The Strongest Gun Magus: I Cast Bullet!-Chapter 73: Weapon Trade
As he and Marien sat in this inn room, Reynard wondered if the favor of the two orders could be bought with enough money. Surely, they can also be intimidated into letting the matter go... But he was neither rich nor powerful enough for something like that.
Nearby, Marien was also thinking hard, but not coming up with any ideas.
This heavy silence was suddenly broken by a muffled female voice.
"Hello? I hope this is a good time, Mister Faust..."
Marien and Reynard both jolted. Reynard hurriedly pulled the Repeating Bird pendant from underneath his clothing.
It was glowing.
"Miss Amelia! Um..." Reynard glanced at Marien, then nodded. "Sure! Did you need something?"
From the other side came a rich, low laugh.
"Oh, no, Mister Faust. It’s you who needs something... But as it stands, what you need, I also want. And we can both get it," she said cryptically. "Bring ten pounds of your Boom Powder to a stash I will disclose. Then, the Children of the Frost will make sure that the magi of Winter and Snow don’t bother either you or Miss Windblown."
Marien listened in silence, but with wide eyes.
’Ten pounds? That’s a lot of bullets and grenades! I will have to give up almost my entire stash... It will take me over a thousand gold to buy ingredients for the new Boom Powder. At least there should be enough of them in the city now that traders are trading again... But how convenient it is for Amelia to offer her help now, of all times!’
It was a bit suspicious, but Reynard couldn’t find it in himself to think that Amelia had been plotting against him. He was sure she knew that she didn’t have to try so hard with him, anyway.
"I give the Boom Powder to you, and our problems magically go away?" Reynard asked with some disbelief. "This is too good to be true, but you, I can believe."
Marien snorted quietly.
Amelia’s laughter came from the bird again.
"Then it’s settled."
She told the location of the stash. Reynard thought that the entire process reminded him terribly of the things he heard about the drug trade on Earth...
’Eh. This is much better than selling drugs. This is just a weapon trade! And in this world, people invented school shootings even before anyone invented guns, so I can’t even be at fault for that.’
When the Repeating Bird amulet stopped glowing and Reynard put it away again, he saw Marien looking at him with a thoughtful expression.
"Miss Gelum is so helpful... While you and she can deal with those magi who keep pestering us, I can start searching for the Midnight Skylark sun cake recipe. I’m sure that even if it’s extremely complex, you will be able to cook it! You have very masterful hands."
Reynard smiled and shrugged.
"It’s not like we had any better idea about what to do. Besides skipping town, that is. But I doubt things are simple with this recipe. If they were, it wouldn’t have been cooked only in a single place once a year. The cooks that made it, though—they were ordinary mortals?"
"Yes, they were! Isn’t that strange? I heard that they were from a famous city restaurant, but that is all. I will have to ask about this in more detail." Marien scratched a bandage on the back of her palm and winced. "But the magi from the Order of Winter are going to mock me for losing in the fight... Mock me! Me!"
Reynard looked over Marien’s burned face and carefully kissed her in a bandage-free part of the skin.
"Oh, don’t be sad, my princess! We will show them all yet. Unlike them, we will eat the sun cakes every day if we want to!"
***
The next day, Reynard placed a heavy and potentially very dangerous satchel in a hidden place marked by Amelia and began waiting for any results.
About then, Marien sent him a note, explaining what she found about the sun cake recipe. 𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦
It was extremely simple to find the recipe for the Midnight Skylark sun cake itself—the cooks from the restaurant sold it freely. However, the recipe used ingredients prepared beforehand by magi, and in very specific ways.
Those ingredients were cured Midnight Skylark eggs and refined Emerald Blossom buds. The process of curing was kept secret somewhere in the Order of Snow, and the process of refining was held by the Order of Winter.
The orders sold prepared ingredients, and the cooks put them together. The reason only one place did this was because they were too expensive for other restaurants to buy at all.
Two hundred golden coins for a single cake wasn’t something even most magi were ready to pay.
Marien’s note also had the cake’s recipe. Reynard read it through.
The exact measurements were too imprecise for his liking. Experienced cooks would definitely make the sun cake different from someone who has never watched another person make it.
’But this could be fixed with practice. A much harder part is finding the ingredients. I don’t think I’ve seen prepared Midnight Skylark eggs or Emerald Blossom buds on the market. Perhaps I can get my hands on some cured eggs in the Snow Trade Emissary... But I doubt it will work out the same for Emerald Blossoms, even if Marien asks.’
Reynard decided that he was going to focus on making bullets for his new gun for now. It needed field tests, and he needed a lot of new Boom Powder.
’Then, if I have any money left, I want to see if there are any Repeating Bird amulets sold. It would be much more convenient if Marien and I had a pair.’
With these thoughts, Reynard shopped on the market in the next couple of days, did commissions for the Order of Snow, and pretended that he didn’t notice suspicious looks from the Snow magi.
And then Amelia used his Boom Powder and his weapon schematics to start a civil war.
