Direction
“So the ownership of the grimoire still belongs to the Magic Tower, does it?”
“That’s right. Every grimoire in the Magic Tower is under a tracking spell, without exception. If one ever slips out to somewhere other than the tower, a furious pursuit will begin at once. The only thing waiting for a runaway mage is certain ruin. I do hope you aren’t entertaining any foolish ideas.”
As if he found the whole notion absurd, Malcolm laughed.
“Is there a particular spell you’re looking for? You passed the task splendidly, so number 13 can even borrow lower-grade grimoires.”
Lawrence didn’t know many spells.
The ones that came to mind at once were Fireball and Fire Explosion, which he’d heard about from number 14 before.
As their names suggested, both were fire-element spells.
The Magic Tower probably assumed water-element magic was Lawrence’s specialty. Asking for a fire-element grimoire felt a little risky.
After a moment, the boy made up his mind and spoke.
“I’d like to borrow Water Ball.”
Number 14 had called the adapted version of Water that.
Just as shaping Shadow into the form of Shadow Spear didn’t give it the same original power, Water too would surely show a marked difference if there was a higher spell called Water Ball.
“Taking it step by step, then. A fine attitude. After Water comes Water Ball, yes. Please wait a moment. I’ll bring it right away.”
A little while later, he returned with a single grimoire.
“The borrowing period for a lower-grade grimoire is one month. The fee is three gold.”
“……”
It was absurdly expensive, to the point that it couldn’t even be compared with the cost of renting a workshop.
The attack spells Lawrence had heard about at the magic shop started at a minimum of five gold and went as high as ten. Even so, at least those were purchases; this was only a loan, and yet the price was no joke.
“It seems you’re short on funds. That’s all right. The Magic Tower understands a mage’s circumstances. You can pay the borrowing fee with the research stipend you earn from clearing this task.”
“So the research stipend is three gold, then.”
“Once you enter the Magic Tower and solve more tasks, we’ll continue to pay you a stipend at regular intervals. Three gold a month. In other words, you can keep renewing it until you learn lower-grade magic.”
This was no time to be tempted by the words research stipend.
Clear a task and receive a stipend.
Use the stipend to learn a new spell.
Then prove your research results through magic again, borrow a more advanced grimoire, and learn yet another spell.
It was a cycle with no end in sight.
All the mages in the Magic Tower were trapped in that same wheel.
That was the fate of mages.
The thirst for mystery never truly went away.
“I’m not saying you must stay in the Magic Tower forever. The tower is on good terms with influential noble houses in the kingdom. If you prove yourself with achievements worthy of it, you’ll have noble patronage, and when you leave the tower, you’ll likely do so as a landed mage.”
Perhaps Malcolm had taken Lawrence’s silence for hesitation.
He spoke in a bright, reassuring voice, as if to tell him there was no need to worry.
“At number 13’s level, I’d say it’ll take no more than twenty years. However hard you work in the tower, a splendid future as a landed mage will be waiting for you.”
“That does sound very promising.”
Twenty years.
At that very specific number, Lawrence forced a smile.
Malcolm never noticed that it was a laugh born of emptiness.
* * *
After receiving the Water Ball grimoire, Lawrence left Malcolm behind.
Following the guide, he made his way out of the Magic Tower.
But then he noticed an unusual visitor at the counter.
A black-haired maid.
She stood there with not a single flaw in sight.
“...I’ll call someone in charge right away. This isn’t a comfortable place to stand around—would you like to wait inside?”
“That won’t be necessary. The seat is of no concern to me.”
Her tone was formal.
The composed way she carried herself suggested she was in the employ of a noble house.
She was even beautiful.
Did nobles choose their servants by appearance as well?
It certainly seemed possible.
Then again, nobles had money to burn.
What a disgusting display of wealth.
Meanwhile, someone else was struggling over a single grimoire.
Swallowing the curse on his tongue, Lawrence left the tower.
On the way back to the workshop, a thought struck him.
He felt as if he had seen that maid somewhere before.
He dismissed it as nonsense, but only for a moment.
Then Lawrence suddenly stopped in his tracks and looked back at the tower.
He remembered.
It was the exact same maid he had seen in Rombamel.
He’d seen her speaking with a clerk in the magic shop.
Yes.
That woman for certain.
There was no mistaking her.
The maid Lawrence had seen, and only once.
Why would a maid from Rombamel be here at the Magic Tower?
Could she have been a mage instead?
At the ridiculous thought, Lawrence shook his head.
She must have come to the Magic Tower on the orders of the noble she served.
He remembered what number 14 had said.
The tower’s scrolls sold so well they could hardly keep them in stock.
