Tl note: hello, guess I need to apologize again. Currently things look promising translation-wise, but my schedule is so filled that I barely have time to sleep. I’m trying my hardest to keep up with all my projects and I really hope I’ll bring good news soon.
Unluckily, I only have bad ones today: five days ago, on the eight of April, my adorable proofreader’s father left this world. I managed to attend his funeral and, as you can guess, it’s been quite heavy and hard. May he rest in peace.
I always hope people endure this kind of pain as few times as possible. I fail to wrap my head around such complex feelings. After all I can do to support who’s been left behind is over, I can only pray for them to accept their loss and keep on living as they deserve to.

The clash between the Light Blade and the magic sword

There was a training ground in the Magic Academy used for offensive magic’s training.
That day my bar was closed and I had promised Cody to meet her, so there I was.

We didn’t use wooden swords to practice, but our personal ones. My Healing Magic could close bruises and small cuts in a jiffy, so we were sparring seriously.

“Take this!”
“Woah…!”

Cody had summoned her spirit sword ‘Light Blade’ and slashed through the air with an impossible speed.

I was holding a simple steel sword I had enhanced with magic. It could now block Cody’s attacks without being cut like butter, but its blade could still be chipped here and there when I blocked massive blows. The Light Blade was simply too hard, there was no way to counter it completely for me. It also exponentially improved Cody’s movement speed, and it was thanks to that combined with my Support Magic that we managed to defeat Verlaine, the former Demon Lord.

In front of her throne, she grooved a magic circle which massively boosted her defence, and we managed to win only once we cut her magic power away, so that she couldn’t keep it up any more. I vividly remember Cody swinging her sword in a storm of slashes and thrustes.

I used my Limiter Removal and yet she’s keeping up to me…?! This girl is scary…!

“You’re wide open, Dick!”
“What?!”

Sensing that my sword was at its limit, she tried to smash it with her next attack.

“Spirit Blade – Attack Rise!”

I acted in a split second: I injected magic power in my sword. A magic blade sprout out of it to mitigate Cody’s attack and then I slashed her as hard as I could. Normally, a sword this enhanced would be extremely hard and sharp, and although it was badly damaged, a hard blow like this would’ve been intense for everyone… but not for Cody.

“Laguna – Blade Wall!”

I only had the time to click my tongue.
The Light Blade moved on its own the moment it heard its wielder’s command and changed its shape into a wall of blades.
That was bad. Since that weapon’s range was as far as the wielder could see, I could be hit by countless bullets or stray slashes right now.

As expected, the very next moment a storm of lightning-speed attacks went after me. Luckily, the Light Blade’s attacks couldn’t change their direction, so I could manage if I guessed which every one of them landed.

I tried my best at dodging and blocking, but in the end, my sword snapped. I was amazed about how long that simple sword endured the Light Blade’s blows. There wasn’t a weapon in the world that could stand them, I was even more convinced of it. If I hadn’t enhanced my sword with all I had, it would’ve snapped at the first clash.

However, our match wasn’t settled yet. I could make up for this broken sword.
Trying to compress as much magic power as I could, I saw what happened.

“I got you, Dick!”
“Not yet…!”

Spirit Blade Materialize!

“What the…! You brought that broken sword back?!”
“Actually, I just made it…!”

This was totally different from the blade Cody had just chopped. I felt confident enough to strike back, so I went on the offensive.

To pump up the output of my attack as much as I could, I stroke with all my strength, aiming to being parried. That way, Cody would need to use a huge lot of her magic power to counter me, and maybe it wouldn’t have been enough. If we kept this up, it would turn into a matter of endurance—the one who exhausted their magic power first would lose.

I could see a smile on Cody’s face and I felt my lips stretched too. We kept analyzing each other at inhuman speed, knowing that a single misstep would have resulted in a fatal wound, and yet having a foe at our level was just too much fun.

“Urgh…!”

Cody kept blocking my assault, then her sword’s trajectory became slightly sloppy, showing that I was throwing her off balance. Her eyes were speaking for her—Go easy on me and I’ll never forgive you.
As she wished, I was merciless and pressed the attack, taking advantage of her condition.

I hit hard with my sword and now that it was this enhanced, it dealt heavy blows. All Cody could do was defend, but it was tiring even for her, and then I went all out: I used more magic power and attacked her with sixteen slashes, all from different directions.

“Not yet!”

In an instant, she held her ground and had a huge amount of magical power flow into her weapon, which exploded and slashed automatically at me to block all the attacks. However, she could only mitigate the damage I dealt her, which ripped her clothes.

After her impressive wall of defence withstood fifteen slashes, she noticed an instant too late that a sixteenth was approaching her from behind. That would’ve been the first clean hit on her, which would’ve brought our sparring session to an end.

It all happened in a split second: she squeezed all her magic power in her muscles to dodge that last attack, and for an instant, her body almost looked like it had been cut down, but luckily the slash’s trail only cut more of her clothes as I charged beyond her. That gave Cody enough time to regain her stance and look for a new chance to attack.

Keeping up a fight like that was exhausting for both of us.
Looking at her, I hesitated for an instant, and my focus faltered. The blade I compressed over my broken sword disappeared, and taking the chance, Cody pointed her Light Blade at my throat before I had time to do anything else.

“That… that was unlucky. I don’t know if I can call this a win, but can I…?”
“Well, yes, it’s 1-0 for you. I overdid it and this is the result.”

I had yet to gain full control on the modified magic blade. The moment I lost focus on it, it disappeared, so keeping it up for long time was very hard.

It was a coincidence that I managed to make up for the broken blade like that and I made sure there was no way to land a clean hit on Cody as long as she had even the slightest chance to avoid, parry or block.

Cody had always been rigid with herself, especially when it came to training, so I didn’t know if she would’ve accepted my last comment about my performance just now… then she smiled, put her Light Blade away and canceled the spirit blade’s summon.
The next moment, she grabbed a towel.

“It’s been a while since I last received a serious blow… now I finally remember that feeling. Losing comes when you feel like this, huh?”
“Not like I could win against your Light Blade, though. I always keep my body enhanced too, but that doesn’t even make a difference against you, Cody.”
“That’s because your spirit blade brought the best out of me. Withstanding that many heavy blows means keeping all your focus on the sword. Looks like we still have room to improve.”

She talked while drying her sweaty skin and hair. Her bangs looked like glued to her forehead during our fight.
A drop ran down her cheek, then fell on her bosom, tracing the soft curve of her breast, and leaving a wet, hot trail down her tummy, which were now almost entirely exposed. I doubted my eyes.

“What are you looking at, Dick…?”

Cody looked down and saw it herself.

Her last dodge saved her body, but not her clothes, which were sliced down almost to her crotch. Even the chest binding cloth she wore had been cut, letting me see her bare, soft skin.
She hurriedly hid herself with her hands as best as she could, then turned her back to me.

“S-Sorry… I was so absorbed in our sparring that I didn’t notice my clothes were like this…”
“N-No, don’t be… I’m the one who should apologize here…”

That left me taken aback too. I had no idea chest binding could help someone hide so much of their body. That was amazing.

I thought Cody was almost flat, that’s how she managed to hide her breasts so well, but now I was sure that was pie in the sky. Without that cloth, I felt like my eyes had been forced open to re-evaluate how aware I was of her.

O-Oh my… I’m sorry, Cody, I know I shouldn’t think like this, but… damn, me, keep yourself together! There’s something more important than this right now.

No matter how good I’ve been in our sparring, I had to take responsibility for reducing her clothes like that. Even her back was very visible, as the gash on her clothes ran from her shoulder to half-way her back, framing her white, beautiful skin. I did attack her from sixteen directions, so that was a possible and not dramatic outcome.
I grabbed the towel I should’ve dried myself up with and placed it on Cody’s shoulder.

“T-Thank you, Dick… but isn’t this yours? Won’t you use it?”
“Don’t worry, I brought two today. The other one is in my locker. I’ll dry myself up later.”

She took it timidly and started to help herself, then slowed down.

“This smells totally different from mine… you use a nice soap or is this just how good your house smells?”
“What are you saying, Cody…? I won’t deny that smells like home for me, but still…”

Her comment was so unexpected that it made me smile. I didn’t know she was the kind of girl who would mind stuff like that. She glanced at me and smiled back while she dried her neck.

Cody kept her hair a little shorter than her shoulders, except for a long pigtail tied behind her back. Her mother loved that peculiar cut, that’s why she’d always stuck to it.

When she rose her pigtail to wipe her neck, her white nape stole my breath for a moment. My brain was sending me too many a signal that told me how feminine Cody was, which led me feeling like a disgusting animal, so I looked away from her.

“I’m glad you didn’t hold back, Dick.”
“Well, you’re not a foe I can just hold back against. A wrong step and I’d be dead.”
“Hahaha! I thought some blows we exchanged were a bit too risky, yes. Your last attack was the end of my clothes.”

I was glad she avoided my assault. If anything happened, I could’ve healed her right away, and I was sure I could’ve saved her even if the injury was grave, but luckily that was nothing. I was also confident any minor injury wouldn’t have even left any scars or marks behind, but yeah, prevention is better than cure.

“You know, I’m somewhat bitter, though. I thought no weapon could stand Laguna… I kept trying circling around you and attack from behind, but your blows were just too heavy. If I tried to move too much, I wouldn’t have withstood them.”
“I researched a lot to improve weapons as much as I can, but there’s still a limit they all hit.”
“You mean the magic blades? I think you can polish them so much they’ll manage to rival my Light Blade. I’ll try my best not to be left behind.”

Cody pulled out her chest binding cloth while speaking and managed to make up for it with my towel. It was big enough to cover her, as she tied its extremities together.
When she turned around, her bosom was pushed under it, peeking a bit from above.

“I feel my skin burning a bit here and there… it looks like I have quite a lot of small cuts and bruises around. Even your last slash left a shallow cut behind…”
“I-Is that so…? I’m very sorry, Cody. Would you hate it if I healed you?”

