The White Mage (9)
The scream that tore from McRoyver’s throat was inhuman.
White pubic hair, even paler than the racist’s own sickly skin, fluttered through the sky above the Mage Guild like cherry blossoms in a storm.
I watched the drifting strands with cold, indifferent eyes. Between the falling white hairs, thin streaks of blood traced the final death throes of ruined follicles.
“Gaaaaaaaah!!!! M-M-My hair!!! My haaaaaaaaaair!!!!”
McRoyver collapsed to his knees, clutching his scalp. The flood of tears pouring from his eyes wasn’t caused by pain alone. Even as I watched the pathetic display, neither sympathy nor satisfaction rose in my chest. It was simply disgusting—like watching a passing insect writhe after losing its legs.
With frozen eyes, I strode toward him. My boots mercilessly trampled the garden soil.
—Step.
McRoyver flinched at the sound and lifted his trembling head. The world’s most pathetic piece of shit and I met eyes through my mask. True to form, the idiot immediately lit up with rage and started spewing nonsense.
“You filthy savage bastard!!!!! Do you even know who I am?!”
Kiiiiing!
McRoyver activated a spell in fury. A translucent spherical shield enveloped his body.
“I’ll kill you!! If it weren’t for that surprise attack, there’s no way a barbarian warrior like you could ever lay a hand on the great McRoyver—!!”
“What a pathetic excuse. You’re so busy begging others with what few brain cells you have left that you can’t even come up with a refined lie?”
I snorted and closed the distance. A 7-star alchemist. On paper, he looked formidable. But McRoyver was, after all, an alchemist first. Magic was merely a secondary skill. Could a bodybuilder beat a professional boxer? It wasn’t impossible—the bodybuilder would have far superior raw strength. Yet I knew the enormous gap that existed between someone accustomed to fighting and someone who wasn’t.
McRoyver was no warrior. Even as a mage, it was obvious he had never dirtied his hands in real combat. His posture was disgustingly clumsy, and his reflexes were absolute garbage! Even though mages handled mana and thus possessed some baseline physical ability, he couldn’t react at all to my sudden hair-removal attack. A skilled mage would have instantly cast a spell the moment I grabbed his follicles. The fact that he couldn’t meant McRoyver was nothing more than a fool who had never learned how to fight!
Even if he was a 7-star alchemist—he was still just a chicken in a narrow coop, strutting around thinking he was special, waiting to be slaughtered!!
“Vector—Straight Punch!!”
BOOM!!
My full-powered punch shook the shield. The jarring impact that shot through my wrist made me scream.
“Gaaaah!!”
Fuck!!! It hurt like hell!!!!
Come to think of it, once the shield was up, combat techniques lost most of their meaning! If I couldn’t break through it, then his garbage reflexes weren’t even a weakness anymore!!
“O mana of the flames flowing in the south—”
And the bastard was already chanting again!! I instinctively knew I was screwed!! The crazy fucker had lost his mind after taking one cheap shot and was about to blast me with magic!!
“I told you to shut your mouth!!! Consecutive Serious Punches!!!”
KWAGWAGWAGWAGWANG!!!
Without a trace of humor left, I unleashed a barrage of punches with every ounce of my strength. The Beast Regression skill, which had somehow reached an absurd level of proficiency without me even trying, absorbed my mana like a sponge and amplified the output.
Shwaaaaaaaaak!!
Dududududu!!
—Crack!
“Huk, kuhuk?!”
McRoyver, who had been chanting, saw the cracks forming in his shield and stopped in shock. Just as I thought—total idiot! If he could see the situation turning to shit, he should have chanted faster, not stopped like a moron! He was like a hit-and-run victim who freezes in place three seconds before the car hits them! His body, unable to process the situation, refused to make rational decisions!!
And the difference between McRoyver and a real hit-and-run victim was that this racist bastard was the perpetrator!!
—CRASH!!
The immutable law that justice always triumphs lent strength to my fists. The shoddy shield he had thrown up in panic shattered spectacularly under my barrage.
Pop pop pop!!
Faster than the shield could fully disintegrate, I closed in and grabbed McRoyver, who had been hiding behind it.
Grab!!
“Uwaaaaaaaaaah!!!”
Only after I yanked did I realize what I had seized—his bangs. The last few pathetic white hairs clinging to his now-bloody, barren scalp!!
“L-Let go!! Let go of that!! You primitive master’s-degree bastard!!”
“M-Master’s degree?! This motherfucker can’t even read the room and still dares to provoke me!!!”
Calling a master’s degree holder a “master’s degree bastard” was just as likely to trigger them as calling a bald man “bald”! Almost no one with a master’s degree felt any real pride in it!! With PhDs and professors crawling all over the university, who the hell would brag about having a master’s?! This bastard would probably get pissed too if someone younger called him a mere 7-star alchemist instead of something grander!!
“Bastards like you need to experience baldness firsthand!!!!”
And yet he had the nerve to call me a master’s-degree bastard without even considering how it felt from my side!!! I lost my mind with rage!!
