Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Master, your unworthy disciple would like to say one thing.

How could you be so sharp with me as to add it as a research assignment immediately, just because I showed a little interest for a very brief moment......?

Or rather, for some reason, it feels like research assignments get added especially often when I’m out in the outside world compared to when I’m shut inside the Magic Tower.

Ah, could it be because of that? Something Master has said like a habit since long ago.......

-You showed interest in the outside world for once, did you not? This is a good sign. Therefore, would it not be this master’s role to guide you so that you take interest in and delve into more varied things?

“.......”

Your unworthy disciple’s heart grows heavy with your grace, Master, and all four of his limbs are trembling. To think you would go this far to send your disciple out of the Magic Tower and somehow put him through the wringer. I am deeply concerned that, someday in the distant future, your disciple may become a hoop and roll all the way around the world, Master.

That said...... even as I whined like this, I was still me, dutifully going to conduct the field investigation. Separate from the fact that Master rolled me around like a ball, once something made me curious, I ended up absorbed in it after all.

Well, I guess that means I’m just another hopeless mage. By nature, mages are a breed mad for investigating everything in the world.

Once I admitted that, my heart somehow felt a little lighter, so I laughed hollowly and trudged along. Though since I had high-speed movement magic active, I wasn’t sure whether it was really right to call it “trudging.”

And at the end of that, I ran into a tall stone wall.

“What’s this? Was there something like a fortress wall here?”

It looked like a structure that had been hastily thrown together recently. This region was not particularly near the border in the first place, so there was no need at all to build an ignorantly tall fortress wall like this here.

Judging by the traces of a formula, it seemed to be the work of a mage too.......

“No, but why did they use such a crude formula? This is on the level of just pasting pieces together without understanding a single thing about the design or anything else!”

Of course, that was not exactly strange. Even the great archmages who had left their names in history usually designed new formulas by taking only the necessary parts from the designs of existing formulas and pasting them together. Even that was usually something they might or might not manage once in their entire lifetime, to the point of making it their lifelong wish.

Designing a proper formula from scratch had to be accompanied by a complete understanding of the principles that composed the world. In other words, one had to become something half divine to create new formulas freely.

Even so, this is too much. If you’re going to go around saying, “I’m a mage,” shouldn’t you cleanly organize the parts that are no longer needed instead of simply pasting things together like this? Is it fine as long as the desired result comes out, no matter how much useless clutter is slapped on? With this kind of spaghetti design, when it breaks down later, they won’t even have a sense of where or how to start fixing it.......

No, maybe it had already broken down, and since there was no real way to fix it, they were just using it as is. That must be why, despite being a fortification construction formula, it manifested as nothing but an ignorantly tall stone wall without even a gate, let alone any defensive facilities. Well, I suppose even a stone wall had its uses.

Still, something like this seemed as though it would break quickly if struck with a light destruction formula. As a test, I lightly tapped the stone wall with a fist wrapped in a destruction formula, and the stone wall came crumbling down with a roar.

“See? It breaks this easily, so where are they supposed to use this garbage?”

Any decent mage or swordsman would crush a stone wall like this in a single blow. So they could not even dream of using it for defense or anything of the sort. Therefore, to use it properly, they would have to remove the unnecessary clutter here and there and modify the design extensively.......

“Huh?! Master, just now, it’s not that I got interested or anything like that.......”

***

[Research Assignment] No. 703083-454 ☆★Newly Added★☆

＃001. Sample Collection for Analysis of the Formula Used in Fortification Construction

→ Collect enough samples as needed so that samples do not run short during the experiment!!

＃002. Design Error Correction and Improvement Work

→ Do not design a completely new formula; only correct the formula’s condition!!

☆★Warning★☆ Take care, as simply redesigning it because it is bothersome will be treated as failure.

＃003. Performance Experiment for the Corrected and Improved Formula

→ If you corrected it, confirming that it works properly is essential!!

Test it while considering the appropriate time and place!!

***

“Ah, ah! Ah, seriously! Why is another one being added agaaaaain?!”

I had only looked into it for a very brief moment. Why? For what reason? For what cause?

Was this, too, part of the field investigation, and thus Master’s will, vast as the sea, that I should roll with all my might as a proper disciple?

Your unworthy disciple grows faint at yet another addition of your grace, Master.......

