The Beginning After The End novel Chapter 41

As we plowed our way through the crowds in City Square, I overheard various conversations about the Lances. These Six Lances were more than just a group of overpowered mages; they would soon become the very symbol of this continent. Composed of two lances for each race, they were impartial towards all humans, elves, and dwarves. I had to hand it to the three royal families for coming up with such a bold plan. With such a glorified incentive—or rather, goal—I wouldn’t be surprised if this stirred up a new era of mages.

It was fairly obvious that the kings purposely put a bad light on this new continent so that this mysterious potential common enemy would become the reason for the three races to unite. Looking at it logically, there could be great advantages, such as trading raw material, knowledge on magic and artifacts, and different technology, but this could also potentially create a competition between the humans, elves and dwarves—each of them trying to get to the new continent first to claim the new resources. While this propaganda-esque manipulation didn’t quite sit well with me, it beat the consequences of going with the latter choice.

My father stepped into the carriage, waiting for us at the edge of City Square, instructing the driver to first take him to the Helstea Auction House.

"I have a few things to take care of so I’ll meet you guys back home later tonight. Don’t cause too much trouble, Son." My father gently gripped my arm and patted Sylvie, who was on top of my head.

At the sight of my father’s carriage leaving our view, Vincent beckoned for a public carriage with a wave of his hand. Finally, an unpainted, wooden carriage pulled by two horses stopped for us with the driver tipping his hat as a silent introduction.

"Please take us to Gideon’s facility," Vincent prompted, directing the driver to our next destination. About thirty minutes into the drive, the scenery shifted from tall buildings into small houses with signboards reading "Artifacts" and "Elixirs" on many of them.

I stared out the carriage window, making a mental note of stores that I would want to visit later on, until Vincent’s voice stirred me out of my daze. "We’re at the part of the city where all of the artificers gather. You’ll see a lot of neat gadgets and other useful aids for mages if you guys want to check it out sometime."

This had sparked Elijah’s interest, apparently, because he asked the driver to stop at the nearest artifact store. "I’m going to look around for a bit and see if I can find anything worth buying," he informed before excitedly stepping out.

’Sylv, go with Elijah while I visit Gideon with Uncle Vincent,’ I transmitted to Sylvie, who was on my lap. Tilting her fox-like head, she gave me a curious look but didn’t complain, hopping out of the carriage after Elijah; I might be just overthinking, but I didn’t want a genius researcher like Gideon eyeing Sylvie.

"Do you have any money?!" I shouted out at him from inside the carriage as we leave him, realizing that normal twelve-year-old boys shouldn’t have that much money.

"Unlike someone, I’ve been saving the money we earned from the dungeon!" He patted his chest pocket and shot me a smug grin.

"Well, no need to kiss and tell," I shrugged, leaning back in the carriage seat.

About an hour later, after we passed through the densest part of the city, we arrived at a fairly large building. This building was a single story but was quite large in width, which was rare to see in a clustered city like Xyrus.

"We’re here!" the driver announced as he opened the door for us.

Hopping out of the carriage after Vincent, we made our way to the unadorned front door. After a few firm knocks, an old man with a handlebar mustache and dressed as a butler appeared, not opening the door completely.

"Greetings. Master Gideon is not—ah, hello, Master Vincent, please come in," he greeted, motioning us inside. Judging by the stern expression the butler had for a split second before realizing who we were, I’d have to guess that this Gideon person wasn’t very welcoming of guests.

As we stepped inside, a foul mixture of metal, herbs, and rotting material bombarded my nose. While the exterior of the facility was hardly grandiose, the inside was even less appealing to look at. The whole place was a mess with tools scattered with no order, piles of discarded clothes and other miscellaneous items littered across the floor, and rather intriguing and unfamiliar raw materials stacked high atop shelves. There were also microscopes and other tools that appeared vaguely familiar to the ones in my old world.

