Mushoku Tensei (LN) - Volume 9 - Chapter 7

Chapter 7:

A Day at the University of Magic 

I T HAD BEEN A YEAR since I’d enrolled at the Ranoa University of Magic, and I’d just turned sixteen. In this world, people only really celebrated their fifth, tenth, and fifteenth birthdays, so I’d kind of forgotten about which day it was at this point. I could have figured it out by checking the age on my adventurers’ card every morning, but it wasn’t something I took out too often these days. 

I didn’t care that much, anyway. Age is just a number, right? 

After meeting Nanahoshi, my normal routine had changed somewhat. 

I started off my days by waking up early, getting dressed, and going out to train. This was the same as always, but sometimes Badigadi would show up when I started my sword drills. He didn’t join in or give me any advice, though. For most part, he just watched me silently with his arms folded or resting on his hips, nodding thoughtfully now and then. I had no idea what conclusions he was reaching, and he never shared them with me. I didn’t try to start a conversation, either. If he did open his mouth, he’d probably start laughing loudly enough to wake up the whole neighborhood. 

Honestly, I wasn’t sure how to interact with Badigadi in general. He seemed like a nice guy, but I never knew what he was thinking. And he was an actual Demon King, so I wanted to avoid accidentally ticking him off. 

One morning, however, he spoke to me for once. “Hm. I find your training fascinating, boy, but I have to ask… is there some point to it?” 

Ouch. That’s a harsh way to start a conversation. “Uh, well… I don’t think staying in shape is pointless, but—” 

“You have an absurd amount of mana,” Badigadi interrupted. “I don’t understand why you’d train without cloaking yourself in battle aura.” 

Again with the battle aura. I’d heard the words many times before, but everyone was always super vague about how you were supposed to ‘cloak’ yourself in it. This seemed like a golden opportunity. It couldn’t hurt to ask, right? “What exactly is battle aura, anyway?” 

“It’s mana! Nothing more and nothing less.” 

The way Badigadi explained things, it was basically a technique that used the mana in you to dramatically improve your body’s physical capabilities, strengthening yourself to unnatural extremes. That bit was more or less what I’d expected to hear. “How do you actually do that, though?” 

“Simply spread a field of mana over every part of your body, then press it tightly against you!” 

“Ooh.” 

Now that sounded like some useful advice. The University clearly needed to replace its professors with a bunch of Demon Kings. Once I’d mastered this, maybe I could gain a few power levels. 

I gave it a shot immediately, doing my best imitations of various Super Saiyans and Nen users. But no matter how much I manipulated my mana, there was no real change in my physical capabilities. It sort of felt like I might be getting stronger sometimes, but that was probably just the placebo effect at work. 

“Well, that’s odd. You’ve got no talent for this, boy!” 

Badigadi went on to bluntly explain the reason for my failure. Normally, battle aura was something people began to automatically generate after spending some time doing physical training. On the other hand, I’d put in a good amount of effort on that front, but I still couldn’t cloak myself in the aura even when I tried. That meant I just didn’t have the knack for it. 

This did happen now and then. Some people could never generate any battle aura at all, no matter how intense their training regimen. 

“Bwahahaha! Not like you have any need of it, of course! Laplace never cloaked himself in battle aura either, but he was truly powerful!” 

When he talked about my abilities, Badigadi often used the Demon God Laplace as a point of comparison. I assumed it was because he’d also possessed a massive supply of mana. “Did you actually meet Laplace, Sir Badi?” 

“Indeed I did! He annihilated most of my body with a single blow. It took me some time to reform after that! I thought he’d actually killed me for a moment! Bwahahahaha!” 

Is there some reason you sound so proud of that…? 

Well, he’d fought against a powerful opponent and lived to tell the tale. Maybe that was something worth bragging about, regardless of the details. According to Badigadi, Laplace had been an extremely shady character, but he was also a master at making use of his mana. 

“Could I get stronger if I learned to fight like Laplace did?” 

“I don’t recommend trying. If you tried to use your mana the way he did, you’d blow your own body apart in an instant. It’s bizarre for a human to have that much mana inside them in the first place, you know!” 

Channeling too much mana at once could apparently destroy a magician from the inside out. On an intuitive level, that did make sense to me. Infusing yourself with magic felt a little bit like stretching your arm out as far as it could possibly go. If you kept pushing things beyond that limit, you’d probably end up with the equivalent of a broken bone or two. 

