Chapter 101 The Reason

101 The Reason

I gave the middle-aged woman a good look and decided to initiate the conversation.

"It appears that you wish to speak with me?"

Though a tad bit surprised, the middle-aged woman nodded.

"Yes, I'm just thinking of how I should phrase this."

Her voice was a bit coarse, maybe because she was a person that yelled a lot. The woman took another few seconds before taking a deep breath.

"I do appreciate what you are trying to do for us. It is a charitable gesture that not many others are willing to do. However, you are approaching this wrong."

I raised an eyebrow and crossed my fingers together.

"Oh? Why do you think that?"

A bitter smile formed on the woman's face.

"It's because most people are not comfortable sitting along with you. What you have been doing would be far more successful if you weren't here, as it intimidates people. I believe you also have better things to do, so this would probably be a benefit to you as well, correct? So long as you make sure that your household is responsible for this charitable act, then there should be no more complications."

I nodded a few times before hanging one arm over the back of my chair.

"I guess that does seem like a good solution from your perspective, right?"

The middle-aged woman didn't seem to expect my response but nodded.

"Yes. Is it different from yours?"

I took in a deep breath. noVe/lb)In

"Yes, it is. Perhaps to you and everyone else around me, the only reason I'm doing this is for the sake of my terrible reputation, correct?"

The woman was flustered as she hurriedly waved her hands in front of her.

"No, no, it's nothing like that at all! Your generosity is commendable. After all, why would you go all the way out here and waste your valuable time if it was just for your reputation?"

I rolled my eyes and leaned back in my seat.

"For starters, the main reason I even came here in the first place wasn't for the sake of my reputation, or for the sake of a charitable act. If you just thought about it for a moment, while I have assets, they are not enough to provide for every single common person."

My eyes narrowed ever so slightly.

"While I can do a certain amount with money alone, it will still not fix any of the root problems. Now, can you think of why I am here?"

The woman only stared back at me with confusion. Although this was expected, I still felt a tad bit disappointed. I sat up in my chair and rubbed my temple with my knuckle.

"Although we may not always notice it, when you sit down with another person to have a meal demands a certain amount of respect. Few people would want to eat their meal at the same table as an animal, and similarly so with someone they don't wish to talk to. The reason I came here was to give anyone the chance to sit down to talk."

I held out one hand.

"I come here for the purpose of seeing each other as equals. Not for status. And that is something that I expect to go both ways. I will not definite someone by the fact that they are a commoner, but that also means when I am here, I do not wish to be defined as a noble. If they are unable to do that, then I do not want them to be sitting here."

Arianne flinched and looked at me nervously.

"E-Eh? That's how it was? I-I'm sorry I didn't do it properly!"

I waved my hand dismissively.

"You don't have to worry about that. To be frank, you've probably been doing too good of a job."

Arianne tilted her head to the side in confusion.

"Hm? But I didn't know any of the rules before."

I poked her in the forehead, causing her to cry out with a bit of indignance. Then, I let out a small laugh.

"You've already been doing it instinctively, so there's no need to worry about that. Just keep doing what you have been."

She scratched her cheek before muttering weakly.

"Ok..."

When I turned back, I realized that the middle-aged lady had already disappeared.

...Hm. It looks like this plan really was a shitty one. Only people I personally know are willing to sit down.

After the food was prepared, another person sat down, but that was just Gray. After sitting down, he shot me a smile.

"Thank you for the food, good person!"

Arianne hurriedly followed his example.

"A-Ah, yes, thank you!"

A small smile formed on my lips.

"Yeah, no problem."

I guess it wasn't a completely terrible plan.

...

Before I knew it, an entire week had passed. The daily routine was more or less the same, but I would also splash in a basic physical workout of pushups, situps, and running. I also practiced swinging the sword a bunch, but I definitely didn't know what I was doing, so I just ended up slashing the air the entire time.

Still, I was getting a better feel for it.

As a side note, the book still hadn't talked to me this entire time. It seemed whatever he was thinking about was something really deep. Also, the real Bryson still hasn't talked to me since. I was getting a bit concerned, but there wasn't exactly a known way to go about waking up the second person inhabiting your body, so I wasn't able to do much.

