The Great Magician and the Iron Butler
This world teems with magicians beyond counting, yet those who bear the title of Great Magician number fewer than thirty. When one considers that Sword Masters number around a hundred, Great Magicians are rarer still.
The difference between one who has reached the pinnacle of the sword and one who has reached the pinnacle of magic may look, on the page, like a matter of a single word. In truth, it is a difference of the very thing each seeks to master.
Becoming a Sword Master is a long unbroken chain of expanding one's dominion over the self that wields the weapon — and, at the last, of awakening to the I. Magic, by contrast, is the act of driving mana into the truths and principles of the world until a singularity is born. The keener one's insight into that world, the wider the range of singularities one can create, and the higher the circle one may reach. It is a process of mastering everything that is not oneself.
The I, and the world. Even set beside each other, the two subjects demand utterly different scopes of contemplation. And so magicians were fond of arguing that this was precisely why Great Magicians were rarer than Sword Masters.
Great Magician Frox thought otherwise.
Why were there fewer Great Magicians than Sword Masters?
The answer was this.
"Master… Jansent is dead… hhk."
"You fool. How many times did I tell you not to attempt reckless experiments!"
Those goddamn experiments. That was why.
What did it matter how gifted a magician was? One slip in a single experiment and you were finished — you, me, anyone. Magicians as a breed were mad for the inquiry of the world, and inquiry, if it was to satisfy them, required grounds; grounds required empirical proof; proof required experiment. The trouble was that mana, as an energy, was viciously, fiendishly sensitive. Sensitive enough that one might well believe this world itself had begun in some colossal eruption of power — the slightest error in a formula, and mana taught its caster a brutal lesson. Sometimes, as with Frox's disciple Jansent, that lesson blew half a body away.
At the news of his disciple's death, Frox stormed out of his residence in a black temper. He had not wanted to treat the student who had come from so far to deliver the news that way, but the guilt sat too heavily in him.
If I had taught him better, it would never have come to this…
And beneath the guilt, a quieter ache.
If I had founded a magic tower… he would have been able to experiment in a stable environment.
A magician of a Great Magician's standing ordinarily obtained the Ivory Tower's approval, secured the backing of a noble house or a royal court, and established a magic tower of his own. But Great Magician Frox had always had the temperament of an outsider.
Things vanish with the passage of time — that is only natural. I have no desire to pile up, with my own hands, traces that will still be standing after hundreds or thousands of years.
There was arrogance in that thought as well, the arrogance of a man who believed that any tower of his would have carried on a long history. And the magic Frox himself researched had as its aim the restoration of that which was being forgotten. For the concept of restoration to exist at all, the concept of ruin was indispensable. Where there is light, there is darkness; understand one, and you come to understand its opposite. In that process, natural extinction came to seem a matter of course. Years of such enlightenment had given Frox's character a rather pessimistic cast.
Even so, a disciple's death was more than he could bear. That the young and promising should be the ones to vanish — that, he could not accept. He took ruin and extinction as natural, yes, but restoration was his vocation. He believed that every being born into an age carried that age's calling, its appointed work. That was why it pained him so, that a disciple had died so meaninglessly.
The sky is disgustingly clear.
It was his first time outdoors in months, buried as he had been in research and experiment. Frox slipped out of the laboratory he kept hidden in the city and made his way to his usual tavern.
Even in daylight the place was loud with loafers. Frox took a seat at the bar and ordered a cheap wine; the owner brought him a decent one. Viscount Ahental had come to an arrangement with the proprietor of Frox's regular tavern and paid in advance. Knowing none of this, Frox knocked the wine back and muttered that he did love that cheap taste, and in that manner saw his dead disciple on his way.
It was then that a scrap of conversation reached him. Frox was ordinarily a man too busy with his own thoughts to give anyone else's words so much as a passing ear — but this concerned a friend, and he could not let it go by.
"…I hear the Red Fox Mercenary Group completed a ten-gold contract. Apparently they went into the Forest of Resentment with House Ahental's second young master."
"Where's the Forest of Resentment?"
"Couldn't tell you myself. That's what they call the undeveloped woods out by Tallen County. Word is it's extremely dangerous."
"Tallen County? That's the back of beyond. What's a young master of his standing hoping to find out there?"
"Well… they say there are ruins deeper in the forest."
