Trapped in Another World With No Magic

Chapter 2: A Mechanic in a Fantasy World

It's been about a month since Daniel was released from the castle to try to learn the language as quickly as possible and learn about the populace of the world he's in, since such knowledge can't be magically implanted into him due to his unique nature in this world.

His uniqueness, of course, is more of a curse. He can hold extremely basic conversations with people now, thanks mostly to children being eager to teach a rather dumb adult basic words, even if it's so they can laugh at him. He doesn't care. Children are children, and he's learning the language.

However, what he also learned is that his maintenance and repair knowledge -a practiced skill after over a decade in the field in his old world- granted him skills in troubleshooting that carry over well even to magical equipment in the new world. Magic water heaters are basically a big basin that people fill with well water and wait for magic crystals to heat the water. Like contact level sensors, the crystals can become dirty and seem to be broken, but with a little elbow grease, the function will be restored. Additionally, descaling chemicals are unknown, but Daniel is able to make some basic ones out of some ingredients he's able to find; namely what he's pretty sure is this worlds equivalent to citric acid, though he has no idea of its full chemical structure. Regardless, the acid he's able to extract from fruit and reduce down by boiling rather easily removes scale from the casing of the crystals, which appear to be unscathed by even the longest acid baths. As such, the businesses that can afford to have the magic water heaters have been hiring him to clean their systems as his name spreads for repairing them for much cheaper than replacing the crystals or the units themselves.

There are wind-magic powered devices that circulate air through buildings, which also get dirty and reduce the blowing effect. He's able to set up some extremely basic filters with a couple layers of old fabric, which he cleans with homemade soap. The ingredients for both; scrap fabric and fats and oils, are generally waste products from what he's seen, so a basic request gets him the repulsive materials he needs to make his simple soap and fabric filters.

As such, he doesn't really feel the need to trek back to the castle, since he's been able to establish a footing and still had money left over by the time he became capable of working on equipment. Like his old life, the people using the devices generally have no idea how to explain what's wrong, beyond what the machine or device isn't doing that it's supposed to do, and Daniel has been able to troubleshoot.

Ecstatic, most of the customers have paid him what they want, and it's been surprisingly generous amounts, considering how simple some of the fixes were, which allows him to buy any ingredients that aren't waste for making cleaning chemicals and other useful maintenance substances.

He notices as he's walking through a store that books are somewhat of a commodity in this world, like ancient times of Earth, but the pages are clumsily bound by running a few loops of twine through holes meticulously made in each page. Thus, the pages don't line up very well, they tear out easily, and if the book is dropped or nearly-fumbled, many pages tend to rip out, no matter what efforts are made to prevent it.

Daniel speaks to the store owner about a book on display. It's a semi-expensive grimoire on basic magic spells, from what the title reads, which Daniel can make out about half of.

"Excuse me. That book there. How much is it?"

The store owner, a cat-faced man named Yargaen, has been one of the friendlier faces Daniel has become familiar with. He replies, "Got it listed for two hundred valden. Can't go much lower than that, so please don't ask."

Daniel nods thoughtfully. "If I bought it, could I resell it here?"

Surprised, Yargaen cocks his head. "You think I have it too cheap?"