[Melas] Chapter 110: Inventions (Patreon)

The biggest problems I faced right now was Elara the Demon. I knew she was watching over me at all times, supposedly as my protector and guardian. However, I felt anything but safe knowing that she was even close to me without me noticing her.

Right now, two of my possible enemies— the Dark Crusaders and the Church— had each other tangled up in their own messes. So, I did not have to worry about them too much; I could shift my focus on what I could do.

And that ranged from tinkering to simple magic training. A lot of my free time was spent in my bunker— while I was not out working as a Hunter. I was not in excessive need of gold, since I no longer had access to a constant supply of spell tomes with the Dark Crusaders occupied. Lisa was not ecstatic about the news, losing her main source of income: me.

With my time freed up to pursue other endeavors, I returned crafting my masterpiece. The very mana tech I had lacked thus far— a working shower!

“Alright, so if I arrange the symbols in this order, I should be able to create hot water, right?”

“No, no, no!” Gennady threw his hands up in the air. “You’re putting too many fire symbols into your rune! You don’t want to make fire, you just want to make it warm!”

I scratched the side of my head and erased the symbols from the parchment. I drew another design, but again, he harrumphed. “You’ve got it wrong again— you didn’t even draw the fire symbols right this time!”

I blinked. “Where?”

“Right here— there’s a small smudge…”

Anyways, there was a lot I had to work on, especially since I had been neglecting this particular skill of mine. But eventually, I managed to find the perfect combination of water, fire, and air symbols to create the perfect rune for a shower. The earth symbol was not needed, apparently.

“It works!” I celebrated, pumping a fist up in the air.

“Congrats.” The Dwarf rolled his eyes. “You managed to create your first non-lethal, simple mana tool.”

“What?” I sputtered, facing him in shock. “I’ve made many non-lethal mana tools before!”

“They were never original.” He shook his head. “Not like this.”

I drew back, crossing my arms. That was rude. But Gennady was normally rude, so I let it slide. Instead, my eyes lit up as I saw a potential opportunity. “Wait, if this is an original creation, does that mean I could patent this and sell it?”

Gennady paused. He rubbed at his beard slowly, considering this. “That’s… a brilliant idea!” he exclaimed. I straightened, excited.

“Really?”

“Yep!” He nodded, face eager. “You can do that—”

That drew out thoughts in the deep recesses of my mind— if I could possibly make passive income from this invention… something from my world… My hope was snuffed out in an instant as Gennady snapped.

“—if you didn’t want to make any money!”

“Hey!” I protested. “What do you mean by that?”

“This is such a terrible invention, Melas. Who in Hell would want to buy this damned thing?”

I crossed my arms, defensive. “You can shower in private. No more public baths.”

“What’s the damned point of it then?”

“...what?”

“The whole reason we don’t just have a private bath in our homes is because we enjoy going to public baths. It’s the whole socialization aspect of it, ya damned fool!”

“Oh.” I deflated. I felt my plans of using my basic, Earth knowledge to somehow live an easy life in this world slip away from the palm of my hands.

Gennady rubbed at his temples. “And such a simple design too— did ya think we were just incompetent for not thinking of such a thing before?”

I shrunk back. “Uh… no?”

He sighed, spinning around and leaving the room I designated as the bathroom. I followed after him and left behind my greatest invention, that was apparently only something I cared about.

I saw Sevin sitting in my living room, looking at his own blueprints for one of his own mana tech ideas. He was muttering something under his breath, when Gennady pointed a thumb at me and bellowed.

“Lad, get a load of this—”

He explained the situation to the young man, much to my embarrassment. Sevin did not laugh at me, however I could tell he thought that was a ridiculous idea.

“Honestly, Melas,” he started as I steeled myself for what he had to say, “your Cluster Bombs are inventions that would be much better patented than this… shower. I reckon you could get quite a few companies coming to you to buy your design.”

I narrowed my eyes. “And why would companies be interested in them?”

“Because, by the way they’re designed, they’re very useful for fighting underwater Monsters. Remember that Cephalonx?”

“The giant squid Monster?”

“Imagine how much easier it would have been to draw it out if we could just drop a bomb down into the water, creating a spread of explosions. It’d be like throwing a wide net— of blasts— and you’d catch the Monster with at least one of the smaller explosions from your Cluster Bomb?” Sevin spoke, waving his hands about wildly. “Many of the companies here in Jahar’taw would buy your design straight from you. Especially with the reliance on maritime commerce here.”

Now that was a decent idea. I faced Gennady, curious about his thoughts. His face scrunched up slightly. “I think you’re right, lad. Erzhan has been complainin’ to me lately about tha damned sea creatures messing with his shipments.”

Sevin tapped a finger on his chin. “I think that’s why Ginah’s been gone. She was asked to be the head guard for one large cargo that was heading for Laxis. To deal with the Monsters at sea, since she was a pirate Captain.”

“Right,” Gennady agreed. “If you’d really like, Melas, I can arrange a meeting for you with Erzhan. Or some of my other contacts.”

I glanced between the two men. “Wait, are you guys serious?”