She probably didn’t want to show me much of her body, especially now that I knew she was a girl.

However, she had changed and looked a little less reserved about it, since she wasn’t trying to cover her belly. She hadn’t been tense because our abs were divided differently, but probably because our very bodies were different, given our genders.
There was no way for a girl or a boy to replicate the other sex’s hips’ width.

“Well… can you help me with a few ones? But don’t look too much, please. I need you to close them up before I take a bath, or they’d sting.”

I honestly thought that was a bold request, but she was asking my help for once. The shallow red cut that ran from her belly to her partially covered chest was now clearly visible.

Then, my mind went completely blank. I felt a huge wave of regret splashing inside me.
She was blushing, her hot and moist body fidgeting ever so slightly. That was the General of the army, but looking at her now, she simply was a girl.
How could I face her properly now that I hurt her?

I did as she asked: I extended my hand not looking at her, my palm facing the reddened parts on her skin.

“I won’t look at you. Heal…”
“Dee, you should look at what you’re healing. Should I do that for you?”

Teacher’s voice reached me from the side as I was about to start healing Cody.
What the heck, where did she come from?!

“Huuuh… w-when did you get here? Did you use Transfer Magic…?”
“You said you were going to spar with the Light Blade’s owner, and you also suggested me to drop by later since we have stuff to do, didn’t you? I literally did as you asked… but am I interrupting something?”
“N-No, not at all! Thank you for your consideration, Mrs. Teacher, I’ll gladly accept your suggestion.”

Cody switched to her formal way of speaking and accepted Teacher’s treatment.
She cast Recover Light on her hand and just traced all the cuts and bruises she saw, which closed and healed the very moment she passed over them with her fingers.

“This should do. Dee, I see you didn’t hold back. That’s great, you did well.”
“Thank you, I’m honored. We decided we couldn’t hold back, otherwise sparring wouldn’t make sense.”
“I didn’t think I would win against Dick, but I’m glad to confirm I’m still up to him. I’ll keep up with my training as I look forward to our next sparring session.”

Seeing her working so hard always helped me feeling at ease with myself.
I kept feeling unease about my lack of perception of how much ahead I could be than other people. I hated that moment when I turned around and I was alone, leagues ahead of everyone else.

“Dee, getting into the expedition party surely changed you in better. You look much more at ease now than in the old days.”
“P-Please… spare me embarrassing comments like that…”
“Hahaha! Dick, you’re so stiff when you talk to your teacher! How funny!”

Cody dropped her formality and got back to being the girl she used to be with me. Having so much to see about her made me realize I wasn’t looking at her the same way I did up to that moment.

And yet, my mind drifted away from that.
Teacher had to turn herself in and be judged by the court. That was all that could fill my mind right now.

“Teacher, it’s time. Wait here, I’m getting some spare clothes.”
“Okay. Don’t worry, I won’t run away.”

She didn’t wear the same clothes she had when we fought at White Capricorn’s. She was now clad in Verlaine’s monochrome dress and was behaving very meekly, as if showing that she really was aware of being a sinner.

Other people connected to her and I had to attend her trial. I thought they probably wouldn’t have one-sidedly judged her a sinner and executed her on the spot, but she sure was at risk of being arrested and tossed to jail.

Cody watched over us with a humble look on her face, then turned around and went to change her clothes. I needed to calm the excitement I was still feeling about the training, so I walked to my locker room and readied myself for what had to come.

<Prev | Index | Next>

Translator’s tl;dr: hey there, it’s been a couple of months since my last update. This will be the last one for 2021 (for some of you will be the first one of 2022, but whatever), so I feel like talking a bit.
First and foremost, I’m sorry for not keeping up with the monthly release of Dick and New Game as I wanted to. I really hope I’ll fix this bad habit of mine, but I’ll keep saying what I really feel: I care a lot about these series, so I want to keep working on them. Thank you all for sticking around this year too.
Talking a bit more about my life: this year has been a rollercoaster with a lot of nosedives. I lost faith in what I do, I lost my almost-inexistent self-esteem, I lost my will to walk on the path I wanted to walk on… and that’s exactly what made me feel the little spark that rekindled my passion.
I’ll be honest: this year I thought to stop being a translator a lot of times, because I thought I’m worthless. I felt miserable and lost… like it was the end of my dream.
But once I found myself surrounded by these “walls” in my mind, I managed to get a better look at myself and what I was gripping at, and I understood that I felt so bad because I had stopped walking in front of them, instead of walking along them looking for the next corner. I’ve been motionless for a lot of time and that made me feel suffocated… so I tried to change my surroundings and the drive I thought I had lost finally started to push my back again.
I met old acquaintances, worked on new projects, stopped waiting… and re-evaluated some people. I went as far as leaving some as well. These last two points has been the hardest I had to face in a long time, because the people I decided to leave were close friends I thought very dear of, and even thought I knew everyone grow up eventually, I wasn’t ready yet. I didn’t want our roads to divide just yet… and I failed to notice that our roads took different routes years ago. The love I felt in my heart burned for the people that were in those memories, not for the people they are now. I was just gripping at fleeting memories.
And yet, no matter how distant or dreamlike those memories are right now, I don’t want to turn my back on them, and I thank all those little happy moments from the bottom of my heart.
This year has been hard for me, but I won’t forget it. I will keep it close to my heart, like all the others, and try my best to be a better person and someone my little self would look up to.

Again, thank you all for sticking around, I hope I won’t let you down too much in 2022!
Wish you all the best!
This is the last chapter of Dick’s second arc, so from 2022 we’ll begin the third one!

On the road of melting snow, on the way from student to teacher

The night shift began, and customers started to walk in the bar. The male customers could tell under those masks were beautiful faces, but none of them pried into the girl’s identity or were rude.

Cody, as expected, was very popular with our female customers, and soon got the gist of the work. Aileen was as much popular with men, as they called out to her each time they had the chance to, even when she brought new customers to their seat.

The resolute men of the slums were regulars, and they were now toasting with their mugs high, while the women spoke about their problems in the corners of the bar, sipping at their gentle blends. I could see Rigel and McKinley as well sitting face to face, drinking their usual ale, and next to them sat Zect, who was quite rare to see.

Lia, Leeza and Sakuya were interested in Teacher, who got used so quickly to welcoming guests and leading them to their sits that she was now strolling up and down the hall like Cody and Aileen.

Teacher kept her eyes on us whenever she could, and whenever Mimia felt her gaze, she shuddered in fear.

Teacher had yet to apologize. She did tell them it was her fault, and I expected her to apologize at least to Gustav, but she never did.

Even if Gustav’s daughter had been kidnapped, he didn’t blame Teacher, which was unexpected.

The wolfrim duo were now sitting at the counter, taking it easy. Mimia had her hands on her lap, her back slightly bended over as if to curl on herself to make herself invisible, but feeling the lively mood in the bar, her ears moved around under her hood, curious about what was happening around her, and sometimes her fluffy tail swayed at unexpected sounds.

Then, Gustav turned slightly to talk to me.

“Those demi-humans aren’t hiding their ears. I saw many who didn’t wear hoods in the streets… I’m impressed you really treat them like any human.”
“People in the capital don’t usually look at them with prejudice. For example, Lia leads a thousand-human-men legion although she’s a woman and a demi-human. They trust each other so much it’s impossible to copy.”
“I see… so not every demi-human here has to live in contempt…”

Gustav patted his lustrous beard, drooping his triangular ears. Probably Mimia imitated him as well, as her hood looked less puffy than a few seconds before. Demi-humans showed a lot of emotions through their ears, and she probably didn’t feel much at ease while hiding.

However, her father was a dauntless man. His massive build wasn’t just for show.
Also, looking at them reminded me of Yuma’s family: her father was huge too, unlike Yuma who was cutely little. I could feel the same familiar warmth between them as well.
Verlaine handed Gustav a black ale, making sure that the foam on it looked as it should have. At the same time, Mylarka handed Mimia the drink she prepared. She followed the instructions without the slightest of changes, going as far as using a weighing scale. How ‘teacher-y’ of her.

“Sorry for keeping you waiting, Sir.”
“Wait, I had yet to order…”
“That sir over there… I mean, this is a treat from our owner.”

I was playing the drunkard in the corner of the counter like usual when Verlaine called out to me. If I didn’t, they would’ve seen me blushing right now.
Gustav accepted the black ale taken aback, then let out a soft snort and smiled.

“Mimia, can I drink this? I promise I won’t get drunk.”
“It’s… it’s fine… I don’t mind. Drink as much as you want, I know you like it.”

She hesitated to answer. Was it the aftermath of the shock she had yet to get over? Thinking about it, I felt my heart tightening.
Then, Gustav turned to talk to me, and probably read what I felt on my face.

“You don’t need to feel bad for us. That Rabbirim… Sakuya brought me to my daughter, so it’s all thanks to your guild if this story ended well for us. I can’t imagine that your comrade created those collars without a reason, but I’ll probably never understand her choice. The only thing I’m sure about is that Mimia would rejoice if I killed that woman with my own hands.”
“I understand how scary that woman can be, given her knowledge and power… but rest assured that we’ll try our hardest to watch over her and never let her do something so dreary again.”

Teacher was watching and listening to us from a distance. However, I couldn’t figure out what she was thinking. Her eyes looked almost inorganic.

“I’m a simple man, I just can’t figure that out. If she did that only to harm someone she hated, why going so far? Especially looking at her. How can a young girl like her hate someone so much? If she can be so cruel, at least have her look like a monster, not like a beauty.”
“Gustav… can I ask your daughter what she remembers?”

The man nodded and turned to look at Mimia, who was unmoving, her hands barely touching the glass in front of her.

“Honestly… I don’t remember much. I shape-shifted, then everything got confused, and before I knew it, I found myself in an hospital room with a doctor… then dad came in. I was really afraid when they put me the collar, but now it’s water under the bridge.”

