Side Story: Siwoo — The 10,000-Hour Man's Gambit
The academy campus was turning orange under the evening sun.
The Department of Spell Analysis had extended a courtesy to Siwoo, its visiting lecturer, granting him the use of one of the many vacant professor's offices.
Into that cluttered, dust-smelling personal office of his — piled high with unpacked boxes — came a golden-haired girl.
Siwoo had simply set her down in front of him, but the golden one seated herself atop the professor's desk, as if it had always belonged to her, and drew a relaxed smile across her lips.
"So, to summarize — there are drugs beneath the cathedral."
"That is correct, Your Highness."
Princess Elise.
The first character the protagonist of Grand Mage Saga ever meets, and the one who fills the vice-captain's position in the party.
She had overcome her greatest weakness — a pathetically low maximum mana pool — by achieving maximum effect from minimum expenditure, wringing efficiency out of every drop she had.
True, with the original story warped, she had ended up as the 'runner-up of the entire class.' But even without the top seat, Elise's talent and pedigree remained dazzling as ever.
"Weren't we in the middle of a freshman interview, though? I find it rather inappropriate for an instructor to speak so familiarly to a student."
And sitting on my desk is appropriate, is it?
Siwoo stared at her for a moment, nonplussed.
"...What I say now is addressed not to the student Elise, but to Her Highness the Princess."
Elise crossed her legs with a lazy grace.
"I see."
After resting her chin on her hand and studying him for a while, she let her easy smile slip away, just slightly.
"Shouldn't you be running to the Investigation Bureau's headquarters with this, instead of telling me?"
"That would be... difficult."
Difficult.
Elise extracted her hint from Siwoo's evasiveness almost instantly.
"The drugs — are they connected to the Ministry of Security?"
"...I can't be certain. But it's possible. Perhaps even likely."
In the original story, Alpinia — who became the head of Sicario — murders the family head and commits act after act of terror. Condemned on the strength of Alpinia's crimes, House Arbanka collapses, and the Dinato family, a mere cadet branch, snatches up the vacant seat.
But as Siwoo remembered it, on the day of the entrance ceremony, the person standing there had been—
'Saruvia Arbanka.'
After the fall of House Arbanka, Saruvia is taken in as the Dinato family's adopted daughter. Which meant that in the original story, the only one who could truly be called an 'Arbanka' was Alpinia herself — the one who had shattered her own house with her bare hands.
When Siwoo noticed something was off and looked into it privately, he found that in 'this world,' the post of Minister of Security still belonged to House Arbanka.
The family head was alive. House Arbanka stood intact.
Suspicious.
Which was exactly why Siwoo had been preparing for the possibility that the Ministry's Investigation Bureau might never conduct a proper inquiry at all.
"Are you familiar with the name Alpinia, by any chance?"
"Familiar enough. Isaac's eldest daughter, no?"
Elise gave a small nod.
"She's rather famous among the nobility."
"Is... that so?"
Elise thrust a fist forward, then unfurled her fingers one by one.
"The woman who refuses every invitation. The woman who has never once appeared in high society. The woman about whom people have lately begun to whisper — is she even real?"
She spread her thumb and little finger at once, showing him an open palm.
"The Ghost of Arbanka."
Then she clenched her fist again, in a gesture like snatching something out of thin air.
"She's made excuse after excuse to decline even my invitations — her health hasn't recovered yet, she says."
Elise laced her fingers behind her head and stretched out long and slow. A fresh glint of intrigue lit her eyes beneath that relaxed smile once more.
"So the ghost does exist."
Elise connected the drug case to Alpinia, and from there drew her conclusion: the girl was in the Magic City. There was just one problem.
'I shouldn't have told her.'
It meant Elise had taken an interest in Alpinia. Siwoo exhaled a thin sigh.
"She's dangerous."
"Which is exactly what makes her interesting."
With the original story in flux, he simply didn't have enough information on how Alpinia herself had changed.
'Kidnapping a student, carrying narcotics — her fundamental disposition can't have flipped. She's still vicious.'
The Alpinia of the original had been dangerous enough. Now she demanded even greater caution — there was a real chance she possessed something like charm or brainwashing as an ability.
If Alpinia were to brainwash Elise and drag her into Serket—
'Horrifying.'
That would be a nonstop express to the apocalypse.
"The unknown has always come with danger attached, you know."
"For the sake of the Empire's security, I must ask you to refrain."
"...Hmm."
Her face showed no intention whatsoever of refraining.
Siwoo briefly regretted bringing Elise into this, then reminded himself that he'd had no real alternative at the time.
"I need Your Highness's help."
"Ah. You want me to mobilize the Royal Guard."
The Investigation Bureau, the City Guard — every institution with a point of contact with the Ministry of Security was untrustworthy. But if the Princess personally dispatched her own household troops, they would pursue the drug case with honest diligence.
Elise let her displeasure show on her face.
"It doesn't exactly thrill me."
If she pressed him on why he'd acted on his own instead of leaving it to the Bureau, he had no answer that wouldn't hang him. In fact, if this failed to produce proper results, he stood to draw a great deal of resentment.
