While Angell and Mithril argued over the Workshop's budget, the Street Volunteer Committee, led by Thornmoon, had already gotten to work. The Game Tables were being distributed in an orderly fashion.
In just one week, Thornmoon had negotiated rental deals for Game Tables at Cecilia City's three largest shopping malls, its most popular bar, and its two biggest squares, clearing out Angell's entire stock.
The enormous gear hanging in the air had already let the people of Cecilia City know that "the Magic Gear was open for business again." And when the Workshop's Magic Items appeared in the places where people liked to spend their free time, the Game Tables became a hot topic.
"The Rose Tavern has a Magic Item that's so much fun!"
"Oh, you mean the one shaped like a table? I saw one at Garden Square, too!"
"They seem to have different games at different locations?"
"You have to go to the Magic Gear if you want to play them all."
"I got five thousand points on it. Looks like my magical talent isn't as bad as the school said!"
"No, even an average score is over ten thousand, isn't it?"
You could hear conversations like this everywhere on the streets.
As the Game Tables' first players and members, the children from the Charity School felt proud to have been part of it.
"The Game Tables have really taken off!" Maya said happily. "When I went to Central Avenue earlier, I saw one at Clock Tower Square. People were lining up to play, so I played a couple of rounds too."
"It must cost more to play outside the Workshop!" Liti said.
"Sure does. It's two hundred and fifty cents a game over there! And they only have the Summer Table."
"Then why did you play?"
"My Membership Certificate gives me free games wherever I go!" Maya said smugly. "Several people came over to ask me how to get a Membership Token!"
That was right. Besides earning a little money from the Game Tables scattered around the city, they were also bringing a steady stream of new members to the Workshop.
The Magic Gear was nearly out of Membership Crystals, to the point that Angell was considering whether he should introduce some sort of membership test. Maybe you had to spend a certain amount (X), or maybe you needed to score a certain number of points in the games before you could become a member.
Enlise thought those two requirements were basically the same. Didn't playing the games cost money, too? And for people who weren't very good at them, it probably cost even more.
As Enlise thought this over, she looked toward the Game Table inside the shopping mall.
Of course, Enlise and her two best friends hadn't come out just to play the Game Table.
The teachers at the Charity School apparently had an important meeting that day, so the afternoon classes had been canceled. Since the girls had been going to the Magic Gear so often lately, they decided to go shopping on the city's busiest street, Central Street.
But Enlise was no longer as worried as she had been a month ago.
She no longer had to think about where vegetables were on sale or which bakery had discounted bread. Now she could look at the things she liked, just like an ordinary, carefree twelve-year-old girl, and even buy them with her own pocket money.
Most of the time, though, Enlise couldn't bring herself to spend it.
Like Mithril, she had been poor for too long.
And when she went shopping, Enlise had also gotten into the habit of thinking about her "family":
"People really do love the Game Tables. When we get back, I'll tell Mr. Angell. He'll be so happy, won't he?"
That was what Enlise thought as she watched the line of people waiting to play.
But when the corner of her eye caught sight of someone who was also staring at the Game Table, her body stiffened.
"Enlise, let's go look over there!" Liti said, affectionately linking her arm through Enlise's. "I heard a new crêpe shop just opened over there... What's wrong?"
Liti keenly noticed that something was off about Enlise's mood.
Maya asked bluntly, "Don't tell me it's because you're out of pocket money? I mean, business is so good at the Workshop now. If that Black Mage still isn't giving you pocket money, he's being way too stingy—"
"No, Mr. Angell is very generous to me. I even told him I didn't need pocket money," Enlise said softly.
Her pocket money was equal to the Cat Waiter's wages.
Fifteen silver a month.
(The Cat Waiter also got a commission.)
Enlise felt guilty about taking so much money when she was still in school and hadn't really done any work. So she had decided to save it in secret, then buy Angell a gift with it later.
In any case, this life felt like a wonderful dream that Enlise didn't want to wake from.
And yet this wonderful dream had been brought about by the Workshop's bankruptcy.
Enlise turned her gaze away and lowered her voice. "It's that person over there... I've seen him before."
"Over there?" Liti and Maya asked curiously, following the direction Enlise had been looking.
They noticed two gentlemen leaning on canes, standing there and gazing at the Game Table as well.
"That man," Enlise said, "I remember him. He was the one who persuaded Master Boris to make Magic Wands!"
"Magic Wands?" Maya asked, puzzled.
"You mean that deal that nearly bankrupted the Magic Gear... right?" Liti said uncertainly.
She didn't know the details, but she could more or less guess from Enlise's reaction.
"Oh, so he's the swindler!" Maya cried. Indignant, she rolled up her sleeves. "Let's go settle the score with him!"
"No, we can't!"
"Stop!"
Enlise and Liti hurriedly grabbed Maya.
