Chapter 14
Chapter 14
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Translator: Ebonarch
Chapter: 14
Chapter Title: Talent
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1.
Siwoo's post-nut clarity lasted an incredibly long time.
Even two days after that deviation in Tarot Town, he was still clutching his head.
"Goddamn it, why the hell did I do that?"
Of course, Odile and Odette were the ones at fault first.
Siwoo had done nothing wrong beyond syncing his breathing with the two apprentice witches.
He wasn't some moral puritan, and feeling guilty about deceiving the twins to chase pleasure? That would be a blatant lie.
Saying it hadn't felt good would be another lie.
But what Siwoo was actually worried about was something else entirely.
From the midway point, Siwoo had actively deceived the twins and egged on their actions.
The problem was, in hindsight, this carried massive risk.
If that indiscretion ever came to light down the line, claiming "I was just tied up and taking it!" was worlds apart from admitting "I got craving a spicy blowjob midway and told them to suck my dick."
The former might barely let him scrape by alive, but the latter was a guaranteed death sentence.
No witch would spare an insolent assistant toying with her apprentice witches—ones as good as daughters to her.
"Still... it felt damn good."
He blankly recalled the events of that day.
The dizzying release onto the twins' soft tongues and their hot oral mucosa.
The sensation still flared back to life like a phantom limb now and then.
Siwoo smacked his twitching cock and grabbed the broom to finish cleaning the dorm.
No classes today, no petty errands (disguised as harassment) from Amelia either, so he wrapped up as the sun set.
Out of nearly five years of ingrained diligence, he was midway through scrubbing the stable.
"What felt so good?"
"Gah!"
"Such a drama queen."
Siwoo jolted at the sudden giggling voice.
"Hi? Been well?"
"Hello."
The unexpected guests were Odile and Odette.
They hadn't shown up for classes since that day—just two days apart.
Watching Amelia and the twins had taught him one thing: truly radiant people could reshape the very atmosphere around them.
The rundown stable almost tricked him into thinking it was a ballroom.
Perfectly identical faces, matching buns with the same hair accessories, same decorations, same dresses.
The mischievous smiles on their graceful figures were so eerily alike it created a strange sense of discord.
Today, too, they seemed to have poured every effort into confusing Amelia.
Whether it worked, who knew.
"W-What brings you here?"
Siwoo angled the broom defensively.
His guilty conscience left him at a loss for how to handle them.
"More importantly, how can you just barge into the servants' dorm like this? Someone might get the wrong idea!"
The twins had never contacted Siwoo privately before. A sudden dorm visit was bound to raise eyebrows.
That was why Siwoo panicked.
"Wrong idea? Did we do something naughty?"
"You live in a dump like this...? Oh, sorry..."
Unlike the relatively unfazed Odile, Odette seemed hit by culture shock at the animal-pen-like lodgings.
She looked flustered.
Reactions be damned—Siwoo just wanted the sisters gone.
They might have more flexibility than Amelia, but their utter disregard for others' circumstances made them witches through and through.
"Rude much? We came bearing a gift, you know."
"A gift?"
Odette elegantly offered Siwoo a luxurious wooden box, ignoring his wary glare.
It was fancy enough for commoners to use as a jewelry case, but too plain for someone like Odile.
"What's this?"
"The compensation the shop owner sent your way before."
"Ah."
Right, there had been that incident.
Siwoo opened the box.
A leather pouch bulging with silver coins, a bundle of what looked like pricey mana paper, and a small vial sloshing with liquid.
Tucked in was a note as well.
[Dear Siwoo, I'm truly sorry about the other day. I let petty gains make me forget a merchant's core virtue: trust. I'm too ashamed to show my face. If you're willing, come back to the shop? I'd love to treat my lifesaver to a meal at least.]
Not overly wordy, but the sincerity shone through.
He hadn't noticed amid the chaos before, but the owner had realized it too in retrospect.
Siwoo had staked his life against a witch to save a conman on the brink of death.
"Looks like he had a shred of shame after all. There was a letter for you too; I set it aside separately."
Becoming the protagonist of some fairy-tale anecdote felt oddly gratifying.
"This is mana essence."
"More precisely, it's from the Emerald Tablet Society's communal workshop. Extremely hard to come by."
Odette's detailed explanation.
Siwoo lifted the vial, carefully packed between the mana paper sheets to avoid breakage.
The paper label bore an intact wax seal proving it unopened and authentic.
Its contents gleamed a pure, bright blue.
Mana essence of purity high enough for witches' research.
Siwoo fought down his rising grin and asked,
"Can I really have it all?"
Odile waved it off like it was nothing.
"Whatever. Junk to me anyway. Why not use the cash to patch up this eyesore of a place?"
"Thank you so much."
Siwoo bowed deeply.
This was a massive windfall.
Not only mana paper he desperately needed to restock, but mana essence from the prestigious Emerald Tablet Society no less.
He had been stumped on gathering mana essence after finishing the magic circle.