With that in mind, it didn’t seem so strange after all.
How long had he walked?
Lawrence realized the workshop was unusually noisy today.
Raised voices rang out not far away.
It was a place crowded with laborers busy constructing a statue.
Mages who usually never left the workshop were gathered there in a ring around the site.
Amid the packed crowd, an angry voice rang out.
“Can you shut the hell up for once, you bastards? All you have to do is build it, so why the hell are you making such a racket?”
“You idiots don’t even know what magic is! Do you want to get roasted alive or something!? We’re trying to focus on our research, and you make that so hard!?”
The one screaming curses was a workshop mage.
Wondering what on earth was going on, Lawrence pushed his way into the crowd too.
“Over here, number 13!”
Someone raised a hand and called to him.
Among the onlookers was number 14, his white hair thinning here and there.
“You’re here too, sir? What exactly is going on?”
“I just got here myself, so I’m not entirely sure. From what I hear, there seems to have been some kind of problem with the statue...”
Number 14 trailed off.
It seemed he was no more certain of the situation than Lawrence was.
“I apologize. There’s been a delay, so we ask that everyone from the workshop please understand and disperse.”
A calm voice cut through the noise.
Lawrence rose onto his toes and looked inside.
A mercenary standing guard over the laborers.
A Magic Tower mage breaking into a sweat.
The workshop mage with the quiff was raising his voice.
“Understand, my ass. You guys get to sit comfortably in the tower and research all day, so of course you don’t know. Do you have any idea how noisy this cramped little workshop has been lately? Night and dawn, all the same. You keep making us build this damn statue and we can’t get anything done!”
“Your words are excessive. This is not just any statue. It is the statue of Lea-no, the first Tower Lord of the illustrious Sharnos Magic Tower...”
“What the fuck? Too harsh, you say? What, is some dead person that important? You don’t see us, the ones doing our research in this lousy little workshop?”
The quiff-haired mage spat onto the ground.
“Well said, number 122! Fine. Then improve the workshop district a little! You keep saying you’ll do it every single day, but how long are we supposed to keep researching magic in this shithole?”
“And what about you? ‘We’ll do it, we’ll do it’—that’s all you’ve been saying for more than five years now! All that’s changed is there are more damn workshops than before. Has the tower done anything at all for us?”
The gathered mages began to murmur.
“Well, that’s true.”
“Honestly, they don’t do anything for us.”
“No wonder more and more mages are leaving the workshops. Workshop 207 too. Workshop 209’s been empty for a full year already! Does the tower even know that?”
What had begun as timid grumbling gradually grew louder.
From simple complaints about noise, to open protest.
And before long it had turned into a protest against unfair treatment itself.
“We’re the ones suffering, so why are you only yelling at us?”
“If you’ve got eyes, go report it to the people above!”
“Bring out Dean Androp!”
“No. That’s not something we can just do, so if you could—”
Then the trash started flying.
Who threw it first, nobody knew.
But the moment one person broke the dam,
the long-worn wash basins came flying at the Magic Tower mages.
“P-please calm down first...”
The mercenaries watching this burst into snickers.
“Should we help you, you mage lords?”
“You people stay out of this. This is our mages’ problem.”
“Aye, aye. If the client orders it, us slaves better obey, eh?”
“Don’t come crying later that we didn’t help, now?”
It didn’t seem the relationship with the mercenaries was all that good either.
Watching them sneer so openly, the Magic Tower mage turned back to the quiff-haired mage again.
“Even if this continues, nothing will change. If you do this to us, there may be consequences for you as well.”
“These bastards still haven’t figured it out.”
He was pouring oil on the fire.
The tower mage seemed to realize his mistake and wore an oh no expression, but by then it was too late.
“Consequences? You said consequences? Hell. What are you going to do about it? Kick out everyone gathered here?”
“We’re here of our own will. We’re not here for your sake! If it weren’t for magic, damn it—”
“Bastards! Mages aren’t supposed to do this to each other!”
Heat entered their voices.
Far from being contained, the situation only grew worse, and the mercenaries began to whistle and jeer.
“That’s it, fight! I’ve got five coppers on the quiff head!”
“Then I’ll put one copper on our great and mighty mage lord!”
“One copper? That’s it?”
“It’s a sure loser if I ever saw one. You want me to throw more money away?”
“Wahahaha!”
Lawrence pulled on number 14’s arm from behind.
At the look he gave him, Lawrence shook his head.
There was nothing good to gain by staying any longer.
If he remained here, he would only get swept up in the enraged crowd.
Everyone had blood rushing to their heads, and no one had any idea what was about to happen.
