The Blacksmith and the Mage, Birds of a Feather (2)

Some time ago, when I parted with Azvardo, my blacksmithing master—the damned dwarf—asked me what I planned to do next.

At the time, I believe I answered that I intended to learn swordsmanship and magic.

Then I remember Azvardo saying something like, 'You can borrow the power of spirits, yet you want to study magic?'

I didn't understand what he meant then, but looking back, he must have had at least some knowledge of both spirits and magic.

The other day, after only a week in Odine, I experienced firsthand what the male town-hall employee had told me.

Every mage I met while considering asking them to take me on as a student showed at least some hostility in their eyes when I told them I wanted to study magic.

Both Azvardo, my blacksmithing master, and Kaeha, my swordsmanship master, initially refused my requests to become their apprentice.

Even so, I clung to them and begged until they took me on as their apprentice, because although they had refused, they had no hostility toward me.

Of course, that wasn't the only reason—I was captivated by their skills and felt something like fate at work—but if they had truly hated me from the bottom of their hearts, I doubt I would have tried to force my way into becoming their apprentice.

Probably. Surely. Most likely.

...Which is why, it seems, I won't be able to apprentice myself to anyone.

In Odine, the land of magic, there are two ways to study magic.

One is to apprentice myself to one of the mages, which I just gave up on.

A mage only attains the rank of magus after raising an outstanding apprentice, and thereby earns great honor.

Raising more outstanding mages is considered a contribution to the world of magic.

To repay the kindness they received from their master, apprentices share the knowledge they gain through research with that master once they become full-fledged.

However, this is a one-way relationship: masters do not necessarily pass on the knowledge they gain through research to their apprentices.

Of course, most masters probably pass on the fruits of their research to their apprentices to preserve them for future generations, but there are surely exceptions.

For example, apparently there are stories of a magus with multiple apprentices leaving everything they had to just one apprentice and nothing to the others.

Well, stories like that can be found anywhere a master-apprentice relationship exists, not just in the world of magic.

Even if an apprentice's acquired knowledge is shared with the master, the apprentice will naturally keep one or two techniques hidden away, so it's perfectly ordinary.

And the second method was, of course, to attend one of the three magical academies in Odine.

The first of the three magical academies is the Military Magic Academy, which not only teaches magic but also researches tactics for using it in war.

The second is the Anti-Monster Tactics Academy, where aspiring mages planning to work as adventurers learn magic for fighting monsters and ways to protect themselves.

The third is the Basic Magic Academy, for those unable to enter either of the two academies above.

First, the Military Magic Academy is a magical academy founded to supply the countries of the Small Nations with mages as military assets—the very purpose for which Odine was originally built.

In other words, it could be called the most important magical academy in Odine.

However, only citizens of a country in the Small Nations can enter the Military Magic Academy, and after graduation, they must serve for a set period in the military of the country whose citizenship they hold.

Of course, even though it is called military service, mages are paid far more than ordinary soldiers, treated with great care as valuable personnel, and promoted quickly through the ranks.

In short, it was an unquestionably elite path—and a magical academy wholly unrelated to me.

Next was the Anti-Monster Tactics Academy, a magical academy that trains mages to become adventurers; after graduation, they are required to work as adventurers within the Small Nations for three years.

This place is already irrelevant to me, but to explain it anyway, having even one mage on an adventuring team greatly expands its tactical options and makes its activities more stable.

However, magic is a specialized technique that cannot be used without the aptitude for it, and there simply aren't that many people with that aptitude.

Consequently, mages were always in short supply among adventurers. In fact, I knew quite a few adventurers, but only a handful of them were mages.

The Small Nations noticed this shortage and began training adventurer-mages in Odine, thereby attracting adventurers who wanted a mage in their party to the Small Nations.

Apparently, they had those adventurers work within the Small Nations, greatly reducing the damage caused by monsters.

Finally, unlike the other magical academies, the Basic Magic Academy imposes no requirements after graduation, but its tuition is extraordinarily high instead.

And, as its name suggests, it teaches only the basics of magic.

If I wanted to gain more advanced knowledge of magic, I would still have no choice but to seek out a master after graduation.

In short, none of the options really appealed to me; if anything, they were all a little disappointing.

If all I wanted was to satisfy my curiosity about magic, the Basic Magic Academy was the obvious choice, and its high tuition would hardly be a problem for me.

But... yes, after coming all this way, being told that I had only one path available made me feel strangely resentful about simply taking it.

More than anything, I didn't feel any sense of fate or serendipity in it.

Well, maybe it was fine, I thought.

It wasn't as if I had to study in Odine; I might make the acquaintance of an outstanding mage somewhere else, and simply learning that I had an aptitude for magic was a sufficient achievement.

So, to do something about my deflated mood, maybe I should just do some smithing for now.

In any case, I'd be staying here for a while and would have to wait for word from Airena, an elf I knew.

Since this was a city dedicated to magic, demand for weapons and armor was probably low, but making household goods like pots and kitchen knives—or better yet, returning to my roots and mass-producing nails—ought to be fun.

Since there was no point sulking, I visited the blacksmiths' guild in Odine.

I never imagined that, there of all places, I would stumble into an encounter that made me feel fate once again.