"Ruins? They actually went there?"
Even a passing mercenary knew the value of ruins turned up in the outer forests. Entire kingdoms had been founded on such discoveries; of course the mere word fired the imagination.
"What, is an Ahental Kingdom about to rise? What did they find?"
"Haha, you think they'd explain it in detail to a bunch of mercenaries? They paid out the success bonus, though, so they must have brought something back."
The moment Frox heard it, the grief drained out of him and curiosity rushed in to take its place. He found that shift in himself repulsive.
But what was he to do? That was how a man past his mid-fifties had climbed into the ranks of the Great Magicians in the first place.
So Ereb pulled it off… I did wonder what he was planning, making off with every last one of my scrolls. Haha.
He rather liked House Ahental's second young master. The way the boy raised hell wherever his father wasn't looking — it was exactly like his old friend in their youth.
But Roan, you bastard… if something like this happened, shouldn't you have told me at once?
Grief. Curiosity. Pride. Puzzlement. Fury. Having passed through five violent shifts of feeling, Frox shoved back his chair and stood.
On the table he left behind, only the price of a cheap wine sat forlornly.
After the Squire examination had finished assessing his aptitude, Messi's days in House Ahental changed a great deal — and all of it for the better.
The first change was where he lived. Until then he had been quartered in a reception hall set apart from the main building; now he had been assigned a room inside it. Those who resided in the main building were those who bore the Ahental name. That Messi had been given a place among them was a clear sign of how highly he was now regarded.
The second was that House Ahental's investment in him had begun in earnest.
The moment Messi opened his eyes, he gave the bell on the table a gentle shake. It chimed, bright and small. A presence stirred at once beyond the door, and a maid entered carrying a cushion on which a red ruby had been set.
"Today's training supplies, sir."
"Thank you."
"Please speak more casually, Sir Messi. I'll get scolded if anyone hears."
"Sorry. I'll do that once I've gotten used to it."
Talking down to her was harder than he had expected. It was something he would have to learn, if only for the maid's sake.
Messi took the training supplies. It was an item Ereb had once given him: crush it, circulate the mana cultivation method, and the mana amplified, changing how much of it accumulated in the body. Ahental knights received these once every two months. Messi was receiving them every day. House Ahental's will to invest in him could not have been clearer. Treatment of this order was the same as what Bacillus, the knight commander, received.
Yes. This is the foundation I came all this way to build.
He was satisfied. The moment the maid withdrew, Messi crushed the gem in his hand and began circulating the Ahental Mana Cultivation Method.
There was no longer any need to hide it. Only the other day, Messi had been formally taught Ahental Swordsmanship and the mana cultivation method. His instructor had been Ramang. When Messi succeeded with the cultivation method on the first attempt, the man had the look of someone thinking, Geniuses really are on another level.
A low hum resonated as the energy from the gem amplified his mana. The amplified current raced along his mana circuits and poured toward a single point — the mana hole. It accumulated far more noticeably than usual. With this, he could offset the disadvantage of being a late-starting trainee. That alone was enough that he felt no regret about coming to House Ahental.
When he finished an hour of cultivation and rose from his seat, the sky would be taking on a dusky blue. Maids were immediately standing by with lukewarm wash water and mint leaves. At this rate, it was more comfortable than living in the modern world.
"Thank you."
"Not at all, sir."
He still could not take the maid's attendance as a given. When he made a point of thanking her for her trouble, she smiled, shy and pleased.
Once he had changed, Messi set out at once for his dawn training — as always, toward Training Ground #3.
"Off to training, sir? Give it your all."
Even the patrol soldiers he passed along the way offered him crisp, disciplined greetings. Not so long ago they would have been too busy with their own duties to spare him a word. Their manner had changed a great deal.
A heavy thud… then another. The moment he left the inner castle and drew near the training ground, that distinctive sound of iron being set down reached him.
Of the people he had been seeing often of late — setting aside Ereb, Viscount Ahental, and Erena — there was only this man.
The muscular old man was here again today, pouring sweat at the training ground, wholly absorbed in pumping iron. At thirteen he had handled a two-hundred-and-fifty-kilogram iron sphere at the Squire examination; now, at at an age when a man's skill ought to have been declining, he trained every day as if he had forgotten the years. He had been a knight once. What change of heart had led him to become a butler, Messi did not know.
