Chapter 4
Chapter 4
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 4
Chapter Title: Modern Civilization Tour Log -1
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As you opened your eyes, a sight you'd never beheld in your life seized your attention.
Skyscrapers stabbing toward the heavens, multicolored LEDs blotting out the stars that embroidered the moonlit night.
Countless people milling about in strange attire. Four-wheeled carriages gliding past without a word or a horse to pull them.
An impression of utter complexity and clamor.
Yet order prevailed amid the chaos.
The black road—made of some unknowable material, but spotlessly clean—was used solely by those four-wheeled carriages.
Save for the white lines painted upon it, over which people crossed.
When the red light on the oddly shaped streetlamps flared, they halted.
When the green light shone, they advanced. An intuitive command: move or stay.
Assuming all your guesses were spot on...
You had to move. Right now. Because you stood smack in the middle of an intersecting black road.
And that red light was glowing ominously.
Beep—! Honk—!
Loud blares erupted. Music speaks a universal tongue, and to you, these sounded like threats—or warnings. Glancing at the faces of the passengers in those four-wheeled carriages confirmed it: definitely a warning.
So where to?
You'd been unceremoniously dumped into this alien world.
"You a foreigner or something? Nah, come on... Even foreigners know red and green lights. Red light. Green light. Right? Why're you just standing there like an idiot in the middle of the road...? Taesik, what was your TOEIC score again?"
"Aw, crap, my English sucks!"
"Then who here speaks it? You passed TOEIC, man! Ugh, forget it. You handle this."
"Ugh, seriously... Hey, you okay? Um, police office here. And you criminal. Because you, you no move at beep-beep-honk...!"
"Dude, what the hell is 'beep-beep-honk,' you moron!"
"Fine, then you do it, captain!"
The chubby one and the skinny one were snapping at each other.
Or not quite a fight, on second look. No malice in their eyes—just the rough banter of close buddies.
They were shoving the sudden hassle onto one another.
And you were that hassle.
Your sharp mind pegged them as some kind of...
Guards.
The skinny one—who seemed lower-ranked than the chubby guy—held out paper and a pen.
"What's your name? What's your name?"
A name. The foundation of all human bonds.
The monumental first exchange between you and this world.
The paper seemed to swell, filling your vision.
And there—a black box. The spot for your name, no doubt.
You took the pen and wrote.
'Yuna Yurensuto Violetiris'.
"Tower Master, that your name?"
The familiar voice popping up in her ear didn't startle Violet Magic Tower Master Yuna.
Put kindly, she'd grown accustomed to the tower's resident troublemaker. Put harshly, she'd been worn down.
The guy pulled endless pranks under the guise of "human observation" or whatever.
His eyes lit with curiosity about her lengthy name, so she explained in detail.
"Yeah. Illegitimate daughter of the Yurensuto count family. Basically disowned, but still on the family registry. My father hates Yuna Yurensuto, but he'd love to keep the Violet Magic Tower Master's daughter."
"And Violetiris?"
"Surname the imperial family bestowed when they recognized me as tower master. It takes precedence over the family name, so it's 'Ms. Violetiris,' not 'Ms. Yurensuto.'"
"It's long."
"You've got the glorious title 'Tower Master' to go with it."
"Eight years we've known each other, and this is the first I've heard your name. Wanna try it out."
"...Do whatever."
Yuna turned away with a mumbled reply.
She wasn't smooth with talk at the best of times, and chats like this left her clueless on what to say.
Couldn't exactly respond, Go ahead, call me by name all you want. Mortifying.
The little tower master's eyes reflected the world.
A wondrous realm crafted by that odd genius.
This hyper-realistic place had to be illusion magic. Even as she experienced it firsthand, Yuna could scarcely believe it.
Sounds, smells, the feel of the chair beneath her, those otherworld guards yammering away up front.
Without prior glimpses of his illusion magic prowess, she'd have sworn some mad mage had invented dimensional travel. How could this be mere illusion?
