The AI Archmage - Chapter 44
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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AI Archmage Episode 44
There are several things in this world that should never be said to a workshop artisan.
Especially words that should never be said to a workshop master who leads a 3-star workshop.
That is.
– You’re terrible at this.
It’s precisely disrespecting their skills.
Even the owner of a 2-star workshop has considerable pride in their abilities.
But to pick a fight over technique and skill with a talented artisan who runs a 3-star workshop at a young age?
This is almost no different from asking for a life-or-death duel.
“Ha! Well, I never!”
And the same was true for Dute here.
He let out a hollow laugh and glared at Sion.
“A mage dares to pick a fight with me, a workshop artisan, over crafting techniques? How utterly arrogant!”
“It’s not arrogance, it’s good self-objectification.”
“Ha, objectification?!”
Dute made an expression as if he couldn’t believe it, then growled and spoke to Sion.
“Just like a mage, truly arrogant beyond measure.”
“….”
Eira quietly watched the argument between Dute and Sion and thought.
‘Ah, this won’t end well.’
She felt a strange sense of déjà vu from Dute’s behavior, but decided to just watch for now.
After all, she wouldn’t be the one in trouble if she just left them alone.
‘There are things in this world that people only realize after getting hit once.’
Well, Sion wouldn’t kill Dute anyway.
With that thought, she took out some nuts from her pocket and crunched on them.
“…The sky is clear.”
Unlike her troubled heart.
* * *
Inside the carriage heading to Ate.
“Grrr.”
Dute growled like a hunting dog visible beyond a fence, glaring at Sion.
And Sion quietly looked at Dute and thought.
‘This brings back old memories.’
When he was Altair, the Council consistently kept the Artisan Union in check and tried to crush them at every opportunity.
The power gap between the Magic Council and the Artisan Union was clear.
Even Altair had to acknowledge this fact.
Against the Magic Council with its thousand-year history, the Artisan Union, established only a few decades ago, could not gain the upper hand.
Moreover, since all those who control this world are mages, even more so.
Therefore, the Artisan Union was always in a position of suffering from the Magic Council’s restraints.
As a result, artisans fundamentally despised mages.
‘Not all mages can be bad. There were those who showed proper courtesy toward us from the beginning.’
As Belusian had been, such mages certainly existed.
The problem was that those who weren’t like that were the majority.
Especially the key positions in the Council were monopolized by high-ranking mages whose sense of superiority had taken root to their very core.
Therefore, the attitude Dute was showing now was understandable to some extent.
However.
‘Acting like this even toward the teacher of the Union Leader’s daughter is somewhat problematic.’
It was excessively hostile.
No matter if the opponent was a mage, he was still the teacher of the Union Leader’s only daughter.
Picking a fight so groundlessly like this was strange.
Sion slightly turned his head to look at Dute.
The sight of him instantly growling.
It was nothing short of an automatic reflex reaction.
“Master Dute, you don’t need to be so excessively hostile.”
“You touched my pride first, and now what, excessive?”
“I know very well that you’re not reacting like this from the heart anyway. You’re not an idiot, so does it make sense to pick on an outsider who was formally invited just because he’s a mage?”
“….”
“Let’s just be honest about it.”
Sion continued with a slight smile.
“You’re acting this hostile right now because you want to see what kind of person I really am at my core, aren’t you.”
At those words, a brief flicker passed through Dute’s eyes.
But he soon changed his expression again and spoke curtly.
“I just don’t like mages.”
“Oh, the owner of a ‘3-Star Workshop’ who supplies magic tools to those very mages says that?”
“….”
Dute, left speechless, averted his gaze.
“…You’re not affiliated with the Tower we supply our products to, are you?”
“But you’re not the type of person who would take such a rude attitude just because the opponent is a mage.”
“Tsk.”
At those words, Dute clicked his tongue.
Then he spoke as if displeased.
“…Well, I won’t deny it. Would I really act like this just because someone’s a mage?”
“Then you’re acknowledging what I said earlier?”
“Acknowledging, huh.”
Along with those words, Dute glanced toward Eira for a moment.
Whatever she was thinking, that young lady had no intention of stopping this from earlier; rather, she was watching this way with an interested expression while chewing nuts.
“Ah, well, I acknowledge it. Sion Rostery, there was talk that we needed to confirm exactly who you are.”
“So you were deliberately rude from the start and watched my reaction?”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
Dute nodded his head.
“That’s what I ‘was’ doing.”
“Hmm?”
Past tense.
When Sion looked at Dute, Dute growled and said.
“But you opened the colosseum over something that could have been settled moderately! You said things a mage should never say to a Magic Tool craftsman, a Meister!”
“I don’t think I said anything particularly problematic.”
“You did! You did!”
His fingertips trembling, Dute shouted.
“A mere 3-star craftsman?! And that I can’t make Magic Tools better than you, a mage?!”
“Ah, that.”
“It’s an insult I absolutely cannot laugh off! If I were a noble, I would have already taken off my glove and thrown it in your face!”
It seemed this was what had truly angered Dute.
“I am a 3-star craftsman! I may not be the greatest craftsman, but I haven’t accumulated knowledge so shallow as to be looked down upon by a mage!”
“I see. So that’s what you think. I understand.”
