The First Customers

Having acquired the materials, Angell entered a period of seclusion.

That seclusion lasted an entire week.

He shut himself in his room to write Runes. Even his three meals were delivered to his door by Enlise, and he often forgot to eat them.

Enlise was terribly worried about this.

"Maybe I should fry some ham for dinner today. Staying up that late, he won't be able to keep going without meat, right?

"Vegetables are a must too. Luckily, we bought plenty of tomatoes when they were discounted last time.

"There's still enough bread, but it's too hard. It needs a suitable soup.

"Warm milk would actually be best, but Mr. Angell always forgets to eat. It would be awful if it sat there until morning like last time.

"Should I buy something that won't matter if it gets cold? Sweet ale seems like a good choice..."

But she didn't have enough money!

Enlise bit her lip in distress.

The little money she had left was what Angell had given her at the start of the month. Once it was used up this month, she had no idea where next month's money would come from. Still, Enlise wanted to get Angell something tasty. She was truly afraid that if this continued, his body wouldn't hold up.

But where could she get money...

As Enlise agonized over it, someone gave her shoulder a heavy pat.

"Enlise, let's go home!"

Enlise turned around and saw two girls standing behind her.

They were Enlise's best friends, Maya and Liti.

The gentler-looking one was Liti, while the red-haired tomboy was Maya.

Maya was the one who had patted Enlise's shoulder. She now slung an arm affectionately around Enlise's shoulders and suggested cheerfully, "School got out early today, so don't rush home to be worked to the bone! You haven't gone out with us in ages!"

Mr. Angell doesn't work me to the bone.

Still, going for a walk once in a while wouldn't be bad. Maybe she could even find discounted sweet ale.

Thinking this, Enlise gave Maya a bitter smile. "All right, I'll go... but you might have to wait for me. Mr. Wilson asked me to deliver the homework collected in class earlier."

Enlise had always been an excellent student, so she served as the class representative.

Her friends had long since gotten used to these sudden interruptions.

"Is it Magic class homework?" Liti asked. "Do you need help?"

"No, I've mostly collected it already. I just need to count through it one more time," Enlise said.

"It wouldn't matter if you didn't collect it, would it? There's always so much Magic homework. I doubt Mr. Wilson even reads it seriously," Maya complained. "Besides, copying all that stuff hasn't made me any better at using Magic!"

Hearing that, Enlise's hands paused as she counted the exercise books.

"...Um, Maya, Liti," Enlise said hesitantly.

"What is it?"

"?"

"Could you... c-could you come support my Workshop...?"

Enlise asked with tremendous difficulty.

Although Mr. Angell and Mr. Mithril both said the machine in the Workshop was a failed product, Enlise thought the beautiful Illusionary Miss, as well as being able to control the illusion and make it move, were both incredibly interesting.

Most importantly, it was genuine "use of Magic"!

Enlise thought her friends would be interested.

Besides, fifty cent wasn't very expensive.

In the Central Kingdom's currency system, fifty cent was the second-smallest coin—the smallest was ten cent. At current prices, it wasn't even enough to buy a tomato, so bringing a few friends over to try it should be fine, right?

Maybe someone might even manage to use the "Ultimate Skill" Mr. Angell had mentioned.

But this was Enlise's first time "taking advantage of" her friends, and she found it very hard to say. "There's a new Magic device in the shop, and it's... it's pretty fun..."

Maya and Liti exchanged glances.

"Really?" Liti asked, looking delighted. "I've never used a real Magic Item before!"

"If it's fun, then of course we should go!" Maya shouted.

Enlise stared blankly at her friends.

At that moment, the boy sitting in front suddenly turned around. "Count me in too!"

With him taking the lead, the other students in the class crowded over as well.

"What, what? Is something fun happening?"

"I think they said they're going to support the class representative's Workshop!"

"Ah, I want to go too!"

"Me too!"

In an instant, the entire class was mobilized.

"...Thank you!" Enlise's eyes reddened.

"Since so many people are going, hurry up and take those assignments to the office!" Maya patted Enlise's shoulder as if nothing had happened. "Don't keep everyone waiting too long."

"Thank you..." Enlise said again.

She picked up the exercise books and left the classroom.

"Hurry up!" Maya called after her.

Only after watching Enlise disappear down the corridor did she turn to Liti and ask, "How much money do you have on you?"

"Seven hundred and thirty cent." Liti checked her purse. "What about you?"

"About five hundred cent." Maya scratched her red hair. "It's the middle of the month, so I don't have much allowance left."

"It's fine, we can pool our money too!" one of the children said. "If it isn't too expensive, we can just buy the Magic Item Enlise mentioned."

The suggestion was met with a scattered chorus of agreement.

Maya complained, "Honestly, that Enlise. If her family was having trouble, she should have just said so! Then we could have helped! She took so much leave recently, and there were rumors everywhere. I thought she really was going to be sent to the Orphanage."

"It wasn't just a rumor. I heard from my dad that her family Workshop going bankrupt even made the Newspaper."

The children sighed.

In truth, these children, whose average age was only twelve, did not understand what "bankruptcy" meant. They simply did not want to watch a classmate disappear like that.

Besides, Enlise was not the only one in trouble.

This city had been called the "Magic Capital" during the Magic Era. While not every resident possessed Magic talent, most were connected to magical industries such as Alchemy Workshops. Thus, in the Industrial Era, the entire city was declining.

Today it was Enlise. Tomorrow, it might be them.

