The Country Knight
It wasn't that he disliked it, of course.
Even at a glance, the staff was anything but ordinary. And the way it settled into his grip, as if it had been made for his hand... A man like Joseph had no business coming across something like this.
Which was precisely the problem.
If I were a thief, I'd steal this without a second thought.
Joseph was traveling alone. A fool with no escort, walking around with a gem-studded staff in his hand? Mage or not — and however much people feared the profession — a prize like this might be enough to turn even a thoughtless farmer into a bandit.
No. I'll worry about that later.
Looked at coldly, there would be other ways to handle it. Refuse this gift, and he'd be pounding the dirt in regret every night for the rest of his life.
"What's the matter? Don't like it?"
Joseph had gone silent, and Rophen was watching him with one eyebrow cocked.
Once that first concern had settled, another question rose in its place.
This man...
He'd known from the start that Rophen was no ordinary mage. Anyone living in a house like this, in a manner like this, couldn't possibly be ordinary. But even so — Joseph hadn't expected this.
The gulf between their magic was a matter of entire dimensions. Looking back, even the scraps of spellwork he'd glimpsed so far had already outstripped anything he'd imagined.
His original plan had been to get out as fast as possible. One whim from this old man and his head could have gone flying. But having come this far, he couldn't help but take notice.
Just who is this person...?
Joseph turned it over in his mind. Rophen had been curious about his magic, and in return for what Joseph had shown him, he'd crafted this staff. The dangerous old man who might do anything had become, instead, an eccentric old man who seemed to look on him with favor.
Since it's come to this, maybe I can afford to be a little shameless.
How often in a lifetime would he meet a mage of this caliber? And what were the odds that such a mage would happen to take a liking to him?
After a moment's thought, Joseph cleared his throat and spoke.
"It's magnificent. I've never seen a staff like this in my life."
"Hmph. I should think not."
A faint smile crept across Rophen's face. But Joseph frowned and shook his head.
"There's just one thing that worries me. Even if I accept this staff, I don't know whether I can protect it as I am now."
"Hm?"
"You said my magic was unusual, but that's all it is. At my current level, I think this would only draw attention."
Rophen folded his arms and snorted. He'd clearly caught the gist of what Joseph was after.
"What is it you want to say?"
"Well... that spell you used earlier, the one that conceals a staff. Could you teach me that? Or anything else, really. I'd take whatever you'd give me."
Joseph asked it outright, and Rophen stared at him as if he couldn't believe his ears.
"A little while ago you were trying everything you could to run away. Cooled your head, have you?"
"Yes. I figured you weren't going to kill someone you're interested in."
"...Shameless brat."
Rophen snorted, and Joseph shrugged with unbothered calm. The man was impossible to read anyway. Better to be direct than to dance around it.
"Teach you magic, is it..."
Joseph wanted to use this chance to learn some real spellwork from Rophen, on top of the staff. Fire hadn't so much as scratched the old man. Return was a defensive spell and nothing more. And without any ice around, he couldn't even properly train Iceberg. If he could learn something — anything — from this man, he wouldn't have to flounder the way he had been.
But Rophen looked at him with a puzzled expression, then shook his head.
"You don't seem to understand what it means to learn magic from a mage."
"What do you mean?"
"The only ones who can learn a mage's magic are that mage's disciples. Typically, you spend ten or twenty years attending your master before you become a proper mage yourself. Think you could do that?"
"...But I learned magic from a spellbook."
"I'm not talking about those paltry fundamentals, you idiot. My magic isn't something you can pick up in a short time like that. And did you really think I'd hand over spells that are as good as my own property so easily?"
"..."
Joseph had nothing to say to that. It was true — Rophen's magic didn't look like something you could learn overnight. But to learn it, he'd have to become a disciple for ten years? Disciple in name only. That was just being a servant.
And ten years with this bizarre old man?
He'd go just as mad as the old man himself.
"More than that, I have no desire to influence my research subject in any way. I'm far too curious about what you'll become."
With that, Rophen closed his mouth. Whatever else, he had no intention of teaching Joseph magic.
Joseph had no choice but to nod. It was a shame, but if he pushed too hard, he might lose the staff he'd only just received.
"You. Is it offensive magic you wanted to learn?"
"Yes. Honestly, I don't have many spells I can actually use."
Rophen looked at him as if he were looking at something strange, then spoke.
"You don't need offensive magic right now, do you?"
"Sorry? What do you mean by that?"
"You've got those Mana Orbs of yours. You were about to use them when you attacked me, weren't you?"
"Those don't hit hard enough."
When he'd fought the black beast, even a sphere wrung from every last drop of his mana hadn't broken the creature's neck. The Ogre had smashed his Mana Orbs as if swatting insects. As far as Joseph was concerned, the orbs were a stopgap — something to fall back on until he learned real magic. In the last fight, Fire hadn't worked, so he'd reached for them in a panic. That was all.
Rophen, apparently, saw it differently.
"You have an exceptional talent for controlling mana. Try developing that."
"You mean I should focus more on the Mana Orbs?"
"That's right. If you learn to handle them well enough, you could pack an enormous amount of mana into one. Fire that off, and the power would be considerable. What's more..."
He trailed off, then pointed at Joseph's chest.
"You've got no constraints on your mana right now. Isn't this faster and more convenient than some half-baked attack spell?"
"...!"
It had been only a moment — the brief instant of drawing the gem from his coat and closing his hand around it. Rophen hadn't missed it.
