The 3D Job of an Imperial Mage
The path most ordinary mages take is to entrust themselves to a magic tower, pour their energy into developing new spells, or devote themselves to nurturing the next generation. That alone provides a comfortable living, and it fully satisfies the desires of mages who value their own research or are obsessed with passing down knowledge to future generations.
So what exactly do imperial mages do? They handle research and education just like regular mages. But that's only when things are slow. Normally, they're little more than the empire's special forces. They march out with the knight orders to exterminate monsters or head off to war. And because they're summoned so often for wars and monster subjugations, they die pretty frequently too. Since they're mages worthy of serving the imperial family, they demand exceptional skill, assign all sorts of difficult tasks, and the battlefield or monster hunts are dangerous work. On top of that, you end up seeing all kinds of filthy things... It's the quintessential 3D job—Difficult, Dangerous, and Dirty all rolled into one.
In the official setting book, it says that Werner rejected scouting offers to become the next Tower Master from the various Tower Masters and instead chose the position of imperial mage. The surrounding mages who heard the news simply clicked their tongues. Of course they'd sigh—after all, a promising talent in the academic world had gone into the loading and unloading industry.
That idiot Werner was a total sucker who chose a 3D job just because he wanted to work closely with his older brothers and sisters.
"Fucking hell, that damn Lorsha bitch..."
The one small mercy was that imperial mages weren't forced to tattoo strange marks on the emperor's slaves or brew potency potions for his nighttime activities. From the start, the emperor was a pure-hearted monogamist who ruled over a polygamous nation yet never laid a hand on any woman except his empress. Even if he was a bit foolish, he genuinely loved his people. If I had to compare him to the Three Kingdoms, he'd be like Liu Shan with a slight buff to his love for the common people.
However, the heroes who served as this nation's Zhuge Liangs had all been dispatched, with only one exception.
No matter what kind of person the emperor was, my immediate priority was my own situation.
"Big brother Melchior, big sister Melissa... The way they look at me probably won't be too kind, right...?"
For now, Werner's memories were still too jumbled for me to recall everything he'd done or his full reputation. That meant I had no choice but to rely on the people around me for help.
At my question, both Melchior and Melissa burst into laughter.
"Bwahahahaha! Werner, you're seriously asking that...!"
"Pfft! Little brother, do you really not remember...?"
What the hell? Why are you two cracking up? These damn otaku bastards are getting all excited about something only they know...
"No, what is it?"
"The people in the imperial family who hold a grudge against you... Actually, it'd be faster to count the ones who don't hold a grudge against you, little brother."
"What the hell did I even do? This is so unfair, seriously."
Holding a grudge against this kind and virtuous archmage? Aren't they the real villains here? Werner definitely only brought down the hammer of justice on those who came at him first. Yet even after getting hit by that hammer of justice, they still feel wronged enough to hold grudges? It seems like his re-education was clearly insufficient.
"First of all, the person who probably hates you the most is the crown prince."
Once I get reinstated, I'm definitely going to deliver a Confucian fist—no, a re-education fist—to that crown prince bastard. While shouting 'Hey, Crown Prince, take this money punch!'
"What the hell did I do to him?"
"When you were teaching the crown prince magic at age fifteen, you smacked him on the head for dozing off... and when he protested, you froze him solid with magic for an entire day. Don't you remember that?"
This fucking Werner... This crazy villain bastard, seriously. Just how severe was his middle school syndrome that he pulled that shit on the crown prince? Hammer of justice my ass. He was just swinging his hammer however he pleased, waltzing around to his own beat and causing collateral damage.
"How old was the crown prince back then...?"
"Since you were fifteen, the crown prince was probably ten years old?"
He was literally just a middle school delinquent bullying an elementary school kid. Why the hell do I have to clean up this damn bastard's karma? Was getting his head chopped off by the crown prince—who now holds the sword of power—the best possible ending Werner could have reached?
I felt like running straight to that white room, casting Wasabari on that damn Werner, then smashing a falcon punch into his face followed by a phoenix kick.
"How's the crown prince doing these days? Actually, what does that bastard even look like?"
