I'm Actually That Kind of Genius Mage (4)

The Grimoire of the Frail Ember.

Across the spread leather pages, contents christened—rather grandly—as magical knowledge had packed themselves in far more finely and densely than I'd ever imagined.

Should I say it was like one of those doorstop 1,200-page major textbooks universities force on you, the kind you never spare a glance after buying except during exam season?

Hmm.

Still, if I really, really had to dig up a difference, I supposed it was that the things written in this grimoire were almost too considerate, if anything.

"Yeehaw-! Written in this much detail, it's so easy to follow—how nice? Mm-hm, nailed it!"

At a glance, you'd think all that detail would be a good thing, but the problem was...

"I seriously don't understand a single word of this...!!"

...that the knowledge engraved beyond the grimoire was so arcane it went past difficult into outright incomprehensible.

· · ·

· · ·

"Huuuek-."

I felt my eyes spinning in circles as I heaved out a sigh.

"I can't make sense of a single bit of it—what am I supposed to do...?"

No, seriously. Since when was magic this hard?

At this rate, wasn't this even worse than the major textbooks my professors rammed down my throat...?

...Come on-. Is this a grimoire or a sleep-aid manual? I honestly can't tell the difference, truly!

A perfectly legal sleeping pill, nothing more, nothing less.

Truly, the printed lines seemed to bob drowsily right before my eyes.

I scraped together what patience I had and tried my best to run my brain at full throttle, but it was nowhere near enough.

In the end, past my limit, I exploded with a shriek.

"Aaargh, ack-! Even a university professor would lecture a major course more entertainingly than this-!!"

Raking my hands through my hair with a fwap-fwap-, I threw a first-class fit.

Ah, whatever, whatever! I'm quitting! I've endured as long as I can...!

For a game-addled wreck like me, being made to read dense academic tomes like this was outright torture.

Rather than this tedious slab of printed text, I figured poking at the community I'd left open earlier would be a million times more entertaining.

If the author had been standing right in front of me, I'd have wanted to square up and snarl, 'Stand up straight, author! Who told you to write it this impenetrable?'

Lips twisted into a pout, I eventually leaned back against the bench and gave the community a few taps.

Well.

Nothing else for it, anyway—might as well goof off on the community a bit and let my head air out.

Let's see... hmmm- what's been posted on the boards?

I switched on the community feature and looked over the full list of posts.

...Huh? Huhh?

The Hell Difficulty Minor Gallery had such a small population that new posts themselves were a rare sight.

Even the handful that had come up were, without exception, all about me.

What's more—.

The question post I'd made had blown up with comments on a scale the other posts couldn't even compare to.

Good grief, there are already over ninety comments!?

Seeing reactions that either treated me like an idiot or snickered about me being a bug, a strange resentment welled up alongside an odd sense of kinship.

...Ugh. A chimpanzee? I chose my grimoire perfectly rationally! This is an injustice!

Grumbling like that under my breath, I gave the question post I'd written earlier a tap and opened it.

· · ·

My, what a circus this is... and this counts as newbie treatment?

Lips still stuck out in a pout, I pecked away at the keyboard.

Clack-clack-clack, tap-.

...Fine, I could accept that the gallery users weren't to my taste, but a question was a question—it needed answering.

From what I saw earlier, some of them do seem to actually know their magic. Maybe if I ask, they'll tell me?

I was busy entertaining such optimistic thoughts when, the moment my comment went up, reactions came flying in.

Riiing-.

Right around when those reactions popped up,

one of the fixed-nick gallery users I'd seen earlier stormed straight into the replies.

?

But Yernil's response was even more razor-edged than before.

Mind corruption...? My brain twisting...?

Hmmm... no, I do believe I simply got a little sleepy, though?

Is that for real? Doesn't seem like it. Tsk-.

Tilting my head, I answered the reply anyway.

...Ugh. I didn't understand it, but I did read it properly. Isn't that going a bit far?

Hoo.

So that's how you want to play it, huh~?

That suspicion-drenched reaction sparked a stubborn streak of my own.

The moment I'd typed out my own stitch-by-stitch reading of it, the reactions flared white-hot.

Ahem-.

Yes, yes. I've never been one to tell lies, you see?

I may not know much else, but I've never once done anything I couldn't hold my head high about~

Well, it does feel nice to be believed.

Once the misunderstanding-that-wasn't-quite-a-misunderstanding was cleared up, Yernil's tone shifted a little as well.

A decoder?

No idea what she was on about—it had all just been written ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in Korean. I fired back an instant reply.

At that, other fixed-nick gallery users came pouring into the replies as well, took in the situation, and started chattering away.

Oh.

So runes were linguistic symbols that couldn't simply be read, then?

If that was the case, it did make a certain sense to me.

Me, I'd apparently been granted some automatic genius for it, courtesy of the Great Witch trait.

...Hmmm~ hold on. Now that I think it through, isn't this a cheat key, aside from the whole turning-into-a-woman part?

Oh-ho.

