Gathering Burning Stone

Once they arrived at the site, Elza blessed everyone, reinforcing their physical strength.

"Azu's seen it before, but those black patches are mostly burning stone."

Yohane pointed at the burning stone deposits and explained for the benefit of the other two, then approached right away.

He hefted the pickaxe and swung it down on a spot where burning stone was visible.

But the swing was slow, and the impact produced only a feeble sound as it chipped away a tiny bit.

Elza gave a wry smile.

Azu seemed unsure what to say.

"Hand it over."

"… Fine."

With a sigh, Alexia took the pickaxe from Yohane and handed him a smaller pick in exchange.

"I'll do the digging, so you sort through it with that."

Alexia shouldered the pickaxe.

She looked every bit the refined lady, yet it suited her strangely well.

"Hah!"

With Alexia's shout, the pickaxe shattered rock.

Accustomed to swinging her battle-axe, Alexia handled the pickaxe like a natural, carving out chunks of rock laced with burning stone at an impressive pace.

Using the smaller pick, they pried the burning stone out from those chunks.

The hardest part of open-pit burning stone extraction was the rock-breaking that Alexia was handling.

With her doing it at such a remarkable pace, the work flew by.

"Will that do for now?"

Alexia had quarried out most of the visible burning stone deposits.

Black rocks containing burning stone lay scattered across the ground.

Yohane and the others tapped at them with their picks, sorting plain rock from burning stone by hand.

For processing large quantities, a wet gravity separation method was used — essentially, you crushed the burning stone mixed with rock, put it in water, and agitated it. The heavier waste rock sank while the burning stone floated to the top.

That said, for a quantity four people could carry in backpacks, there was no need for that.

Alexia was primarily a fire mage, but she could handle water magic reasonably well too, so she could manage a crude version if needed.

It was knowledge Yohane had picked up by consulting a merchant who specialized in burning stone back when he'd dealt in it himself.

Useful knowledge for the burning stone trade, certainly, but you'd need access to a mine producing enough volume to make it worthwhile.

In other words, that merchant had basically been bragging — "go ahead and try it if you can."

Yohane recalled all this while mindlessly tapping away with his pick.

Azu and Elza followed his lead, but their pace was faster than his.

Less a matter of dexterity and more a simple difference in strength.

"You're fast at this…"

"Um, yes."

"You're just slow, Master."

"I may have underestimated adventurers a little."

Azu helped with the remaining pieces, and the bulk of the work was done.

"Thanks, Azu."

"Not at all! This is what I'm here for as a slave."

"Right. Now we just pack the backpacks and we're done."

"Yes!"

Everyone pitched in for the packing.

It didn't take long.

Elza performed her purification miracle on the group.

Handling burning stone left hands and clothes stained black, but the purification cleaned it right off.

"My, how convenient."

When Alexia expressed her admiration, Elza explained.

"Fufu. The grace was bestowed so its effects would be visible to the eye, or so the reasoning goes."

"Is that so," Alexia replied.

Yohane shouldered his backpack first.

It had a solid weight to it.

Between the weight-reduction enchantment and the blessing, it was manageable.

"Let's head back for now. We might want to make another trip."

"In that case, the three of us can handle it. Why don't you arrange a cart in the meantime?"

"Good point. I'll do that."

The four of them shouldered their backpacks and headed back to the tool shop.

They loaded the burning stone into spare wooden crates in the storeroom.

After that, Yohane went to arrange a cart while the three slaves headed back out to gather more burning stone.

By the time the sun started to dip, the slaves returned.

They'd amassed four crates' worth of burning stone.

Considering they'd also need to bring food for the road, that was about all the cart could hold.

He checked the quest form.

It was more than enough to deliver to the Empire.

Between the burning stone profits and the quest fee, the earnings would be respectable.

The cart was contracted to be ready in front of the shop by tomorrow morning.

(If only I had my own cart…)

Yohane thought this as he watched the sunset.

Rental fees were nothing to sneeze at.

His main business was still the tool shop, and since he purchased inventory through contracted merchants, a cart wasn't normally necessary.

But the shop was running smoothly now, and the employees could handle things on their own.

He had enough money to expand the tool shop, but ideally he wanted to save up a bit more first.

Which brought him right back to wanting a cart.

Alexia called out to him.

"What are you up to?"

"Hm, Alexia. Just thinking I'd like a cart."

"I see. Any merchant of substance does own at least one. Though I'd say finding a place to stable a horse comes first."

"Ah, right. There's that problem too."

When Yohane said that, Alexia put a hand on her hip.

"You're so sharp when it comes to money, yet everything else either doesn't interest you or slips right past you. If you do get a horse, I'll take care of it. I'm used to it."

"Nobles do keep horses, that's true. I'll leave it to you when the time comes."

"Your barbs never land, do they…"

He scoffed.

"Snark from a slave isn't worth a single copper."

"Yes, yes, Master. I've worked up a sweat, so I'm going to take a bath."

"Go ahead. Oh, right—"

"Charge the magic stone with mana, yes? I know."

With that, Alexia headed for the bath.

Azu and Elza had gone in first, so they'd either meet up or pass each other.

(Once Alexia's done, I'll take one too.)

Stretching out his body, which was screaming from the heavy labor, Yohane settled on that plan.