Translated by CadmarLegend

3/3 chapters

Please remember that Barca's iron is basically steel

 

 

Chapter 257 - Pure Silver

"I think you'll be useful, bud."

"Coon."

"Good, good, good. Alright, I'll keep you from now on. Make silver for me. Okay?"

"...... coon."

"If you don't like it, I'll leave you here. You will go back to the dirt with your people, most likely struggling to be fed. On the other hand, work for me and you will never lack food again. What do you say?"

"Woof."

"Okay, it's settled. You're with me from now on. Good for you."

"... Oi, Ars... you can even talk to dog people?"

"What the hell are you sprouting? Just look at his eyes. He wants to follow me."

"I don't understand. You're just saying whatever you want to say. Anyway, are you sure you want something like that? What good would that do?"

"I do because I like this guy. Is it alright with you if I take him?"

"I don't care. No one that follows me would even want a mamono."

　A subspecies of the dog people that were in the mine.

　I decided to keep it.

　Baito-nii, who is also the person in charge of the land, gave me permission to keep it, so I'll take it without hesitation.

　However, he doesn't know that the dog can turn iron into silver.... hehe...

　If he had known, he might not have agreed as easily...

　It may be better to go back to Barcania quickly before my brother finds out.

　The dog people are creatures who can use magic to change the shape of iron and other objects when they hold those materials in the palm of their tiny hands.

　They use this magic to make spearheads and arrowheads for bows and utilize them as weapons.

　In the case of this white dogman, however, things were a little different.

　As far as I could tell, when he held iron in his hand, the iron was transformed into silver.

　But this spell may not have been useful for the species.

　Iron is stronger than silver and is a better material for weapons.

　This may have been the reason why this guy was reduced to the status of weak animal within the pack.

　But in human society, the dog man's status would have been different.

　Silver has a monetary value.

　This situation is like finding silver when you came to look for iron.

　I will be grateful and put him to good use.

"Ok, you should have a name too, so I'm going to give you one. Your name is Taro from now on. That's good, Taro. When I call you Taro, you will respond."

"Woof."

"Good, good, good. Good boy, Taro."

"What's that? That's a strange name, Ars. Well, that's just the sort of name for a dog person."

"No, it's a good name. All right, Taro, I'll make a new collar for you, too along with a leash and nameplate, out of hardened bricks."

"Woof!"

　I named the white dog-man Taro and magically created a hardened brick leash and a nameplate with the name Taro on it.

　I then put it around Taro's neck in place of his silver collar.

　The tail that sprouted from his hip was wagging from side to side, so I guessed that he was happy.

　I don't really care about putting a collar on a dog, but because of how Taro was standing on his two legs, it felt like I was putting a collar on a child... which is a bit uncomfortable.

　I thought about having him move on all four legs, but his skeleton seems to be designed to stand and walk like a human.

　I wonder what kind of evolutionary process would lead to this.

"Well, that's OK. Anyway, this means that the problem of the mine has been solved. I can leave the rest to you, can't I, Baito-nii?"

"Yeah, no problem. There are no other survivors in the mine, and we will restart operations in the near future. I'll send the iron produced back to Barcania after everything's settled."

"That's great. I'll now be taking Taro back to Barcania."

　Thus, I returned home with a little something: a mamono with the characteristics of a bipedal, white-haired dog.

　※　※　※

"And that's what happened. I mean, I brought this fellow back with me."

"You still do strange things everywhere you go, boy. So, why did you come to show me this Taro?"

"No, no, I wanted to share my excitement with you. Look, this is the collar that Taro magically turned iron into silver, ojii-san."

"Hmmm...so this is what it looks like. How did you notice that it is made of silver in such a dirty condition?"

"By partly guessing. Silver seems to be easy to be oxidized and dirty. To tell the truth, I could have overlooked it. Even so, when I saw the silver collar, it was even dirtier. Probably because of how Taro had been living in the mine."

"And what's that other one? It has a different sheen, that silver..."

"This one was made after I came back to Barcania, and it's amazing. The purity is off the charts!"

"... Purity? Could it be that there is a difference in the iron that Taro cast his spell on?"

"You're right, old man. Until now, Taro had used his spell on iron ores directly from the mines, which is impure in nature. That's why the silver was also low in purity. But I thought it would be a good idea to use the spell on the iron produced in our state-of-the-art furnace here. As you can see, we were able to produce nearly perfect, unadulterated silver."

"I'm impressed, kid. I've never seen such impurity-free silver. This is amazing."

"Right? But on the other hand, if it's this amazing, it's going to stand out in a bad way. If we suddenly put this on the market, people will try to figure out where the silver came from."

"Indeed. It would be troublesome if they get a whiff of Taro. I understand. I'll make arrangements to protect him."

"Oh, thank you. Well, for the time being, I'll keep the silver I had Taro make in a safe place. We may have to make a large payment at some point, anyway."

"...... Seems likely. Kid, you use money way too freely."

　I returned and conducted a new experiment.

　As a result, I found out something.

　It turned out that the silver that could be made with Taro's spell depended on the purity of the iron that was used.

　The "steel" produced in the Blast Furnaces which could be found only in Barcania was closer to pure iron than the iron ore available to the dog people in the mine. Testing his spell out on that basically-steel iron created a pure silver.

　Although Taro is classified as a magic-using mamono, he does not have a particularly large amount of mana.

　The number of times he can invoke his silver-making spell is limited.

　However, the problem of the number of times he could use that few magic could be solved.

　Once the iron ore is converted into Barca's steel-like iron in the furnaces, Taro converts it into silver.

　This produced silver of frightening purity.

　Thus, the hidden vaults in Barca were filled with bars of pure silver, hidden from the public.