Chapter 5: Magic Scholar (1)
by Polar Bear“Jean-Pierre Auchelimé, who studied magic all his life, lost his life in an accident in 1830. Henry Yoris Russell took over his work and committed suicide in 1873. Now it’s our turn to learn Type 1 magic.”
“Hold the magic book. Imagine. And shout.”
– Preface, 《Type 1 Magic Primer – Basics / Benjamin Oslo》
Suddenly, that passage flashed through my mind.
A passage that wasn’t even part of the main content, translated into 10 languages over seven pages. Unlike the main text written entirely in Fraubian, only the preface was also written in the Imperial language.
It was also the only passage in the magic book that I could read.
That’s why I had read it more than a hundred times. I could recite it by heart now without looking.
But why did the author write such a preface?
Why did he translate it into all sorts of languages?
“Riteition.”
Whoosh―
“Lowiteition.”
Whoosh―
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.
Although it was difficult to know the author’s intention no matter how much I pondered, I could make my own guesses.
I decided to think of it this way.
Occasionally. When learning truly felt cold and lonely. When opening a book seemed so foolish.
It was telling you to remember the sages watching over you from above.
“Levi―”
Dawn broke in the back alley. Sunlight pierced through the cloudy weather, illuminating my entire body.
#December 17. Cloudy.
“Hey.”
It was quiet.
“Hey. You bastards.”
It remained quiet.
The dark sky. As silence enveloped the basement somewhere in the back alley, the darkness seemed to deepen.
Remy sat alone, sprawled in a chair, glaring at five men and women standing at attention.
The silence was so profound that one might have heard the sound of eyes rolling if they listened closely.
He didn’t like it.
Of course, if they had answered, he would have disliked it even more. The five knew this fact all too well from experience, so they bowed their heads in a gesture of obedience.
That certainly satisfied the leader’s mood.
Remy playfully wiggled his finger left and right.
“Tick-tock. Tick-tock. Tick-tock. Ding! Well, time’s up. It’s dinner time for you lot who couldn’t catch one beggar in two days.”
“……”
“What’s wrong? Aren’t you going to the market?”
“B-Boss.”
The youngest girl stepped forward.
The frightened four quickly signaled her to shut up, but the youngest took another step forward. They could no longer dissuade her.
Remy responded in a gentle voice.
“Hmm? What is it?”
“I, um, I can skip this dinner.”
“No, no! There’s no need for that at all. We have plenty of money. I promised I’d feed you at least breakfast and dinner, if not three meals a day, didn’t I?”
“No. It’s, it’s okay. It’s because I couldn’t find him. But, can we take a break just for tomorrow?”
“Why?”
“I haven’t been able to sleep… I feel like I’m about to collapse…”
Remy opened his mouth, still smiling.
“Hmm. That’s not possible.”
“W-Why not?”
“I promised, didn’t I? If you became one of us and worked together, I’d feed you, give you a place to sleep, do everything for you. It’s a promise, so you have to work. Right?”
“…You didn’t say it would be like this.”
The youngest pressed her trembling fist to her chest.
“You said we young ones should stick together to survive. You said we should help each other until the Federation soldiers leave someday. You reached out your hand saying that.”
Her voice began to quiver with emotion.
The youngest was still young, so even after experiencing war, she was immature in controlling her emotions. It was quite difficult to endure the rising indignation.
The members prayed inwardly while maintaining their rigid posture.
Please stop there.
But the youngest finally raised her voice.
The youngest shouted.
“But this, this! It’s just thuggery! You’re the kind of people we hated most, those who took advantage of the war to steal homes, money, and families!”
A torrent of harsh words poured out in front of the smiling face.
Harsh words without a single curse. That’s why they were so poignant.
“This job, I thought it would be easy because you said we just had to steal one book. I thought he’d hand it over if we hit him. I thought that would be the end of it.”
But the boy resisted until the end.
Unlike herself, who had traded a doll gifted by a friend for three loaves of bread, unable to endure hunger on the refugee road.
“That beggar kid, he’s about my age.”
“……”
“Actually, it’s funny to even call him a beggar. If you hadn’t reached out to me, Boss, I would have been in his place. I was beating myself up! Just to have two meals a day―!”
Finally, tears began to fall.
She was out of breath, her whole body trembling. Only after taking a few deep breaths did the youngest realize she had been spewing out emotions incoherently.
She was about to finish her words, looking into Remy’s eyes one last time.
A palm flew towards her.
Smack―!
The rest of the gang squeezed their eyes shut.
The girl’s body flew through the air. Her head snapped back, and as if that wasn’t enough, her entire body rolled roughly across the dirty floor.
Thud!
That’s what it meant to be slapped.
When the gang opened their eyes again, Remy was still smiling.
“Hey. Youngest.”
There was no answer. But she must have been listening.
“Who are you to act all righteous by yourself?”
So Remy laughed with all his might. Ha ha ha, his mocking laughter filled the basement.