All the more so because relations between the imperial court and the Magic City were fraught. The mages had never forgotten how the imperial family had once shoved them all beyond the capital's walls.
"...I'm begging you."
Still, this wasn't something he could afford to let slide, either. If the drugs were real, as Siwoo claimed, and the Ministry of Security was behind them — this was something that absolutely had to be stopped.
'However you slice it, I'm the one taking the loss here.'
Watching the man bow his head to her, Elise propped her chin on her hand.
"Are you certain of this?"
"I saw it with my own eyes."
Could she trust the man before her, or not? What she stood to gain and to lose. The Ghost of Arbanka. And the weight of her own curiosity, amusement, and interest stirred by all of it.
Having weighed everything on those scales and reached her conclusion, Elise hopped down from beneath the desk. She smoothed her attire for a moment, then brushed past Siwoo and opened the door.
"Well, fine. I'll see about cooking up some suitable scheme."
Once Elise was gone, Siwoo took his seat and pulled an invitation and a roster from the desk drawer.
'So he managed to get his hands on them after all.'
The Masquerade. An invitation obtainable only through a personal 'recommendation' from the party's host. Not something one could simply acquire by wanting it — but Siwoo had managed.
Because he was a 10,000-hour veteran of Grand Mage Saga.
He had memorized the spawn points and timetables of every guide NPC at the party venue. More than that, he knew exactly what sort of people the host invited.
'Is this another consequence of the story changing?'
At the very top of the attendee roster purchased from the organizers was the name of someone who had originally had nothing to do with the Masquerade.
Attendee Roster — The Masquerade
Charlotte Lowell de Rosière
He had no idea why Charlotte would be attending the party. But—
'Still, not bad at all.'
Perhaps this would turn into his chance to recruit her. What Siwoo desperately needed right now was someone who filled the same 'position' as Charlotte.
The protagonist of Grand Mage Saga was what you'd call a 'commander' type. The only power the protagonist personally possessed was the Eye of Mana.
A fine ability — but it wasn't a combat ability.
Elise's brilliance and support skills were likewise exceptional, but with her congenitally low mana, she couldn't step forward and carry the party as a main damage dealer.
Which meant that, as it stood, Siwoo's party was suffering from an absolute, crippling lack of firepower.
Meanwhile, the opponent was Alpinia — ranked the single most unreasonable boss in all of Grand Mage Saga. Even accounting for the fact that she held the highest HP stat of any boss in the entire game.
'How am I supposed to beat THAT?'
Neither of them was an opponent Siwoo and Elise alone could possibly handle.
'If only I could bring her in.'
Charlotte — the undisputed greatest firepower in Grand Mage Saga. The dealer Siwoo needed most desperately at this very moment.
And beyond her raw damage, there were a few more reasons his heart ached for Charlotte's recruitment.
For one, there was her passive skill, White Hare of the Snowfield.
The entire skill description read: 'Lucky you.'
She was so absurdly lucky that she'd been banned for life from the 'establishments' her own family operated.
'How do you stop a girl who pulls the grand-prize raffle five times in a row on pure, uncut luck?'
In terms of in-game performance, it was a broken-tier passive: every attack she landed was a guaranteed critical hit.
'And that's not all.'
The passive had a hidden effect as well: when dispatched on expeditions, her odds of returning with high-grade materials and items skyrocketed.
'That effect will presumably translate into something more grounded in reality too — like my Eye of Mana did.'
In other words, simply having Charlotte at his side would shower him with blessings of luck — effortlessly finding whatever he wanted or needed.
'Well. Charlotte is a bonus, really.'
He'd merely coveted her after glimpsing the change in the original story by chance. Siwoo's true reason for attending the Masquerade lay elsewhere.
'They're still testing the waters, I'd guess.'
Left to fester, the Masquerade would later be absorbed into Serket.
And from that union, the Black Market is born — a slave market, a supply depot for sacrificial offerings. A place that evolves into a space where human beings are handled like merchandise.
Stopping that before it happened was Siwoo's ultimate goal. Of course, the current Siwoo couldn't possibly destroy the Masquerade outright.
'Sicario will be handling security.'
'And even if the Royal Guard stormed the place, they'd have prepared everything meticulously so every last one of them slips through the law's fingers.'
Unless you severed the head in a single stroke, the body would simply hide beneath the surface and resurface only once the waves had calmed.
'But deploying Elise's Royal Guard to both places at once is a stretch.'
After long deliberation, Siwoo judged that dealing with the drugs beneath the cathedral came first.
There was still time before the Masquerade grew any larger. For now, reconnaissance and securing evidence would suffice.
Recording-type magic tools.
'I remember every last one of the secret spots.'
He had prepared a full complement of surveillance recording magic tools to be planted throughout the Masquerade's grounds.
Siwoo tried on the raccoon mask he'd received from the organizers for a moment. The magic tool's enchantment activated, and his black hair faded to a pale brown.
Time flowed on, and the day of the party arrived.