I Refuse to Be Obsessed Over by Some Old Man
As soon as we returned to the audience chamber, the Emperor looked at me and the old geezer with a broad smile across his face. He clapped his hands lightly and spoke to the old man.
“You’ve unearthed quite the monster, Luke.”
“Didn’t I tell you?”
After exchanging those short words, the Emperor shifted the focus of the conversation to me.
“Your name was Aran, correct?”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“Have you ever thought about what you would do if you ever left Mount Ksir?”
A sudden career counseling session? It was a rather abrupt question, but since it came from the Emperor, I had no choice but to answer.
What I want to do, huh…
All I had ever thought about was escaping the mountain to get away from that crazy old man with dementia. I had never once considered what I would actually do once I got out.
Still, after seeing what happened in the tournament earlier, it seemed like my skills were pretty decent… Maybe I could become a mercenary? From what I saw of Amari’s level, even joining any random mercenary band would probably put me at least in the second-in-command spot. Since I beat her, I could probably make it big as a mercenary too.
In this world, the better a mercenary’s reputation and rank get through word of mouth, the more their pay skyrockets. If I became a mercenary, I could live freely, earn money, and spend it on alcohol and women… Hehehe.
Or, since I was sick of fighting, how about becoming a blacksmith? If I looked at all those ultra-luxury weapons and armor that were insanely hard to get in the game, I could probably figure out the special mana structures embedded in them and mass-produce the things like a factory…
What about becoming an herbalist or a miner? I already knew the locations of every rare herb colony and ore deposit, so I could claim them first and make a fortune.
Or maybe open a potion shop? I knew all the recipes, so if I made things like elixirs that are currently impossible to buy, I could establish a complete monopoly.
Hmm. There were so many things I could do that the range of choices was actually too wide. It was giving me decision paralysis.
I spent a moment pondering all the possibilities, but nothing jumped out at me as the obvious choice. So I lowered my head and answered.
“I haven’t been able to settle on anything specific yet, Your Majesty. This old m… elder did ask if I would like to succeed him and work for the empire now that he’s getting old, but I still don’t really know what I want to do…”
The Emperor nodded as if he had expected that answer.
“That makes sense. You’ve lived your entire life on Mount Ksir and only just came down. It would be strange if you had a clear plan. After watching the matches earlier, it seems quite a few people are looking for you. Why don’t you meet with them and talk? Meeting various people might help you figure out what you truly want to do. Once the conversations are over, come find me again. I’ll prepare a room for you, so stay there while you’re in the palace. I’ll also assign you some attendants, so if you need anything, just ask them.”
Meet the People Who Want to See You
📍 Location: Imperial Palace
🎁 Reward: Clarity on your future path
It wasn’t accompanied by a ringing sound or a status window saying I had received a class-change quest, but the situation felt exactly like one. Since I also found it incredibly stressful to keep having semi-private meetings with someone as high-ranking as the Emperor in the audience chamber, I immediately accepted and bowed my head.
“Thank you for your consideration, Your Majesty. Then I shall take my leave.”
“Do so. Ah, and Luke. There is something important I must discuss with you…”
To my great delight, the Emperor had something to talk about with the old geezer and allowed me to leave on my own. With the old man gone, I had gained both a room to rest in and people to help me. Freedom, at least for the time being!
After living in a crumbling, stinky shack for twenty years, now I was getting a private room in the most luxurious palace in the entire Paulia Empire. What a life. Those twenty years of suffering hadn’t been in vain after all.
Thinking that, I turned the corner—and froze.
“T-there he is! It’s Sir Luke’s disciple!”
“Looks like the audience is finally over!”
A group of people who had been waiting spotted me the moment I appeared around the corner and swarmed over in a rush. Judging by their robes, they were definitely mages from the towers.
“Whoa! W-what’s going on?!”
“You’re Aran, right?! Could you please show us that thing you did during the match against Lady Amari one more time?”
“How in the world did you do it?! There wasn’t even a trace of you drawing mana from your body, yet that massive amount of aura just appeared out of nowhere! This completely overturns common sense!”
“Please explain the principle! No, if it’s confidential then just give us the absolute basics!”
The mages who had appeared in a group were frantically interrogating me about the principle behind the aura I had deployed during the earlier match. Their commotion drew in the nearby imperial knights as well, and before I knew it I was completely surrounded by a mob of people.
I was nearly losing my mind, so I pushed them back and tried to get the situation under control.
“Wait! Just wait a second! I’ll tell you, so everyone be quiet!!!”
The moment I said I would explain, the noisy mages and knights fell silent in an instant.
“Could someone lend me any sword?”
One of the knights immediately handed over a spare sword. I took it and once again demonstrated the technique I had shown earlier. Amari wasn’t here, but I had clearly memorized the structure of the aura she used, so reconstructing it wasn’t difficult.
“First, you establish the focal points for the mana needed to form the aura. The more focal points there are, the clearer the shape and the greater the power. But if you place them randomly, it doesn’t work at all. Once the focal points are set, you need circuits that connect each point. These circuits feel like building bridges using the mana of nature as raw material… Why are all your faces like that?”
I stopped talking when I saw the dumbfounded expressions on everyone’s faces. They blinked at me as if they had just heard complete nonsense, then asked again.
“F-focal points? What are you talking about? And you connect those focal points with circuits? Aren’t circuits something inside the body?”
