The Dragon and the Trio
I wasn't entirely sure what kinds of things were unfolding beneath our feet, but either way, our Osaka trip was still going strong.
For sightseeing in the city itself, we'd swept through the major landmarks—Umeda, Dotonbori, Osaka Castle, and the Tennoji area—the kind of places worth visiting at least once if it was your first time in Japan.
And we hadn't skipped a single opportunity to eat in between.
If I said we were putting away eight meals a day including breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks… well, that pretty much says it all.
Hotel breakfast in the morning, brunch and coffee at a famous café between breakfast and lunch, a snack right before lunch, lunch itself, more food after that, dinner, late-night snacks…
In short, we'd been racing around the city just to wring every last drop of value out of the food, and somehow managed to hit every place worth seeing along the way.
Money? You're seriously asking about money at this point?
As we busily worked our way through every corner of Osaka, I could feel the other trio of students diligently trailing after us as well.
We mostly moved by subway, and there were times when they couldn't board the same train out of sheer self-consciousness—but they still managed to catch up somehow, using mana detection.
They must have built a fairly solid foundation of magical knowledge after all. Being able to use mana detection that well at their age was a talent in itself.
After covering the whole of Osaka, we set out to explore the outskirts next.
Day three of the Osaka trip. We were currently on a train bound for Kyoto, chatting while diligently demolishing Japanese train bentos.
A sweep of mana detection told me the kids were in another car about one compartment away from ours.
Ha-yan, who had been working her way through a top-grade eel bento, turned to me with a question.
"By the way, I heard Kyoto has a few of Japan's old-fogey wizards living there. If we show up, won't they freak out at the mana and come charging out?"
"It was the capital for a ridiculously long time, so it's not impossible… but Takanashi supposedly gave them a warning, so we'll just have to wait and see."
"What do we do if they cross the line?"
From beside Ha-yan, Yang Ho-jin—who was eating the same top-grade eel bento, large size—asked me to input the situational code.
Meaning she planned to operate exactly like a program, according to whatever code I entered.
I thought for a moment, then fed her the instructions.
"If they cross the line, paralyze them first, then cast invisibility and leave them like that. Tell me after. I'll handle the rest."
"Understood. Nom nom."
Code received, Yang Ho-jin sank right back into her bento world.
Once Ha-yan finished hers and started packing it up, she asked me another question.
"Are you just going to keep letting those kids follow us like this? With that much dedication, wouldn't it be okay to meet them once?"
Watching kids roughly her own age trail after us for three straight days without a word had apparently tugged a little at Ha-yan's heart.
But I was still firm.
"No. That would set a precedent. If we accept them once and word gets out? It becomes unmanageable from that point on. And if that happens, those kids will get hounded by everyone else for a good long while too."
Ha-yan chewed thoughtfully on her chopsticks for a moment before answering.
"Then why not just meet them once without anyone else knowing? You're capable of that much, aren't you?"
"Huh?"
Ah. Right.
I was a wizard.
"Ugh… I-I think we lost them?"
The moment the trio arrived at Kyoto Station, they scrambled off the train to follow Cha Siu's party—only to find that their targets had vanished without a trace. They immediately cast a wide net of mana detection, but Cha Siu's overwhelming mana was nowhere to be found.
"Any mana signature? You can't tell? Silvi, you've got the best mana-sensing ability out of all of us."
"J-just a second. I'm looking right now, but past the outside of the station I can't sense anything at aaaaall…"
Silvi scrunched up her face and concentrated even harder, but all she got for her efforts was a cold sweat.
Lily joined the search with a scowl of her own, but none of them could pick up a single reaction.
If anything—
"Ugh. I heard this place was crawling with stubborn old wizards, and sure enough. Nothing here but a bunch of geezers' mana. And why are those people hanging around the station?"
Lily's finger pointed toward a group of elderly men in immaculate suits.
They looked like they were waiting for someone about to come out of the station.
Teave spotted them too and frowned slightly.
"They probably slipped away somewhere to avoid those people. Figured if they got caught, they wouldn't even be able to sightsee properly."
"Th-then what do we do? At this rate we're going to leave Kyoto without doing anything either… wait?"
"Wh-what is it?"
"H-hold on! Both of you, stay still! This reaction is…"
Whoosh.
While the three of them were still fretting over what to do next, light suddenly engulfed the ground beneath their feet—
—and with a strange noise, they vanished from Kyoto Station in an instant.
THUD!!
"Gwah!"
"Kyaah!!"
"Ugh!!"
They had only closed and opened their eyes—
—and the three students who had been sitting on a bench in a corner of Kyoto Station all dropped at once from a height of about two meters, each letting out a bizarre yelp of pain.
