Lake's Staff — Mage Guild Flagship Store
Games.
For any intelligent being, across every age, the pastimes invented to drive away boredom have always carried a few iconic symbols.
Chess has its checkered board.
Gambling has dice and cards.
Crossword puzzles have the encyclopedia.
And it isn't only humans who play. Dolphins, for instance, fashion ring-shaped bubbles of air and toss them back and forth.
As the ages advanced, humanity invented virtual reality, filling it with countless things no one would dare attempt in the real world and pouring themselves into stories and play. So what, then, is the single emblem that unites every game ever made?
Opinions would multiply as freely as the swelling ranks of players across generations, yet one interface is required to play any of them at all.
The Status Window.
An objective readout that lays bare the condition and circumstances of the character a player controls. Its data and shape change with every game, but any modern person who has ever enjoyed one would know a Status Window on sight.
Karem knew it well.
Which was exactly why he was so stunned.
Even through the door, I heard it clear as day.
The Status Window was the emblem of games—yet it was never exclusive to them. Once gaming climbed out of the underground and into the light, novels were the first to reinterpret it, and a flood of other media followed. As far as Karem knew, there was only one kind of person who would stand in empty air and murmur the words "Status Window."
A reincarnator.
Hadn't Catherine said as much? Possessors, reincarnators, those who remembered past lives—there weren't many, but they existed, and they still did.
The Hero who slew the Demon King was a reincarnator, wasn't he?
Fitzgerald. The name was so vivid it was still stamped in five clear syllables across his mind.
Having pieced that together, Karem…
"Hmm. A reed stuffed full, is it?"
"Honestly, the name's pretty plain for how good it looks and tastes, isn't it?"
"…Judging by my contractor's reaction, I find myself thinking a different name might be better."
He did nothing about it.
For the moment, at least.
Trying to identify the speaker would only make him look suspicious, and the mountain of cannoli piled in front of him was far more important. If fate and opportunity aligned, the other party would come looking for him.
"Let's just go with cannolo for the singular and cannoli for the plural."
"I firmly refuse."
Status Window or no Status Window, he had tasted this Italian dessert only once in his previous life. This was the second time, and it was delicious.
The moment he bit into the firm, cylindrical shell, it shattered like the ice-crusted surface of a frozen lake—the pure pleasure of demolishing a delicate structure with his own teeth. Then the filling erupted.
The fierce caramel coating both ends hit first, but after that the flavor changed. Every cannolo shifted through three distinct stages, and Karem knew exactly what each one was, because he had made them himself.
The ones filled with whipped cream were so light they felt, with only a little exaggeration, like lifting a feather; the taste itself was as airy as eating a cloud. By contrast, the dense cream cheese left a lingering, weighty richness on the tongue that stayed long after every crisp crumb had been swallowed. The lemon custard, not quite as heavy as the cream cheese yet still substantial, finished clean thanks to the citrus acidity—cheaply put, like a crunchy cream puff.
"By the way, Karem Hubae."
"Yes?"
Mary tilted her head, still holding the half-eaten cannolo Catherine had been working on.
"What exactly was 'nothing'?"
"What do you mean?"
"You stepped out for a moment while we were cooking."
At Catherine's gesture, Mary offered the remaining cannolo.
"From what I glimpsed over your shoulder, no one seemed to be walking down the corridor."
She was right; the hallway had been empty. There was no real reason to hide it, and the room was private enough.
"Well… I thought there might be a reincarnator."
"A reincarnator?"
Catherine set down her cup of Alrune's Tear. One eyebrow rose as she fixed Karem with a look.
"You mean another one besides yourself? I almost thought I'd misheard, but that face of yours says otherwise. Any reason you're so sure?"
"I heard the words 'Status Window' perfectly clearly."
Catherine and Mary both wore expressions that asked what on earth that was. Mary he could understand, but Catherine not knowing either was a surprise. Then again, reincarnators were vanishingly rare; even if one possessed a Status Window, there was no reason to advertise it to the world.
…Just how much of this was he supposed to explain?
Curiosity began to kindle in Catherine's eyes. There was no brushing it off now. Karem had never been confident in his explanations, yet somehow Catherine pieced it together on her own, nodding along until her face twisted into something increasingly strange.
"Objective metrics… experience points… growth… Hah. To think such a thing exists."
When she had heard everything, Catherine let out a quiet sigh.
"Knowing your personality, I don't imagine you would, but you aren't planning to go looking for this reincarnator, are you?"
"Come on. Of course not."
He had already rejected the idea himself before she even asked, so he waved a hand firmly.
"You said yourself there's no need or reason to spread the word. It only draws unwanted attention and danger."
"True. Still—a Status Window. It would be convenient."
It would. To any modern person a Status Window was pure romance, and even reincarnated Karem wasn't entirely uninterested in seeing his own strength reduced to numbers. What he really coveted, though, were the side features: a skill window, an inventory, a minimap. Nice to have, not necessary. If he had been a combat class… wait a second.