They nodded, much to my surprise. I shuffled my feet, almost uncomfortably. “I… I’m not sure if I’m comfortable with that. Selling weapons just seems…”

The Dwarf’s glare cut me off before I could even finish. “Look, lass,” he said as he took a deep breath. “You’re not going to be playing the whole naive and innocent card on us, will you? You know just as well as we do that real life ain’t about any of that fluffy and cozy stuff.”

“Right…”

I hated to admit it, but after being enslaved, working with terrorists, and fighting alongside pirates, I might not have had the moral high ground— if any moral ground— to claim that selling weapons was bad. I still hesitated.

“I’ll think about it, alright?” I eventually said. “It’s not like I’m in any rush to earn gold.” If I really got desperate, I did have some more ideas— things from my world… which were not really ideas to be honest. Just plain plagiarism.

But I was not really looking to do much right now. Simply not being murdered by the Church, the Dark Crusaders, or that trio and the Demon under that fake god was enough for me.

Was I being too passive? It was a possibility. But this was my period of winding down. I had a busy two years since my mother was killed. I didn’t want to wrack my brain for something that was entirely unnecessary. Money was no object to me.

I survived the Free Lands without any such worries. I was certain I could do the same if anything ever happened that compromised my status as a Hunter. Even if King Adilet suddenly changed his mind and exiled me from the country, I knew I could hold my own against any ordinary, daily threat like a lack of food and shelter.

I tossed aside any pressing matters for now, heading up and out of my bunker to return to Gennady’s warehouse. I had spent most of my time here in the recent days, mostly studying my magic and keeping away from trouble. Well, that was if studying meant staring at the Dimensional Storage Box and not understanding anything about it.

I really wanted to get a grasp of Space Magic. Fracture Side was a good spell for me to know, but there was a lot else I could extrapolate from this. Other than that, I had learned a few magicks which were a bit more mundane. Telekinesis was a close relative of Space Magic— Levitation, the first spell I learned, worked as quite the useful base for this field of magic.

However, I was tired of simply working every day. I had to get some fresh air from time to time. Plus, I needed to keep myself up to date with how things progressed in the world at large. Especially with the clash between the Dark Crusaders and the Church. That was something I really had to keep in mind. If Saintess Lilith wiped the Dark Crusaders from Jahar’taw, she would be free to come after me unimpeded.

I needed the Dark Crusaders to remain strong against this common enemy of ours— even if the Dark Crusaders was my enemy too. That thought made me consider giving them some support or aid, if I could. I knew it was dangerous, but Lilith was the greatest threat, considering she was entirely mentally unstable.

I could reason with the Dark Crusaders. The fake god had a plan for me. But Lilith? She was insane.

I stalked through the forest back to Jahar’taw, followed by Gennady and Sevin. Hopefully those Holy Knights with her would be more than enough of a deterrent to keep her from killing me outright. It was wishful thinking. And I did not believe in wishes, so I would have to speak to Lisa and Jack, hear what they had to say about the current situation.

We reached the edge of the outer city, passing through farmlands and the vast, sprawling fields as we made our way to the small gathering of buildings located where our warehouse was. The area between the mountain of Jahar and its port was quite sparse of life. There were a few, scattered areas where houses gathered, but it was never more dense than a small town.

Ours was one such area. We had neighbors— albeit not many— but they were not extremely close to our warehouse. In fact, most of the structures here were relatively interspersed quite far apart. And many of the others were storage houses too: used by the farmlands to store their harvest, before its transportation to the inner or outer city.

It was not, and had never been, a busy street. I knew that, but my eyes narrowed as my gaze settled on the empty buildings and the clear roads. A prodding feeling jabbed at my stomach. “Something’s off,” I said, turning to Gennady and Sevin.

The young man was clueless, but the Dwarf frowned too. “Aye, lassie. You noticed them?”

I shook my head. “I… did not. What do you see, Gennady?”

“Shadows. Lurking in the dark.” He adjusted his belt, resting a hand on his mana tools in a nonchalant way. “Tall, spindly.”

“You mean Humans?” I felt my heart jump. Was it the Holy Knights? Was Lilith here?

I took a step back, drawing my dagger.

“We have to—”

“We can’t run, Melas. What about the others?” The Dwarf gave me a look. I bit my lower lip— I knew he was right. I steeled myself, pressing forward instead.

“Be on guard.”

Magic clung to the tip of my fingers. I was nervous, apprehensive, but I had to consider my friends. I wore my mask, prepared for battle. There was no one else here. No one but our enemies. So, when the first bolt of blue energy shot towards me, I held up a hand, casting a simple barrier. It caught the attack as Gennady snapped his rifle up, blasting a man in the head.

The Human fell from a rooftop, dead. I stared suspiciously at the corpse. Wait— would a Holy Knight fall so easily to a simple shot? I looked around warily. This could not be the Church. Who could they be—

I paused as I saw a bulkier figure slipping behind a wall. Was that a Dwarf? My eyes widened as I realized who these attackers were. I had been so focused on my more dangerous problems, I completely forgot about the one that would be right at the forefront, even if he spelled less trouble than the others.

Didar. And… I glanced over at the dead Human. The Puer Kingdom.

Author's Note:

Heya all, Melas Book 2 is now live on Amazon. Do consider giving it a buy and leaving it a review as it would really help me out a ton <3 Amazon.com: The Witch: An Isekai Adventure Fantasy (Melas, Book 2)