Morasil
When he opened his eyes again, Reed found himself standing upon a vast expanse of earth.
Across the boundless wasteland, stretching so far the horizon blurred into nothingness, things now grew where nothing had been before.
Weeds and modest wildflowers. Across the parched, desolate wastes, patches of green were slowly, tenderly blooming into life.
At the very center of it all, Ur held court with an overwhelming presence.
The primordial earth tortoise looked down at him. While reading expressions on the face of a colossal ancient tortoise was an impossible feat, Reed could distinctly feel her profound satisfaction.
"I did not expect to see you again so soon," Ur spoke, her voice echoing with archaic, majestic warmth. "Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine you would offer so many sacrifices in such a fleeting span of time."
Reed bowed his head respectfully. "I buried monsters reeking of foul fish blood into the soil... did I perhaps displease you, Lady Ur?"
"How could that be! The earth embraces all things without discrimination, my child. Be it a wicked abomination, an ancient tree weathered by centuries, or a legendary hero—in the end, all things decay and decompose, returning to soil."
Reed breathed an inward sigh of relief. It seemed Ur was not a picky eater.
"That is a great relief, then."
"Thus do I offer my gratitude once more for the offerings you have brought. I cannot even recall the last time I felt this brimming with vigor."
Her voice alone made it abundantly clear just how delighted she was.
Yet the happier she seemed, the lower Reed dipped his head, laying the flattery on thick. The silver tongue he had honed as a child—worked to the bone by his deadbeat uncle and sweating alongside veteran laborers on Gangwon-do construction sites—swung into full effect.
"Not at all, Lady Ur. It was entirely thanks to the power you bestowed upon me. Had it not been for your grace, the one buried beneath the dirt would undoubtedly have been me. For that alone, my gratitude knows no bounds!"
"Oho. I intended to grant you a reward, yet you claim you have no need of it?"
"...Well, if you truly insist on giving me something, I could hardly refuse. To decline would be terribly discourteous to your benevolence."
Ur let out a hearty, booming laugh at his unabashed reaction and stamped her massive foot against the ground.
Kwaaa!
Clay tablets materialized out of thin air before Reed. Only this time, there were two.
One was the familiar tablet of Earth Control, while the other was entirely new to him. Inscribed upon the face of the second tablet was the carving of a massive earthen hand clutching a person's ankle.
"You have two choices before you," Ur said. "Choose the left tablet, and your existing magic shall be strengthened; choose the right, and you shall obtain a new spell."
"I see."
Reed's mind raced at breakneck speed. Both options were intensely alluring. The current output of his Earth Control left something to be desired, so having that deficiency bolstered was an irresistible prospect. Yet he was equally burning with curiosity about what the new spell could do.
As Reed wracked his brain, groaning in indecision, Ur chuckled fondly, as if finding his agony endearing.
"Hahaha! It seems you are deeply torn. Seeing as you have brought offerings so diligently, this once I shall grant you both."
"Ah... thank you! Thank you so very much!"
Bowing reflexively, Reed hurriedly reached out to touch both tablets before Ur could reconsider. The clay crumbled to fine dust beneath his fingertips, swirling into brilliant motes of light that sank directly into his eyes and consciousness.
A flood of mystical knowledge poured into his mind, and his awareness began to blur once more. Yet just as he was about to surrender to the intoxicating haze, Reed blurted out in a hurry:
"Lady Ur! I have one question to ask!"
"Ask, my child."
"I know the mana you granted me is extraordinary. Far more than I ever anticipated. While I am endlessly grateful, why did you bestow such a staggering amount upon me...?"
During the ambush, Reed had practically raised an entire hill of mud, with only slight exaggeration. That was hardly ordinary. If every novice taking their first steps into magic could wield such overwhelming force, mages would have conquered the continent long ago. Why on earth had Ur channeled such vast reserves of power into him?
"Haha! Did you not demonstrate a corresponding measure of devotion?"
Reed fell silent. To be fair, he had buried an awful lot of corpses back when he was slaving away under Idiot Joe's gang as a slum gravedigger. If this immense mana was truly retroactive compensation for all those offerings, it wasn't entirely incomprehensible.
