Prologue (2): The Wandering Mage
I was nine years old, and there was still no sign that my swordsmanship would ever improve. I'd learned a few basic spells and found some magic that could replace electric lights. It felt like I'd taken one step closer to the comfortable modern lifestyle I remembered.
But while I could actually use magic now… doing it solo was still impossible.
Over the past year of self-studying magic, one thing had become painfully clear.
Casting spells was surprisingly simple. At least the foundational ones. The real problem was that I had no path to advance beyond the basics.
The spells I’d mastered so far were Light, Impact, Magic Bolt, and Tinder—four in total.
Should I be grateful I’d even learned the basics…? After pouring an entire year into it and only reaching four 1st Circle spells, my impatience was only getting worse.
“Still, the only option is to keep training.”
Between the two daily swordsmanship sessions, I used every scrap of free time—plus the hours after dinner—to chew over, tear apart, analyze, and experiment with those four basic spells. I couldn’t exactly say I was enjoying them, though.
When I thought about whether these spells would let me survive in this world, only negative thoughts came to mind.
They were basically just conveniences for daily life. Light was a substitute for a phone flashlight. Impact let me hit a little harder. Magic Bolt had the power of a toy slingshot. Tinder was a glorified flint and steel.
If I compared it to 21st-century standards… it was like a survival kit for someone stranded in the wilderness. Useful in its own way, sure, but dropped in the middle of a medieval fantasy world? Completely useless. At minimum I needed the firepower of at least one assault rifle before I could even feel safe.
Haah. A sigh slipped out.
The information gap was brutal. There was so little data on magic that I couldn’t find any way forward.
Back in my previous life, when I was grinding out university assignments or coding, I could go to the library, buy a senior a meal and copy their code, or even ask an AI despite all the bullshit it mixed in. At least I could scrape together the minimum knowledge or keywords I needed.
But now even those minimal clues had completely dried up.
That’s how knowledge works, isn’t it? Someone with even the slightest foundation can approach a problem far more efficiently than a complete beginner.
Starting from zero is a genuinely insane path of suffering. Anyone who enjoys it is a straight-up masochist… My thoughts kept spiraling into self-deprecation. Goddammit.
Because nothing had answers, random thoughts kept bubbling up. As I sprawled across my desk, lost in thought, the events of the past year naturally came to mind.
For the first six months, I’d done everything possible to gather magical knowledge. Through the butler, the servants, the few acquaintances we had, even passing merchant caravans—I left no stone unturned.
In the end, I’d even asked my father.
He’d worn that cold, unreadable expression. I still couldn’t tell whether he disapproved of his knight-family heir dabbling in magic, but the person who ended up helping me the most was him.
That was how I’d barely managed to obtain these four spells.
The next six months had been spent pushing those four spells to their absolute limits.
With Light, I recorded how much I could adjust its brightness, what shapes I could change it into, how far from my body I could manifest it, and how mana consumption shifted with every variation.
With Impact, I tested whether I could mix it into punches, whether it produced recoil on my own body, whether I could use it on myself to generate propulsion—every possible application I could imagine.
Those six months had been all about applying and developing the magic, but… I had finally hit the wall.
I’d tried mixing the spells, overlapping them, even stacking them in combinations, but it wouldn’t work in that direction. If I messed up the fusion, it felt like my body would explode from the inside. Was this what they called “deviation” in those martial arts novels?
It felt like I had reached the end of what could be developed using only these four basic spells. The thought came naturally.
In short, no matter how much more I tried, there would be no further progress.
My motivation had completely bottomed out. I’d been slumped in the corner of my desk for several minutes when—
Knock, knock, knock.
“Young master, the lord is calling for you.”
What? Training was already over and we were in the window before dinner. Given medieval customs, once dinner was finished everyone basically went straight to bed, so this was already late enough that most people would be preparing for sleep. What could he want?
“Just a moment.”
I stood, straightened my clothes, and followed the servant.
On the way to the office, I kept thinking but couldn’t come up with any reason he’d call for me…? I hadn’t caused any fires or explosions with magic experiments lately, so what was it?
Knock, knock, knock.
“My lord, the eldest young master has arrived.”
“Enter.”
Creak. When the servant opened the door, the office came into view.
Orange sunset light poured through the windows, dyeing the moderately sized room. Several candlesticks placed around the space were already glowing, preparing to fight the coming darkness.
The expensive wooden desk should have been buried under piles of parchment, with my cold-faced father wrestling to organize them… but something was different.
“Hello? So this is the eldest young master? What should I call you?”
The situation was completely different from what I’d expected.
