~Chapter 03~
The Magic of This World Is Wrong
Morning, noon, and night.
The coachman only stopped the carriage long enough to eat his three meals.
All I was given were three rock-hard chunks of bread pushed through the iron bars.
Unless I needed to relieve myself, the coachman never opened the carriage door.
Even then, he tied a rope from my ankle to the carriage before letting me out.
“Do it where I can see you. If you run, I lose my pay and maybe my head. Don’t even think about trying anything funny.”
Once I was done, he shoved me right back inside.
The coachman never imagined I might be scheming while locked in the carriage.
I spent the whole trip drawing mana from the book.
Six days had already passed.
Vmmm.
The mana stored in my belly now felt heavy, substantial.
“This should be enough.”
That night.
While the coachman snored under his blanket by the campfire,
Tak.
I sat cross-legged.
“Hoo…”
I calmed my breath and stirred the mana gathered inside me.
I felt the cool energy crawl upward through my guts.
Near my heart, I began reshaping the mana.
Vmmm— A strong resistance jolted me, goosebumps racing across my skin.
Mana can’t just be stored.
Left stagnant, it rots.
That’s why you must carve out a path for it to flow.
That path is called a Circle.
The Circle is formed near the heart, in the shape of a ring.
Why a ring? Because circulation creates infinite continuity.
Once formed, it keeps absorbed mana from decaying.
Vmmm.
I molded the mana from a sphere into a ring.
A task achieved by willpower alone.
A lapse in focus could send it rampaging.
That’s why I only dared attempt it at night, when the carriage sat still the longest.
The spherical mana warped into an oval.
I bored a hole at its center.
Vmmm.
As the hole widened, the mana grew denser.
Just a little more… just a little tighter…
I matched it as closely as possible to the size of my heart.
The closer the Circle sits to the heart, the sharper one’s sense for mana.
For an ordinary human, this is impossibly difficult.
Few in the world even know of it.
But I am different.
Haven’t I carried mana within me for eons?
If nothing else, my grasp of mana is unrivaled.
Vmmm.
The completed ring clasped tight around my heart.
The goosebumps faded, replaced by a warm rush coursing through my body like blood.
Success.
Placing a hand over my chest, I felt mana circulating there.
A grin spread across my face.
“First Circle, achieved.”
Four more days passed.
Through the iron bars I saw the dull sky.
Then snowflakes began to drift inside.
A biting wind clawed at me, sharp with northern chill.
I knew from my bones alone we had entered the north.
The coachman tossed me some ragged fur.
“Put that on. Unless you want to freeze to death.”
It reeked of blood and rot, but I had no choice.
Wrapped in the stinking hide, I curled tight against the cold.
On the second night in the north—
“…They’re here.”
I awoke to murderous intent.
Crunch, crunch—many footsteps pressed closer through the snow.
“Huh, who’s—ugh?!”
The coachman’s startled cry cut off at once.
Though I couldn’t see, I knew he was dead.
Then—Bang! Bang! Bang!—the carriage shuddered, its door smashed open.
Men in black masks loomed in the wreckage.
One of them beckoned me out with a dull-bladed axe.
“Out. Now.”
Wordless, I shuffled out wrapped in the hide.
Outside, a dozen men encircled me.
By the fire lay the coachman’s lifeless body.
Shing.
The man with the axe shoved its edge toward me.
“Imperial Academy student, Esric Spelder. That you?”
I stared silently.
Quietly, I opened my book.
『The Contractor casts magic.』
『By the Contractor’s will, Insight is invoked.』
Mana spread, probing the axeman.
Sensing the faint trace of mana within him, I snorted.
“And if I am?”
“Then you die.”
“And if I’m not?”
“You still die. You’ve seen us.”
“Then…”
I threw off the hide and summoned my book.
“Try killing me.”
The fur blocked his view.
“Kill him!”
“That brat!”
“Grab him!”
They charged, shouting.
But the snow bogged their steps, buying me time.
Enough time.
I spun my Circle, chanting:
“<Cold breath, frozen fangs, rising spears beneath our feet.>”
Vmmm.
“<Piercing spikes, inverted icicles, thrusting lances.>”
The resonance completed.
One trigger word would unleash it.
Normally, First-Circle mana could never sustain a Third-Circle wide-area spell.
But my mana rivaled and surpassed the Third Circle.
And my contract granted further power.
『The Contractor’s magic is ready.』
『By contract, its power is amplified.』
Smirking at the voice in my head, I stomped down and cried:
“<Ice Spear>!”
The Northern Provinces.
A barren land, snowing more than half the year.
Farming was impossible.
Most common folk fled south, east, west—anywhere else.
But the uncommon came north.
Criminals, the hunted, those wishing to erase themselves.
