Chapter 25
Chapter 25
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 25
Chapter Title: Tureina
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Stumbling into the dormitory, Rain shut the door and slumped into a chair. He frantically flipped open *The Life and Achievements of the Great Mage Lin*, searching for the index at the back of the book.
· Tureina
- p. 91, 154, 189, 268
"No mention of her delving into black magic? Any reason she would have?"
Even after reading every passage about Tureina listed in the index, there was nothing of the sort.
[Tureina was a child found by Rista's party in a ruined village in the Lambus region.]
The village had sunk into a swamp, eroded by the Abyss. Somehow, the girl had survived, hiding in the attic.
She must have been seven at the time.
She was a filthy little thing, sobbing quietly, so he'd given her food just to shut her up. That had been the trigger. After that, she'd trailed after him relentlessly.
[Lin immediately recognized Tureina's magical talent and took her as a disciple, teaching her magic.]
That was fabricated.
It hadn't been about any magical talent.
- Let's leave this kid at a temple in the next city we pass through.
- Sounds good, Rista. It'd be too dangerous for her to travel with us.
Rista and Fride had wanted to hand her over to a temple... But Lin, having grown up in the slums, knew better. If they left her there, nothing good would come of it.
The moment she was handed over, her fate would be sealed.
She'd either become a temple acolyte or, unable to endure it, run away and turn to petty thievery.
- Hey, you know people don't get treated well without value, right?
- ...?
- "Truth shall make you free." A famous quote from the first mage, Emitsa Page. Magic is an incredible power. It gives social value to those who can wield it.
He'd only planned to teach her a few basic spells. That way, she could find work as a household mage anywhere. That had been the extent of it.
- Even if you don't get what I'm about to teach you, grit your teeth and learn. Got it?
She learned without complaint.
He'd even given her the name Tureina then.
'A dragon-tongue word meaning "learning." Just a hope that she'd learn well without headaches.'
With the two of them stuck together all the way to the city, Fride had teased, "Lin's fallen for that kid, huh? Babies are your type after all." And Rista had suddenly asked with a serious face if younger girls really were his preference.
- It's not like that.
It was just... seeing his younger self from his slum-wandering days, desperately learning magic after the chancellor took him in, reflected in Tureina.
Whether it was simple empathy or pity... As he taught her, he'd realized she had real talent.
'That little troublemaker...'
Rain clasped the back of his neck and stared blankly at the dormitory ceiling.
'She followed me everywhere.'
He'd left her at the temple in the city, but she'd used the magic he'd taught her to escape and chased him all the way.
Master, Master Lin... She'd clung to him, never wanting to be apart.
She had incredible magical talent and could fight the Abyss soon enough, but for the final battle, he'd absolutely made sure she couldn't follow.
- Master, take me too. I'll fight with you... Please, let me come...
Come to think of it, he'd told her to wait because he'd return. Rain spun his quill in the air.
"Sigh, what am I gonna do with this troublemaker."
It wasn't entirely his fault he hadn't returned... He'd given her the foundation to become a shrine maiden, so as a master, he'd done his part.
"She should've lived well, reached sainthood, and died peacefully. Why stir up trouble in her old age and get blacklisted by the church?"
If she really had researched black magic...
Probably, being the child taught by Great Mage Lin and Fride, and having served as a shrine maiden, had spared her immediate excommunication and heresy trials.
'According to Sami, they took that into account, and she lived to a ripe old age without illness...'
She'd died of old age around when he was three. So why had books suddenly ended up on censorship lists this year?
"No clue."
Spinning the pen, something clicked, and he opened Lin's diary. A magical butterfly, RudiyËn, popped out and perched on his head.
Socrafres.
- Inheriting progress on 'unique magic' research from the surrounding environment.
- Progress: 37.9% => 39.9%.
It went up!
By a whole 2%.
Guess beating someone up with magic nets gains like that. He felt good, but his focus was elsewhere.
[The Coolest Master in the World]
Page 86, bottom right, written in dainty script in Dragonkin Republic script. A prank Tureina had pulled back then.
Above it, a clumsy drawing of Lin teaching magic and bonking Tureina on the head with his pen.
"......"
Back in his Lin days, he'd immediately whacked her on the head for it... But now, Rain just stared at his disciple's prank in silence for a long time.
Until the moon reached midheaven, starlight filtered through the window, faded into dawn's dim glow.
For a very long time, Rain gazed at the drawing without closing the diary.
* * *
"Today's lesson is solving quadratic equations. In middle school, you only solved for real numbers, but to advance to 2-star magic, you must learn to solve in the complex plane..."
<Delaiten> adopted a mobile class system for advanced subjects to leverage each professor's expertise. In simple terms, the most qualified instructor led the class.
'Wow, this is brutal...'
He'd come to check modern math progress, but his eyes kept drooping. Forcing them open, his vision split into doubles and triples, then merged repeatedly.
He couldn't fight the sleepiness.
