[13th Round] Inventor
“The villain? What are you talking about?”
“Eavesdropping isn’t good.”
“I’m sorry.”
Archmage Shakespeare was an inventor. He was a real hard worker who spent most of the day in his laboratory, bedroom, and kitchen at the same time.
But he wasn’t considered eccentric because there were many wizards like him on the Western Continent.
There was only one difference between him and them.
“Mr. Shakespeare, let me know if you still need help.”
A sixteen-year-old girl visited the wretched den of that old and lonely bachelor.
That wasn’t to say that she was a beauty that would magnetize your eyes indefinitely. If she was born on Earth, things might be different, but she looked only slightly better than average in Fantasy.
In other words, she was an ordinary girl.
Perhaps it was because of this place that she kept getting highlighted. I didn’t know what would happen if we put a princess next to her, but we were in a dark workshop, and she stood out in such an environment.
► Confusion: You seem to be too picky. Just call a beauty a beauty.
‘Don’t worry, Trainee Teacher. After all, the whole universe knows that you are the most beautiful of all!’
►Curiosity: You’ve never even seen me.
‘It doesn’t matter!’
“Thanks for helping with the research. Here is the promised reward.”
Archmage Shakespeare gave the girl a small bag of money.
Clang!
From the sound alone, it wasn’t filled with gold coins, but silver coins.
Wasn’t this called clinical research? Pharmaceutical companies usually perform them to test new drugs.
“Thank you!”
“To you as well.”
I immediately gathered information about her through the spirits.
Her parents died while she was still young due to an infectious disease, and she was left to raise five younger siblings.
The girl worked as a servant in the castle of a feudal lord. To earn extra money for the sake of her brothers and sisters, she participated in these clinical studies.
On Earth, people often participated in “safe experiments” to earn extra money.
But these savages had no concept of “safe testing.”
As soon as they invented something new, they immediately moved on to widespread applications. Therefore, only after side effects or complications were found could corrections be carried out.
I asked Shakespeare a question in the style of a “local savage.”
“What is this lump for?”
“That’s not a lump but a golem. It isn’t humanoid like normal golems, but it will massage your whole body if you sit on this chair-like part!”
He made a massage chair out of a golem.
“What an incredible invention! Sell me one.”
I hoped he wouldn’t actually sell it to me. I always carried a softer and warmer massager than this golem in my pocket.
Although I hadn’t been able to use it for the last two months, which was making my entire body ache!
“Sorry, but it’s not for sale. It hasn’t completed all security checks yet, so it’s difficult to sell it right now. I’m also currently not in need of money.”
In Fantasy, inventors weren’t sponsored.
Since there was no copyright protection here, even if they invented something incredible and other people copied it, it would be hard to get the money back they spent for research and development.
Therefore, science had reached a dead end here, and only magic had been developed.
If one disassembled household appliances that didn’t have a security system, they would immediately be able to create something similar. Still, the same principle didn’t apply to magic, which couldn’t be easily replicated.
“Then I’ll use your invention. If there’s a problem with it, then you’ll be able to fix it right away.”
“What a stubborn young man! I said I wouldn’t sell it to you. Whose fault is it if the invention breaks down? Just give up. I will not sell it until it has passed all security checks.”
Ordinary wizards and inventors would sell it without second thoughts.
After all, it would be possible to kill two birds with one stone. They’d be making money while conducting a safety test.
And even if there were a problem, they wouldn’t be held responsible.
It would be possible to turn everything in such a way that the problem arose due to improper use of the device by the buyer.
Afterward, they would be able to correct all the errors.
“Then there’s nothing I can do about it. Will you sell that one to me instead, then?”
“You want to buy this medicine without even asking what it’s for?”
“Well, it must be good for the user’s health!”
It was the drug that the girl recently took before leaving.
“This medicine protects the soul. If one’s body receives mortal wounds, healers would be able to tend to those injuries. Meanwhile, thanks to this miraculous elixir, the soul will be able to return to its body again, allowing the person to be resurrected.”
“Woah! That’s just incredible!”
I exaggerated a little, but I was really half sincere this time.
Elixir of immortality.
I realized that this was the source of why, in the future, this forty-year-old wizard would be called the “Phantom King.”
“Give me one.”
I would find out the composition of this medicine and would do the same for myself.
If I could outwit mom and convince her that it was a supplementary medicine for the body by sending it as a gift, maybe her racket would no longer crush me as much.
“I would like to, but this elixir must be taken constantly since only then will its effect activate. As of this moment, only the girl you just saw and I have taken it. Its ingredients are pretty rare, so even if I want to craft more, I can’t. You’d also have to die to test the effect of the elixir, so I was planning on taking it myself first, but…”
Shakespeare told me almost the same information about the girl as the spirits did.
Unlike the spirits, who looked at the situation objectively, the young girl embellished her story to arouse pity in her forty-year-old uncle.
Still, almost everything converged.
“… So she can’t die until her younger siblings are adults. I couldn’t dissuade her after hearing her story. Up to this point, neither she nor I have had any side effects, but it remains unknown if it works. Therefore, I can’t just sell it yet. I also don’t have enough reserves.”
He was a real inventor.
I gave him 100 points!
He only suffered losses, so I didn’t understand how he became the Phantom King, whom even vampires feared.
