Chapter 45: Capitalism In Another World...

As expected, Zephra had water for sale as well. She grabbed two mugs from a crate beside her and filled them with a flick of her wrist, summoning a small water spirit, a blue speck of light that hovered obediently before dissolving into the liquid.

Fey magic, obviously.

And her pricing was, frankly, ridiculous. "Premium water," she called it. Good thing I had my extra allowance.

"Bitter."

I said after swallowing, and Trish made a similar face. Just like the novel, neither of us felt any immediate change. Trish voiced the question before I could.

"Is something supposed to...?"

"Give it a day. It’s still settling."

Zephra waved her hand dismissively, then her gaze drifted to the pistol. The look in her eyes made it clear she’d already started calculating how much she could squeeze out of me.

"Now, that artifact, on the other hand... it seems to be an anomaly from the trial. They appear one out of three times, give or take. Usually, I’d confiscate something like that, unstable energies and all. But for a small fee, I can stabilize it for you."

She reached beneath the desk and produced an antique weighing scale, setting it on the table with practiced efficiency. A snap of her fingers, and the pistol vanished from my hand, reappearing on the scale’s plate.

"Let me see..."

She began stacking small calibrated weights onto the opposite plate, consulting her ledger with every minute adjustment. The scale wavered, then settled at precisely 1.1 kilograms.

Without missing a beat, she looked up and named her price.

"That’ll be five hundred thousand Aurion."

She said it without a trace of shame.

I stared at her. Sure, I was a duke’s son, but that didn’t mean I could throw around that kind of coin like it was pocket change. My father could afford it, no question. Me? I had the lowest allowance of all the Brimstones.

"Can I ask you to hold onto it until we meet again?"

"Hmm, sure. But I’ll need a down payment. I’m risking my life, after all."

For someone supposedly risking her life, she seemed awfully calm about the cursed artifact just sitting there on her table.

"How much are we talking?"

"Ten thousand Aurion. And I’ll even throw in an artifact that summons a messenger bird who always knows my location."

I mulled it over. A pistol was, on its own, weaker than magic. No argument there. But if I could get my hands on one and study its mechanisms, I could reverse engineer it. Mass-produce it. I’d be the first modern weapons manufacturer this world had ever seen.

Money, power, influence. Everything needed for a villainess magnet.

Picture it: ten elite mages, each worth a thousand soldiers, getting overwhelmed by a hundred soldiers with weak magic, but armed with guns that could punch through steel at speeds no one could react to.

And coming from the perspective of someone with mana capacity like mine. I don’t even think I can survive in that situation.

And while I was a former general, I didn’t know exactly how guns worked down to the last screw and spring. I knew enough to use them, enough to respect them. But building one from scratch? That was another story.

Still, if I could get my hands on even one working model...

"How about this: I’ll pay the ten thousand. But the next time we meet, I want a full appraisal of the artifact’s condition, free of charge."

Zephra’s lips curled into a slow, appreciative smile.

"You drive a hard bargain, Lord Brimstone."

"Reyn, are you sure this is a good investment?"

Trish asked, her voice low enough that only I could hear. Unlike in my world, guns here were few and far between. And even then, they weren’t really guns, just crude tubes of gunpowder with no real understanding of how to use them effectively.

I doubt Zephra even realized how valuable the thing on her table would be if mass-produced.

"Definitely," I replied.

Zephra reached into a small wooden box beside her chair and produced a ring. Simple, silver, with a tiny onyx bird perched at its center.

"A messenger bird that always knows where I am. Just twist the band, and it’ll manifest. Don’t go losing it unless you want to find me manually."

I slid the ring onto my finger. It fit perfectly, which was either a minor miracle or fey craftsmanship showing off.

"It’s a deal, then."

I said, fishing the agreed-upon amount from my coin pouch. Zephra counted it with the speed of someone who’d been doing this for centuries, then tucked it away with a satisfied hum.

"Pleasure doing business, Lord Brimstone. Now get out there and enjoy the carnival. Try the fried dough. Tell them Zephra sent you, and they’ll charge you double, but it’s worth it."

Trish and I stepped back into the sunlight. The noise of the carnival rushed back in, a wall of laughter and music and vendors shouting over one another.

The pistol would have to wait. Zephra had said it needed to be stabilized first, and until then, it was little more than a very expensive and dangerous paperweight. But the ring on my finger was a reminder that the dark elf was now only a twist away.

I don’t even need to go for my original plan of personally hiring her.

And now all that’s left is to have fun.

"Let’s start with the candied apples," I said.