“Using the mana of nature as raw material… does that mean you’re using wild mana in its natural state without circulating or refining it inside your body? Of course there is far more mana in nature than inside the body, but using it directly is supposed to be fundamentally impossible… Did we perhaps misunderstand something?”
What the hell were these people saying?
“…No? I meant it exactly as I said… Ah, of course I do use my internal mana to stabilize the focal points, circuits, and connections…”
“……?”
“……?”
Everyone gathered there, including me, just stared at each other with question marks floating above our heads. Then a mage who looked considerably older than the rest—one with slightly better comprehension—asked,
“So what you’re saying is that you only use the mana inside your body for stabilization, and not for constructing the aura itself?”
“Ah, finally someone who understands what I’m saying. Exactly that.”
While everyone else was murmuring in confusion, the mage asked another question.
“Does that mean you can do the same with things other than aura?”
“I’m not sure. I’ve never tried…”
What I did was simply copy aura that other people had created. The old geezer’s was too complicated and intricate for me to memorize, so I couldn’t copy it. The other challengers besides Amari hadn’t given me anything worth copying, so the only one I had properly tested it on was Amari. How was I supposed to know what worked and what didn’t in that situation?
The elderly mage pondered my words for a moment, then waved the others back.
“Everyone, please step back. Knights, you too, please move aside for a moment.”
“Master Heinkel, what are you trying to—”
The mage called Heinkel focused his mind and began muttering a short incantation. As soon as he finished the brief chant, several magic circles appeared around him, and mana began to move with those circles as its focal points. I could see the mana flowing along the circles. Where it started, where it ended. When the movement of mana stopped, sharp blue sparks were spinning fiercely around Heinkel, connected by a thin membrane.
The mages gasped in admiration as they watched the spell.
“Ooh… Master Heinkel’s magic…!”
“To think lightning magic could take such a stable form…”
The knights were equally impressed.
“So this is the magic of the Master of the Red Tower…”
“The speed of manifestation is on a completely different level from ordinary mages. They say a truly skilled mage can take on a hundred knights alone…”
Oh, so he was a tower master? In the game, the Master of the Red Tower had only been mentioned by name. No one knew his identity, his real name, or even his age. Mages were such a secretive bunch, and they rarely left their towers.
While I was briefly surprised that the Master of the Red Tower I had only known by reputation was standing right in front of me, Heinkel asked,
“Could you perhaps manifest a spell of this form using the same method?”
“Hmm. I’ve never learned magic from the old m… from my master.”
“Ah, of course. Sir Luke is not a mage. I suppose it was foolish of me to—”
“But I think I could give it a try.”
At my words—that I would attempt it despite never having learned magic—Heinkel’s eyes widened.
“What…? No, there’s no need to force yourself. Lightning magic is an extremely sensitive elemental spell that even mages find difficult to handle. If something goes wrong—”
I ignored Heinkel’s warning and carefully observed his magic. Even though they were called magic circles, the fundamental principle was the same as aura. The focal points that acted as pillars. The circuits connecting them like roads, and the mana traveling along those roads. Mana was an infinite resource anyway. The important part was the basic design of the focal points and the circuits connecting them.
Lightning Shield was a fairly low-level spell, so the shape of the focal points and circuits was quite easy to memorize. I gathered the mana in the air to create the focal points, wove them together with circuits, then projected my own mana over the circuits to coat them. The stabilization was completed in an instant, and a Lightning Shield made of the exact same blue sparks as the one around Heinkel appeared around my body.
When the spell finished deploying, the knights were extremely shocked, but the mages went beyond shock—they were foaming at the mouth.
“T-this is impossible…!”
“I really didn’t feel any mana being used to manifest the magic! I wasn’t seeing things during the match!”
“How can something like this happen in the world? A swordsman who can manifest Expert-level aura is using magic on the same level as the Tower Master? This is insane!”
“Just now… didn’t he skip the incantation? The magic… just appeared.”
“My life… my entire life… I was nothing… I was just an ordinary mortal…”
Even Heinkel couldn’t hide his astonishment. His voice trembled as he asked,
“Y-you… didn’t you say you never learned magic? Sir Luke couldn’t have taught you… Did you learn it from another mage? Truly?”
“From the age of three until now, the only person I’ve ever seen in my life is my master.”
“Hah… Haha… This can’t be… How is this possible… A person who has never learned magic created a spell without any incantation? Using not his own mana but the mana of nature? Is such a thing even possible…?”
Heinkel kept muttering “This can’t be” to himself as he dispelled his magic, and I did the same with mine. He immediately rushed over, grabbed my hands, and said,
“Listen, Aran! Won’t you walk the path of magic? With your talent, you might reach the realm of the Ultimate Archmage that only exists in legends! I will teach you everything myself! I’ll speak with Sir Luke, so—”
“Ah, I’m sorry, but I don’t want to decide anything right now. I plan to look around, see the world a bit, and only decide when I find something that really catches my interest. If the mood strikes me, I might even open a bakery…”
“A-a bakery…? You’re saying you’ll open a bakery with that kind of talent? No! That would be a serious crime! You must learn magic! And it has to be at our Red Tower!”
“I’m sorry for taking up so much of your time, but I really must be going now. Excuse me.”
“H-hey! Aran! You must come to the Red Tower! You absolutely must! No matter what, you have to learn magic—”
I quickly distanced myself from the old man who had begun obsessing over me and ran away. Somehow, I had a feeling that my stay in the palace wasn’t going to be very comfortable after all.