The Stargazer Sorcerer – Part 01
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Translator: Kell | Editor: Ryunakama
Interlude: A Dream of Dolls
In the darkness, a doll was hanging by its neck. A knife was sticking out of its chest, crimson blood dripping on the floor. Then suddenly, the blood stopped flowing. The doll slowly looked up.
Its mouth was sewn with thread, and one of its eyes was missing its button. It had a gaudy purple dress, with hair that was a mismatched string of different colors and thickness.
“Ah, what a misshapen doll,” it said. “I hate it. Oh, what a poor little thing I am.”
The doll wiggled its stocky arms and leg, bemoaning its situation.
“Look at me. I’m hanging by my neck! I can’t even go for a walk like this. And what is this disgusting dress?! Oh, how I hate it. You think so too, right?”
Something creaked, like a branch snapping after someone hung themselves. It was only a doll, but it was too dark and graphic.
“Hey, I want a princess doll. And a brown horse. Grandpa has very nice dolls, but he never gives me one. I try to be a good girl every day, but I get nothing. It’s so unfair.” The doll tilted its head. “But if Grandpa dies, all his dolls will be mine, right?”
Amnil jumped out of bed, screaming. She was sweating profusely, her hair sticking to her forehead. Her breath came in gasps, and her chest felt tight.
“The same dream again…”
A swaying, bleeding doll. It wanted a doll of a princess and a horse. What an unpleasant coincidence. After learning of Magic and Sorcery, Amnil found it hard to believe that her dream held no meaning.
“Oh, right,” Amnil said, as though she just realized something. “People pray to God in times like this, don’t they?”
Amnil chose to renounce her faith and employ demons. She no longer had any right to pray. Letting out a self-depreciating laugh, she got out of bed.
I don’t think I can go back to sleep. I have to read a book or something to take my mind off of it.
She felt just a little lonely not having a god to turn to.
It was morning in an instant. Not that it was surprising, considering we talked until dawn.
To be clear, I love sleeping. I wasn’t sure if it was because of my feline half, but if possible, I would sleep all day. I was also not a morning person.
Raul, on the other hand, looked lively. “One hour of sleep is enough for me,” he said.
Raul prepared a breakfast of raw meat, so I had to cook it first. As I was eating, Zero showed up to the stables.
“It appears you had a good time last night,” she said.
She peered into the contents of the pot, picked up the remaining meat with her bare hands, and shoved it in her mouth. Thank goodness I made extra for her. She would’ve grumbled if she found the pot empty.
“You’re going to see the sorcerer, right?” I said. “When are you leaving?”
“Now,” Zero replied, chewing on her food. “But first, the captain said to come to the forge. He wants to return your equipment.”
“What? Why can’t he just bring my stuff here? Or wait, are they gonna make me some new gear?”
“Enough talk and let us go.” Zero turned to Raul. “Kindly lead the way, Horse.”
Raul, who had been lounging by the window, rose quickly.
The forge was apparently located in a section of the underground mine. Raul led the way down underground from the grand staircase inside the castle. As we walked through the bustling traffic to the end of the main street, my ears caught the satisfying sound of metal clanking.
It was the sound of blacksmiths forging swords and armor, a familiar music in fields of battle. I could almost feel the heat of burning iron from the clanging alone. I could even imagine the water hissing as the blacksmith plunged the iron into water.
A huge furnace for melting down ores soon came into view. At first glance, it looked like a humungous structure of stone and bricks, but most of the furnace was actually just a long, thin chimney towering over the small and wide fire chamber. The tip almost reached the ceiling.
“Is this where they make iron too?” I muttered, looking up at the furnace.
Raul turned his gaze to me. “Are you familiar with forging?”
“Not much, but I’ve seen furnaces before. You put coal and ore inside, light them on fire, and use bellows to blow air around to raise the temperature, right?” Molten iron then flowed out from the bottom of the furnace.
Zero’s eyes lit up. She rushed over to the furnace and began circling around it, studying its structure with great interest. Underground water streamed down to the waterwheel, causing it to spin, powering the bellow that blew air into the furnace.
“Oh, it is powered by a waterwheel that automatically moves the bellows,” the witch said. “Did the princess think of this too?”
