The Elf Mentor Departs
It had been a month since Inti began staying at our lord’s castle and teaching me. Quite a lot had happened in that time.
First, I created a Circle inside my body.
To put it simply, a Circle was a mage’s version of an aura training method. The only real difference was how mana was handled. Knights let mana flow throughout their entire bodies, while mages had to master the trick of condensing it into a single point. That was the key distinction.
Once I properly formed a Circle, the amount of mana I could handle at once skyrocketed. Since I could now focus mana that had been scattered across my whole body into one spot, the total volume itself hadn’t changed, yet it felt like my mana capacity had suddenly multiplied. On the flip side, my physical abilities had dropped a bit as a reaction. It was an obvious result, but I still felt a little disappointed.
Still, I trained hard enough that I didn’t regret the choice. Hehehe… I could now use magic up to the 3-Circle level. Inti even praised me, saying that someone who reached this level at age nine was rare even if you scoured the entire continent. Kya. The me who reincarnated into another world—I’m actually a magical super-genius?!
…Of course, that “rare” standard was only when looking at the continent as a whole. If you looked inside the Magic Tower where mages gathered, it turned out to be surprisingly common. I didn’t want to hear that. Genius my ass. There was no way my fate would unravel that easily.
Sigh…
Anyway, the spells I learned during that time were Telekinesis, Water Ball, Fire Ball, and Wind Cutter. Telekinesis came easily once I pictured the Force from Star Wars. The rest I learned by imagining scenes from all sorts of fantasy games, movies, and anime. They were 2-Circle, 3-Circle, 3-Circle, and 3-Circle spells respectively. It seemed real offensive magic only started at 3-Circle.
In other words, you needed to be at least 3-Circle before you could live with any dignity in this harsh medieval fantasy world. And by “dignity,” I obviously meant the standard of nobility. Commoners? Do you call a house where people live under the same roof as pigs, cows, and chickens a “human dwelling” or a “barn”? I vote for the latter.
While my mind wandered through memories of the past month, my body continued practicing diligently.
“…It really was nice.”
Personally, the last month had felt like a dream. Like being a student cramming a month before the college entrance exam. Even though I had cut my sleep and clung desperately to magic, the time still felt dreamlike. I suppose that was because the previous year of bashing my head against a brick wall with no guidance had become utterly exhausting.
I wasn’t some headbutting dinosaur. Throwing myself blindly at magic had certainly strengthened my stubbornness, but it wasn’t an experience I ever wanted to repeat. I am not a magical Pachycephalosaurus.
But even that kind of life eventually came to an end. Inti’s party members had returned from the dungeon. Which meant the time for her to stop playing teacher for me was drawing near.
“I wish you wouldn’t go.”
“You wish I wouldn’t go?”
I jumped in surprise. When I turned around, Inti was sitting in the shade of a tree. I hadn’t sensed any mana or presence at all…?
“Ahem. How long have you been there?”
“Probably… about an hour?”
Uh… That meant she had seen everything from my magic practice to all the nonsense I’d been muttering. My face burned with embarrassment.
…Ah, whatever. Since it had come to this, I might as well lay it on thick and beg. My mind might belong to a grown man, but on the outside I was a nine-year-old kid. Time to throw a tantrum.
After a brief moment of hesitation, I rushed over and clung to her.
“Master. Can’t you stay just a little longer?”
“I’m sorry, but that seems difficult.”
Damn it. Should I have grabbed her pants and wailed? If I could somehow get her to stay for another year—no, even half a year—my magic skills would finally stabilize.
Whether it was the pride of a healthy Korean man in his thirties (past tense) or the pride of a medieval fantasy noble’s son, who cared? Tears were the sure path to victory! I squeezed every drop from my tear ducts and cried out.
“Huuu… Master, if you leave I’ll be so sad…”
“I know. But you realize you’ve pulled that trick on me too many times already, right?”
The karma from my past came back to bite me fast. Hmm, had I really used it that much? In the past month… four times. Including just now, five.
Well, to be fair, it had stopped working on Inti from the very first time. I couldn’t see her face clearly, but I was pretty sure she’d been wearing an expression that said she’d seen every possible ridiculous thing. Or was that just my imagination?
Just like that certain grim reaper had said—“Your body may have grown younger, but your brain stayed the same”—I was still an adult in a child’s body. I had tried to take full advantage of that by throwing tantrums left and right to get what I wanted. Most of those “tantrums” involved demanding supplies for experiments and accidents, and people usually let it slide with a smile because “he’s just a child” (and the things that weren’t so easily forgiven had been personally crushed by my father, so they basically didn’t exist). Yet for some reason, this “tantrum” tactic never worked on Inti.