"Well, he has the imperial family's signature golden hair. Since he likes radishes, his skin is probably quite tanned."
Fuck, it's Golden Taeyang. This bastard... He wouldn't be the kind of piece of shit who does dog-like things to Irina, Camellia, or Glacia out of revenge, right? If he does it to me, fine, but I can't forgive anyone who lays a hand on the people around me. Of course, I have no intention of forgiving anyone who lays a hand on me either.
"Is that bastard a womanizer?"
"Womanizer? Hardly... They say he used to vomit just from making eye contact with women, and he only recently managed to get married."
Then I can relax. So he's just a good Golden Taeyang who pursues pure love, despite an appearance that causes misunderstandings. This is exactly why you shouldn't judge people by their looks alone.
"Anyway, the crown prince must really fucking hate me, right?"
"Little brother, is that even a question? Of course he hates you. Though after getting married, his personality has apparently softened a bit, so maybe not as much."
"But how did he even get married?"
It was a mystery how Golden Taeyang—who vomits breath the moment he sees a woman—managed to reach the goal of marriage.
"I don't know. Maybe he met a woman who doesn't make him vomit. This big sister has never been very interested in imperial family matters anyway."
"Then besides the crown prince, the people who hold grudges against me are..."
"Probably all the imperial princesses?"
"Why the hell do the princesses too?"
Did he freeze them all and turn them into Dooly the dinosaur or something? No matter how much of a piece of shit middle-school-syndrome Werner was, he couldn't have been the kind of bastard who would commit violence against innocent girls, right? If he really did that, I think I'd genuinely despise Werner.
"You rejected all their confessions."
"Well, if you don't like someone, you can reject them."
People really do hold grudges just because their confession gets rejected. The type who delude themselves into thinking they're in a relationship and fall into their own little world. Personally, I don't like those kinds of people very much.
"No, it wasn't just a normal rejection."
"What, did I tear up their love letters or something?"
"Don't you remember what you said when you rejected their confessions?"
"Uh, I don't."
"Sigh... Then I'll just tell you what I heard."
Melissa cleared her throat and deliberately lowered her voice, trying to imitate me.
Instead of physical—or rather, magical—violence, he went all out with verbal violence. I had no idea how to deal with the massive pile of shit this damn Werner had dumped on me. Even without the Irina issue, wouldn't this bastard have gotten his head smashed in by the imperial family over all the grudges he'd accumulated?
To trample so cruelly on the hearts of the imperial princesses who had shyly confessed their love... What a heartless bastard.
"Did I really say all that...?"
"Honestly, even I think the princesses' faces look like sandwiches that got run over by a carriage, but you went way too far with your words."
"Big sister, aren't your words even harsher...?"
"At least I don't say things like that in front of the people themselves. It's pitiful, isn't it?"
Now that she mentioned it, that was true. It's normal to curse the king behind his back, but saying someone's face looks smashed right in front of the king's daughter is definitely the act of a crazy person.
"And yet my head is still somehow attached to my neck."
Melchior provided the answer to that question.
"The leader, Media, and that annoying knight bastard probably bowed their heads every single day."
"And now I'm supposed to return to my position as an imperial mage without any of that protection?"
It seemed that Lorsha's long-fermented, aged kimchi-like grudge was no ordinary spiciness.
"If you want, why don't you bring the people around you to the capital too? My daughter included—they'll definitely all help you."
So there was a method like that. Right, if I had Zeke and Media's daughter Irina, the hero Camellia, and Melchior and Melissa's daughter Glacia helping me, they should be able to block most threats. Though convincing those three to come with me to the capital where the imperial family was would be an entirely separate problem.
"But big brother, isn't Glacia busy with matters in the north? Is it okay for her to leave her post?"
"Don't worry too much about that. The busy period with the monster problems has already passed, and I can leave the other issues to my subordinates."
If he was that confident, then there shouldn't be any problems.
"Big brother, you said those three are currently being detained, right?"
"That's right. Will you go persuade them yourself?"
"Of course I have to."
From now on, I had to bet everything I had on persuading these three women.