Corpse-Wiping Part-Time Job at the Magic Tower #3
Corpse-Wiping Part-Time Job at the Magic Tower #3
When I slipped out of the inn room at dawn, I left the book lying open on the bed without bothering to close it.
That meant I could tell at a glance that something had changed.
I stared at the open pages and was fucking shocked.
'There's actually something inside?'
The book had been completely blank until dawn, but now that I'd come back, there was content. And what kind of content? Pictures. Detailed illustrations depicting a human figure in various poses.
What the hell had happened?
The book showed a person practicing magic.
A practitioner draped in robes.
The figure in the illustrations was forming hand seals. The seals were broken down into a sequence of distinct movements, with a brief explanation written beneath each illustration.
I flipped through the pages, letting my eyes sweep over the pictures one after another.
The practitioner in the drawings was forming a round orb above their palm.
At the very first hand seal, the orb was only the size of a millet seed, but with each completed seal, it grew progressively larger. By the final illustration, the sphere the practitioner had conjured had swelled to the size of a fist.
I spoke the name of the magic written in the explanation.
"Magic Missile."
Magic Missile.
That was the name of the spell the book had introduced to me.
A spell that launches a projectile made of pure energy to strike a target with blunt force.
"Ah."
I finally understood.
This book in my hands really was a genuine Magic Tome.
I couldn't explain why its contents had vanished and then suddenly reappeared.
But the illustrations and text now filling these pages weren't illusions — they were real.
'Sorry for doubting you, old-timer.'
I mentally apologized as I recalled the old man I'd met last night.
Whatever game he'd been playing, what that old bastard had handed me really was a genuine Magic Tome.
A treasure so valuable it couldn't be compared to a measly eight goblin fangs.
The pages after the Magic Missile explanation were still completely blank.
Just a long, empty stretch of empty pages, page after page.
Out of the hundreds upon hundreds of sheets layered together, only the front section held any content at all.
Ah, whatever.
I flipped the book over a few more times, then shook my head.
The number of spells recorded in the book didn't really matter. The only thing I cared about right now was that an opportunity to learn magic had just fallen into my lap.
Paying money out of pocket for proper magic lessons was something I could never even dream of, but now that a Magic Tome was in my possession, my outlook had shifted. It was worth at least giving the training a shot.
Learning from a book is free, after all.
What kind of maniac hates free stuff?
If all you've got to lose is time, isn't that reason enough to invest?
Besides, I had nothing else to do on the nights after work anyway.
'Alright then. Let's give it a go.'
Lightly buzzing with excitement, I began to study the Magic Tome with intense focus.
To be honest, I had no idea what the short snippets of text were actually saying.
All that stuff about the essential nature of mana and other technical jargon — a clueless grunt like me had no chance of deciphering it. On the other hand, imitating the practitioner in the pictures was easy enough. So first, I emptied my mind and just copied the illustrations by brute force.
Ten total movements divided into distinct diagrams.
I repeated the training, concentrating solely on the shape of the hand seals formed by the practitioner.
"How exactly am I supposed to make an orb appear...?"
Of course, there's no miracle where magic manifests the second you start trying.
But I hadn't expected much from the beginning anyway, so I wasn't disappointed either.
It wasn't like I possessed incredible talent, so learning magic was probably going to be a long-term grind.
Best to adopt the attitude of steadily sharpening my skills over time.
*
The next day arrived.
'This particular hand movement is kind of tricky.... Gotta work on my finger flexibility.'
Instead of showing up at the Adventurer's Guild, I holed up in my inn room and devoted the entire day to magic training.
Because I was far more drawn to practicing magic than I was to running guild requests.
The 40 Copper I'd already saved could cover my living expenses for three days anyway. Taking a day or two off to laze around was no big deal.
Of course, I wasn't lazing around this time — I was shut in my room to work.
I didn't forget to eat the meals the innkeeper set out for me in between sessions, either.
Watery, pale soup with bits floating in it, accompanied by rock-hard bread.
Normally I would've grumbled nonstop about the tasteless slop, but today I just shoveled it down quietly. I was so absorbed in training that the food didn't even register.
