Chapter 24: Disguise
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 24: Disguise
An uninhabited island. After hunting nonstop on this island teeming with monsters, crushing their skulls, I slowly began to get a feel for what my magic was.
‘Magic nullification… and a selective one at that.’
Any magic that touched my hand would vanish. However, it wasn't unconditional. Only magic that I truly believed I could erase would disappear.
‘That's probably why Teacher's magic worked on me…’
The reason I was caught off guard and sent floating in the sky when Evangeline first showed me her magic was simple. I never imagined she could affect gravity.
Even now that I had some awareness of magic, if you asked me to block that spell, I'd have no choice but to shake my head. Messing with gravity? How in the world is something like that even possible?
When I told my teacher my theory about my magic, she answered with a low groan.
“This……. no matter how I look at it, it resembles that.”
“That?”
“There's something like that. Hmm… Right, should we head back for now?”
As if recalling something she didn't want to speak of, my teacher changed the subject and ordered Margaret to open a gate back to the cabin.
Taking the hint, Margaret used her magic to send us home. Returning with an armful of monster corpses, I tossed them haphazardly into the storage shed and brushed the sand and dust off my clothes.
“Oh, right. Yohan?”
“Yes, Teacher.”
“Since you're the one who caught these monsters, you can do whatever you want with them.”
“……Does that mean.”
“Yep. Just like last time, go to the city with Margaret.”
Hearing this, I paused for a moment before breaking into a natural smile and cheering loudly.
“Really!? Yes! Then tomorrow, I'll….”
“Yes, I'll give you special permission. You can go first thing tomorrow.”
“Then I'd better get tomorrow's chores done in advance! Teacher, if you'll excuse me!”
I turned away with a grin, but the moment my back was to her, my smile vanished and I sighed inwardly.
‘Teacher, even a kindergartener wouldn't fall for that.’
The technique of smoothly changing the subject when there's an uncomfortable topic. It was a bit too advanced for someone as lacking in social skills as her.
Thanks to that, I realized there was something she wanted to hide from me. And that it had something to do with my magic.
‘What on earth could it be?’
But I couldn't find out here. Prying a secret from two witches determined to keep it from me was no easy task.
Fortunately, I had a chance to tackle them one by one. After all, tomorrow I was heading to a city teeming with people.
Swallowing my curiosity, I started to take care of the things that needed to be done in advance.
Livestock to the country, people to the capital.
People praised the greatness of the royal capital so much that such a saying existed. And indeed, upon arriving, I could see it was true.
‘Isn't this practically the early modern era?’
As befitting a fantasy world with magic and monsters, the capital was a more developed city than some of the weaker nations on Earth. It was strange, though, considering only witches could use magic.
It meant one of two things was happening in the capital: either they didn't discriminate against witches, or they were working them like slaves.
“What do you think?”
“……It's amazing. I didn't expect it to be this grand.”
“Right? Even to me, a witch, it's incredible. It wasn't nearly this amazing back when I was born.”
Margaret said, reminiscing about the time of her birth. As a witch who had lived for hundreds of years, her feelings on the matter must have been profound.
As we stood on the street, carriages passed by one after another. Looking closely, I saw they weren't being pulled by horses. They were bipedal monsters.
I was startled by the fact that they had even domesticated monsters, but it didn't take long for me to nod in acceptance. Just as wolves became dogs, it was plausible that some monsters had evolved to survive by submitting to humans.
‘……Monsters are just too useful.’
Spices in this world weren't that expensive. The village chiefs in the countryside used them sparingly as if sprinkling gold dust, but that was only because their villages were so poor.
In reality, that wasn't the case at all. There was a monster whose secretions could be turned into a spice that removed the gamey smell of meat. Humans were raising these monsters to produce it.
Just how common was that spice? Why, the monster even grew in the forest near our cabin.
“……Margaret, do you know where the exchange counter is for these?”
“Of course, I do. Follow me.”
“Thank you.”
Having decided to sell the monster corpses we brought, I followed Margaret into a building. Inside, burly men wearing gear made from various materials were haggling with a clerk.
“Come on, just a little more!”
“The price is fixed….”
“This one! It's obviously at least one and a half times bigger…!”
A man negotiating the price of the monster byproducts he'd hunted.
“The next request is a Kal-Bijak hunt.”
“That again? I think we can take on stronger stuff now.”
“We're not overdoing it. Taking on challenges is just reckless.”
Adventurers deciding on their next prey and planning the hunt.
“Welcome! To the Adventurer's Guild!”
And finally, a clerk who greeted me with a bright smile.
I walked up to the clerk and asked for the exchange counter.
The clerk smiled and pointed to the side.
“Please get in line over there.”
Following his gesture, I saw a line of at least several dozen people waiting in front of a counter.
I let out a heavy sigh and walked to the back of the line. A smartphone would be great at times like this. Or they could at least have a number system.
As I stood in line grumbling, the gazes of the surrounding adventurers stabbed into me. They probably thought I was a client because of my pretty face, so seeing me in the adventurer-only line must have caught their attention.
‘Are there only muscleheads here?’