Lin's body could handle two days of marching without sleep, but the pampered young master of a great magic house was falling apart after one all-nighter.
"...Hm, time's up already. I'll assign example problems—solve them by tomorrow's class. No collaborating; do them alone."
The moment he received the washi paper from the TA, he scribbled answers roughly and slammed his head on the desk.
"Hey."
But a cheerful voice pierced his hazy consciousness.
Christa Warden.
He always sat far away during mobile classes to avoid her noise, yet here she was again.
"Let's settle that unfinished bet right here! Who solves these first—loser buys!"
With his head still down, Rain waved a limp hand like a corpse, telling her to beat it.
"Done."
"What?"
"I said they're done. Go away."
Silence followed.
For a blissful moment, it seemed she'd leave, but then pressure under his arm. She was trying to snatch the paper.
"Hey, it'll rip. What're you doing."
"Hand it over! How dare you slack off like this!"
Rain lifted his arm with a short sigh, and Christa snatched the washi. No workings, just answers.
"See? Sloppy like this on a test? It'll ruin your house's reputation. Come on, real bet! Hey, you listening?!"
But Rain gave no reply. Soon, even soft snores followed. Christa crossed her arms, dissatisfied.
"...What'd you do all night this weekend?"
Makes me look like an idiot for getting all hyped to bet... Clicking her tongue, Christa sat behind him.
'Solve in two minutes.'
Break was ten minutes. Solve, fix his, and still have time.
Christa, top-enrolled genius, crushed all ten examples in 1:37.
"Ra Berti! Excellent!"
Admiring her sheet with self-praise, she glanced around and slid his onto her desk.
Most students had left for other classes.
Coughing to hide a twinge of embarrassment, Christa leaned over the desk and whispered low enough for only Rain.
"Hey, hey, hey. This isn't help, okay? Just saving your house's face."
"......"
"Can't let your screw-up drag down my family too. No way."
Gertrude Fenton, watching from the side, narrowed her eyes.
"Watching you, miss, it looks like you really like the young master. My mistake, right?"
"?"
"?"
"Hey, you think I'd like a guy like this? He's my rival. I just hate seeing a rival flop like this."
Gertrude was inwardly surprised and relieved by the unexpectedly serious answer. No weird developments between them.
Then a third-year boy with a gentle face peeked through the back door.
"Miss Christa Warden?"
"?"
"From the student council—got a moment?"
Student council... Christa nodded and stood.
"Fix this for him. Got it?"
"Yes, if young master Rain gets expelled, you'll pine away sick, so I'll do my best."
"You—you! You're dead when I get back!"
After Christa left with the senior, Gertrude sighed and sat, solving her problems.
Time: 2:58.
Pushing her sheet aside, as she started writing answers and workings on Rain's, she froze.
'Huh?'
Unbelievable. She double-checked her sheet and his alternately, but reality held.
'Our answers match exactly...?'
Rain had face-planted the second the professor left. From TA handing out paper to professor exiting: generous estimate, ten seconds.
'Not super hard, but all in ten seconds? Pure mental math?'
* * *
Reports of the Rat-Spider Queen surfacing aboveground led to a full blockade of the area around Moss Peak in the Scarlet Mountains.
The Adventurers' Guild banned Rat-Spider hunts until a high-rank investigation team was formed.
Yet two figures brazenly entered the zone. One a tall man, the other a girl-sized woman.
"Damn it, after six months of work on this..."
Both wore dark blue-black robes—colors no normal person would touch unless craving a hot date with heresy inquisitors.
Dark blue-black was the Abyss's hue, worn only by the Black Church sorcerers who worshipped it.
"Ugh, so annoying, annoying, annoying!"
Staring at the Rat-Spider Queen's carcass, the woman stomped and flailed her arms.
"This was supposed to thin out those bug adventurers and lure out the 'Golden Children'!"
Meanwhile, the man circled the area, touching ground, scorched trees cooled by fire, frowning.
"Flame heat lingers this much, absurd blast radius... Minimum 4-star magic. We should be cautious."
"Cautious? What's the point? That party—'Lem and Bart's Heart-Thumping Money-Duping Adventure Squad'? They used a scroll, right!"
Scrolls weren't just magic circles on paper. They were advanced magic tools infused with mana.
Simply put, even non-mages could cast spells just by unfurling one.
But only 4-star mages dared craft them, taking significant time, and being one-use, they cost a fortune.
"Revenge time. Strip the flesh from their bones!"
"That'd just prove to the 'Golden Children' we're in the south. Can't derail the grand plan now."
"Then what? I'm dying of frustration! I wanna grab someone and kill them! Killkillkillkill!"
The woman whined childishly, hammering the man with fist-hammers, but he just sighed and pulled his dark hood deeper, accustomed to his superior's tantrums.
"Plan's derailed anyway. More urgent than revenge—something else."
"What! What! Tell me!"
"What else? Reporting to Lady Tureina."