v1c3 (2/2)
“Have you got any proof? Really, and you say you made a Fire Ball? You’re saying some funny things. Don’t say such things that would make an Orc kick you in the side with its short legs and just courteously beg for a piece if you’re hungry. A man shouldn’t lie in front of such fresh food.”
As expected, I was strongly reb.u.t.ted by my master.
How much he must have eaten while I was asleep for that bull-sized boar to reduced to the size of a dog!
‘I know you did it! You scrupleless old fart!’
“Then, if your disciple makes a Fire Ball, then will you believe that my words are the truth?”
“Fire Ball? Alright, if you make a Fire Ball, I’ll believe you.”
‘Kuhahaha! I’ll show you. The magic skill of this genius!’
I was hungry, but with the hope of eating meat, I stood up vigorously.
“My blazing will, my friend, Mana, my rage is your rage. In my name, rain down the purification of fire!”
I concentrated my will drop by drop and roused my mana.
‘Huh? Ah!’
But contrary to my intent, my mana didn’t move.
Bam!
“Ow!”
Instead, my master’s rocklike fist fell upon me.
“Yeesh, you lying b.a.s.t.a.r.d. For a person from the courteous country of the East to try and deceive his master because of some meat. Eat up. It’s the meat you wanted.”
When he finished talking, a hind leg that clearly had Master’s teeth marks in it appeared before my eyes.
‘Giving such ragged meat to me, who wants to live like a panther dominating Mt. Kilimanjaro no matter how hungry I am—!’
“Thank you for the meal.”
Contrary to my thoughts, my hands had somehow rapidly moved to receive the meat, and an emotional smile appeared on my lips.
“That’s right, that’s how you should be. In the future, live kindly without lies like that. Being hungry isn’t a sin.”
“Master’s words, I shall definitely be sure to keep them in mind.”
After laying down some stern discipline, Master turned around and left the room.
‘Argh, how can I live my life without having to eat bread soaked in tears! One day, I will get back at that master who is arm in arm with the devil!’
My desire to win blazed furiously. On this foreign land far from home, I was able to experience with my whole body the pain of those without power or support.
Munch.
And, I dug into the little boar meat that Master b.u.mdalf had left.
‘Yummy!’
I held back my surging tears as I enjoyed the boar meat’s hazy taste. It was just like an illusion— even if you were to die while eating it, you wouldn’t know.
Nom nom.
‘Is there any alcohol left?’
Having stooped so low, I vigorously justified myself.
Meat was meat, and servility was servility— that was all.
* * *
“Y-you’re sending me off?”
I had to confirm Master’s unbelievable words.
“That’s right. You’re not progressing at all, and I see that teaching a blockhead like you is hard at this old age.”
‘Should I believe this? Is he gonna tell me he’s helping me and then get me employed on a deep-sea fis.h.i.+ng s.h.i.+p or something?’
A life that you lived while believing in others was beautiful, but since he had scammed me so many times, my doubt came before my belief.
“Ack! Master, thank you. Actually, I did not tell you, but I was born onto this world with the tremendously important responsibility of carrying on the family line, as the eldest son of the Kang family’s 45th generation. Though I am fine with anything, the anxiety my parents and grandpa will feel concerning the continuation of the family line upon losing me will be considerable. If Master could possibly send me home, my bones shall become dust and that dust will fly off to all parts of the world— such will be the extent of my everlasting grat.i.tude to you.”
I would be the world’s greatest fool if I missed this chance. As I had already experienced, master b.u.mdalf was fickle and his mind could change at any time. This was no time to be worrying about pride or anything like that. I just wanted to return to the embrace of Korea, the home I longed for.
“Why does it feel like you’re implying that I imprisoned you while repressing, exploiting, and coercing you? Surely you’re not resenting me even after justly receiving a custom-made present?”
It was a dangerous moment. If I soured this sicko master’s feelings, then I’d be at risk of getting dropped off on an uninhabited island.
The situation became urgent.
“In the East, there’s a famous saying that the master is no different from a parent. Although that wasn’t so at first, having formed a master and disciple relations.h.i.+p with you, I shall hold dear feelings about Master, who showed me the kindness of a parent. This humble human, Kang Hyuk, is not one so shameless as to not know of his master’s grace.”
I even pulled out dramatic words that were so far from my true thoughts that they made my insides bleed all over.
“Of course that’s how it should be. The heaven and the earth know how hard I worked for your sake.”
The essence of fraud, which far surpa.s.sed my acting! He was capable of lowering the sacred names of the heaven and earth to the level of a pro-j.a.panese informant.
[T/N: Lots of bad blood between Koreans and j.a.panese. We mean no offense; we’re just the messengers!]
“Since there’s no knowing when we’ll meet again after parting, your master has prepared a few presents just for you.”
‘Huh? Pre-presents?’
Before, I would have jumped to receive them, but because I had a very bad memory about presents, my face hardened like a stone statue.
