Chapter 15
“No way. You used magic strong enough to fool even Karnarov’s eyes!!”
“Well, I don't know.”
“Karnarov isn’t the kind of level you can fool with sleight of hand! Fool a Rank 6 Archmage!? Say something that makes sense!”
But the facts before his eyes were merciless.
The girl, Yumia, had completely fooled his eyes.
A shell game?
No, there were too many silver coins for that.
Too many silver coins to have been hidden under her clothes, too.
In any case, there were too many silver coins.
“For starters, this isn’t even magic.”
“Really... how did you do it?”
“Who knows? Why don’t you guess?”
Yumia spoke in a teasing tone and gave a meaningful smile.
At first, I’d thought she was breathtakingly beautiful, but now...
‘All I can think about is punching her.’
He was, unexpectedly, the hardworking type.
Money was merely a means to growth.
In the end, what mattered was his own ability and grades.
So he trained hard in the family’s signature magic and every spell except the forbidden offensive ones.
In fact, he was the first to get the hang of basic attack magic.
‘And I’ve mastered basic attack magic now.’
He’d gotten a feel for the whole thing in just a week.
He even understood the spell formula at work well enough to make some adjustments to the magic circle.
Behind that were tireless effort and support.
He poured in elixirs to increase his mana reserves and invited famed mages to train him in mana control.
That was possible because he was the sole heir of the Carter merchant house.
Before entering Reinhardt, his goal had been to become Reinhardt’s top student.
In practice, when it came to handling natural mana, he scored a bit lower.
And on the written exam, he scored over forty points.
However.
‘It’s impossible to surpass the top student within a year.’
He went in with a dead-eyed look and somehow came out with a perfect practical score. The written exam was over fifty points, too.
And then there was that vast mana capacity, utterly beyond what any student should have had.
That was talent—and a wall.
So he’d aim for first place someday, but for now he decided to set his sights on second place.
Yumia, who clearly had almost no mana but somehow lucked into second place.
He could surpass her.
That’s what he thought.
But...
And yet this bastard had casually fooled Karnarov, who was on an even higher level.
‘Is she acquainted with Professor Karnarov?’
No.
The way Karnarov looked at Yumia made that impossible.
It was the kind of look that said, ‘Just let me catch you once.’
But even after getting on Karnarov’s bad side, Yumia remained calm.
A Rank 6 Archmage—she’d fooled a monster that was practically touching the heavens and even walked away with silver coins.
There were even rumors that she’d been coming and going from that dangerous western forest.
And...
She still had very little mana.
But she carried a strange kind of mana, and there was definitely more of it than before.
‘Isn’t that an even higher wall?’
Robert was thrown into confusion.
But what he needed to do now was clear.
‘First, get friendly.’
Once they were close, he could do anything.
But Yumia, who’d been walking beside him, was gone.
“...What the hell. Where’d she go?”
***
Heh-heh.
I was in a great mood.
Because my pockets were nice and full.
And I’d received high praise.
How the hell did you do that, you bastard.
The line that feels best to hear when you're playing a game.
The wording was different, but it meant the same thing.
Robert.
He’s quite a good guy.
I’ll put the 10 silver you provided to good use, helping the needy.
“So you’re going to use it to eat at the A cafeteria?”
“Yeah. ...What, no nagging? I stole that from kids’ pocket money.”
Aris hadn’t come.
She wasn’t the type to solve assignments like that in the first place.
But she wasn’t even going to nag me?
Maybe it was someone wearing Aris’s skin.
Of course, I had a solid argument—this was payment I’d earned through honest labor.
“I gave up on the small stuff. Just please stop doing dangerous things.”
“Huh? What? Don’t give up.”
Still, she had told me not to strip in the dorms in the morning and toss my clothes in weird places.
It was like good habits were built right into Aris.
Hmm.
Still, the A cafeteria doesn’t exactly have much going for it anymore.
I thought as I looked at the goat steak, milk, and sausage I’d picked up.
The steak was just salty, and the sausage smelled off.
The milk was at least fresh enough to drink.
Of course, the cooks were skilled enough that it was tender and edible, but...
‘Three silver for this. It smells gamey.’
Was it because they didn’t use spices?
The bread and salads were fresh and fine, though.
The problem was everything else.
Should I bring in a ton of pepper, thyme, and the like later?
So I asked Aris on a whim, and this was her answer.
“Ah... spices? Those are really expensive.”
“Why?”
“The place they’re grown is outside the continent, and the sea itself is incredibly dangerous because of sea dragons.”
That was true.
The seas in this world seemed to be several times more dangerous than Earth’s.
And there weren’t many places growing spices to begin with, so people could charge whatever price they liked.
“Then why not grow spices on the continent?”
“Apparently that doesn’t work. The climate’s wrong. Of course, there are places that use magic to create the right environment and grow them, but...”
“Then just do it.”
“How much do you think a mage capable of that level of control would cost?”
“Ah.”
Mages here were pricier than I thought.
I’d forgotten because mages are everywhere.
Hold on.
“Wouldn’t it be fine if I brought them in myself?”
“Huh?”
“No, nothing.”
Even if it wasn’t for making money, if I could eat delicious food...
Hmm... I’ll put that on hold for now.
Besides, I only really know pepper, and I know expensive spices were expensive even on Earth.
Some of them were still pricier than gold by weight.
“All the classes that were starting have started now, right?”
“Ah, yes. Only Professor Isabel’s Potions class is left now.”
I had to sit through quite a lot of miscellaneous lectures.
Magic Repair, Basic Magic Circles, Imperial History, and so on.
Imperial History almost bored me to death.
‘What kind of professor is stricter than Karnarov?’
On top of that, this crazy school had different start dates for every course.
The schedule was irregular, too.
