Hard Work Will Never Betray Me - CH 38

After carefully explaining to Mei, the developer of the secret weapon “Magic Shock Gun,” how the weapon would have a great impact on society and how it could endanger her, I managed to get her to understand and I breathed a sigh of relief.

To be honest, I wasn’t sure if Mei  would understand, since she was an inventor and craftsman at heart, or at worst, a mad scientist. She was not stupid, but rather quite intelligent, judging from her sense of invention and the observation and point of view that underpinned it.

“It’s true that it’s frightening to think that this could be circulated and eventually be used to target me.

Mei  is the creator of such extraordinary inventions. It would be better if her genius was bought and she was recruited by a large capital merchant or a nobleman. Some of them might use dangerous professions and use illegal means to get Mei to do what they want. As the eldest son of the Northern Shogun family, and more importantly as a friend, I will never allow such a thing to happen, but I can’t just stick to Mei all the time. Perhaps in the future I’ll hire Mei as my own forger, but for now, we’re both still children.

It would be better to keep the magic shock gun out of sigh  until I’m strong enough to let no one mess with it, or at least until Mei  learns how to defend herself. The impact gun is certainly powerful and epoch-making, but it’s still good to use up to B rank. A rank … No, if there is A-rank, it must be done without any hands or legs. And if you are a royal aristocrat or a big merchant, you can easily hire an A-rank adventurer or bouncer.

In short, I need to be able to fight off the A-rankers lightly in order to be safe.

“A-rank, huh?”

I’m sure I’m the strongest six-year-old in the world, but that’s meaningless.

Ranks are a kind of official standard for measuring the strength of adventurers and mages, and a certain level of skill is guaranteed if the rank is the same regardless of the type of job. It is a standard set by the guilds of adventurers and magicians, and the governments of various countries, including the Imperial State, in cooperation with each other, and it has spread all over the world because of its convenience.

Father  who always does mock fights when training is too strong, and to be honest, it is difficult to judge how strong the S rank is, but my mother, Theresia Sally von Flensburg Fahrenheit, the “fresh green saint,” is relatively easy to understand. But it’s relatively easy to tell. My mother is an A+ ranked mage, but while she uses magic with great dexterity, I have far more magic power than she does. Of course, in proportion to the amount of magic power, the power of a single blow is actually higher for me.

However, rank is not as simple as it seems. It’s not just a matter of being strong. It’s about how well you can use magic. How well can you cast the right spell? Is it powerful enough? Is the speed of activation and accuracy within an acceptable range?

There is no limit to the criteria, but I haven’t beat my mother at all except for her power and magical power. The magic listed in “Magic Encyclopedia” has been roughly mastered, but some of the last ones have not yet been mastered, and above all, “Magic Encyclopedia” alone is not enough. If it is a general magician level, it is already enough at the time of “Magic Encyclopedia -Basic Edition-“, but if you want to succeed the Northern General who occupies one of the strongest parts of the empire, “Advanced Edition” will be a little unsatisfactory.

I still need to learn a lot of magic, and in addition to magic, I also need to learn the martial arts of the Northern Shogun Bushin style. The development of magic tools is also a good idea, but when will I become strong enough to feel secure? It looks like I still have a long way to go.

✳︎

“I’ve never been to this area before, come to think of it.

“Well, I sometimes come here when I’m carrying unloaded goods, but ……’

“It’s not a place you want to come alone.”

“Yes.”

We were now at the edge of the warehouse district, not far from the craftsmen’s quarter and blacksmith’s quarter of the city of Heitburg. The reason is not important. We were simply exploring a part of the city we hadn’t been to yet. As it was just a row of warehouses, there were very few pedestrians. Even if there were, there were only the occasional muscled craftsman carrying a weapon, which was not a very reassuring sight.

The warehouse was large, and the atmosphere was dim and somewhat eerie, but it was not dirty. In fact, I’d say it was beautiful. It was somewhat similar to the Red Brick Warehouse in Yokohama that I had visited in a previous life. However, it was dark. It was like a red brick warehouse in the shade.

This warehouse district is the driving force behind the industrial economy of Heidburg. When I think about it, I don’t feel scared. However, it must be dark and quiet even in the daytime, so I didn’t feel like coming here much.

“There’s no one here.”

“Even if there were, nothing would happen.”

“Something might happen.”

“I don’t think anything will happen.”

We walked along the dimly lit warehouse district, chatting about such things. The area is quite large, so the scenery continues to be unchanging.

“Oh, there’s a person.

“It’s true. Who thre ?

“It looks like he’s looking for someone.”

“Are you lost?”

A few warehouses down the street, a young man is running around looking for something, scurrying around. His face is pale so he might have been in a tense situation.

“Oh, he’s gone.”

“He’s gone, isn’t he?”

Perhaps he didn’t notice us, but he went around the corner and disappeared. He was dashing around the corner when he disappeared, so he must be in dire straits.

“He is a strange guy, …….”

“I wonder if he was in a fight.”

Fires and fights are the flower of Heitburg,……, but it’s not like that. I don’t know about other cities, but at least in Heitburg it’s different. This city is relatively safe. If you were to get into a fight on the street, the military police would immediately come to your aid. Fire is no different. The city has a mixture of half-timbered buildings and stone buildings, so fires do not spread as fast as in Edo. Also, most high-rise buildings have water tanks on the rooftop for daily use, so there is plenty of fire extinguishing system.

In the end, after the strange man I saw earlier, the street disappeared again.

“…… should we go somewhere else ?”

“Yes, of course. ……”

We were getting a little bored, so we turned a nearby corner to leave the warehouse district.

Then I made eye contact with a girl in front of me – about our age – who was crouched in the shadows hiding and shivering.

“?”

“!”

For a moment, the girl almost screamed, but when she realized we were children, she hurriedly held her breath and swallowed her scream. Then she took a few deep breaths and looked at us again.

She e took a few deep breaths and looked at me again, ”

Uh, well. What’s happen to you ?　Are you running away from someone, by any chance?”

The girl’s overly unnatural appearance and the suspicious man from earlier went round and round in my head. I have a bad feeling about this.

“……, I was grabbed by a strange man. And I was locked up in a room. So I got scared and ran away.”

I don’t understand what hs e is saying, but it seems to be a kidnapping. It seems to me that something fishy is going on in Heitburg. I thought the city was supposed to be safe.

“Anyway, can you stand up?””

Mei held out her hand to the girl and helped her to stand.

“Oh  my god. …… There’s going to be some trouble.”

As I walked to the patrolman’s station to leave the girl with them , I scratched my head and thought that I had more to report to my father.