Each One's Circumstances
Each One's Circumstances
This other world had a problem: it was way too fond of epithets. I was called Mad Dog or Guillotine among adventurers and the Guillotine of Levien among nobles, and that fondness for aliases created a serious fucking problem.
These people were so busy obsessing over the nicknames that they didn't actually know the person's real name.
Nobles shared rumors among nobles. Commoners shared rumors among commoners. Whether a noble heard commoner rumors was a matter of inclination, but it wasn't easy for a commoner to hear noble rumors. Because of that, most people who encountered rumors about me couldn't make the mental leap that the Guillotine of Levien and the Adventurer Guillotine were the same person.
If they knew the name, they might at least get suspicious, like 'Huh? Same guy?' But the idea of an adventurer running roughshod over nobles, or some nameless figure who could run roughshod over nobles working as an adventurer, were both scenarios that felt utterly unreal in their heads, so in a way, it was only natural. They probably distinguished them by thinking, 'The Adventurer Guillotine has a dog with him, but the Levien one doesn't have a dog.'
What more could I expect when they were just using shit like 'Who would win if the two Guillotines fought?' as drinking game fodder?
With no widespread means of communication, as word traveled by mouth, people only remembered the intensely striking epithets earned through deeds rather than complicated names that were a pain in the ass to memorize. It was a world where, like Bwyngseu in Englem, countless people couldn't even get proper information about whose hand Count Envelde had died by in the capital.
So naturally, just possessing reliable information could become money and power. Without it, you ended up crawling on the floor like the guys whose teeth I'd knocked out.
After getting dragged into a completely meaningless random encounter, I swallowed my irritation and started walking again. Guards? If the city guard showed up over a fistfight in the adventurer district, someone had either bribed them or had family among them. Judging by the way those bastards talked, they were probably blue- or red-rank. They'd be too embarrassed to make noise about it and would lie low until they could try some petty bullshit later.
I headed to the dwarf district, bought two decent bottles of strong liquor, and visited Mr. Balkun to thank him for gifting me two goddamn amazing weapons. I told him one bottle was for him to drink himself and the other was for sharing a glass around with his coworkers, and he welcomed me with a grin that nearly reached his ears.
"Heh heh heh, what's all this! Well, since you're here, might as well get your gear maintenance done too while you're at it!"
I'd given it with the feeling of managing connections, figuring I'd be getting long-term help from him going forward, but seeing how his face instantly lit up with laughter, I thought it was a pretty decent choice all around. We chatted briefly, and after a grand send-off, I arrived at Seneran's Magic Library, which was even more packed than the last time I'd visited.
Adventurers normally hit the off-season during winter, holing up long-term like bears prepping for hibernation, so I couldn't quite grasp why it was so busy. I was standing there gawking in confusion when an employee approached me.
"Hello. You've brought a different companion this time instead of the elf?"
"...Ah. You guided us last time."
The person who approached with a somewhat goofy smile was the same genial employee who had shown us around when I'd visited with Asilie.
"I'm Nelbi! I heard from the library director! She said to bring you upstairs when you arrived."
"That's a relief. I'd only told her I'd visit, but hadn't specified when or how, so I was a bit worried."
I took off my coat in the warmth, which was on a completely different level from the weather outside, and greeted her. Nelbi answered with a bright smile, then shifted her gaze to Laika, who was panting and looking around at Nelbi's feet.
"So cute! May I pet him?"
"He won't mind."
Nelbi tilted her head but tried petting Laika. Only after seeing that Laika barely reacted and simply kept looking around did she understand what I'd meant and marvel at it.
"He's so well-behaved? Maybe because he's a smart breed?"
"He's a lot smarter than the average dog."
Nelbi accepted the vague answer and guided me toward the stairs to the second floor. Halfway up, I suddenly looked back down at Laika. Sure enough, there was a tear-jerking sight below me: those short legs were desperately working to climb the stairs somehow.
[M-Master! Stairs are hard for me!]
"Yeah, I figured."
If this had been a fight, Laika would have bounded right over them, but when moving normally Laika was simply a Welsh Corgi. I picked Laika up and followed Nelbi, and to my surprise the stairs continued all the way to the third floor.
"Is this magic too? It was definitely a two-story building from the outside."
"That's right. It's one of the few privileges the Association provides. And not just anyone can get it."
I briefly used Magic Power to check my surroundings, but saw nothing—maybe because it wasn't acting internally. I wondered if I might see something from outside the building later, but by then we'd reached the third floor. There was only a single door, as though the entire floor were one private space with no other rooms.
Nelbi approached the door, knocked three times, and then, without even waiting for an answer, just yanked it open.
"Boss! Your guest is here!"
