Published: July 4, 2025
Since it’s Golden Week, here’s an additional post.
Ryo had something on his mind.
That was the relationship between the great tsunami and the demon.
Two days before the great tsunami emerged on land, a solar eclipse occurred in the City of Run, and Ryo fought the demon Leonor in a place that resembled subspace.
Leonor referred to it as the "sealed corridor."
These two events were too coincidental to be mere accidents.
It was unclear whether the demon caused the great tsunami.
Perhaps the demon merely came after knowing the tsunami would occur.
Or maybe it was the solar eclipse, rather than the demon, that had some connection.
Of course, he didn’t know any of that.
But it made him curious.
(I wonder if I can look it up at the library…)
He thought about this while eating lunch in the guild cafeteria.
Of course, he wasn’t alone; he was with the four members of Room 10.
“Ryo-san, you’re deep in thought, aren’t you?”
“Maybe it’s something about alchemy using magic copper ore…”
“Y-You can’t be thinking about asking for money back now! Even if it’s Ryo, that’s impossible!”
These words came from Amon, Eto, and Nils in that order... but Nils, the oldest at twenty, made the most… disappointing comment.
“I wouldn’t say something like that.”
Ryo shook his head with a wry smile.
Nils looked visibly relieved.
Ryo then noticed a gold chain peeking out of Nils’ tunic pocket.
“Nils, what’s that in your pocket?”
“O-Oh, this is just something a decent adventurer should have.”
What he took out was a pocket watch.
In this world, clocks already existed.
A large clock was installed in the square's tower, and the sound of bells rang every three hours.
Many citizens relied on that for their daily lives, but a good number of adventurers carried pocket watches.
This was because they couldn’t afford to be late for meetings or appointments with clients.
No matter the world or the job, being unable to keep time would earn someone a low evaluation.
Clocks themselves measured time using devices that continued to move at a constant speed, like water clocks or hourglasses.
It wasn’t inherently complicated.
The problem arose when trying to create a portable size and mechanism.
On Earth, this was solved with the invention of the "spring."
This was during the sixteenth century.
However, in this "Fai," there were things that didn’t exist on Earth.
Those were magic and alchemy.
In particular, creating a mechanism that could mark time at regular intervals using alchemy was not particularly difficult, to put it plainly.
If such technology existed, it wasn’t too hard to produce a portable clock.
That said, even so, a pocket watch typically cost over ten thousand florins.
For ordinary citizens, ten thousand florins was by no means a small amount.
If one lived a very modest life… it could last them about half a month.
However, for adventurers who didn’t dream of striking it rich… while they hadn’t amassed a fortune, it seemed Nils bought one.
It was likely from the three hundred thousand florins that Ryo had paid.
Of course, ten thousand florins was the base price, and there were completely mechanical pocket watches that didn’t use magic or alchemy at all.
These started from several million florins, which was an eye-popping amount.
Moreover, pocket watches said to be the pinnacle, featuring perpetual calendars, minute repeaters, tourbillons, split-seconds, and automatic winding, could cost over a hundred million… There might have been genius watchmakers like Breguet in this world as well.
“A pocket watch, huh? Now Nils won’t be late anymore.”
“No, I’ve never been late…”
At that moment, the receptionist Nina came over.
“Sorry to interrupt your meal, Nils-san, Eto-san.”
“Y-Yes! W-What is it?”
Nils, who admired Nina a little, instantly maxed out his excitement… only to become stiff with nervousness.
(I don’t think he was this stiff when she guided him to the lodgings at first… His feelings for Nina have progressed rapidly.)