Looking at the builds of the adventurers surrounding me, I wrinkled my nose at the phantom smell of sweat.
Then again, for ordinary people without magic power, physical strength is the only answer. To survive in the dangerous world of adventuring, they'd have no choice but to build muscle.
“Disciple, it's too dizzying in here for me…… I'll be over there, so don't cause any trouble.”
“……I don't want to be here either.”
“Hey, at least you're visible. I feel like these people have been sneakily touching my butt since they can't see me.”
How can they touch you if they can't see you? Before I could even say it, Margaret hid herself in a distant corner where people weren't walking around.
A spot slightly away from me, but not out of my sight. I let out a small sigh and waited for my turn.
And then, not long after—.
“Oops, excuse me.”
An adventurer casually cut in front of me. I guess I would have done the same if some scrawny twig was standing between a bunch of muscleheads with arms as thick as thighs.
Wasn't this a savage fantasy world where things like manners and morals struggled to exist? Here, might was right, and strength was truth.
“I really hate this kind of thing.”
“What? What are you— Gyaaaargh!”
“It makes me feel like one of those cliché protagonists who hides their power.”
I grabbed the face of the adventurer who cut in front of me, squeezing it. The Iron Claw, a wrestling move. Physically, it's not a very powerful technique, but…….
“Gyaaaaaaaaaargh—! My face, my face—!”
My magically enhanced physical abilities granted this absurd technique excessive lethality. The adventurer tried to pry my hand off with both of his, but he wasn't a gorilla. There was no way he could break the grip of an arm that could momentarily match a monster in strength.
In the end, I tossed the guy—who had passed out with tears and snot streaming down his face—far away and got back in line.
Fortunately, after that one show of force, no one else tried to cut in.
‘Such uncivilized bastards.’
None of this would have happened if they'd just waited in line quietly from the start. Grumbling, I finally reached the exchange counter.
The clerk must have seen my bizarre act just now, as he greeted me with slightly trembling pupils.
“W-Welcome. If you'll place the items you wish to exchange here…….”
“Here.”
“Y-Yeees. Please wait a moment…….”
The clerk took the items and went inside, only to emerge a long while later carrying a large pouch.
He glanced at the surrounding adventurers, then carefully held out the pouch and whispered.
“Here you are…… You may check it, but I wouldn't recommend doing it here…….”
“……What? Shouldn't I obviously check it right here? What if you try to change your story later?”
“B-But…….”
Ignoring the clerk's advice, I immediately rummaged through the pouch right then and there, confirming it was filled with gold coins. Then I took the pouch and promptly left the building.
As I left, Margaret followed behind me.
“Why did you do that?”
“Do what?”
“You did it on purpose. Opening the pouch back there.”
“……It wasn't on purpose.”
“What? So you really did that without knowing anything?”
Margaret frowned slightly as she looked at me. I mean, come on—of course I have to check if the amount is correct after an exchange…….
A moment later, however, I realized why she was looking at me like that.
Poke.
“Don't open your mouth.”
I felt the touch of something sharp against my back. A hard, cool sensation. It was a knife. Tensing up, I glanced behind me and saw a few of the adventurers from the guild standing there.
‘Right, so they're basically mercenaries, huh?’
Normally, they take on requests and work hard, but once they're somewhere without prying eyes, they turn into bandits—a bunch of human trash from a modern perspective.
But in this world, they were just ordinary adventurers, something that could almost be considered normal. They led me into a deserted alley.
“The money, hand it over.”
“No.”
“What? Are you crazy…….”
The adventurer thrust his dagger at me. But I wasn't scared. Not because I had awakened my magic and could easily handle a mere blade, but because Margaret was here.
With her here—a woman who could escape at any moment and slice a giant tentacle monster in two with a single spatial magic spell—why would I be afraid of some common adventurers?
“Hmm, would it be okay if I beat you all here, exaggerated the story to say I defeated a band of thieves, and used it to boast to my teacher and satisfy my petty pride?”
“What? What the hell is he talking about? This bastard, really—!”
Just as one of the adventurers, unable to contain his anger, was about to charge, a girl leaped down from a rooftop. Landing in front of him, she immediately kicked the dagger from his hand, then kicked him in the stomach, sending him flying.
It was an unbelievable display of strength from such a petite frame. The other adventurers, who were about to attack after seeing their comrade taken down, froze stiff when they saw the newcomer's attire.
“H-Hey…… Run!”
As the adventurers fled into the distance, the girl didn't chase them, instead turning to look at me. Her glittering golden twin-tails swirled around.
As her hair fluttered, the rosary hanging from her neck also flew through the air, showing itself off.
It was a Holy Knight uniform, the kind I'd seen in another city.
‘Why is a Holy Knight here?’
The natural enemy of witches, the witch hunters. As I stood frozen at the fact that I'd run into a Holy Knight, Margaret, who was hidden beside me, spoke cautiously.
“……Disciple, don't say a word, just listen. This one, she's not a Holy Knight.”
Before I could even form the question 'Then what?', Margaret whispered, her lips trembling.
“She's a witch.”
The third witch had revealed herself.