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*Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!*

It had become quite common to hear sounds of explosions in the streets of Arlo as of late. Young mages would ride mechanical Iron Horses on the streets, chasing and racing each other and leaving nothing but dust and smoke in their wake.

These Iron Horses were equipped with steel wheels, which left behind marks in Arlo’s ancient streets. Sounds of excited laughter could be heard as young mages reveled in the thrill of moving at high speeds. Winds, whipped up by these Iron Horses, would flip ladies’ skirts as they passed by, resulting in storms of curses everywhere. Public order officials who came investigating would only meet black smoke, leaving them coughing in anger. Unfortunately for them, license plates weren’t yet a concept in this world. It was impossible to easily identify the owners of the Iron Horses.

The riders broke the speed records over and over again as they improved their techniques. Iron Horses could be seen chasing after others on the street causing loud disturbances, and soon it became considered both popular and fashionable among the youth.

“They’ve taken to racing? They caused enough traffic accidents in one week that you typically deal with in one year? Does that have anything to do with me? I’m just a merchant doing perfectly legal business. If someone killed another person with a vegetable knife, are you going to arrest all the merchants that sell vegetable knives?”

Cher, the female mage in charge of public order, was furious. Her veins were bulging as she glared at the young-appearing mage, who had such an uncaring expression. Still, she was helpless. She couldn’t do anything about it.

This wasn’t her first time dealing with this “archmage” before her, after all. In just one week, this archmage had come to the police station nine times to bail out his companions ever since their first meeting. Although none of his subordinates would do anything too nefarious, they would constantly break records for how shameless they could get and how creative they could be with their shamelessness.

There was especially a certain dracon who was now basically treating the jail as his home. He arrived at their jail every single day. On top of that, although Cher wasn’t sure what he did, all the other imprisoned criminals had furiously begged the police mages to save them and not put them in the same jail cell as him...

“Um, I think it’s probably safer for my well-being to stay here in jail.”

When she asked the dracon, that seemingly honest individual actually trembled in fear—he had apparently antagonized an inestimable number of people. But when she checked his records, she discovered to her surprise that he was a Saint-ranked beast tamer/hunter. Did that mean that in just one short week he successfully antagonized Myth-ranked and perhaps even SemiGod-ranked mages?

As for the others, they continued to sell their fake products, go around naked, cause explosions or simply fights—in short, all sorts of other troubles. If it wasn’t for this archmage bailing them out every time, Cher would have long since made them rot in jail.

Today, however, was different. Cher could no longer tolerate this anymore. Perhaps it was true that the morals of one’s subordinates didn’t mean that the boss was the same, and it seemed to her that his feelings of awkwardness and depression at their mayhem were real. However, when he had to come the very next day, or even on the afternoon of the same day to bail out his subordinates yet again, not only did that make people suspect his sincerity in saying “I’ll make sure to manage them properly,” it also made people suspect if his group of subordinates were actually some professional criminal organization or if they were intentionally giving the police mages and public order mages trouble on purpose.

Yet this was all merely a small aside for the waves that Thorn Garden had caused in mage society.

Thanks to the cute wood spirit employees at the newly renovated Thorn Garden, the store had become rapidly popular with female mages. Even those who weren’t interested in plant magic would spend an entire day in the forest coffee café attached to the store and watch the cute little wood spirits scurry around for several hours without getting tired... Of course, there were also male mages and even some elderly mages with white hair who tried this as well. However, most of them would soon escape; they would be unable to withstand the numerous glares from the female mages.

While the female mages and acolytes treated the forest coffee café as a holy grounds for relaxation, the male mages had a new toy to play around with as well.

“Iron Horse #7” was the name of my new product and was behind the black smoke, noise pollution, and traffic accidents throughout in the streets of Arlo. Iron Horses were similar to rocket cars built by gnome engineering, but it possessed only two wheels. After all, Yingou demanded additional money for training wheels! And while everyone was still suspecting whether these Iron Horses would even function properly, the gnomes that acted as the demonstrators began a fast-paced race in front of everyone.

