Chapter 10
Fortunately, she managed to avoid the situation where she couldn’t come to work.
She had resolved to do her part no matter what happened, and she insisted she could work until the end as she came to the factory. However, she was teased by the factory people all day long.
“Coward Priscilla!”
“Coward rookie!”
The aftereffects of that book weren’t the delusions themselves, but being mocked for having delusions. She regretted being so honest, as the consequences were significant.
Thanks to that, she did snap out of it completely. Because even in the rough mercenary company, no one had ever dared mock her as a coward.
I who wasn’t even afraid of bullets got scared of some magic? Unacceptable!
She thought she couldn’t lose. She even felt something like anger toward that irritating black man. This is all because of that strange man! Why did he tell me to read that book! As if venting her anger, she spent the whole day stepping on pedals, drawing water, and oiling machinery.
The more they teased her, the more people delighted in watching Priscilla work even harder with a silent face. Let’s make her cry! Let’s try to make her cry! They seemed to think exactly that. Just like mean adults trying to torment a child with ghost stories.
“Did we tell too many scary stories to a delicate girl? Don’t worry about the Padwin family stories. They’re people who have nothing to do with us.”
“It’s not because of that. Besides, the book said the Padwin family was very good. It says they develop magical tools to enrich people’s lives.”
“The person who wrote that book must be from Lamarian. Even the good magical tools are too expensive—everything comes down to money, money. The Padwin family is making a fortune. They sell weapons to battlefields, then sell prosthetics to people injured there. Anyway, you don’t need to trust that book too much. No need to worry either. Right?”
“…”
“Huh? You just felt relieved, didn’t you? That’s a relieved expression. Everyone come look! Priscilla isn’t scared anymore! Everyone remember this expression!”
By the time work ended, Priscilla concluded that what was truly frightening wasn’t Miriam’s nagging, nor wizards, nor books full of warnings, nor ghost stories, nor the Padwin family.
What was really terrifying was the mouths of middle-aged women trained by the factory’s tedious daily routine. Without question, their lips were the most frightening thing in the world.
“The dress shop we do business with recently brought in a magic mirror that shows whether you’re under a spell or not. If you’re affected by something, it supposedly reflects differently from reality.”
The next most frightening thing was getting your money stolen by merchants who made money exploiting anxiety!
Mysterious magical tools that supposedly detected confusion magic had entered all over Arancel.
The manufacturing method for mirrors that the Padwin family had supposedly revealed required a considerable amount of silver. They also had to be large enough to reflect the whole body, so the large, expensive silver mirrors were indeed costly magical tools as people said.
So those with money began doing business by showing people the mirror once for a fee.
Fifty francs just to look in a mirror once? That’s ridiculous. Do I look like someone who’d spend money on that?!
That’s what Priscilla thought, but a few days later on a holiday, she ended up stopping by the dress shop following Miriam.
It seemed like confirming for certain that she wasn’t under a spell would give her peace of mind.
She felt her pride was hurt thinking she’d lost to that imaginary black wizard, but she couldn’t stop her feet.
Who knows, maybe he’s such a weak and petty wizard that he lives for the fun of tormenting people.
Why do I hate that guy who just passed by so briefly?
Actually, maybe I’m the petty one?
Such miscellaneous thoughts also crossed her mind. She had to swear to herself that once she checked the mirror, she’d erase everything from her head no matter what.
“Hey! Kid! Who said you could take that out! Good lord, don’t drool on it!”
“Antonio! Stay still! What’s gotten into this boy all of a sudden!”
“I want to give it to sister as a present!”
“It’s a dress with jewels, how can we buy something so expensive!”
In the dress shop where all sorts of commotion was happening.
Priscilla stood alone in front of the mirror.
An elderly employee wearing a jacket with swallowtails removed the red cloth covering the mirror. It was a mirror with a frame as antique as the employee’s clothing. Priscilla turned around once in front of the mirror, carefully checking her condition.
And she discovered nothing wrong at all. The employee watching from the side also reassured her, saying it was exactly the same beauty as outside the mirror, and if there had been a problem, she would have appeared as a monstrous figure.
“With such beautiful hair and jewel-like eyes. Even wearing faded clothes, your noble bearing doesn’t diminish, lady. I’d like to recommend you try on the dresses in our shop. We can tailor clothes that hide mechanical arms and clothes that are easy to put on with one hand. We have everything you’re looking for.”
Somehow, it felt like she’d paid money for compliments.
Priscilla politely declined and left the shop. She was fully prepared to be criticized by Miriam, but fortunately she didn’t get angry anymore. She said it was fine as long as she did her work properly.
“I’m not even your mother, so what more would I say here!”
Even as she drew that line, she still kindly accompanied Priscilla every holiday to help her see Arancel.
She took her to ironworks and introduced her to general stores that sold magical tools.
Though she spent the whole day just hearing the fundamental story that there was no way to move prosthetics without magical power, she wasn’t in a particularly bad mood.
She hadn’t expected a utopia and hope to suddenly unfold when she came to Arancel anyway.
Still, she was smoothly proceeding with the plans she’d thought of one by one. This was possible because Miriam was going all out to help her adapt quickly to the unfamiliar world. At this rate, it seemed like next time she’d be able to go around to more ironworks by herself.
Priscilla watched the backs of the mother and son walking hand in hand, and found herself smiling without realizing it.
I’m lucky I met good people from the start. And they’re not hallucinations either.
Suddenly the money spent on the mirror didn’t feel wasteful.
When she was getting tired of being teased as a kid and thought it was time to prove she was no longer a greenhorn.
Priscilla began searching on her own for merchants who supplied prosthetics or craftsmen who knew how to make them. Now she could even find her way around with a small map. She had considerable confidence in her solo city adventures.
Because of their proximity to Lamarian, magical tool shops were concentrated in the eastern market. People called it the Iron Bank Road Market.
At the market entrance was a pie shop, and the owner had prosthetic legs on both sides. He gave Priscilla, who was lingering in front of his shop drawn by the smell, a street snack made by stretching leftover dough and frying it as a gift.
When she entered the heart of the market, massive shops on a different scale from the ironworks near Genuor Factory appeared. While walking and chewing the snack, she could see unusually many people missing hands and feet. Not only that, there were people with half their faces covered in iron plates with artificial eyes implanted, and people walking quickly with long, large mechanical legs.
Even on battlefields there were people with partially mechanical bodies, but they were extremely few due to high maintenance costs. The atmosphere wasn’t this free.
Each was so full of individuality that Priscilla found herself envious. She wanted to quickly find a way to move her arm too.
But most merchants shook their heads. No matter how dangerous and expensive the magical tool, the operating principle of controlling it with one’s own magical power was the same.
They recommended she find a wizard. Iron Bank Road was occasionally visited by wizards too, so there would be someone who could introduce her for money.
Most magical tools could be obtained in Lamarian as well, but if it was something illegal, it was sometimes easier to get in Arancel where supervision was lax. That’s why Lamarian wizards often came to the shopping districts.
But actually walking the streets, she couldn’t distinguish who was a wizard at all, and the merchants said that normally they weren’t different from other people, and many disliked being conspicuously bothersome. In other words, even if you could distinguish wizards by their appearance, acting familiar would annoy them in various ways.
“Don’t they harm people? Don’t they kidnap, torture, turn people into frogs, or cast curses?”
When Priscilla asked, they laughed heartily and told her not to talk about stories that only naive women believed.