She let me see her neck: there was no trace or scar of the collar. I bet it was thanks to the demi-humans’ natural regenerative ability.

“I wanted to come here to thank you all. Especially the good man Sakuya acts for.”

Mimia shared a positive feeling for us and our guild because she knew we saved her and brought her back to her father. She was especially grateful to Sakuya.

I had to be as well, since Mimia never doubted that I helped Teacher to do all of this. If it wasn’t for Sakuya, I’m sure things wouldn’t have been so easy on me, given my relationship with Teacher.

“I apologize for butting in your talk, dear customer, but the foam of your beer is supposed to be enjoyed as it sits atop your drink.”
“You’re right… again, let me thank you for everything. Especially for saving my daughter.”
“Dad… make a toast.”

Mimia prodded her father with her elbow, and he smiled wryly. Then, the two of them raised their cups, and I joined too, speaking first.

“Cheers.”
“Yeah. Sorry about this, it looks like my daughter looked up to bars’ customs.”
“I’ll drink like you when I grow up, dad, I’m enjoying the moment… even though I’m not drinking alcohol right now.”
“It’s still a bit early for you, sweetie. I heard that here in the capital you can drink once you’re sixteen.”

Gustav took a few sips from his jug and made a pleased face, Mimia kept watching her father and didn’t taste her drink.
I was positively surprised to hear what he said. If he knew that, it meant that he looked a bit into the capital’s law, even though he surely had a terrible first impression of the place where his daughter was stolen.

Demi-humans usually tried to understand humans, but many of them also tried to push people away. Demi-humans are stronger than humans, so people were scared that one day they would unite and march against humans.

That fear pushed people to do horrible stuff to demi-humans to keep them under control. The capital was just another place where humans were the majority, so they inevitably pressured demi-humans.

“Not all people will ever accept what’s different, but now I think some will learn to. I hope humans will never use demi-humans again, and that they won’t have too many hard feelings… like you, Gustav.”
“If there were more people like you, I’m sure that wouldn’t happen. But yeah, I know I should try to do something about it as well. My old man was already thinking about it, and soon I’ll take his place and be our next chief. As the representative of the wolfrim race, I’d like to face other demi-human races and create a place where we can live together with humans. In harmony.”

If Gustav and Riko, who was the tiger-race chief’s last descendant, were to join forces for that sake, they would probably manage to carve the moment when all demi-humans could finally walk hand in hand with humans in Albein’s history.

Their first move would be talking to His Majesty and call a huge meeting for all the races to join. What I might do to help them would be acting from the shadows like I’ve always done, and earn each race’s consent little by little.

Demi-humans don’t want humans to meddle with their business, so they live by themselves, far from the capital’s hands. Gathering all of them wouldn’t be an easy task. First, we should try to talk to the ones living in the capital to understand each other better and soften our relationships, then we might reach out to others and show them that all dreams can come true.

That would surely be carved in history along with the names of all the people in the limelight. All I would want to do is setting the table and grant Manarina, the successor to the throne, the credits to be remembered for the next centuries… no, millennia. Of course, I had to talk to her before trying to act for something this big.

Anyway, what I felt now wasn’t to apologize for my teacher, but to understand what demi-humans felt and do something to help them.

“Let’s drop this topic. I never had a drink like this at my village.”

Gustav brought his jug to his mouth and gulped down all the remaining black ale in one go, then grumbled a bit.

“Wooow, daaamn…! This thing is sooo goood!”

He placed his jug on the table and let out a pleased comment as his cheeks slightly colored red. Mimia looked at him with surprise, but knowing that her old man was just a sweet drunkard, she didn’t pay him great mind and focused on her own drink.

Her drink was called White Moon and had two layers: the lower one was simple milk and looked white, and the top one was Moonberry’s syrup, which wolfrims were fond of, and looked yellow. She understood how the drink was made of by smelling it and was very curious about its taste, so she cupped the glass in her hands and brought it to her mouth.

She sipped it and her eyes started to shine. Verlaine and I waited for her comment, and so did Mylarka and Yuma who were now behind the counter looking at her, but Mimia’s mouth moved silently. She was probably looking for the right words to express what she was feeling.

Gustav placed his hand on her head to calm her down with a smile on his face, and feeling like she had failed to find the right way to convey her feelings, she flushed a deep red and got back to drink.
I heard that wolfrims of every age loved Moonberry and they knew a lot of ways to use it in many different plates. This time, I used it as a sweetener.
I collected the nectar I needed to make that syrup from the nest of a monster called Queen Killer Bee and I was glad to see Mimia enjoying its sweetness.

“I never tasted moonberry this sweet before! This would taste great on bread too!”
“We have some left, let me bottle it for you. I am sure it will take some time to get back home, so take it as a sweet souvenir from the capital.”
“Thank you. I’d like my wife to taste it as well, since there’s barely anything sweet where we live…”

Sugar was very requested and pricey, so it was hard to find even in some parts of Albein. I heard that in those places, sugar cost as much as gold, and their caravans where as much as guarded.

Queen Killer Bees were dangerous monsters due to their poison. Luckily, I could neutralize it, so I wasn’t afraid as I managed to look all nooks and crannies of their nest. That allowed me to find a way to do bee-keeping and harvest their honey. If I taught that to demi-humans, they would finally have a chance to sweeten their food.

“We don’t know much about each other’s culture, Gustav, but I believe that there would be many people moved by our local products. You have been moved by our black ale and I’m sure many humans would be moved by some of your food or drinks. Maybe my thought is too commercial, but I’d like to cover that chance too.”
“I’d like to tell you that I’m just a guy loving booze, but you do have a point for that.”

Yuma poured another jug of black ale, then handed it to Verlain who gave it to Gustav. Seeing the refill, he smiled like a kid receiving a present, but trying to keep his cool in front of his daughter, he cleared his throat.

“Cuisine cultural exchange…? I never thought about it. I’ll talk with my brethren, that might actually work. To be honest, there are many booze-lovers in our race, so… mh? What is this nice smell?”
“You should enjoy your drink along with some nice food. Here, dear customer, have some rib roast with herb.”

Verlaine placed their plates in front of them and the wolfrims’ tummy grumbled as they had yet to get some food.
Gustav looked puzzled to see something in the corner of the plate.

“Are we supposed to use this trident-like fork and this knife…?”
“Yes. Let me show you how they are supposed to be used.”

Wolfrims usually ate food with their bare hands, unlike tiger-race people who used tools. Each race had their own customs.

Mimia intently looked at Verlaine’s movements and waited until she had finished, then accepted the fork from the elf’s hand and carried the piece of meat to her mouth.

Both she and her father, who had copied Verlaine just in time to taste the meat along with his daughter, let out a pleased cry, their tails wagging happily.
Mimia was so pleased she almost jumped out of her chair, and she didn’t notice her tail was repeatedly hitting her father’s back.
Cody and Aileen let out a soft chuckle while watching that funny scene from the hall.

“What did you do to this meat…?! The part closer to the bone shouldn’t be this tender…!”
“If you let it cook with some fruit juice or milk, the meat’s fibers soften like this.”
“This is just too good to be real…! I can’t believe it…! This isn’t meat, it’s something way better!”

Even meat could change its flavour depending on how it’s prepared, but only humans did that as far as I knew. There were tons of meat-lovers among the demi-humans, so I hoped to share some recipes with them soon.

Then, Mylarka brought them a plate of salad, not minding that they never had some, and so they knew another flavour. They were so delighted to eat our things that even the cook came out and smiled at their beaming faces.

◆◇◆

Gustav and his daughter kept drinking and stuffing their mouth with food until the end of our shift. When we were wrapping the day up, the male wolfrim was singing along with Rigel’s party, arms around each other’s shoulders. Rigel’s positivity and frankness was a blessing in times like this.

They had Zect join too, and Gustav, knowing that he was having fun with Mizuha’s brother, encouraged his daughter to get along with the fox-girl, who looked happy to make a new acquaintance. The two girls knew their tribes didn’t live too far away, which brought them to get along in a jiffy driven by a sense of closeness. Mimia finally got to talk more and smile often.

Sadly, happy times end soon.

Gustav spoke to her when we were about to close up.

“Mimia, we have to go. They have to clean everything up and close for the day.”
“Right… Mizuha, see you soon.”
“Yep! See you soon, Mimia!”

They saw each other off without saying anything else, then Gustav approached Teacher.

“This guild saved us, that’s why I cannot loathe you. Our forgiveness won’t be the same as the country’s law, though.”
“I will pay for what I’ve done, no matter how hard the punishment. That’s the only condition I have to keep Dee by my side.”
“I see. I’ll call it even, then. How about you, Mimia?”

The girl steeled herself up and faced the woman.

“I don’t need your apologies, but you have to tell him you’re sorry.”
“Yeah… I’ll tell him every day, even though it will never be enough.”

Mimia pointed to me with a gesture of her head. I didn’t know young girls could be so sharp, how much did she guess of our relationship…?

“Let me sound like an old man and tell you not to do anything like that ever again. Now it’s time for us to go. See you, Guild Master.”
“Take care. We’ll be here for you if you need anything.”

Gustav turned one last time to me before waving and getting out of the shop. Mimia bowed in our direction before following him.

“Now that we are done with this big case, Dick, I only see a mountain of issues to fix. Is there something I can do for you?”

Cody asked me with a smile. Rigel and McKinley, who were near her, cut in our conversation.

“Bro, that guy was glad as heck! He said he didn’t see her daughter laugh like that since forever!”
“I’m glad she made friends with someone around her age. I joined this guild exactly for our master’s virtues.”

Sometimes McKinley could say some uselessly sweet things, but that was due to his kind personality, and it was one of his good sides. He was hanging out just fine with Rigel, who was more fiery than meets the eye.