Laplace, on the other hand, had possessed not only a giant supply of mana, but also the sturdy body and technical skill necessary to use it fully. I was a fragile, clumsy little thing by comparison. No matter how hard I trained, I was never going to reach his level. 

“But why do you even want to get stronger, boy?” 

“Why? Well, uh… I mean…” Someone had nearly killed me not too long ago. I wanted to get strong enough to prevent that from happening again. That seemed reasonable to me… 

“I’ve known many men who sought fame and strength to an excessive degree, and it never ended well for them. Take my nephew, for example. Too proud by half, that one! He settled down a bit after very nearly dying, but up until then he was obsessed with becoming the strongest man in the world. There are more important things in life than that , you know?” 

“Like what?” 

“Like women!” said Badigadi with a self-satisfied grin. “Once you have one of your own, you’ll understand! Bwahahahaha!” 

To be fair, people who wanted power for its own sake were usually villains. At least in the manga I read back in my previous life. But I wasn’t planning to devote my life to the pursuit of power, or anything. Being strong let you swagger around confidently, but it didn’t make you a better or happier person in and of itself. I could understand why you’d prioritize something fun like womanizing instead. Thanks to my condition, though, that wasn’t exactly an option at the moment. 

“That reminds me, your Majesty…” 

“Yes? What is it?” 

“You wouldn’t happen to know of a cure for impotence, would you?” 

“…No.” 

I guess even Demon Kings don’t know everything. 

After finishing up with training, I ate a quick breakfast and headed for class. 

My mornings started with Intermediate Detoxification magic. Even at the Beginner level, Detoxification enabled you to cure a wide range of common ailments and purge the body of most poisons. But when you got into the rarer illnesses, or the venom used by high-ranked monsters, you needed to know more advanced spells with specific incantations that required using lots of mana. Intermediate Detoxification classes and above were mostly about learning those ultra-targeted spells. 

Their incantations were painfully long. Even at the Intermediate level, you’d have to chant a phrase several times longer than anything used for an offensive spell. Modern incantations were said to be abbreviated versions of older, less refined phrases… but when you got into the more advanced tiers of certain disciplines, it felt like they’d never been shortened at all. 

There were a lot of these to learn, as well. For Intermediate Detoxification, you had to memorize more than fifty different incantations. Some of these actually created poisons, to my surprise; maybe they had some medical use in certain cases. 

At the Advanced tier, you’d need to learn more than a hundred spells. Once you hit that level, you’d need some serious memorization skills to keep up. 

At the Saint-tier, there was supposedly less need to memorize things, but the amount of mana required to cast a single spell ramped up dramatically. And as for the King-tier spells and above… you were looking at things researched and devised by one nation or another, and mostly guarded as state secrets. Some would create poisons incurable by any ordinary magic, as a threat toward other countries. Others would create specific antidotes to those same poisons. It was basically a kind of arms race. 

Incidentally, the only Divine-tier Detoxification spell I’d heard of was one that cured a strange and terrible illness called Petrification Syndrome. If left untreated, it would slowly transform the mana inside your body into magic stone. Only one person had ever been able to use the spell in question. It was guarded carefully in the Great Cathedral of Millishion. 

Just a side note… as you moved from Intermediate Detoxification to Advanced and onward, the incantations grew steadily longer. Based on what I’d seen, a King-tier spell might require you to recite the contents of an entire book out loud. 

My new brain wasn’t half-bad at remembering things, but it still felt like I had my work cut out for me. Honestly, monks and priests never seem to catch a break. No matter what world they were in, they always had tedious chants to memorize. Personally, I was planning to just carry around a book with the incantations in them. 

My main reason for taking this class was to see if I might find some spell that could cure my condition. But from what the professor told me, there wasn’t anything in the Intermediate tier that could make me any perkier. 

Not surprising, really. 

After my first class ended, it was time for lunch. 

I’d been eating outside for months, but it was getting cold out there these days, so I decided to make myself a little shelter. I used Earth magic to surround one of the outdoor tables with four walls and a roof, then opened a hole in the middle of the table and got a fire going inside it. Once I added a hole in the ceiling to let the smoke out, I had myself a comfy little hut. It was actually really nice sitting around that table, since the fire warmed the stone nicely. 