......That said, to be honest, it did seem like a slightly interesting research assignment. Just the correction plans that came to mind right away numbered around five or six, and if I dug a little deeper, it felt as though a decent new formula might branch off from it.

Right, since it had come to this, I might as well tear it apart and fix it at once. While I was gathering the fragments of the collapsed stone wall with an itchy feeling, I suddenly realized the surroundings were strangely noisy.

Why is it so loud? Wondering what was going on, I looked around and saw what looked like hundreds of people murmuring as they stared at me. I nearly stopped breathing.

“What is it? Why did everyone suddenly stop?”

“Well, there’s some child over there......”

“Why is a child alone in a place like that?”

Puzzled gazes crowded densely toward me. Murmur, murmur. The people’s whispers rode my eardrums and made every nerve stand on end, and in an instant my hands and feet went cold as my breath began to choke off.

Don’t look at me like that. Don’t murmur. Stop it. What did I even do wrong? I.......

“Could it be...... that child broke this wall?”

“How could a child break something like this? Wasn’t this section of the wall just unusually weak?”

“If that child is a mage, then it would be entirely possible, would it not?”

“A mage......?”

While my thoughts circled round and round and went cold, gazes mixed with suspicion and shrinking fear gathered on me one by one. Feeling more and more suffocated, I flinched, looked away, and spat out a blunt remark.

“......So what if I broke some stone wall? I broke it because it was breakable, that’s all!”

“H-Huh? You really broke this......?”

“T-Then that means you really are a mage.......”

“Wait, then isn’t that child in league with them too?”

“Then why did he break the barrier? Weren’t they trying to trap us in here and kill us all?”

Damn it, the useless murmuring only got louder. Unable to bear it any longer, I lifted one hand by habit, grabbed the edge of the hood covering my head, and pulled it low forward. At the same time as the pulled-down hood warmly covered my face, the sleeve wrapped around my raised arm slid down.

“Uh, that...... isn’t that a burn scar?”

“Good heavens, what are scars like that doing on a child’s arm......?”

“......!”

Oops. Thinking I had drawn attention for nothing, I hurriedly grabbed the sleeve with my other hand and hid my arm. Even so, the people’s gazes showed no sign of leaving me, and in the end, I had no choice but to shrink in on myself as much as I could and awkwardly press close to the collapsed wall.

Fortunately, the people’s interest in me soon faded away. It was thanks to a noisy, urging voice that burst out from the rear.

“What are you all doing, just standing still?! We need to run before those bastards catch us and kill us!”

“We’re all going to die to those damned mercenary bastards at this rate!”

“Gah, r-right! Everyone, hurry and run!”

As if only then realizing what they had to do thanks to the pouring complaints, the people looked startled and began running beyond the collapsed wall. Urgent expressions and gestures. They looked as though they had no time to care about someone like me, curled up as if trying to cut myself off from the world.

Only then could I breathe a little, but a stifling sense of self-loathing pressed down on my chest. Ah, why am I like this? How long ago was that, and I’m still acting this way?

Just as I was about to sigh, people’s screams rang out along with a roar.

“Aaaaaaagh!”

“W-What?! What happened?!”

“A w-wall appeared again......?!”

On top of that, a new wall had abruptly shot up from the point I had broken down. Like bamboo shoots growing after rain. Because of that, the people who had happened to be passing through that spot at that moment struck the rising stone wall, were launched into the air, and fell to the ground with wet splats, bursting with blood. The same happened to the others who were struck head-on by the people who fell.

And before the people who had fallen into chaos could even mill about in confusion, flaming arrows and lightning poured down in showers from every direction. It did not take long to know whose doing it was. In the distance, people who looked like mercenaries were rushing in triumphantly.

“Hmph, where do those things think they’re running off to?”

“A flea can jump all it wants. It’s still a flea!”

“Kill them all!”

As though the scene of screams and slaughter was enjoyable instead, the mercenaries began attacking people indiscriminately, laughing in delight. Judging roughly by the way they behaved, they seemed to be mages around the 2nd-circle level and lower-grade aura users.

But...... why were mercenaries butchering people?

If this were deep in the mountains, I would think they were committing banditry, but this was the outskirts. The outskirts of a fairly large village, at that. If they committed a massacre of civilians in a place like this, the lord of this region would not just sit still. In the worst case, the kingdom’s army might even come to subjugate them.

I was able to get a clue to that question from the mercenaries.

