When Esmeralda wasn't around, Claude would call him "big brother," and Sean had tacitly accepted that relationship. Every time he had to use a title or honorific, it felt strange living here—after all, it was someone else's home, and he was just a temporary guest, so he might as well drop those formalities.
"Was this sent over from the trade market?" "Yeah, it just arrived not long ago." Claude nodded, pulling a letter with an unbroken wax seal from a box behind him.
On ordinary days, the Skoivy shop didn't have many customers—in fact, it could be said to have very few—and most of the time, it served repeat clientele. According to what Claude had said before, even if they only sold one item in several days, it was fine. The average price of a firearm was over 200 gold coins, and while gunpowder and bullets were cheaper, bulk purchases often amounted to orders of hundreds of gold coins.
The profit margin on firearms was extremely high. Even if they only sold three or four in a month, that still brought in seven or eight hundred gold coins, with profits far exceeding costs several times over... Calculated over a year, the income might not be much worse than the tax revenue from his own little town, though the profit margin might be slightly lower—but then again, this was just a single household's income.
When Sean first heard this, he found it hard to believe and even felt a bit poor himself.
No wonder the Earl had casually thrown around a hundred thousand gold coins for disaster relief... The Skoivy Firearms Shop might have some reputation in the engineering district, but it wasn't the top one. It was hard to imagine just how much tax revenue Earl Hamilton, who owned this entire city, raked in.
So on days when there were no customers, Claude actually paid more attention to Sean's affairs...
Sean opened the letter and skimmed through it.
"How is it, Brother Sean? Is this from Taylemian?" "Yeah, this is Luke's reply." When he mentioned Luke, Sean noticed a slight shift in the other's expression.
"What did he say?" "He said he fully supports my idea of rebuilding the orchard. Taylemian has always had experience with farming, so if I'm willing to start, plenty of people in town are experts." That was Luke's original words in the letter. For a place like that little town, developing large-scale industry was out of the question, and many people wouldn't understand it anyway.
Living off the mountains meant relying on what the land provided. If it was about farming, many people had known how to do it since birth...
"Then, did he mention anything else? Like about my sister?" One look at Claude's expression told Sean what he was thinking.
Though he rarely spoke about it on the surface, it was clear he always cared deeply about his sister—especially after Esmeralda took over the entire Skoivy family business... Their relatives could all see why she never married, yet the two people involved never brought it up with each other!
"You can read it yourself."
Sean handed the letter directly to Claude and then went back alone to the attic room.
He had spent the whole day running around with Igunia, and now that he finally stopped, he felt exhausted!
Looking at the small flowerpot on the table—one he had bought at the market yesterday, filling it with soil and planting a peach seed—he was just trying to see if he could grow a seedling on his own.
When it came to farming, Sean had no experience in either of his lives. In his previous life, he had kept some flowers and plants, but those were just potted plants that only needed watering.
As for growing a fruit tree from a seed, he had absolutely no experience, let alone making it taste good.
The examples he had read in books or seen online sounded nice, but in practice, he had never actually tried!
He picked up the flowerpot and looked at the spot where he had watered yesterday. A small depression had formed in the soil, but there was no movement. Even in his field of vision, it was just labeled [Rich Soil], with no other prompts.
When he had dug up the soil, he had specifically chosen a spot with a higher attribute prompt.
Why not try using magic?
Staring at the flowerpot in his hand, Sean suddenly thought—his magic proficiency had now reached 60 points. That should be enough to do quite a bit!
He placed the flowerpot back on the table, then pulled out the wand Lucille had given him from his waist pouch. With the wand's help, he could enhance the effectiveness of his spells.
In Sean's understanding, it meant he could use these magical tools to boost his proficiency... Because spells cast purely through imagination had many limitations.
For example, you could think as wildly as you wanted, but actually executing it was constrained by various conditions.
Proficiency, mana capacity, and so on.
Sean had tried using magic in many places before, but all he got were [Ineffective] or [Immune] prompts.
Focusing on the depression in the soil, he imagined the seedling growing and prepared to cast the spell... There was no [Ineffective] prompt in his vision, meaning it was usable.
He aimed the wand at the spot.
Cast [Growth~]
[Magic Proficiency: 61]
In an instant, Sean saw a skill icon appear at the seed's location, similar to the ones that popped up when wizards cast spells. But it was only similar—it wasn't the name of the spell he had cast. Instead, it appeared directly above where the seed was buried, and beneath it was a progress bar that had already filled a small segment.
Sean was all too familiar with this kind of display.
Did it mean he had to fill up this little bar with magic for it to grow?
So he tried again, and sure enough, the progress bar moved.
Not much—just a tiny bit!
[Magic Proficiency: 62]
What the hell...
How many times would he have to do this? Was his magic really this weak?
He should have asked Igunia about magic today while they were getting familiar. He had thought that diligently training up to over 60 proficiency would give him some real power, but it turned out he was still very weak.
Sean kept using the spell, casting it eight times in a row until his proficiency reached 68, finally filling the [Growth~] progress bar completely.
And the moment the bar was full, a tiny, tender sprout broke through the soil...
It worked.
Magic really was useful!
Looking at the little seedling he had created with magic, despite the arduous process, he felt a sense of accomplishment deep inside. It was hard to describe this feeling.
A kind of satisfaction, mixed with a hint of anticipation.
If he could create something like this with magic, he could definitely do much more in the future...
But right now, the heavy consumption of magic had left his mind feeling foggy. Sean put down the flowerpot, dragged himself to the bed, and lay down to rest.
……………………
He had been running around all day, and on top of physical exhaustion, using magic had drained his mental energy as well.
The moment he lay down, he was practically asleep.
But his mind didn't fully settle. Sean was still excited about the magic he had used to nurture the plant's growth... It reminded him of what Lucille had said before—that magic was the key to mastering the truth of the world.
No wonder they were all searching for that so-called legacy of the Caine Witch.
'Truth of the World' might really exist!
Speaking of Lucille, Sean's thoughts drifted back to the archaeological team from back then...
And the scenes of fighting together, as well as the image of burying Bachler!
The corpse sealed deep in the mountains...
The rotting skin.
Then the same foul, putrid water...
The stinking, filthy sewers where rats hid... And...
Suddenly,
Sean's eyes snapped open. He sat up in bed, drenched in sweat.
He looked around—still in the Skoivy family's room. But what had he just seen? What were those images that had appeared in his mind?