Chapter 1 - 01 Reincarnation
Small and Medium Enterprises are meant to be exploited by large corporations. That does not change in any industry.
A small family-run workshop in a certain local city in Japan was also forced into a difficult management due to exploitation, just like everyone else.
That man, the president's son, was running the machine tools until late at night while cursing the large corporations.
"Damn it. My old man had a stroke and collapsed, yet they say they can't adjust the delivery schedule, and the Credit Union is coming to collect the loans. What was the trust we built until now? In the end, aren't SMEs just food for others?"
The man's father had collapsed from a stroke and was hospitalized, so the man was covering for the loss of one worker by working until late at night.
However, the large corporation did not take such circumstances into account, only saying "Keep the schedule."
In the first place, the lack of manpower was due to the large corporation rejecting the request to raise parts prices caused by skyrocketing labor costs, so the man's company had no leeway to pay salaries comparable to other companies, and people would not gather.
Additionally, seeing the president hospitalized, the Credit Union immediately ran to collect the loans.
They say they are the 'lubricant of SMEs' only when it suits them, but when it comes down to it, they cut their losses immediately and collect ruthlessly.
There was no way one person could open up such a situation, and the man died before his father due to overwork and mental stress.
Reincarnation is being born again.
Depending on the religion, the human soul is said to reincarnate. Whether that is true or not is unknown.
The reason is that there is no human who remembers their past life.
However, a baby was born here with memories of a past life.
He was born with memories of his past life as the son of an SME president in Japan, and realized immediately upon birth that he had been reincarnated into some unknown world.
Steve Archibalt. That was the man's new name.
It is unclear if this is related to his past life being Japanese, but he had black eyes and black hair.
He was reincarnated as the eldest son of the Archibalt Knight Baron family into a nation in another world with civilization equivalent to medieval Europe on Earth.
The name of the nation is the Kingdom of Cascade. Although it is a large nation ruled by King William Gis Cascade, it was constantly in a state of tension with surrounding nations due to ceaseless war.
The current king also has the background of having succeeded the throne urgently because his predecessor, his father the king, was killed on the battlefield.
For the merit of overcoming the domestic confusion at that time together with the king, Steve's father, Brian Archibalt, was made a Knight Baron.
However, the king who had just ascended the throne had a weak domestic power base, and the land given to Brian, who would become his ally, was only poor land on the western border of the kingdom, near the Kingdom of Forest.
Here, to explain the situation in the west of the Kingdom of Cascade, it borders the powerful nation of the Kingdom of Forest, and minor clashes over territory occurred frequently.
Sometimes they would move a large army on the pretext of those minor clashes, but the Kingdom of Forest also had border issues with other countries, and furthermore, due to domestic political maneuvering, it did not often become a large-scale war.
And large-scale wars had ended with both sides exhausting themselves.
To counter such the Kingdom of Forest, a great noble named Margrave Sowell was stationed in the west. This Margrave Sowell was organizing the western nobles, and the Archibalt family was no exception, belonging to Margrave Sowell's faction.
(Even among nobles, they are not wealthy.)
That was Steve's impression.
There is a decent amount of flat land, but the soil is poor and wheat does not grow well. Because of this, the population of his parents' land was only 300 people. There are two villages to manage. Tax revenue does not rise, and they are barely operating with loans from Margrave Sowell and merchants.
Steve, who is a child but has memories of his past life, is accurately grasping the situation of this land.
And it was exactly like his father's company in his past life. It was what is called operating on borrowed money.
The sight of his father running around to raise money near the monthly payment date looked more like an SME president than a noble.
That overlapped with his father in his past life, and he felt he wanted to help him somehow.
He looked around with the aim of improving the land since childhood, but time passed without finding any particular means to improve it.
Magic exists in this world, but whether one can use magic is judged by Holy Magic by the Fries Holy Church which monopolizes it, and those with magical talent have their talent bloom.
Of course, even in this world, religion values donations. A huge price was required to exercise Holy Magic.
Therefore, there are almost no commoner magicians, and the role of magicians is taken by children of nobles. Exceptionally, commoners who become magicians are orphans in the Royal Capital or the capital of great nobles.
Orphans are protected as part of public safety, and at the same time, their magical talent is confirmed. The reason is that since they have no parents, there is no need to pay preparation money to take them in when they have talent.
Due to such circumstances, royalty and nobles provide funds for orphans, so magicians are sometimes found.
However, even among nobles, it is impossible to make a donation that allows the use of Holy Magic for a weak Knight Baron family like the Archibalt family, so the bosses of each local faction gather the children of nobles in one place when they turn 10 years old, and call a user of Holy Magic from the Fries Holy Church.
And today, January 20, 636 of the Cascade Kingdom Calendar, Steve had come to the Margrave's capital with his father to confirm his magical talent.
"Otousama, the Margrave's capital is lively."
Steve was excited as appropriate for his age, looking at shops and street performers that were not in his own land.
"As expected of the greatest noble in the West. It is a huge difference from our land."
Brian felt uncomfortable being compared to his son's land. Steve noticed this and regretted it, deciding to change the topic.
"Otousama, the Holy Church is in sight."
The Fries Holy Church, which has believers all over the continent and monopolizes Holy Magic, collecting large donations from royalty and nobles, had built a splendid church here at a cost.
Of course, the construction cost was also due to receiving a large donation from the Margrave Sowell family.