As for the whole going to the slums and serving food there was not going well, as always. However, Nathan's business of using Edward was going really well. He sent some free stuff over to me occasionally too.

There were still nobles wanting to get in on the pie, but that had mostly died down. As for the farmers that were raising cattle and the like, some would especially visit Nathan just to encourage him and thank him. It seemed that the prices for such things had raised dramatically and those people were fairly well off now.

Although there were still other issues that Nathan and I were planning to tackle, we had agreed that both of us were still just a tad bit too weak to handle them effectively. As such, both of us ended up just playing it cool and doing our own thing most of the time.

Apparently, Nathan was just a few steps away from collecting a few key items to trade in the black market. As for its location itself, I was eventually able to get a precise location by first getting my own map and bringing it to Raisa to mark.

I had to even explain what various different portions of the map corresponded to. To be honest, I was actually surprised that Raisa had this much difficulty when she seemed to be doing fine with her studies.

Though I haven't confirmed it personally myself yet, the chances of this being the actual black market were far better.

There was also the training that I did with Raisa where I attempted to manipulate her mana against her will. The process involved would definitely look suspicious to an outsider, which also probably caused strange rumors among the servants of her household. But that wasn't my problem... kinda.

Anyways, right now it was the weekend, so there wasn't too much to do. I still had a few of the iridescent crystals from the magical beast we killed not too long ago. There was a thought that had popped into my mind while trying to manipulate Raisa's mana that I wanted to test out.

Admittedly, there was part of me that knew Harold would definitely admonish me for trying something like this, which was why I had no plans to consult him for advice.

The idea was to try and attune the mana in the crystals to be the same as mine, meaning I would be able to add it to my own and artificially increase my mana capacity.

This came up while trying to manipulate Raisa's mana because of the fact she was also considerably improving in her own mana control. It meant that the body knew intuitively how to control mana properly, and by copying it, Raisa was able to improve her own control.

So wouldn't that also mean the body instinctively knows how to attune mana? If I was able to replicate it but do the same thing from outside, then I would be able to use iridescent crystals and stones without them being engraved. On top of that, there would be no mana confliction, thus allowing me to combine the mana from multiple crystals to make one giant spell.

It was definitely good in theory, but how to go about it was definitely not something I was sure about.

Regardless, I was going to try.

A few small iridescent crystals were spread out in front of me on a table. I placed my hand on them and tried to manipulate the mana within them. There was a surprising amount of resistance for something that was an inanimate object, but it was definitely less compared to when I tried with Raisa.

With a bit of concentration, I was just barely able to extract the mana from within one of the crystals, only possible because of the training that I had with Raisa.

From there, without knowing what else to do, I tried to forcibly put that mana into my own body, from the hand.

It traversed through the fingers without too much difficulty, though it felt like the mana was resisting mine. However, when it ended up reaching the palm, I suddenly felt an extremely strong resistance, almost like my body just couldn't take the stranger invading.

The back of my hand suddenly burst, spraying out blood. I cringed in pain, as the feeling of my skin tearing apart like that was not exactly what I would call pleasant.

I took a few deep breaths and reexamined my injury.

It looked quite ghastly, almost like I had partially turned into a monster. Bits of bone were peeking out from where my knuckles should be, and the fleshy red also looked quite unpleasant.

But all things considered, it was a light injury. Nothing overly important was damaged, and it should heal somewhat soon. After confirming that, I decided to try again.

The crystal I originally used was recharging, so I moved on to another one. This time, I only took a small amount of mana, not enough to even cast the most basic of spells. Doing the same process, I made it forcibly enter my body. There was still resistance, and it also amplified the pain I was feeling from the back of my palm, but I ignored all of that.

Nothing happened immediately. In fact, even after ten or so minutes nothing really changed.

But I was patient. And after an hour, it was fully attuned to my own mana.

That's mananapping. You know, like kidnapping, but mana. Anyway, the point is Brian is evil!