At first, the mages all thought that this would be another new miraculous but dangerous gnome invention. They all brought snacks and prepared themselves to see some fireworks. However, they were astonished to see that apart from a few gnomes that lost control and caused traffic accidents, none of the Iron Horses self-destructed at all... this was utterly unlike what they knew about gnome technology!

Soon, a young, relatively rich mage was unable to resist the temptation of his curiosity. He purchased an Iron Horse despite its expensive price with the intent to take it apart for research, not to ride it. And when he took it apart in public in front of everyone, the entire Cloud Tower was shaken by the news.

“A mega-small energy battery! And it’s actually so stable! How is it possible!?”

“No—no—it’s probably just a rechargeable cycle!”

“Who cares about how it works? It’s fine as long as it does what it’s supposed to do.”

“It would seem that archmage Hesta and archmage Dia researched in the wrong direction on how to develop smaller batteries. They didn’t need to create new energy sources for small batteries. Only storage capacity and rechargeability were necessary.”

“Olive’s Magic Box” was indeed an invention that would change the times. From the very start, the biggest drawback of gnome engineering wasn’t even the inconsistent explosions—it was the lack of consistent and long-term energy. If one used a special, powerful magic creature’s magic core as the energy source, not only would that incur incredibly high costs, but the magic core would eventually run out of energy. Whatever it powered would become nothing more than scrap metal until the owner obtained another magic core with similar properties.

Once the issue of a reliable source of long-term energy was taken care of and mass-produced under my design and direction, I naturally decided to create metallic motorcycles for people to ride.

It was also within my expectations that the mages would soon notice the critical new technology within the Iron Horses. After all, the research project of inventing a smaller portable battery already had two Emblem of Truth-level archmages, Hesta and Dia, competing against each other. However, neither of them had made much progress—from the very start, both of them were researching in the wrong direction.

Mages were quite familiar with the concept of batteries; every mage tower had its own large-scale batteries to back up the mana reserves. There were many different types of batteries that all worked differently, and some were even capable of magically receiving energy from different dimensions. With the support of these batteries, a high-level mage could practically have limitless mana within his or her own mage tower. It would be a conservative estimate to say that the mage would have their power multiplied threefold.

“Never attack a mage when they’re in their mage tower.” This was one of the most common sayings among adventurers. Any who dared to break this common sense had already died off.

Mages had always researched how to make their batteries much smaller and portable as this would obviously help increase a mage’s strength when they traveled outside. However, they had kept researching about batteries through the soul, or from natural phenomenon, or from alchemy. It was evident that no mage had ever thought about researching batteries through the field of engineering that had absolutely nothing to do with magic.

With mages’ current techniques, even their smallest battery was the size of an average room in a house. For quite a long time now, making batteries any smaller than that was basically viewed as impossible. After all, “opening up a stable portal to another dimension” or “absorbing energy from a powerful energy-producing creature” would all require a significant amount of space.

From a certain standpoint, although they were all academic seekers of the truth, magicians, alchemists, and “scientists” would look at the same issue from different angles. Well, in truth, nobody was right or wrong about it. Even the most basic magic spells used by mages would violate what engineers knew about the most basic laws of energy and conservation and so on. They were direct opposites from the very start. It would be like trying to make a chicken communicate with a duck.

Based on the logic that batteries needed to be medium-sized or huge, mages only considered how to obtain more energy from the same size, trying to create a “perpetual motion machine.” However, they didn’t consider that it would be enough to store sufficient energy to create a self-sustaining cycle that would only need occasional recharging. Since the mages were never researching the right topic to improve batteries in the first place, and they lacked the theoretical scientific knowledge about batteries, for them to actually produce results would be no different from winning the lottery.

Now, however, this famous research topic that everyone had thought was impossible actually produced results. Top-level mages who had made this their lifetime goal lost to gnome engineering technology as evidenced by the indisputable fact before everyone’s eyes. Even the calmest mage would be unable to handle this.

“Take it apart!”

“Yes, take it apart!”

