I'm Not That Unreasonable
Me, unreasonable? I'd like to think I'm not that kind of person.
"That was fun."
The night had darkened and deepened. In the Academy's faculty meeting room, long since emptied of students, three professors sat facing one another across the table.
Among them, Rasty — the professor who had been idly twirling a lollipop made of blood — wore a satisfied expression.
"Just like you said, sis, she accepted right away. I guess she really did want to win that badly."
"She was even more remarkable than I expected."
"Mm. Definitely beyond what I imagined. If it weren't for the restrictions, she'd have become an archmage ages ago."
Candy Star's transformation into a true magical girl had proceeded flawlessly. Through the Union ritual, she had received the power of a magical girl and could now wield magic freely and at will.
Had Rasty declined the job, I would have handled it personally — I'd had my eye on Candy Star's talent for a while now. The potential inherent in the Candy Star class was simply that outstanding.
There was, however, one minor drawback, if you could call it that…
"Her power really has weakened considerably."
Rasty popped the lollipop into her mouth and crunched down. The candy, made of blood, shattered and slid down her throat.
"Releasing the system's restrictions took far more strength than I expected. And even after loosening them, she couldn't fully escape their influence."
"It couldn't be helped. Just summoning you two out of the Void Space was a feat in itself."
Rasty and Pharaoh. Two entities comparable to the high- or mid-tier demons of the Heavenly Demon clan — summoning them in their current state was absolutely impossible.
For me, greatly weakened with much of my power drained, they were far beyond what I could shoulder. I had managed to summon wisps of them using the Blue-Red Stone and various other means, but to summon their true bodies, I would need to be at least at my peak again.
My peak, though… honestly, that would be very difficult.
'Right now, I'm at best five percent of what I used to be.'
"Incidentally, there was something interesting in the report."
"Could you drop the formalities already?"
"The restriction release was treated as an 'advancement'… and not just any advancement — a 4th Advancement."
"Sis?"
This was a genuinely unexpected result.
When Yena, Choco, or Devil used techniques that strained the soul, or when Leo fully awakened as a Nymph, no sign of systemic change had ever been mentioned. It was always dismissed as something outside the system — and most recently, in Leo's case, there had been no visible system awakening response at all. She had simply drawn closer to being a Nymph, nothing more.
But for Candy Star, it had registered as an actual advancement.
"Did she tell you herself?"
"Mm. She was bragging about it, actually. Said she'd just become a '4th Advancement' user."
The 4th Advancement was a system that hadn't even been released yet. The widespread rumor was that it wouldn't arrive until after the Great Cataclysm.
Of course, I had received the quest myself — but it demanded I hunt twenty mid-tier or higher World Bosses, or else take down a 'Supreme'-grade World Boss. An absurd difficulty by any measure.
For Candy Star, whose level hadn't even reached 100, to bypass all of those procedures and suddenly advance did raise a question or two.
I looked over the report again, carefully this time.
"All of this is temporary. A time limit exists, and the system issues a warning."
"It might be connected to the system's stabilization, somehow."
"That's likely my fault as well. My knowledge vastly outweighs the power I can actually use."
"That could be it. Either way, she's back to normal for now."
Candy Star's awakening — a kind of temporary transformation — had returned to its normal state under the system's protection.
This raised the question of whether other users could advance through Rasty as well, but Candy Star sat on somewhat exceptional ground. Due to her class's branching path, she had traded away the use of powerful blunt weapons and instead had her magic sealed.
In other words, Candy Star hadn't gained a power she never had and advanced because of it — the power had been there from the very beginning; she simply hadn't been able to use it until now. The moment the seal on the magic within her exclusive weapon broke, the system surfaced the advancement content she was due to see later on.
Which told me one thing…
'So that's a no for me, then.'
Rasty cannot unseal me. If she were capable of breaking the seal on my peak-era power, there would have been no reason for her to remain bound to my soul for thousands of years in the first place.
"Back to normal, then. A shame, really. If she could have held that state, she'd have learned even more."
"She'll pick it up naturally again with time. Advancement is something she'd reach eventually anyway."
"Advancement… the authority of this 'system' really is something else."
It takes a perfectly ordinary human and elevates them to a level where they can split power with the celestial clan and the demon clan. Granted, the level at which they can split that power is barely more than a hatchling's — but even so, such a feat is a remarkable thing.