"Himes! I told you not to let anyone—Oh, it’s you, Vincent. I see you’ve come to bother me again." From the dim corner of a back room, a very short, hunched man made his way over.

Taking a closer look at the supposed genius inventor/researcher/artificer, I could say for certain that he definitely looked the part. His curly hair that looked like it’s been struck by lightning more than once complimented the beady eyes with dark bags under them. His complexion was pale and he had a pair of goggles hanging on his neck paired with a dirty lab coat.

"Haha! As welcoming as ever, Gideon." Vincent shook his head, giving his acquaintance a helpless smile and handshake.

"Bah! Don’t even start! This past year, the Royal Families sent in over a dozen messengers asking for a way to start traversing the ocean to reach the new continent! I haven’t had a chance for a decent sleep in months!" The hunched eccentric flailed his arms in disgust as he started pacing around.

"Is it really true that they found evidence of another continent, Gideon?" Vincent asked quietly, leaning closer to the inventor.

"Hoho! That, my lad, is actually a truth those snobby Royal Families are telling for once. I was the one to study the evidence! All I’ll say is that the new continent has better artificers and perhaps even better mages than ours." His beady eyes disappeared as his wicked grin widened to reveal a set of yellow teeth with remnants of whatever he had eaten for his last meal.

"What makes you say that?" Vincent pushed, taking a seat on a stool besides Gideon.

"The Royal Family took back the evidence for safe-keeping, but that ’evidence’ was an artifact. Even I couldn’t figure out everything it does, but this artifact was attached to a bird-like mana beast that had never been seen in Dicathen before. This bird-like mana beast had the ability to camouflage almost completely against its surroundings. The only way we were able to catch it was because an adventurer accidentally shot it down while he was actually aiming for a nearby squirrel he was hunting to eat. Not only that, but one of the functions I was able to figure out from the artifact was that it was able to record and store moving images. The artifact was the size of my palm and it could do what four big magic projection crystals could and more! Tell me, why would someone from our continent need to record videos?" He leaned towards Vincent too so that the two of them were only a hand’s width apart.

"Fascinating!" Vincent sighed as he rubbed his chin.

"So... who’s the little bugger you brought? Your mistress’s son?" Gideon waggled his eyebrows lewdly at Vincent.

"Oh God... Don’t even make jokes like that. Tabitha would kill me... quite literally, I’m afraid. No, this is Arthur. I consider him a nephew of mine." He placed a hand on my shoulder.

Giving a respectable bow, I introduced myself. "Arthur Leywin, son of Reynolds Leywin. Hello, Mr. Gideon. Uncle Vincent has told me many great things about you and your work."

"Quite the etiquettes for a little booger. How old are you?" he mused, studying me with his beady eyes.

"I’ll be turning twelve in May," I answered simply.

"I see... So, why did you bring him here, Vincent? I don’t take on students or disciples, you know." He puffed his chest out condescendingly.

"Actually, I would like to know for myself why he wanted to come." Vincent turned to me.

"Mr. Gideon, the fact that you have messengers from the Royal Families visiting you, I can assume that your work is quite influential, correct?" I put on the air of a respecting young lad.

"Of course! They’re a pain but I receive quite a lot of money from them!" He stuck his chin out and I could almost see his nose getting longer from his pride.

"Perfect." Without saying anything more, I pick up a large piece of parchment lying on the ground and sketched out a blueprint. It took a while for me to think of an idea to sell without it changing the world too much. This world relied heavily on magic for a lot of the bigger tools and machines. That was primarily one of the reasons they couldn’t build a ship capable of travelling long distances. No mages had an infinite source of mana and trying to carry along enough mages to power up a big ship would be impractical.

I could feel both Vincent and Gideon’s hot breaths on the back of my neck as they peered closely at my drawing.

After about half an hour, I finished drawing a rough draft of a steam engine. I didn’t draw in some of the key components so that Gideon wouldn’t just steal my idea; I would draw those in after the negotiations were complete.