"I don't know where you picked that thing up, but with it, you won't have to worry about running out of mana."
"Do you know what it is?"
Rophen shook his head.
"I have no talent for making Artifacts, so I wouldn't know. I just figured it was something that draws in the surrounding mana."
He shrugged, as if it were of no particular consequence.
"Either way, you've got it. You'd be better off using it to master control of those orbs."
"...I see."
Watching him, Joseph was reminded once again that this was no ordinary mage. The man didn't seem entirely sane — but the conversation had, at least, helped him put a few things in order.
While Joseph was privately impressed, Rophen pointed at the staff again.
"What's more important is this."
"?"
He tapped the Holy Relic set into the staff. Watching him, Joseph understood what he was about to say.
"Divinity."
"That's right. I wandered off the point a little, but every spell you cast through this staff will carry Divinity in it."
"...Won't that affect me?"
"It's different. It isn't you that the Divinity clings to — it's your magic."
Rophen looked at Joseph holding the staff and nodded again and again, clearly pleased with himself.
"...What is it?"
"An unusual mage with a Holy Relic Staff... How interesting. Truly interesting."
He seemed quite satisfied with having handed a special staff to a special mage.
"I should really be going now."
"Fine. We'll meet again if the chance arises."
"..."
Joseph didn't bother answering.
Something tells me he'll just show up whenever he feels like it.
An old man this strange could appear out of nowhere at any time. Joseph exchanged farewells and left the house. Following the path Rophen had shown him, he came down to the Highway where he'd originally meant to sleep.
His eyes went automatically to where the bandits' corpses should have been. But there were no bodies — not even a trace of the bedroll he'd laid out.
It wasn't a dream... was it?
Joseph glanced down at the staff in his hand. The Holy Relic gleaming at its tip was proof enough that he hadn't imagined the whole thing.
"I'll never understand it. Really..."
He let out a small sigh and started walking east again.
Days of travel followed. He wrapped the Holy Relic at the head of the staff in a scrap of old cloth — a makeshift measure, since he couldn't hide the whole thing. Fortunately, he didn't run into anything as dangerous as he'd feared.
On days when heavy cloud cover brought an early dusk, he would sit by the roadside and train. Following Rophen's advice, he was working to deepen his focus on the Mana Orbs.
Oh?
The moment he swept the staff and formed an orb, he understood what Rophen had meant.
You'll understand the details once you try it yourself.
Something foreign mixed into the mana as the sphere took shape — a sensation unlike mana at all. That, he suspected, was the Divinity coming off the Holy Relic.
It's still hard to see... but I can tell something's mixed in with the mana.
Joseph recovered his mana with the gem, practiced until he dropped, and slept. Along the way he stopped at a plains village called Narifei, where he managed to buy a little food. Word was that wolves had started appearing near the village, so he got out quickly — though it seemed the villagers had been hoping he'd deal with the problem for them. They hadn't explained a thing or made any request. They'd simply led him to a house on the outskirts where the wolves were coming through, and then run off.
Unbelievable.
Joseph had no interest in fighting beasts for free. The transparency of the ploy annoyed him, too. He was curious to test the power of magic laced with Divinity, but he doubted it would do much against ordinary animals that weren't even Demonic Beasts.
Continuing east, he spotted a group of people gathered in the distance. There were quite a few of them — and something unusual caught his eye.
"...A banner?"
A large flag on a carriage snapped in the wind. A blue field, with what looked like a shield and a fish-like emblem faintly visible upon it.
Nobles.
They were standing in one place, not moving. Looking closer, he could see several large animals darting back and forth through the crowd.
Looks like they're fighting some kind of large beasts.
Calling it a fight was generous. It was more like a handful of panicked animals and a dozen even more panicked people running around in chaos. Drawing nearer, he could make out the details.
The beasts were wild boars. Proper wild boars, too — mountain-sized things, big enough that the people's panic was understandable.
"Kill it! Just ram a spear through it and be done!"
The man at the front, mounted on a horse, was shouting at the others. Joseph narrowed his eyes and studied him.
"That's... a Knight, isn't it."
The rider was clad in iron armor, dressed in a manner that set him apart from the soldiers at a glance. He was barking at everyone around him, irritation thick in his voice.
"You can't even catch one of those things? Don't you dare run from a mere boar!"
Even so, he looked just as rattled as the rest of them.
Should I help?
It didn't look like an ambush, but they were clearly struggling to pin the animals down. Help a noble in any capacity, and there was a good chance of a reward. The trouble was, he had no way of knowing whether this was a real noble or a bandit in a noble's clothes.
They do say even real nobles turn to banditry sometimes...
"Die!!"
Just then, one of the boars — nicked by a spear — broke from the pack. It let out a piercing squeal and charged straight at Joseph.
"You — you lunatic!"
There was no time to think. Joseph swept the staff in a single motion. Mana gathered at its tip, and a Mana Orb took shape.
A sharp hiss cut the air. The sphere was larger than before, its color deeper. Looking closely, something like a small vortex seemed to be turning inside it.
It's definitely changed.
Joseph fired the orb straight at the boar barreling toward him.
A heavy crack. The sphere slammed into the animal's face dead-on. The boar, which had been charging at terrifying speed, lost its center, tumbled, and smashed into the edge of the Highway. It was dead on the spot.
"...!"
And in the next instant, his eyes met those of the Knight, who was staring at him in shock.