With the passionate observers egging him on, the Iron Horse owner who showed everyone what was inside excitedly prepared to take the battery apart so that everyone could research it together. However, he discovered that there was a complex magical seal on it that was even labeled with the gnomes’ “Safety Brand.” Of course, this was merely a small issue that wouldn’t be difficult for the mages to deal with at all. And so, with the help of some onlooking archmages, this small magical seal was forcefully broken through.

And then... well, there was no more “then.”

*Boom!*

Well, it wasn’t really a big deal. Mages were quite well-versed in all sorts of magical traps. This magical seal was designed so that if it was forcefully broken through using magic, a magical keyboard with numbers 0-9 would appear, and the correct 20-digit password needed to be inputted within ten seconds. Even if you knew the password, you would need to have a high typing speed. Since mages were typically non-athletic, this would be quite difficult for them.

Alright, should I say that the mages were quite used to dealing with explosions in the process of their research? Or should I say that Jinya and the gnomes had some moral boundaries after all? At the very least, the explosions caused by the breaking of the batteries’ defenses weren’t very powerful. Not a single mage died from these explosions.

But, from a certain standpoint, mages were truly rich. News soon started spreading that the “Iron Horse #7” possessed small, portable batteries, and the rather expensive Iron Horses were sold out in just a single afternoon. And then...

During the entire night, explosions could be heard from all over the city. Before the skies even lightened, there was a long customer line of “blackened individuals” standing in front of Thorn Garden, waiting for it to open so that they could purchase more Iron Horses.

Of course, once top-level archmages started taking an interest in this, the gnomes’ mechanisms wouldn’t be able to obstruct them for long. It would only be a matter of time before they figured out this technology. However, this was a technology I was intending to sell to them anyways. By the time they figured the battery technology out, I would have made massive profits off the Iron Horses.

Meanwhile, for the mages that weren’t researching how to take the Iron Horses apart, they naturally tried riding the motorcycles, using the Iron Horses as they were intended to be used. And soon, they discovered additional benefits.

“It’s so steady! It’s a lot steadier than a horse! And it’s so quick!”

Long-distance traveling was considered an unpleasant task as most mages had below average Constitutions. In their eyes, this strange new invention was far more comfortable than a real horse, and it was a lot steadier as well. But if its only use was comfort, that wouldn’t be all that important to them.

“I can actually cast magic while sitting on this!”

Total concentration was required for a mage to cast magic. It typically required a few seconds of blocking out the outside world. If a mage was riding a horse that jostled their body back and forth, it would be quite difficult for them to concentrate. The fact that these Iron Horses could be ridden so smoothly attracted many mages’ attention.

Mages’ biggest weakness was doubtlessly the fact that they themselves were typically quite slow. If a warrior was able to close the distance, increasing that distance between them would be incredibly troublesome. It would be no exaggeration to say that a mage’s combat strength would be doubled if they were able to cast spells while moving at high speed.

However, even for combat mages that were specialists in practical combat, it would still be difficult for them to master casting spells while moving. They would only be able to cast spells at slow speeds. If they tried casting spells while riding in a horse-drawn carriage... with those wooden wheels and a lack of shock absorbers, anyone would be constantly jostled up and down. A single bump in the road could be the cause of a fatal magical backlash.

There was indeed one type of steed that was steady enough for mages to sit upon and easily cast spells from: dragons. However, those would be incredibly difficult to obtain...

And so, being able to cast spells while moving at a high speed was considered impractical. Yet the mages soon found out that it was quite easy to cast spells while sitting on the Iron Horse motorcycle or riding in its sidecar. Meanwhile, Thorn Garden’s first advertisement for the Iron Horse was published, with the catchphrase being “Make those muscleheads forever eat our dust.”

In order to prove the veracity of the advertisement’s claim, the Four Elemental Swordcasters that came from the Northlands rode some of the Iron Horse motorcycles on the streets. They perfectly displayed the motorcycles’ excellent shock-absorbing functions and the possibility of casting spells while moving at such high speeds.

After all, only mages knew what mages really wanted. This seemingly insignificant toy was actually a tool that could greatly increase mages’ power and survivability when traveling outside.

