An Extremely Dangerous Magical Tool

"Then please put it in this bag."

"Understood."

He opened the mouth of the storage-enchanted bag and held it toward Evalin.

He'd have her place the Thorn Staff, which had grown even more sinister-looking, inside.

But the instant Evalin tried to put the staff into the bag, it repelled the bag entirely.

The hand holding the bag stung from the shock.

"… What?"

This had never happened before.

The bag was nearly empty; there was no way it was over capacity.

Yet from that reaction, the staff clearly wasn't going in.

And the Thorn Staff couldn't be left exposed, or rather, no one besides Evalin or Alexia could even hold it.

"Let's try once more."

"It's no use. That bag won't hold it anymore. My magical power fed the staff and it's regained some of its strength."

"What do you mean?"

"That bag uses storage magic to expand its capacity, right? The Thorn Staff's magical power has grown too large. It's overloading the enchantment."

"Magically overloading it…"

He'd never heard of such a thing.

He'd had no experience with magical tools at all before Azu and the others came to live with him, so he'd simply never had the chance to learn.

Since the staff had fit before, the problem had never come up.

"That's a problem. Alexia told me it's dangerous to handle that staff carelessly."

"She's right. If an ordinary person held it, they'd probably wither and die in an instant."

"An instant."

It was a genuine hazard. If someone touched it by accident, it would be a disaster.

Being able to store it had been the only thing keeping it manageable. If it couldn't be stored, there was no way to keep it around safely.

"A higher-grade magical tool could probably contain it."

"Unfortunately, I don't have anything like that."

Every magical tool they currently owned was part of Azu and the others' equipment.

Anything they couldn't use or had no purpose for got sold when they came across it.

After all, there was no money in letting things collect dust.

Though if something was worth holding onto for a better price later, that was a different story.

There were magical tool collectors out there who'd pay good money for anything with an enchantment on it.

He'd originally planned to put this Thorn Staff up at auction if Alexia couldn't use it.

"This is a headache… A proper magical tool capable of containing the Thorn Staff would cost who knows how much."

He had connections, but it wouldn't be cheap.

Maybe he should ask Queen Tianis or Lady Anatia?

They might be able to arrange something.

Then again, owing those two a favor felt like a bad idea.

He could already see a future where they'd hold it over him and saddle him with some troublesome request.

"It's a staff beyond what humans can handle, really. It was originally used by an apostle. How did you even get your hands on it?"

"We found it climbing a tower. The Constellation Tower, I think it was called?"

"If it came from there, that makes sense."

They'd had a terrible time of it, encountering a woman claiming to be an apostle and everything.

The treasure shares they'd received in exchange made it worthwhile, though.

In the end, only Elza had reached the top of the tower.

He never got a clear answer about what happened up there, but she must have spoken with someone about something.

Acquiring the Thorn Staff had been more or less a fluke.

"The Thorn Staff was already a handful for Alexia before it got like this, so now it's probably completely beyond her…"

"That girl is an excellent mage for a human, but she'd be consumed within a minute. After that, she'd spend the rest of her life having her magical power drained as nourishment."

Terrifying.

"You're perfectly fine, Evalin-san?"

"I can control it well enough. You just have to use your own magical power to suppress the staff's energy."

She said "Look," and released the Thorn Staff's power.

The thorns stretched outward as if reaching hungrily for nourishment.

Thorns wreathed in sinister magical energy coiled around Evalin, but they couldn't do anything more than that.

It was a more brute-force approach than he'd expected.

You apparently needed the sheer magical volume that only an elf could provide.

"In that case… if you wouldn't mind, please keep it and use it as you see fit. It seems to be more than we can handle."

"Are you sure? That would be a big help to me, but…"

"Yes. In its current state, I couldn't sell it even if I wanted to. And paying through the nose for a container just to store it would be absurd."

He'd just consider himself lucky that disposal was free.

There were real stories of merchants who'd been ruined by cursed magical tools, after all.

"Then I'll take you up on that. As long as I'm managing it, I'll make sure it's safe even if someone touches it."

"Please do."

It felt a bit like he was foisting it off on her, but the Thorn Staff had been instrumental in driving off that monster… the Sky Whale. That much was true.

Evalin sealed the staff's power.

The extended thorns withered and retracted back to their original state.

It looked almost alive.

"I can manage it, but I can't fully unleash its power. You'd need a being with more power than me. An apostle, an elemental, or something on that level."

"Those don't exactly grow on trees."

If an elf with Dragon-class magical power wasn't enough, then who could possibly do it?

"It looks like everyone's gone ahead. We should join Queen Tianis as well."

"I could just go home, honestly. I got to hear a good performance."

"Please come with us. I'm sure Her Majesty wants to thank you properly."

There was the matter of explaining what happened, and planning for what came next.

If they framed it as Evalin cooperating at Queen Tianis's request, it would make the aftermath much easier to handle.

That was assuming Evalin agreed to it, of course.

So he really wanted her to come along.

"If you insist, fine. There's the matter of that whale, anyway. It only pulled back because it was wounded. Once it recovers, it'll move again. And next time, unlike when it had just awakened, it'll come at you with a lot more tricks."

"That's… not something I wanted to hear."

After all the effort to drive it off, knowing it would eventually come back was the last thing he wanted to think about.