“What, you don’t want them?”
Upon seeing my stiffening expression, Master b.u.mdalf frowned.
“T-that’s not it. How could I not want them? Only, this disciple of yours has done nothing, so always receiving things like this p.r.i.c.kles my conscience. Master, can’t we just pretend that I received them?”
Never in my life had I, Kang Hyuk, lived while trembling in fear with such servility. When I was in preschool, resentful of my parents’ disciplining methods, I had fearlessly run away from home for 5 days and 4 nights with just two Choco Pies and one liter of milk.
That Kang Hyuk became impossibly smaller before b.u.mdalf. And especially because I had learned magic, I knew very well the weight of the 8th Circle.
“Huhu, there’s no need to refuse. All you have to do is receive your master’s warm feelings.”
I really wanted to refuse those honeyed feelings! I got gooseb.u.mps all over and clenched my eyes shut.
“Follow me, my one and only disciple.”
“T-to where?”
With a voice as friendly as if he were calling the next door neighbor’s dog, Master’s beckoning had confirmed that my fears weren’t groundless.
“Do you want to come when I’m being nice, or…”
Fwoosh.
At the end of his words, a compressed scarlet Fire Ball the size of a head was terrifyingly manifested by his will alone.
“Let us be off, then. This humble disciple has been trembling in antic.i.p.ation of the present infused with Master’s sincere feelings, from the very beginning.”
Since I was sure he wouldn’t kill me anyway, I clenched my eyes shut.
In such a situation, I knew I would only get hit if I resisted. If I was going to die, then it was probably a wise choice to die without getting hit.
* * *
‘Geh! What, what is this?’
Closing my eyes as tightly as if I were being taken to the slaughterhouse, I followed Master to the lowest floor of the magic tower. Possessing its own generator, the magic tower was fitted with cutting-edge technology, including an elevator.
And then, a huge door opened at Master’s command.
Arriving in front of that door, my eyes were a.s.sailed by the sight of a enormous disorienting magic circle, and I couldn’t close my mouth.
‘So many runes and figures I don’t know. What in the world is this magic circle?’
Since I wasn’t an Upper Circle Mage yet, there wasn’t much knowledge I needed to know for magic. I realized that after coming here, for some reason, my mind had become sharper than before. My IQ had exceeded 150 before, but I felt that my brain had gained even more lucid processing power.
“Now, what do you think about this present of mine?”
“Huh? Pr-present?”
Master proudly called the magic circle a present.
“You dumba.s.s. If another Mage saw this, they’d be happy enough to lift me to the skies. Tsk tsk, I even have to feed you the meal that I prepared… my goodness.”
Master b.u.mdalf was looking at me as if I were the most woeful person in the world.
‘Whaddya want me to do about it?’
The magic knowledge I possessed was incomparably humble. It was like trying to get an elementary student who had just learned arithmetic to figure out differentials and integrals.
“What’re you doing instead of going to the center and sitting down?”
“Huh? T-the center?”
It was a 20 meter wide magic circle that s.h.i.+mmered with a golden light that was combined with all seven colors of the rainbow. Master was telling me to go sit in the center of such a circle.
‘M-maybe he’s gonna…?’
Since I was still a layman when it came to magic circles, I thought that maybe the magic circle in front of my eyes right now was a Dimensional Travel circle.
Bam!
“You idiot! If I sent you off through dimensional travel, you would come out as Orc p.o.o.p the very next day after your arrival!”
‘Orc p.o.o.p…’
Along with dog p.o.o.p, Orc dung happened to be the most vulgar of the many varieties of p.o.o.p.
‘Hmph! Were you an 8th Circle Mage as soon as you were born?’
Master was quick-witted, but I had recently found out that he wasn’t a mind-reader. Even a worm could become a mystical creature, though maybe perhaps not to the level of a dragon, if it lived for two hundred years or so. it was nothing strange for a person to be able to tell what others were thinking after living for two hundred years. That’s why I was relieved and often spoke my mind to him.
“Do you think that you are strong?”
“Huh? I am not strong, but I have enough strength to protect myself.”
It wasn’t a lie— if it wasn’t Master, then no matter where I went, I was confident that I would live without getting trodden upon.
“Is that so? Do you think you’ll be able to win if you fight an elite troop armed with well-maintained weapons?”
“W-what?”
“Are you confident you can take a single blow from a knight who uses Aura Blade?”
‘What is he talking about?’
“…”
“D’you think you can preserve your life while fighting a horde of Orc warriors who possess twice as much physical prowess as robust humans?”
Master b.u.mdalf was wearing a cold smile that he normally didn’t show.
“B-but aren’t they foes who don’t exist in this world?”
It would honestly be difficult to easily win against the opponents Master had spoken of. In particular, a knight who used aura, a specialized mana force, was far stronger than the current me.
“Then can you block a bullet?”
“What? A, a bullet?”
