Chapter 191: Rogen
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 191: Rogen
Two days had passed since we crossed the border.
We were now heading toward Rogen, the capital of the Nivia Kingdom.
“Mmm… Hyun-woo…”
Freed from the carriage sickness now that we were out of the mountains, Iris slept peacefully, her head resting on my shoulder.
I stroked her hair as I looked at the screen floating in the corner of my vision.
[Time remaining until next match: 1 day, 2 hours, 45 minutes, 12 seconds]
I never intended to stay in this world for so long.
I’d only come to see Iris for a moment before heading back.
Looks like I’ll be using up every last second of my remaining time.
Still, Iris had been a great help over the past two weeks.
She’d given me all sorts of magic lessons, advice on the path I should take, and even helped me interpret the book by Relina I’d bought at the shop.
Even if her magic was sealed, the knowledge she had accumulated over the years hadn't vanished.
The help of an 8th Circle Archmage was a stroke of luck that all the gold in the world couldn't buy.
Now, my goal was, without a doubt, to reach the 5th Circle.
To become a mage specialized in combat using Memorize magic.
If I could do that, I would be able to attack enemies with pre-cast spells while simultaneously using Reverse Calculation to seize control of their spells for defense, achieving a perfect offense and defense.
Of course, that only applied to fights against other mages.
If everything went according to plan, the day I’d be called an ‘Anti Mage’ wasn't far off.
I think I’m getting used to imbuing my will into my Sword Qi, too.
I smiled in satisfaction at the internal energy flowing through my body.
I hadn't skipped a single day of my martial arts training.
The absence of demonic energy meant I couldn't build up my internal energy, but I practiced my forms whenever I had a spare moment to increase my proficiency.
Unlike magic, however, my martial arts received no boosts from the app, and I had no proper master to guide me.
Naturally, my progress was slow.
The martial arts recorded in the Formless Vajra Art were all exceptionally difficult.
Sword techniques, fist techniques, palm techniques, footwork, movement arts, lightness skills, external arts, and so on.
The main ones I had learned were the sword art, Formless Sword Art; the movement art, Formless Electric Body; and the footwork, Formless Step.
I had learned several other martial arts as well, but my proficiency in them wasn't high.
It had been a constant source of worry.
I knew that swallowing my pride and asking Sylvia for help, or even returning to Earth to receive guidance from my master, would be of little use.
Of course, learning the sword from either of them would solidify my fundamentals.
But that would be the extent of it.
Since they knew nothing about the all-important Formless Vajra Art, they couldn't help me advance to a higher realm.
Is that really the only way…
I brought up a new screen.
Ding—
[Kang Hyun-woo
Age: 21
Title: Virgin Killer (New!)
Race: Human
Affiliation: Earth
Class: Mage (4th Circle)
Sub-class: Undecided
Skills: Weakness Insight, Third Step Towards an Alpha Male, Sex Expert, Thought Acceleration, Berserk…
Owned Coins: 5,680]
As you can see, I still hadn't chosen a sub-job.
But I had been thinking about it constantly.
After imagining and weighing various jobs, I had finally narrowed it down to two.
Martial Artist and Swordsman.
At first glance, choosing Martial Artist seemed like the better option, but no one could be sure.
Just look at my main job, Mage. It provides abilities that apply to Elementalists, Conceptualists, Alchemists, Spiritists, and Summoners.
You might think that’s a good thing, but my specialty was elemental magic.
If I could have chosen Elementalist as my job, I would have gained abilities specific to it and might have become even stronger than I am now.
In that sense, it was highly likely that Martial Artist was also a comprehensive job that encompassed various classes like Swordsman, Fighter, and Spearman.
Martial Artist would be best since the Formless Vajra Art contains various martial arts… but the only one I really use is the Formless Sword Art…
I continued to ponder in the rattling carriage.
Swordsman might be better for now, but thinking long-term, Martial Artist was the right choice.