That was why the children felt so deeply for her.

"If only there were more factories here!" one child suddenly said. "Then we wouldn't have to worry about having no money!"

"Then I wouldn't have to stop going to school either. I heard they even hire children younger than us!"

"Yeah, learning Magic is completely useless now anyway!"

"And our Magic courses are especially long!"

The innocent children had no idea that what they longed for was precisely what was destroying them.

"Enlise, why doesn't your boss rent out this storefront? It feels like it could bring in a lot of money."

Standing before the Magic Gear Alchemy Workshop, Maya could not help asking.

The Workshop's storefront was a nine-story building left over from the Magic Era. Even in the Industrial Era, it was no less imposing. Anyone who walked onto this street would feel awed by it.

Even children could tell that this building was valuable.

In fact, if Enlise had not invited them herself, the other children would never have dared approach it. It felt like uniformed guards would chase them away.

"...I think the Workshop's ancestors signed a Magic Contract," Enlise said uncertainly.

She had heard about it before—when her former guardian had been running the business poorly, he had wanted to rent out or even sell the entire Workshop, and had complained about it almost every day.

"The contract stipulated that the Workshop's owner could not rent out or sell the Workshop for profit in any form."

That contract had clearly been prepared by the Workshop's first owner to prevent his descendants from squandering it, but he had clearly not anticipated that his descendants would be ruined to the point of having nothing left.

The children, however, were unsurprised. This was common in Cecilia City.

"A Magic Contract? Then there's nothing to be done."

"It's not just Magic Contracts. Old people are just stubborn, aren't they?"

"My grandpa is the same. Everyone says there aren't even Adventurers anymore, but he still refuses to change our weapon shop's business."

"Hehe, isn't the Adventurer's Guild still open?"

The city retained all kinds of relics from the Magic Era, lingering on in a half-dead state.

The children did not understand the value of antiques, nor were they interested in understanding it. They followed Enlise into the building they normally would not have dared approach casually, and were immediately stunned.

So tall! So huge!

It was a little old, but so magnificent!

Even the pillars on the ceiling were carved with patterns. It looked like a palace!

Magic Gear had been one of the most famous Alchemy Workshops of the Magic Era, so naturally it was enough to overwhelm a group of children.

Thus, they barely noticed the severely peeling walls of this "palace," or the threadbare carpets. Though Enlise had done her best to clean them, most of the carpet's pile had already worn away. The slightly more valuable furniture and decorations in the hall had been sold off completely. Only the old counter stood there alone, along with the Game Table delivered last time.

Enlise led her classmates to that table.

"This is the Magic Item I mentioned, um..." What was it called again?

Mr. Angell seemed to have given it a very strange name.

Nervous, Enlise forgot the name "Arcade Machine" and gave up trying to remember. "It's... a Game Table."

"Wow, amazing!" the children cried.

It looked like an ordinary table no matter how they looked at it, but since it was placed in a "palace," it definitely could not be an ordinary table!

Maya nervously whispered to Liti, "This place looks so expensive. What if we can't afford it?"

"If it comes to that, we can secretly leave the money on the counter," Liti suggested.

Maya nodded. Only then did she look at Enlise, still somewhat lacking confidence. "Enlise, how much is this table?"

"Ah, the table itself isn't for sale. It's for playing games," Enlise answered blankly.

"Games?" The other children looked confused.

"Oh, I get it. Do you play cards on it? My neighbor's card room charges that way—five hundred cent a day," one clever child said. "But there aren't even any chairs here! Do we play standing up?"

"No, it's not cards." Enlise shook her head. Seeing everyone's baffled expressions, she took out her purse. "I'll demonstrate..."

"I'll do it! Since we came to support you, there's no reason to make you pay." Maya hurriedly stopped Enlise. "How much?"

"Fifty cent per game."

"Fifty cent?" Maya froze. She frowned at Enlise. "That's practically free, isn't it? Why are you being so polite with us? It should cost whatever it should cost!"

"But Mr. Angell set the price at fifty cent per game!" Enlise said.

Maya stared at Enlise for a while. Once she was sure the other girl was not lying, she took out a fifty-cent coin in confusion. "Then are you even trying to make money?"

However, many of the students present visibly breathed a sigh of relief.

Though they had come prepared to help Enlise, it was still their own allowance, and spending it hurt a little.

Fifty cent was no big deal. Tossing a coin into the Wishing Well in the city center cost a hundred cent each time! They could treat it as offering the money to Enlise to pray to the god of studies. Maybe they would score better on the next exam and get beaten one less time!

And for fifty cent, they could play with a Magic Item once. It felt like they were getting quite a bargain.

"How do we play?" Maya handed the coin to Enlise.

Enlise did not take it. Like Angell, she merely pointed at the slot beside the table. "Just put the money in here."

"Like this?"

Maya felt even more like she was making a wish.

As she inserted the coin, the tabletop lit up.

But unlike usual, no beautiful girl appeared on the tabletop. Instead, lush pine trees "grew" from its surface, instantly turning it into a forest. Then Snowflakes drifted down from the air, blanketing the tiny miniature forest and rendering the entire scene white.

Over that field of white, tiny stars slowly drifted down like snowflakes, forming what looked like stairs ascending to heaven. A little white reindeer with pale blue snowflake patterns on its back bounded out of The Forest, looking up at those stars.

"So cute!" the children exclaimed.

Maya nervously grabbed Enlise's sleeve. "What do we do next? Make a wish? Can this Little Deer grant my wish?"