“Nice to meet you, Mr. Kaido.” A shady looking merchant approached our front door, “Thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule and having me inspect this month’s batch of goodies.”

“The pleasure’s all mine, Horc! Every time you swing by, we get paid and you get the patents for our lovely little inventions! It’s not an understatement to say how thankful we are for doing business with you!”

As you can tell, Horc is a traveling merchant who also happened to have a keen eye for the products Issei and I whip up. He’s basically like our main client, that is to say, we get most of our income from this one man (the other main client is actually Adam, thanks to Marina frequently and offhandedly advertising us). Horc’s incredibly well-traveled, having been to Simpleton on multiple occasions to import our wares there. It’s quite an honor to have made a name for myself by doing this gig with Issei, but a large part of me still feels like we couldn’t have done it without Horc’s merchant ability.

The man’s a menace. An absolute beast. He could sell you a blade of grass and make you fully convinced that it actually cuts through enemies like an actual ‘Blade’, so when he first approached us, I was extremely apprehensive about his input. I was scammed countless times in the past, starting from that damned merchant in Whitehood who sold Ed and me random rocks for our hard earned Snairskin, but this guy was actually alright. He immediately put both hands on the table when we sat down to further discuss business, and he made a point of telling us any important info in exchange for our wares. Such a man was rare in the world, and I can’t help but feel like Issei’s the reason for this.

You see, Issei really doesn’t hide the fact that he’s from another world. I thought he’d be a lot more reserved about it, but apparently he’s treating it like any other field trip. He’d say stuff like I’m from the wondrous land of Japan! and then he’d start shouting something in a mysterious tongue. It sounded really cool at first, but it got annoying real soon.

“So, is today finally the day?”

“What do you mean, Horc?”

“Well, the day I finally meet this famed inventor, of course!”

Ah, I forgot to mention. Out of fear of me being found out by Adam in some way, I decided to hide my identity by wearing a cheaply made mask I had Issei whip up for me during our negotiations (even now I’m viewing their exchange from the comfort of my room’s window). The mask was really peculiar, though. It had a white, scary looking face with pointy horns at the front. Issei called it an ‘Oni Mask’, but all I could see was a bull. Might just be me, though, since Marina teased how much it suited me.

“Nah, he’s still a bit shy around strangers. Give him a break, already, he’s got his own complex to deal with.”

Hey! Don’t make me out to be some introverted beta-male! Or wait, was it ‘Beta-male’ or ‘Sigma-male’? Gahh, Issei’s stupid foreign slang is really hard to grasp!

“Eh, alright. Then what do you have to offer for today?”

“Humu,” Issei chuckled while taking something out of his bag, “For today I have (drumroll please!)… A flashlight!”

“Oooh! And what does it do?”

“Uhh, it flashes a light, duh!” Issei made fun of the merchant’s stupid question, “Geez, after doing business with us for so long, you’d think we’d have already reached a point of mutual understanding, no?”

“Heh, if that we’re the case then you’d already know all there is to know about how to sell off these products yourself!”

“I-I was just kidding! Heheh, oh you! H-Heh…”

That’s another thing about Horc, he really knows how to turn the tables on Issei almost always. From my point of view, it actually looks like a comedy act, which really soothes the anxiety I’m feeling. Issei’s really not taking this too seriously, but Horc is right. If it was that simple to sell off our wacky products, then we’d have done so ourselves. Back when I was helping Anna out with Arthur’s in Trivis Numerica, we’d mostly just abuse the fact that we were cute little kids who were just helping out our Gramps. Now that I’m actually a (somewhat) independent adult, though, I can’t really play that card anymore.

“Whoa! Even during the day, that’s really bright! So, does it use fire as fuel? I mean, that’d only make sense, since you just recently sold me that lighter thing the other day.”

“Actually no, this one uses something much more complicated than mere fire, it harnesses the power of electricity! Bzzt!”

Issei was trying to sound ominous with that little act just now, but his little onomatopoeic imitation of electric arcs whizzing by really ruined it all and made both me and Horc tense up from the ‘Cringe’.

“Actually, did you say electricity? So what, you stuck a mechanical generator to it or something? Then where’s the winding handle?”

“Oh, my dear Horc, this is why you should just stick to being a traveling merchant. You don’t know the slightest thing about electricity, nor how we make it work! Call it a trade secret, actually no, fuck that, I’ll just tell you because without context you wouldn’t understand it anyway!”

“Oh? Well go on then!”

“Paper and aluminum foil! Stick together with glue and roll it up and you’ve got yourself a capacitor! It’s a makeshift battery! It doesn’t hold much, but with enough of them connected in series, it does the trick for a couple of minutes!”

“Hold no, just a couple of minutes?” Horc second guessed his purchase.

“Well, if say for example our funding got increased, we could certainly manage a large scale production of actual batteries which could increase the flashlight’s battery life to even a couple extra hours. But ohh, I guess that’s just a pipe dream, no? What a shame~”

Way to go, Issei! You’re really squeezing Horc out of every Shil now! Just one more push and you’ve sealed the deal for our promotion! Don’t fail me now, Scooter Brother!

“Grr, fine! If it’ll help you… But just know that if you don’t make this battery thing of yours by the next time we meet, so help me I’m gonna…! Ahem, never mind that. How much money are we talking about? An additional 5k shils? 10k shils?”

“30k shils.”

“Th-! 30 THOUSAND SHILS?!”

