The Black Iron Glory
Separating spoils

Chapter 40

Separating spoils

As Morssen left, Arbeit followed. Claude just felt a little weird. It was as if Arbeit had made a mistake and avoided it. What's that guy doing? Was his head kicked by a donkey?

Claude didn't have time to care about that ass. He's too hungry. On the way home, he slept for about two hours and did not have lunch. By the time she got home, the sleeper took her again and she slept through the night, leaving her stomach empty for waiting time. Hunger finally succeeded with his common sense.

After quickly finishing the rest of the food on the table, Claude only felt seven-tenths full. It was then that he remembered that he had not seen well on the chest of the Landes jade that he had stored in his bag. Feeling like he was being teased by a cat, he hurriedly cleaned the table and left the utensils in the kitchen for his sister to wash. He stroked his head without noticing the hesitant expression on his face before running back into his attic.

He pulls his bag out from under the bed and unbinds it, only to have his nostrils attacked by a foul smell.

"Ugh ... Ack ..." Claude pinched his nose while taking out dirty clothes due to his muddy tussle with pythons. He threw them to the ground before carefully picking up the white jade chest from his bag.

What surprised him was that the chest surface still looked as clean as usual. The dirty clothes left no marks. Since it was something that a magus possessed, Claude did not bother pondering over the matter. This chest must be some kind of magical item.

Being her transmigrator, she could not help but be reminded that the crate material was made from resembling jade from her previous life. As a Chinese, he knew what jade symbolized in his culture. But ever since he moved into this world, he realized that there was no word for jade in Hebrai after thoroughly studying it. 'The 'Jade stone' mined from the mine is called the stone essence.

In the continent of Freia, the essence of the harvested stone was considered the essence of the great earth and was used as a precious magic material. But ever since the evil magi were exiled from the continent, they became nothing more than precious stones, used to make all sorts of jewels and statues and became precious objects for many noble women.

This should be a premium quality white gemstone... . Claude thought as he toyed with jade, no, jade boxes. He gained a fairly broad understanding of jade when he worked for his boss in his past life. After all, one had to show off while hanging out with the women.

Essence stone. . . What a terrible name. It didn't sound as smooth as jade. . Claude thought as he tried to open the chest.

These two diaries. . . I wonder how many years they've been recording in. They were as thick as a whole dictionary and the parchment was so thin that it was only half translucent. . . Not to mention the little words that fill the page. . . Fortunately, although entries were also written in ancient Hez scripts, they were not hidden like the text in that magical cookbook. Claude was worried he would go crazy for spending too much energy copying all the texts before decoding them.

The other book in it should have been a magic notebook. That's what Claude needs most. He hoped to understand magic through the records recorded inside, and perhaps, learn it. . .

The notebook alone was as big as a diary, but not that thick, only measuring about forty pages between the covers. The paper used was only as thin as the paper used in the diary, semi-translucent and looked like some sort of membrane. It shows elasticity when retracted and not easily torn.

What was left in the chest was a yellow-brown money bag with 30 shaliuns left in it. Claude noticed each of them and was disappointed to not find a single darkgold magical shaliun. This landes was rather pitiful to a magus. He did not even have a single magical shaliun, just this common one.

Although Claude let his mind run free, he did not consider that Landes was merely a magus rune ringing four levels low. It was already a rather difficult task for him to be able to store those 35 shaliun gold coins. Beggars cannot choose.

However, those 30 gold coins were practically worthless in Claude's hands as he had no way of exchanging them for modern currencies. He could only treat the coins as very small toys and also had to go through the trouble of hiding them from others. All he could do was keep them safe and see if he had a chance to exchange it for money in a few more years.

He flipped through two thick diaries of dictionaries with no spirit at all. Such is the case of man: he loses sleep over what he wants, and loses interest in what he gains. Although he only managed to obtain those two diaries after his deadly struggle, he did not seem to be particularly interested in them. They may be nothing more than chunks of the life of Magus Landes. . . Not that I'm going to write his biography. . . There will be no point in translating this diary. . .

But as he thought about it, he suddenly found himself losing interest in the magic notebook as well. He gave it a simple flip and saw some rather simple images accompanied by large paragraphs of text. There were also many mystical symbols that Claude did not recognize around the diagram. Upon closer inspection, they looked like a blueprint for something.

But as he thought about it, he suddenly found himself losing interest in the magic notebook as well. He gave it a simple flip and saw some rather simple images accompanied by large paragraphs of text. There were also many mystical symbols that Claude did not recognize around the diagram. Upon closer inspection, they looked like a blueprint for something.

Wait, the resemblance is too strange here. . . Were it not for the matches he had handled recently, he would have thought that the diagram depicted a cannon. What gun would be pulled this thick and short like a cannon? If he had not seen the slow match, the snake, the flash pan, the lid of the pot, the trigger and so on, Claude would have mistakenly thought that Landes was trying to design a cannon.

Seeing that reminded him of the better matches expressed in the magical cookbook. He reasoned that the diagram of a cannon-like object might have been an improved gun design. He's already seen the same components on the Welikro 3 markings wicket already and the design is the same for the most part. Although more than six centuries have passed, the weapon still uses a match design and has not changed much since then.

