Magic Soup, Oak Hunts, and a Wizard With No Interest
After that, I headed to the well and took a shower.
Magic existed in this otherworld, and plenty of 'Travelers' with modern knowledge had crossed over—but even so, the imperial treasury wasn't overflowing enough to extend the capital's water infrastructure all the way out to Barukh District 3.
From what I'd heard, they were expanding the plumbing outward gradually, starting from Lukfelton where the Emperor resided.
It would probably take years.
With that thought rattling around my head, I finished my shower in short order, got dressed again, and stepped into the inn to order some Magic Soup.
Nothing beat it for value.
"One soup, please."
"Ah, of course."
Magic Soup was exactly what it sounded like—a cauldron of perpetual stew where every conceivable ingredient got thrown in and boiled without end. Whenever anyone at the inn found something edible, they'd toss it straight into the pot on the spot.
And so the never-emptying Magic Soup was born.
There was a reason I ate this stuff, though.
One bowl cost 5 copper.
Which meant, roughly speaking, about 500 won in Korean money. Not an exact conversion, but close enough.
The hygiene was a little questionable, sure—but since the thing was boiled continuously, I didn't feel the need to worry too much about it.
Tap.
The server ladled a few scoops of Magic Soup into a bowl and set it down in front of me. A rich, nutty aroma hit me square in the nose.
"Mm."
Someone must have thrown something nutty into the pot. There was no other way it could smell this good.
By my standards, this soup was genuinely delicious. There was a time when I'd been scavenging food waste off the streets—compared to those days, this was practically a feast.
And then.
A dilemma struck.
Should I really order bread here too?
It gnawed at me.
Bread costs... 1 silver.
Give up one loaf, and I could eat soup twice instead. But skipping out on dunking bread into my soup felt like a bridge too far.
So, swallowing my tears, I fished a silver coin out of my Subspace Pouch.
"...Just one bread, please."
"Ah, of course."
How should I put it—the bread I ate that day...
It was really, really good.
Stomach full, I stepped back out of the inn.
I wanted to put the advice I'd gotten from the gallery to the test.
So thinking, I walked into the Adventurer Guild.
Creeeak—
The door swung open with that mournful groan unique to old wood, revealing a guild hall still quiet and half-empty. Being morning, most adventurers probably hadn't made it back into Barukh yet, or were still sleeping it off at the inn.
Adventurers, you see, were not a diligent breed by and large.
More than half of them took it easy whenever they could.
Which I understood. If I had time to spare, I'd be lounging around too.
"Mmnh..."
I walked up to the counter and there she was—Esilly, nodding off as usual.
What is it with her.
Why is she asleep again today.
Is she just always sleeping?
Tapping the counter with one finger, I waited—
"Eek...! Welcome...!"
"Ah, Esilly. Are there any quests you'd recommend from the board? This is my first time taking one, so... I was hoping for something reasonable."
Before getting into the business of depositing my money, it seemed smart to take a quest while the hall was empty. Once the crowd showed up, the good commissions would be picked clean.
At my question, Esilly stared at the quest board for a moment, then rose from her seat, tore off a slip, and held it out to me.
"Normally you'd start with goblin subjugation, but... you're a mage, Mr. Yujin. So let's start you on oak."
"I'm sorry—what?"
"Oak."
"Uh... aren't oak not exactly the kind of monster you can just take down easily?"
Esilly just laughed at that.
"Oh come on, at your level an oak is light work, Mr. Yujin. Besides, if you want to promote to gold rank, you need to have at least taken down oak."
"...Hoo. I see."
Honestly? I was a little worried.
I had never fought a real fight.
Well, I'd thrown punches in street scuffles, but I'd never fought in a real combat situation. Brawling in an alley and fighting monsters were two entirely different dimensions.
With that in mind, I spoke up.
"Then shouldn't I form a party? Party composition seems like it'd matter here."
"Hmm... By the book, a silver-rank pair can handle oak just fine. But with the Demon King's revival lately, the oak have been swarming—probably because of it. So silver-rank parties need at least four members now."
"Hmm... four people, huh..."
I was a little worried.
Could I really pull off proper party play while chatting with people I'd never even seen the faces of?
