The Aftermath of New House Syndrome
The conclusion, to put it bluntly, was that the house itself was perfectly fine. But everything else had been completely incinerated.
“Ugh.” Kevin let out a long sigh and shook his head. “What a mess.”
The small vegetable garden he had been tending for his self-sufficient food plan, the modest flowerbeds, the fence meant to keep out intruders—every charming little detail of the outdoor living space he had so carefully arranged had been wiped out by the breath attack.
—Ssshh…
Especially Partner, who had practically taken full responsibility for the outdoor chores, looked utterly drained. Even at a glance, the spiritual entity seemed deeply disheartened.
Kevin patted his partner’s shoulder in consolation. “Sorry about that, Partner. I should have paid more attention to the barrier around the yard. I never expected to face a physical impact on this scale.”
Partner drooped its head as if sighing, then abruptly stood up as though nothing had happened and headed outside. Kevin followed suit, activating his Observation magic to assess the damage.
He had lost a fair number of the external terminals inscribed with spells, but Observation had been designed with the utmost importance placed on information and visibility. Even in the worst situations, it was never easily disabled.
“Can’t be helped.”
It was something he could simply prepare for more thoroughly in the future. He decided to think of it as getting a preventive shot before facing an even more serious accident.
Unlike the cabin, which was obsessively reinforced with layers of barriers and Barrier magic—maximized through every possible symbol and protected two and three times over—the defensive strength of the front yard was relatively weak. Given that dangerous monsters like Draconids roamed the area, the yard’s defenses were built to easily withstand output equivalent to 7-Circle magic. Anything beyond that, however, was pushing it.
The focus had been less on pure physical defense and more on instilling fear and unease in hostile creatures, preventing them from approaching beyond a certain boundary.
“I got too complacent just because things had gotten a bit more livable lately. Even if it meant overdoing it, I should have tried spatial separation. Or maybe set it up so that the moment external mana touches the barrier, it triggers a property change…”
It had been a clever little trick to reduce the burden of mana consumption and causality while turning the monsters around the house into unpaid security guards. But there was nothing to be done against a long-range, high-powered bombardment like that.
“Even relying on Geas has its limits, huh? If I want to increase my basic specs, I really need to complete the third one as quickly as possible.”
—Vrrrrrm…!
Immersed in waves of deep blue mana, muttering ceaselessly to himself while forming hand seals with both hands and darting his eyes in every direction—he looked exactly like the vague stereotype of a “magician” widely known to the public. Eerie yet mystical.
It was right then that something unusual caught Kevin’s eye.
Zoom out.
When Kevin slightly curled his fingers, several windows merged into one, transforming into a massive screen reminiscent of a movie theater display. The view showed the entire Lethe River basin centered on his house, as if a bird soaring through the sky were looking down upon the land.
“Something’s off.”
Unable to shake the inexplicable sense of unease, Kevin opened a smaller separate window and chanted.
Replay.
The small window, which had been flickering with noise, soon began projecting the scene from twenty-four hours earlier that the large screen was currently displaying.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought. What the hell happened here?”
The Lethe River was originally famous as a single, endlessly flowing, majestic waterway. Yet now, on the large screen, an entirely new tributary had appeared out of nowhere. And it was no small stream, either.
The terrain had changed overnight. The whole thing felt absurd.
There was only one obvious guess as to why this had happened.
“You’ve got to be kidding me. This is what happens?”
He pressed a finger to the small window and slowly dragged it to the right.
—Kwaaaaaaaaah!
A beam-shaped breath swept straight across the ground in real time, rapidly reshaping the terrain as the footage played back at high speed. Watching it, Kevin muttered with a thoroughly fed-up expression.
“So that’s why the map quality around here is so terrible. If some local overlord goes on a rampage, the map literally changes.”
For a moment, a pure sense of awe rose from deep within his chest for the pathfinders who diligently mapped this ever-changing world. But that wasn’t what mattered right now.
“At this rate, the place is gonna look like a damn sponge.”