As they rubbed at their respective landing spots—butts, lower backs, or heads—a shadow fell across them from the front.
"Heh heh. You followed us around for days, and you still weren't ready for a situation like this?"
"""…Huh???"""
Standing before the three of them, arms crossed and wearing a distinctly terrifying expression, was Cha Siu looking down at them.
Now, how should I cook these little things?
"""…"""
Thanks to Yang Ho-jin's precise location-tracking magic, my spectacular teleportation, and Ha-yan's presence-concealment and invisibility spells, we successfully ditched Kyoto's assortment of weird old-fogey wizards. Then, following Ha-yan's suggestion, we teleported the trio who had been tailing us straight into the Kyoto hotel we'd booked separately.
The three of them hit the living room floor of our suite with various refreshing thuds, spent a moment in pain while they figured out what was going on, and then—the male student, the first to spot me standing there with my arms crossed—frantically shook the other two girls until they came to their senses.
And since I just kept looking down at them without saying a word, they started kneeling on their own, without anyone telling them to. I hadn't said a single thing.
The guy first, then the blonde girl, and finally the silver-haired girl who had barely managed to pull herself together.
"Uh. Um. Ah. Uhh…"
The male student looked like he was about to say something, but one glance at my face—I was deep in thought about something else entirely—and he dropped his head again.
Why were they doing this among themselves when I hadn't even spoken?
Ha-yan, who had already known they were coming, had ducked out to a convenience store with Yang Ho-jin for drinks and snacks. She walked back into the room, took one look at the scene, hurled the snacks onto the bed, and came flying at me, smacking me across the back as she shouted.
"Siu!! What did you do to these kids!!!"
"I didn't!! I'm innocent!!"
And just like that, I was getting scolded by Ha-yan out of nowhere.
I gestured urgently at the kids still kneeling in front of me, trying to get them to say something, but—
"Argh!! I told you!! Just stand there and look at them without doing anything!!"
"I was just looking! I literally only looked!!"
"Then why are they on their knees! Why do they look like they're about to die!!"
"Ah! Ow! Ugh!! Argh! Seriously!! I didn't do anything!!"
The whole thing was a complete disaster from the jump.
A little while later.
Ha-yan had finally calmed down, and the students had gotten up and sat on the sofa exactly as she instructed.
She and I had both been told to shut up and stay quiet, so I figured I'd just sip my drink and listen to the conversation.
As I nursed my beverage, Ha-yan opened the dialogue with the three of them, who were still watching us with tense faces.
"First of all… as far as I know, all three of you are a year younger than me, so I'm going to drop the formal speech, okay?"
"Ah. Y-yes yes. O-of course. Feel free to go straight to casual speech."
"Y-yes yes, unnie…"
Nod nod nod nod.
Teave answered in a rush, Lily agreed with a faintly flushed face, and Silvi just nodded her head vigorously without a word.
At their intense reactions, Ha-yan shot me another glare before turning back to the three of them.
"Anyway, sorry. That was a pretty aggressive way to bring you here, wasn't it? We didn't plan on using magic that suddenly, but there were wizards we really, really don't like waiting at the station, so we didn't have a choice. You've been following us this whole time, so you roughly know how things have been going, right? You seemed pretty good at mana detection."
The three of them indicated agreement without so much as touching the drinks in front of them.
"So then. The reason you followed us. It's what I think it is, right? Because of that story spreading through the wizard world. The one about taking this guy on as a disciple."
"Y-yes yes. Th-that's right… Ah! No! It's not like we were trying to do anything shady! W-we just wanted to meet you and say hello at least once!"
"M-me too! He's incredibly famous where we're from! And I have so many questions about magical knowledge!"
"I-I brought a whole list of questions about a-alchemy…"
They each laid out their reasons, passionately insisting that while yes, they had followed us, there wasn't any major ulterior motive.
It wasn't wrong. But it wasn't entirely right either.
I snorted and, gently shoving aside Ha-yan's instruction to stay quiet, opened my mouth.
"You know that if you lie here, your wrists go flying, right?"
"Hup…"
"…Hic…"
"…"
At my words, all three of them went paper-white and quietly averted their eyes from ours.
Ha-yan had known that too, of course—she just hadn't brought it up. Now she started smacking my arm in rapid succession, scolding me all over again.
"Just! Sit! Still! I know! I know, but we still need to actually talk to them!!"
"Ah! Okay! Okay, I get it!!"
Her hands seriously stung like hell. Every single hit felt like my arm was catching fire.
And then Ha-yan had to spend a solid thirty more minutes just calming the three of them down again—because they were trembling from the dragonfear I instinctually leaked toward lesser beings.
After that, on Ha-yan's "orders," I got banished to the farthest room in the suite.
Tch.