They naturally became mercenaries.
Northern mercenaries cared nothing for birth or status.
One rule: take jobs, do them, take the pay.
Thus they gained a reputation—filthy, brutal, infamous.
Perfect for dirty work.
The Black Foot Mercenary Band was such a group.
“Got a job.”
The captain brought word: an Imperial Academy student, exiled to Icerock after punishment, to be eliminated.
Make it look like starving locals attacked, the client said.
So they armed only with blunt axes.
There was only one road to Icerock.
The entire band waited there.
The carriage arrived.
The coachman lit a fire and dozed.
Killing him was trivial.
To stage it as a peasant raid, they hacked open the carriage door.
Out stepped the student.
A boy, not even of age.
Blond, blue-eyed, but no trace of nobility.
Pitiful, but not deserving of pity.
Their own lives were pitiful too.
A swift death would be a kindness.
But before they could grant it—
“Try killing me.”
The boy moved first.
He hurled the fur at the captain.
“Kill him!”
“That brat!”
“Grab him!”
The mercenaries roared, charging.
No escape.
Even petty mercs bore branded Inscriptions.
Vmmm.
They poured mana into their axes.
The dull blades grew sharp.
A single strike would cleave the boy in two.
But he didn’t run.
He stood still, lips moving over a book.
Too far to hear, but clearly chanting.
A chill rose from the ground.
Axes in hand, they hesitated.
That hesitation saved me.
“<Ice Spear>.”
He stomped.
CRACK—!
The snowy earth erupted in jagged ice.
Schk!
“Ghhk?!”
“Wha—?”
“G-guhh!”
The charging mercenaries were impaled.
Some through bodies, some through skulls.
The lucky screamed in agony.
The unlucky died at once.
Blood splattered the white field.
The stench of iron filled the air.
“You’re alive?”
In the midst of the slaughter, the boy spoke calmly.
His gaze locked on the captain, shielded by the discarded fur.
“You damn brat!”
The captain roared, swinging his axe.
Crash—!
He shattered an ice spear.
The boy’s blue eyes widened.
His dull axe now gleamed red with mana.
“You said you had no Inscription… Lies!”
The captain snarled.
The boy only tilted his head in puzzlement.
That mockery stoked the captain’s rage.
“You won’t die easy. I’ll make it slow.”
He wasn’t captain for nothing.
He bore a Double Chain, his axe blazing with power.
One brush would bisect the boy.
The boy’s spell had been impressive, but after such scale, he surely—
“<Freeze, fly, and pierce.>”
The boy raised a hand.
His finger aimed like a drawn bow.
“<Ice Arrow>.”
“What—?!”
The captain’s eyes bulged.
Whssshk!
An ice arrow fired from the boy’s fingertip.
Thock.
It punched through the captain’s skull.
His bulging eyes popped free, tumbling into the snow.
He collapsed without a cry.
The wind howled, the fire blazed high.
The boy’s small shadow loomed enormous.
The impaled mercenaries gave their last rattling breaths.
Only two lived now: the boy, and me.
Just us.
The boy snapped his gaze toward me.
“A-ah, uhh…”
Fear choked me.
I stumbled backward, fell hard.
Warmth soaked my rear.
Was it melted snow, or my own piss?
“Hey.”
“S-spare me! Please!”
“You will be.”
“H-huh?”
“If I wanted you dead, you’d already be.”
“Oh.”
I realized I wasn’t lucky.
He had chosen to spare me.
“Answer my questions, and you’ll live.”
“A-ask me anything!”
“First—your name?”
“D-Dyke, sir!”
“Dyke.”
He nodded.
“I have many questions. But first…”
He pointed at the captain’s corpse.
“Why do you people use magic like that?”
What is magic?
It is imposing order upon mana dispersed throughout the world.
That order becomes the manifestation we call spells.
The ways to impose order are countless.
Words—spoken or written incantations.
Symbols, sigils, formations, calculations.
Dance, gestures, thought, imagination.
A mage is one who commands mana through all these means.
And yet—
“Why do you people use magic like that?”
“…Eh?”
“I mean—why just dump mana into things?!”
It baffled me. Infuriated me.
All they did was infuse mana into their axes.
With no order, no shaping.
The mana merely sharpened the blade’s inherent edge.
That wasn’t magic at all.
But the mercenary Dyke blinked, confused at me.
“B-because the spells carved into our Inscriptions are useless in combat…?”
“…What?”
“I mean, the spells carved in our I-Inscriptions…”
“Inscriptions? What inscriptions?”
“T-the Inscriptions we carve into our bodies. Where else?”
“…!”
His words struck me like a hammer.
I couldn’t even gasp.
At last, I understood why I was in this world.
Damn it all.
The magic of this world… is wrong.
