Chapter 53
Chapter 53
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 53
Chapter Title: Betting (4)
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The deliberation of the Parasite Wood Curse Council was temporarily suspended.
Due to the intervention of a completely unexpected variable, additional investigation was needed.
And for that, the Royal Mage Corps was urgently assembled.
"Impossible. Magic at that age? It defies all common sense."
"See? I was right! That guy's definitely an elf pretending to be human after cutting off his ears!"
"Pyrka. Your boundless imagination never fails to surprise me. However, a proud elf would never stoop to impersonating a human."
"Pfft. It's not impossible. There are perverted elves out there who lust after us dwarves, you know."
"You jerk! Don't drag my family into this!"
Of course, this "urgent assembly" amounted to nothing more than four mages huddling together and groaning over Lian.
Still, it was an undeniable fact that this room held the highest concentration of mages anywhere in the kingdom right now.
"Lian. If it wouldn't be rude, may I ask you a few questions?"
"Of course."
Unlike Pyrka, a man who appeared to be 100% pure elf was the first to pose a question.
His speech definitely carried a sense of dignity that Pyrka lacked.
"What studies do you usually pursue?"
"If I had to pick a specialty, it'd be mathematics."
"Mathematics. Indeed. The most fundamental discipline for understanding the world through logic. And what else?"
"I haven't delved deeply into anything beyond that."
"That's fine. I myself believe that any true scholar must begin with mathematics."
But why was that?
It felt oddly dismissive, as if he'd only dabbled in the basics.
"Luern. I think we need to approach this differently."
A bronze-skinned old mage dressed in traditional garb from the desert kingdom of Aslan interjected into the conversation.
"Fair point. Humans understand humans best, after all. So what's your take, Brim?"
"It could be sorcery rather than magic. Unlike magic, sorcery is closer to an innate power."
"But that's the realm of the stars, not the moon. It lacks the power to produce physical phenomena."
"I agree that sorcery has clear limits, unlike magic."
Come to think of it, Pyrka had muttered something about sorcery when they first met.
In this world, magic and sorcery seemed to be distinctly different things.
"However, if he used sorcery to bewitch everyone present, that changes everything."
"True, that's a possibility."
"So our priority should be verifying whether the feat this young man demonstrated was truly magic."
The elf mage Luern and the desert mage Brim exchanged glances and nodded.
"Then, Lian. Can you replicate the feat you showed in the conference hall?"
"No problem."
Lian flicked his finger toward a candlestick at a suitable distance.
Whoosh—
The candlestick shot toward him like it had been sprung.
"That's unmistakably magic."
"Yes. Clearly magic."
"See? Told you!"
"Yeah. No room for doubt."
Unanimous agreement from all four mages.
This confirmed beyond doubt that Lian wielded magic.
"But it's so rudimentary. Is that the extent of it?"
"Well, this works too."
This time, he blew breath onto his fingertip, rubbed it, and lightly touched the candle's wick.
A simple flame flickered to life.
"Wait. That's..."
"Hm. Different magic this time."
"Ah! That's it! It's in my report too! No wonder! So it wasn't a mana sword after all!"
"Huh? So I'm not the only one who thinks that's absurd?"
But then something occurred that they hadn't anticipated.
No, from their perspective, it must have felt like he'd suddenly declared a double major.
"Magic to move objects and magic to ignite matter. It's not hard to see them as part of the same system, is it?"
A gray-faced dwarf mage with a thick beard posed the question.
Despite his short, burly build, his voice and manner of speaking were boyish.
"Sandri. A true mage doesn't declare something impossible without first exploring how it might be achieved."
"Hmm. Friction between two substances can generate heat, so you could view it as complementary... but it's tricky."
"Pyrka. What do you think? You've been observing him closely, haven't you?"
"Eh? Me? Hmm."
Pyrka circled around Lian aimlessly, scrutinizing him.
"What are you doing? You're distracting."
"Don't talk to me. Distracting."
Staring so intently now wouldn't change anything.
Pyrka's conclusion after spinning in pointless circles was just as circular.
"That guy's got an uncanny knack for seeing through magic. So maybe the magic he uses is just him getting lucky with that knack?"
"Indeed. Which brings us right back to the original question."
The most important thing to verify here was the fact that Lian possessed a talent for discerning magic.
Even mages didn't automatically see through every spell just by looking at it.
"Lian. I'd like to conduct a simple experiment now. Would you cooperate?"
"Can I ask what kind first?"
"It's simple. I'll give you instructions, and you follow them."
"Sure. That much is fine."
He felt a bit like a lab rat for the mages, but it wasn't difficult.
Lian sat in his chair, facing Luern.
"First, simply raise your left arm."
At that instant.
A garbled noise, like static from a broken speaker, overlapped Luern's voice.
"Like this?"
"Hoo."
"Hm. So that's it."
"Oh? As expected...!"
"Huh? For real?"
The onlookers reacted with amazement.
Lian, however, couldn't understand why they were making such a fuss.
He'd simply done as Luern instructed.
"Now, take a seat."
Once again, the garbled sound layered over Luern's voice.