Unfortunately, Vice-Principal Jenius quickly showed up and chewed me out. Rather than making myself a building outside, I was encouraged to use the building they already had. I decided to start eating on the first floor of the dining hall instead. I’d expected Zanoba to protest, but he accepted it readily enough. “Julie wouldn’t be able to sit with us on the third floor, anyway.” Apparently, there was an informal rule up there that slaves weren’t allowed to use the chairs. It didn’t apply elsewhere, of course. 

Zanoba didn’t treat Julie like a slave, even if she technically was one. He regarded her as a junior apprentice in the art of figurine-making, nothing more and nothing less. That said, she was still his subordinate, so you did see him ordering her around now and then. The treatment of slaves varied widely in this world, depending on where you were and who bought you. I wasn’t sure if Zanoba’s treatment of her qualified as good or bad. At least he didn’t act like she was less than human. 

“Shit, that’s Rudeus…” 

“What’s with that guy, anyway? How the hell did he take over the special class in a single year?” 

“I was there when he took out the Demon King, man… he only used one spell …” 

When I entered the dining hall, the crowd parted in front of me, and I heard murmuring from all sides. I didn’t remember “taking over” the special class, and my one hit on Badigadi was repaid with three punches… but whatever. This wasn’t a bad feeling, although I had to make sure it didn’t go to my head. Orsted had taught me a very painful lesson about the dangers of getting overconfident. If my ego got too big, I’d just end up faceplanting again. 

I followed the path opened by the crowd, and found myself led directly to a table at the very back of the dining hall. 

“Bwahahahaha! I see it’s finally gotten too cold for you to eat outside, boy!” 

Badigadi was sitting there. For some reason, he was chugging from massive mugs of booze, which were definitely not served here. Judging from the reddish tone of his jet-black skin, he was probably mildly drunk at this point. 

The other students, standing at a safe distance, looked at me expectantly. Their eyes were pleading with me to sit down with Badigadi. I’d apparently been assigned a regular table by group consensus. 

Incidentally, Cliff and Elinalise ate on the second floor. I’d witnessed them having a meal together once, and it was enough to make me lose my appetite. They spent the whole time feeding each other and kissing passionately, totally ignoring all the stares. Watching that had left me feeling empty inside, so I’d decided to keep my distance from them at lunchtime. 

“Master, what’s the Demon King drinking?” said Julie, tugging at Zanoba’s sleeve. “It looks really good.” 

“Bwahahaha! You’re a dwarf, all right! Indeed, this beer is of the highest quality. It was the secret stash of that man with the hairball on his head!” 

I’d heard that dwarves liked to drink, yes, but… did Julie already have a taste for alcohol? I felt like she was still way too young for that, but apparently, I was the only one who felt that way. 

“Hm. Sir Badi, would you mind if she had a little?” 

“Not at all! There’s no joy in drinking all alone, you know? Have as much as you please! Bwahahahaha!” 

Julie took a cup Badi had filled to the brim with beer, and began sipping steadily away. Was this really a good idea? She had to be a little young for this, right? I mean, sure, we could always use detoxification magic if she got too drunk, but still… 

Then again, I was drinking here and there at the age of seven myself. Maybe it would be hypocritical of me to object. 

“Hmm. Perhaps I’ll have a mug as well, then,” said Zanoba. 

“You’ve got classes today,” I pointed out. “It’s probably not a good idea.” 

“Ah. If you say so, Master. My apologies, Sir Badi.” 

“Bwahahahaha! You can’t even drink when you please? The life of a student must be an unhappy one!” 

With this boisterous conversation running in the background, I ate my lunch and set out for my next class. This one was a course on Advanced Healing, located in a fifth-year classroom. 

I’d been surprised to find that Pursena was taking this class as well. Specifically, the surprising part was that it was just Pursena. Linia was taking a different class. Normally, Pursena didn’t take anything seriously. But to her credit, she actually paid attention to the lectures… while gnawing on sticks of jerky, of course. 

Still, most of the other students were terrified of her based on her reputation as a delinquent, so she’d been spending a lot of time all by herself lately. She’d even had trouble getting anyone to pair off with her in the practical skills sessions. Because of all this, she seemed genuinely grateful to have me around. On this afternoon, she went so far as to say, “You’re the best, Boss. Here, you can have my most prized possession.” 

The gift she handed me was a half-eaten piece of jerky. By her standards, this was probably a very special gesture. Accepting it with a nod, I went ahead and licked it all over, savoring the dog-girl flavor. Pursena looked at me with open disgust. 