“It’s not what I think, it’s fact! You’re obviously not being sincere!”
“Hmm…”
Sion watched the raging Dute, scratched his head, then asked Eira.
“Eira, between Mr. Dute here and me, who do you think has superior skills?”
“You want me to say that?”
“You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”
At Sion’s words, Eira tilted her head, then soon called out to Dute.
“Excuse me, mister.”
“Miss, you don’t need to answer such a worthless question.”
“No, it’s not that. I’m just curious about something.”
“Please go ahead.”
“Mister, is it possible to make a Chantless Magic Tool?”
“…Chantless, you say?”
Dute looked at Eira with an expression asking what she meant.
“Well, it’s not entirely impossible. If you design it on a building scale, somehow…”
“What about portable? About this size of a bracelet?”
Eira waved the bracelet on her wrist in front of Dute.
Dute looked at her with an incredulous expression and said.
“No, miss. What are you talking about? There’s no way you could create circuits capable of the massive calculations required for Chantless magic in something that small.”
“I see.”
Eira nodded and looked toward Sion as she spoke.
“Teacher wins.”
“What did you say?!”
Dute started having a fit.
“Why, why?! If you’re taking your master’s side because you’re his disciple…”
“No, objectively speaking, you’re inferior to him in many ways, mister.”
“…?!”
Dute froze with his mouth agape.
Inferior? To a mage?
Inferior to that mage who had zero consideration for craftsmen and couldn’t even understand magic tool blueprints?
He couldn’t accept it!
“Even if it’s your words, miss, I cannot accept that…!”
As he was shouting.
Thud.
The carriage that had been moving for quite some time stopped.
And the door opened automatically.
“…For now, let’s get out.”
Dute let out a small sigh and got off the carriage.
Sion also followed him off the carriage and looked at the carriage they had been riding.
The carriage had no coachman.
There were no horses pulling the carriage either.
It was simply moving with mana as its power source.
An automatic carriage.
A means of transportation designed by Altair. A vehicle that moved using mana as power instead of horses.
At this point in time, the only place where automatic carriages moved this freely was here in Ate.
Of course, since there were items being manufactured, the Blue Tower would soon be the same…
‘Anyway, I’m back.’
Only then did Sion truly realize that he had returned to Ate.
* * *
‘Higher level than me?’
Even as Dute got off the carriage, he was captivated by that thought.
This wasn’t simply looking down on mages.
Rather, it was because he knew how complex the academic field of magic they studied was, and how it was incompatible with magic tool technology.
Especially if Eira followed him to that extent, his magical prowess couldn’t be low.
If that was the case, then it made even less sense for Sion to be an ‘excellent craftsman.’
That’s why he was somewhat expectant.
He was curious about how this Blue Tower teacher would react to the panoramic view of Ate that was about to be revealed.
‘How will you react.’
The moment they got off the carriage, what they saw was truly a festival of magic tools naturally integrated with reality.
Altair’s utopia.
Golems casually roaming the streets and performing maintenance.
Citizens living their daily lives while ‘wearing’ various magic tools.
Most people are overwhelmed at this point.
Or they forcibly put up a front of pride.
So now, which side would Sion Rostery fall into?
With that expectation in mind, Dute turned his head toward Sion.
At that moment, what he saw was.
“Tsk, nothing’s changed…”
“…Huh?”
Sion grumbling as if he wasn’t pleased.
The reaction itself seemed somewhat negative, but the tone was different from what Dute had expected.
‘That reaction is… what?’
Disappointed?
He thought it might just be simple bravado, but no matter how he looked at it, it seemed genuine.
Dute cautiously asked.
“Isn’t it, isn’t it amazing?”
“What. Golems walking around and magic tools scattered all over the street?”
“Y-yes?”
Usually, things like this could never be seen anywhere else.
But Sion was indifferent.
“It’s nothing special.”
“…Huh?”
What do you even know?
Those words rose up to his throat, but Sion spoke first.
“Over there, that thing. Just looking at it, isn’t that a VC-32, a model that was used over 20 years ago?”
“…Huh?”
At those words, Dute looked up with a bewildered expression toward the direction Sion was pointing.
There was indeed a magic tool there.
An identity verification magical tool that had been guarding this entrance for a very long time.
What surprised Dute wasn’t that Sion pointed out the magic tool, but that he knew its exact model name.
“R-right? You know about this?”
“No, why is a model that’s well over 20 years old still here? Haven’t they developed newer models?”
“Hmph, you don’t know that much.”
Dute decided to ‘educate’ this Sion who had half-baked knowledge about magic tools.
“This VC-32 is an old model, but performance-wise, it’s very excellent. There’s no reason to remove it.”
“…Still excellent performance-wise?”
“Of course!”
As if it were obvious, Dute continued speaking.
“This is a ‘special magic tool’ made directly by the ‘Omniscient Altair’ himself!”
“…”
“Ah, of course since it’s your first time here, you might not know such circumstances. Haha, well this is…”
As expected, a mage is a mage.
However, the fact that he even knew the model name raised Dute’s favorability toward him by about 1 point.
But Sion’s next words left him speechless.
“No, I mean, why didn’t you clear that thing out?”
“…What?”
What the hell is this guy doing?
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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