I Became a Suspiciously Doted-On Newbie? (1)

Yernil.

Set aside the pointed ears and the sulky, haughty air, and what remained was the narrowed gaze of a high elf who seemed to have distilled the very archetype of feminine beauty to its extreme.

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

What she had just read was infuriating beyond measure, and the sheer absurdity of the community post tangled her feelings up all on their own.

"Promoted to mage in a single day...?"

The reason was none other than this.

Firefly.

It was all because of a post written by a challenger who had only just set foot inside the Tower of Ascension.

A mere newbie — the kind people usually dismiss as a novice player — had supposedly learned magic the moment they entered the Tower.

'Well, to be precise, they don't seem to realize they've learned it... but even if it's common magic, magic is still magic.'

It was a rare case, and an utterly outrageous one at that.

Yernil was a veteran who had climbed the Tower of Ascension for so long that even her memories of her human days — back when she was Canadian — had grown faint, and she bore the blessing of the World Tree besides; she prided herself on her innate talent.

She held a 100% aptitude for the dual attributes of Life and Wind, qualifying her as a 'complete affinity' — a multi-complete-affinity candidate — and even in the far-distant past, the word genius had been thrown her way countless times.

Sorcerers had emerged in droves from China, the United States, Japan, and beyond, and Yernil had contended for the very top among them all. That alone said everything.

Perhaps that was why.

To Yernil, the contents of the post were beyond preposterous.

A grimoire was an artifact whose language shifted depending on one's aptitude as a mage — and a single careless slip could send mana backflowing through its runes, straight into a death sentence.

Its infamous reputation was no accident; this was a tome called a grimoire for a reason, and to anyone who had never properly entered the path of magic, it might as well have been lethal poison.

And yet.

'That grimoire — the kind even an unprecedented genius might barely glimpse while still an ordinary person — they actually laid eyes on it, and then went on to learn common magic?'

That deranged grimoire, the mage's path of shedding one's humanity, the first handling of magical power — all of it within half a day. It was nearly impossible to believe.

"A personal trait...? Even ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠granting that, it's a broken, nonsense level of power... Just how does something like that even exist? Haaah-."

Yernil grumbled to herself, but she couldn't afford not to believe it.

What else could it be?

Flicker, flicker-.

A golden glow wove gracefully between the fingertips of both hands, swimming along in time with a small gesture.

This was no mere brightness leaking out of clumsy, mana-spilling manipulation — it carried clear intent and definite form, the true manifestation of proper basic magic.

True, it was only a tiny wandering light, just as the poster had called it a firefly — but considering that even a simple form transformation generally took a month or more of study in the magical arts, the meaning of it was anything but light.

'Don't tell me... a genius of that caliber? This Firefly person?'

And sure enough.

It wasn't just Yernil — the entire gallery watching the post was thrown into an uproar.

A thread that had held a single comment soon blazed up to several dozen, heated reactions pouring in at a blistering pace.

Every last one of them spoke as though they couldn't believe their eyes, yet not a single soul called it fake.

Why? Because the video was real — because it was fact, no one could raise so much as an objection.

Amid her bewilderment, Yernil found her fingers leaving a comment before she knew it.

The question circled round and round in her head, and her fingers moved on their own once more.

For a moment she wondered whether it was all just some shallow parlor trick granted by a personal trait — but it wasn't.

Unfortunately.

Driiing-.

"Huh...?"

Yernil's eyes went perfectly round, and she began to tremble as though an earthquake had just gone off beneath her.

'Hmm. Why is everyone reacting like this? Something's weird here...?'

Leaning back against a bench, I tilted my head as I watched the community bubble over into a racket.

Hm-teresting-.

I couldn't fathom why everyone was losing their minds over this. All that talk about "form transformation," especially.

All I'd done was conjure a bit of light out of mana at my fingertips, film a few seconds of it, and post it... yet the reactions were anything but ordinary.

'Huh?'

Even Yernil — who had been waiting since earlier, half-desperate for me to answer her — had left comments whose contents were downright bizarre.

"Common magic? ...What even is common magic? Was there something like that? In the video?"

Oh!

Don't tell me she meant that firefly from earlier was common magic?

I blinked a few times, then tossed back a reply without giving it much thought.

