THERE IS MAGIC IN THIS WORLD
THERE IS MAGIC IN THIS WORLD
The proud flame maker was a young man no older than twenty, who wore a long red robe that was adorned with gems and stones and had his hair tied to a bun.
He definitely wasn't someone from Earth from his looks.
Judging by his appearance and manner he was obviously a noble or aristocrat of this world and he was the leader of the group of people who fought the scorpion.
As I attempted to recover my deformed lance, the flame maker came over to make conversation, Kay took the opportunity to ask for compensation.
"Hey, you must pay us back our Dragonslayer?" Kay asked the guy.
"Of course, I would compensate you for saving us. I am Cartelle, a Magus from Magisandria", Cartelle said to us and introduced himself.
"What the hell is a Magus and how did you make that flame?" I asked Cartelle.
"It is Magic cast from my Grimoire", Cartelle proudly explained to me, as he showed me his thick-bound book.
"Magic? There is Magic in this world?", I wondered with puzzlement, "as in Houdini? David Copperfield?"
"It's more like Harry Potter", Sara said to me.
"I am Orion, and this is my companion Kay", I told the Houdini guy.
"I would like to thank you for your help, and compensate you for your damaged weapon, my Barbarian friends", the Magus added.
It seemed Cartelle concluded from his observation of us that we were natives by the way we dressed and the body paintings on Kay. I wasn't any better dressed as I was girdled by a large piece of scaly skin.
"Yes, we definitely look like the natives", I told Sara.
"What the heck is a Magus?" I asked Kay.
"A Magus is a prestigious and respected profession in Ouamua, and they are specialists in Magic. They could somehow manipulate and create magic such as fireballs and freezing arrows, and even fiery breaths", Kay explained to me.
While the technology that the people here called magic was queer in my view, it worked, and the people here seemed to swear by it.
The fire magic by the Magus Cartelle completely melted my Dragonslayer, and although it was not particularly strong or durable, and was unbearably weighty, it was the only offense I had, and now I lost it.
Cartelle wasn't an unreasonable person nor was he ungrateful, and he knew too well that our sudden unannounced meddling in his battle with the scorpion was timely and to his favor, so he wanted to compensate me and replace the lance he destroyed, which of course I gladly accepted.
"I would like to replace your lost weapon", Cartelle told us.
"Yes, but my Dragon slayer is not easy to replace", I told Cartelle.
Cartelle gathered the bodies of his dead companions and wrapped them in linens and pointed his hands to the corpses on one hand, while the other touched an amulet on his neck, and suddenly the corpses vanished into thin air.
I was both surprised and amazed at what he just did as he disintegrated the corpses in an instant ashless cremation.
"Is that the way to cremate the dead in this world? Or did you pull a David Copperfield on me again?" I asked Cartelle to which he explained to his unlearned barbarian friends, "I merely stored them in my space locker".
The explanation further baffled me, because if it was true that the corpses were sent into an invisible locker then the Magus had demonstrated the elusive technology of material teleportation, which was far more breathtaking than the instant disintegration and cremation of matter.
"What? Wireless storage?", I asked him.
"I'll explain later if we have time but it's dangerous to be here now. More scorpions may come, so we need to move soon", Cartelle said to us.
I couldn't argue with that.
So, we followed him to a small desert oasis town called Abiru, where he arranged lodging for us and paid for it, and I didn't think more of the teleporting device for now.
The town wasn't large, which was much smaller than Kamini's village but there were many wooden and stone buildings while the village was more like a nomad's camp.
The town was a resting station for traveling merchants on their way to Magisandria, so there was a thriving market where caravans came to trade and replenish supplies before they continued their journey.
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On the next day, Cartelle brought me to the nearest ironsmith to make me a new lance, but their furnace's temperature couldn't be raised to more than 800-degree Celsius, which was although capable of producing most iron tools it was not what I had in mind.
After I witnessed Cartelle's fire column the day before I had an interesting idea, so I borrowed some magic from the Magus to craft for me a magical lance.
"Cartelle if you want to compensate me for my destroyed lance, you'll have to do some hocus pocus for me", I asked the Magus.
"What is hocus pocus?" Cartelle asked me in confusion.
Cartelle couldn't comprehend what I requested from him, nor did he appreciate why, but he owed me my lance and his life too, so he went along with my silly request.
"Can't understand these barbarians but I owe them a lance, so I'll go along", Cartelle probably told himself.
There was nothing in his Grimoire that fulfilled my needs, so he took out a pen and drew some strange hieroglyphs and patterns on a piece of paper and crafted his own spell.
While he prepared his magic I went to the merchants in town and bought some necessary materials.
As the furnace in the forge fired up, Cartelle opened the parchment he just drew and raised his hand toward the furnace, and a bright circle appeared inside the furnace.
A column of intense flame mixed with gushes of wind coiled in a helix were dropped from the bright circle, which raised the temperature inside the furnace to over 2000-degree Celsius and melted a mixture of iron ore, lime, and other minerals I bought earlier.
As the iron mixture melted, the gushes of wind mixed in pressurized oxygen which reacted with the molten iron inside, which oxidized the impurities and turned the iron into steel.
"That should do it", I told the smiths as they scraped out the slags and impurities from the melted mixture.
The molten steels were poured into molds, which the smiths later forged into a long-hooked lance.
When the lance cooled, the ironsmith was astounded with the creation of a magical weapon that almost doubled the strength of the iron he usually crafted.
Thanks to Cartelle's magic, I've created this world's first steel and my new "Dragonslayer" which was much lighter than my old lance, was much stronger and more durable.
"Even Trerarim couldn't make it this tough", the ironsmith said to the smiths around referring to the legendary city famed for its forges and smiths in Ouamua.
"Where is Trerarim?" I asked the smiths who just laughed at my ignorance but decided not to explain more to me.
They were after all busy craftsmen, not storytellers.
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Around midnight, a huge wind blew into the town from the desert and sand-covered every building, stable, barn, and coop, and drowned the town in a thick layer of the desert, which woke everyone up who quickly assembled in the courtyard of the lodging looking for the answer to the sudden commotion.
"The wind surrounded the town," said someone, and the strong wind lasted till the morning and did not appear to subside.
"It's the devils. The wind devils are storming our town", another anxious townsman screamed out in fear.
Many suggested the phenomena were supernatural and the cause of it was a magical creature who besieged the town.
"It is the Wind Scorpion, who surrounded our town with its wind magic", Cartelle said to those assembled who looked up to him.
Cartelle was the only Magus in the entire town, and he knew his stuff.
I wondered what made the Wind Scorpion attack this town, but roughly I had some clues as I glanced at Magus Cartelle who did not return my glance.
The relatives of the scorpion that we killed in the desert must have come to avenge its brethren and it must have discovered the scents of those who murdered the large scorpion active in this town of Abiru.
"That guy brought the scorpion's boss to town for revenge", Sara told me her opinion.
"Damnit we should have taken our baths", I told Kay.
Taking baths in my space shuttle was one of the few luxuries I had in space but there were no baths in the desert town. Even water was scarce here.
The Wind Scorpion waited a short distance away from the Town and stood prominently where its view could not be missed.
It was the wind Scorpion's purpose to let us see and feel its presence and to challenge and taunt us to meet it where it was, but the invitation didn't work since there were no takers.
Except for some blue spots on its body, the Wind Scorpion looked exactly like a large scorpion which we killed earlier.
While it appeared to be alone in the desert jeering at us, we don't know how many comrades it brought along, although there were clear signs of burrowing in the desert around it and nobody in town was so naive to believe the scorpion boss came alone.