The Cruel Mage
Damn it. Damn it. Damn it!
I thought my life from here on out was going to be one long, glorious strut into the future.
The leader ground his teeth as he sprinted through the pitch-black darkness.
The villagers simply accepted that this was how mages were and asked no questions. But as far as the leader knew, the village chief was anything but normal.
It was strange enough that spirits showed themselves to people so often. Mages did borrow the power of spirits, sure, but he had heard that plenty of mages couldn’t even see them. They certainly weren’t creatures that flitted around in plain sight for just anyone.
The people here were nothing but ignorant farmers who had never laid eyes on a real mage in their lives. That was why they could watch the scene and laugh.
The leader hadn’t known any of this at first, either. He only learned it after taking jobs through the illegal guild.
If mages truly had spirits hovering around them all the time, every country in the world would be in an uproar trying to claim even one. Wars would break out over the right to possess a single additional mage.
Spirits made trees grow, flowers bloom, and rain fall. Crops could only thrive in the presence of spirits. Without them, the harvest produced mostly empty husks and the soil grew barren and lifeless.
He had heard that ever since the Spirit Tree died, the spirits had been vanishing almost daily. The few people who could sense and see them all said the same thing. Everyone already knew the Spirit Tree was dead, so that part wasn’t news. What mattered was how rare it was to be able to see spirits at all.
Most people knew these facts, so the leader couldn’t understand why the villagers so readily believed the spirits were visible simply because a mage lived among them.
And then there was the way the chief had summoned wind without any incantation and hurled people through the air. Only an exceptionally powerful mage could manage something like that. At least, that was what the leader had been told.
Of course, his idea of a “powerful mage” was still from an ordinary person’s perspective. Even so, the chief was clearly strange.
Come to think of it, the man had been odd from the moment he appeared. Stepping out of nowhere onto that vast empty plain, dressed in those bizarre clothes, walking alone without a single weapon. Even in daylight, beasts would attack anyone strolling across that plain. It should have been impossible to wander around so casually.
And what about the way someone who couldn’t understand a single word had suddenly begun speaking and listening fluently? That was suspicious by any measure.
The boss who had brought them to this pioneer village must have found it strange too. Maybe he had assumed the chief was a mage hiding his power and had therefore crossed the plain safely. If the boss had seen the chief use magic, he might have tried to sell the information somewhere, just like the leader planned to do.
But the boss had never witnessed any magic, so he probably wouldn’t. Or maybe he simply refused to think about it. Getting involved with an illegal guild could get your legitimate work cut off, after all.
In any case, the leader had every intention of selling the chief’s information. The illegal guild was always looking for mages. He didn’t know the details, but mages were apparently worth a lot of money. A mage who had spirits following him around? They would pay a fortune.
The leader stopped running, chest heaving.
The inky darkness sucked the strength from a person like a swamp. His legs had gone weak after only a short sprint. The villagers’ torches were already barely visible—nothing more than tiny specks in the distance. At this range, there was no chance of being caught. It didn’t even look like anyone was chasing him.
He collapsed on the spot.
They hadn’t managed to get the food they wanted, but there was still hope. The most important thing—water—was obtainable. For food they could head into the forest, gather wild fruit, or catch small animals. If they all worked together, they could survive. They just had to escape safely and reach the illegal guild. Then they would be rich.
Having thought that far, the leader suddenly glanced to the side.
“Hey, did everyone follow properly?”
No answer.
Alarmed, he pushed himself up and looked around. His eyes, still adjusted to the torchlight, couldn’t make out anything properly. Then he noticed a flickering light nearby. It was tiny. Smaller than a fingernail, faint and pale, almost like…
No way.
The leader’s body trembled violently.
It looked exactly like that mage’s spirit. The realization sent chills racing across his skin. Had that mage—with a face that looked like he couldn’t even kill a rabbit—ordered his spirit to chase the leader down and kill him?
As terror gripped him, the blinking light drew closer to his face.
“Huk! Go away! Get lost!”
Damn mage. Damn spirit.
He shouted, but the spirit didn’t flee. Of course it wouldn’t. Why would a spirit be afraid of a human?
With no other choice, the leader spun around and began to run. The moment he thought it had left, the sparkling light appeared in front of him again. He ran through the darkness without rest. Before he realized it, he had entered the forest.
Hoot. Hoot. Ominous bird cries echoed nearby. In the distance came the low growls of beasts.
Th-this is bad.
He had to get out of the forest. The open plain at night was dangerous, but the forest was on another level. Yet the tree canopy blocked the sky so completely that not even the moon was visible. Whether his eyes were open or closed, it made no difference.
He flailed his arms, trying to head back the way he had come, but he couldn’t even tell if he had turned in the right direction. Still, he kept moving his feet desperately.
After a short while, something appeared in front of him.
“Kyaaaaaaaack!”
His scream had barely left his throat when the thing pounced. He didn’t know what it was, but it felt slimy and somehow lumpy. In an instant his entire body was wrapped in something. He couldn’t even draw breath.
As his mind began to fade, he saw the spirit’s sparkling light darting busily nearby.
So that mage really had ordered the spirit to kill him.
...Damn bastard…
That was his final thought before the leader’s consciousness was completely severed.
The children had finished their studies, and the villagers were gradually wrapping up their daily tasks.
Geob-bo had decided to choose his own field tomorrow. It was time to sleep, but he was so excited that he kept wandering back and forth.
He looked happy.
Even after becoming a full villager, the guy’s still going by Geob-bo.
He had a real name, yet everyone continued to call him Coward. He didn’t seem to mind it much. At this rate, it looked like Geob-bo would simply become his permanent name. The villagers said that sort of thing happened often. Among commoners, parents frequently didn’t give special names, so nicknames often stuck as permanent names.