Hey, you’re the one who gave it to me… 

As for Linia, lately she’d been peppering me with questions about elemental spells. It sounded like she was struggling to get the hand of combined magic. 

This was apparently a major stumbling block for lots of people who were focusing their studies on offensive magic. Sylphie had picked it up relatively smoothly back in the day, but maybe it was one of those things that got harder to learn as you got older. 

Today, I took some time to try and teach Linia about combining fire and water magic. It put me in a kind of nostalgic mood, honestly. I started off by trying to explain the cycle of evaporation, condensation, and precipitation, but the concept just seemed to confuse her. 

“Mew? But if the whole ocean turned into rain, wouldn’t it just disappear after a while?” 

“I mean, the rain just flows back into the ocean after it falls, so there’s no net loss.” 

“That’s not true, mew!” said Rinia, her face shining with triumph. “In the Great Forest, the water soaks right into the ground!” 

“Sure, but that water either gets drawn back up by plants or starts flowing along underground. So eventually—” 

I tried my best to walk her through it one step at a time, but I didn’t seem to be getting through to her. All I really wanted her to get was that water from the ocean evaporated, formed rainclouds, and then fell back down. Once you had a good intuitive understanding of that, you could start putting the principles involved to practical use… but we clearly weren’t there yet. 

Still, Linia wasn’t as totally hopeless as Ghislaine when it came to thinking stuff through, so she’d probably understand eventually. 

Come to think of it, though… there was no real guarantee the rain cycle actually worked the same way in this world, given that you could summon water with magic here. 

While we’re on the topic of elemental magic, I should mention that I’d recently learned my first Saint-tier level Earth magic spell, Sandstorm. 

It was basically a more powerful version of the Advanced-tier spell Duststorm. That might not sound too impressive on its face, but when I’d actually tried it out, an astonishingly fierce torrent of sand and wind blanketed a wide area around me. Anyone caught inside was essentially rendered blind; it was a struggle just to breathe. And even when the spell’s effect finally expired, the entire battlefield would be left covered in massive piles of shifting, unstable sand. Where the Water spell Cumulonimbus involved a careful manipulation of rainclouds and wind currents, Sandstorm required you to blow around a massive quantity of tiny particles. It seemed like many spells at this tier involved changing the weather in some dramatic way. 

The professor who taught me the spell repeatedly cautioned me not to use it inside a town or city unless I absolutely had to, given that it would do serious damage to any crops growing in the area. That was probably a standard warning you were expected to repeat when teaching someone a Saint-tier elemental spell. 

In any case, I now officially qualified as a Saint-tier Earth magician. I had a vague interest in reaching that level in the two other elements as well, if I had the time to track down professors willing to teach me. 

Incidentally, the guy who taught me Sandstorm was surprised to learn that I wasn’t familiar with it already. My silent spellcasting attacks were on a King-tier level at this point, so I guess he assumed that I’d mastered everything at the lower Saint-tier already. 

Badigadi recently told me that the Stone Cannon I’d fired off at him had actually been on the Imperial level in terms of pure destructive power. Did that mean I could call myself an Emperor-tier magician? 

When I asked the professor, he said I could call myself anything I wanted. Sensing a slight edge to that remark, I decided not to do so. It was hard to imagine any good would come from advertising myself as some master mage, anyway. 

In the early afternoon, I often headed over to Nanahoshi’s laboratory. The University had given her quite a lot of space to work with. But since she’d filled up the front room with a jumble of junk, it actually felt a little cramped when you stepped inside. 

Just past this initial storage area was the experimental chamber, with walls made of magic-resistant brick. The room beyond that was Nanahoshi’s bedchamber. She seemed to be keeping a sizable stash of food in one corner, which kind of worried me. Why was she sleeping next to her food? What if it attracted mice or roaches? 

It had become obvious to me fairly quickly that the girl had the makings of a world-class shut-in. And coming from me, that really meant something. I was also strictly forbidden from actually setting foot inside her bedroom. 

As for the nature of my visits here… for the most part, I was just helping out with her Summoning magic experiments. My role was a simple one: I channeled mana into the magic circles that she’d drawn up. Simple enough, but there were a ton of them. She was testing out all sorts of things, even patterns she expected to fail, in a trial-and-error approach. Nanahoshi had lots of money to spare, but that didn’t mean she could secure herself an infinite number of magical crystals to throw at these experiments. The supply available was always limited, and if you tried to buy them all, you’d make yourself a lot of enemies very quickly. As a result, she’d previously been hesitant to move forward with these tests. 