My brain short-circuited at how far this was from the scenario I’d imagined—silently enduring pressure while skipping dinner and desperately observing the office to escape it.
I’d never seen this person before… so I was supposed to introduce myself? But who the hell was she?
A low clearing of the throat snapped my drifting mind back to reality.
Dangerous. Very dangerous. It was my father’s silent warning. If I kept spacing out in front of a guest any longer, he would replace my dinner with extra night training.
Anyway, self-introduction first.
“Nice to meet you. I’m Alvaro Sternfeld.”
I didn’t know her status, but I gave the standard noble greeting. Left leg slightly back, right hand to left shoulder, left hand behind my waist, and a small bow.
“Hehehe, you don’t need to be so formal. I’m a wandering mage, Inti. You can just call me Inti.”
I raised my head and looked at the wandering mage, Inti.
This was my first meeting with the woman who would become my master.
Inti’s appearance was exactly what you’d expect from a classic fantasy mage.
The oversized robe that covered most of her face looked rather plain, but the rest of her outfit was so striking that anyone would immediately recognize her as a mage.
The staff in her right hand had a large red gem embedded in it, its surface engraved with unknown letters and geometric patterns. A thick leather belt around her robe’s waist held various pouches, several colorful potions, and what looked like rolled-up magic scrolls. The most eye-catching piece was the large necklace around her neck—some kind of ornament that was probably an artifact too.
She was dressed so stereotypically—“Yes, I’m a mage~”—that she almost looked like a scammer. Ironically, this kind of classic mage outfit was actually rare here.
Every mercenary mage I’d met until now had worn light leather armor for mobility, looking more like hunters or rangers. This was the first time I’d seen someone wearing a robe and carrying a staff.
“I had some business nearby and ended up staying for a while. While my party members finish exploring the dungeon, I suddenly had some free time. Then I heard a rumor that someone here was looking for a magic tutor, so I came to visit.”
Father tilted his head slightly at her words.
“Don’t dungeon requests usually require the entire team to go?”
The latter half was omitted, but the meaning was clear: why would a party’s firepower—its mage—be left out? In other words, it sounded suspicious.
“The dungeon formed inside a narrow cave, so I couldn’t go. My specialty is fire magic, and they said that in such a cramped space I’d only increase the chance of unexpected accidents, so I was excluded.”
A troubled expression appeared on the lower half of her face visible beneath the robe’s shadow. The upper half was probably making the same face.
“From what I heard in passing, young master Alvaro offered quite a large sum for someone to teach him magic. Would it be acceptable if I took the job?”
Father looked back and forth between me and Inti with his usual cold expression. Honestly, whether it was suspicious or not didn’t matter to me. I prayed desperately for him to just give permission. This was my only chance! Magic knowledge to the moon—let’s gooo!
“…The commission fee will be adjusted to match a standard dungeon request. Is that acceptable?”
“That’s perfectly in line with the rumor’s amount. It’s more than enough.”
With another “Hehehe,” both sides’ demands aligned perfectly. Father pulled out a spare sheet of parchment, wrote up a simple employment contract, and handed it to Inti.
“Speak to the servant waiting outside and they’ll show you to your lodging. Tomorrow, receive half the payment in advance from the butler, and the remaining half on the day the job is completed.”
“Thank you.”
Inti turned with a bright laugh. I followed her out of the room. Yes! Perfect!
Lessons began the next day.
“Shall we start with the basics? Young master Alvaro, what do you think magic is?”
The fundamentals of magic—an important topic, sure, but one I’d never really thought about.
“Um… a phenomenon caused by mana reacting to something?”
“Hehehe, that’s not entirely wrong, but strictly speaking it’s also wrong.”
Inti smiled and cast two instances of Light.
“They look similar to the eye, but one was made using the method you’re familiar with, and the other was not. Can you feel the difference between the two?”
I focused on the two spheres of light. As I examined them closely, the difference became clear.
“One has a lot more mana, and the other has very little.”
Inti nodded.
“Then which one do you think uses the method you’re familiar with?”
Between the high-mana Light and the low-mana one, the one I was used to was—
“The one with less mana… right?”
“Correct. Then, between the two, which one is closer to the true essence of magic?”
The true essence? I honestly admitted I didn’t know.
“The one closer to the true essence of magic is this Light—the one with more mana.”
She pointed at the brighter sphere.
“Magic refers to the entire range of phenomena created when mana reacts to will. Time and space hold no meaning to that will. It is simply pure wishing. A desire imbued with mana.”
Inti continued slowly, as if reciting the verses of a song.