When Messi appeared at the training ground, Grotein looked particularly pleased. If that too counted as a change since the Squire examination, then a change it was.
"Haha… Sir Messi, you've arrived? Fine weather today, isn't it?"
"Yes… Butler Grotein, I see you're absorbed in your training again today."
"Exercise should be as natural as breathing, shouldn't it? It's only to be expected."
Around him lay a private arsenal that would have made any ordinary person go slack-jawed: heavy iron shields, weight plates, barbells to load the plates onto, iron spheres of uncertain purpose. There was even a suit of armor hammered from bent iron plate, sized to fit Grotein's frame — worn, Messi guessed, for full-body training.
"Now then, Sir Messi. Have a bit of sugar water first… Today we wreck the legs— ahem. Today is a lower-body day, isn't it?"
The old man's voice, as he held out the sweet drink, was bubbling with excitement. This arrangement had only begun a few days ago, and ever since he had been itching for another session with Messi.
If I'd known it would come to this, I never would have started…
Messi bitterly regretted the decision he had made a few days prior.
The weather had been turning warm that day. Messi was stripping off his top, preparing to run the training ground shirtless, when he heard a sound he should not have heard.
"…Beautiful."
"?"
What was that. He must have misheard.
Messi decided he had mistaken the sound of the wind and started his laps. He was running lightly, a few circuits in, when Butler Grotein suddenly entered his field of vision. Ordinarily the man would have finished his dawn workout and gone before Messi arrived; today, their hours had overlapped.
"Butler Grotein. You're later than usual today."
"Haha, truth be told, training alone was getting lonely, so I came out late hoping to join Sir Messi."
"Ah… I see."
Messi vaguely brushed off the inexplicable friendliness. After he had finished his run, he shouldered a heavy iron shield for lower-body work and began to squat, slow and controlled.
He did not possess the knowledge of modern sports science, but he knew a few things in outline. He could not have sworn they were accurate. Still, he was following what he could recall. Better to train awkwardly than not at all, simply because he did not know how.
He felt an intense gaze.
He turned his head. Grotein. Even when their eyes met, the old man kept watching as if to say, go on. Messi had the distinct sensation of being a fresh novice performing tricks in front of a grizzled veteran. He tried not to let it bother him.
He tried.
"Hah…."
That deep, deep sigh was particularly hard to ignore.
"Um, Butler. Is there a problem?"
"Haha, your heels….. Hah. It's nothing. Never mind."
"…"
What was that about?
He finished the squats and dropped to the floor, telling himself it was time for chest work. Grotein asked a question.
"How many repetitions are you aiming for?"
"I haven't given the count any thought."
"Hooo…."
"…"
He was beginning to understand what those sighs meant.
"Butler… am I training incorrectly?"
"Haha."
He just laughed. That was clearly a yes.
Messi was not offended. He had had a feeling himself.
I'm just doing this blindly, without really knowing…
Drawing on Enzo Muete's power, Messi had been repeating exercises so mindlessly it could only be called stupid. Whatever movements he had seen in the media or on YouTube in the twenty-first century, he simply kept doing them until his body gave out. That was what Messi was doing now.
Muscle grows by tearing the fibers and recovering, doesn't it? So if I just do high weight and high reps, the body should get bigger, shouldn't it?
To build a vessel capable of holding Enzo Muete's power, Messi had been making what he considered a decent effort, founded on Lee Eunho's elementary common sense. But how foolish must that look to someone who actually knew? That was the meaning in Grotein's sighs.
Maybe I should just learn properly from this man.
Looking at the butler's jutting pectorals and trapezius, at forearms so thick it seemed an adult's head had been jammed into them and was weeping — at the very least, he would not teach him wrong. Messi had considered asking the man for a proper training session once before. There was nothing to lose.
Before he knew it, Grotein was loading plates onto a barbell with brute indifference and bench-pressing. His massive pecs bulged until it looked as if a baby's head were bursting from his chest.
Huff, huff, huff, huff, huff!
Grotein pumped out five short pressing reps like a product stamped out of a factory, then racked the barbell above his head. His expression was unsatisfied, as if something had not quite hit the spot.
Hmm. Perhaps…
Messi approached him and asked, carefully,
"If you don't mind… shall I spot you?"
At those words, a smile blossomed across Grotein's face like a flower in full bloom.