All I did was single-mindedly channel my mana into magic circle after magic circle. Normally, there were no results at all. The magic paint would disappear, leaving only the lines she’d sketched out underneath. However, sometimes one of them would suck quite a lot of mana out of me, and something strange would appear out of nowhere—typically something like a dirty black bird wing, or the leg of an insect. 

When I asked Nanahoshi if we’d succeeded, she replied, “Of course not.” 

The idea was that we’d try out tens of thousands of these things, looking for a fluke success or clues to general principles that she could work from. It sure seemed like it was going to take us a while , though. 

“What exactly is the goal of these experiments?” 

“I want to learn how to summon a human being from our old world. Right now, we’re laying the groundwork… for the groundwork of the groundwork… of a theory that might get us there.” 

Once she could make a magic circle capable of summoning people from a different world, she could make one that could send them back home too. Possibly. In theory. Either way, we had a lot of preliminary stages to get through before we got anywhere close to that. This definitely wasn’t going to be a short-term project. 

“Okay, I understand the general plan. But if we summon someone the same way you were summoned here, aren’t we just going to cause another huge disaster?” 

“Believe me, I have no intention of creating a second Displacement Incident. But if I can move a few stages further along in my research, I should be able to nail down a theory regarding why it happened.” 

“Sure. I know things go wrong in experiments all the time, though. Just be careful, okay? Lots of people died because of that whole mess.” 

“It’s not just experiments, Rudeus. Things always go wrong no matter what we do. I’m very aware of the risks, all right? That’s why I’m taking things so cautiously.” 

I couldn’t say that I completely followed, but I did understand that she was building up to something slowly and methodically. Maybe it would be best if I learned the basics, at least. “You know, I’d like to learn some Summoning magic myself…” 

“Summoning is my lifeline. I can’t go around handing out my knowledge freely.” 

“I thought you said you’d teach me anything I want to know?” 

Nanahoshi clicked her tongue in irritation. “All right, fine. Once we’re done with this experiment, I’ll answer one question for you.” 

“One answer for all of these? You pay terribly, Nanahoshi.” 

“Once we’re really finished and I head back home, you can have all the resources, knowledge, and connections I leave behind,” she snapped. “So for now, try to be a little  patient.” 

Somebody seemed a little on edge. In her defense, though, I guess it was uncool of me to start begging for rewards when we hadn’t even accomplished anything yet. 

Before we continued, though, Nanahoshi did hand me a book with the title Sig’s Summoning. “If you’re that interested, do a little studying yourself.” 

I felt like I’d seen this somewhere before, but I had no memory of reading it. I accepted it with gratitude. 

And thus my experiments with Nanahoshi had continued along those lines. 

At this point, I’d stopped dropping by the library for hours at a time. But Master Fitz sometimes showed up to join me when I was visiting Nanahoshi. As I watched him try to help out one day, I realized that these experiments were actually pretty grueling work. He ran out of mana entirely after working through only twenty scrolls or so. “This is crazy, Rudeus. Activating one of these things consumes as much mana as casting an Advanced spell…” 

Fitz was a silent spellcaster like myself, but evidently his mana capacity was considerably smaller. And he had more mana than most people, from the sound of things. It did seem like my capacity was just freakishly large. I kind of wished someone could put it into numbers somehow. 

In any case, Fitz was a proficient mage, and he’d struggled with this task. Was it something about Nanahoshi’s magic circles in particular? Or did Summoning magic just eat up that much mana? Unlike offensive spells, you probably wouldn’t be using a dozen different Summoning spells in a single battle or anything, so it seemed reasonable that they might have a higher mana cost. But it was bizarre that scrolls which produced no effect at all would drain so much power from Fitz. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that we were trying to summon things from a different world. 

“I’m sorry, Rudeus. I have to protect Princess Ariel, so I don’t think I can help with this… I need to keep some mana in reserve just in case…” 

“Yeah, of course. That makes total sense.” 

For some reason, Fitz seemed a little gloomy lately. Maybe he was feeling down about all this. He did seem to have some confidence in his talents as a magician, after all. Everyone had their pride. It wasn’t something I paid that much attention to, but for a young guy like him, it might feel like the most important thing in the world. 

