CHAPTER 1
Prologue: Alcohol and Its Allure
Arcus and Noah were visiting Craib's library, which he kept inside a
small storehouse in one corner of his estate. He called it a storehouse, at least,
but as haphazardly organized as it was, "dump" suited the place better. Had it
been a closet, it would be fit to bursting with everything Craib casually
crammed in there, but fortunately it was a mite bigger. The thick layers of
dust spread about the place gave the impression that nothing in here was
important enough to bother caring for. The shutters nailed onto the building
to keep out the rain meant there wasn't a lick of natural light allowed inside.
Arcus and Noah were forced to bring in a Sol Glass lantern to carry out their
search.
"This place feels kinda haunted," said Arcus.
"I have heard that Craib does not exactly prioritize keeping this place in
order."
"Ugh! Look at the size of that spider! There's enough webbing here to
lose a grown man in it."
Arcus shuddered as the creature came into view under the light of the
lantern. Even compared to the most impressive spiders from the man's world,
this one was on the larger side.
"If I might ask, Master Arcus, what exactly is your objective in coming
here?" Noah asked, without even batting an eyelid at the sinister arachnid.
"I was thinking I might be able to find something that my uncle
overlooked. I know he's smarter than me, but we don't look at things from
the same perspective; I thought it was worth having a rummage through
here."
"I see. And your real reason?"
Arcus paused. "Things've been kinda slow on my end lately. I haven't
made any new discoveries for ages, and to be honest, I'm pretty desperate."
Though he laughed to hide his embarrassment, it was true that his studies
had slowed to a snail's pace. His work with the Ancient Chronicles was very
stop-and-go, with more stopping than going, and it had been a long time since
he had learned any new artglyphs. He'd been beating his head against spell development, too; if he was lucky, something in here might provide the
critical spark of inspiration.
"Don't get me wrong, I'm doing what I can, but it's just that my uncle
has so much more stuff than I do."
"Indeed he does. However, it may surprise you to know that this is not
where he keeps his most valuable materials."
"Yeah, I know!" Arcus replied, a little more snippily than he intended.
It was as he was rifling through one of the bookshelves, frustration
quickening his movements, that a pile of books atop it came crashing down.
Arcus let out a cry.
"Try not to be so impatient," Noah sighed, moving in to pick up the
books and sweep away the dust. "Has anything caught your eye just yet?"
"Dunno. I'm gonna keep looking."
Arcus continued his search along and around the dust-covered shelves.
Going through each book, he opened it up and brought the lantern up to skim
it. None of these books had been opened for several years, as evidenced by
each one housing a family of booklice which Arcus wiped away under his
glove. After a while, he found what appeared to be a discarded bundle of
books.
"Huh?"
Just like everything else in this place, it had not been treasured in the
slightest, stuffed away in here because its owner deemed it unnecessary.
Arcus was instinctively intrigued by it. Even if Craib scanned these books, he
doubted his uncle would have paid much attention to their details. It was
quite possible that there were secrets inside waiting for Arcus to be the first to
discover them.
He rummaged through them and pulled out one with a peculiar-looking
cover. The book was written in the Elder Tongue.
"This looks interesting..."
Arcus's heart began to race in anticipation. The rush he felt was stronger
than usual, because it had been so long since he found anything like this. He
read the cover: Klin Botter's Guide to Surreptitious Distillation.
"What?! It's just a guide to moonshining!" Arcus growled, slamming his
fist on the floor in frustration.
Noah stopped what he was doing to approach his master. "Is something
the matter?"
"Nah, it's nothing. How are you getting on?"
"I am afraid I haven't found anything particularly relevant."
The search went on long after that, but the pair found nothing magic-
related at all. As the only thing that looked slightly interesting, Arcus
reluctantly took the moonshining guide home to look through. It was written
in the Elder Tongue, after all. Even if the contents had nothing to do with
magic, there was a chance he might pick up some new words or phrases.
"I guess it's worth a read."
His expectations low, Arcus did just that. To his surprise, the book was
more about brewing alcohol legitimately than moonshining.
Still, it's not much more than a book of recipes...
Most of the words and expressions in the book were ones Arcus knew
already. The recipes themselves were simply altered versions of common
ones found in any book. Why the author had gone through the effort of
writing it all out in the Elder Tongue remained a total mystery.
"Wait, what's this? 'Thaumaturgical Strategies for Optimal
Beveragecraft'?"
It was a section tucked away at the very back of the book. The process
was written out in detail, and even included accounts of how different
temperatures affected brewing.
Temperature. Humidity. These were concepts that Arcus only knew from
the man's world; in this world, they remained undiscovered—so much so that
even the way his aethometer combined the expansion of a material with a
measure seemed innovative to this world's people.
The way temperature was described in this book in such a matter of fact
way meant that, whenever it was written, it was a well-known concept that
could be measured.
They do say that civilization was at its height when The Magician's
Elegy was written...
It had been a time where magical knowledge and innovation was at its
peak—but it was that very same technology that had brought about the
period's downfall. That had been several centuries ago now, though.
"Optimal beverages, huh?"
Arcus knew the taste of alcohol from the man's world. The alcohol he
drank in celebration was particularly delicious. Of course, Arcus was too
young to drink anything like that here, but it wouldn't hurt to begin
preparations in any case. Something he could drink as a toast when the
aethometer was finally announced to the world on a mass scale. His mouth was already watering at the prospect, and he was forced to swallow to avoid
drooling.
"The stuff sure is tempting..."
Arcus wasted no time in getting to work. He quickly scribbled out a list
of the required ingredients in plain text. The key was to imbue a certain plant
with a secret magic, creating a new plant known as soma.
"Now to give this list to Noah and ask him to get all this stuff for me."
And that was how Arcus got into brewing alcohol.