But something held me back from choosing Martial Artist right away.
Resilia's pursuit team, which could catch up at any moment; the Empire's army, which I might have to face if things didn't go as planned and war broke out; and the Heavenly Demonic Cult, which was trying to take Cheon Yeo-hwa from me.
There were many problems I had to solve right now.
It meant that having 10 points of power in the present could be more crucial than having 100 points of power in the future.
[Would you like to decide on a sub-job?]
[Y/N]
I stared at the screen, lost in thought, when suddenly…
“Hyun-woo.”
Tug—
A hand pulling on my ear snapped me out of my reverie.
As expected, the culprit was Iris.
When I looked at her with a "what is it?" expression, she pointed out the window.
“Look over there. It’s the capital.”
I looked where she was pointing. Beyond the fields, the massive walls of a city were coming into view.
It was Rogen, the capital of the Nivia Kingdom.
*
The Orsia Grand Duchy, the strongest nation in the southern part of the continent, and the Veilhaven Republic, a rising power with a foothold in the west.
The Nivia Kingdom, situated between these two nations, had long professed neutrality.
A neutrality made possible only because the Orsia Grand Duchy and the Veilhaven Republic kept each other in check.
But it was also a precarious nation that could be engulfed in the flames of war at any moment if the balance between the two powers were to collapse.
“They say it has a mithril mine… They certainly seem to have a lot of money.”
Rogen was a city that could only be described as magnificent.
Of course, it was natural for a nation's capital to be splendid, but it was far grander than one would expect from a country squeezed between two great powers.
Moreover, the streets, filled with well-built structures that seemed out of place in a medieval fantasy world, were brimming with vitality.
After arriving in the capital, we wandered around looking for a place to stay.
It would have been nice to get a room in the noble district, but without a letter of recommendation, we couldn't get in.
The letter of recommendation was convenient. Didn't even have to wait in line at the checkpoints.
Because I had burned the letter after crossing the border, it took us about four hours just to pass through the capital's gate.
And that was only after I slipped the guards a bribe to get in quickly.
The reason I burned the letter?
Simple.
The letter I used for convenience would ultimately become a means for them to track me.
Leaving a trail when you could be pursued at any moment is something only a fool would do.
I couldn't use the letter, but that didn't mean we couldn't find lodging.
This was the capital of the Nivia Kingdom, a nation that had amassed enormous wealth from its mithril mine.
Even outside the noble district, there were plenty of high-end inns.
“How about that one?”
Finding a good inn wasn't that difficult. All we had to do was wander around near the noble district.
Thanks to that, we quickly found a decent place in the bustling capital.
Well, bustling as it was, it was nothing compared to Seoul.
“It’s a bit small, but there’s a lot to see.”
“…Small?”
Amelia’s assessment of Rogen was surprising, but it made sense coming from her.
After all, she was the princess of the Orsia Grand Duchy, a nation with territory and military might dozens of times greater than Nivia’s.
No matter how rich the Nivia Kingdom was, in front of the Orsia Grand Duchy, it was like a minnow trying to impress a whale.
“Hyun-woo, what are we going to do now?” Iris asked, fiddling with Sylvia’s hand as she sat at the table in our room.
“Today is a free day. We’ll start moving tomorrow.”
“What? Really?”
“We’ve had a tight schedule until now. Think of it as a short break.”
At the word "free," Iris and Amelia’s faces lit up.
It was a natural reaction. Unlike Sylvia and me, who had plenty of stamina, the journey must have been a forced march for those two.
There was a reason I wasn't heading to the next city right away.
[Time remaining until next match: 21 hours, 31 minutes, 48 seconds]
This match was scheduled to end today.
It wouldn't hurt to give the three of them a day of rest.
“Um, in that case, would it be alright if the three of us went out on our own today?”
“Hmm?”
Iris asked cautiously.
“Well, that’s fine, but…”
I had planned to go out on my own anyway.