Looking at the screen, it seemed there was no immediate worry about flooding. Somehow, the front yard that had been blown away had ended up serving as the final line of defense that stopped the breath from advancing any farther. At the very least, the entire house site had been spared from becoming part of the new river channel.
But that was only for now. He had no idea what would happen once the seasons changed, summer arrived, and the rains came. After all, his front yard had essentially become the downstream section of a newly formed stream.
He needed to come up with countermeasures immediately.
“This is some bullshit.”
Kevin lamented, his voice thick with resentment. “I just wanted to settle down in my own house, and now I’ve gotta do civil engineering work too?”
With that, he flopped straight onto the bed and rolled himself up tightly in the blanket. He needed some mental and physical stability.
“Maybe becoming a pupa wouldn’t be so bad…”
While a certain magician was busy yearning to become a pupa, the social circles of the imperial capital were heating up fiercely due to a single statement made by the hero upon his return from the expedition.
For the first few days, the clinking of wine glasses carried a heavy resonance rather than their usual light cheer.
“To Thulen. He was an honorable knight and a great warrior.”
“May his soul find peace at the Goddess’s side.”
“To fall in battle while pioneering a magic territory for humanity—what could be more fitting than the honorable end Sir Thulen always spoke of?”
“Indeed, it is.”
The funeral for Thulen, a member of the hero’s party, was held on a scale befitting a state funeral. Once the mourning atmosphere had somewhat subsided, the person who became the new topic of gossip among nobles and influential figures was none other than the rumored archmage.
“To summarize the hero’s statement, it means there is an archmage of at least 7-Circle caliber or higher operating while concealing their identity, correct?”
“It’s hard to believe, but… yes, that seems to be the case.”
A mysterious archmage hiding their identity had aided the hero. It was the kind of thing that only appeared in fairy tales or light novels, yet it had become reality. There was no way it wouldn’t become a hot topic.
“Is that even possible? Aren’t the identities of all archmages above 6-Circle automatically recorded in the Akashic Records? A reclusive archmage sounds like something straight out of the age of myths.”
“It’s possible they aren’t affiliated with the Magic Tower.”
“Hmm. In that case, it could be a newly born high-ranking dark mage, or perhaps an ancient monster who has awakened as a lich.”
“That does seem to be the most plausible scenario, but would such a wicked being have any reason to help the hero?”
Countless people chimed in with their own opinions, engaging in heated debate. Since those who moved in social circles possessed a certain level of education, everything they said sounded quite plausible at first listen.
“Um, what about that story of the eccentric magician who built his workshop in the magic territory?”
“Come now. That was just a passing fad. What meaning could there be in bringing up such a madman now?”
Since real magicians were rare to begin with, the conversation ultimately lacked expertise and contained little of substance.
Meanwhile.
Alicia, a member of the hero’s party who prided herself as an unparalleled genius beauty and was in fact the youngest archmage in history, had recently fallen into deep contemplation.
“Sigh.”
Ruwen, the hedonistic priestess of the same hero’s party, watched Alicia with a subtle gaze while steadily downing glass after glass of wine.
It had already been nearly a year since they began working together. To Ruwen, the behavior of that screw-loose magician had long since fallen into a predictable pattern.
“Hic. Wh-what’s wrong…?”
After letting out a sigh like that, she would usually launch into self-praise about her own beauty. Sometimes she would even confess dramatically, lamenting why she was born so beautiful on top of her magical talent, claiming it was practically a sin.
As a fellow woman, it should have been rather eye-rollingly annoying, but Ruwen found the whole thing genuinely funny, so she usually just played along. Besides, there were only two people in the hero’s party worth having casual conversations with, so the two of them had naturally grown close.
‘What nonsense is she going to spout this time?’
Just as Ruwen, now nicely buzzed, was watching Alicia with sparkling interest—
“Lately, I’ve been feeling skeptical about my own talent.”
“Huh?”
At the completely unexpected remark, Ruwen sobered up in an instant.