Bustling Metropolis

Prosperous Bustling City

From the moment they started working to the moment they caught the man, it had taken just over an hour. This mission had gone exceptionally smoothly.

They had even discussed what to do if the rumors were too widespread and the bait operation failed to work, but judging by the results, they had worried for nothing.

Pei Renli had originally thought he could pick up some real combat experience on this mission. He had never expected it to go so smoothly that he barely got a chance to lift a hand.

Koura pulled out a bamboo tube with a pull-ring and yanked it toward the sky.

A firework immediately shot upward with a shrill whistle, exploding into a conspicuous pattern. Unlike ordinary fireworks, which vanished in the blink of an eye, the pattern shimmered in the sky for nearly thirty seconds before gradually fading.

The group waited where they were. Before long, a large contingent of guards clad in bright, eye-catching armor arrived to take over the man named Kishu.

The leader was the constable in charge of security in the Lower City. He had also been the one to explain the operational details to them earlier, though Pei Renli had no idea what his name was—while the man had been laying out the mission, Pei Renli had been busy putting on women's clothes and a wig.

Curtain Star City had no holding cells or anything of the sort. Kishu would be sent directly to prison by the guards, where they would give him an all-night session of major memory restoration and make him spill everything he knew.

But that had nothing to do with Pei Renli and the others anymore. Unless another similar mission came up, they generally would not have any dealings with Curtain Star City's guards.

With the job done, all that remained was to return to the school and collect their money—but that would not work this time.

Curtain Star City was roughly four or five hours from Naspar. After lunch, they had set off immediately, and by sheer luck they had run into a merchant caravan headed for Curtain Star City. They had hitched a ride in its carriage, which was why they had managed to finish the job before sunset.

There would be no carriage to take them back, however. Merchants did not set out after nightfall, since the wilderness was still dangerous at night.

Besides, even if they departed at once, they could not possibly reach Naspar before its gates closed. In that case, they would have no choice but to huddle outside the city gates and make do for the night.

So rather than rush frantically back, they might as well stay the night in Curtain Star City and return to school tomorrow.

This commission had been issued by Curtain Star City's government, and the payment was substantial. Even after the school took its cut and with Pei Renli added to the group, each person would still receive more than three silver coins on average. The constable had also said on their way over that lodging would be arranged for them. It would not be a luxury hotel, but it would meet the standards of a clean, comfortable commercial inn.

Compared with their earlier commission to inspect the dam, the cash reward alone was more than ten times higher. It really was a lucrative job.

After all, compared to a mission where they merely looked at a dam and returned, this commission carried a certain degree of danger. Greater difficulty naturally meant greater rewards.

But looking at it the other way around, for Curtain Star City, even including food and lodging, they had gotten the matter handled with only a small budget. If they had sent guards to do it, then unless they gave a death order, those salaried guards would definitely slack off and coast along. After all, the more chaotic security was in the Lower City, the more profitable it was for them...

Keeping adventurers employed long-term was too expensive, so cities still had to rely on guards in ordinary times. But when emergencies arose, adventurers were an excellent fit. Virtually every city followed this practice.

As for matters that detailed, it was enough for everyone to understand them in their hearts. Pei Renli and the others were newcomers, so of course they would not dig into whether the guards were skimming and extorting.

At any rate, the job was done, and it was too late to head back. The group decided to take the opportunity to look around Curtain Star City.

Thus, after returning to the inn to change out of his women's clothes, Pei Renli soon appeared on the streets of Curtain Star City with his companions.

Though this city could not compare with a true megacity, to a gradually declining little town like Naspar, it was still an existence far beyond reach.

As night descended, the lights lining both sides of the streets slowly came on, and magic-powered streetlamps drove back the darkness. Goods from all over the world were carefully displayed behind gleaming glass windows. The clip-clop of hooves crossed smooth, clean flagstone roads as carriages carried passengers and cargo to every corner of the city.

Multicolored lights blended into a dazzling haze, mixing with the laughter, chatter, and busy sounds of passersby to create an ostentatious, intoxicating atmosphere.

Curtain Star City was a trade city. Its name implied that it was also a city that never slept; no matter the hour, transactions with jaw-dropping sums took place every moment.

Though it could not rival the bustling splendor of Earth's great metropolises, the world of magic had charms unique to itself.

The four of them were like country bumpkins entering the city for the first time, finding everything fresh and fascinating. Pei Renli even saw neon lights...

But upon getting closer, he discovered that the so-called neon signs were actually enchanted signboards. They could be considered an advanced application of the Light spell, though making such signs was naturally not cheap.

Sightseeing was one thing, but since he had come to Curtain Star City, Pei Renli had not forgotten his real business—such as buying a few bottles of ink.

