

The two usually lived only on the third floor of the storefront and rarely ventured into the Workshop itself.

Fortunately, Mithril had guarded this Workshop for nearly a thousand years and knew every secret of the building.

The Black Cat led her master through twists and turns before quickly arriving before a door.

It was a round crystalline door two meters in diameter, but it was not set into a wall. It was embedded in the floor.

Even Angell, who had been away from home for years, had some impression of this strange door.

"This is... the warehouse?"

"That's right!" Mithril nodded. "I thought you'd completely forgotten, meow! You never thought to take inventory after coming back."

"I just didn't think there was any need," Angell said.

Before even entering the door, Angell had paid off a huge debt for the Workshop. Combined with the bare state of the storefront, he had not thought there was anything in the warehouse worth inventorying.

Angell looked hesitantly at the warehouse door. "Could there still be something inside?"

"There's plenty!"

The Black Cat let out a cold laugh and slapped the door with one paw.

The warehouse doors rumbled open to either side, but behind them was still a solid Stone Tablet.

Mithril immediately jumped onto the Stone Tablet. Angell stepped onto it after her, while Enlise stood helplessly in place, clutching her skirt. Only after Angell held out his hand did she hesitantly step onto the Stone Tablet.

Once the two humans and cat were standing steady, a glowing Magic Circle appeared on the Stone Tablet, and it slowly descended.

The Stone Tablet sank more than ten meters before entering a great hall.

It was an enormous hall, nearly a hundred meters tall. Huge shelves densely filled the space, and many of them were packed to the brim.

So amazing—

Enlise covered her mouth to keep herself from crying out.

Angell, however, did not think much of it. He had come here before, so it was not enough to surprise him.

Still, the goods on the shelves caught Angell's attention. "Since there's so much stock, why not sell some of it to pay the debts? Those Magic Wands look pretty good, for example—"

"Ah!" Enlise looked as though she wanted to say something but held back.

Mithril was not as polite as Little Enlise. "If those Magic Wands could be sold, the cash flow would not have broken, and the entire Workshop would not have nearly changed hands."

As Mithril spoke, she controlled the Stone Tablet and flew it near the shelf holding the Magic Wands Angell had mentioned.

Angell had noticed this batch of Magic Wands at a glance because they glittered so brightly and stood out on the shelves. Now that he looked closer, he found that the craftsmanship was excellent and the designs were gorgeous. They did not look like backlogged goods.

"How could they fail to sell?" Though magic had declined, Mages still generally held high status as remnants of the past. In particular, many Mages were nobles themselves. For the appearance of a Magic Wand—the need to show off—they would not mind making small compromises in functionality.

Angell found it unbelievable.

He reached out, took down a Magic Wand, and examined it carefully.

"This is quite beautiful... Wait, this isn't a Magic Wand!" Angell frowned and used the wand to cast a Light Spell.

The Light Spell was the most basic magic. It created a round ball of light after being cast. But when the crystal on Angell's Magic Wand lit up, it shot out a beam that exploded above the warehouse hall.

At once, pale white motes drifted down like Snowflakes.

It was beautiful, but it was not what Angell wanted.

"A fake Magic Wand?" Angell asked strangely.

This kind of Magic Wand had Illusionary Magic embedded into it. With just a tiny amount of Mana, it could cast flashy "high-level magic," but it had none of the corresponding magical effects.

"Didn't scammers used to use these to pretend to be Grand Mages? Why make so many of these Magic Wands?"

"Please call it a 'Ceremonial Wand,'" Mithril said.

There was sorrow beneath her mocking tone. "The Workshop's situation worsened by the day. Boris—the previous owner of the Workshop, who should have been your cousin's grandson's grandson—was deceived into signing an order. They claimed that the emperor's birthday celebration required a batch of Ceremonial Wands. They had to look beautiful, release dazzling performance magic, and have no offensive capability. So Boris rashly produced a batch of fake Magic Wands. But when it came time to deliver the order, the scammers had vanished, and the wands could not be sold. The cash flow broke, creditors came knocking from all sides... You know what happened after that."

"...It sounds like a setup." Angell frowned.