Neither of them knew why Maya was so confident about going after two grown men.
And Maya's commotion seemed to have caught the attention of the people nearby. They looked over curiously.
Enlise and Liti noticed right away. They exchanged a glance, clapped a hand over Maya's mouth as she tried to struggle, and quickly dragged her away from the street.
"Listen, Maya, I'm not angry!" Enlise said to her friend, who had wanted to avenge her, once they were sure they were out of the man's sight. "Even though I know it's not a good way to think about it, if it weren't for him, I wouldn't have met Mr. Angell or gotten to live the life I have now."
As for Boris, Enlise was grateful to him too—after all, he had raised her for so many years—but there was something wrong about the way Mr. Boris looked at her. It was like a farmer looking at a piglet he was raising, and it frightened Enlise.
Maya and Liti understood how Enlise felt.
"That's true. The Workshop's former owner always had this stinky smell about him," Maya said, agreeing with Enlise at once. Then she paused and asked curiously, "So, you want to thank that swindler?"
Liti nearly put a hand to her forehead at her friend's lack of tact.
"Why would you thank a swindler? Besides, that man might have wanted more than just to swindle some money when he brought down the Workshop," Liti said. "Those two men were standing there watching the Game Table just now. Enlise, you're worried they might go after Mr. Angell, aren't you?"
"..." Enlise nodded.
"That makes so much sense! Those two really did look suspicious!" Maya said, recalling them. She asked indignantly, "Then why did you stop me? We should be warning them not to do anything bad!"
"Are you a member of the Street Volunteer Committee?"
Liti smiled as she teased her.
Then she looked at Enlise with concern. "If you're really worried, do you want to use a spell to spy on what they're saying?"
"Spy?"
"I recently read about a spell like that..." Liti said bashfully.
After she said this, it came as no surprise that both her friends stared at her as if they'd seen a ghost.
"You can do magic?!" Maya cried.
"I-I wouldn't say I've learned it. I just played the Game Table for a while, and I felt like my mana had gotten a lot stronger, so I bought a spellbook at the Old Bookstore and gave it a try. It seems to work pretty well—"
"Darn it! You're just showing off!" Maya said, shaking Liti by the shoulders. "We all started playing the Game Table at the same time, but your score was way higher than everyone else's, and now you can do magic too! Why are you so amazing?"
"Liti, you're incredible!" Enlise said admiringly.
No, you're the amazing one.
That was what Liti thought.
Liti had actually been lying.
When she had told Enlise before that she'd never been exposed to magical items, it had all been a lie.
Liti came from a family of witches—the sort of people who would have been discovered and burned at the stake in the Magic Era. Even in modern times, people still shunned them, so Liti had always hidden her mana carefully, following the guidance of her mother and grandmother, and pretended to know nothing about magic.
That is, until she started playing the Game Table. Liti had gotten carried away and accidentally revealed her "strength."
Liti had easily earned a high score. In fact, she had even gained a group of fans in the Magic Gear's Leaderboard competition.
What reassured Liti (and even left her a little dissatisfied) was that despite all that, she had stayed in third or fourth place, far behind the top two.
Besides, all her classmates who were hooked on the Game Table had improved their magical skills, so Liti hadn't stood out.
Kata, who was in second place, had even passed the Mana Appraisal fair and square, convincing everyone that this was perfectly normal.
...And then there was Enlise.
To match her improved ranking in the games, Liti had decided to "improve" her grades as well. But then she discovered that she still couldn't beat Enlise!
She had been one point behind last time, and she was still one point behind this time.
Come to think of it, no one had been able to beat Enlise on a test since they started school.
Liti had even started wondering if she could use magic to cheat and win.
Ah, she was only joking.
Liti finally managed to wriggle free of Maya's hold. She looked at Enlise and said, "The spell I accidentally read about can detect other people's malice. Do you want to give it a try?"
"Hmm..." Enlise looked hesitant.
Liti didn't press her. She also held back Maya, who was about to speak.
Liti thought it made sense for Enlise to hesitate.
Unlike her, a Witch-in-training, Enlise was a truly kind and gentle girl. She might not be able to bring herself to pry into someone else's private affairs, and it would be perfectly reasonable for her to refuse.
But that was fine. If Enlise refused, Liti and Maya could sneak a look afterward.
If those two men really were dangerous, they could tell Enlise's current guardian.
That Black Robe certainly wouldn't let a potential enemy get away!
Liti was making plans in her head.
"I want to look!" Enlise replied.
"Ah, so you really don't— Wait, you want to look?!" Liti stared at Enlise in surprise. "But that's spying on people! It's wrong!"
"But I can't always be a burden to other people. I want to protect Mr. Angell too!" Enlise said firmly.
As she said this, Enlise paused, then gave Liti an embarrassed look. "Though, saying that while asking you for help makes me a burden, doesn't it?"
