Five Things Not to Touch
Originally, I was a person overflowing with patience. My track record of enduring under Altrong, that walking stress factory, was proof enough. Farming was the same. Without basic patience, I never could have managed that vast field alone and lived as a Little Farmer. I prided myself on possessing patience superior to anyone else. Yet even that firmly operating patience system was fragile enough to break down in the most unexpected places. For instance, when someone laid hands on my bones and flesh.
“Still don’t get it, do you? Stupid newbie. I’ll give you a problem, so listen carefully.”
Thud. Sibil set down the empty ink bottle. While roughly yanking my hair, he kept babbling like he was interrogating a criminal.
“There’s a magic tower you can only barely enter after risking your life on an exam with a blood-soaked acceptance rate. And some talentless, rootless nobody sneaked into that prestigious tower for free?”
“……”
“Not only is that bastard strutting around pretending to be a tower member, he even has the nerve to talk back to his senior. On top of that, he studies in the library like he’s some real mage. So what should we do with that shameless bastard?”
I felt ink running down my face like black blood, dripping from my chin. My appearance must have been a complete mess, but I didn’t care. Sibil’s words didn’t even register. The only thing consuming my consciousness was the remains of my precious paper—now reduced to a corpse after being violated by that bastard’s hands.
“Newbie. Why no answer? Cat got your tongue? Are you an idiot? When a senior asks a question, you’re supposed to answer.”
“……Bones.”
“What, punk?”
“They died before they were even born. They were supposed to become my bones and flesh.”
“I told you to answer the question, so what the hell is this nonsense?”
“If someone drowned your bones, Senior, could you just sit still?”
Since ancient times, scholarship has been called bones and flesh. Pursuing knowledge is like nourishing the soul; once you digest that knowledge as your own, it becomes the bones and flesh of the mind. Through that process, one’s inner self and spirit grow rich, forming the foundation for growth as an intellectual. In that sense, the paper I had written for two hours without once lifting my backside was nourishment that would become my bones and flesh. I had planned to take it back, compile it into my own reference collection, and review it repeatedly until it became truly mine. It was the very flesh containing the joy of studying proper magic for the first time on my own. And this bastard had drowned all of that precious bone and flesh in black ink and killed it.
I felt blood rushing to my head. My bloodshot eyes rolled toward Sibil. When I stared straight at him, he snapped irritably.
“Did your head get messed up? What are you staring at?”
I opened Layer. Golden waves rippled outward. At the same time, the magical concepts and principles stored in my mind rapidly assembled and condensed. The magical phenomena Natasha had shown me. The principles and teachings. The definition and elements of Layer I had read in the book today. It was all I knew—nothing more than rudimentary, shallow knowledge. I had never handled or trained with Layers before. Therefore, what I was about to attempt was an arrogant challenge and reckless experiment for a complete beginner. And yet I was confident I could succeed at the experiment I had only imagined in my head. The calculations were already complete. All that remained was execution.
Vwoom. I connected my will to the Layers surrounding Sibil. The horizontal and vertical lines forming the Layer patterns, and the points where those lines intersected. Thousands of dotted lines responded to my will, stretching upward like rubber bands and soaring into the sky. It looked as though dozens of pointed mountain peaks woven from mesh were surrounding Sibil from all sides.
Vwooom. I pulled those peaks together toward the center. Wrapping Sibil’s body like a bandage, I bound him tightly with Layers, compressing his entire frame. He resembled prey tangled in a lumpy spiderweb. From the moment I ran the simulation in my head until I cast the spell, only a single breath had passed. That fleeting instant was enough.
“……!”
Sibil’s pupils suddenly widened as he looked down at me. He had felt the ominous, intangible pressure tightening around him from all directions. Though only an apprentice, his experience rolling around the tower beforehand was not for nothing. He quickly realized the source of that foreign sensation.
“D-Don’t tell me… you…!”
“You turned my summary into a wreck. So I’m going to turn you into a wreck too. That’s only fair.”
The grip Sibil had on my hair loosened and slipped away. I didn’t even need to pry his hand off; he let go on his own. Of course he would. The masses of Layer surrounding him from every direction were crushing his muscles and internal organs. He probably couldn’t even twitch a finger.
“H-How…! Gack!”
“Exactly. What crime did my paper commit that you had to touch it?”
I manipulated the polyhedral Layers and lifted Sibil into the air. His body floated up. Or rather, it would be more accurate to say he was suspended in midair like someone being hanged. Trapped inside the noose of Layer under my control, he could only make choking sounds.