Scum like this needed to become bald, to feel crippling insecurity at every silent glance from others, before they would learn to watch their damn mouths!!!
Power surged into the hand gripping his hair!! It was time to unleash the Earth Hero’s ultimate technique once again!!!!
“NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!! GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
Bubububuk!!!!
Whoosh whoosh whoosh!
A highway was carved straight across McRoyver’s skull. It was my highway, one that would tear down his brick-like wall of white supremacist racism. I shook my hand clean, hoping this incident would allow him to embrace a new wave of change, much like South Korea after its highway development boom. After all, I couldn’t dirty the gloves Franc had made for me.
—Drip drip drip.
Blood continued to leak from McRoyver’s head where the hair had been violently ripped from his bangs all the way to his crown. When blood flowed into one eye, he squeezed it shut and became a one-eyed wretch.
—Step.
I advanced toward McRoyver as he rolled across the dirt. At the cold sound of my boots, the already pathetic alchemist began convulsing even harder.
“Hik, huk, huuuurk!! W-Wait! No, please wait!! Mr. Wayne!!”
His face, smeared with blood and dirt, now looked like a zombie. One could say his personality and appearance had finally matched.
“I’m so sorry for everything! I must have been blinded by anger!! I apologize like this!! Please, forgive me!!”
“Cut the double-apology bullshit.”
If you apologize twice, I’ll pour liquor on your grave, you son of a bitch. What the hell are you going to do if you’re sorry? We had already crossed a river with no return. We had given Charon the ferry fare and boarded the boat across the three-way river with the genius lawyer. Just as the dead and lost hair never return, after this catastrophe there was no path left but to charge forward.
—Step step.
“G-Gaaaaaah!!!! Don’t come near me! Stay away from me!!”
McRoyver gave up on chanting entirely and clung to the wall, trembling. He knew that the moment he started casting, I would charge in and beat him senseless. Right now, chanting in front of me was more foolish than pulling out beef jerky in front of a cheetah in a crouching start. But no matter what McRoyver did… I would never stop.
—Stop.
I halted right in front of McRoyver’s nose. Clenching my fist, I spoke.
“──Every time you look at your bald spot, remember me.”
“KYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!!!!”
The racist hair-plucker clutched his head and let out a banshee-like shriek!! Using that scream as background music, I fiercely stamped my foot!!
It was a legendary barrage that infused every strike with the sorrow of a graduate student atop the Earth Hero’s strength! A secret art capable of up to 108 consecutive hits, a killing technique that wasn’t truly over until it was completely finished! Above all, this technique grew even stronger when used against professors or similarly vile lifeforms!! This was my heavenly punishment upon the trash who exploited innocent students, used them, and even sexually harassed them!!!
POWPOWPOWPOWPOWPOW!!
DUDUDUDUDUDU!!
McRoyver’s body, reinforced by mana, was tough. Thanks to that, I poured the power of Beast Regression into my fists and hammered every inch of him without mercy!!
“Villain!!!!!! Do you know this saying!!!!!!!!”
“Ugyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
I continued pummeling McRoyver’s entire body as I roared!!
“Please retire early!!!!!!!!! Mandatory retirement recommendation!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
KWAGWAGWAAAAAAAAANG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The finishing uppercut erupted with green mana and smashed into McRoyver’s jaw!!!
—Thud.
The old man who had received a perfect retirement recommendation was struck by a fist like an ascending dragon. Blood sprayed from his nose as he collapsed on the spot. I had tried to control my strength by scraping together what little reason I had left, but the blow to the chin was too strong—he had passed out.
Shiiiiiii—.
Green mana from Beast Regression rose like gun smoke from my tightly clenched fists.
—Victory.
The feeling of triumph seemed to rest in the palms of my hands. The fact that this technique had ended meant the enemy had been beaten so thoroughly that recovery was impossible. I exhaled slowly and lowered my fists to my waist like in Taekwondo. Then I muttered.
“……Fuck. Did I go a bit too far?”
Looking at McRoyver sprawled out like a broken-jointed mannequin, I felt a twinge of regret. I had stepped on him without thinking. Damn it, I should have hit the brakes at a reasonable point! But despite the self-reproach, my chest felt refreshingly clear. It was as if a refreshing soda had blasted open my clogged stomach!
“──Ah. So this is what ‘cider’ feels like.”
…Or so I’d like to say. It was definitely cider, but more like injecting it straight into my veins via IV drip. A textbook case of drug abuse.
‘How the hell am I supposed to deal with the aftermath of this?’
A field researcher master’s student from Carmine University had just beaten the living shit out of a 7-star alchemist from the Mage Guild. Would this end as a simple personal quarrel? Of course not. The Mage Guild had its pride. If one of their own was beaten half to death and they just shrugged and said “handle it yourself,” they would lose face in front of other organizations. On the other hand, Carmine University would cut me loose without hesitation. Leaving a bad taste with the Mage Guild over a single lowly master’s student would be a massive loss from any larger perspective.