"Enlise, you're not a burden! It's okay to rely on other people a little more!"
Liti hugged Enlise tightly.
"Liti..." Enlise was touched too.
Maya rubbed her arms beside them. "Ugh, you two are so gross."
Right in the middle of that touching moment...
So, why was she friends with this weirdo again?
Liti barely managed to keep herself from making a disgusted face at "this weirdo."
"This weirdo" was clearly oblivious, but she was very interested in Liti's magic. "So, what do we do next? Find that swindler and pull out a hair?"
"...Wouldn't that be pretty much the same as exposing ourselves?" Liti said.
Witches weren't stupid enough to do that!
As physically weak young women, their greatest strength in magic lay in doing things silently and without a trace.
"Everything leaves a trace, so we don't need to get too close to them." Liti glanced back toward the Game Table, then took Enlise and Maya by the arms. "Let's go somewhere we usually hang out first!"
*
The place where Enlise, Maya, and Liti often met was a flower shop on Central Avenue that also operated as a café.
Back when Enlise was short on money, she often came here with Liti to work part-time. The owner liked them, so she would give the girls free black tea.
Now that Enlise had pocket money, she didn't mind coming here to order a little cake.
Today, the girls weren't just going to have tea.
"Please give us two cups of clean, boiled water, a small bergamot leaf, a little bottle of salt, a violet-scented candle, a small bunch of Lily of the Valley, and one rose," Liti requested with practiced ease. "Lastly, could we borrow one of your used little mirrors, Ms. Rue? We'll pay you!"
The flower shop's owner chuckled. "Are you girls going to do a fortune-telling?"
Girls often came to her café to do Tarot readings and the like, so she was used to providing all kinds of props. She wasn't surprised.
"Yes, a love fortune!" Maya answered boldly.
She had gotten clever at least this time. "So you absolutely mustn't peek!"
"Hehehe. Even if I peeked, it wouldn't matter, since it definitely has nothing to do with little Maya," Ms. Rue said.
"? What do you mean?!"
Ms. Rue was obviously only teasing Maya.
Of course, she wouldn't peek at the girls' supposedly important fortune-telling ritual. She thoughtfully put them at the very back of the café, behind a wall of flowers where no one could see them.
"All right! Let's begin!" Liti said seriously.
"First, light the candle. Dry the Lily of the Valley petals over the flame, then put them in the water with the bergamot leaf and set it aside," Liti said. "Whatever you do, don't drink it. It's poisonous!"
"I'm not a dog. I don't put just anything in my mouth," Maya protested, though she looked like she wanted to try a sip. "What about the rose? Do we put that in too?"
"No, that's to throw Ms. Rue off the scent," Liti explained with rigorous logic.
"Then we pour salt onto the paper in a pattern that summons an Imp, and make it spy on our enemy," Liti said. She first drew a Magic Circle on a notepad she had with her.
Then she handed the salt bottle to Enlise. "You have to do this part, because you're the one involved."
Enlise took the bottle.
"This part might be a little difficult, so try to do it quickly. You have to finish before the candle burns out," Liti said.
Enlise succeeded on her first try.
"As expected of Enlise," Liti said. She picked up the mirror. "Now, hold the Magic Circle made of salt over the candle to warm it, and picture what your enemy looks like—"
Enlise did as Liti instructed, her expression turning thoughtful as she recalled the man's face.
Liti held the mirror toward the candle, murmuring some incantation in a language none of them understood. As she adjusted the mirror, she reflected the candlelight into the two teacups beside them.
Two Magic Circles appeared at once on the glittering water in the teacups.
Then the patterns seemed to catch fire, turning into the faces of the two men the girls had just seen.
"Whoa~ Whoa!" Maya cried.
But that wasn't the only thing that amazed her. She heard the reflections in the cups begin talking to each other on their own:
"...So, it all failed?"
"Right! That Black Robe refused to sell us a Test Edition Game Table! And the Official Edition Game Tables are expensive, and the Roy family's young lady already ordered them all. They're completely sold out!"
"Then why not just rent one?"
"Renting won't work. We have to sign a Magic Contract, and if we take it apart without permission, we'll suffer the contract's backlash!"
"Can't we find someone to break the contract?"
"That's a contract made by an Intermediate Mage! We had someone look at it. Only a High-level Mage who specializes in runes can break it! Do you know how much that sort of mage charges? Just having them appraise it costs as much as buying five Official Edition Game Tables! And that's not even for taking it apart. We might as well wait for them to come back in stock!"
"So, you're just giving up?"
"The Peige Family gave up, and a few others in the same boat are thinking of giving up too! They can rent them anyway, and it's cheaper. Why do they have to buy one?"
"You people really..."
Hearing the gritted voice coming from the teacup, Enlise finally breathed a sigh of relief.