Time flew by.
Ever since I'd been born into this otherworld, I'd never experienced time passing this fast. It felt like I blinked and suddenly it was evening. I hadn't expected to find learning magic this interesting, which made even the stupid flailing around genuinely fun.
Just imagining an orb materializing over my palm the way it did in the pictures was enough to spark my motivation.
Of course, actually producing results was a completely separate matter.
It was the second day of locking myself inside the inn.
I finally ran straight into a wall.
A huge question mark was blocking any further progress in my training.
"What the hell does it mean to 'feel mana'...?"
Mana.
Look, for all my rough edges, I'd spent a solid twenty years living in this otherworld. Thanks to that, I'd at least overheard people chattering about what mana was.
Mana is a mysterious energy that pervades the entire continent.
The power that serves as the driving force behind magic.
Explaining it in words is easy enough.
But when it comes to the actual substance of mana, I didn't know a damn thing. What it looks like, what texture it has — I'd never heard anyone talk about any of that in my whole life. And frustratingly enough, the Magic Tome was instructing me to go feel mana's actual substance for myself.
The brief snippets of text scribbled in the margins of the pages.
The author of this tome was writing their commentary on the assumption that the practitioner already knew how to sense mana. Without being able to feel it, nine times out of ten, my training was going to hit a wall and stop dead.
What the hell do I do?
If I were learning from a teacher, I could at least fire off a question.
But I was stuck self-studying with a book, so there was no way to instantly resolve this puzzle. I laid the open tome on my lap and sank into thought.
After racking my brain for a long while, a stray thought suddenly flickered through my mind.
A thought that just might be the secret trick to solving my problem.
What had popped into my head was the Magic Tower.
Inside the Magic Tower, mages freely rambled about magical theory and didn't hesitate to pass knowledge down to younger mages. Since I'd been in and out of the place plenty of times, the idea came to me easily.
'Why not just eavesdrop on the lectures at the Magic Tower?'
Every weekend, the Magic Tower held classes for the children of noble families. Some of those were advanced courses that sounded like complete gibberish, but there were also introductory-level classes aimed at complete beginners. My job here was to sneak in and listen in on those basic lectures. If I kept listening long enough, sooner or later someone was bound to drop a mention about mana.
Sure, I could pay the tuition and walk right into the classroom with my head held high.
But the sum required to attend the Magic Tower's lectures was beyond imagination.
It easily blew the obscene university registration fees from my past life out of the water.
A broke adventurer like me could work a lifetime and never afford it, so I had no choice but to crash the course.
Strike while the iron's hot, as they say.
The next morning, I headed to the guild and approached the receptionist, Wendy.
"Miss Wendy. That job cleaning up monster corpses at the Magic Tower. It's still available, right?"
"You mean the monster corpse disposal request? Yes, Sir Luke. The waste disposal site at the Tower is in continuous operation this week, so it is. There's plenty of room for manpower, so you can apply at any time."
The Magic Tower's waste disposal site was perpetually short on labor.
During the period each month when the facility was in operation, they always recruited outside workers. I accepted the request from Wendy and once again gained easy access to the Magic Tower.
The scenery of the Tower was bustling with robe-clad mages.
The sights always looked the same, but today, for some reason, they felt different.
Maybe I was just tense because my purpose for being here wasn't exactly innocent.
My clenched hand grew clammy with sweat.
Still, I couldn't exactly start acting suspicious the moment I stepped inside.
I changed into my work clothes and first made my way down to the underground waste disposal area. There, laid out for processing today, was the corpse of a massive monster.
"That's a Cyclops. A one-eyed giant monster. The Tower was apparently running an eye transplant operation on the creature, but supposedly it went into convulsions mid-surgery during the eye swap. So it ended up getting dragged down here."
The shift supervisor delivered a short explanation, standing before the giant corpse.
True to his words, the Cyclops was missing an eye.
A faint wave of nausea hit me, and I turned my head away.
"Mister Adventurer, gather up the Cyclops's tendons for us. Yank out as many as you can and pile them onto the cart. I hear their tendons are excellent for brewing stamina-enhancing potions. You work hard, I might just slip one to you on the side."
