You, Be My Apprentice
"You. Be my apprentice."
There he was, eating rotten bread. A beggar.
Honestly speaking, it wasn't a sight I'd seen often since coming to this otherworld. I'd heard there were beggars among the people active on the Gallery, but seeing one with my own eyes like this was a first, and it left me more than a little surprised.
Still, I didn't panic. I simply brought him home. And once he was home, I gave the beggar a bath—because I couldn't stand the filth. He then had the gall to act like we were close, asking for my name, which annoyed me slightly… but I told him anyway. An alias, naturally. One never knew what might happen.
And so began my connection with a beggar.
After savoring the bread and soup, I felt somewhat full. I'd always been a big eater to begin with, which had made life on the streets something of an ordeal—hungry all the time, and no food to be had. Back then I'd wandered the streets from dawn to dusk, scrounging for whatever I could eat.
Mulling over those old memories, I got up from my seat, and Silvia—who had apparently been browsing the Gallery, since she was sitting in her chair staring into empty air—looked at me and spoke.
"Then let's get some cleaning done. Do you know how to sort things?"
"Ah, yep."
Once again, I happened to be good at sorting. Knowing what goes where, keeping this separate from that—you could say it was one of my talents. Which was why, beggar or not, I'd often tidy things up as I walked down the street. Not that it mattered much, since everything got messed up again within minutes.
With that thought, I followed Silvia up the stairs to the third floor.
Couldn't we just use teleportation?
The thought crossed my mind, but Silvia surely had her reasons. Climbing the stairs, I found myself on the third floor before I knew it, and there stood an enormous laboratory.
"Oh… so this is the laboratory. It's bigger than I expected."
"I enlarged it somewhat with magic. Rather difficult magic, mind you."
"Ah, I see."
I wasn't particularly curious, but as I listened to her talk, I began scanning the room. Where should I start cleaning? That was what I wanted to know. So I swept my gaze around, and finally turned to look at Silvia—
"Then clean."
"Excuse me?"
The order to clean came out of nowhere.
"I said clean. Do you not want to?"
"No, no, it's not that I don't want to… but you'll need to tell me what goes where and how to sort it."
If I made a mistake and sorted something incorrectly, the responsibility would fall squarely on my shoulders. To avoid mistakes, I needed to know the sorting system—or so I reasoned as I spoke. Silvia then pulled a book out from somewhere it had been embedded with magic and handed it to me.
"Here. Read this and do it accordingly. I'm going to nap for a while. Wake me when you're finished."
"Ah, yep."
With that, Silvia walked slowly out and headed down to the second floor.
"Hmm."
It was a fairly thick book—around five hundred pages, I'd say. Well, she was a mage, so it stood to reason she'd have books like this lying around. This was probably on the short side, honestly. From what people posted on the Gallery, there were some truly massive tomes out there.
With that thought, I settled in and began to read.
"…This is easier than I expected."
It was written in a rather chaotic manner, but it was a book explaining how to sort and organize things. Chaotic, though. Deliberately obtuse, almost. Still, it posed no real difficulty for me, so I sped-read it and got straight to work.
"The potions can't be stored with this…"
The book's contents were already in my head, so I started tidying up everything scattered across the floor, piece by piece. Materials related to experimental results went into their own pile; things that were outright trash got discarded. I could conceivably have been doing it wrong—but if I was wrong, then it wasn't me who was wrong, it was the book. I rarely forgot anything once I'd seen it.
How much time passed like that? Before long, I had the laboratory—all hundred-pyeong or so of it—spotlessly organized.
It struck me as strange, though.
Anyone else wouldn't have managed this…
I'd only been able to sort it all because I was a bit better than most at memorizing what I read; anyone else would have been overwhelmed before they even started. But why on earth would she just hand me a book and go to sleep? Utterly unreasonable, I thought, as I headed down to the second floor. I found Silvia's room and knocked on the door.
Knock knock.
"I finished the cleaning."
Despite my announcement, Silvia didn't stir. She seemed to have fallen deeply asleep. So I knocked again—this time hard and irregular, since a steady rhythm might go unnoticed.