"Who knows?" The Black Cat sighed. "But the Workshop becoming what it is now was not just because of one scam."

She patted the Stone Tablet with her paw, making it fly through the towering shelves.

Mithril introduced the products on the shelves.

"Do you see the Brooms on the shelf beside us? They were specially developed low-Mana versions that anyone with a little magical talent could use. Unfortunately, they could only fly below fifteen meters, and their speed and direction were difficult to control, so their safety could not be guaranteed. In the end, Bicycles seized their market share.

"The ones in those boxes are Mass-produced Alchemy Potions. They were originally meant to open up the market through low prices, but because they could not pass the Medical Association's drug inspections, they were banned from being sold as medicine.

"The ones against the wall are Magic Projectors. They replicate Time Runes and Illusionary Runes, using Mana to condense images of the past. The effect is no worse than movies, but they consume too much Mana, so Commoners cannot operate them at all.

"The ones at the bottom are Household Temperature Control Magic Arrays. They can regulate the temperature inside a house and keep it at the most comfortable level. They were quite popular, but difficult to manufacture, and production could not keep up. In the end, they lost to Air Conditioners.

"After that comes the Portable Bodyguard Golem series...

"The Family Edition Magic Dictionary...

"The Mana-less Magic Wand..."

After taking stock all the way through, there were actually several hundred major types of backlogged goods in the warehouse.

It was clear that the previous owners of the Workshop had truly tried.

They had done everything they could to develop all kinds of alchemical products to withstand the impact of the industrial wave, but they had all failed.

No wonder Mithril was so pessimistic.

After thinking for a moment, Angell comforted the Black Cat that had guarded his family for nearly a thousand years. "I think... Arcade Machines are different. They are entertainment, after all. They do not need practicality or combat power. The most important thing is whether they are fun. Humans are creatures who will make any effort for something that interests them, so it should be... different."

In other words, you still refuse to give up, right?

Mithril was not comforted at all.

But she was used to it.

This family's bloodline had always been this stubborn. Otherwise, they would never have reached the point of stuffing such a huge warehouse full of backlogged goods.

Mithril led Angell past the shelves piled with backlogged goods and eventually arrived at the very depths of the warehouse.

Apparently, few people came this far inside. Not only was the area dimly lit and covered in thick dust, but many of the surrounding shelves were empty. Even where things had been placed, they were mostly junk and worthless materials.

But the people who came here clearly would not pay the most attention to the shelves.

At least, after Enlise saw what lay deep underground, she finally could not hold back her cry.

"Is that... a heart?!"

"That's right. It is the core of this Workshop." The Black Cat tried to answer in a cold tone.

The core of the Workshop?

An Alchemy Workshop was not a living creature. How could it have a heart?

Little Enlise could not understand, but there truly was a heart below them.

Like the Workshop itself, like the warehouse itself, the heart was extraordinarily huge. It was also alive, throbbing with every beat. With each pulse, golden liquid flowed into the metal pipes inserted into it.

Those pipes extended into the warehouse floor and walls like blood vessels. Looking at it that way, the Workshop really did seem alive.

Enlise immediately became somewhat frightened.

She could not help moving closer to Angell.

But the Black Cat did not notice that she had frightened the female human cub beside her. She only said to Angell, "The only thing in the Workshop worth anything now is the Mana secreted by this core. You can take it to the Mage Tower and exchange it for some money."

"Can I really take it?" Angell asked in surprise.

"Of course." Mithril nodded.

What Mithril did not say was that this heart was also her core.

And during crises in previous generations, Mana had already been extracted from it several times. The remaining Mana was not even enough to repay the debts. If it were extracted one more time, this core might stop completely.

But since this life had been created by the Workshop in the first place, it was only right to give it back to them!

Mithril thought calmly.

She watched Angell wave the fake Magic Wand and point it at—the old shelf beside them?

A pile of dusty crystals immediately flew over and landed in Angell's hands.

"No, that's not what I meant." The Black Cat stared blankly, unable to understand how Angell had misunderstood. "Those are discarded cores whose Mana has already been exhausted. They can't be exchanged for money!"

"They're already enough. These are enough for me to improve the Arcade Machine!"

Angell said confidently.