"Don't need it."
"It'd fetch a good 20 Copper if you sold it."
"Okay, then I need it."
I grabbed a dismantling tool like a saw and started slicing into the Cyclops's corpse — shk-shk-shk. I got momentarily distracted by the promise of a profitable item if I worked hard, but I soon reined my mind back in.
I'd come to the Magic Tower today to learn magic, not to make money.
"It's mealtime! Everyone, eat your lunch and then get back to work!"
Before I knew it, lunchtime had rolled around.
This was the only window of time during which the corpse disposal unit's workers could move freely around the Magic Tower. At an ordinary workplace, there'd be a stampede toward the cafeteria, but not here. Spend enough time staring at gut-churning monster corpses, and your appetite inevitably vanishes completely.
Because of that, the Tower didn't make a fuss even if the workers skipped lunch. They were free to go out to the open courtyard for a walk during break, or read a book, whatever they wanted. In other words, right now was my chance to crash a lecture.
"Mister Adventurer, where you off to? Not eating? They're serving roasted potatoes in the mess today."
"Lost my appetite. Gonna head out for a quick walk."
I shrugged off the nagging supervisor and started moving.
I walked through the Tower's interior in my work clothes, but no one gave me a second glance. The mages here always treated the grunt workers as though they were invisible. They registered my presence no more than a customer at my past life's café would register the servers. I slipped past them unnoticed.
Granted, they might show some interest if they knew I was an Incubus.
But right now, I was bundled up to my head in a work garment that was practically a coat.
So I could move around without anyone stopping me.
Inside the Magic Tower, there was a dedicated lecture hall where professors held their classes.
Following the guide map on the wall, I arrived at the lecture wing without any trouble.
'Quiet.'
The corridors of the lecture hall were utterly silent.
Faintly, through the classroom doors, I could hear the muffled voices of professors conducting their lessons. I checked the course schedule posted in the hallway, item by item, and roughly pieced together which lessons were taking place right now.
- Monster Taxonomy
- Introduction to Broomstick Piloting
- History of Ancient Magic
- Principles of Alchemy
- Elementary Mana Sensitivity Theory
What I needed was the course called Elementary Mana Sensitivity Theory. A class that taught apprentice-level mages how to handle mana. As luck would have it, even though it was lunchtime, a lesson was still in progress inside the classroom.
It looked like the professor in charge was giving a struggling student some one-on-one tutoring.
"...Professor Flitz. I still can't seem to master the Mana Sensitivity Technique. Is there some kind of special trick to it?"
"No need to be discouraged. Feeling mana typically takes both extensive experience and a fair bit of luck. If you diligently keep up with the course without growing impatient, you'll see results eventually."
"Really? But I was hoping to speed things up a bit...."
I crouched down low and pressed my ear to the gap in the door.
Now the two voices, which had been indistinct before, finally came in clearly.
At first, the professor's voice had only offered bland encouragement. But when the student's pestering questions kept coming, the professor gradually started pulling out some genuinely helpful advice.
"Ahem. In truth, there exists a certain trick to the Mana Sensitivity Technique. Now that I understand your enthusiasm, allow me to point you in the right direction, at least somewhat."
"What kind of trick?"
"As you know, the core of Mana Sensitivity lies in your breathing. When you inhale, and then exhale, you detect the mana moving within your body. However, even inside the body, there are certain places where mana's movement is particularly pronounced."
The professor spoke briefly.
"The abdomen."
"...The abdomen."
"There will naturally be individual variance, but for the majority of people, the abdomen is where the most mana is stored. During breathing, focus every nerve in your body on the area around your navel. If you feel a warm energy circulating around your internal organs — that, my student, is mana. Practice this diligently whenever it crosses your mind."
"Understood, Professor Flitz."
Hearing the professor's words, I snapped my fingers, feeling like I'd just struck gold.
A trick to sensing mana — and I'd picked it up this easily!
Even by my own standards, my luck was pretty good.
If I'd struck out today, I'd resolved to waste days more crashing courses if I had to.
I swore to myself I'd head back to the inn and immediately put this new trick to use.