“U-Um…”
Just as I began wondering whether I should abandon my identity as Arthur Wayne and run, Tyrsie Armasunas spoke to me. Oh right, she was here too.
“Thank you for helping me. My name is Tyrsie Armasunas.”
“……I am Arthur Wayne.”
I already knew her, but I nodded as if I didn’t. It was a carefully crafted Vector — Speak Gravely performance. Tyrsie had probably long forgotten the voice of a man she had only worked with for a single day, but I decided to be cautious anyway. Fortunately, Tyrsie showed no sign of recognizing me and continued speaking.
“I truly am grateful. If not for you, Mr. Wayne, I might have fallen victim to that man’s venomous fangs.”
“I’m glad I could be of help. I happened to overhear your conversation while passing by. …It seems there have been other victims as well.”
“…Yes. A colleague I was close with, and her lover, both suffered greatly because of him.”
Tyrsie removed her nurse’s cap and spoke with a gloomy expression. I scolded myself for bringing up something unnecessary, but she quickly shook off the emotion.
“But what about you, Mr. Wayne? That man certainly deserved to be beaten half to death… but he will surely try to retaliate against you.”
Tyrsie looked at me with clear concern in her eyes.
“I heard from that man earlier. You’re the on-site master’s student from Carmine University who came to request magical analysis, correct?”
“Pardon? Ah, yes, that’s right. Then the disciple that McRoyver said he would call instead was…”
“That would be me. My minor is in magical history. But that’s not what’s important right now.”
Tyrsie frowned as she looked at the unconscious McRoyver rolling on the ground.
“Once that man regains consciousness, he will definitely try to report you to your university. Do you have any plan in mind?”
“…I’m thinking about it right now.”
Though no sharp answer was coming to mind. I desperately racked my brain. Dual-core 3000% full operation.
Watching me, Tyrsie spoke.
“If you don’t have a suitable plan—would you be willing to leave it to us?”
“Leave it to you?”
“I am not the only one who wishes for that man to be punished.”
Tyrsie said. Come to think of it, the conversation I had overheard earlier had mentioned something about a plan being prepared behind the scenes.
“There are many others who have suffered from his tyranny. I have been gathering their testimonies and evidence to prepare for his expulsion from the guild.”
“…McRoyver boasted that he could stop it using his connections. Will that be alright?”
“His connections aren’t anything special. He simply desperately sucked up to executives in other mage guilds to build those ties. But while he’s unconscious, he can’t object to his arrest or deliberation, nor can he contact them for help, can he?”
Tyrsie spoke coolly, counting on her fingers.
“Therefore, now—while that man is unconscious—is the perfect opportunity. Originally we planned to act while he was away at a seminar, but lately he hasn’t been going outside at all.”
“He must have noticed your plan and was taking precautions.”
“That seems highly likely. The fact that he deliberately revealed the truth to me suggests his counterattack preparations were nearly complete. I should have realized when he bought a second messenger pigeon…”
Tyrsie sighed, then put on a determined expression once more.
“But now it is possible. No matter what tricks he was planning, we can resolve this on our end within half a day.”
Tyrsie’s eyes sparkled as if she had seized the initiative.
“If we hide the unconscious man and report directly to the guild master, he won’t even be able to call witnesses. He won’t be able to make any excuses.”
“…I see. I understand. That does seem to be the best option at the moment.”
I nodded in agreement. As was usually the case with these things, if you were going to cause a scene anyway, it was better to make the stage as large as possible. Just like how military injustice should be reported not through personal letters but during vacation or at the regiment level, and how Blue House petitions only meant something when they gathered proper attention. ‘Running away secretly from here wouldn’t accomplish much anyway.’
Even if I abandoned the Arthur Wayne identity and dodged here, someone would surely come after me. Fuck, I wasn’t a murderer—living in constant fear of pursuers while always watching my back would be ridiculous. With Franc by my side, the idea of spending my whole life on the run was completely out of the question.
In that sense, Tyrsie’s proposal was perfectly timed. Rather than struggling alone and ending up screwed, it was far better for my safety to ride along with a plan someone else had already prepared. Having thought that, I nodded.
“Then I’ll leave it to you. …Ah, but there is one thing I’d like to ask.”
So saying, I pointed at the collapsed McRoyver.
“Could you also add to the testimony that this man insulted my Ulster friend and tried to tarnish my honor?”
“Hehe. Is that all you want?”
Tyrsie, still wearing her nurse uniform, wiggled her index finger as she spoke.
“How about the touching story of how you couldn’t stand by and watch him try to lay hands on me as well, so you bravely stepped forward in the name of chivalry—would you not like that added too?”
“Heh heh. That sounds good. Since we’re at it, please include that as well.”
──And so, before evening fell, we had the human trash racist bastard expelled from the Mage Guild and thrown into prison. Justice had finally been carried out in this absurdity-filled Mage Guild.
Though, personally, I did have one small complaint.
“Ha, fuck. So when the hell are they going to examine my dick?”
After giving testimony for quite a while, I was released without charges and muttered to myself. It seemed the magical urology clinic in our neighborhood had an insanely long waiting time.