#066 Miracle
#066 Miracle
After teaching Lucius and Rosemas the most basic magical theory.
I picked up a quill, intending to teach the two of them the most essential everyday magic first.
"The first magic you two will learn is Clean Magic—that is, magic for grooming yourself."
Clean Magic.
Just as Spirit Summoners commonly wash their face and hair in an instant with the help of spirits, a similar effect can be drawn out through the power of mana.
"The principle is simple. You cast Water Ball, then move your mana delicately and dunk your face into it. Hmm... perfect, there's some here."
The condensed milk, fresh cream, and bread we'd been given as snacks at the inn happened to be in a basket.
"I'll show you. How to wipe this off quickly."
I mixed a little condensed milk into the fresh cream to make it sticky and thick.
"M-Master?"
"Clean Magic is usually used in everyday life, but it's also great for wiping off a Magic Beast's blood and flesh after fighting one. Watch this."
I lightly smeared the condensed milk, now thick like slime mucus, onto my face.
"Magic Beast blood aside, it's unpleasant when bits of flesh or organ fragments splatter onto your face. You can wipe it off by hand, but you won't get it completely clean until you wash with water. That's when you use this. See where it's gotten on my bangs too?"
"...Yes. I can see it clearly."
"Watch closely. How to wipe this off."
I pushed my face into the Water Ball I had formed in the air.
It might have looked a bit ridiculous, but the Water Ball held its shape without bursting even with my face inside it.
"The next step is rotation."
"Y-You're talking... inside the water?"
"If you look closely, the water isn't touching my mouth when I speak."
It was exactly like raising a shield with mana.
I lightly shook the staff I had placed inside the mass of water, and following the staff's movement, the water wiped my face clean in an instant.
Swoosh.
The mass of water instantly turned cloudy, and I stopped the rotation and slowly grasped the water, pulling it away from my face.
"Ta-da, how is it?"
"...It's been cleaned spotlessly, Witch."
"Right? Rosemas, what do you think we should do with this mass of water?"
"...Should I throw it on the ground?"
"Correct."
I opened the window and launched it with mana toward a patch of dirt far away.
Splat.
The cloudy mass of water burst the moment it hit the ground, scattering white water in all directions.
Once the moisture dried, it would be no different from having splashed milk onto the ground anyway.
"It's the simplest magic. Probably the magic you two need most."
Attack magic?
Lucius kills everything with a single swing of his Holy Sword anyway.
Rosemas isn't Holy Sword-tier, but she has her own tricks, and if attack magic is needed, I can step in.
"Later, once you get used to magic, I'll teach you magic that's good for swordsmen and archers to learn. For example, for a swordsman..."
CLANK.
I drew Lucius's iron sword and aimed it to the side.
"You attach a Demonic Spirit Thread between the sword's grip and your palm. Ah, in modern terms it's called an Ether Chain..."
Clang.
I tossed the iron sword to the side.
Then I lightly clenched my hand, reeling the mana extending from the sword's grip back into my palm.
Shing!!
"Whoa...!"
The sword flew through the air and settled into my hand.
Lucius blinked with his mouth open, and Rosemas also showed considerable interest.
"That's how you retrieve a weapon."
"Could you use it on arrows too?"
"In theory. If the distance is far, retrieving it costs too much mana to be effective. Unless it's an arrow you absolutely must recover. What's good for an archer is this magic."
I shaped mana into a long cylinder and handed it to Rosemas.
"Close one eye and try looking through this."
"...Something looks incredibly big?"
"Of course. It's an Arcane Scope... or as kids these days call it, a Scope."
Having to switch every term to the modern vocabulary one by one is a real pain.
They call Fireball "Fireball," and they call fire magic or ice magic things like "Fire Elemental Mage" or "Ice Elemental Mage."
'Back in my day, we just called them fire mages or ice mages—short and concise.'
Apparently, modern mages like to give things slick, fancy-sounding names.
I don't particularly want to follow it, but I don't want to be called a jaw-clicking old undead either, so I decided to go along with the flow of the times.
"For now, I've made it a light 4x magnification. How is it?"
"...Wouldn't this be more advantageous for people who use guns rather than archers?"
"......."
Hmm.
"...Right? I saw people using guns where I first met Lucius, so I tried improving it. I even borrowed a gun from Morgen and tried using it. Originally, this was an application of clairvoyance-type magic."
"As expected, you're amazing, Master."
"Of course. Heh."
I thought I'd covered that up well enough.
After dispelling the Scope magic, this time...
"Lucius. Can I borrow your head for a moment?"
"My head?"
"Yes. What I'm going to do is..."
Splash.
I used Water Ball on Lucius's head, soaking him thoroughly.