For culinary research it might actually be pretty useful…
"I cannot understand either my contractor or my junior. A Status Window? Having one would only risk making a person dependent on those numbers and that convenience."
Coming from a workaholic house elf who refused to use even the magic she possessed if it meant less work, the words sounded oddly profound—and oddly wrong.
Just then a roaring cheer rolled in through the window. Not from the royal palace proper, but from the inner castle, thick with joy, excitement, and anticipation.
"Come to think of it, you said the Crystal Jubilee still isn't for a while."
"Right. It will take some time yet."
There was no real mystery why. How long had Winter-Ascend preparations taken? This festival celebrated the reign of the current King of Seophon, Ianmarc Yates, rather than a god, but between the king's renown, vigor, and popularity it still needed to be grand. Karem had assumed they would have free time until then. He had been wrong.
They had barely finished their afternoon snack on the day of arrival, and already, before evening even fell, a flood of invitations had begun arriving from countless stewards and servants. The moment Mary set the empty cannoli plate aside, a heap of letters sealed with wax crests thumped down in its place—nearly as many as the commission letters that sometimes swamped the Magic Tower.
"You're quite the celebrity."
"Naturally. My contractor is currently the most renowned archmage among mages. Plenty of people will want at least a nodding acquaintance."
Mary added the newest batch to the pile and sifted through seals and senders.
"Still, none of them are worth a personal visit. Shall I handle them the usual way?"
"Do. The serious ones will start arriving tomorrow."
At Catherine's gesture Mary lifted the entire tray of letters and dumped them into the fireplace, then snapped her fingers.
Whoosh—
"We have free time today. It's been a while—let's visit Lake's Staff."
"Where's that?"
"The only mage guild in Pen Draig."
Catherine rose at once.
"Shall I prepare right away?"
"Yes."
Mary brought the robe; Catherine swept it on and gestured. The staff leaning against the wall flew into her hand. Karem fell in behind her beside Mary.
Plenty of people were leaving the royal grounds, yet Catherine's identity had already spread by quiet rumor; the stares that gathered lasted only a moment. Once they entered the inner castle, packed with visitors who had come for the Crystal Jubilee, even those glances scattered. Only the brief flash of her ornate staff—the Third Glory of Palatino—drew a few eyes.
Lake's Staff.
The commercial branch of the mage guild they were heading for. Curiosity stirred first. Like a craftsmen's guild, it bought and sold magical materials, grimoires, and tools; it appraised and crafted relics found in dungeons—everything a professional mage might need.
"Is it like an adventurers' guild?"
"In a rough sense."
Catherine glanced back at him and tapped the ground lightly with her staff.
"Unlike the adventurers' guilds, which are at least nominally linked to one another, mage guilds follow a more traditional structure."
"Meaning?"
"They share the suffix 'guild,' but each is an entirely separate organization," Mary said, giving a small shrug. "Just as every city has its own craftsmen's guild. In a way, mages are simply craftsmen who work with magic."
"And mages are arrogant by nature."
Ah. That much he knew very well.
"…Karem. What is that look?"
"Nothing."
"Judging by your face, you are thinking that my contractor and Master Olivier are, in fact, arrogant. Am I wrong?"
Mary was exactly right. He hadn't said a word out loud.
"I inferred it from context, atmosphere, and expression."
"Oh-ho. So you were thinking something that cheeky."
"I love you."
"Cough—hack!"
Catherine choked so hard on the sudden confession that her feet tangled.
This little brat, dropping that in a place like this…!
Anger at the ambush, delight at the confession—her face cycled through a storm of conflicting emotions before she forced every one of them down.
"We have arrived."
The large, ornate building that dominated the heart of the inner castle's commercial district drew a small sound of admiration from Karem. The surrounding structures were impressive enough, yet the mage guild's was the largest and most splendid of all.
"So. Planning to buy something?"
"…For now, just a look around."
The two of them stepped naturally through the grand entrance the doorman held open. Karem's anticipation, however, wobbled the instant he crossed the threshold.
…It feels like a department store.
Monster materials, magical reagents, tools, and relics rested on shelves and in display cases while countless robed mages carrying staffs drifted among them.
"Impressed?"
Mary, walking beside him in Catherine's wake, asked quietly.
"Mmmmm."
Not especially.
His previous life had been the most prosperous era in human history. Novelty alone no longer overwhelmed him. The department stores he remembered sprawled across a dozen floors including basements, sold thousands of product lines, and housed movie theaters, swimming pools, arcades—entire leisure complexes that thousands of people used at once. Compared with that, Lake's Staff was merely interesting, not overwhelming. Customer count? Barely a few dozen on the first floor alone.
Still, every single item in this magic department store was something he had only ever encountered in games and novels in his past life. On that front…
"Yes. It's definitely fascinating."
Catherine and Mary, caught off guard by the far drier reaction than they had expected, soon recalled the previous life he had described and understood.
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