Lawrence and number 14 found a place to sit at a street stall.
Several mages who had escaped the chaos were already there.
One mage drank his liquor while using the uproar as a side dish for it.
Another nodded along as if he agreed.
Another laughed as though the whole thing were ridiculous.
“Foolishness. Even if they do this, nothing will change.”
“They’ve been holed up in the workshops doing nothing but research, so they’ve forgotten what kind of place the tower is.”
There were sighs all around them.
After ordering a simple drink, Lawrence said, “This isn’t going to calm down easily.”
“Didn’t you just see the mercenaries? They’re all starved for something to stir them up.”
“Has this kind of thing happened before?”
“Once every few months, maybe... but never on this scale.”
Number 14, taking a sip of his fruit drink, shook his head.
“I had no idea building a statue was so noisy.”
“We’re still in the earlier numbers, after all. We’re quite a long way from where the statue’s being built. The mages nearby, though, aren’t so lucky. They must have endured it and endured it until they finally exploded today. Though who fanned the flames is obvious enough...”
It was clearly the mercenaries.
They sure had nerve, picking on mages like that.
“I can’t imagine how they think they’ll deal with this.”
“They can’t. The ringleader, number 122, will probably be hard to find starting tomorrow.”
“You mean he’ll be kicked out?”
“If he’s only kicked out, he’ll be lucky. You still don’t seem to know much about the Magic Tower.”
Utter meritocracy.
Calculating greed.
The ruthless hand that punished runaway mages.
Would that same hand now come down on the mages who had gathered here a moment ago?
Lawrence felt sorry for the quiff-haired mage, number 122.
“Still, from the look on your face, it seems you passed the task.”
“Yes. Somehow, things worked out.”
“Congratulations. From what I saw of your talent, it was only a matter of time, sooner or later.”
He moistened his throat with the fruit drink.
As the sweetness spread, some of the fatigue seemed to lift.
“Then you should be able to enter the Magic Tower tomorrow at the earliest.”
“They already invited me to come in.”
“Into the tower only two months after entering the workshop district... A mage with talent and potential like yours is rare across the entire kingdom.”
He gave a bitter smile tinged with jealousy and envy. “I’m quite envious, honestly.”
“Though there is one thing.” Lawrence hesitated for a moment. “I actually turned them down.”
“Turned them down? You refused the tower’s offer?”
“Yes. I told them I’d think about it, but that was practically a refusal. For now, I used the stipend I received to borrow Water Ball.”
Lawrence set the grimoire on the table.
Water Ball. When number 14 confirmed the title, he let out a sigh.
“I don’t understand it. Why kick away such a big opportunity? If you enter the tower, you’d have noble patronage, and the chances of becoming a landed mage are high as well.”
“Instead, I’d be tied to the tower forever, wouldn’t I? Isn’t that right? The Magic Tower provides mystery. In exchange, the mage affiliated with it gives up freedom and only studies the tasks assigned to him. That isn’t the kind of life I want.”
“And what’s wrong with that? That’s what mages are. It isn’t just the tower. Even if you leave as a landed mage and go out into the world, what we do won’t change.”
“It’s different.”
Lawrence shook his head.
After hearing Malcolm’s explanation, he was certain.
If he stayed in the tower, he would become a puppet of the Magic Tower, forever pursuing mystery and nothing more.
“I want to learn magic by my own will. Wanting to explore the principles of the world is my own desire. I don’t want to be dragged around by tasks the tower hands out. There’s something fundamentally wrong with the way magic is researched here.”
Even the direction the Magic Tower pursued was the same.
An extreme research path that chased only practicality in the name of power. Lawrence understood the importance of offensive magic very well.
But the essence of magic wasn’t that.
How to kill more efficiently.
Research into magic disguised as torture, repeated upon poor slaves, and in their obsession with visible power, they were overlooking something important.
He didn’t know how to explain it properly.
But the landscape rooted deep inside Lawrence’s heart was whispering that it should not be that way.
“We mages must learn magic. That is the mage’s duty—to see through the principles of the world—and the mage’s mission, to lead the age on behalf of those who know nothing of mystery.”
However, number 14 continued, “You’re different.”
“Honestly, I don’t understand it. I’m only learning because I like magic. Duty, mission... I don’t know why people have to dress it up with such grand-sounding reasons.”
It sounded to him like nothing more than a pretty excuse.
At Lawrence’s simple answer, number 14 laughed aloud.
“Now I see why you’re different from the other mages. Yes. You learn because you like it. You master it because it’s fun. In a way, perhaps we mages have forgotten something as obvious as that for a long time. I hope you never forget that feeling, number 13.”
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