Book 19 Chapter 6
Chapter 152
You and I, The Archmage's Apprentice (3)
For Rin, Tourayna’s first impression was quite perfect.
It was definitely not because of her appearance, which received all kinds of praise from later generations.
For Rin, who grew up seeing Lista and Friede every day, most ordinary women seemed to be on the same level as squid.
“Finished! It’s Rin’s special charcoal-grilled skewer. Here, if you sprinkle pigeon eyeballs on top as a sauce, they say even if three people eat it and a fourth dies, no one would know. It’s going to be a huge hit at the Osarius Magic Tower.”
It was because Tourayna ate Rin's cooking deliciously. Until now, Rin had been deceived by Lista and Friede!
By disparaging this delicious food as tasteless, they had dragged Rin's self-esteem and pride to rock bottom.
However, the day after the village itself was turned into a graveyard, the girl crawled out of a barrel and obediently accepted it.
“As expected, you can’t stand it when you’re hungry, can you? It seemed too unreasonable to starve while having this delicious food, didn’t it? Here, eat.”
The girl, who took a big bite of it… the next moment, didn’t tears well up in her eyes? Rin shouted excitedly.
“It’s delicious, isn’t it? Hey, it is delicious! Right? I really! I was deceived by those trash people, and my self-esteem was at rock bottom lately, oh, it’s such a relief.”
Unaware that those were tears the girl was shedding from too much pain!
‘It’s bitter! It’s fishy because of this eyeball juice!’
But the girl didn’t show it. She simply ate the skewer completely, from beginning to end, as if enduring an ordeal.
‘Moving…’
Rin felt his heart tremble as he watched her.
How long has it been since I felt this way?
The emotion that comes when my cooking genuinely impresses someone. A nostalgic feeling he hadn't experienced once since joining this party of lunatics.
“If it’s that delicious, I’ll make you a few more. Just in time, a few more pigeons are flying by.”
“……!!!”
“What. Are you full? Hmm, is it because you ate suddenly after starving? I know that feeling well. But why are you shaking your head so frantically? Is it because it’s not tasty? Tell me, then.”
A deep shadow fell over Rin's face, and the girl broke out in a frantic cold sweat, shaking her head even more frantically.
“Kkyuu, Kkyuu, Kkyuuuuu…….”
Sval looked at the girl with pity.
Daily life, which began when the girl came out of the barrel, was like that. Rin first washed the girl with water magic.
Having been buried in dust and grime, he hadn't realized it, but the girl's hair was the color of clear water.
It was clearer and lighter than the color Lista used to dye her hair when she played the [Hero Hiding His Power Roleplay] in the past.
“Your hair… it’s like the color of the lake I saw in the North, somehow. Isn’t it, Sval?”
“Kkyuung!”
“The North… those gorillas, I wonder if they’re doing well, it’s already been three years.”
It was natural that the other gorillas would have grown, and Winterwind Ricky would probably be able to pronounce words clearly by now.
‘Perhaps, since he’d be the same age as this kid here, their heights might have become similar.’
Rin, in that way, often saw Tourayna overlapping with Ricky.
Not once, not even once…
He never showed it to anyone, but the boy missed the Osarius Magic Tower that much.
“Why? Why are you staring like that?”
Rin, having emerged from nostalgic thoughts, asked the girl who kept glancing at him.
“Ah, you don’t mean you want to use magic, do you? Thinking, ‘How can there be such water magic in a place with no water!’? Ha~ I guess it can’t be helped. Shall I teach you some magic?”
He saw the girl intently staring at the water droplets scattered everywhere, which were from the 10th Archmage, Huke.
There, Rin saw ‘himself’ again.
In the moment the Archdean used magic, perhaps he too had made such a foolish expression.
- Hmm? What's wrong?
Then, when their eyes met, the Archdean would smile more brightly than at any other moment. That feeling at the time… so this is what it was.
“……!”
This little kid must be the same.
Even when he turned the blood-soaked village into a graveyard, he had worn that kind of expression.
Startled by the sudden question, Tourayna hid her face behind Sval's body.
‘This kid, she’s really timid.’
Having come from the slums, with a personality like that, she would be looked down upon by everyone, and life would become truly difficult.
Friede has power, so the witches of <Elsbarh> might take her in, but…
Even within that orphanage, hierarchies would exist, knowingly or unknowingly.
“The truth shall set you free. Do you know what this is? It’s a famous saying left by Emitsa Page, the progenitor of magic.”
I don't know how to handle kids.
Having experienced the great tragedy of losing family, even more so, how to handle kids who emit such negative vibes.
Therefore, he decided to take what the Archdean had done for him as a textbook and apply it exactly to this little kid.
“People need to have value. You have no value right now. Not a single one.”
He thought, what if he taught her at least basic magic?
He himself had no value, but hadn't he gained value after encountering magic? Although this kid was timid, if she could use magic, her situation might change significantly.
Of course, since he received it without cost, he decided to give it to this kid without cost too.
Having been taken in by the Archdean, and until he became a Gladus (4-star) at age thirteen, there was nothing that made him special, or that he had received because of some value.
“So, stop complaining and learn magic from me, got it? Come here.”
Rin took a twig he had intended to use for firewood and used it as chalk.
The sand deeply piled up overnight would serve as a blackboard.
He listed the basic principles of magic. It was a user manual for the combination of magic circles, runes, and mathematical equations.
“Heat is one of the very basic runes, and depending on its intensity, you can make things warm, or if you raise it to its extreme, you can make it burn. Look, like this.”
Using magic in the Remidier type for the first time in a long while, the feeling was quite novel.
First, draw the magic circle for fire magic, engrave a rune in its center, and apply a mathematical equation to its border.
When the magic's properties, the rune's characteristics, and the providence alteration equation correctly align, a manifestation (表迹) is exercised there.