Nanahoshi didn’t really talk to Master Fitz when he came along. Then again, I got the impression Fitz wasn’t the biggest fan of Nanahoshi, either. 

“I’m not… much use here, am I?” 

Fitz’s voice sounded downright dejected. I shook my head quickly. “That’s not true.” 

“It isn’t?” 

“Of course not. It’s reassuring just to have you around.” 

Fitz had helped me out in many ways over the last year. Maybe he couldn’t contribute much to this particular task, but I didn’t want to send him away just because he wasn’t being useful to me. If he had something more pressing to deal with, I wasn’t going to force him to stay… but if he was thinking about leaving because he couldn’t help, I’d encourage him to reconsider. “Please keep coming here with me when you have the time, Master Fitz. We’ve been looking for answers for months now, right? Let’s keep pursuing the truth together.” 

“…Sure. Thanks, Rudeus,” said Fitz, smiling bashfully. 

That smile was seriously powerful. Fitz was probably only thirteen or so at the moment, but a few years down the line, he’d probably be a real lady-killer. To be perfectly honest…he was so cute that, lately, it was hard for me to not instinctively respond to him as I did to girls. 

Was there something wrong with my eyes, or what? Maybe I was just awakening to a latent interest in men? 

As the sun set, I headed back toward my dorm with Fitz. We’d be going our separate ways a little before the girls’ dormitory, as always. 

“Oh, right. Rudeus?” 

“Yes?” 

“I think you can take this road now, if you want to.” 

Fitz indicated the path in front of him. It led to the place where I’d been accused of stealing underwear shortly after enrolling at this university. Ever since that day, I’d been careful not to wander down into that vicinity. “Come on, Master Fitz. Are you trying to get me attacked by a shrieking horde of angry girls again?” 

“Hehe. I’m not sure that’s how it would go this time. You’ve gotten kind of popular in the girls’ dorms, you know?” 

“Huh? Wait, seriously? Am I the prince from the tennis club now?” 

“Tennis…?” 

Fitz seemed totally nonplussed. Understandable. 

“Uh, well,” he continued, “People are saying that you’re actually a gentleman. You beat up on the bad guys, but you never hurt the normal students, right? I mean, you’re strong enough to take down the Demon King, and he beat all those beastfolk warriors easily, but when the girls surrounded you and made all sorts of threats, you didn’t do anything to them.” 

He had to be making this up, right? I’d heard the way people whispered about me in the dining hall. I definitely didn’t have a fan club. 

“Hehe. They were all scared of you at first, of course. But Linia and Pursena went around telling them, Our boss is a nice guy, mew! He never picks on weaklings! ” 

As he imitated Linia’s voice, Fitz put his hands up where her cat ears would be. How can I put this? It was cute. Unfairly cute. Something spooky and mysterious was happening down around my groin. 

“After that, their opinion of you improved really fast. I mean, your clothing’s a little shabby, but your face is kind of handsome, and some girls like the gloomy look. Oh, and you’re not a pushy jerk, even though you’re really powerful.” 

Hmm. Those two must have done some seriously good work out here. From the way Fitz described it, they hadn’t mentioned that whole “impotence” thing, either. I should treat Pursena to a nice steak sometime soon. What about Linia, though? I don’t even know what she wants. Status? Honor? Cash? 

“Of course, there are some girls who are still afraid of you. Like Goliade, for example.” 

“Ah, right. That makes sense. She was at the head of that group on my first day, after all. And I sort of accidentally intimidated her just the other day.” 

“Really? Well, Linia and Pursena pester her about it every time they see her, too.” 

Hm. That might explain why she’d reacted so strongly when I tried to say hello. “You don’t intervene or anything, Master Fitz?” 

“Nope. I mean, it’s her own fault, really. She’s the one who decided you were the bad guy based on nothing at all. Maybe she’ll learn something from this.” 

Wow. Fitz could be harsh when he wanted to. I could understand where he was coming from, but bullying wasn’t the answer. 

“I don’t think she meant badly. Try not to harass her too much, okay? I’d appreciate it if you passed that message on to Linia and Pursena, also.” 

My voice came out sterner than I’d intended. Fitz held up his hands in a placating gesture, looking a little flustered. “Nobody’s harassing her, Rudeus! It’s more like they tease her every so often. I don’t think she’s scared or anything, just a little exasperated.” 