I had witnessed countless cases where growth was attempted and the body and soul simply shattered into pieces instead.
Even Rasty, who had endured the demon clan's experiments for so long, had seen a few users whose capabilities defied her understanding.
"That Leo girl, for one. And that Yena girl too. If any of them had existed in the past in their 'completed' states, there wouldn't have been a soul who could touch them on a small continent."
"That's true enough. Anyway, Pharaoh, thank you for your work. Teaching must have been quite the ordeal."
"An ordeal it was."
Pharaoh nodded, the golden mask rippling.
Rasty had struggled plenty, but Pharaoh had struggled especially. Students had needed to be sorted by aptitude and talent, and they had all piled onto one side — my class had eight, Rasty's five, leaving all fifteen of the rest to Pharaoh alone.
"Did they learn well?"
"They all had the heads for learning. Human-standard, so nothing exceptional."
"No standouts at all?"
"A one or two. I've written them down there. Have a look."
Pharaoh pointed to the paper resting on the table. Within it were photographs of two people and a few lines of assessment.
◼ Dinosaurs Are Alive — Druid. A user of the summoner class, and a ranker encountered during the Mock Siege Battle. Handling sand soldiers differs from handling living creatures, but the fundamental framework of a summon is the same. Will benefit greatly from instruction.
◼ Muel — Guardian of the Hercason Tribe. Possesses powerful physical abilities; the user who travels alongside Yul. Notably, her NPC-ification has progressed considerably. Communicates reasonably well. Would prove quite useful if cultivated.
"The druid, Dinosaurs Are Alive, speaks plainly enough. Raised properly, he'll be genuinely useful."
"And what about Yul? The girl who travels with him."
"Not much. Nothing worth noting compared to the man."
So he said. In any case, the lectures had concluded successfully, and as long as we kept on this path…
"So. Planning to head out soon?"
"Where to?"
"Don't play coy. You said once things settled down, you'd go conquer the desert."
"I never said any such thing."
"......"
"That was a joke. I do have to go eventually, of course."
There wasn't much on my plate anyway. Academy lectures would proceed as scheduled, and the Primordial Island thrived quite happily on its own whether I visited or not. As for dungeons, unless they were special ones like Hidden Dungeons, they were all more or less the same — the real problem was that there was nowhere worth going.
'Most dungeons on the continent were cleared ages ago. If you want something new, you have to leave the continent.'
That was what Yena had said back in the early days. And it was true — most dungeons had already been cleared by other rankers, so visiting them now would mean little.
"Then let's go. Just once."
"Truly?!"
"Yes."
Pharaoh's mood lifted visibly, whipping up a gust of sand-wind around him. Rasty wrinkled her nose and fused the swirling sand into the floor with her authority of blood, but he wore a happy expression all the same.
And so, Uncle Inom's chaotic desert conquest began.
The desert conquest did not happen immediately.
The Academy had only just opened its doors, and the Elbrit Principality was a young realm still in the throes of growth. There were internal matters to attend to, and streaming obligations that demanded attention as well. And so the conquest officially began a week after the first day of lectures.
"Everything is ready, I trust?"
"It is."
Pharaoh — now lightened to a far more compact form than before — nodded. Watching the two of us, Besk, the slave— no, the administrator of the Elbrit Principality, handed out papers inscribed with information, his face etched with exhaustion.
"We have conducted our investigations in the interim. Near the Principality lies a desert called Tevai. Its size is roughly one-third of Elbrit itself."
"That's quite large."
"Indeed it is."
The Elbrit Principality boasted a territory far larger than most kingdoms. It had once been the domain of one of the Eight Swords of the Empire, so that much was only natural.
Which meant the desert accounted for a full thirty percent of that vast expanse.
"Tevai borders the Principality, the Empire, several small kingdoms, and the lands of a handful of minority peoples. It would not have been strange for any of them to claim it, yet the environment is so barren that no one has ever occupied it."
"You mean it's empty land?"
"On paper it technically belongs to the Empire… but even the Empire has washed its hands of it, so claiming it would pose no problem whatsoever. And, well—"
"And?"
Besk stared straight at me.
For some reason, it was the look of someone who expected me to understand without a word being spoken.
"Even if we were to occupy it, I imagine no one would make an issue of—"
"Me? Unreasonable? I'd like to think I'm not that kind of person."
"...Is that so."
"Yes."
It was.