“Kuhk! Gurk……”
Sibil trembled, his face drained of color. His expression was a mess of confusion, shock, and panic. Naturally. He never could have imagined that a newbie who had only just crossed the tower’s threshold would be able to deploy magic so stealthily and swiftly that even he, a senior, couldn’t perceive it. Of course, the situation was unexpected for me as well. I hadn’t expected that refusing to attend the welcome party would lead to me casting my first spell. Ah, thinking about it again made me furious. My summary was gone. My study time was gone. From my perspective, the losses were enormous.
“Tsk.”
I hadn’t wanted to use my first spell like this. I had wanted to use a proper, impressive spell. Setting down the quill I had been holding, I swallowed my irritation and rose from the chair. Brushing back my disheveled hair, I glared at him with cold eyes.
“You ruined everything.”
I reached out and activated the magic, forcefully pushing the space in front of Sibil’s abdomen.
Bang!
With the sound of air bursting, Sibil’s body flew backward in a parabola. Even I, the caster, could feel the heavy air pressure. He bounced across the corridor and crashed into the wall at the end.
Thud!
The impact crater sank inward. Cracks spread outward from the collision point like a shattered mirror. Afterward, Sibil collapsed to the floor. Fragments and dust from the broken wall rained down on his limp body.
“Kuhk! Cough!”
Sibil coughed up blood. I grabbed a nearby ink bottle and strode toward him. No one blocked my path as I walked down the corridor. People had gathered at a distance, whispering among themselves while watching the situation unfold.
“Who is that guy? Didn’t they say he’s the new recruit who arrived today?”
“No way. A brand-new recruit beating the vice president? That doesn’t make sense.”
“Is the vice president really getting beaten by a newbie right now?”
“He looks young, too. His magic proficiency is no joke.”
“At that age, he can use magic like that?”
“I heard he’s a parachute hire.”
So this world had parachutes too. I wasn’t sure if they were the same as Earth’s parachutes, but since the metaphor worked the same way, they were probably similar in purpose.
“Cough! Gah!”
“Good. Now your face is finally to my liking.”
Up close, the result was quite satisfying. Which meant Sibil’s appearance was utterly wretched. Drool. Bloody phlegm. Twin nosebleeds. Tears of blood. Even blood flowing from his ears. Red blood poured from every hole in his face. An attack strong enough to damage the wall couldn’t have left him unscathed. His insides were definitely shaken up.
“If you touch someone else’s bones and flesh, you should know your own might break too. Don’t you agree, Senior?”
I crouched down, grabbed Sibil’s disheveled hair like a rag, and met his gaze directly—just as he had done to me.
“You look like a young master from a wealthy family. I guess your upbringing wasn’t proper. Did your parents never teach you basic manners or social norms?”
“……”
“If you’re from a noble house, your elders must be quite educated, yet they’re worse than my old man. At least he, foul-tempered as he is, never destroyed someone else’s hard-earned assets.”
From the look of it, Sibil still couldn’t grasp what was happening. He didn’t understand why he was the one suffering, why he was the one lying on the floor. A situation that defied his common sense had occurred, so accepting it must have been difficult. It was only natural that his pride took as much damage as his body. His pride as a senior. His pride as a noble. It must have been especially humiliating in front of others. Which was exactly what I wanted. The more humiliated he felt, the more his mental state would crumble.
“Anyway, since you don’t seem to know, I’ll tell you. There are five things in this world you must never touch. Children. Innocent civilians. My money. My food. My study materials. I guess your family elders never taught you not to touch other people’s things? When you get home later, ask them why they failed to educate you properly.”
Somehow, Sibil’s unfocused gaze seemed to say, My family wouldn’t even know who you are! Whether that was true or not, I kept talking.
“Don’t ever touch my study materials again. Next time, I might actually cut off your wrist.”
I poured the ink bottle I was holding over his forehead, careful not to get any on my own hands. Drip. I shook out every last drop from the bottom for good measure. Sibil struggled, unable to open his eyes properly as the ink stung them, making choking sounds. It was quite a sight—red blood mixed with black liquid, his face twisted in pain. Perfect beauty. A chaotic beauty that matched the losses I had suffered.
“Gurk, ugh……”
Sibil, twitching and foaming at the mouth, eventually passed out. I stared at his battered form for a moment before releasing his hair. Time to go back to reading. Thud. I tossed the ink bottle to the ground and returned to my original desk. Picking up the book The Fundamentals of Layer that Sibil had thrown, I sat down and opened it to the last page I had been reading, resuming my interrupted study. Rin would arrive soon, so I wanted to get in as much reading as possible before then.
“What’s he doing now?”
“He turned the vice president into that mess and now he’s calmly reading again? Is he sane?”
“How can he concentrate in this chaos?”
“Creepy.”
“A lunatic has entered the tower……”
Whispers rippled among the onlookers, but once I focused on the text, the noise quickly faded from my ears. Thus, I immersed myself in pleasant reading—completely unaware that an unexpected heavyweight would come looking for me the very next day.