Thought of that way, ending up in a body like this almost felt like kind of a total win~?

...Yeah, right. I was just taking the chance to do a thorough job of rationalizing to myself, that's all.

...Sigh-. Well, I'll just roll with it. Still, it's a relief that it's actually helping.

Honestly, I'd had my doubts about whether the Hell Difficulty Minor Gallery's beloved regulars would hand out proper answers, but that part had worked out surprisingly smoothly.

Yes, that's the stuff?

Kind coaching—berry berry good!

Grinning ear to ear, I sat straight down on the bench and closed my eyes.

Focus around the heart, right?

Thump, thump.

Sure enough, as I sharpened my senses toward the region around my heart and did something like meditation, I could feel something.

Whoosh-.

From deep within my heart, a clear, luminous blue light blossomed upward.

A wave carrying that soft, never-before-felt power wrapped snugly around my heart.

This is it!

Having found the answer without much trouble, I snapped my eyes open and hurriedly typed out a reply.

Tap-tap-tap, click-.

No, I'm telling you it really worked? Just let me move on to the next step!

Jeez, what's with the instant 'no' to everything I do?

Grumbling inwardly at the stuffiness of it all—

"Hmm, so she's a tsundere, huh?"

Okay.

Nagging and nitpicking this way and that on the surface, while actually coaching me kindly through every single step?

This was basically a foul-mouthed granny style who fusses over you like a tsundere, I'd say.

Good, good. So now I just need to express the mana outward, right?

I steeled my resolve and raised the index finger of my right hand.

The moment I nudged the presence I'd felt near my heart, the magic power streamed along my blood vessels down into my fingertips.

Oh.

For the record, if you asked me how it moved—I have absolutely no idea.

It's like trying to explain how you move your arms and legs, that sort of feeling?

In any case, manipulating magic power wasn't particularly hard.

Hmm, while I'm at it, I'd like to make it visible for her... that way she'd walk me through the next stage quickly, too.

Knowing tsundere-style Yernil, she'd predictably come back all frustrating with 'I don't believe you, you know?'

Rather than sit through that, I figured getting ahead of her and showing her myself wouldn't be a bad call.

Let's go for something screenshot-friendly to show off, or maybe a video... that sort of vibe.

As naturally as breathing, an instinctive sense of how to do it washed over me.

I pictured bright light, recalled its warmth, and then sketched out the outline of a form.

And then, I unfurled it.

Fwoooosh-.

"Whoa!"

So this actually works?

From the tip of my right index finger, a tiny yellow point of light popped up with a fwoom-.

A faint, clear ember—the touch of that soft-looking yellow glow against my fingertip was quietly, subtly warm.

Flicker, flick-.

At my gesture, the little light swayed between my fingers, swimming in lazy circles before it vanished.

"Ah."

Oops—apparently spacing out had broken my concentration and dispelled it... but it didn't matter one bit.

Somehow, I get the feeling I could call this right back up again.

Should I call it a mental imagery space? I could sense something 'engraved' in there.

Hmm.

Would it land if I said it felt like a single unnamed book shelved in an enormous library?

Well, if that was how it worked, then giving it a name would make it easy to search for. And to call up, too.

I'd been confident in my naming sense since way back, so without hesitation, I gave the thing a name.

Fwoosh.

Just as expected, the moment I named it, a small light came seeping straight out of my fingertip.

"Okay!"

Phew. Nice—now all I had to do was show her everything I'd recorded!

The time had come to show this off, giddy and certified.

Except...

"Ah."

Apparently, attaching a video meant I'd have to register a fixed nickname first.

Right, well.

No big deal, was it?

The crux was what to name it—with a good name, it wasn't hard at all.

I decided on the spot, no hesitation.

I just made a firefly, so... let's go with FireflyHorn!

Pretty slick, no?

Having created the fixed nickname FireflyHorn, I uploaded a few-second video, shot with the first-person recording feature, of a firefly circling at my fingertip.

Clack-clack-clack, tap-.

Riiing-.

"Phew-. Please, hurry up and come coach meeeee...!"

All right. Miss Yernil, are you watching?

Kindly give me your coaching, and teach me the next step... already!

Some time later.

FireflyHorn's post on the Hell Difficulty Minor Gallery ascended to the Hall of Fame.

And then—

"Impossible! No way—there's just no way this is possible...!"

Within a garden embroidered with fresh, verdant plants, a cool, clear voice rang out from atop an enormous chair wrought of living wood.

"How on earth could a mere beginner... manage something like this...?"

It was a beautiful high elf, pointed-eared, who narrowed her eyes and let out a voice steeped in astonishment.

"It hasn't even been that long since she entered the Tower of Ascension..."

There was no mistaking it.

Yernil knew exactly what that tiny light in the video, visible to her beyond the community, was.

That tiny light symbolized the realm one could reach only after grasping magic power manipulation and training, and training yet again.

In other words—

"She advanced to Mage... in a single day...?"

It was the insignia of a mage.