Or maybe Ur is simply a deity who dotes on her followers. Especially since I seem to be her only one.
Regardless, it was a massive boon for him, so there was no reason to split hairs over it. Drowsiness surged over him like an irresistible tidal wave.
"Offer sacrifice! Uphold your vows! Then shall I, too, keep my promise!"
Ur shouted something more into the void, but as before, the tail end of the dream slipped like water through his fingers, and Reed's consciousness snapped shut.
Reed opened his eyes.
Around him, the survivors were busy salvaging waterlogged provisions from the overturned wagons or stripping valuables from the pockets of the dead.
People certainly are industrious.
As Reed staggered upright, Harlock, who was drying his damp bycocket hat in the sunlight, looked over with a grin.
"Well now, awake already? Why not get some more shut-eye?"
"I feel plenty refreshed with just this."
"Youth really is something. Works out nicely, though—I've got a mountain of questions for you."
"There's something I need to take care of first."
Reed focused his mind and channeled his magic. Soil floated gently into the air, and the volume was noticeably greater than before. Previously, he could manipulate earth roughly equal to half his own body weight; now, he could effortlessly lift at least twice that amount. What was more, the speed and distance the soil could travel felt as though they had doubled as well.
Of course, the physical principles held true: moving too much earth at once slowed it down, and the farther the earth drifted from Reed, the more sluggish its velocity became.
Magic is constrained by distance, then.
Even so, it was a remarkable leap forward—undoubtedly the result of absorbing a second clay tablet for Earth Control.
Reed guided the displaced soil to completely bury the scattered corpses of the fishmen. The survivors, who had been pinching their noses against the rancid, fishy stench, gaped in sheer awe.
"Incredible!"
"No matter how many times I see it, it's unbelievable."
"Good grief. After fighting like that, he still has enough mana left to cast magic?"
Next came the fallen passengers. Reed moved the earth once more, covering their bodies. But he did not stop there; taking up a shovel, he packed the soil down with his own hands, shaping it into proper, orderly burial mounds.
It was Reed's own way of paying his respects.
Though, in truth, it's also to offer them as sacrifices.
Tribute or not, Ur would never consume their souls. Like all mortal remains, they would simply decompose and enrich the soil. Still, the fact remained that Reed had benefited from their deaths. Shaping graves was the absolute least he could do to honor them.
If you souls have another life ahead of you, just as I did, I pray you are born into a kinder place.
Reed clasped his hands in silent prayer. Seeing this, the other passengers bowed their heads and closed their eyes before the mounds, joining in prayer.
The gaze they directed at Reed shifted completely.
To dig graves for them with his own hands...
How shameful we are.
While they had been frantically looting the pockets of the dead, Reed had risen from his rest solely to build them proper resting places. A sharp prick of shame pierced their consciences. Of course, Reed had strictly done it to finalize the divine offering, but he saw no reason to disabuse them of their assumptions.
Once the work was finished, the survivors drove the wagons forward once more. With several horses maimed or panicked into the wilderness during the chaos, only two wagons remained functional. The passengers trudged across the arid earth as if the torrential downpour had never happened.
Reed, naturally, was an exception.
"Please, Sir Mage, take a seat in the wagon!"
"Indeed, it's only right!"
"By the by, Sir Mage, who is your esteemed master?"
"Are you perhaps of noble blood?"
"No, if you ask me, he definitely hails from the Magic Tower!"
The passengers seated Reed in the wagon and unleashed a barrage of eager questions. The relentless onslaught gave Reed a throbbing headache.
I'm literally just an orphan from the slums.
Many of their inquiries made no sense to him anyway, so Reed simply kept his mouth shut and ignored them. Taking his silence as the aloof mystique expected of a true wizard, the passengers muttered among themselves that one shouldn't pry into a mage's secrets, nodding in self-satisfied understanding.
Only when night fell and the exhausted travelers drifted off to sleep did Reed finally secure a moment to himself.
I've been dying of curiosity all day.
The second clay tablet bestowed by Ur, and the second spell sealed within it. Itching to test it out, Reed could barely sit still.
Good. Looks like no one is watching.
Though they had discovered he was a mage, there was no reason to lay bare the full extent of his repertoire. To borrow Harlock's advice, keeping a hidden ace up your sleeve was paramount in the Demonic Realm.