Even Lia and Sakuya, despite their serious faces, had spent the whole evening drinking together and talking. They were trying to deepen their friendship and were now looking at me, letting out their thoughts on the matter.

“There was a time when I believed that solving the racism between demi-humans and humans wasn’t a task for adventurer guilds… but if our Master will lead us, maybe we’ll manage to…”
“I will follow my Master’s every order. As I did so far and will from now on. I hope you keep counting on me for anything.”
“Thank you, girls. I hope I won’t let you down in the future.”

Even the expedition party tried their best to help me today. I owed them so much I didn’t know how to repay them.
Cody was the first to speak.

“You don’t want to stick out, right? Is there something we can do for you?”
“I think that you’re dreaming too big, but it isn’t a bad thing. I’ll just contribute to annihilate all the people against the races’ reconciliation.”
“We can reach out to everyone’s feelings if we manage to talk to them. Then, we can walk together to our promised land.”
“Yuma, that sounds like you wanna send them to Heaven… anyway, as the representative of the demon race, I’m gonna talk to my father about it. Some demi-human tribes live nearby us, so this matter always bothered me. Like, what if we manage to get along with everyone…?”

Knowing that we always shared the same opinion about this matter was very reassuring. When we changed the world with our expedition, we never really thought about ‘doing it for the world’s sake’, but only ‘for completing our mission’.
The first to talk about the world’s good was Cody, who was always drove by her inspiring sense of justice. Maybe it was thanks to that side of her that we managed to get closer in those years.

Mizuha and her brother showed me their support as well and so did Lize, who was with everyone tonight.

“I went on about this ter me brother, right, and we agreed that joinin’ this guild were fate.”1
“Guild Master, I’ll gladly be part of your scheme as well.”
“Dick, I would’ve never imagined to see such a serious look on your face… meeting your old teacher has really changed you this much?”

Then, Teacher spoke.

“I’m not his teacher anymore. I have nothing left to teach him, now I can only take from him.”
“T-Take? Like, taking it whole? I mean, taking him till dawn?!”
“Hey, I would never say or mean anything like that, peachy demon, you know?”
“What would you take from Dick, exactly, Lady Teacher? I am asking only for future references.”

Teacher looked at Verlaine and fell in deep thought. Then, she smiled slightly.

“It’s something silly, feel free to laugh at me. I want to learn what’s obvious from him.”

I was sure she’d find her answer once she purged her sins.

Harming people and trampling their hearts wouldn’t be part of Teacher’s actions anymore. I was looking forward to seeing the end of that horrible side of her.
No matter how unworthy of being her student I thought to be, now all I wanted was to be by her side and watch over her.

——–

Author’s note

Sorry for the late release!
Thank you very much for reading this story, it’s a huge encouragement for me.
This was the final chapter of the second arc, the next one will start soon.
We are at a turning point in the story, I hope you’ll like it and stick around some more.
Wish you all well!

<Prev | Index | Next>

Translator’s note: I totally forgot to add the light novel’s pictures to chapter 55 and 56. They’re now fixed.

The masked pub and the wolfrim’s family

I had yet to believe what happened: my teacher finally listened to me and accepted helping me out in my bar…!
She was now taking a bath before getting into her job clothes.

I applied waterproof finish on the door to prevent it from dampening. Almost no one in the capital knew about this way to prevent doors from deteriorating in time, not even the nobles. I remember going to Cardila store and the shopkeeper welcomed me with a “We found something curious”, then showed me ‘laval bark’, whose sap has a waterproof effect once it gets processed.

If we could produce more laval bark, we could’ve used it to create waterproof stuff like shoes, specifically for wetlands, or stuff to mitigate damages buildings take from the rain, but since there was a very high demand for it, the capital had yet to bring it to its market.
We wouldn’t see it any time soon…

Anyway, for some reason I could hear Teacher and Mizuha’s voices coming from the bathroom. Mizuha said she wanted to take a bath before starting her night shift, so she had joined Teacher, but forgot to bring a towel with her, which I was about to leave nearby the door.

“Why are you telling me you were the maker of those collars?”

I didn’t know what was happening in there, but given the short sentences I heard, I understood Teacher wanted to take her responsibilities and face Mizuha, who was one of Garamdoor’s victims.

“Because Dick told me I should take responsibility and apologize. I understand that what I’ve done is wrong, so feel free to vent your hate on me as you see fit.”

I knew there was the chance for Teacher to act like that.
She knew plenty well how vicious she acted and how much negativity the victims had to feel. She never cared to be hated in the past, but now she looked ready to face people and accept their forgiveness at a price.

“There’s no reason to, I forgive you. If I didn’t shape-shift, I wouldn’t have fled from those criminals. I wouldn’t be working here either. You see, I’m having a lot of fun thanks to my brother and Lord Dick ever since I got to work here. My brother feels better too, although he has some bitterness left from Blue Sagittarius.”
“Are you sure you want to let me off the hook like that? I’m ready for anything.”
“It’s fine. I kind of understand why you did that. Lord Dick is somewhat… This is going to sound funny, but I feel like he’s ‘wee like me’ and naive like a child. I can understand why you wouldn’t let him go.”

Mizuha, you couldn’t phrase that any worse… man, I feel so weird now…

I thought to shout “I’m leaving your towel here”, but refrained to, since they could’ve thought I was eavesdropping. That would be bad, so I called it quits.
I just left the towel there and took some distance.

“Right, if you’re his Teacher, I’m your student’s student!”
“You know… your village has a very long story, so maybe you heard this from someone. Long time ago, I had the coconobi fruit adapt to cold environments, that’s why it grows so much in those places and your people farm it. Do you still grow it? If you do, did you find some other tasty plant like that?”

Did Teacher just ignore Mizuha’s comment right now…?

The coconobi fruit is so easy to eat now because it went through a lot of selective breeding, but I would’ve never thought Teacher was behind that too. I couldn’t imagine how many things she changed in Albein thorough her long life.

I wouldn’t say everything, but she surely influenced a lot of stuff… that’s what living so long means. Thinking that her journey wasn’t all about finding a way to die put a smile on my face.

I walked down the stairs and saw Verlaine instructing the new momentary members of the bar, the whole expedition party.

“Thanks for helping, girls. I’ll be the headmaster of our team for this shift, so trust me and follow my lead, ‘kay?”
“Verlaine… it’s better if you start playing your role before a customer hears you talking like that and gets the wrong idea of you…”
“Wait, is Dick not the headmaster…?”

Verlaine, Mylarka and Yuma wore a waitress dress, and Cody a waiter one.

I bet Cody was going to be very popular with our female customers. Not like noble ladies were coming to see her, but if they found out about her, I was sure she’d be mistaken as a royal actor and the ladies would swoon over her.
Thinking about it, there was a girls-only troupe that was winning over the people’s liking…

But the girls were all that filled my mind in that moment: Yuma was the only one who had a little problem with the maid dress she was wearing, as it looked baggy around her chest, unlike Aileen and Mylarka who were simply beautiful.
The former of the two wore a short skirt despite Verlaine imposed her not to – she said that showing too much skin was of bad taste for an attendant – but as the owner, in the end I found their looks very great and appealing, so I let her do as she wanted.
I have to admit I was about to look at Mylarka like a predator a few times, though.

“Master is more like a secret owner. I am employed here as a shopkeeper and that makes me the woman in charge of the whole administrative and managerial part of this bar, so I need you to listen to my directives.”
“Alright, Boss, I can’t bring myself to have male customers looking at me in this dress, so can I help in the kitchen full time?”
“You do not have to worry, Mylarka, you are going to wear a mask so that none of the people you know will be able to figure you out.”
“Ugh…! Do you think the people I know would come to a shady place like this?! And I won’t wear a mask. I don’t want this bar to look even shadier than it is right now.”
“You know, Mylarka… thinking about it, I might have some problems if someone recognizes me, especially if they see me working here, so… probably wearing a mask would be best for me, yeah.”
“If Cody is doing that and we are all dressing up, there is nothing to be ashamed of, so I am in as well~♪ ”

Yuma was really good at playing along, and she had a rare ability to always set the right mood. Once she was in, everyone would surely follow her, thinking “oh, if Yuma is in, let’s go”.

“Lady Aileen, I know I will sound pushy, but no matter how many times I pointed out that your skirt is too short, you never listened to me.”
“It’s fine, Verlaine, what of it? I’m wearing bloomers.”
“Bloomers will make you look like a nasty woman given your attire. I know you always wear dresses with those deep slits to stimulate my Master, but I still feel your sense of style is too risky.”
“I-I dun even mean any of that! I just wear my martial artist’s stuff…!”

Aileen blushed slightly and looked away from the former Demon Lord, defeated by her witty remark.
But Mylarka was still fighting her own battle.

“I don’t think you should call out to attire so much, Verlaine. By the way, if the Magic academy knew that I, one of their teachers, is working part-time as a waitress here, their preaching would have no end. Let me work in the kitchen.”
“Lady Mylarka, do you have a license to prepare food in a bar?”
“Ugh…! Why do you point that out now?! It’s no fair! Do you want me to look after our customers so bad?! Okay, fine, I’ll annihilate everything!”

With that, Verlaine won the two one-on-one battles fair and square.
I understood why Mylarka wanted to work in the kitchen. Of course she’d be embarrassed if men were going to eye her all the time. I mean, as impressive as it is to say, her dress looked slightly cramped on her chest, although it was designed for Verlaine.

Yeah, everyone will surely look at her chest all the time… but damn… I love maid dresses…!

When Verlaine wore one for the first time, I was simply surprised to see her, but now that I got to see the other girls dressed like that too, somehow I felt my heart swaying. I always saw them wearing other clothes, after all.
Cody noticed that Yuma’s dress was a bit too big for her and hurried to turn her sleeves up so that her hands could be easily seen. Once everyone was sure they looked as they should have, they got serious.