“Youngest. Poor youngest. You must have thought this way. That at least you were pure. That at least you hadn’t lost your humanity even during the war, that you had shown kindness to others. That at least you were innocent. Hmm?”
“But you know what.”
“You’ve done absolutely fucking nothing, youngest. You’ve never struggled to survive. Isn’t it past time for you to graduate from being a brat who thinks bread will just fall from the sky if you stay still?”
“In case you’ve forgotten, let me remind you, this war was started by the Empire.”
“It’s better not to act like a tragic heroine. No one cares how much of a saint you are. No matter how much you struggle, we can’t even set foot in the Federation. Why? Because we’re from a war criminal country, descendants of imperialist barbarians!”
By the time he finished speaking, his sneer had turned into uproarious laughter.
The youngest lay fallen, crying, and the gang closed their eyes and bowed their heads.
They wished Remy was a pure thug as the youngest had said. However, he was a capable man who, regardless of his methods, always made sure the gang had two meals a day.
There’s nothing more meaningless than trying to distinguish between good and evil among people at the bottom. So in this situation, only one thing mattered.
There was no lie in his words.
“Ah. I’ve had a good laugh.”
As Remy stopped laughing, a terribly blank expression hung on his lips.
“Youngest. You’re right.”
He said.
“We’ll stop the search here. Whether that bastard has grown wings or you lot are incompetent, it seems like a loss to continue… James?”
The young man whose name was called suddenly raised his head.
“Yeah? What?”
“From tomorrow, take the youngest and collect as usual. Educate the kid more thoroughly.”
The young man nodded.
Two were assigned tasks. The remaining three looked at their leader in confusion.
“You come with me.”
“Where to…?”
“Where else? The military camp. Of course we have to report to the soldiers when there’s a beggar magician wandering around the city center, right?”
“Huh? Did you see him use magic?”
Remy grinned.
“It’s two hundred pounds if he uses magic. Fifty pounds even if he doesn’t. It’s not coming out of the officers’ pockets anyway. When there’s a walking achievement, who do you think is more desperate?”
#December 18. Rain.
Fraubian Federation Army’s Leman Garrison.
The place, in the midst of a drizzle, was truly leisurely. It meant things were no different from usual.
Forming ranks and jogging or patrolling the streets was the job of low-ranking soldiers. The officers had nothing to do. This was also the reason their bellies were growing despite not being pregnant.
It had been about two years since the civilian-led magic eradication was roughly completed.
Since then, officers rarely left the garrison for mission purposes.
“The Imperial bastards don’t even resist. If it were me, I’d have learned magic desperately and bashed the enemy officers’ heads in.”
Things had come to the point where such remarks were made.
After successfully halting the Imperial army’s advance, the Federation’s occupation of the Empire proceeded smoothly. No narrative figures like ‘war heroes’ or ‘revolution leaders’ emerged from either the Empire or the Federation.
To make matters worse, eight out of ten officers at the Leman garrison were personnel separately dispatched after the end of the war. In other words, they were salaried employees, which made their boredom even more severe.
As a result of these various circumstances, the ‘magician sighting case’ received considerable attention within the garrison, despite the rock-bottom credibility of the informant.
At the entrance of the garrison.
An officer with a protruding belly stood in front of the gang standing at attention. He had adjutants on either side, but the sight of him alone using an umbrella while letting his adjutants’ shoulders get wet looked quite arrogant.
The officer spoke, furrowing his brow.
“I’m Captain Carno. So, are these the ones who say they saw magic being used?”
“Yes, Captain Carno. We are—”
“Tsk.”
The moment Remy opened his mouth, the officers’ expressions instantly soured.
Their eyes were raised as if looking at beasts.
It was evident that they were reluctant to even exchange words.
“Give these creatures human treatment and they just…”
The gang naturally lost the initiative, but all they could do was listen quietly.
The officer standing to the captain’s right answered.
“That’s what they say.”
“Is that so? Well, well, we must root them out immediately. Prepare investigation troops.”
“Understood.”
“And. You. Alley boss. What was your name again?”
This question, too, was not directed at the person in question. ‘Remy, was it? No surname? Ah. I see.’ Captain Carno nodded halfheartedly after getting a rough answer from the officer.
Meanwhile, Remy inwardly rejoiced.
Sure, it felt unpleasant, but that was always the case. This was a captain, no less. Now that such a high-ranking officer had taken the bait, a mere beggar’s resistance would lose all meaning.
An obvious victory.
While Remy was mentally cheering, the captain leisurely gave instructions for personnel selection.
“You lot will go with this person. She’s an elite, so follow her obediently.”
No sooner had he finished speaking than the officer standing to the captain’s left stepped forward slightly.
Her sleek black hair fell disheveled over the epaulettes of her dark green uniform.
“Pleased to meet you. I’m Second Lieutenant Dorothy Oslo.”
Mommy? Sorry, Mommy? Sorry, Mommy?