After scanning his surroundings, Reed focused his concentration. The spell matrix took shape within him effortlessly.
Earth Grasp
Kwa-kwa-kwa!
The soil surged upward, knitting itself into the shape of a massive earthen hand. Reed thrust his hand toward a boulder resting nearby, and the hand of compressed soil clamped down around the stone with an iron grip.
A spell designed to restrain an opponent using earth?
He would need further testing to gauge its exact destructive threshold, but it was more than capable of snagging an enemy's ankles in the heat of battle. Pondering how best to utilize the newly mastered spell, a sudden realization struck him.
Come to think of it, I did something similar when I fought the fishmen.
When the fishmen had lunged at him, Reed had compressed the mud into a dense mass, wringing the moisture out as though clenching a fist. And now, the spell Ur had granted him happened to conjure a grasping hand of earth.
Could that truly be a coincidence?
Doubtful.
A tactic he had conceived. A technique he had improvised. An experience he had lived through. Could it be that these practical lessons directly influenced the magic he unlocked? While it was still only a hypothesis, Reed felt a deep, instinctive conviction that this was the truth.
If so, he would need to amass far more experience and study much more diligently from now on.
Study, huh...
The unrealized dreams and lingering regrets of his past life flickered across his mind. In this second life, scrambling through the slums had left him with barely enough breath to survive day to day. But now, Reed had found a path to achieve his aspirations.
Magic. Now he could learn whatever he wished, and go wherever he desired. He had freedom.
Yet to protect that freedom, one needed strength. To ensure he would never meet another absurd, untimely end like the trench collapse in his previous life, power was essential.
Reed needed strength.
For now, I must hone my magic.
That night, Reed practiced his craft until the late hours. And before drowsiness finally claimed him, he pressed his palm against the ground and confirmed that his sensory range through the earth had expanded significantly.
He could read the ground's state far more vividly and precisely than before. If his magic grew stronger still, he might even be able to detect approaching enemies from great distances. Using his extended sensory reach, Reed vigilantly swept the area to ensure no fishmen hibernated beneath the surface. Even now, the memory of those grotesque horrors bursting from the soil made his flesh crawl.
Fortunately, there were no monsters. Only tiny insects scuttled busily beneath the topsoil.
Finally setting his mind at ease, Reed closed his eyes.
After two days of relentless travel westward, a colossal city finally emerged on the horizon.
Three tiers of majestic stone walls rose high into the sky. Paved highways radiated outward in all directions from the gates, lined with buildings packed tightly together.
This metropolis, home to hundreds of thousands of souls, was Morasil.
Beholding its magnificent grandeur, those visiting the west for the first time—Reed included—fell dead silent. Harlock puffed out his chest with a boastful grin.
"Welcome to Morasil. This city is one of the Western Demon Realm's greatest wonders in its own right. From the outer walls to the roads and the subterranean sewers, the entire place is a relic of an ancient lost kingdom. They say the first pioneers who set foot here found a completely deserted city standing hollow and silent, and thought they'd stumbled straight into a city of the dead."
Morasil was the most prosperous metropolis in the Western Demon Realm, effectively serving as the forward logistics base for the entire colonial effort. Supplies and manpower dispatched by the Empire gathered first in Morasil before being routed to pioneer settlements across the frontier. Conversely, the resources and treasures extracted from those settlements flowed back into Morasil.
Where people and coin gathered, a city had no choice but to swell.
"Well then, see you all around."
"May you all adapt well to the frontier."
"Wait, what?"
Upon entering the outskirts, those seasoned in the frontier scattered toward their respective destinations. Meanwhile, Reed and the newcomers stood bewildered, glancing around in confusion. With the merchant leader who was supposed to guide them dead, there was no one left to lead them.
Scratching the back of his neck, Reed turned to Harlock. "Excuse me... what should I do now?"
"Hm? Ah right, the merchant leader bought it, didn't he. Well, when you first set foot in the west, you head to the Pioneers' Guild."
"The Pioneers' Guild?"