I had places to go, and besides, a man tagging along with a group of women would just make things awkward.
But perhaps she saw my trailing words as a sign of disappointment.
“You don’t have to be too sad.”
Iris came closer and whispered in my ear.
“We’re just going to a dress shop.”
“A dress shop?”
“Yes.”
Iris’s face, so close that our breaths mingled, was flushed.
I could feel a feverish heat in the eyes that were fixed on me.
“You remember Rendal Village, don’t you? I happened to overhear the women there talking, and they said that men get excited by the sight of their wives in their undergarments.”
“…”
Gulp. Her breath tickling my ear made me swallow dryly without realizing it.
“You’ll be looking forward to tonight, won’t you?”
As Iris’s eyes curved slyly, all I could do was nod silently.
The provocations of my elven queen, who grew more bewitching by the day, were already stimulating enough to make my lower half harden.
“…Then shall we meet back at the inn this evening?”
I managed to keep my expression neutral as I left the room.
*
Enduring Sylvia’s piercing glare, I left the inn and headed straight for the central plaza.
As expected of the city center, it was still so crowded there was hardly room to move. It was so packed that even the usual touts were nowhere to be seen.
After looking around for a moment, I retraced my memory and walked into a dark alley.
Unlike in other cities, there were no vagrants, but the lack of sunlight made it incredibly dark.
Even in an alley like this, there was a shop open for business.
Tinkle—
When I grabbed the old-looking doorknob and turned it, a clear bell chimed, welcoming a customer into the shop.
Contrary to its appearance from the outside, the inside of the shop was so clean you couldn't find a speck of dust. It was just as cramped, though.
“…Who is it.”
An old man who had been dozing at what looked like a counter slowly opened his eyes.
A wide-brimmed hat and a monochrome robe.
It was unmistakably the attire of a mage, but I couldn't sense any magic power from him.
“A customer. Mind if I look around?”
“…Do as you please. But you have to buy at least one book.”
“That much I can do.”
I placed a few silver coins on the counter.
With that, the old man seemed to have concluded his business and closed his eyes again.
I quietly walked deeper into the shop.
As the sign in front of the shop indicated, this was a store that specialized in selling magic books.
“Avian Synthesis Magic…? What is this.”
As if bewitched by the strange title, I opened the book.
From the title alone, I first thought it was black magic, but it was actually a spell developed by a mage who, dissatisfied with chickens having only two legs, wanted to create a chicken with six.
A true pioneer…
But on second thought, it wasn't a very good spell.
If you're unhappy with two chicken legs, can't you just order two chickens and eat four?
Unfortunately, the mage who developed this spell must have been financially strapped.
Still, it was a rather amusing spell. The idea that you could create a three-headed chicken, even if you couldn't make a Cerberus, was somewhat intriguing.
I had only browsed for a short while, but the shop was overflowing with a surprisingly diverse and bizarre collection of magic.
I had come to this shop because I wanted to see for myself the difference between Iris's magic and the magic of this world 200 years later.
I felt good, thinking I had come to the right place.
As I was looking at various spells, something caught my eye.
…Magic to Become Good at Sex?
The moment I saw the title of the book shelved at my eye level, I reached out my hand unconsciously, as if possessed by a fox spirit.
Of course, it wasn't that I was bad at sex.
This was purely an exercise of intellectual curiosity, an effort to broaden my horizons as a scholar of magic.
Thump—
“…Hm?”
“…Huh?”
But what my fingertips touched wasn't the rough texture of parchment, but the warm, soft feeling of skin.
I glanced over and saw a woman with her hood pulled down low.
She seemed to be trying to hide her face with the hood, but if that was her plan, she should have done something about her sweet scent first.
“…What do you want?”
“Let go.”
“No.”
“Are you crazy?”
“Maybe?”
“?”
I still couldn't see the woman's face.
But I could clearly feel an aura around her that screamed, What in the world is this thing?
