Tondemo Fanfiction - 024 - Maintenance Mage Clarence

The Magic Maintenance Mage

Clarence the Mage was not a particularly famous or talented magic user. He was just decent in his field and, well, not everyone could be a great talent. Otherwise, the whole world would be turned upside down and how disappointed would those geniuses be once they suddenly have peers?

No, he was decent at his job, which meant he was put into City Maintenance early on in his career. He was not unhappy about this unglamorous job, really. It was a job after all, and having magic meant that he was able to command a higher salary than, say, the standard garbage collector or street sweeper. Jobs which most of his fellow brothers and sisters from the orphanages eventually took up once they were of age.

Clarence was lucky. The moment someone spotted his magic, he had been hustled into a school to learn about magic and he worked hard at it. Even at a young age, he realised that this was his best way to get out of dead-end jobs and make it in life. Even if ‘making it’ looked like being a forever loser in some of his peer’s eyes.

He was not alone, though. A few other orphans were also found to have magic and all six of them ended up crammed into one small corner of a classroom filled with nicely dressed merchant’s kids and there was even a noble son there.

Clarence had been excited about being in a magic school. His classmates were really nice too, except for that noble kid who liked to look down on pretty much everyone. The merchant kids were not really enthusiastic about learning magic, most of them took magic as an elective and the majority of their time was spent learning something called ‘bookkeeping’.

Since classes were free, Clarence went with the merchant kids for a couple of classes and found himself even more in awe with them. Numbers were difficult! Who knew there were so many ways to count up stuff?

He went twice more before quitting, putting more of his attention on magic as well as basic math, at the insistence of his merchant friends, and reading comprehension. It was all rather difficult, but nothing at all like bookkeeping or goddess in heaven, accounting!

The noble kid had sneered at them, but since no one paid attention to him, Clarence soon forgot about him.

Later, after graduating with a piece of paper claiming him to be ‘competent’ with spells, Clarence signed himself into City Maintenance.

What was that?

Adventurer?

Are you crazy? Why would he go into Adventuring?

Okay, okay, fine, he did think of going into Adventuring. After all, that was the number one most popular job even among kids in the orphanage. However, one of his best friends, a merchant girl, talked him out of it in the most merchant way possible. She had crunched the numbers and woah, do you know what the death rate is for D and C rank parties? Most don’t even reach their 30s. As for F rankers, sure they don’t die as much but the money they earn barely covers their gear. In fact, F rank jobs are basically just random odd jobs that even normal people could do, which means that there are way more people than jobs available.

So, why saturate that market?

Instead, let’s get hired into the unglamorous but ultimately necessary City Maintenance job!

Huzzah.

Clarence’s magical elements are Earth and Electricity, which meant he was ultimately placed under Road Maintenance and was in charge of filling up potholes and smoothing out cracked paving stones. To be honest, there was really not much to do within the inner cities, since only carriages and light-footed people walked around there, but outside the noble housing area? Well, Adventurers would sometimes get into fights and who was called to fix the walls and broken floors?

Yup, it’s yours truly.

Not that he minded, actually. In fact, the people loved Clarence. The innkeepers were always happy to hand him a free pint of beer and he always got discounts from the shopkeepers. Yup, it always pays to do your job properly.

Although… there were a few times when he got called to do ‘security’.

Honestly, he had no idea what the higher-ups were thinking whenever they did shit like that. Like, the only vaguely combat adjacent he ever did was reinforce walls and floors. As for his Lightning magic? For your information, the most he had ever done with that side of magic was to zap an odd lightning or two at a pile of twigs to start a fire. Not to mention, these orders never came with proper instructions, so how was he supposed to ‘guard’ something?

Talk about inefficiency!

His merchant friend was outraged when he told her about it. It was only much later that Clarence discovered that these so-called ‘guard’ missions were just some glorified welcoming gig meant to impress some important people. After spending some time soothing his outraged friend, Clarence convinced her that getting paid extra to just stand around and look vaguely competent was actually a good thing.

Hey, getting paid extra to stand around and do nothing? Sign him up, please!

The last time he was ‘called to arms’ was a few months ago.

As usual, the maintenance people weren’t given the details of what they were supposed to be arming themselves against, but at least they were told where to stand. Clarence ended up standing behind a line of guards who were nice enough to let him have a peek at these so-called important people.