“I’ll work hard not to disappoint Dick. Where’s my mask, now?”
“It is coming, Cody. If you all need to wear a mask, we should throw a masquerade tonight.”
“I don’t think I’ll dance, but I’m glad you found an excuse for all of us to wear a mask. I’d be ashamed if people thought we’re doing this for fun.”
“Do you think so, Mylarka…? I have never seen a masquerade… it sounds fantastic!”
“Eheh! Then I’ll teach ya all how to dance if Dick comes down! Sometimes even this bar can be a bit flashy!”

Aileen was thinking more about a battlefield than a masquerade. In her birthplace there was this festival where dancers would put up a show for their ancestors, but I heard that their dance was very close to a show of martial techniques.

“I can help with that too, I know how to dance a bit…”
“You do, Mylarka? That sounds fun. I’d rather escort you girls, then.”
“I think the girls can entertain our customers. I will hang a sign at the door saying that we are having a masquerade tonight. Arranging the hall in a way that people can dance might be nice too, and it might be fun if they talked about it in the long run. Master might not be very glad about the commotion, but whatever.”
“Let’s take it as a one-time event, please…”

I finally approached them normally, thinking that someone could react badly, but they all looked at me with relaxed faces.

“Good evening, Dick. It looks like you had your nice talk with her.”
“Yeah, thank you, Mylarka. We never fought like that before… I want to keep her safe for now, so I might ask her to live in Beatrice’s mansion.”
“Oh, really? I thought you wanted her to live with you…”
“Dick is old enough to have fun with someone he’s sharing his roof with… By the way, your teacher doesn’t look much older than us. How old is she really?”

Since she was one of the Forsaken legacies, as Verlaine guessed, it was probably impossible to know. She might’ve seen the very first man walking this land, but I doubted they would really believe it.

Still, how old they thought she was if she looked around our age?

“I don’t know, really… How old do you think she is, Mylarka?”
“We shouldn’t talk about people’s age at their back… but if I had to say, she looks around my age, so on her twenties.”
“Hmm… I don’t think she looks much older than us too, but she surely feels like your big sister, Dick, so I can’t imagine she’s very young.”
“You are right, Aileen. She is way older, more mature and tolerant than… surely than me. I cannot find the right words to describe her, but I feel her affection is like that of a mother for her children. I can see her loneliness and emptiness too, but I can tell she is a very warm person.”

Yuma was probably talking about her soul rather than her looks. She could feel Teacher’s insecurities too.

Anyway, if Mylarka and Aileen said Teacher looked around our age, so be it. She didn’t change at all since the first day we met. Only her hairstyle looked a tiny bit different, but her hair was still long as I remember.

“I think she’s around our age, but honetly I think she’s slightly younger. At least, I thought she was at first glance.”
“I see. So she’s about sixteen or seventeen for you, Cody…? Let’s just say she’s around that, yeah. Verlaine, can you dress Teacher and Mizuha up when they get out of the bath?”
“As you wish. Our staff is full today, so I shall grant Lady Mylarka’s wish as well. Let me know if someone else wants to do something specific.”

Everyone picked what felt best for them: Mylarka and Yuma were helping Verlaine at the counter; Cody, Aileen and Mizuha – who was now ready to work – were in the hall arranging what it was needed to, and…

When I saw my teacher in that maid uniform, I was so taken aback I lost my words.

“So you want your girls dressed up like this when they work at your bar, Dee? Are you into this?”
“N-No… Verlaine brought these in…”
“And my Master has taken a liking to them. It looks like he is loving them right now, does he not?”
“I don’t mind these as well. This headdress is cute, I wouldn’t mind wearing this all the time.”

I had no idea what kind of clothes my teacher liked… and I wondered what was that glance in my direction right now.

Anyway, no matter how fit that maid dress was for her, I couldn’t look at her all day. I had to keep myself together and remember that we were still in a delicate situation.
Teacher faced Verlaine.

“I’d like to watch you work and learn from that, then try it out in a later moment. Is that okay?”
“Yes, if you wish to…”

The next moment, dling dlong, the bar’s door opened.

Three people entered the bar.
The leading one was Sakuya, followed by a male wolfrim dressed as a fighter and a girl. The latter was about as old as Mizuha and had mixed black and silver locks of hair, just like the man.

Teacher looked at her as if to guess their business. She first looked at Sakuya, then stared at the other two.

“Master, let me introduce you. This is Gustav Wolfgang, and this is his daughter Mimia.”

That girl was probably one of the demi-humans who was caught and sold by Garamdoor. I was glad to see her reunited with her father.

That girl… Mimia had her shape-shifting ability blocked by Teacher’s collar, but finally she was back to her human form. She looked very tense, but still held our gaze one by one.

“Nice to meet you, I’m Gustav. I heard the one who pulled the strings behind the scenes concerning my daughter is here, so…”
“Yes, it’s me. I’m those collars’ creator.”

Teacher stepped forward before he could finish the sentence.
Gustav was huge compared to my teacher, who looked like a child standing near him. He was like thrice her size.
When he saw the woman stepping so boldly in front of him, everyone could see a wave of rage flooding his gaze, but Mimia squeezed his hand and shook her head.
He breathed in to calm himself down, then spoke.

“My daugther is safe. Saying this pisses me off, but I have to admit my daughter was handled like the finest of goods, so she didn’t face the worst. I was looking for you only to tell you this: please, never create something so nasty ever again. Don’t let disgusting people like Garamdoor ruin people’s life. And please, next time collect them back as soon as possible to avoid replicas and a further spread of nasty tools. I’d like to look for all the guys who has been sold, but I have to bring my daughter back home first. I have a family as well, you see.”
“Sorry, dad… I just looked so forward to the outside world that I…”
“You don’t need to apologize, sweetie. Dad isn’t mad anymore. He forgives you. He’s so glad to see you’re okay that he feels like he’s dreaming.”

He placed a hand on her shoulder and smiled at her fondly. As their business with Teacher was over, they turned around and were about to leave, but Verlaine stopped them.

“Dear customers, make yourselves at home and enjoy our service before leaving. We are still preparing everything to open, but if you do not mind it, you are very free to order something to any of our staff members.”
“Are you sure…? There are plenty of people who despise Demi-humans.”

I could understand why Gustav was so worried, but demi-humans were welcome here. Racism had no place in my bar.
Luckily, Verlaine spoke in my place.

“There is no unwelcome customer in this bar. One’s race does not matter to any of us. We will gladly have you take a seat and enjoy some good food or drink.”

Racism was the cause of Garamdoor’s acts.
I wanted to prevent any other case like this. Treating demi-humans like ‘rare animals’ is simply disgusting.

As my teacher’s pupil, I wanted to welcome Gustav and her daughter as best as I could to improve the chance they would forgive what happened.

Gustav was lost in thought due to Verlaine’s words, and looked at his daughter for an answer. For a moment, Mimia looked up to him with puppy eyes, then nervously looked at me.
Her concern was evident: she had no idea what could’ve happened if they stayed… but they still decided to take a seat.

<Prev | Index | Next>

Recollections and her time resumes again

I knew I didn’t need to sleep anymore when I found out Healing Magic could make up for the lack of sleep’s fatigue.

Sleep is the basis of magic power’s recovery and it is essential for growth too.
However, everyone thinks ‘what if I didn’t need to sleep’ at least once.

Thinking about it, sleep is nothing but a waste of lifetime. If people didn’t sleep and everything inside them wouldn’t fall apart, the sheer number of stuff they could do would increase drastically.

However, I still sleep like everyone else.
I set up my bar and take good care of it every morning, then I buy the ingredients for the day and I instruct my guild members to their duties.

Taking my daily routine aside, I look for requests worth of my guild so that I can quench my curiosity and get very rare rewards.

I’ve tried to do more in the past, but I had to understand my members’ abilities and support them whenever I could since I started my guild.
I had to prepare things in advance and keep in mind how to grow my guild even when I picked dangerous requests.

In the last five years, all I thought was never let my guild members die, not even when they’re alone in the middle of their mission.

That wasn’t new for me, I thought it was obvious for a Guild Master to worry about their comrades like that. I was the one who asked for help and forwarded them requests, so it was my duty to make sure they would make through them safely.

However, my teacher never thought like that.
She believed that people lose their life too easily, so there was no reason to be sad or hurt about it. People’s life was something disposable and too short.

She believed that there’s no need to be afraid of death, as it embraces all of us eventually, and there’s no reason to falter when someone decides to take their own life or kill someone.

I will never forget her arctic expression when she told me all of that.
It was terrifying… but I admired her.

I thought she would be forever out of my reach, but since the day she started teaching me, I noticed something I couldn’t take my eyes off of.

Reaching her wasn’t a dream if I kept studying and learning.
Eventually, I would acquire all the power she wished me to.

◆◇◆

I didn’t feel like sleeping.
Watching over my teacher was all I could think about.

In the end, controlling myself had been a short dream I woke up from too suddenly.

Still, a part of me was calm, reassured by Verlaine and my friends who were with me.

They left the room saying they would take care of the bar, and in the silence they left behind, my mind started to wander, tracing back to old memories.

Looking at my teacher’s face, our first meeting flashed in front of my eyes again.

Ten years ago, I didn’t know how to control the huge amount of magic power I had inside me.
I let it flow out, but it usually burst, so the children my age were scared of me and took their distance.

My family had been farmers for generations, and my father had to retire quickly, so he handed down his activities to his eldest son, my older brother… who didn’t want it.
He wanted to drop the farm and have our family become an adventurer’s, then he left the house and started his career. My mother did the same and brought our father with her, so my other brothers tried to teach me how to live by myself, just like our parents wished.

I followed what my three brothers and two sisters said.
I started by helping at home when I was five, and I wasn’t allowed to play around like any other child did since the day our parents had left.

No matter how loved I was by my brothers and sisters, all of them had their friends and relationships, so I couldn’t be someone they had to take care of forever… and I had no friends.