Harlock explained patiently: "The formal title is the Imperial Western Pioneers' Union. They arrange jobs, gather intelligence on the Demonic Realm—basically support frontier colonization across the board. And they're the one organization you must never cross or make an enemy of. Works out nicely, actually. My client's place is in that direction anyway. Come along."
"I'd appreciate that."
Harlock took the lead, and Reed walked beside him. Seeing them move, the newcomers loitering awkwardly nearby discreetly fell in behind them.
As they walked along the stone-paved thoroughfare, Harlock explained various practical matters: how the Pioneers' Guild maintained branch offices before each of the four cardinal gates, and how one required identification and entry permits to pass into the inner city. It was all genuinely useful information.
Taking in Harlock's words, Reed looked around at the sights. The buildings along the street were a patchwork—some crafted of sturdy wood, others of stone, and some were ramshackle hovels that looked ready to collapse at the slightest gust of wind. Even their architectural styles were completely haphazard, giving a clear sense of just how many diverse peoples and cultures were thrown together here.
Even the races are diverse. Elves, dwarves, beastfolk... is that a lizardman over there?
After walking for quite some time, Reed finally arrived at the eastern gate. Before the gate stood an imposing six-story white stone edifice. Considering most of the buildings they had passed were single or two-story structures, its appearance was remarkably dignified. Upon its wooden hanging sign, the imperial crest of an eagle spreading its wings was proudly emblazoned.
"Alright! Do well for yourself. Let's cross paths again someday."
"Ah, thank you for everything!"
Slapping Reed heartily on the back, Harlock waved and went on his way.
Without Harlock, I would've been completely lost. A truly good man.
Bowing respectfully toward Harlock's receding back, Reed gazed up at the Pioneers' Guild, took a deep breath, and pushed the doors open with a steady stride.
What greeted him was people. A staggering sea of people.
"Don't cut in line!"
"I need work, damn it!"
"Next person, step forward!"
The spacious interior was packed to the brim, without an inch of standing room to spare. Though six receptionists worked frantically, their efforts were a drop in the bucket compared to the sheer volume of waiting applicants.
While it stood as testament to just how aggressively the colonization of the west was progressing, Reed pressed a hand to his forehead as a wave of dizziness washed over him.
This is worse than a government civil service office on a Monday morning.
Judging by how slowly the line crawled, there was not a snowball's chance in hell his turn would come before the sun set. And given this was an imperial institution, those clerks behind the counter were essentially civil servants. Would civil servants keep working past clock-out time?
Fat chance.
Just as he was thinking this would be a complete waste of time, Reed noticed an aristocratic lady, who had arrived well after him, slip past the throngs and head up the staircase.
Reed turned to the man in front of him and asked, "What's on the second floor that people are going up there?"
"Hm? Oh, that's for VIPs."
"VIPs?"
"Wealthy clients. High-ranking mercenaries. People who've contributed big time to the frontier. They give 'em special treatment. Envy the hell out of 'em—they don't have to rot in line like us. Being poor really is a crime."
"Is that so?"
Reed considered this for a moment. He glanced up toward the top of the staircase, then back at the squirming mob in line. His hesitation was brief.
Brushing the dust off his clothes, Reed strode toward the stairs. The burly guard stationed at the foot of the steps immediately stepped in to block him.
"Hold it, kid. This isn't a place for the likes of you."
"Oh? I heard VIPs are allowed on the second floor."
If there was one thing Reed had mastered in the slums, it was sheer shamelessness. When Reed held his chin high and spoke with unflinching confidence, the guard momentarily faltered.
Is he some noble's brat?
Flustered, the guard swept his gaze up and down Reed's frame, only for his brow to furrow in disgust. Filthy, scruffy, and dressed in tattered rags—the boy was as far from noble as humanly possible.
"...Kid. Turn around and go back while I'm still asking nicely."
"Didn't you say this was for capable people?"
"Sigh. Beat it. If you pull another prank, you're getting a thrashing—wait, what?"
The guard tried to shove Reed back, but his arm refused to budge. Alarmed, the guard looked down.
A hand of hardened earth had clamped securely around his wrist.
Reed smiled calmly and asked, "Would this be capable enough?"
His eyes popping wide, the guard immediately turned to report the matter to his superiors.
Before long, Reed was permitted to ascend to the second floor.