“Can’t you just let it slide this once?”
“Doesn’t look like it.”
See? Not even a nibble.
“If Master leaves, how am I supposed to learn magic from now on? You taught me, so you have to take responsibility to the end!”
“Weren’t you originally self-taught?”
She was right. But this wasn’t about logic—it was about emotion. I was just trying anything that might work… As expected, it was no use. My mood had officially soured…
“…At this rate, it looks like you’ll keep clinging to me until the day I leave. If I had known the young master was this kind of person, I wouldn’t have come in the first place.”
…That remark hit so many sore spots I couldn’t even respond.
“Still, the passion you’ve shown for magic is the greatest I’ve seen in quite some time. So I’ll lend you this.”
With those words, Inti handed me a box.
Thud!
Whoa. Even though I caught it with both hands, it felt like my arms were about to fall off. It was a lot heavier than it looked. What was inside?
“It’s a collection of theory books covering spells from 3-Circle to 6-Circle. With this, you should be able to continue studying even without me, right?”
“…? How do you even have something like this?”
“Because I do?”
Just what kind of person was she? Even a basic 3-Circle spellbook was quite rare outside the Magic Tower. And this included up to 6-Circle? In the current era where the flying masters of the Magic Tower were 6- to 7-Circle mages, a 6-Circle spellbook was practically a grand mage’s grimoire. It was a national treasure, something a Magic Tower would guard like a dragon’s hoard. Not something an individual should be casually carrying around.
In fact, I had thought this from the moment we met—there was no way to figure out who Inti really was. Her outfit was strange enough, but even the very first lesson she gave me had been odd. The distinction between primitive magic and modern magic was something I had never heard before meeting her. That alone was suspicious.
Think about it. I had spent an entire year desperately researching anything related to magic. Did that mean not a single mage had visited our territory in all that time? Even if not a whole truckload, I had met quite a few. Adventurers who stopped by for a break after a job, bookstore merchants who dabbled in magic on the side—people like that. They came roughly every month or two. None of the basic knowledge they taught me had ever mentioned anything about “primitive magic.”
I glared at Inti, eyes full of suspicion, but she didn’t react at all.
“Sigh… So even now, as you’re about to leave, you’re still not going to tell me?”
“Hehehe, you already knew that, didn’t you?”
Yep. Still the same. Actually, I had asked her about this roughly a week after we first met. Even back then she had blatantly hidden her identity while showing zero intention of revealing it.
Ah, whatever. There was no point worrying about something I couldn’t know. What mattered was grabbing the rice cake that had fallen right in front of me. After all, this was a genuine 6-Circle spellbook.
“This unworthy disciple is deeply moved by Master’s boundless grace. I sincerely pray that your journey will be safe and peaceful.”
“You only speak so smoothly at times like this. Truly.”
That’s not true. My tongue works just fine other times too. Like when I’m making excuses to Dad to avoid extra training after causing trouble? Anyway, as long as it spins well, that’s all that matters.
“Just so we’re clear, I’m only lending it to you.”
“Until when were you thinking of lending it?”
“How about we make it a promise instead of a time limit?”
“A promise?”
Putting a 6-Circle spellbook on the line for a promise? I was worried she might demand some outrageous price later.
“Once you’ve learned everything written in those books, if you ever feel like returning them, come find me.”
It was far more generous than I expected. No, at this point it was practically no condition at all. …Which only made her even more suspicious.
“Then, as a parting gift so I can find you later, could you at least give me a small hint?”
“Don’t you think you’ve already received something incredibly big?”
“That’s true, but in my current state, even if I wanted to find you later, I don’t think I’d be able to.”
Inti seemed to ponder for a moment before speaking.
“Can’t be helped, then. This is a very special hint I’m leaving you.”
She slowly removed the robe she was wearing and let it fall behind her.
As her voice had suggested, she was female. Her hair, a pale blue so light it was nearly white, reminded me of clouds floating in the sky. Paired with deep blue eyes that seemed to hold the ocean itself, her distinct, elegant features were the kind you’d expect from a top-tier celebrity in my previous life. I was momentarily stunned by how young—almost childlike—she looked, but of course… Between strands of sky-blue hair, long ears peeked out.
My mentor was an elf.