If I wasn't worried, that would have been stranger.
"I, um... I'm not good at that sort of thing."
Maybe it was because I had no backbone to speak of, but I was terrible at taking charge of other people. I much preferred being led.
And now I had to recruit party members myself?
A sigh escaped me before I could stop it.
"Haaah..."
At the sound of it, Esilly—gold curls bouncing—smiled and offered,
"Shall I give you a hand?"
"Yes, please."
This was not an offer you refuse.
When opportunity knocks, you grab it. Acting coy and playing hard to get when a chance drops into your lap is the height of stupidity.
"Then I'll write up the recruitment requirements here—just come back around the same time tomorrow. Oak hunting earns good track record credit, so plenty of adventurers are after it."
"Oh... yes, thank you."
I was lucky Esilly was so well disposed toward me. It was the only reason I was getting such smooth service.
I'll have to buy her something later.
With that thought, I thanked her.
"Ah, really, thank you. Thanks to you, this is going so smoothly for a first timer..."
"Oh, it's nothing!"
She really was kind-hearted.
My gratitude swelled up. For her to do all this for me—when I was nothing special apart from the whole mage thing.
"Then I'll be off."
"Ah, yes. Come back at the same time tomorrow."
"Will do."
With that, we parted ways.
"Whew..."
I stretched out my stiff body for a bit, then headed outside Barukh District 3.
I had magic practice to do today.
Ordinarily I wouldn't have bothered with something like this, but I'd been keeping it up regularly since last time. Repetition was the best way to improve at magic, after all.
Granted, sitting still and forging formulas in my imagination technically counted as practice too—but the efficiency was somewhat worse.
Electric Field
I put the skills I'd mastered over the past three days cooped up in my room through their paces.
Crackle-crackle—
Every living thing within a ten-meter radius would have been knocked out cold.
Unfortunately, the only living things out here were ants, so it was ants alone that dropped unconscious.
With that, I threw myself into practice in earnest.
"Ah, the bank."
Come to think of it, I never deposited my money.
Eh. I'd get around to it next time.
So—this was probably a few days ago now.
The night I'd been run ragged by adventurers until well past dark.
And then it happened.
The first adventurer ever to speak to me politely appeared.
That man called himself a 'mage.'
At first, I didn't believe him. A mage was not the sort of asset you stumbled across in a backwater like this.
So I called for the guildmaster.
And—
...He really was a mage. And a tremendously strong one, at that.
According to the guildmaster, that mage—Yujin—possessed mana of remarkable purity and staggering volume. I couldn't say exactly where he ranked, but in terms of raw ability, somewhere between gold and platinum plate, apparently.
He certainly had to have some idea of his own level himself.
And yet he was that courteous.
I couldn't believe it.
He had to have an agenda—like everyone else who came close, angling for my body. What else was I supposed to think?
But then—
"Then I'll be off."
"Ah, yes. Come back at the same time tomorrow."
"Will do."
Despite three whole days having passed, the mage left the Adventurer Guild quickly and briskly, as if nothing had happened at all.
As if his purpose truly was nothing more than taking on a quest.
That was why I couldn't help being flustered.
Hardly a single man had ever looked at me without baring his ulterior motives.
It's embarrassing to say about myself, but I consider my face reasonably pretty. And my figure's not bad either.
And he didn't spare me so much as a glance.
Somehow, my pride stung a little.
At the same time, curiosity about that mage named Yujin began to bloom.
Which was part of why I was giving him this special treatment, unlike every other adventurer.
"Hmm..."
Just how long would he keep showing no interest in me at all?
I was dying to find out.
Ordinary men showed interest the moment they laid eyes on me.
I returned to my seat with that thought—
"Don't do anything untoward. A mage coming to Barukh District 3 is an exceedingly rare thing."
The guildmaster appeared at my back with a hearty hoho— laugh.
But I understood the meaning beneath the words perfectly well.
'He's telling me not to deliberately string him along.'
Yet hearing it only made me more curious about the mage called Yujin.
What kind of person was he, really?
I wanted to know more, I supposed.
With that thought, I went back to work—
Hoping, with all my heart, that this shift would end soon.