“Don’t leave a single one alive! Kill them all!”

“Blame the lord! The request was to sweep all of you away!”

“If you valued your lives, you shouldn’t have dared to rebel against the lord!”

The lord ordered them to kill these people? Because these people rebelled against the lord?

I did not know the details, but...... it seemed there had been some kind of problem between the lord and the domain residents. But to tell them to sweep the domain residents clean away. Somehow, the lord seemed to be somewhat out of his mind.

Perhaps if this were nine hundred years ago and he were dealing with serfs, but I knew that lords these days resolved conflicts with domain residents through negotiation. So what in the world was this region’s lord thinking, trying to use such one-sided violence?

As my scars seemed to throb for some reason, I rubbed my arm without realizing it. Serfs...... one-sided violence....... It felt as though old memories were sizzling on my skin, and I could not breathe.

This would not do. I should go somewhere quiet for a little while until I calmed down. Just as I made that decision and tried to stagger away, the people rushed toward me desperately and clung to me.

“S-Save us, Sir Mage! Please! Please!”

“Y-You broke that wall earlier, didn’t you!”

“Please save us, just this once! Please?!”

“W-What?! No, why should I do that......?”

And stop staring at me and murmuring like that. I can’t breathe. I was starting to feel so nauseated from difficulty breathing that I could not bear it anymore, so I forced my way through the people with all my strength and got out.

Unfortunately, however, there was no way for me, after breaking through the crowd, to leave the place right away. Because the direction I had happened to emerge in was the side where the mercenaries were.

“Hm? What is that now? Some child?”

“He looks about fourteen or fifteen at a glance......”

“Hey, kid. What are you doing here?”

......Who are you calling a kid?

Feeling irritated for an instant, I snapped my head up and glared at the mercenaries. That said, I hated making eye contact, so I merely stared fixedly around their chins, but even so, perhaps it felt somewhat fierce, because the mercenaries flinched.

“Uh, what is this......? Something feels off.”

“That blue-black thing on his neck. What the hell is that?”

“I can feel mana from it. It looks like some kind of tattoo inscribed by magic......”

Damn it. Had my hood come off because I lifted my head so suddenly? I hurriedly pulled the hood back over my head, but the mercenaries had already begun murmuring.

“A tattoo inscribed by magic...... Is that bastard a mage?”

“Come to think of it, those people were saying something earlier. That the one who broke the wall was that little bastard.”

“What? Is that true?”

Together with murmurs of half-belief and half-doubt, the mercenaries glanced at me. Feeling an inexplicable chill run down my spine, I unknowingly touched the area near the sternocleidomastoid muscle on the left side of my neck. There, with its slightly bumpy texture, was the shackle that had bound me for long years.

-That will disappear naturally when you truly stop caring about it.

Master. That is what you told me, but even now, more than nine hundred years later, this tattoo has never disappeared. Even though so much time has passed that there is no longer anyone who recognizes what this is.

Look. Those bastards do not recognize what this is either. So I do not care about this damned thing anymore. Truly, truly.

I truly do not care...... And yet.......

......And yet why do I still feel as though my throat is being strangled?

While my thoughts circled round and round like that, one of the mercenaries took out a staff and stepped forward.

“Hmph. What does it matter whether that kid is a mage or not? We just need to get rid of him.”

“Oh, what’s this? Mages fighting each other?”

“Let’s see how flashily he takes him down.”

Amid the other mercenaries bursting into boisterous laughter, the bastard confidently began deploying a formula with his staff. The formula spread out like thread spun from a spider’s abdomen and began taking shape strand by strand.

Just before it was completed, the lump of metal I had taken from the back of my waist spat fire at him.

BANG. The bastard spurted blood from his head and collapsed. After a brief moment of bewilderment at what had happened in an instant, the mercenaries soon began milling about, not knowing what to do.

“W-What?! What happened?!”

“That little bastard suddenly took out something strange and......!”

“W-What the hell is that?!”

“What do you think? It’s a gun.”

“A g-gun......?”

Their confused gazes, as if asking, “What in the world is that?” turned toward the lump of metal in my hand. Only then did I finally gasp in the breath that had opened up again, and I added, cocking the hammer attached to the rear of the lump of metal.

“Yes, a gun. A weapon that lets ordinary people with no mana sensitivity at all stand against mages or aura users.”

For reference, I made it. About five hundred years ago.