BANG! BANG!
The door flew open almost instantly, and a visibly irritated Silvia emerged.
"…You're done already? I've only slept five hours."
"Oh come on, how long do you think that takes?"
Honestly, I was a little nervous. What if I'd put something in the wrong place? But I trusted myself. If it was me, the job would have been done properly.
With that thought, I went back up to the third floor together with Silvia.
In other words, I was mildly annoyed. I'd planned to sleep at least ten hours, and this cleaner had woken me after five. I still didn't know his name, so "the cleaner" would have to do for now. It felt a bit awkward to ask, anyway.
With that thought, I trudged my way up to the third floor. I could have used teleportation, but if I relied on it too much my legs would lose whatever strength they had left, so for my health's sake I made a point of walking. I did know a spell to restore lost muscle strength… but it came with a great deal of bodily pain. Deliberately walking often was the better cure.
Reaching the third floor, I opened the door—and there was the laboratory, immaculately clean.
"Hmm."
But I could have done this myself. One spell and every scrap of trash would vanish. The only problem was that it would take the research materials along with it, which was exactly why I'd hired a cleaner.
Yet this gave the distinct impression that he'd simply thrown everything out. If so, it would be a nuisance, but I could always restore it all with magic. So I asked.
"Did you throw everything away?"
Since I might be saddled with the hassle of restoring it all, I couldn't help the slight edge in my voice. But the answer was worth hearing.
"No? You gave me the book with the sorting system written in it, so I organized everything according to it."
"…You did all of that, in five hours?"
"…Yes. It wasn't that difficult."
That was impossible. Another mage, perhaps—but an ordinary person sorting an entire laboratory from that book in five hours simply could not be done. Not "nearly impossible." Impossible. As in, not possible. And yet he had done it.
Honestly, it was hard to believe.
"…Then I'm going to inspect it."
"Ah, yep."
The cleaner answered brimming with confidence. Frankly, I didn't expect much. Even if he could read the sorting chart, sorting each item meticulously according to it was beyond anyone.
But how much of the work had I inspected before it hit me?
"…It's real."
The laboratory stood before me, sorted to perfection. And this was no cramped little room—it was a hundred-pyeong laboratory. To organize a space this size in five hours, he would have had to place every single item exactly where it belonged without a single mistake.
In that moment, I understood.
This cleaner was a genius.
Something felt off. Uneasy. The moment she came in, she'd gone quiet, murmuring "…You're serious?" and sinking into deep thought.
She's not about to kill me, is she?
"You cleaned so wonderfully—" and then, death. That kind of scenario crossed my mind. Logically it made no sense, but then, mages had never been the sort of beings to make sense in the first place.
As I shuffled backward, chilled by these thoughts, inching further and further away from Silvia—
Whoosh!
Silvia used magic to yank my retreating figure right back in front of her. Then she stared intently into my eyes and said:
"You. Be my apprentice."
Hearing that, I'll admit I was more than a little taken aback. I'd never had any interest in magic to begin with; I'd only come here because I was told I'd get fed and housed. Learning magic had never been part of the plan.
But looking at the face Silvia wore at this moment—
"Ah, yep."
I had no choice but to accept. The will to kill me on the spot if I refused radiated off her so intensely I could practically feel it. Granted, she probably wouldn't actually have done it, but that was what I sensed.
So I accepted—
"Good. Then rest for today. You've earned it."
"Yep."
"Tomorrow, come find me in the laboratory. If I'm not there, knock on my door and wake me."
"Yes'm."
The situation was absurd enough that my responses were coming out sluggish. I'd only come here to clean, and now I'd suddenly been chosen as an apprentice. Beyond the strangeness of it, what loomed larger was a creeping fear—was there some trick in this I couldn't see?
But running away wasn't an option. There was nothing more pointless than trying to flee a mage.
And so, from this moment on, I had no choice but to live the life of an apprentice.
…Ugh, I don't want to study.
I truly, deeply hated studying.
Ah, I don't wanna be a mage.