Terrifying talent was the only way to put it.
Focus in, and even the language differed. The guards' chatter was utterly foreign—no dialect like it anywhere on the continent. Yet the meaning hammered straight into her mind.
Illusion magic's "blurring" technique, making the bizarre feel normal?
Or sly "cognitive dulling" to keep suspicion at bay...
Could she break free?
Illusion magic's crux was escape. Whether the victim slipped the spell's grasp.
A shabby illusion tough to pierce was prime magic. A flashy, lethal one easy to shrug off was trash.
This world was already history-book worthy. Now it came down to one caveat: —but it had these shortcomings— or not.
Tower Master Yuna stirred her mana.
A fog rolled in. She could barely recall how to move it, and this world seemed magic-less to begin with. Even her meticulously forged mana heart was gone.
Illusion at work. A hypnosis edict: [No magic here. You don't know magic.]
Hypnosis could make absence feel real, but not erase it.
The mana heart lingered, unfelt. She was a mage, unremembered. Even if conviction was all she had, it sufficed.
Because she trusted her years of effort weren't for naught.
A soap bubble bloomed at her fingertip.
Within: dragons soaring, a hologram named Heart seducing a man, a butler legion brutally ransacking the Violet Magic Tower—images flashing by.
Like paints blending on a palette, they swirled lazily. The gleaming bubble slowly filled with dark fluid.
Its full name—"Violetiris's Condensed Memory Magic Crystal Explosion"—was poetic, but lousy at explaining the essence.
When she'd demoed it to the tower troublemaker, he'd dubbed it an "info bomb."
Crack.
A fissure spiderwebbed the bubble's skin. Internal pressure cresting the limit—it would burst.
And the crammed chaos of data would shred this magnificent illusory world.
Should the world endure, Yuna would humbly yield her tower master seat.
"Erelrelelrelere."
"Eeeeek—!!"
The tower troublemaker mercilessly slobbered Yuna's ear.
Her focus shattered. The bubble vanished like eraser dust.
Yuna rolled on the floor, shielding the assaulted spot with her hand.
Then screamed again at the slick saliva on her fingers.
"Wh-wh-what the hell are you doing—!!"
"Why wreck the masterpiece? That pops, everything shatters."
"T-Tell me first!!"
"Too embarrassing to say."
"You! That was embarrassing!!"
"Magic tests later. What I wanted to show today wasn't the spell itself... but this world. My hometown."
"Hometown?"
"Didn't I mention I'm from another world?"
"No!!"
"Eh, not a big deal... Anyway, full-course treatment incoming. Earth's advanced and all, but the food scene? Next level."
"........."
Violet Magic Tower Master Yuna's high-octane brain crunched the data and greenlit major expectations for otherworld cuisine. Salivary glands activated. She swallowed hard.
"L-Let's go."
"Yessir."
Less than ten minutes after opening shop, and I'd nearly gotten screwed.
One pop from that tiny bubble, and my illusion magic would've been toast.
Felt like watching a full-swing bat arcing toward my figure display case!
The reagents sunk into this demo, the prep time—what a cost...
The Violet Magic Tower Master... well, Violet Tower Master Yuna Whatever-Violetiris... she got fiercely aggressive now and then. Spot an illusion demo in progress, and she'd poke it like, Does it break if I hit it?
Weekly victims from shattered spells: about three.
I'd broken a cold sweat brainstorming countermeasures.
Magical wards? No dice. Sure, every tower scouted me as a genius mage, but she was tower master because she outclassed geniuses.
Outmatched? Hit 'em sneaky where it hurts.
My neurons' optimal solution: the ear lick.
Seemed perfect for a tower master with near-zero immunity to guys.
Danger averted. Time to enjoy.
Kimchi, pork belly, knife-cut noodles, and more.
Time to repay the tower master—who'd funded my research—with a proper intro to han-sik...