"Uh, I'm already sitting?"
"Just as we thought."
"No doubt left."
"See? I told you magic doesn't work on him!"
"Oh? So what's the principle behind it?"
It seemed Luern had done something.
But Lian had no real grasp of what it was.
"No, why are you all reacting like that?"
"To everyone else, it would have sounded like the opposite of what I said."
"Ah, so that's what it was..."
Luern was a sound-manipulating mage.
The garble in Lian's ears must have been the magical overlay Luern cast.
It was a fairly intriguing experience.
With Pyrka's magic, he'd realized it was a sound-based illusion.
But the illusion itself had been perfectly visible.
Luern's magically produced sound, however, felt filtered directly in Lian's ears.
"Wait. Could this be..."
While the mages chattered among themselves about the source of Lian's ability.
Lian carefully replayed the resonance of Luern's magic in his mind.
Why had he never thought of this approach before?
"Ahem. Something like this?"
Suddenly, silence fell over the room.
Lian's voice had come from a direction where his mouth shouldn't have been.
"Lian. What did you just do?"
Luern wore an enigmatic expression.
An awkward tension rippled through the other three mages as well.
"Ah. Sorry. I did it without thinking..."
"Try it again."
"Is that okay?"
"Of course. Far from it."
Was it simple mage curiosity, wanting confirmation?
Or pride refusing to accept reality?
Judging by Pyrka deliberately avoiding his gaze, it seemed the latter.
"I'm waiting."
Still, with that smiling face persistently urging him on, Lian couldn't very well refuse.
He reluctantly covered his mouth with his hand and focused on the resonance.
"Aa. Mic test."
This time, Lian's voice echoed from the ceiling.
Ventriloquism magic, so to speak.
He'd based it on imitating Luern's spell.
"Indeed. Exactly as Pyrka described."
"Uh. I didn't mean to copy it... sorry."
"Not at all. I'm thrilled it contributes to your talent."
Luern was smiling, but it was anything but genuine.
A mistake.
He'd tried to etch the sensation into memory before it faded, only to blunder right in front of the man himself.
"Hey, you peddler. You did that on purpose because you knew, right?"
Pyrka scurried over and poked Lian's side.
"Knew what?"
"Elves have a tradition of speaking indirectly. It's how they express anger."
"Ah..."
So they'd interpreted what he'd said as something like, "Your magic is ridiculously easy."
The atmosphere had grown as awkward as it could get, and Lian had no idea how to fix it.
There were a few twists and turns, but thanks to it all, Lian gained insight into new possibilities for his talent.
If he thought of the sounds from magic as a kind of frequency.
Then reproducing that frequency could allow him to mimic the magic.
Of course, it wasn't as simple as it sounded.
Luern's magic had synergized particularly well because sound was the medium.
Pyrka's magic, which he'd heard countless times already, still eluded his grasp.
"The natural enemy of mages."
"It wasn't on purpose."
"You! Do you have any idea how many long years of study it takes us to comprehend even a single spell?"
"Yeah. Something like twenty years?"
"You know that and still say it!?"
Pyrka's colleagues made various excuses and slipped away one by one.
A complete reversal from their initial curious clinging.
"As expected of the magic hunter! Stealing even a mage's own magic, are you?"
"Put like that, I have nothing to say..."
"More importantly! What I saw at the north harbor wasn't my imagination after all!"
The bizarre sight of kingdom soldiers tailing Lian and Pablo suddenly falling away on their own.
The doubts Pablo harbored back then were finally resolved.
"So, Pyrka? What's your report on me going to say?"
This was the most pressing issue right now, after all.
Of course, he didn't think revealing a talent like this would bring him any harm.
But it was the perfect situation to drag him into all sorts of annoyances.
"We'll stick to verified facts for the report."
"Such as?"
"That you're the equivalent of a mage's natural predator? Just that alone would elevate you to a key figure in the kingdom overnight."
"Ha. Sounds like a hassle."
The dream of rising in status was best limited to the pleasures without the responsibilities.
Getting stuck in the capital like this would be a disaster.
Perhaps the court mage Rubio of Quelva territory had foreseen even this possibility.
"On the border battlefields, a single mage can cause endless headaches. Whether it's a beast-taming mage or an illusion specialist like me."
"Magic beasts, huh. Bordia's beasts are pretty ferocious. Especially the wolves..."
"If you jumped in at a time like that, the situation would flip in an instant!"
"Aaah. No thanks. I'm a pacifist."
"Spit on your words before lying! You forgot how we first met already!?"
As expected, everything from Pyrka's mouth was headache-inducing talk.
War stories popping up out of nowhere—that was exactly why he'd hesitated to come to the capital.
But put another way, this was an unparalleled opportunity for advancement.
Knock knock knock.
A knock rang out, as if pronouncing judgment on Lian's fate.
"Investigator Pyrka and Lian. The deliberation will resume shortly."
"Got it. We'll be right there!"
Pyrka hurriedly straightened up the report he'd been organizing.
"Hey, let's go."
"At this point, I might as well walk away with a real title."
He hadn't come here for some half-baked reward in the first place, after all.