kscans

Chapter 49 - Starting Rough Paper

"...Besides the mold... I soak the fibers in water for a few days to soften them, then boil them with caustic soda? ...If it’s just to make the fibers easier to separate, I should be able to manage with Dark Magic. ...Bleaching? If I want to make it clean, the Cleanse spell from Life Magic or Purification from Light Magic should work, yes. ...Beating? ...Basically, I just need to pound it into submission with force, right? ...Yeah, I can do this, I can do this..."

Let it be known that this was no simple task. Interrupting the corrosion at the optimal moment, when the fibers had loosened but retained their strength, without completely decaying the raw material, required precise control of Dark Magic. Furthermore, Light Magic's Purification was for exorcising curses, not intended for bleaching. Likewise, Life Magic's Cleanse could remove surface dirt, but it was not designed for a task like removing the natural color from plant materials. But Yuri, in his half crazed state, was in no mood to listen to such excuses. As if proving that fortune favors the bold, he successfully bulldozed his way through every step with brute force. It was a rather precarious state of mind.

And then… the curtain rose on the highlight of this entire affair.

"...Basically, I just need to spread the pulp in the solution out into a thin, even layer. I'll use Water Magic on the whole solution... that's not enough on its own, is it... In that case, I'll mix in some Wood Magic and... some Earth Magic power too... hmmm... still no good... then…"

As he continued his desperate, almost possessed efforts, it seemed his single minded devotion reached the heavens, for he succeeded in spreading the pulp into a thin, uniform sheet.

"...I did it... I did it! Thank you, God!"

In that moment, Yuri had unknowingly accomplished something unheard of in this world. He had released and used his magic power without first converting it into an element.

Releasing and wielding non elemental magic power was a practice known as Non-Elemental Magic. While its existence was theoretically predicted among mages, not a single person had ever managed to achieve it. At least, no record of it remained in the kingdom. It was the dark matter of the magical world. The requirements for mastering Non-Elemental Magic were threefold. One, precise control of magic power. Two, the simultaneous parallel activation and use of multiple types of magic. And three, the use of magic power without conscious thought of an element. This third requirement was a particularly high hurdle for the mages of this world. Precisely because magic was so familiar to them, they couldn't imagine a power unrelated to the elements, and their attempts to cast Non-Elemental Magic always ended in failure. For the record, Appraisal used non elemental magic power, but it was a skill, not magic. The way it used magic was fixed and offered little freedom for modification or improvement. It was of no help in learning Non-Elemental Magic. Fortunately or unfortunately for Yuri, magic did not exist on his former world of Earth. The concept of "superpowers" unrelated to elements was far more familiar to him, thanks to science fiction and manga. More importantly, at that moment, he was so engrossed in manipulating the pulp in the solution that lofty concepts like elements had completely flown from his mind. As a result of all this, Yuri had fulfilled the requirement of using magic power without thinking of an element.

Later, when Yuri checked his status, he would tilt his head in confusion at the unfamiliar magic that had been quietly added to his list, but he would simply assume it was a gift from God and offer his thanks, without ever knowing what it truly was.

"Now I just need to dewater this and let it dry. Ah, dewatering it all at once might cause problems… I’ll just spread it out while it’s still damp…"

He muttered nonchalantly that it would be faster if he could stick it to a windowpane to dry. Instead of glass, he stuck it to a smooth stone slab created with Earth Magic. The guide mentioned soaking up the moisture with a cotton cloth, but he had no such thing here. He cast a weak dewatering spell with Water Magic while simultaneously activating a very faint Wind Magic spell to dry it. It would probably take a full day and night to dry completely, but what had emerged was a "paper" that looked perfectly usable.

"Alright, I’ll whip up a bunch more before I forget the knack."

Completely unaware that he had just cast and utilized a magic that was nothing short of a miracle in this world, Yuri continued to masterfully use Non-Elemental Magic to create paper sheet after sheet. And at the same time, his Non-Elemental Magic level rose just as quickly. He hadn't mixed starch into the first sheet, but for the second, he mixed in starch from Lycoris, and the poisonous kind at that. The starch was a sizing agent meant to prevent ink from bleeding. He used poisonous Lycoris starch as an insect repellent, specifically to prevent damage from pests like silverfish. He didn't know if there were any insects in this world that ate paper, but he wanted to reduce the risk of his precious records being eaten, even by a little.

"Well, preventing bleeding is just a side benefit. The main purpose is insect repellent."

Preventing ink bleed would be essential if he were writing with ink, but Yuri had no plans to record things that way. He could find a substitute for ink, but he had no prospects for the all important pen. In this village, where metal was almost nonexistent, he naturally couldn't procure a metal pen nib. As for the quill pens once used in Europe, he had only recently acquired feathers from a suitable bird, the Lucca. At first, he had no way of getting them. He had read that in ancient times people had sharpened reeds to make pens, but unfortunately, no reeds grew in this area.

Under these circumstances, the writing instrument Yuri chose was a so called charcoal pencil, made by mixing charcoal powder with clay. Unlike ink, there was no risk of it bleeding. He could write without issue, even if the paper's surface was a bit rough. At first he couldn't get his hands on clay, so he tried grinding up local soil, and when he tried to shape the core with Earth Magic, he couldn't get the force right and ended up with something thick and strong enough to be used as a skewer. He had faced many difficulties, but now he had a perfectly usable writing tool waiting for its turn.

Incidentally, after comparing the paper with and without starch, he concluded that for writing with a charcoal pencil, the starch wasn't particularly necessary. From then on, he only added an extract of the toxic components of Lycoris and kept the addition of starch to a minimum. He had decided that a slightly rougher paper was easier to write on, having no way of knowing that even this "rough paper" would be considered high quality by this world's standards.

"It should be dry by tomorrow… Then I’ll have to stitch it together with thread to make a notebook, and make a memo pad and a journal."

The look on Yuri's face as he murmured this was one of pure, unadulterated joy.