Long-legs, Little Jack, Giant Jack, Fatty, Fist-nose, Poopy, Pee-boy…
Well, Poopy and Pee-boy were a bit much. Compared to those, Geob-bo wasn’t such a bad name. That was probably why he was content with it.
In any case, it was time to sleep. People scolded Geob-bo to lie down, and one by one they began to settle in.
I lay down near the bonfire, pulling a blanket over myself. At that moment Popcorn came flying over, flapping wildly.
“Pipipipipipi!”
He seemed incredibly excited. His flying speed was easily three times faster than usual. He darted from one side to the other, spreading his arms wide and then lowering them. It was dizzying to watch.
“What’s gotten into you?”
I had been about to sleep, but he kept tugging at my eyelids, so I finally asked. Popcorn raised both arms straight up. They curved inward, forming a circle.
“A circle? Round?”
I tried, but of course there was no way for us to communicate. Popcorn seemed satisfied simply that I had reacted and began moving again. With his short arms he drew a large circle, then mimed jumping and wiggling through the air. After that he struck the round pose once more.
He opened his mouth wide like a kitten yawning, shook it toward the empty air a few times, then looked at me expectantly.
“Hmm… Did you see a round baby cat eating something?”
“Pipi… pipipi?”
Popcorn repeated the exact same motions. It seemed my reaction hadn’t been what he hoped for. He kept trying to express something—bigger, rounder, rounder still.
Faced with Popcorn’s enthusiastic performance, I grew sleepy. A yawn escaped me. The moment I opened my mouth wide, Popcorn—whether angry or simply delighted by the cave-like opening—darted straight inside.
“You little—”
I spat him out. He tumbled through the air and emerged again.
“I really need to sleep now. Stop bothering me.”
I pulled the blanket over my head so I couldn’t see him. He must have seen something interesting, but I didn’t have time to play along. I needed rest if I was going to wake at dawn and work the fields.
Tomorrow was the long-awaited day of sowing seed—an important milestone. For several days I had carried water to the plot and loosened the soil with a hoe. It was only a small portion of my land, but it was my first memorable seed-sowing. I had to wake early. The autumn harvest truly began with the sowing of seeds. It was a genuinely important day.
As I closed my eyes, Popcorn wriggled through a gap in the blanket. He settled on my cheek, let out what felt like a long sigh, then flopped onto his back as if he had no choice. It seemed he would be using my cheek as his bed again tonight.
“Sleep well.”
At my words, Popcorn made a soft pipipi sound and rolled around on my cheek. Perhaps because he was a spirit, I had been sleeping soundly lately. The moment I closed my eyes, I fell straight into deep sleep.
This world is full of strange and wonderful things.
Popcorn jumped up, wriggled out of the blanket, and slipped outside. The morning sun had not yet appeared, but soon a faint glow would spread across the sky. Popcorn knew this.
In the gentle air, Popcorn flapped his wings with all his might. Popcorn was still very young, so his wings had only just begun to sprout. They were hidden inside his fluffy white body. But it was thanks to those wings that Popcorn could fly. Of course, even Popcorn himself didn’t fully understand how. Dad probably knew. Because he was Dad.
Popcorn had been born from Dad’s body. He still remembered how shocked he had been the first time he saw Dad’s face. Popcorn’s dad was so pretty, so cute, so cool, and so sparkly. His whole body shone like sunlight. His hair, his eyes, his mouth, even the tips of his fingers—everything glittered and sparkled. These days he sparkled even more.
Someday Popcorn wanted to sparkle just like Dad. That was why he wished so hard for sparkles. Whether that wish would come true, he still didn’t know. If he asked Dad, Dad would probably know, but unfortunately Dad didn’t seem to understand Popcorn’s words very well. That was probably because Popcorn was still little. If he worked hard, maybe one day Popcorn would be able to speak to Dad properly. Then there were so many things he wanted to tell him.
How warm the sunlight was. How soft the grass felt. How difficult it was to carry water droplets.
Oh, that reminded him—earlier Popcorn had picked some grass that seemed good for Dad. It had looked incredibly delicious. But for Dad’s sake Popcorn had held back and carried it all the way from far away. He had wanted so badly to eat every bit of it, but he had endured with tremendous effort. When he placed the grass in Dad’s mouth, Dad had looked very happy. It must have tasted wonderful, right?
He had also fed it to his close friends. The friends who were a little smaller than Dad and the others seemed to be beings somewhere between humans and spirits. They couldn’t fly and sometimes got hurt, so Popcorn had given them the precious grass. Maybe if they ate it they would be able to fly. But even after eating the grass, his friends still couldn’t fly. Popcorn grew much stronger after eating only a little, but his friends were so big that they probably needed to eat a lot more.
Still, the grass was too small for them. Since he wanted Dad to eat more of it, Popcorn had decided to grow the grass. Of course Popcorn wanted to eat more too. It really was that delicious. He wondered when the grass would grow big. If it could grow really, really big and become a soft, fluffy bed for Dad, that would be perfect. Sleeping on grass felt amazing. Of course Dad’s cheek and body were even better, but since Dad didn’t have a Dad of his own, a grass bed would be wonderful. Maybe the voice that told him to pick the grass had been hoping for exactly that. He wondered if the voice knew when the grass would finish growing. Of course, Popcorn still didn’t know whose voice it was.
Anyway, today Popcorn had a lot to do. A human had run into the forest in the middle of the night, so Popcorn had followed and discovered something amazing. Today he was going to go watch it.
All right, time to go!
“Pi, pipi!”