“It’s a good thing I had to cook anyway.”
With a whoosh, as the pile of firewood caught fire, the girl flinched in surprise and stepped back.
Until the cooking was completed, she just stared intently at the magic circle drawn on the sand.
Indeed, it might be too much to expect her to handle magic from the start. Should I have taught her basic mathematics first?
“Kkyuut!”
Anyway, after turning from a snowflake into an ice dragon, Sval, who had only grown more useless with his wildly increasing appetite, it was then that Rin was taking the first skewer off the brazier for him.
Woong…!
Particles of magic gathered. They rose, dancing, intertwined into one, and formed a standardized shape.
It was the light of magic. As a symbol of an intuitive mage, it was the use of a 1-star Yorrhen-type magic, which could be said to be the starting point for the manifestation of a magical genius.
“Uh-oh!”
The coordinates where it occurred were right on Tourayna's palm.
“Hey, you, that!”
She didn’t know what to do, as if she had caused some trouble, and was frantically waving her hands as if to ward something off.
She didn’t know.
How to activate Yorrhen-type magic… just like me when I first learned magic at eight years old.
“Crazy, it’s Yorrhen type! Hey, the gorillas in the magic tower I was in could only use 1-star magic by writing it down! You’re amazing!”
“……?”
“You have the talent to become quite good at magic! The Republic supposedly provides basic education to its citizens unlike the Empire, is that why? Did you already know some math?”
Back then, the Archdean… what kind of emotion was in her eyes when she looked at me, I think I finally understand it clearly now.
Oh… At that time, she had felt such excitement. That’s why she started teaching me from the basics herself.
“What’s your name? Ah, can’t you speak? Then it’s fine. I’ll give you a name that’s easy for me to call, so just accept it.”
This was a small repayment.
A very small repayment for helping him understand the Archdean’s feelings.
“Dragonfolk seem to live lives befitting their names. So, I will specially, really specially! give you a name.”
“……?”
“Tourayna. It means ‘learning’ in the dragon language. It means to learn well. Anyway, we’ll part ways when we arrive in the city, so just bear with it until then.”
But it was probably a name he came up with purely for his own convenience.
No matter how much he pondered, it was impossible to give her a name as wonderful as a spring breeze at that young age. Psychologically speaking.
Since it was a name he just casually used, she would probably use her real name later on, or not, as she pleased.
“From now on, I am your master until we reach the city. Understand? Call me ‘Master’. I’m sixteen now, and you’re at most about ten. Be careful, you might get scolded if you speak informally.”
Teacher and Master, similar titles, but he couldn't dare use the word 'teacher' because… perhaps he felt he was still too inadequate to be called by the same title as the Archdean.
“Tou…?”
It was then, that the lips of the girl, who hadn't uttered any sound other than a stammer for these past five days, began to move?
“Touray, Tourayna…?”
He lost his mind for a moment at that voice.
Beyond that sea, early spring in the North, where his hometown was…
The sky that was tightly stretched in winter and then loosely relaxed as spring came, and the voice of the girl, whose hair held those very colors, felt even more transparent than the clouds floating in that sky.
“What? You could speak?”
Tourayna seemed startled that she could speak herself, and even covered her mouth with both hands, her eyes wide.
“No, no, now, now, I mean…”
“Tch, it’s already troublesome, and now you’ll start chattering too. It’s already hard enough dealing with just Sval, if you start being annoying too, I won’t stand for it.”
“Kkyuing?!”
As Tourayna nodded her head vigorously, her eyes, which held the same hue as her hair, also swayed up and down.
Ah… If I had known this would happen, should I have thought more carefully and given her a better name? The Archdean had pondered for days to give me a name.
‘Did she know it all along…?’
How important and precious a name is to a person.
How could I not know?
When I received that name, I felt a shock as if color was painted into a monochrome world… That's why I always regretted it in a corner of my heart.
Thinking, I should have given her a better name.
Later…
When the journey ends…
That is, when I open my eyes again 300 years later…
Until I see a passage in a biography that says you cherished that name, Tourayna, as the pride of your life.
“Alright, then let’s quickly finish eating before it gets cold and start moving. We have a long way to go before another sandstorm comes.”
Since they had been isolated in this ruined village for five days due to a sandstorm, they would have to hurry their journey quite a bit from now on.
They needed to travel to <Elsbarh>, the rendezvous point with the hero party members.
<Elsbarh> is a fortress city located in the middle of the vast granary, the Rambrus Plains, in the central-western part of the Adrion Continent, and served as the front-line base for the Siege of <Langbard>.
“Shall we have one more eyeball skewer before we leave?”
“Kkyuung!”
“Eh…”
Tourayna gaped blankly.
Rin's two eyes gleamed!
“Eh?”
“Yaaayyyyyyyyyyy!”
Tourayna, who seemed about to let out a desperate sigh, let out a cheer as if she was overly excited. Rin, whose eyes had been brightly sparkling, only then awkwardly rubbed under his nose.
“You’re that excited? Ha, my cooking isn’t at the [Strongest] level yet, this is a bit pressure-inducing.”
These two insignificant beings had already become slaves to the Northern specialty. The feeling of reigning over someone with food wasn’t so bad either.
‘Hmph, once I become the [Strongest Mage], will I always feel this kind of satisfaction?’
No.
That’s not it.
* * *
Around that time, somewhere on the <Langbard> defense line, or rather, the Dirbeta Front… an ancient evil was about to descend.
In the ancient language, Asarakalt. In the modern language, Old Nobility.
One of the <Forgotten Kings>, the elite guard of Lizard Lord Neigalath, the leader of ‘Rotten’s Eternal Annihilation Squad (永滅隊)’… Helrkain of Slaughter (殺穫).