Two Fingers

Thought Language was a relatively recent acquisition. Wanting to use a thing the moment you've learned it is only human, and Chris itched to keep speaking mind to mind—but out of consideration for the man in front of him, he opened his mouth.

"It'll be soon, won't it? What do I do?"

"I'll tell you later."

"For now I just wait?"

"Yes."

"How did you gather those people?"

"Rumors about the ruins are spreading. We brought them in by saying we know how to get inside."

"Do you actually know?"

"I don't."

So Agent No. 1 does.

"Who spread the rumors?"

"You know."

Chris's stomach gave a little lurch.

Why does he think I know? I need to watch my mouth.

He pressed a hand to his own chest.

"Me?"

"Yes. You were on the Albar side, weren't you?"

Chris waved that off.

"Sitting in the Albar royal court doesn't amount to much. The Tulleno Magic Tower holds the real power, so whatever information you can get your hands on is limited. I didn't walk away from that post for nothing."

Judging by the reaction, Tulleno was the one who had spread the rumors.

Scott looked displeased.

"Even so, abandoning your post without leave was a mistake."

Chris owned it, smooth as anything.

"You're right. I got too impatient."

"I heard you failed to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠link the ring...?"

"Yeah. Stuck my neck out for nothing, and my realm dropped."

"I see. A pity."

"So I wait around, and do exactly whatever you tell me. That it?"

Scott looked burdened by it. Giving orders to a mage of a higher realm than his own clearly sat wrong with him.

"Not an order. A request."

"Order, request—same ass, different word."

Chris held out the finger with the ring on it.

"How did you manage the arrow?"

Scott held out a finger of his own. The stone in his ring was easily twice the size of Chris's.

"With this."

"A magic tool for trading signals."

"You ought to know that already...?"

Did I slip again?

Chris's gut clenched, but he brazened straight through it.

"I don't know what No. 1 told you, but you've got the wrong idea about me. Magic tools aren't my strong suit."

"Then what are you good at?"

Chris answered in Thought Language.

Scott's face went rigid. Tales of a mad mage wandering about and slaughtering commoners were widespread among ordinary folk. For all Chris knew, Scott was imagining that No. 4 had been the one doing it.

"How many did you kill?"

Chris held up two fingers. Scott's face, set hard as stone, went white as if someone had smeared it with flour dough. He seemed to be imagining the worst number he could reach.

"Is that true?"

"It's true."

It was. In his entire life, Chris had killed two people. Juan and Cyril. That was why he had raised two fingers. Scott, meanwhile, was busy tacking a string of zeroes onto them.

He's picturing something enormous. Two thousand, maybe. Or twenty thousand.

Chris didn't bother correcting him. Given what lay ahead, being taken for a madman would probably serve him better.

That night Scott laid a sound-blocking spell over the tent and took out a communication orb. The moment the link to Stan opened, he spoke.

The link cut, and Scott let out a sigh. Whether No. 4 was truly insane or only pretending, either one would be difficult to handle.

Chris wasn't sleeping. He was walking the grounds, and a rustle gave way to a mage in a gray robe stepping out from behind a tree.

"Can't sleep?"

Chris shrugged.

"I'm a cautious man."

"And what does that have to do with wandering around at night?"

"There might be something dangerous nearby. Someone ought to check."

Chris grinned and added to it.

"That friend of yours up in the tree. Tell him to come down."

The gray-robed mage lifted his head and waved, and a big man with a crossbow climbed down out of the branches. For all his bulk, he came down as lightly as a cat.

Chris asked,

"Why are you watching me?"

The mage answered.

"I'm cautious, same as you. A new face shows up, you find out whether he's dangerous."

"And the result?"

"Fifty-fifty."

"We're in the same boat. Don't guard yourself so hard."

"Look who's talking."

"I wasn't guarding anything."

"Sneaking around at night is guarding. How do you know Scott?"

Chris told him the truth.

"When I was young, I used to stop by the shop Scott ran."

"Scott ran a shop?"

"Yeah."

"What kind?"

"Are you and I close?"

"We met today. How would we be close?"

"If we aren't close, why do you keep digging through my private life?"

Chris cut him off, blunt, and left.

Four days passed, and nothing in particular happened. The people gathered at the camp simply waited. Chris had drawn his sword and was training at setting the blade alight. At his level, lighting ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a sword was easy enough in itself. The difficult part was doing it with only a small amount of mana.

"Mister, you're going to start a forest fire like that."

Gavin, the youngest man in the camp, had been watching in fascination and finally spoke. Chris didn't take his eyes off the flame.

"If it catches, the mages will put it out."

Jerome, the gray-robed mage, said,

"You clean up your own shit."

Jebier, the crossbowman who trailed him the way thread follows a needle, said,

"A swordsman learning magic. Ridiculous."

Gavin said,

"Why not? A magic swordsman is cool."