"Looks like they can't do anything about that Black Mage!" Maya said with a smile.
"Exactly. Everything is going according to Mr. Angell's calculations," Enlise said brightly.
Liti made a shushing gesture, letting the conversation in the cup continue:
"...Forget it, you useless lot! Since things have come to this, rent out more Game Tables!"
"Huh? More?"
"That's right! That kid from the Alchemy Workshop is obviously getting carried away. He wants to fill the whole city with Game Tables, and he hasn't even thought about whether he'll make his money back! So let's give him as many orders as we can and see when his funds run dry!"
At this, Enlise frowned.
This was the same tactic they had used with the Magic Wand.
"Enlise, are you all right?" Liti asked worriedly.
"It's fine. Mr. Angell has accounted for all this in his plans," Enlise said.
Liti nodded, but kept holding up the mirror. The image in the teacup wavered, as if the scene had changed, and the conversation continued:
"What's going on? The Charity School wants to buy Game Tables in bulk too?!"
"Uh, it hasn't quite reached that point... I heard those two old geezers, Owen and Hume, are behind it. They went to the Magic Gear opening ceremony and thought Game Tables would be a good way to get children interested in magic, so they're planning a trial run."
"That's practically the same as buying in bulk!"
The man's voice in the teacup grew louder. "With an order from a school, any number of Alchemy Workshops could stay afloat!"
"Calm down! It's not that bad," a third, refined voice interjected.
Enlise sat bolt upright.
The voice sounded familiar. She had heard it somewhere recently.
The speaker continued, "I think this is an opportunity."
"An opportunity?"
"Think about it. Whether or not Game Tables can get children more interested in magic, they're still 'games'! Everyone on the streets is playing them. We can get the Newspaper to run more stories about it, like 'How much someone spent on Game Tables' or 'Someone is so obsessed with the game that they stay beside a Game Table all night.' We can shape public opinion first... Then won't it look ridiculous when the mayor and the Branch President of the Magic Association try to bring these 'Game Tables' into schools?"
"Hmm..."
Enlise clenched her skirt as she listened.
"How can they do that?!"
Maya jumped up from her chair. She bumped the table and shattered the image in the teacup, cutting off the conversation inside.
But Maya didn't care. She shouted at Enlise, "So the school was going to let us play Game Tables... No, wait. Does that mean we won't be able to play them at school now?!"
"And if everyone keeps talking about how bad Game Tables are, Mom definitely won't let me go to the Workshop anymore," Liti realized at once.
"No! We can't let them do this!"
Maya grabbed Enlise's hand. "You have to tell that Black Mage and make him stop those bad guys!"
"I know!"
Enlise nodded solemnly.
In the end, Enlise never got to eat her crepe.
With a great sense of duty weighing on her, she hurried back to the Workshop and saw Angell, his face streaked with blood and covered in tiny ink-stained paw prints.
"Mr. Angell?" Enlise jumped at the sight of him.
"It's fine. Mithril and I were going over the accounts," Angell reassured her.
How did going over the books end up like that?
Enlise wondered, but she didn't have time to ask.
Remembering what she had heard earlier, Enlise asked urgently, "Oh, Mr. Angell, there's something I need to—"
"Oh, I saw you've been reading Rune Basics lately. Can you write the first rune, '_'? Show me," Angell suddenly asked.
"But..." Enlise said. "The first rune...?"
Enlise could hardly bring herself to refuse any request from Angell. Though she was in a hurry, she obediently traced the rune he had asked for in the air.
The rune left a shining trail in the air, and then a square frame appeared. Inside it was a grid made up of countless little squares, all filled with runes.
"Huh? You don't need a Game Table for this?" Enlise exclaimed. "And are we supposed to write out these runes?"
"No. You just have to find matching runes on the outside and connect them," Angell said.
He demonstrated, finding two identical runes and connecting them.
The runes sounded out their syllables, then burst into flames and exploded, taking each other out.
Enlise stared at the sight in astonishment, then instinctively tried to find another matching pair to connect.
"This is actually a little game called Link and Match... No, it's a way to teach rune recognition called Link and Match," Angell explained. "There are 2,876 runes in all, and learning them would be a huge pain. Maybe this will get you a little more interested in recognizing them."
Even if it didn't make them more eager to learn, focusing on Link and Match would still generate a lot of mana.
That mana would then be collected through the Mana Base Station.
At this, Angell glared resentfully at Mithril. "Since Miser Cat refuses to give me a budget for the Base Station, I had to set up a network inside the Workshop first, so everyone could get a taste of the benefits of the Magic Net."
"Hmph!" Mithril turned away.
"What do you think, Enlise?" Angell asked cautiously.
Enlise gazed blankly at the "learning method" before her, then smiled. "...It's amazing. Mr. Angell really is amazing! None of their tricks can get past you!"