Children of western nobles who were 10 years old were gathered at that church.
"Hey, Archibalt-dono."
"Oh, it was this year for Gordon-dono's son too."
The one who spoke to Brian was Bob Gordon, the head of the Gordon family, a Knight Baron family in the same western region. He was a rising noble who was granted a Knight Baron for supporting the current king together with Brian. Because they were in the same situation, he was one of Brian's few close friends in the noble society where one must read the other's back.
The conversation between parents continued, but since it was time for the ritual, the children were separated from their parents and called during the ritual.
Although it is called a ritual room, it is not used only for the ritual to confirm magical talent, but also for priests and others to gather general believers and offer prayers to God.
Although it is called a ritual room, the actual ritual is performed in a small separate room next to it. Since magical talent is extremely important information, the information is given to the king first, and only if there are no problems is it made public.
For example, if it were magic that could freely kill any target, the royal family would absolutely keep it as a trump card in hand, and conversely, nobles who are constantly exposed to the crisis of assassination would try to eliminate magicians somehow.
For that reason, the children gathered in the ritual room are called to the separate room in order from children of higher family status. Since the waiting time is long, the order was consideration for the parents.
Steve, who is a child of a Knight Baron, the lowest rank among nobles, was called last.
When he entered the separate room, three men were sitting side by side at a long table.
One of them, the man on the far right facing them, gave an order to Steve.
"Name."
"Steve Archibalt."
The man who gave the order checked the roster at hand and confirmed that he was the subject of the ritual.
"Sit on that chair and drink that holy water."
The man in the middle handed out a cup called a holy chalice. There was liquid inside.
(It looks like a scene I saw in some movie in my past life.)
Steve remembered the movie he saw in his past life. It was an unknown liquid, but since it was something children before him had drunk, he made up his mind and drank the cup in one gulp.
"It hurts."
Immediately after drinking the cup, pain ran through his whole body. What kind of pain? Perhaps it is better to say it was like applying anti-inflammatory medicine after a bath.
This is a unique pain that appears when there is magical talent, and the men who confirmed that Steve was in pain were excited.
"Oh, I thought there were no talented people this year, but to meet someone with talent at the very last moment."
"Well, what attribute of magic is it? I hope it is useful."
Generally, magicians who manipulate earth, water, fire, and wind are required. In addition, healing magic and support magic are also useful in war and are valued.
Well, here the interest shifted to what kind of magic Steve could use.
The man in the center spoke to Steve, whose pain had subsided.
"What characters do you see in your head?"
"Industry."
"Industry?"
The man was confused by Steve's unexpected answer. Various types of magical talent had been discovered in the past, but roughly speaking, characters of earth, water, fire, and wind were seen, and those who used magic related to those four elements were many.
And there were also things like medicine and agriculture, but industry was the first time. In addition, the word industry was too vague, so it was not known what kind of magic could be used from it.
"Can't you use some magic?"
One of the men said so. Since he had no experience of using magic, he did not know how to answer. In the end, he decided to ask a question.
"I have never used magic, so I don't know how to use it. How can I use it?"
The man answered that.
"You just have to think about it. If you have magical talent, what you think will materialize. However, you cannot materialize endlessly no matter how much you want. People have something called mana. If mana runs out, you cannot use magic."
"Does mana recover?"
"It recovers with time. Generally, it is said that it fully recovers when you sleep. There may be exceptions, and in the first place, there is no way to measure mana. Additionally, since we cannot use magic either, we cannot give accurate advice."
He was explained so.
"I understand."
Steve answered so, but in the corner of his vision,
[Industrial Magic Lv1]
・Steel Creation
・Industrial Machinery Lv1
・Measurement
・Work Standardization
characters were floating.
From the content of the conversation, Steve understood that this seemed to be visible only to him. And he judged that the only one that seemed safe to disclose among them was Measurement.
This was something Steve could do because he was not just a 10-year-old child. Steel Creation and Industrial Machinery Lv1 would be a big problem.
And Work Standardization was meaningless.
No, in his past life, Steve had been asked by trading partners to create a Work Standardization document, and he understood the meaning itself, but what effect it would have as magic was unknown.
Work Standardization is a procedure manual used in company workplaces, not limited to manufacturing. What would happen if it became magic? He could not even imagine.
So, he tried to use the Measurement magic.
He measured the weight of the holy chalice handed to him.
"It seems that distance and weight can be measured, so I measured the weight of this holy chalice. It is 112.6 grams."
Actually, measurement can be done even below milligrams, but there is no particular meaning in reporting such weight. In this country where industry is undeveloped, measurement in units of 0.1 grams is excessive enough.
The men smiled bitterly at Steve's report.
"Good grief, the magician we finally found can only be used as a ruler or scale."
The man on the far left looked at Steve with a pitying gaze.
"Well, this result will be reported to His Majesty the King and Margrave Sowell-sama, but it is not an important magic that will be called out for any reason."
With that said, Steve was released.
Steve, who was released, immediately returned to his father's place and reported that he had magical talent.
"What, you had magical talent?"
Brian was very pleased. A pure feeling of joy that his son had talent, and an expectation that if he sold this talent, the desperate situation of the land might be resolved somehow.
From that expectation, he asked his son about the attribute of magic.
"So, what magic can you use? Fire? Water? Or healing?"
"Otousama, the magic I can use is [Industrial Magic]."
Question marks appeared above Brian's head at his son's words.