That was how Iron Horse #7 became the first successful part of my plan in conquering the market in the Mage Country. Young people rapidly learned how to drive motorcycles and got rid of the training wheels that they considered useless. They even began racing each other on the streets, giving public order mages like Cher endless headaches. Meanwhile, the older mages spent money on hiring drivers so that they could enjoy the feeling in the wind from the motorcycles’ sidecars.

In fact, “Have you bought one yet?” and “How many did you buy?” became a common greeting for the mages during this time. Meanwhile, Thorn Garden had an exceedingly long line forever waiting at the door.

And this was just the beginning. Two days later, the mages were almost at the level of fighting each other to buy Iron Horses. Since I made it a limited product where we would sell only one hundred Iron Horses per day, they would always be sold out on the same day despite the high price I set.

The most important part was that I made yet another new advertisement for Thorn Garden. It stated that in one month’s time, Thorn Garden would only be accepting “Justice Points” as payment for the Iron Horses in the future.

“Justice Points? I’ve heard about those—during the Gods’ proclamations, right? They seem easy to obtain. But how am I supposed to get them so quickly? Doesn’t this basically mean that the Iron Horses will only be sold for one month?”

This helped sell the Iron Horses even quicker than before. Those who successfully purchased Iron Horses showed them off on the streets, which only increased everyone’s desire to purchase one. In fact, the archmages were willing to exchange their precious treasures to get on the reservation list. While I wasn’t black-hearted enough to further increase the Iron Horses’ price, I made a huge profit by simply selling reservation list positions for the right to purchase an Iron Horse.

This was quite the excellent sales tactic. The only type of products capable of competing in profitability with “excellent quality and cheap” or “fresh and interesting” would be “limited edition, first come first served” and “impossible to find in the future.”

Meanwhile, on the other hand of things, the huge increase in the number of motorcycle races on the streets made Cher, who represented both the police and public order mages, become greatly angered at both me and my products.

As I looked at the blue-haired girl before me puffing her cheeks in anger, I felt a headache as well. After all, if at all possible, I didn’t want to antagonize this Mage Country governmental public security department.

I should mention that public security in the Cloud Tower was taken care of by two different departments. One was a more typical police station-like department for public security, while the other consisted of internal mage organizations’ public order squadrons. While the police mages would take care of incidents both small and large, it was evident that normal executors of the law would be unable to reign in all the mages.

That was why the mage organizations’ public order squadrons were in charge of internally policing the organization’s member mages that crossed the line with criminal actions. Of course, since police mages and public order mages had similar tasks to begin with, many mages worked part-time in both departments. This was especially so since many public order mages had lots of free time when they didn’t have any particular troublemaking mage that they needed to investigate.

Cher Allen, this female mage before me, was not only a member of the police mages but also one of the high-ranking public order officers in the Mystical Blade’s internal public order division. She had nicknames given to her by others such as “Iron Girl” and “Iron Throat.” Alright then, when the word “Iron” was used to describe a girl like her, it was evident that it wouldn’t mean anything complimentary. She was evidently the icy and stubborn type, and, in a way, also showed how she was overly serious.

Every time I bailed my underlings out from her jail, I experienced her more and more severe lectures. Her original respect towards my status as an archmage had vanished, and whenever she looked at me, I felt like she was treating me as human scum. And whenever I successfully bailed my subordinates out, she would shout at me—just like how a passionate detective would shout in an old police story at the sly criminal—”I’ll definitely find the evidence to put you in jail!”

Why did I mysteriously become the sly antagonist criminal!? Was I really someone who had a legendary face that attracted aggro [1] 1 naturally and created crimes by simply existing?

Just as I was hesitating over what method I should use to fool the “passionate detective” before me, the clamorous sounds of fighting rang out behind me, followed by a large explosion from the warehouse.

A new trouble had come looking for me.

Notes:

[1] ED/N: In an MMORPG, when you “piss off” an NPC(non-player character) and it enters a combat state with your character. It is also an informal British word that means “aggressive, violent behavior.”