The only regular things were the start and end of term, and maybe finals week.
Midterms were optional, apparently.
‘What the...’
There were no afternoon classes today.
“Anyway, Yumia. How much money did you make?”
“What! You’re after my money too!?”
“Of course not! What are you talking about, really.”
To fool Karnarov’s eyes, I had to hand over a chunk of my hard-earned money.
My silver coins...!
“I just thought it might be good to go to the school market, Yumia. At this rate, you’ll get disciplined for violating the dress code, you know?”
“Ah.”
Right, there was a dress code.
But Karnarov didn’t say anything.
At most, the strictest Imperial History professor said a few words.
Still, if we leave it alone, the student affairs director will probably say something....
But what’s the school market?
I’d never heard that name before.
“What’s the school market?”
“Huh? You don’t know about the school market?”
“No.”
“Think of it as a market that sells the kinds of things students need. It’s outside the school, but you can go if you get a permit.”
“Really? Then shall we go?”
“There’s no class tomorrow either, so let’s go quickly today!”
Aris sounded excited about going out, too.
Then she brought it up as if something had just occurred to her.
“Wait a second. If you didn’t know about the school market, where on earth did you bring those things in from, Yumia?”
“Huh?”
“Reinhardt is several hundred miles away from the nearest city, you know?”
“Was it?”
Maybe it was.
But the place I’d run off to in the first place was just outside the school.
“...Just where did you run off to...”
No. Any more than this is dangerous!
I blurted out awkwardly.
“The place I went before must have been the school market! Let’s go! To the school market!”
If they found out I was from another world, who knew what would happen?
If they mistook me for some kind of demon worshipper, I might not even be able to get a foothold here.
***
The school market had all kinds of things.
No, it had literally everything.
The scale itself was strange.
‘Huh? This isn’t a market, it’s just a village, isn’t it?’
Wooden buildings stood in rows, and there was even an inn.
It seemed some visitors to the school stayed here, too.
As we looked around the market...
“Cheap, huh?”
There were almost no items that cost more than 1 silver.
Most things were priced in copper or bronze coins.
“They say it’s nice because they don’t overcharge students at all. Distribution costs are covered by donations, too.”
“Oh...”
“I heard the student cafeteria is run by this merchant guild too!”
“But the cafeteria was ridiculously expensive.”
“Huh? The cafeteria is expensive?”
“It tastes awful, but isn’t it expensive?”
“I heard the A cafeteria is similar to what people at my family home usually eat... and the B cafeteria is better than what ordinary people usually eat, too.”
“...That was supposed to be good food?”
I’d thought something was odd.
I should keep that in mind when I go to clear the tower later.
For now, I checked how much money I had on hand.
I had about 60 silver in my inventory.
That meant more than half the students in my year had used my services.
“But why are they selling swords to students who want to become mages?”
I muttered as I looked at the swords displayed outside a fairly large building.
They had laid out swords on a stall beneath the windows.
They had every kind, from shortswords to greatswords.
Aris knew why.
“Ah, there’s a Lunaris Knight School nearby. It’s a rival to Reinhardt.”
“But why swords...”
“I was thinking of buying one myself.”
“W-what!? We’re mages, though!”
“Who says mages can’t use swords?”
When we went in, all eyes turned to us.
The inside was fairly spacious.
The sign said [Swordmillia Merchant Guild], and true to its name, it seemed to deal only in swords.
“Welcome!!”
“What’s this? We’ve got some cute ones here, huh?”
“They’re cute...”
“They look pretty delicate, so they must be Reinhardt students, right? Freshmen, maybe?”
“What, why are Reinhardt students here?”
Regardless, I examined the swords closely.
Sure enough, the swords were quite cheap.
I flicked one with my finger.
“...Not bad.”
Its rebound was decent, too.
The balance was really good.
I wanted to buy one.
Hmm.
A place to test it.
“If you want to test a sword, this way for 30 copper!”
As I looked around, I spotted an open space off to one side.
There was a scarecrow.
It looked like it cost 30 copper per cut.
30 copper is a bit pricey...
Well, nothing to be done.
Just then, someone came over and butted in.
“Stop right there, young lady. A beginner holding a sword for the first time couldn’t even cut down that scarecrow properly.”
It was a man with thick, bulging arm muscles.
He had a roughly trimmed, bristly beard.
With a hammer in one hand and a chisel in the other, the man spoke to me as if giving advice.
“That scarecrow’s tied up extra tight for knight school students, too. You’ll just waste your money trying to cut it.”
Then a voice called from over there.
“Hey! Pretty boy! You’re gonna get hurt for nothing! Quit fooling around and go buy a staff instead!”
Someone whistled and threw out a taunt.
It was a knight school student.
He looked like a pretty-boy dandy, the sort who could probably charm a few girls if you dropped him in Itaewon.
Sure enough.
So they really were rivals.
They definitely seemed to be on particularly close terms.
“...S-shall we just stop and go?”
“No, why would I back down?”
“Huh?”
I was pretty confident with a sword.
Swordsmanship had been studied extensively in that other world, too.
Before gates, and even before that, before guns appeared, this was the best there was.
But I took the top spot at the training camp through close combat.
And even now, I still preferred swords.
I drew the sword.
In an instant, the white blade flashed with light.
I planted my feet in front of the scarecrow.
Focus.
‘It’s not a training dummy. One day it will become a monster and swarm over you!’
The instructor’s voice echoed in my head.
That grating voice I’d repeated over and over, hundreds, thousands of times.
I stepped through my footwork and moved lightly toward the scarecrow.
That was it.
My arm moved before I even realized it.
The scarecrow’s neck was cut cleanly off.
With a soft thud, the excited atmosphere around us died down.
When I turned around.
The very way they looked at me had changed.