It's Really Just Once
The proposal letters that arrived for me totaled three.
Magic Academy Special Invited Professor. Magic Tower Chief Research Consultant. Exclusive Tutor to the Heir of the Kingdom’s Most Prestigious Family.
Any ordinary person would have bolted upright in bed at offers like these. But I didn’t even hesitate before picking up my quill. I wrote my replies without a second thought.
Declined. Declined. And declined again.
The reason was simple. It was too much of a hassle. Now that I had retired, I had zero interest in teaching anyone or taking responsibility for them. That wasn’t why I’d moved all the way out to this quiet countryside in the first place.
People whispered that I was a reclusive genius or a man who had touched the very essence of magic. All nonsense. I’m no genius.
True geniuses are something else entirely. Monsters who grasp the truth after a single explanation, then learn even more from their failures.
I was different. I had never once achieved anything on the first try.
What others succeeded at immediately, I only managed after hundreds of attempts. Only after failing thousands of times could I barely catch up to them.
I was simply a mediocre talent who had failed and struggled far more than most.
And someone like me, teaching others? I could barely take care of myself. I had neither the time nor the talent for it.
“There. All done.”
I slipped the rejection letters into envelopes and sealed them firmly with wax. The rest of my day was straightforward.
Warm potato soup, then sinking into my soft bed for a nice, lazy stretch.
It was the peaceful daily life I had dreamed of even before retiring.
I lit a fire in the hearth and set the soup to boil.
That was when it happened.
Knock, knock.
A knock sounded from outside.
I set down my spoon and walked to the front door.
Coming all the way to this remote cottage at this hour? It must be something urgent.
“Who is it?”
When I opened the door, a girl stood there. Her silver hair was damp, as though it had been caught in the rain, and her expensive cloak was splattered with mud.
But what truly drew my gaze were her eyes.
Her blue pupils were trembling violently.
She parted her pale, bluish lips.
“...I am Elysia Rowen.”
The moment I heard that name, I had to fight the urge to slam the door shut.
The top candidate at the Magic Academy. The genius known as the gem of the Rowen family.
And recently, the subject of rumors that her magic had begun collapsing for unknown reasons.
Troublesome. Problems of noble houses should be solved by noble houses.
“You’ve got the wrong person. Go back.”
“No. I have come to the right place.”
Elysia refused to retreat. Just as the door was about to close, she urgently pulled a bundle of old papers from within her cloak.
“I found this draft among the pile of materials the Magic Tower’s consultant discarded as useless failures.”
“How in the world did you… Wait, more importantly, how did you even find this place?”
“Using the return address from the disposal records as a clue, I spent half a year making inquiries until I finally located Master’s place of seclusion.”
“Half a year?”
“Yes. My magic began to collapse little by little half a year ago.”
Elysia clutched the bundle of old papers even tighter.
“From that moment on, I held onto only this one sentence. At first I thought it was nonsense.”
Mana isn’t something you hold onto—it’s about creating a place for it to flow.
She smiled bitterly.
“But I had already tried every other method. The professors, the family elders, even the Magic Tower consultants—none of them helped. In the end, this sentence was all I had left.”
It was no ordinary tenacity. What she held out was a rough draft I had scribbled years ago at the Magic Tower’s request.
Later, even I had been so embarrassed by it that I told them to tear it up.
“Ah, that’s just some nonsense I scribbled while drunk when I was young…”
“To me… it was my last remaining hope.”
Her voice shook faintly.
“Just once… please look at it just once. I want to know, at least, why my magic is collapsing.”
This was going to drive me insane.
I had to send her away immediately. Getting involved here would destroy my peaceful life forever.
But her tightly clenched fingertips kept catching my eye.
Those small, trembling fingers. It wasn’t mana recoil. It was the desperate shaking that only someone who had slammed into a massive wall and despaired hundreds of times would show.
I didn’t want to recognize it, but I knew it all too well because I had once been the same.
“Sigh… It’s really just once.”
In the end, I stepped aside.
In the middle of the living room, Elysia cast her spell.
The target was the most basic of basics: Fire Bolt.
A magic circle rose into the air. The lines were precise, the mana arrangement flawless. I instantly understood why the professors had called her a genius.
But—
Crack—.
Like shattering glass, the magic circle broke apart miserably.
The flame never even bloomed before scattering across the floor. Elysia’s face turned deathly pale.
“As you can see… No matter how perfectly I construct the formula, the mana refuses to flow all the way.”
She lowered her head as though in complete resignation.
“I don’t need praise or comfort. I simply want to know where I went wrong.”