The response that came back dripped with displeasure.

"Hmm."

Oh-hoh.

So that was it — the worn-out, dime-a-dozen magic you see everywhere you go. It clicked instantly.

"Hm-mm?"

Uh... I wouldn't know, actually?

I mean — fair? I'd assumed it was mana manipulation on the level of flicking on a flashlight; it never even crossed my mind that it might be magic.

Only when I heard the word Light did it start to ring a bell, like something out of the fiction I used to consume — without that, I wouldn't have guessed in a hundred ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠years.

It was far, far too easy to be magic.

Honestly speaking, my first impression was roughly this:

'Hm. Am I really that dense?'

No — more accurately, I should say I'd only just learned that something like this could count as magic at all.

'So anything that happens to use mana just gets called magic?'

Okay, fine. That much I could accept and move past.

The problem was—

'...That's the question I'm supposed to be asking from here on out — how am I supposed to answer that, ma'am?'

'How the hell would I know?!' — I couldn't very well reply like that either, and the frustration was building up in my throat all on its own.

'I really don't know, sweriously! That's exactly why I've been building up the courage to ask how I can learn magic!'

Screaming a soundless scream inside, I offered the most sincere answer I could — but Yernil's suspicious nature had already reached professional-grade levels.

She wasn't running a public opinion poll — just how many times was she going to grill me?

'Look, I don't know, and I told you I don't know — what more do you want from me...?'

A sigh it was, a great big sigh-.

Still, what choice did I have? I had to win her over. That was the only way I'd ever get someone to teach me magic, after all. No way around it.

Pouting my lips, I fired back a reply stuffed with the most intuitive analogy I could manage.

And when I added, on the subject of mana manipulation, "It moves if you just think at it?", the fixed-nick regulars spectating the thread promptly lost their minds.

The comment section went completely off the rails, as though someone had set off a laughter bomb.

I mean — I hadn't said a single wrong thing, so why were they all like this?

'Ridiculous.'

Still, awfully cheerful bunch for people stuck in a place like this, weren't they?

Even mid-pout, watching the gallery members clutch their stomachs and roll around wrenched a helpless snicker out of me.

It made me think that wherever you went, people were people, and life went on all the same.

That was when one regular, thoroughly hyped up, dropped a comment.

'...A... funeral?'

My eyes went wide in an instant.

A welcome party with a funeral as the next course — what kind of horrifying death-game nonsense was this...?

It sent a chill down my spine, though truthfully, from the moment I'd been dragged into this absurd place, it was the scenario I'd half expected anyway.

I swallowed hard and let a low groan slip out.

'...So this really is a place where people die, huh.'

It hadn't felt quite real, with barely any time passed since I'd arrived at the Tower of Ascension — but this was simply the reality of it.

The instant my carelessness evaporated and a corner of my chest turned cold, an unfamiliar ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠nickname abruptly popped up in the reply thread.

"........."

Were these people comedians?

The absurdity nearly wrung a real laugh out of me — but my time enjoying the vaudeville show was brief.

Hmm-mm.

The fact that someone had died, come back to life, and even received a funeral for it meant, when you thought about it... that the Tower of Ascension had resurrection, didn't it?

Which meant that somewhere in this Tower, there might be a chance to come back to life even after dying.

'Resurrection, huh... Well, no harm in knowing. I'll have to ask about it properly sometime.'

More than that, though — it was time to focus on something else entirely.

Driiing-.

"Oh."

Because Yernil, who had kept her silence all this while, had finally taken the stage.

The tone was haughty and cold, but the sentence that followed made my eyes snap wide open.

Yernil — tsundere that she was, faithfully responding to each and every question I asked since earlier — wasn't saying all this for nothing.

"Which means... don't tell me...?"

The very next moment.

Driiing-.

There it was!

'The swearing grann— no. The kindly tsundere tutor, Yernil, hereby declares premium private lessons...?'

What do I say? Wasn't that already decided, Teacher?

'That's a definite yes, duh-of-the-course, duh!'

Beaming from ear to ear, I fired back my reply, tak-tak-tak-

'Hehe. I knew I could count on you, Yernil...! Nice!'

The tsundere tutor, Yernil — officially hired as my star instructor!