His hair drenched in an instant, he looked dumbfounded, and I draped the towel I had wiped my face with over Lucius's shoulders.
"Hold on."
Splat.
After tossing the puddle of water back outside, I lightly patted Lucius's head with the towel.
"M-Master. My head is..."
"Stay still. We have to dry the water off, don't we?"
"What are you trying to..."
"Hair-drying magic. Are you saying you don't want it because it's a towel I used?"
"N-No. No. ...I'll stay still."
"You should have done that from the start."
When I lightly rapped my fist on top of the towel, Lucius finally stopped moving.
'Drying a man's hair really reminds me of that bastard.'
That bastard.
He was human, but he was already a white-haired old man when I met him—though still far younger than me.
The problem was that this old man had dementia, so I had to nurse him.
Fortunately, bathing him and such was all handled with magic, so I didn't have to see anything unpleasant, but...
-What is this barrier...?
-I've finally caught you, Demon King.
-What...!
-Pretending to be a senile old man was truly exhausting. Great Demon King Belphegor. It's time for you to die.
-You son of a bitch!!!
-Return to a handful of dirt, Demon King!!
As soon as I joined the Hero Party, there was some senile old man I had to care for, and it turned out that the senile old man was actually the real Holy Sword Hero who had been pretending to have dementia the whole time to kill me.
Knowing that I had infiltrated the Hero Party for fun, he was a man who had faked dementia for several years.
Fortunately, I won and buried him deep underground, but the battle with him took a full week.
-Hey, you fraud! If you're the Holy Sword Hero, use the Holy Sword's power like a hero should!!
-Shut up! True victory against a Demon King can only come through magic! A Holy Sword is nothing more than an auxiliary Mana Stone for me to use mana infinitely!
-Damn it, you coward! Fight me fairly with your Holy Sword!
-Silence! I'll kill you, use the flask containing your soul as a decoration behind my chair, and prove that I'm the greatest Grand Mage on the continent!
The coward only used the Holy Sword to draw infinite mana and never swung it.
-Hahaha! Great Demon King Belphegor! Are you trying to defeat me with something other than magic! As expected, I am a cut above you in magic!!
-You insolent brat! You just said something you shouldn't have!
It strangely turned into a battle of pride, and because I staked my life on defeating him with magic no matter what, it ended up taking a whole week.
A pervert who never fully released his Holy Sword or used its power.
I acknowledge his will to defeat me with magic, but thinking about how he pretended to be a senile old man just to trap me in his barrier still makes my blood boil.
"Master...?"
"Ah, right. I was just thinking about the old days for a moment."
I set the towel aside, cast hot-wind magic on my hand, and blew heat onto Lucius's head.
"This way, you can dry your hair quickly. If your hair stays wet for no reason, you'll catch a cold easily."
"......."
Lucius stayed still for a long while until his hair dried, and I dried Lucius's hair just as before, then stood in front of the two of them.
"Next time, I'll wash yours too, Rosemas."
"...Yes."
Rosemas didn't look well, so after making the obligatory gesture of asking after her, I began lecturing the two of them about magic again.
"Magic is..."
Roughly.
With mana.
A power that can do anything.
"If you know the method, if you have enough mana, it's a power that can even make you a god."
"A god?"
"Yes. You can realize even what gods cannot through magic."
The best part about learning magic.
There is one magic in this world that only I can use, that only I know.
"Hair-growth magic—have you heard of it?"
"...Hair-growth magic?"
"Right. It's magic that uses the principle of regenerating the body's cells... no, duplicating whatever remains and restoring it to its original state."
I reached toward Lucius's head, plucked out a single strand of his hair, and waved it.
"It's a secret technique that uses the life information in a plucked hair like this to make the target's hair grow anew."
"...Is such a thing possible?"
"Of course. I'm a Grand Ma—"
Tap tap.
"—ge."
That was close.
I almost slipped up out of pride in magic, but fortunately I got through it smoothly.
"If you go bald later, tell me. I'll make your hair grow back. Hehehe."
Even for the Demon King Army's skeletons, hair.
For skeletons whose body tissue had all rotted away, I planted hair roots directly onto their skulls so the hair took root in the bone.
Ah, an army of death knights with flowing white hair.
"Then Master, if I learn this hair-growth magic... can I make hair grow anywhere I want?"
"That's true, isn't it? Though of course, the greatest significance is in duplicating cells, not just hair."
Hair-growth magic is merely a fragment of "a certain magic."
"If I wanted to, I could whip up a person just like that. Because I'm a Grand Ma—ge."
Homunculus.
Beyond stealing another's body, I was an existence that created my own body and possessed it.
"Human Transmutation—have you ever heard of it?"