I glanced down at the scattering remnants of mana on the floor.
A wrong spot? There wasn’t one.
The problem was actually the opposite.
“You’re trying too hard to do it perfectly.”
“Pardon?”
“The magic circle itself isn’t wrong. It’s too perfect—that’s the problem.”
I traced the path of the circle she had drawn with my finger.
“You wrapped it so tightly, trying to control every single variable because you’re afraid of failing.”
Elysia’s eyes followed my fingertip.
“There’s an entrance but no exit. So the mana gets tangled inside and explodes.”
This was the kind of mistake mediocre people like me made constantly. A chronic illness that appears when you’re so terrified of failure that you desperately chase perfection.
“Don’t try to hold it. Just create the path.”
Elysia’s eyes widened.
“Mana isn’t trapped simply because you try to contain it. Open even the smallest gap, and it will flow on its own.”
To me, it was as obvious as breathing.
Elysia froze like someone struck on the head by a hammer and carefully turned my words over in her mind.
“Ah…”
She reached out once more.
This time the circle was different from the precise one before. The lines were slightly loose, the structure relaxed.
But—
Whoosh—.
A small flame bloomed above her palm.
Not large or flashy—just a very ordinary Fire Bolt.
Elysia held her breath as she felt the warmth of the flame.
“I succeeded…”
“There you go.”
I dusted off my hands.
“I’ve found the cause and untangled the knot. You can go back now.”
I had done more than enough. I needed to chase her out before I got any more involved.
“How… How could you see that in a single glance?”
“You notice it after blowing things up enough times.”
I shrugged. She still couldn’t tear her eyes away from the flame hovering above her palm.
“It was a problem even the Magic Tower consultants and academy professors couldn’t solve.”
“Anyone would see it after blowing it up a few hundred times.”
I meant it. After all, I had gone through the exact same thing.
Where it got stuck, where it burst—I had only figured it out after bashing my head against the wall hundreds of times.
“Why aren’t you leaving? The diagnosis is finished, so hurry up and go already.”
Instead of answering, Elysia slowly turned to face me.
Her eyes had changed completely.
Where desperation had once been, blind, absolute reverence now filled them.
“Could you… not take me as your disciple?”
“Absolutely not.”
I cut her off sharply.
“I don’t have the temperament to teach anyone, and I have no intention of taking disciples for the rest of my life.”
At my firm refusal, Elysia bit her lip for a moment. But soon she seemed to realize something profound. She bowed her head with a look of firm resolve.
“I understand. It means I am still unworthy.”
No, it’s not that you’re unworthy—I’m just annoyed. Why do geniuses always twist other people’s words to suit themselves?
“I will never forget the grace I received today.”
Elysia gave an excessively polite bow and left the cottage.
Watching her back disappear into the darkness, I finally let out a sigh of relief.
“Whew. Now it’ll finally be quiet.”
The next morning.
I woke later than usual and stuffed the rejection letters I had sealed so carefully with wax into the mailbox.
A cheerful hum rose from my throat without me even realizing.
That kid had probably returned to the academy by now and was managing on her own.
My peaceful retirement life had been perfectly protected.
At least, that was what I believed.
At the same time. Final Practical Evaluation Site, Magic Academy.
Hundreds of nervous applicants and five examiners were staring at the girl standing in the center.
Elysia Rowen.
The genius who had recorded overwhelming mana readings in the preliminary test and had been called the top candidate—only to fall from grace recently after losing the ability to cast even basic spells.
Elysia slowly raised her hand. In her mind, only one man’s indifferent voice echoed.
—Don’t hold it. Just create the path.
She did not suppress her mana. She simply opened the tiniest gap where the mana wished to flow.
Whoosh—!
A blue flame bloomed at the girl’s fingertips.
“Blue Flame…?”
Someone gasped in shock.
The symbol of a Great Mage, a phenomenon that only appeared when mana flow reached extreme stability.
Four of the five examiners shot to their feet at the same time, as if they had rehearsed it.
Only the chief examiner seated in the center—Leonhardt Beil—remained in place. With a hardened expression, he rested his chin on his hand and asked in a heavy voice.
“Elysia Rowen. Who exactly did you learn that magic from?”
Elysia closed her eyes for a moment.
The face of the man who had coldly shut the door, refusing to take her as his disciple, rose in her mind.
It didn’t matter. He simply hadn’t acknowledged her yet.
To her, at least, that man was the sole benefactor who had saved her shattered world.
Without the slightest hesitation, Elysia answered in a clear, resolute voice.
“He is my Master.”