"Only a man drunk on appearances trains magic and the sword at once. It's hard enough to become great drilling a single path—you think you'll manage two? You'll be neither one thing nor the other."

Chris grumbled.

"Ah, it's so loud I can't concentrate."

The flame running along the sword went out, and Chris swung the blade to cool the heated edge. Jerome, who had been watching with a sour eye, asked,

"Who taught you a shoddy spell like that?"

He could hardly say he had invented it and trained it himself. Chris glanced once at the sky, then answered.

"A wandering mage. One gold coin."

Jerome nodded as if that explained everything.

"That's why it's shoddy."

Chris had been studying how to draw the greatest effect from the least mana. He could admit the result had no real power, but he didn't believe it deserved to be called shoddy. He had done the design, the construction, the inspection, and the interior himself, and a verdict this harsh felt like a denial that he existed at all. It was deeply unpleasant.

"Shoddy?"

"Not worth a single copper."

"That's harsh."

"This is the real thing."

He drew his staff and chanted. Mana flowed from the staff and became a ball of fire.

"Hoh."

Chris watched every step of it with keen interest, tracking the nature of the mana and the way it changed, and measuring what was spent to keep the fireball alight.

He can't draw on the mana around him to raise the power or stretch how long it lasts. Cyril used to do that as easily as breathing.

Jerome wasn't at that level.

"Is that how an old mage casts?"

Jerome's mouth twisted.

"Old mage?"

"The chant wasn't in the Divine Language. So you're an old mage, aren't you?"

"An orthodox mage! Didn't the man who taught you magic even teach you something that basic?"

"He said he was a Modern Mage."

"Ha."

Jerome snorted.

"A Modern Mage would never sell his own magic for a single gold coin. You got taken by a swindler."

Gavin edged in, watching their faces.

"The sword did catch fire, so he wasn't a swindler."

"Useless in a real fight."

Gavin's eyes went wide.

"Useless? ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠It looks scary to me."

"What kind of lunatic stands there and waits while you light your sword?"

Gavin looked at Chris.

"Mister, have you used it in a real fight?"

Chris shook his head.

"No."

Jebier let out a short laugh.

"At least you've got enough sense not to use it for real."

After the jab, he offered Gavin a piece of advice.

"If you want to live a long time, do another push-up instead of wasting the hour watching stupid stunts like that."

Embarrassed, Gavin scratched the back of his head.

Chris set the half-cooled sword on the ground.

"Orthodox mage."

"What?"

"Teach me some magic."

"Why would I?"

Chris took a high-grade mana stone from his pants pocket.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

"I'll give you a mana stone."

Before he so much as answered, Jerome got angry.

"You keep something that precious like that!"

"Hot-tempered, aren't you."

"I'm not hot-tempered."

"Mean-spirited, then?"

"Not mean-spirited either."

"Fine. We'll say your temper's lovely. So what's the answer?"

Jerome looked at the mana stone and swallowed. Buying a high-grade one took at least fifty gold coins.

"What kind of magic do you want?"

"Everything you know..."

Chris got that far, saw the man's eyebrows shoot up, and revised the sentence in the middle.

"...would be shameless of me to ask. Just the part about fire magic..."

Jerome cut him off.

"I'm a fire mage. Asking only for the fire magic is no different from asking for all of it."

"Then just the one fireball. And teach me how to make a telepathic bird."

"That's already too much..."

When he hesitated, Chris put the mana stone back in his pocket.

"That's my entire fortune. I can't give any more ground either."

The stone vanished from in front of his eyes, and Jerome clicked his tongue.

"Fine."

The two of them moved somewhere other eyes and ears couldn't follow. Jebier, the man with the crossbow, did not come along.

Learning magic from him, Chris was shocked. His own fire magic—backed by skill at the mid-grade of the Sikbae realm or better—was weaker than spells an ordinary wandering mage already knew.

Chris stood there stunned, mouth hanging open, and Jerome spoke with solemn dignity.

"This is the power of orthodox magic."

"Orthodox magic?"

"Magic the great dragons honed across long ages. Traditional mages have developed that magic for ten thousand years. Of course it's great."

"The weight of years, then."

Chris took fierce pride in what he had achieved by teaching himself. And yet the efficiency of this magic—which he had privately dismissed as old magic—was so extraordinary that admiration tipped over into astonishment.

If he fought Jerome with his life on the line, Chris was confident he could crush him in short order. He could handle a hundred Jeromes. But that was because he had a grandmaster's body and the mana of the Sikbae realm, not because his magic was strong.

Jerome was weak because his own skill fell short. The level of the magic he had learned was worthy of respect.

Once again, Chris found himself thinking that he needed to learn magic properly, as a system.

I have to enter a magic tower. But there's no way in.

Watching the dazed look on him, Jerome preened.

"I'll say it once more. Listen well."

Chris carved what the man taught into his mind. It was precious time.