I couldn’t wait two years …
“Ah! Are you thinking of getting married?”
I saw the Princess of Darkness on the Northern Continent, but the Phantom King wasn’t yet a vampire, but only a humble human, and at 40, he wasn’t only not married, he didn’t even have a girlfriend.
Something didn’t add up.
What about the bloodline of the Princess of Darkness?
“Marriage… Ahem! I wouldn’t say that I can’t get married. I just don’t want to. I must focus on wizardry until I finish this research of mine.”
Such an excuse would not work on Earth, but because a resident of Fantasy, where the most insane skills existed, was the one who said those words, I couldn’t even laugh.
Shakespeare had the right to say that, after all.
> Race: Great Human
> Level: 999+
> Job: Wizard (Chastity → Wisdom)
> Skills: Magic ZZZ, Sorcery ZZZ, Magic Power Z, Path of Magic Z, Intelligence Z…
> Status: Good
He had incredibly high ranks in Magic and Sorcery.
In this world, two jobs could be obtained if one remained innocent for a long time.
The Sage that increased “Magic Power,” and the Wizard, which increased “Intelligence.”
Both jobs had their advantages and disadvantages, but becoming a wizard was easier.
Therefore, many aspired to become wizards.
Few succeeded, however.
After all, monster attacks and wars never stopped in this realm, causing a high mortality rate.
As a result, many families had a man who had two or three wives. Because the population was the main indicator of a country’s strength, the state even encouraged this, but it was also because the girls wanted someone that could protect them from monsters and bandits to be next to them.
It could be said that even if men wanted to remain innocent to become wizards, girls didn’t leave them alone!
Women also had similar jobs.
But things were different from them.
If a female kept their innocence, she could become a “Witch.” However, after gaining it, innocence would no longer matter. Their Magic Power also grew stronger the more beautiful they became.
If a girl wasn’t confident of her appearance, there was little point in her becoming a witch.
“I suppose you’re not going to get married?”
“I’m serious!”
“I didn’t say anything.”
The Phantom King Shakespeare had five vampire wives whose beauty was so incredible they could drive people insane.
There seemed to be some problems.
I realized there were errors in the system settings, though I had already sensed it when I noticed the Princess of Darkness was one of the First Hero’s companions.
“Work hard. Anything can happen.”
“Do not worry about me. I will succeed!”
After talking with Uncle Shakespeare, I said goodbye to him. I then decided to investigate in a different direction.
► Amazement: So you decided to solve this mystery!
‘Naturally, Trainee Teacher!’
The fastest way to solve this was to ask the self-proclaimed Goddess of Fantasy, but she had been silent since the error message came out, so I couldn’t do it.
Therefore, I had no other choice but to intervene myself!
I couldn’t just wait for two years, and since my resentful senior had already left us, the course of history was disrupted.
Therefore, I needed to personally find out what was happening here.
“I need to meet the Princess of Darkness’s mother first.”
The most beautiful vampire of the Western Continent would definitely be able to tell the truth about this tangled story.
***
Finding her was harder than I thought since this place was no longer eternally swallowed by the darkness, unlike in the present timeline.
The vampires I knew lived on the surface like humans, but vampires had to avoid sunlight in the past, so they lived in caves.
They couldn’t rule the cities in this era.
Even with the help of spirits, it was difficult for them to do.
Earth, fire, wind, water, soul.
Nothing seemed impossible if one combined the five elements, but everything was different for the vampires accustomed to the darkness.
It would be nice if I could get a spirit of darkness…
But heroes shouldn’t befriend a demonic entity!
“She lives in such a pitiful place.”
If I knew her real name, I wouldn’t have wasted so much time, but I just remembered her as “Colony A Manager.”
“That is too rude for the most beautiful being of the Western Continent, Drug Hero.”
“Do you want me to remember the names of everyone I meet?”
Having rebuked the strange logic of the First Spirit, I entered a cave that was nothing compared to the Colony A that I knew.
The vampires’ shelters were incredibly dark, but I had the universe on my side, so it didn’t cause me any problems.
I even punished a vampire who crept up behind me to thrust her fangs into my neck.
After making sure her neck was beautifully arched, I moved on.
The vampires hiding in the darkness watched me closely, ready to pounce on me all at once at any moment.
“She’s here, huh?”
The cave was confusing since it was like a labyrinth, but I still reached my destination in no time since I followed the path provided by the spirits.
Was it because I was in a cave? My whisper bounced off the walls, echoing over a great distance. Therefore, the vampires already knew I was coming before I could get there.
“Wh-who’s there?!”
The voice sounded confused. It wasn’t a woman’s either, but a man’s.
I looked at the spirits that brought me here.
‘Hey! Are you sure you brought me to the right place?’
They nodded confidently.
I decided to believe them for now.
I went to where the man’s voice came from and introduced myself briefly.
“I apologize for disturbing you. I’m the Righteous Hero, and it seems that I’m lost. I heard that there’s a vampire with the most beautiful pelvis here on the Western Continent, so here I am… Oh! I think I’ve come to the right place after all.”
I saw a beautiful vampire who had her arms and legs tied. And behind her, I saw a familiar vampire.
Phantom King Shakespeare.
He had a different name now, though.
“I asked you who you are!”
“P-please s-save… Ah!”
I scratched my head.
I understood that something important was happening here, but I had to take my leave.