The mana concentrated in this much essence would more than suffice to activate the ritual he was crafting.
"I'd love to offer something in return, but... as you can see, it's a stable here. I'll put the gifts to good use. Let me walk you out."
"Hold on."
Siwoo's smile froze solid as he tried ushering Odile and Odette out now that he'd reaped his rewards.
No way they planned to give him another round of that so-called "sex ed" right here.
He'd refuse flat-out and boot them if needed.
"That door-opening spell you were working on. Mind showing us?"
"No need, really."
What was this out of nowhere?
Odile was an earl's apprentice witch by name; her theory review would be a huge help.
But the sudden kindness felt off-putting.
Especially coming from Odile, whose motives were anyone's guess...
"You cooperated with us pretty eagerly too, didn't you? We'll help with your escape. Already cleared it with Odette."
"What do I have to do?"
Siwoo asked the terms without hesitation.
Odile grinned boldly, pleased he wasn't wasting time.
"Just as you suspected. Weekends, come to our hideout in Tarot Town."
Of course.
No such thing as a free favor.
But it wasn't a total loss either.
If Odile set her mind to it, Siwoo had no real power to refuse anyway.
This was the best compromise he could hope for.
"Got it."
He lifted the straw covering a hidden chest below.
Two hundred twenty-eight A4-sized sheets formed his magic theory tome.
Every inch crammed with calculations for building the magic circle, its blueprint, and projected values from thought experiments—no gaps whatsoever.
"Here you go."
Odile took the paper, packed front and back like a crammed exam booklet, and blanked out for a moment.
2.
Designing a magic circle past a certain complexity was no different from composing a symphony.
Just as a grand symphony wove melodies from strings, percussion, woodwinds, brass, keyboards, and more into one harmonious whole,
magic intertwined formulas, characters, and mana into beautiful accord.
No genius musician could compose a symphony with eyes closed.
Impossible.
Even a witch with a brilliant mind couldn't craft a magic circle of that scale purely through mental math.
They detailed the circle's form through calculations, memorized it, then activated it from memory.
In that sense, casting magic resembled conducting.
Just as a conductor couldn't succeed by merely memorizing the score—requiring masterful conducting and on-the-fly corrections—so too did witches need the same for flawless spells.
In any case, the fruit of Siwoo's three years of diligent scribbling was the draft for his door-opening magic circle.
Once all calculations, split tests, and designs wrapped up, he planned to link mana papers into one massive ritual formula.
Odile and Odette sat side by side, solemnly flipping through Siwoo's magic circle draft with grave expressions.
About three minutes passed?
Odile's hand halted as she flipped pages at a speed that made it questionable if she was actually reading.
"Impossible..."
Odile and Odette exclaimed in unison.
Siwoo, who'd been fretting that his solo-crafted circle might turn out crude after all, ducked his head to peer at the page they stared at.
It was the section just after the outline, where he'd calculated distributing mana essence into precise mana quantities for activation without a stigma.
"Is there a problem?"
Odette answered in place of Odile, who had her lips pressed tight and brows furrowed.
"Did you really write this yourself, Assistant Siwoo?"
"Yes."
"No help or revisions from anyone?"
"No."
"No one ever taught you magic, and you did this alone?"
"That's right."
After the back-and-forth, Odette let out a short sigh.
While Siwoo remained clueless, the twins sank back into deep thought.
"Is it really that messed up?"
Anxiety gnawed at Siwoo.
The 'door'-opening magic circle he'd ultimately devised was a variable formula of six syntheses, n transformations (flexibly adapting to variables), and one deployment.
It employed 540 mana elements from 34 rune types, connected via roughly 258 'branches' between circle segments for high stability and resilient adaptation to variables.
Impossible to test such a massive circle repeatedly, so he'd split it into 88 parts on mana paper, verifying errors through segmented activations.
It had worked fine back then.
Did combining them into one reveal a fatal flaw?
His heart pounded at the dread of hearing three years' efforts were all for naught at the root.
"I can't wrap my head around it. How did you arrive at this formula? It feels like you skipped at least three calculation steps..."
"If it's not rude... could you tell me what's wrong first?"
Odile looked up at Siwoo with utter disbelief in her eyes.
"What's wrong?"
Siwoo swallowed hard.
"A male assistant on track to complete self-generating magic without a stigma?"
"Pardon?"
Self-generating magic out of nowhere?
"It's original and innovative. Sidesteps all existing frameworks. Want the honest truth? I barely get half of it. Odette's the same."
"Speak for yourself. I grasped about 55%."
Odette's indignant quip fell on deaf ears.
"Structurally, it's flawless. Rune placements are impeccable. Right, you asked the problem? Biggest issue is there's no way to verify or prove these calculations. Because it's your very first, one-of-a-kind self-generating magic."
Odile shook her head as if in utter confusion, eyes saying she couldn't believe what she saw, then stated firmly.
"You're a genius, Assistant. Absurdly so."
"Not more than us, though."
Odette added.