"What even is the point of knocking... You finally came!"
With her hair roughly tied up, wearing baggy clothes and glasses, Seneran had been fiddling intently with something. Her face lit up and she shot up from her seat and rushed over, but then belatedly stared at Laika in my arms with a puzzled look.
"Isn't that Laika? Did something change?"
"That's actually part of why I brought him. I wanted to get some advice on it."
I dismissed Nelbi with just a gesture, then spent quite a while explaining Laika's transformation process and the behaviors Laika had shown to Seneran. But even after hearing the whole story, the question did not leave Seneran's face.
"Honestly... it's baffling. Expelling the materials that originally made up the body and reconstructing it with Magic Power... Just as you're an unprecedented Magic Power user, Laika is unprecedented too—a Demon Sword, yet no longer quite a Demon Sword. There don't seem to be any comparable cases."
Instead, Seneran began examining Laika closely with an intensely serious expression. From my point of view, merely learning that Laika had started constructing a body from Magic Power was already a huge gain, but Seneran apparently didn't see it that way.
"I roughly understand what it means to construct a body from Magic Power since you've dealt with demons, but you're saying this happened just from replacing meals with Magic Power?"
"That's exactly the problem. Plenty of Demonfolk use Demon Swords too, but there isn't a single precedent like this."
"...You say that with a lot of certainty?"
"I'm originally from the Demonfolk Territory."
Her answer was so utterly nonchalant that I unconsciously checked her head first, but there wasn't even a trace of horns, let alone horns themselves. Seneran let out a hollow laugh at my blatant reaction, ruffled her already messy hair once, and continued her explanation.
"I'm human. I lived there researching for about twenty years before the war broke out."
Holy shit. Twenty years? Even being generous, she looked no older than her late twenties, but apparently Seneran was one of those mages from novels who had slowed her aging. Maybe my surprise showed, because she narrowed her eyes at me, looking slightly displeased.
"Don't ask about my age."
"I've lived with an elf, so I'm a bit desensitized to age."
"Hmph hmph."
Seneran cleared her throat unnecessarily and examined Laika once more, but the result was no different.
"Right now, I truly have no idea. I think I'll need to keep Laika under professional observation for a while."
"Well, I didn't expect we'd figure everything out immediately. Now, I'd like to talk a bit about the person who'll become my teacher."
"Widra? I already sent a letter and spoke with him. Just like you said, he actually replied properly this time."
"Huh? Already?"
Given how deeply resentful Seneran had seemed, I'd thought I would have to stand between them as a mediator, but she was apparently far bolder about taking action than she looked.
"I gave him a general explanation of how I came to know about you and told him I was willing to cooperate for the advancement of magical studies. He said we'd meet and talk."
"I hadn't heard anything about this."
"You, Widra, and I were all busy. I was planning to iron out the details and finalize things sometime this week."
For someone supposedly blinded by research, she was remarkably considerate. Fortunately, she didn't seem to be the mad scientist type.
"For today, I just want to get a simple sample of your Magic Power. No problem, right?"
"Huh? You can get a sample of something like that?"
"It's a tool the Demonfolk use. They're a race with mages and collectives too, you know. Obviously it's a bit cumbersome for me to use, but I've already got that much prepared."
Seneran grinned broadly, pulled out something like an oddly shaped dropper, and sought my consent with an intensely eager gaze. I nodded and obediently activated my Magic Power. Seneran could at least sense Magic Power, and that alone had her practically bouncing with excitement as she brought the dropper toward me.
"Finally!"
That deeply meaningful smile honestly creeped me out just a tiny bit, but it was clearly without malice, so I decided to focus on the tool she was holding. Looking closely, the structure seemed more like a syringe than a dropper. I briefly wondered if she was going to stab me with it, but fortunately, nothing like that happened. She just held it close to me, then squeezed and pulled the handle.
Then, astonishingly, multicolored light began filling the glass body of the tool. It wasn't sucking Magic Power out of my body. It was closer to gathering the Magic Power that was dispersing outward.
"Oh. I can just see this?"
It was fascinating that I could see Magic Power even without using Magic Sight, so I voiced my genuine admiration. Seneran's eyes flew wide open and she shot back a question.
"What? You can see this right now...? Wait, 'I can just see this?' You could see Magic Power?"
Huh, was it not supposed to be visible? The light was visible even though I hadn't specifically used Magic Sight, so I'd assumed Seneran was seeing it too, but apparently not at all. Since we'd decided to cooperate together anyway, it wasn't something to hide, so I nodded casually and told her.
"Yes. It's visible if I focus a little Magic Power into my eyes."
At the words I'd spoken purely with a cooperative attitude, Seneran grimaced as if she'd just faced all the unfairness in the world.