“I was told that the master blacksmith from four generations ago came up with the idea. The princess saw it and thought it could be used here.”
Zero regarded the melted iron, the waterwheel, and the bellow. I had no idea if she was even listening to Raul. She glanced at the ores in a crate, picked one up, and held it to the light.
“Fluorite,” she muttered.
“Oh, that’s…”
“I see, a melting agent.” Zero interrupted Raul.
Raul blinked a few times and smiled in admiration. “Impressive,” he said. “Are you familiar with it?”
“I do not know much, but I do know how catalysts work.”
Zero pretty much gave the same answer as me.
“What’s a catalyst?” I asked.
“A substance that accelerates reaction,” Zero said, frowning. “To put it simply, it is similar to how salt rusts metal. You can, however, hasten the rusting process by using saltwater than plain salt. Similarly, fluorite has the property of making ores easier to melt. When burned with fluorite, the iron melts at a lower temperature.”
“So stone makes stone easier to melt.”
I had no idea what she was talking about, but seeing there was fluorite here and iron was actually melting, it must be true. The molten iron constantly flowing out from the bottom of the furnace spread over the sand before cooling and hardening.
The hardened lumps of iron were taken to another, smaller furnace, where they were pounded with a mallet and processed into knives, scissors, pots, swords, and armor.
As I watched the whole process, Gouda appeared from behind the furnace, wearing the same frown on his face. It didn’t even look like he wanted to see us, but I already knew that this was his normal face, so I didn’t really feel offended.
“What are you doing hanging around the furnace?” he said. “Over here.” He still had the same attitude. Good thing I was already used to it.
I followed the man some distance away from the forge and found my sword and armor all laid out. My clothes and bag were also there.
“I’ve missed you, my gear! My lifelong buddies!”
I was about to run over to them with joy, when Gouda cleared his throat, stopping me in my tracks.
“What? Did you break something?” I asked.
“No, umm… Well actually, yes, some of them. More like melted, really.”
“You melted my stuff down?!”
“I couldn’t get them in time! The blacksmith said that your equipment was too big to be reused, that it was battered and useless, so he immediately tossed it into the furnace. Besides, it already started becoming rusty because of the seawater. What was I supposed to do?” Grimacing, Gouda crossed his arms. “So we had to remake the gear they melted. But they didn’t have your measurements, so I called you here to do some fine-tuning.”
“Remake?”
Overnight? Before I could ask, several apprentices held shin guards and shoulder pads to my body, jotted something down on paper, then left.
A little further away, a skilled blacksmith, who seemed to be the master, began to adjust the shape of the equipment with his hammer. After all this work, I couldn’t possibly complain. That would be immature.
“My gear aside, did you gather all my belongings?” I asked.
“That is the biggest problem,” Zero cut in, crossing her arms. “They were able to recover most of it, and it appears like they will replace the rest, just like your equipment. They have also recovered our pass from the kingdom of Wenias. But it seems that they mistook the Witch Letter for a scrap of paper and threw it away with other old parchments.”
“What?!”
A valuable witch’s tool that could be used to communicate with people in faraway places instantaneously was thrown away like trash?!
I was shocked, but Zero seemed to have given up.
“They have not burned it yet, so they are working on finding it in the trash pile.”
“Well, I can totally understand, since it does look like trash, but why are you so calm?”
“I am concerned as well. But being angry will not solve anything. When the captain found out what happened, he knelt down and apologized to me. He begged me not to ask who threw it away. He was like a knight protecting the weak. So I decided to be a magnanimous witch.”
Frowning, I wagged my tail and glared at Gouda. “You didn’t even apologize to me,” I said.
“I had your equipment replaced. I have nothing to apologize for.”
“Providing replacements doesn’t change the fact that you made a mistake!”
“You want an apology for your low self-respect that badly?”
“Why, you! You really want me to devour you whole, huh?!”
“I’d love to see you try. If you want people to know that you’re foolish enough to kill someone for your self-esteem, then go ahead.” Gouda snorted.
For a while, we glared at each other.
“Now, now.” Raul wedged himself between us. Gouda and I turned our heads away.
Zero cleared her throat to gather our attention. “Now that we have settled the matter, can we move on? I wish to see this sorcerer who taught Magic to the people of this island.”
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