Then, I started going to the mountains.
There, no one had to suffer from my magic outbursts, which led all the others to make me do as little chores as possible. That way I could combine my sense of adventure with learning how to camp and survive on my own, and there had been times where I didn’t come back for days.
I still remember how my sisters caught me and threw me in the tub when I got home dirty or muddy, unlike my brothers who just joked around and said I would surely become a big shot.

Back then I lived in a cramped world, looking up at my elder siblings who were always so handsome and simply out of my reach. I admired these beings called ‘adults’ and I wished to become one quickly.

Sometimes I even thought of going on a journey, meeting our parents again and walking their same path. Sometimes they came back home for short period of times, but none of us had reason to stop them from departing again.

No one thought I was a bad boy, and I didn’t feel anything bad about my parents, but once my elder brothers started their journey, no one came back home anymore.
I believed that was just the other face of blood relationships.

Eventually, I left my house as well to live alone in the mountains. I spent so much time alone that I almost forgot how to talk, but I managed to understand what beasts felt thanks to my magic power’s flow.

Still, beasts were scared of me as well. They never accepted me and kept their distance, since I was human. A few times they even attacked me.

I kept living in the mountains alone, and I sharpened my senses so much I felt like I was about to lose my humanity. I wasn’t very aware of how stronger I was.

Then, one day I was running to get back to my cave to shelter me from heavy rain, and I saw two wyverns on my way.

They were badly wounded, not far from the brink of death… I understood they had been targeted by an adventurer’s expedition and fled for dear life.
I tried to approach them and they looked at me with fear and fire in their eyes, then attacked me.

They acted to defend themselves: they clawed and breathed fire on me, but I never gave up and gathered enough medical herbs to prepare some ointment to heal them.

When they were about to faint due to pain, I applied the ointment on them. Then, something hit me and I couldn’t feel anything anymore.

I didn’t care about what happened to me.

All I knew was that I was surely going to regret letting those wyverns die. Their life was more dear to me than my own until that moment.
Then, I recalled my family.
I recalled how hard I tried not to bother them with my outbursts of magic, and how much distance I had put between us.
So much that I was afraid to forget about them.

I had no reason to die, but now it was too late.
I felt terribly alone, useless… and worthless.

All my dreams, all I wanted to do—everything lost meaning.
No matter how hard I wanted to travel around the world like my parents, no matter how much I wanted to live: that was the end of me.

Even my childhood memories felt like hazy stains. They blurred and flashed intermittently, slowly falling in the darkness that was drowning my consciousness.

I believed that beasts as strong as wyverns could understand what I felt.

Now I’m well aware that I was losing my mind.

Luckily, I was saved by a doctor.
That woman saw two injured wyverns flying above her and decided to look where they were going. She teleported deep in the forest, blowing away the rain where she appeared, and saw me the moment she looked down at her feet.

My body was a burned and gashed mess.
When I felt something in front of me, I tried my best to lift my heavy eyelids, but I couldn’t tell what I was seeing at ground-level, so I looked up.
There was a hand. Its palm faced me and shone with pure light.
That was all I managed to see before fainting.

When I came to, I felt the soft crackling of wood nearby. I was resting my head on something like a warm pillow.
I opened my eyes and noticed a small bonfire, then the woman who was letting me rest on her lap.
She was an otherworldly beauty. Her silver hair looked almost see-through.

The woman was brushing my hair with her hand, then poked me on the cheek and laughed.

“Your name is Dick Silver, right?”

All it took her to steal my heart was simply asking with her soothing voice.

“How… do you know…?”

I spoke for the first time in forever, my voice was hoarse and sounded like it wasn’t mine. She pulled her lips in a smile and placed her hand on my eyes to close them.

“You should sleep some more. Don’t worry, they’re grateful to you. The wyvern was only panicking, he was hurting too much.”

She could understand what the wyverns felt… just like me.
I felt something warm lightning my heart.

It was the first time we met and talked, and yet she was like an angel to me.

I kept her as close as I could until I knew she was immortal, and even then, I didn’t care. I almost revered her.

Resting my head on her lap calmed me so much I’ll never forget that feeling. No matter how many years would pass, I etched that peace of mind in my heart.

I thought I would do anything for her, and yet I was unsure to express what I felt.
Even if I managed to, would that be the right choice?
Whenever I asked her what would make her happy, she always smiled and answered the same way…

◆◇◆

A warm light shone down on me. It didn’t feel like fire’s, but it was still warm.

I believed it was the warm sun, but when I opened my eyes, I noticed it was already evening.

Something was stroking my hair.
I understood that I had dozed off and found myself bent over my teacher’s bed.
Her gentle touch probably triggered the dream I just had.

Since the day she saved me, I kept chasing after her and calling her name, and she never failed to answer and turn around to look at me.

She said I was hers and that was true… until I took my distance.
The only one who suffered from it, the one who should’ve ‘waved just another goodbye’, was my teacher, the woman who had to live forever despite wishing to die.

I never found the courage to tell her what I felt.
I was too afraid she would trudge me so hard ‘despair’ wouldn’t express the miserable state she would leave me.

“I want you to live, Teacher…”

My throat hurt as it let out a hoarse voice. It sounded just like the first time I spoke to her.

I felt her hand stopping, and once again I didn’t find the courage to look at her in the eyes.

“Don’t ask me to kill you… it would be like asking me to commit suicide…”

She was silent.
I knew changing her mind was almost an impossible task… and yet, her hand kindly started moving again.
The next moment, she was tousling my hair with all her might, and I finally looked up to her.

She wore a faint smile. I could see myself reflected in her big eyes. The warm light shining on us made her look solemn, as if she was accepting something.

“I’m not the only one you’d give your life to protect. I understood it the moment I stepped in the capital.”
“I…!”
“You should’ve found your place into people a lot of time ago. I only pushed you to do that. I saved you on a whim, and I didn’t feel anything about you at first… but then, I noticed I was relying on you.”

The shadow of madness in her eyes was gone.

She had the kind of face one has when they wake up from a long, terrible nightmare. She was relaxed and ready to listen.
This had been the only way to change her, no matter how hard I wished her to change by herself. I was sure she wouldn’t have listened if I had never left her.

“At first, I was scared to lose you. I believed I would die at peace if you were the one to end me. Loneliness was a feeling I had forgotten long ago… and yet I felt it as strong as never before. Weird, isn’t it?”
“You’ve always borne it… you only never noticed.”

I didn’t want to sound arrogant, but that just slipped through my lips.
I expected her to slap my face and yell ‘what would a brat like you understand how I feel?! You haven’t lived twenty years and yet you speak like you know how an immortal being feels?!’, but she didn’t.

She just faced the other way and looked through the open window.
A gentle breeze rolled in and swayed her hair, letting me take a glimpse at the glitter of the tears she was trying to hide.

“Dick Silver… you’re still the old naughty Dee.”
“Sorry… I tried to grow, but I failed to.”

Teacher didn’t turn her face.
She wasn’t being stubborn, since she was smiling, she was probably thinking about a lot of things.
The smile on her face wasn’t a clown’s. It was a felt one and it filled me with joy.

“Teacher… you have to apologize to a lot of people and I don’t know if they’ll be all ready to forgive you. If you still see me as your pupil, let me share some of that responsibility as well. Let’s settle this in one go.”
“Dee, you want to help me because you don’t want me to die?”
“Well… yes. It’s the least I can do. I’d like to hear your opinion, though.”

As I thought there was no way I was talking to her how I so longed for, she wiped her tears away and faced me.

“I have no rights to ask now, but can you do me a favor?”
“As long as it isn’t ‘kill me’… sure.”
“When you’ll be old and feel at death’s door, let me be with you until the end. I’ll try not to bother you ever again until that moment.”

That was the biggest compromise she could offer me, so… I did the same in a whisper.

“Then… I’ll look for a way to make you grow old and die like everyone else.”
“Do you think it really exists? I never found it so far.”
“Then… should I become immortal too? I bet everyone would snap at me.”
“Maybe knowing that you will be with them forever, they’d accept it and enjoy what you’ve left together.”

If I really tried to tell them, would Mylarka and the others laugh it off or would they become interested in immortal beings?

I wanted to know if I ever had the chance to. Still, it wasn’t an obsession, I could do without that too.

I had many ways to prevent my teacher to be alone forever if she didn’t want to die.

Thinking about what she had done so far brought me to think that her near future wasn’t a bright one, but it was surely better than the one she was going to experience until yesterday.

“Teacher… I have something to ask you. I always kept it to myself so far.”
“My name? I forgot it. I feel like I had one in the past, but no one called me for so long it’s gone now.”
“I see…”

I thought this was a great chance to hear it, but well, that couldn’t be helped.

“I’m called ‘the forgotten guy’, I must have taken it after you.”
“You notice that now? You became a Guild Master like me as well, there are a lot of stuff you’re taking after me. Your information web isn’t that great, though, but overall I’d say you’re doing a good job.”

I couldn’t recall the last time she praised me for something.

“I’ll become part of your household like Beatrice the Wraith. I’ll be the second one with your surname.”
“A-Are you sure? Teacher, you’re quite different from Beatrice…”
“Yes, let’s go with your surname. What interests me is that you pick a name for me, though. I don’t mind when you call me teacher… but you’ve become too strong for being my pupil, so I’ll have you graduate. I have to accept that you’ve grown.”
“That’s an honor… let me have you do something for me, then.”
“You look ready to pull a prank on me… whatever. What do you want me to do?”

She wore a puzzled expression, but looked interested as I readied the rite of passage to let her join my guild.

First, I had her help me in the night shift of our bar along with her two future comrades Verlaine and Mizuha. Mylarka and the others were waiting for us downstairs.

<Prev | Index | Next>

Note: Heartfelt thanks to Kyler Martin for donating 20 euros for this series!
Thank you for following this series despite my slowness, it means a lot for us.

The beginning of the guilds and the truth about the girl

White Capricorn’s crimes were reported to the authorities.

