Chapter 89: Making a deal

"I understand what you think about this entire thing. Some random comes into your workshop and pushes his weight around to play around with a craft you spent a lot of time mastering. But because of who his girlfriend is, you can only gnash your teeth and accede to his request. Isn't that right?"

Even though Huskarl already agreed to help me out, I didn't want to leave this situation like that. It just didn't sit well with me to force this random and actually helpful girl into obedience only by relying on Ayda's authority.

"What an observant fellow you are."

Not admitting to my words directly, the girl pouted as she moved her face to the side, seemingly trying to hide her expression from Ayda. A funny leftover habit of normal humans, not applicable to the society of witches, where everyone could discern the emotions of others without much trouble.

"Great!"

Instead of flaring up at the sight of the girl's guts that made her agree to my words instead of fervently denying them, I only smiled. There was absolutely no point in getting angry over that point. 

"That means we can at least agree on something. So, I would like you to listen to me first."

If I were to act as the main characters out of the many novels I read before the apocalypse, then dealing delicately with the situation like I was doing right now would only make me a laughing stock. Not following the law of jungle, or rather, not using my power to the full extent in order to extort whatever I wanted from others, was something that would make those cool main characters scoff at me with pity.

But this wasn't some kind of fantastical world. Well, in terms of its classification, with various races, magic and the world-ending conflict already in the process, it had every right to be classified as a fantasy world. But there was one main difference that made acting like an arrogant prick the shortest way to get myself killed.

Because this was a real place. It was filled with real people. Each of them has their own circumstances, wishes, fears and ambitions. Even if crossing a hundred of them wouldn't cause any drawbacks, the hundredth and first-person could turn out to be dedicated enough to become a threat. And what was the point of potentially creating a tough enemy for myself if I could simply be nice and respectful of the boundaries that the locals had?

"I know that I won't become a master of the craft overnight. I never ever wished for something impossible like that to happen. But while we don't have this particular profession in the place where I come from, there are a lot of people actually doing something quite similar. When I'm asking you to teach me, it's not for the sake of learning the craft myself. I just want to learn the ground rules so that I can pass them on to the people actually skilled in an activity like this."

That was only a half-truth here. While it was indeed my intention to let the wonderful technology and craftsmanship of earth take the reins of the production of gems that couldn't be made ever before, I didn't imagine it as a row of old, bearded dwarf-like artists sitting at their workplace and polishing a single gem at a time.

What I wanted to establish was a fully automated production line capable of perfectly replicating the sets of runes that would be installed in its memory. What I wanted earthy artists and craftsmen to do, was to figure out the best possible arrangement of the basic runes before creating a computer model that the machine would later follow!

"Eh… It's okay already. You don't need to be so polite to me. I'm just a mere smith, am I not?"

Finally reacting to my words after a short while, Huskarl looked at Ayda with a particular look on her face, before quickly escaping away with her eyes. It seemed that there was some kind of history between the two of them, a history that might not be particularly pleasant and wholesome.

"As for the question you asked before, the scrubber is a pretty simple tool. You take a special, tiny stone capable of reaching insane hotness, then install it on a long crystal stick before covering it with handling material. My scrubber is made from metal because that's the element I'm comfortable with… And the reason why your request made me flare so much is… It's common knowledge that in order to become an enchanter, one needs to create a scrubber on his own. Only in this way will it be perfectly suited to one's hand."

Putting a smile on my face as I listened to this complete set of bullcrap, I tried not to recall the times when in Earth's history those highly-skillcapped crafts became obsolete where mass manufacturing became a possibility. Even though the quality was initially subpar, as more and more money entered the pockets of the factory owners, the quality of their product continued to skyrocket. 

In a short span of time, what used to be a factory producing cheap products, only a far shadow of what a true craftsman could create, soon turned around on the old-type workers. In the current times, the only reason why people still ever bought hand-made tools like clocks or instruments was because of the novelty factor. In terms of the quality itself, the machine-produced stuff mostly replaced everything that was formerly handmade.

But Huskarl couldn't know that. That's why, instead of explaining the wonders of the industrial revolution to her, I decided to just nicely agree to her words… For as long as it wouldn't hamper my ability to progress on my own!

"I understand. It seems to be an important tool for any of the craftsmen… But let me ask you this, all it essentially does is heating up the tip in order to shave away a portion of the crystal, am I right?"

With my mind working on its full speed, I could already picture several ways to replicate the effects of heat-treating the gem. Starting with a tool covered in diamond powder and vibrating at high speeds, through the water-cutting method, all the way to the standard polishing with grinder… And if an amateur in the topic like me could come up with three possible methods of replacing the tool on the spot, how easy could it be to someone who was actually an expert?

"More or less, yeah. Although it's only a theory, it's believed that once the rune itself is filled with magical power, it overflows and etches the energy into the structure of the stone. If that theorem is true, then it doesn't matter how you cut the stone, as long as the surface of the cut is perfectly even."

Shrugging her arms, Huskarl attempted to hide her excitement. From the flow of conversation, she could easily get the message that her precious tool might be spared the fate in my hands. Sadly, I couldn't be as nice.

"That's good to hear… So let's make a deal. I will borrow your tool for just a single day, and return it to you tomorrow, no matter whether I achieve any results or not. Is that acceptable for you?"