At this somewhat greedy suggestion, Issei was really playing with fire here. Just one wrong move and we immediately lose our main source of income, so I don’t really like how he’s handling this. God damn it, Issei, why didn’t you just say 15k like we agreed upon?!

“Ugh… Fine…” Horc muttered.

Eh? He actually agreed to give us that much? Am… Am I dreaming right now? M-Marina, pinch me! Kyah! Not my nipples, geez…!

***

And so, after some really good luck and enough sound arguments, Issei and I managed to fund our little joint project a bit more than what we’d usually be given. I’m still honestly really surprised at how that worked, I was sure Horc wouldn’t give in to such greedy demands, but it seems like luck favors Issei for whatever reason. No matter what we do, it just sort of feels like everything ‘clicks’ for him in just the right way. Honestly, I’m kind of jealous, but then I remember that Issei isn’t a competitor, but a coworker, so it really doesn’t matter.

“Alright, so what are we making today?”

“Hmm, on today’s schedule is something for the Gryses, right? Got anything that a Royal Family would like?”

“Hmm…”

As we pondered about what to create for Adam’s family, Marina suddenly burst open the door to the inn. She was heaving and her breaths were all out of whack, but you could tell that she was excited instead of worried. We asked what was happening, but all she could mutter throughout her breaths was ‘A letter… from Adam… addressed to Sol!’ which only further excited us. After taking the letter from her and having her sit down, I finally read the letter’s contents out loud.

“Good day, famed inventor! Rejoice, for it is I, Prince Adam of the Grys Royal Family! Even though we have not yet met in person, dear Mariabelle has been serving her duty as our intermediary quite nicely!”

After being praised, Marina looked quite pleased with herself. Geez, all she’s doing is playing the role of the mailman, but to think she’s wearing that title with pride. I gotta give her at least some respect for the commitment at least…

“Ahem, in any case!” I continued reading the letter, “Thank you for selling to us the patent for your famed invention, the Augmented Firestarter Pistol (abbreviated henceforth as AFP). As you may know, the AFP is an incredibly strong weapon, and even though I’ve yet to see it in action for myself, I could easily tell from a glance of the blueprints just how strong of a punch it packs!”

Heh, now I’m the one who’s giggling with pride. Adam, you sly dog! You really know how to sway people’s hearts, no? Just where was this eloquence back in the battle of Neo Urbana I wonder? I continued reading the letter, that is until I read a part that I simply couldn’t just overlook.

“Just imagining the amount of territory we could acquire thanks to this weapon of yours is already enough to make me jump for joy! Those horrid Carmenians won’t see it coming! Oh, thank heavens you invented this AFP of yours, it could mow don’t enemy soldiers within seconds!”

H-Hold on? Did he say he plans on using it… in a future war?! Wait wait wait wait! I didn’t plan for this! I just wanted people to have a way to defend themselves against beasts and the like! It was never meant to be used against other humans! But now that I take another look at it, it could easily kill someone, couldn’t it!? Oh God…

“Heh, isn’t that cool, Lune?” Issei chuckled, “Now we have the Prince’s respect. He might actually hear us out and just give us the remaining money paid in full!”

“Cool?! Did you not hear what I just read?! The Prince is planning on using our invention to colonize and kill hundreds of thousands of people! What part of that is cool!?”

At this, Issei gave me a worried look, as if to say What did you expect it was to be used for?

“I-I don’t want this! It’s a weapon used for self-defense, not for further violence! I certainly want to be marked down in a couple of pages of this world’s history, but not like this! I don’t want to be remembered as the guy who invented a weapon of mass destruction!”

“…Haah, if that’s the case,” Issei had me calm down, “then you should’ve said so from the start. Listen Lune, there is no such thing as a weapon used for self-defense. Weapons can only cause damage to their opponents, and no matter how you look at it, they don’t get to choose who their opponent is. The only person who can choose this, is its wielder.”

“Then what do we do, Issei?”

“Nothing. We do absolutely nothing. This is the natural order of technological advancements. Once something has been invented, it spreads like wildfire, and the flame can’t be put out no matter what. You can try delaying the spread as much as you want, but at the end of the day you’re still gonna be left with a forest fire.”

“No… It can’t be! You’re lying! I didn’t-! I didn’t make a weapon used to harm others!”

“You didn’t make it with that intention, but the way I see it, that’s the only way it could be used for. Even if you somehow miraculously could label it as a weapon used solely for self-defense, someone would eventually get the idea to use it in this alternate way instead. It’s just how weapons work, Lune.”

“I don’t care! I won’t accept this!” I yelled as I hit the table as hard as I could with my fist, “You keep saying it’s not so simple to change fate, but that’s just cause you lacked the strength to do so! I’ve changed mine multiple times! Heck, if I kept staying complacent and making up excuses instead of acting on my wishes, then I’d still be stuck in Whitehood!”

“Oho! Then what are you suggesting we do, Augmenter of Fates?”

“Simple. We sold the blueprints just a short while ago, no? From the letter, we can assume he still hasn’t scrounged up the materials for making a single prototype yet! This means that if we were to somehow, someway sneak into the Grys Royal Castle and steal back the blueprints used for crafting an AFP, we could avoid having this horrible weapon be mass produced and also keep the money from the sale!”

“That’s quite the crazy idea.” Issei commented on my plan.

“Yeah,” Marina added, “He’s full of those.”