It was kind of hard to imagine someone as physically intimidating as Goliade being the kid everyone messed with… but in any case, a running joke like that could easily turn into actual bullying, so we still had to be careful here. 

“Okay. As long as it’s all in good fun, that’s fine. But for the record, I’m not holding a grudge or anything. Could you keep an eye on things and make sure they don’t take it too far?” 

“You really are a nice guy, Rudeus. Sure. I’ll let Goliade know, too.” 

That last part might not be necessary. The last thing I needed was her sending me a pair of underwear as a token of her gratitude. 

“Hehehe…” With another shy smile, Fitz started walking off down the road, while I stayed back at the crossroads. 

After three steps or so, however, he turned around to look at me. “Uhm… like I said, it really is okay for you to come this way now. If you want to.” 

“That’s all right,” I said, putting on my best cool-guy expression. “If I’ve managed to earn myself a decent reputation here, I’d better not ruin it by strutting down the road like I own the place.” 

“Huh? Uh, r-right. Sure. I guess that sounds like your style…” Stumbling a little over his words, Fitz covered his mouth with one hand. Was he trying not to laugh? Maybe the cool-guy face still needed some work. People were always telling me that my smiles were kind of disturbing, but I’d been trying my best to improve them. “Okay then, Rudeus. I’ll see you later.” 

“Right. See you soon.” 

With that, the two of us went our separate ways. For some reason, though, Fitz looked a little sad as he walked away. 

After eating dinner, I gave Julie her daily magic lesson in Zanoba’s room. 

Julie was a studious, clever kid who absorbed new information like a sponge. She was also rather dexterous, and could use her fingers to do precision work when her magic failed her. Not to be crass or anything, but Zanoba had gotten a real bargain when he picked her up. 

Still, this was only her first year in training. Her mana capacity was just too low for sustained work, and her accuracy wasn’t up to par either. Although she was skillful with her hands, she’d only just started to practice with sculpting tools, so she was still awkward with them. Teaching her the ropes was going to be a long-term project. 

While giving Julie explanations and advice, I worked on my own figurines as well. Lately, I’d started on a 1/8 scale figure of Master Fitz. But since he always wore layers and a bulky cloak, it was a little hard for me to imagine the exact shape of his body. Most of the elves I’d met were very slender, with almost nothing in the way of body fat… I could work on that assumption. The biggest problem, though, was how to deal with his private parts. I was seriously conflicted. I didn’t want to put anything in between his legs, but he might get mad at me if I depicted him as a girl. And I really wanted to show him the figurine after it was done, too. 

“If you’d like, Master, I could sneak up on him when he least expects it and rip off his clothes for you,” offered Zanoba generously. 

“Thanks, but no thanks.” 

Incidentally, Zanoba was currently working on a Red Wyrm figurine with my guidance and advice. The component parts of this figure were all relatively large, so it was a good project for him. Still, he wasn’t the best with his hands, so progress was slow. We’d have to take it step by step. 

Before I went to sleep, I took some time to read. 

Today I was working on Sig’s Summoning , the book I’d borrowed from Nanahoshi. It was the story of a witch named Sig, who had summoned many fearsome Fiends for various reasons. In the end, she used an enormous offering and a huge amount of mana to call forth a creature that was stronger than she was, which promptly killed and ate her. Her student, bitterly lamenting this tragedy, swore an oath to never summon anything beyond his ability to control. There was a moral to the story and everything. It felt a little bit like a fairy tale. 

If someone like me, who had more mana than he knew what to do with, were to summon the strongest creature that he could, there was a good chance something too powerful and dangerous to handle would show up. That was an important takeaway, at least. I’d have to start slow with this stuff, and make sure I understood the risks before I did anything too dramatic. 

Still, the book didn’t have any concrete details on how the Fiends were summoned, or the nature of the magic circles that the witch used. There wasn’t much to study in it, really… 

And so, another typical day at the University of Magic came to an end. I still hadn’t found any means of curing my condition. It almost felt like I’d missed my chance and moved on to the next part of my story by meeting Nanahoshi. Maybe the Man-God’s prophecy had left me too optimistic. Maybe I should have searched more urgently for an answer, and tried all sorts of things… 

As it happened, though, my worries proved to be unfounded. Shortly after this very day, things moved quickly toward an unexpected resolution.