The knights who looked through Purple Scorpio and Green cancer’s structures confirmed that they had broken the law and thus were restricted.
The authorities agreed to interrogate and punish all the involved people accordingly to the gravity of their deeds.

The worst part about all of this was that White Capricorn’s Guild Master never wore Teacher’s collar—he just followed what she said like a fanatic.
When I had him talk, he also told me about ‘Ashen clown’.

When the guilds had yet to be founded, Albein’s adventurers accepted and accomplished requests personally. Some of them only wanted fame and treasures, so they hardly accepted any request and only went on adventures, but your average adventurer would try to become known enough to live of this.

However, a hundred years ago the capital saw the first being overcoming a SS rank adventurer—Teacher.
She was the founder of the very concept of ‘adventurer guilds’ in Albein.

She named her guild ‘Ophiuchus’¹ and gathered the strongest people under her wing, then managed to accept and complete any request from the average people and the nobles, to the point that she almost rivalled the King in terms of reliability, and people eventually saw her service as something essential.
That was the very first guild in the capital, so it didn’t have a color for itself as it didn’t need to be distinguished from any other similar organization.

However, Teacher never thought to stay forever.

After ten years since the foundation, she disappeared without warning, casting all the adventurers in chaos.

Having lost the most charismatic person in the guild, Ophiuchus was disbanded and the strongest adventurers—four SS rank and eight S rank ones—tried to do the same as her and founded their own guilds.
Since they were so many, they all decided to have a color associated to them, leaving a specific one aside: the most inauspicious color they knew—grey.

However, they were nothing compared to the former organization.
Many adventurers wished for her return, but she never came back.
Their feelings were so in disarray that many couldn’t accept her decision or the reality they were forced to face, so they started thinking that she had made a fool of them all. Some went as far as to insult her, calling her a clown.

That’s how the Guild Masters showed their hatred to her, pushing the most loathed color nearby a nickname that framed her well enough—that’s how she became Ashen clown.
Currently there isn’t a Guild Master who knows her real name yet.

Still, her story didn’t matter for White Capricorn’s Guild Master, who saw her like an embodied deity.
He kept hoping that she would come back eventually and arranged for her the best throne he could offer: he worked hard to bring his guild to the top, then waited for the one true king to return.

When his wish came true, he didn’t mind subjugating the guilds: if that was her will, he wanted it to be reality.
She never forced him to listen to her. He knew she had what it takes to rule over everything, that’s why he helped her as much as he could.
He was well aware of his actions.
A true adept never stops venerating their deity, after all.

When I had three guilds cut their affiliations to White Capricorn, I didn’t know anything about this. White Capricorn should’ve considered keeping an eye on me.

However, instead of taking actions against my guild, White Capricorn’s Guild Master spent all his time to dominate and force the guilds that were left in his iron grip.

But time changes everything.
Once we defeated the demon lord and returned, there was a drastic drop in monsters’ sightings, so the adventurers who based their activities on monster slaying quickly lost their job.

That’s when Purple Scorpio and Blue Sagittarius started to misbehave.
Green Cancer couldn’t keep up with this new situation either and accepted White Capricorn’s help, which led them into a honey trap.

Teacher was right—there was no need to keep all the twelve guilds in the capital.

It was White Capricorn’s Guild Master who suggested to create the collars.
With them, they could make sure that everyone would follow their orders, preserving their insane authority.
Teacher accepted his idea and created them, so she was as much as guilty.
What I blamed her the most was that she had White Capricorn’s members wear it and ordered them to waste their lives if needed.

At any rate, there was something I had to hear from her, so I brought her to my guild house.
I didn’t want her to be arrested before I had all the answers I wanted.

◆◇◆

Teacher was wearing just a shirt as she slept in my bed. I told her to sleep in Verlaine’s but she just did what she wanted.

Two hours later, she had yet to wake up and looked feverish, so I put a wet cloth on her forehead to help her keep her temperature in check.
She must’ve used up too much of her magic power to resist my last attack and it was hard to help her replenish it quickly.

The problem wasn’t the technique in itself, but the fact that I didn’t know if she wanted me to help her or not.
I could give her some of my magic power without touching her as well if she didn’t want to get touched, but I had to touch her when I brought her on my back to my guild house, so I didn’t think it was a matter of touching.

I felt it was a matter of respect.
She was the one who taught me how to live and the woman who told me to do what I wanted before I joined the expedition party, so maybe it was humiliating for her if I helped her now.

Anyway, I finally understood why she helped me without asking anything back: she simply hoped that I would come back to her some day and fulfil my promise.

And yet no matter how much she wished for it, I never did… and I never managed to tell her that I didn’t want to kill her.

“Master, I brought you some tea. Take some rest, I’ll keep an eye on her.”
“No. She can teleport away any time, I don’t want her to vanish in thin air. Thank you for your consideration, but I’d rather stay here.”
“Don’t be too kind with me… I might do something crazy. You are quite fascinating when you look this weak too.”

Verlaine switched her way of talking from maid to former demon lord and placed our drinks on the table nearby the bed. It was herbal tea made with ‘Mishika herb’, which helped calming down.

I took a sip and felt my chest lighten, like I finally managed to drop the stone that pushed down on it. Verlaine smiled and changed the cloth on Teacher’s forehead.

Using up too much magic power in one go would strain the body and outbreak in a fever. Teacher managed to heal all the wounds of our fight, but replenishing one’s magic power wasn’t a matter of a few minutes or hours.

“Verlaine, you know what Teacher is, right? She isn’t an elf and I never heard about any other demi-human who is as long-lived as she is. What is she exactly?”
“She’s something that could master very strong magic and transcend the whole creations’ knowledge. An immortal. Someone who wandered the lands as a walking blessing or a devastating curse. It’s said that some of them are among the demons too.”

Her brief explanation helped me guess the answer.
If my guess was right, I knew how those things were called, where they came from and what they aimed to, but I waited for her confirmation.
Verlaine kept looking at Teacher as she slept.

“She’s probably one of the so called ‘Forsaken legacies’. They were created by the gods when they still roamed the lands.”

Something clicked in my head.
The first time I saw Teacher using her powers, I’m sure I thought that she looked just like a goddess.
She could do anything and knew everything.
I remembered her face well when I said that to her.

She faced me with the loneliest expression I ever saw and whispered a few words—There’s only one thing I’ll never be able to do alone.

“Your teacher saw so many things in her life that it shouldn’t surprise us that her personality is so messed up. We can’t even imagine how long the Forsaken legacies have been living…”
“I guess… they’re alive since the day us humans were born into this world.”

We couldn’t imagine how they felt… how my Teacher did.
Now it was clear why she helped me grow and why she had me promise—I was one of the few beings who could really put an end to her loneliness.

She created the first guild in the city a hundred years ago because she was looking for someone who could end her life.
After ten fruitless years, she just moved on and kept searching.

It took her eighty years to come back here and find me.
But why did she come back in the first place? Was it because it only took her eighty years to travel all around the world?
I had to ask her for the truth.

“At any rate, I can’t just forgive her. I’ll spit what I need to her face once she wakes up.”
“That’s brutal, Master. By the way, do you think she was so mad precisely because of her pupil?”
“I was a bad pupil, since I kept lying to her… to the bitter end.”

Dee, I’ll teach you everything you need to live. In exchange, you’ll have to kill me once we’re done.

What do you mean, Teacher? That would be a huge problem for me.

You’ll be free as long as you keep this promise. I’ll never let you go until you fulfil it.

“I never wanted to keep that promise. I joined the expedition party to escape from her and never come back.”

The glass in my hand started to crack. I didn’t notice my grip was destroying it.

I kept averting my eyes from my betrayal.
Teacher wanted to die? Well, I couldn’t accept that kind of bullshit.
I didn’t know anything about my Teacher, and yet no matter how hard it was for her, I just couldn’t bring myself to make her wish come true.
I kept finding a justification to my egoism.
Even though my Teacher was the person who taught me all I needed to be, I wanted to be happy.

“Just… don’t blame it on yourself.”

Verlaine placed her hands on mine, stopping me from breaking the glass that was already showing cracks.

She circled around me while brushing my arm with her fingertips then hugged me from behind.

Her warm embrace made me notice that my heart was cracked like my glass, and tears welled in the corner of my eyes, slowly descending on my cheeks.
I had no right to cry, and yet I couldn’t control myself.

“It’s evident that your teacher is very important to you, Master. Can’t you just start over again with her? Instead of punishing her too hard, can’t you just have her atone her sins with this?”
“I… I’m the one at fault. She was just chasing me.”
“We’ll never allow you to bear this burden alone, Master. We all know how diligent and kind you are, that’s exactly why I can’t keep these words to myself or leave you be. I will surely help you share your burdens and lighten your heart, no matter who hurts you or what ideal blocks you. We all will, even if we gotta beat the crap outta that woman.”

She sounded funny in the end, but she was serious.
Her embrace tightened on me, almost trying to keep me together and not letting me go.

“Master, your will is the path we walk. I’m sure you’re blaming yourself for all the demi-humans who Garamdoor hurt and for never taking actions against the rotten guilds before… but don’t you think those guilds asked for this themselves? We have yet to confirm if your teacher actively used them to ferret you out or she just accepted some request.”
“Yeah… we will confirm it once we ask her.”

I had to wait and keep myself together.
No matter how badly she wanted to die, I didn’t want to hurt her anymore… but I was terrified that I had took it way too far and risked to kill her for real.
What if she was going to die…?
I would regret it for the rest of my life.

“Master, I can feel that you’re keeping something for yourself, so let me reassure you—I won’t let her die even if her heart stops beating. I won’t wait for your order, this is what I want to do. You are not the only one who wants to talk to her… we all want to give her a piece of our mind.”
“Please… it would be impossible to stop an all-out war between you guys even for me.”
“Mphf. You can’t be seen like this, so let me wipe your tears away. I’ll surely go through hell only for hugging you, but still…”

She whispered her last sentence in my ear while wiping away my tears with a handkerchief.
I thought that Teacher was about to open her eyes given how she had phrased the first part, but it didn’t happen.
Instead, I felt a menacing presence behind me and slowly turned around. So did Verlaine, who had taken a little distance from me and called out.