Claude just felt a little interested. He suddenly lost the urge to read the magical notebook. Standing up, he walked around in circles in his attic before the dirty clothes on the floor caught his attention. Oh, I still haven't had a shower. I have to keep the gemstones, I mean, the boxes, and the shaliun sacks before I go down. As for the diary and the notebook. . . Well, I can leave it here. After all, no one in my family is interested in the old Hez. . .

After a long thought, he decided to fill his chest and gold coins as deep as possible under his bed. There was actually no other place where he felt safe enough to hide it. It was then that he realized the lack of an attic where he lived. There was no way for him to remove the wooden planks to hide his things under and directly on top of it was a roof where nothing could be hidden. The only place available to him was the bottom of his bed. Then again, no one usually goes to his room when he's not around. Even her sisters would not come to make a mess when she was not there.

He came down to soak his clothes in a large wooden basin. I'll tell mom to call the housemaid to wash these clothes. Two or three sunrises should be enough, not a big deal. Then, he went to the first floor and was surprised to find that Arbeit was not there. I wonder if he drank somewhere. . . Yeah, for the best he's not here. Claude took a quick shower while whistling happily before returning to his attic.

Feeling somewhat troubled, she climbed onto the roof for some reason and bathed in the moonlight as she ran out. Ever since he translated magical cookbooks, he developed the habit of moonbathing. Only under the moonlight did he feel calm and secure.

He woke up the next day when the bells of the Wargod temple were rung. He prepared himself and went down for breakfast as usual. Arbeit was already in the dining room, but he ate in a hurry before leaving the house in a hurry. His father said that Sir Fux had returned from the prefectural capital, so Arbeit, as the man's secretary, had to be by his side to serve him.

Since it was a normal school day, he left with his bag. When he came out of his house, he saw his three friends waiting for him at the fruit stall across from his house, each carrying a half-eaten apple.

"Give us one more roasted apple" Borkal told Eriksson, "This, this is yours."

"Give us one more roasted apple" Borkal told Eriksson, "This, this is yours."

Claude received the apple and watched as Borkal paid three fennies to the stall owner. The four of them chewed on snacks as they headed for school.

"I heard you guys caused a commotion at the dock yesterday" Claude said.

"How do you know?" ask Borkal.

"My father told me about it last night" he replied.

"Do you know how many people came to watch? I think everyone from the city went there" Eriksson said as he recalled the sheer splendor of their return. It was very clear that he was a person who enjoyed the spotlight very much. "We showed the skin of the python you killed on the dock and some people shouted in shock. Some kids even started crying."

"Don't worry, Claude. We tell them about it as you wish. We said that we found this python when we hunted goats and ate too much and could not move. That's how we were able to kill him with a shot to the head, and the hole in the python's head is proof. No one will think that you have killed a python alone in the middle of the ruins, "the Welikro whisper.

"All right, thank you. It's best if we don't let people know that we're going to the ruins" Claude said with relief. He doesn't want any more chaos in his family. If his father found out that they had actually gone to the ruins of the magic tower in Egret, he would definitely not be spared from the loud scolding. He might even be forbidden from hanging out with his friends again as punishment, instead of being left like yesterday.

"We didn't do it. I told them that we were hunting on the shore of the lake swamp. It is very common for pythons to appear there. This one is much bigger than normal" Welikro said.

"Do you sell those things?" Claude asked Borkal.

"All that. I got 17 thales and eight riyases in total."

"How much?" exclaim Claude.

"All that. I got 17 thales and eight riyases in total."

"How much?" exclaim Claude.

"Hehe, I'm auctioned off if not on the spot. People were scrambling to make a bid and the price went up a lot as a result." Borkal looked rather satisfied. Were it not for the spark of inspiration he hosted a live auction when several shopkeepers came to ask for a price, he would be pressured to lower the price when he brought deer skin and pythons to individual stores for sale.

"Snake skin was sold for six thales and three riyases. The owner of Hans' gun shop is the one who bought it."

"Heck? Why would Hans need python skin? Did he buy it because of the current heat?" ask Claude, stunned.

"I'm sure you didn't know that python leather was the ideal material for making leather sheaths, according to Hans. He would only make high-class knives, so he offered a high price for leather, one whole thale more than what Chirp Leather offered, "said Eriksson.

"Wakri bought python tendons and paid three thales and four riyases for them. We also sold him two deer goat skins with six riyases, making his total purchase worth four thales. Deer skin was sold for two thales and seven riyases to a tailor, Miss Mila. Skin Tweezers did not manage to buy anything. How embarrassing for them. "

As the largest leather shop in the city, not only did they purchase the skins of pythons and deer, they did not even manage to obtain the ripped goat skin. With so many people around watching the entire auction, it probably won't be long before Chirp Leather can no longer claim to be the biggest leather shop in town.

"The blacktiger fish was sold to Chief Chef Pjard of the tavern for two thales. The eyes and gallbladder python were sold to the pharmacy for two thales and eight riyases, but I managed to make them give us one more antidote as well to make for the one you consume. "

Borkal leaves no stone unturned when it comes to financial management. "After dividing it, we will each have a section of four thales, four riyases and five sunars."

"Take one thale and three riyases that I have to pay for and give the rest" Claude said after thinking, "Let's not eat at school during the day. We'll go to town to eat, and it'll be a treat for me." . Accompany me to the bookstore after that for a while. "