I had absolutely no clue what he wanted to say. I mean, besides Superman, no one in the world was capable of blocking a bullet with their bare body.
“I can deflect not only bullets, but large cannonb.a.l.l.s as well.”
‘Dayum, he’s really an old fart Super b.u.mdalf.’
From the way he said it, I could tell that it definitely wasn’t a lie.
“Just believe in me. As long as it’s not a dragon, I’ll make it so that everyone else will call you their elder brother.”
‘Elder brother? I’m not even a gangster or anything… sigh.’
My master’s earnest wish was to get me employed as a gangster. There was no way to rebuff such a stubborn old man.
“By all means, do as you wish.”
Until I was out of here, there was no freedom for me. It was a slight exaggeration, but this was the first time in my life that I longed so much for my country, South Korea, the republic of the free.
‘I’m coming, mom.’
No matter how I thought about it, Master’s magic circle was tremendously dangerous. Master was an immensely intelligent being who had lived for over two hundred years, but the way he acted wasn’t much different from the preschool kids in my neighborhood. And I was the pitiful loser who was getting bullied and robbed of my money by such a preschooler’s violence.
“Um, Master…”
Before I positioned myself in the middle of the magic circle, I earnestly called my master.
“What?”
Master was picking his nose without knowing my feelings of being dragged to the slaughterhouse. He apathetically answered without even dislodging his finger.
“Th-this one doesn’t use Chinese-made crystals, right?”
Chinese-made crystals, which had made me decisively hostile to the magic circle’s reliability last time!
“Hyuk, let me ask you one thing.”
“Yes?”
Master suddenly asked a question.
“Do you think it’s possible to live without Chinese-made goods these days?”
“…”
There was nothing more for me to say.
I went to the middle of the magic circle and sighed deeply as I sat down cross-legged.
‘Okay, there are sometimes nice Chinese-made goods.”
I tried comforting myself.
But the problem was, those nice goods only appeared by random chance with the same probability of finding a pearl while eating an oyster.
* * *
‘I thought it would take half a year, he’s an amazing kid.’
The totally dejected Kang Hyuk sat on top of the magic circle and a.s.sumed the mana channeling position. As he looked at Hyuk, Aidal the Mage was unable to repress his awe.
Actually, even among the genius Mages in the Kallian Continent, it normally took them at least half a year to condense mana and barely reach 1st Circle Magic. If magic was as easy to learn as the sword, then Mages and even dogs and cows would gain the t.i.tle of Archmage. Working that hard was normal in magic.
But surprisingly enough, in slightly less than two months, Aidal’s new disciple Kang Hyuk had been able reach the 2nd Circle. And he had done so by merging a knight’s mana field, the lower danjeon, a Mage’s mana field, the middle danjeon, and a summoner’s mana field, the upper danjeon.
‘I have to send him when he’s risen to the 3rd Circle and the fusion of his mana has naturally occurred. But there’s no time. If this mana is held back any longer, it will burst out.’
With a look of regret, Aidal gazed at his disciple, who knew nothing and was channeling. Contrary to the Kallian Continent, Aidal had not been able to find materials for producing high-quality crystals. The result of that was that unlike his calculations, the mana that had been held in the Dimensional Travel magic circle could not stabilize and had begun to activate. As per the Law of Mana Restoration, the instinct of powerful mana was to return to its original state.
‘Now everything is up to your luck. I can only pray that the great G.o.d Adeine’s blessing is upon you.’
Though it wasn’t as dangerous as the Dimensional Travel magic circle, this Forced Knowledge Transferal magic circle was also very dangerous.
Though Hyuk’s body had been cleansed through the grand magic Mana Clear, getting to the 2nd Circle was the limit for generating circles by forcefully injecting mana. From the 3rd Circle onwards, he would have to gain circles through enlightenments without anyone else’s help.
That’s why people called magic a study for wise men.
‘I will pa.s.s on all the magic theories I have comprehended in these past two hundred years to you. After I do so, it’s all up to you. Your life will change by as much as you are able to comprehend.’
Once Kang Hyuk was completely absorbed in mana breathing, Aidal opened a side door. The door opened to show a magic circle 3 meters in diameter.
It was the core magic circle that could impart all the magic knowledge inside Aidal’s head using magic.
‘Awaken, my disciple! And let the whole world know of Aida’s great disciple!’
The wall of the 9th Circle, which he had not been able to achieve.
Aidal wished. He wished for his one and only disciple to become a great Archmage who would surpa.s.s him.
“Magic Inheritance!”
A clear magic incantation burst from Aidal’s mouth as he closed his eyes.
Ziiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing!
Countless mana particles slowly poured from the magic circle. Each particle possessing a color of its own, the mana swirled into a whirlpool.
The mana at the magic circle that Kang Hyuk was sitting on also began to dance. The magic was filled with Aidal’s earnest wish for Hyuk to become a great Archmage.
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