There were not many people who could read or write, and Naspar did not sell ink. If one wanted any, one could only rely on merchants who often passed through Naspar to bring it along, which was rather troublesome.

Likewise, because there were so few literate people, demand for things like paper and ink was low. Selling such goods alone could not support a shop, so buying ink here did not mean going to a stationery store, but to a general store.

As a trade city, Curtain Star City had a full range of goods. Once he mentioned it to the other three, they quickly found a general store. After they asked, the shopkeeper briskly placed a row of ink bottles at different prices on the counter.

Different qualities of ink came at different prices, and there were also inks related to magic and the like. However, those were not sold in general stores; one had to go to a specialized magic shop.

That was when Pei Renli discovered that the ink he had been using before cost as much as seven gold coins per bottle...

The ink left behind by the Demon King of Tyranny was naturally a high-end product. Not only did it produce clear writing and resist water, it also carried a faint, elegant fragrance. This sort of ink was usually used only by the nobility, and Pei Renli had unknowingly been using something quite luxurious.

They would not receive the reward for this mission until they got back to the school, and the copper coins in Pei Renli's pocket were nowhere near enough. The other three, however, were not as poor as he was, so he borrowed some money from them and bought three bottles of the cheapest ink.

Incidentally, the three had originally decided to give Pei Renli the larger share of the mission reward, since he had acted as the bait—and taken on the most dangerous job—so naturally he should receive more.

But whenever they remembered Pei Renli dressed as a woman, flirting and posing seductively right in front of them, they felt an urge to think, "Maybe we should just forget about that..."

After wandering the streets for a while, no one other than Pei Renli bought anything. Then, before it got too late, the group returned to the inn.

There had not been nearly enough time to tour the whole city. They had not even had time to visit Curtain Star City's most famous harbor, only casually picking one commercial street to look around. With so little time, they would probably have to wait until next time.

After eating the dinner provided by the inn, everyone returned to their own rooms. Pei Renli took his spellbook from his backpack and silently committed the key points he had copied down earlier to memory as he flipped through it.

Naturally, the school's books could not be taken out, but that was no reason to relax. Pei Renli had to use every scrap of time available to strengthen himself.

It was foreseeable that this hair-pulling grind would have to continue for quite some time. At least until the threat of the Demon King Arena vanished, there could be no relaxation at all.

And amid all that grinding, Pei Renli had another important matter to consider.

For example, how to make money.

Besides a certain amount of aptitude and a great deal of time, the most important thing needed to cultivate a qualified mage was money.

First, one had to become literate. Hiring a teacher to teach that alone was no small expense, and adding the paper, pens, ink, and other stationery needed for writing practice, only middle-class families could barely afford it.

Pei Renli could skip straight past that part, but there would be no shortcuts from here on out.

All the spells he had learned so far came from school, but he could not keep relying on such low-level magic forever.

The most direct way to acquire new spells was to buy them from a magic shop, but the prices were astronomical for Pei Renli as he was now.

Not long ago, while browsing the streets, he had stopped by a bookstore. A book with the same title as one used at school, only bound differently, cost a full ten gold coins. Magic books being several times more expensive was nothing unusual.

Besides, he currently cast spells through runes, and they were all low-level spells, so he did not need to worry about casting materials for now. But once he began learning high-level spells in the future, he would inevitably need them—and not just once or twice.

There was no shortcut to mastering a spell. He could only practice it over and over again, which meant the consumption of casting materials was no small figure either.

What was more, if he wanted to walk the path of a mage, copying scrolls was a required course.

Scrolls were single-use magical consumables, but keeping a stock of them on hand could save a great deal of mana at critical moments, effectively boosting one's endurance in battle by a large margin. That was extremely important for mages who needed combat power.

And copying scrolls required not only skill, but special ink and paper as well. The prices of those things...

That was why raising a mage was so expensive. The cost of producing a qualified mage exceeded their weight in gold, a price Pei Renli absolutely could not afford at present.

In short, he needed money now. Lots of money.

Everything the Demon King of Tyranny had left behind that was worth anything had been taken by Lavna to whale with, and the internship pay arranged by the school roughly once a month was nowhere near enough to support such massive expenses.

Pei Renli was scratching his head over this. It was not as if he had never considered making money with knowledge from Earth, like so many transmigrators did, but just look at this world's development. Everything Pei Renli knew had long since been done to death. Whether it was making paper, making glass, or making money with gunpowder and other transmigrator staples, none of it was remotely feasible.

Since knowledge from Earth could not make him money, he might as well change his line of thinking. In this world, what was the fastest way to make money?

For example, alchemy.