And…

Woah.

Was that a dragon?!

A-and, a wolf of some sort? Anyway, they passed by us very quickly and it was all over within a couple of minutes.

That day, Clarence went home in a daze. He would have dismissed the matter out of his mind if not for what happened the next day. At the market of all places. Hey, eating out is expensive, alright? Cooking is the way to go!

“Master! I want some of that meat!”

“Master! I want that hot stew!”

“Hey, quiet down,” a black-haired man with fairly flat features grumbled at a pair of large creatures. “I need to do some shopping first, so zip it.”

The dark-haired man, Mukouda-sama, stomped towards one of the fruit stalls and tried to purchase some fruits but Ms. Maria the Fruit Seller was struck dumb by the sight of the large animals beside the man.

Hey, he didn’t blame her. These were Very Important People. So important that Maintenance was dispatched to be part of the welcoming troupe. Technically, he had no obligation to do anything, but Maria had always been nice to him and let him have the odd apple or two when he was much newer to the job and could not afford proper food.

Before he could properly think about it, he hurried over to smile at the man.

“H-hello, Mukouda-sama. My name is Clarence. Perhaps I may be of help?” Clarence gave the man his best smile. His merchant friend’s advice ringing in his head.

Smile and treat the customer like kings. Kings may be dumb with the emotional prowess of a rock, but you must make them feel like grand geniuses.

Thus, Clarence smiled and tried his best to appease this obviously powerful and well-connected person. Please don’t be a jerk, please don’t be a jerk. Please, please, just be some random weird– no, no, please just be some nice, eccentric person.

Please.

“Hello, my name is Clarence. I was part of the welcoming entourage from yesterday. How may we assist you?”

Smile, smile, smile.

“Um, I want to know about these fruits…”

“Ah, the Verdant Stars? These are quite the delicacy. Mukouda-sama clearly has a good eye. It’s rare to get them at this time of the year and Ms. Maria stocks nothing but the best.”

“Could these be eaten raw or…”

“Oh yes, they could be eaten raw or cut up into a fruit salad. May I suggest pairing the Verdant Stars with these wonderful Pearl Berries? If you cut the Verdant Stars like so, it would look like a salad made of stars and moons,” Clarence knew he was starting to babble. However, he really could not help himself. “Personally, I like to simmer the Verdant Stars with a bit of sugar, ah. It’s an indulgent of mine, but I do like sugared fruits.”

“Oh? So it could be eaten that way?” Mukouda-sama looked quite intrigued. “I’ll have, uh, is it alright for me to buy all of your stock of Verdant Stars, Ms. Maria? And I want these…”

“Pearl Berries,” Clarence supplied when Ms. Maria did not say anything. “Of course, you may.”

“Yes, the Pearl Berries too. A fruit salad, you say?”

“Indeed, it’s most wonderful when eaten on its own. Alas, they spoil easily, so I ended up pickling them in salt. Another indulgence of mine…”

Somehow, Clarence found himself exploring the whole market together with VIP Mukouda-sama talking to the stall owners and making recommendations. At the end of the day, Mukouda-sama invited Clarence to dinner and honestly? He would rather go home, but since it would be rude to decline the invitation he said yes.

Boy was he glad he did!

It was the first time he ever had meat boiled in oil before. Mukouda-sama had called the method ‘frying’, how luxurious! He had heard about ‘Fried Potatoes’ but did not realise that meat could be fried too. It certainly gave the food an intriguingly crispy texture on the outside.

Clarence spent the next couple of days showing Mukouda-sama around, introducing him to various eating spots and orphanages. He found that for a Very Important Person, Mukouda-sama was both generous and discreet, properly handing the donations to the people in charge before leaving quickly. What a wonderful person. At the end of his visit, Clarence gave Mukouda-sama a modest gift of a jar of Verdant Star Jam and a jar of Pickled Pearl Berries. In return, Mukouda-sama gifted him with a basket filled with something he called a ‘cake’ as well as three bags of sugar.

Three!

How precious!

Well, well, if this is what most VIPs are like, he would not mind entertaining more of them!

[Gumihou: The world would be better with more of this kind of people, sigh]

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