“Come out, girls. Stop watching from the shadows, it’s creepy.”

Mylarka, Yuma, Aileen and Cody were standing outside the door, peeking into the room.
The genius girl was the first one to speak, her expression slightly worried.

“I thought it was better to wait until you finished talking… but then you started talking too seriously and I was waiting the right moment to come sit with you.”

Yuma was right by her side, sobbing quietly.

“I… I did not know you were going through this much, Dick… How… how could I imagine you were asked something so daunting from someone so important to you…!”

Aileen looked sad as she squeezed one of her arms with her hand.

“I dun think I have any right to say this, but… you should be honest to her. Now that you beat her, I think you should open up to her… and no, I’m not crying, it’s just your imagination.”

That last part was an obvious lie given by how hard she was biting her lip, but pointing it out would’ve been out of place, so I looked at Cody, who had a complicated face.

“You feel way worse than any of us, don’t you…? What I felt is nothing compared to this… I feel so stupid right now…”

I appreciated her words as much as everyone’s. They made me realize that we could be more honest between us exactly because we were friends and cared about each other.
But for that very reason, there were things I didn’t want them to see or know.
This discussion was one of them, for example, and it felt like I didn’t really open to them this way.
But now it was too late for that—they knew.

Something inside me was like on fire, and so was my face.

“P-Please, pretend you didn’t see me like that. I wasn’t crying, I just had something in my eye.”

There I was, coming up with another stupid excuse while blushing like an idiot.
I felt like laughing, but I knew I was still about to cry.
The girls walked into the room while Verlaine closed our distance and hugged me again like a few minutes before.
She rested her head on my shoulder with a satisfied smile on her face.

<Prev | Index | Next>

Note: yep, I didn’t even manage to complete this chapter due to the end of January, I’m going through deadline hell right now, but I’m trying my best. I wanted to point out that this webnovel has officially ended in December 2020 with the 207th chapter.
The author says that the light novel ended with the 9th volume and that the manga will be ongoing for a while. He might write some other stuff about this story, but we’ll see. For now he said he’s working on something else.
Well, if I keep up with a monthly release we’ll see the end of this story in 153 months from now, so well, hope it’s gonna be a fun ride~!

The limit of growth and the limiter removal

Back in the days, I couldn’t really ask Mylarka for help given what had happened between us, so I had Verlaine help me with the first transfer-crystal we found and I managed to learn a few things from it.

The first is that the magic circle for Transfer Magic cannot be written by a human mage alone since they don’t have enough strength to reproduce it correctly.
The principle behind moving to a far location was totally different compared to the one behind moving to a close one, and it couldn’t be reproduced in any other way if not by using the crystals, which was why they were so few in the first place.

Still, teleporting to a close point drained quite a lot of magic power even to me.

“You studied the transfer-crystals and managed to learn how to teleport, Teacher?”
“Eheh… you did too? Good. Who knows how many you found so far. However I never taught you how to imbue magic tools with magic.”
“You taught me the basics, didn’t you? As long as I can read the runes, I can find a way to use a transfer-crystal.”
“My, you really are special, Dee. Stellaphact’s¹ runes will never be readable by your average kid.”

She slightly acknowledged me when we clashed our swords too, although sarcastically.

I kept the feeling of happiness that was surging in me at bay. Spirit Limiter Hold could suppress my emotions too.

“Stellaphact… that’s a unique transfer-crystal, right?”
“Only because this country’s archaeologists have yet to dig that deeply. You went in the deepest part of the royal researching division, didn’t you? If you did, I’m sure you know what I mean.”
“Why are you telling us that now…?”

Mylarka asked, trying to let the talk go on. She never butted in because she was concentrating on preparing a magic field that could jump at Teacher any moment now… and thinking that she was doing it without being noticed gave me the goosebumps from nervousness.

However, Teacher knew how to seal magic, so that move was useless.

“I believe that Dee will come back to me, and I will teach him every single thing he wants.”
“I don’t want to comment on your wish of dying by his hand… and I don’t mean to insult you, but your love is very twisted.”
“Eheh… people never speak the truth, don’t they? Thugs almost caught you when you ran from him. You hurt him, and yet you didn’t give up on him and walked by his bar many times to see how he was doing, didn’t you? You wanted him to be fine, but you fled.”
“Mylarka, don’t listen to her. She’s going to mess with your head.”

The genius girl fell silent.
It was normal for Teacher to know everything.

Her strength was to remember everything, almost like her memory had no limits.

While my information network was built on my guild members, Teacher’s was based on her ability to read the memory of anyone she came across simply by approaching them. She only needed a few days in a place to gather a terrifying amount of information.

That was also why I knew she didn’t really want to kill us right now.
Also, I cast Mind Guard on us to block that monstrous ability. It prevented her to literally read through us.

“You are so sweet, Dee… do you remember? When you were attacked by that hurt wyvern you healed it right away.”
“And you’ve been the one to save me when I was badly wounded.”
“Yes. You’ve been so stupid that I thought helping you couldn’t hurt. Here you are now, still standing because of a whim.”

Whenever I thought she was being kind to me, she always hurt me. I couldn’t understand her when I was a child.

“And yet you’ve taken me under your wing. You acknowledged my power… and now I must stop you.”
“I’ll be blunt… Blue Sagittarius and Purple Scorpio have been terrible for a long time now. They didn’t keep up with time. They only accepted requests to satisfy their members and never opened to new business. It would’ve been better if only half of the twelve guilds in this capital were still around. The others are useless, they have no reason to exist.”
“Why do you know so much about the guilds? Why did you come back?”

The answer to Mylarka’s question was obvious. My teacher wasn’t called ‘Ashen clown’ for nothing.
I would’ve never expected that my teacher had something to do with the guilds. I could’ve found information about it if I wanted, but I wanted to forget about her so badly I never thought about it.

Why did the twelve guilds have a color in their name?
Had they always been twelve? I already knew they were not.

“I’ll tell you once you manage to win, Dee. And you, girl. Keep your magic away, it will never graze me. This is only between Dee and I.”
“What…?!”
“I know the only magic who can affect her. It would be best if you don’t show her too many of your cards… Teacher has the ability of analyzing anything’s structure and nullifying it. Just like you.”
“What?! No, it can’t be! No one can dispel my magic!”

My teacher didn’t inform Mylarka that I could do the same. When our battle began, she would see it by herself.

“The only opponent worth of being called that in the expedition party is the demon girl. She might even overpower me when she goes all out in terms of sheer strength. On the other hand, dealing with your magic or that knight’s wouldn’t be hard. The spirit sword is annoying, but it’s possible to get through it… like this.”

There was another kind of unique spirit in the world along with the sword spirits—the shield spirits. They granted an impenetrable defence, and once they were summoned, they took the shape of a shield on the summoner’s arm.

The murals in some ancient ruins showed those same shields protecting the arm of the Lance Goddess.
I knew my teacher could use sword spirits, but I had no memories of her summoning the shield ones too.

Somehow I knew she could do anything, but seeing it with my own eyes was simply terrifying. I could vividly hear the danger bells screaming in my head.

“She summoned her equipment…?! So there are other spirits like the swords’ ones…?”
“The armors’ ones exist too. I suggest you to lay your hands on some if you want to be very strong. No matter your rank, everyone’s defence is always paper-thin.”

She swung her sword and a cutting wave of magic power hissed through the air, directed to Mylarka. Not sensing any bloodlust before the attack, she was surprised and didn’t react in time to defend herself, but luckily I knew that Teacher acted like this, so I jumped between them and fended off the incoming attack by cleaving it.

“Wow, Dee, how fast… she must be very important for you.”
“I didn’t feel any bloodlust… I can’t read her at all…”
“She wasn’t this mean back then. Teacher, can I speak my mind freely?”

I kept our foe’s attention in check by gathering magic in my sword until Mylarka had stepped far enough to be out of danger. Teacher allowed us to and let her magic flow freely out of her.
Then, it split into different kinds, powering both her defensive and offensive prowess to an insane extend.

“You can’t break this shield. I tried many times to and I always failed. It will be the same for you.”

She knew my power very well, but I had yet to remove my limit. I couldn’t tell if she noticed it or not.

If she did, she surely had something up her sleeve to counter me.

“We can’t tell before I try. Besides, I don’t need to break my foe’s shield to take them down.”
“You can’t do it with the little magic you have. You can’t win against me as long as you keep it so cramped.”

No… you just never bothered to look at me closely, not even when I was about to leave you five years ago.

After all that time, although her presence was still towering above everything, her magic power hadn’t changed in the slightest. However, I could feel she was more powerful.

After our expedition, I kept racking my brain on how to train myself no stop. The limiter removal was the product of all that hard work.
I am the kind of adventurer who wants to become better, no matter how strong I become.

“Stop looking at me like that.”

Teacher’s voice was dry, her look stern.

“Why are you looking at me with pity? You’ve never been that kind of boy. You should just keep following me like you always did. It must be that way. Forever.”
“I’m not pitying you. I just understood that I can’t lose against you.”
“Is that so…? I will never lose against someone who restrains himself like you. Are you saying you can take me down without getting serious? Without bloodlust or any wish to kill me?”

Her words confirmed that she didn’t know about that card up my sleeve.
She also implied that the reason why she was back was seriously me.
She expected to forget me like she always did when she tossed everything away and moved to another place, but this time she failed to.
I was probably like a boulder in the middle of the flowing river that was her endless journey—she just couldn’t get over it.

“You won’t break this shield and you will never hit me, Dee—”

She didn’t finish her sentence: I teleported in front of her, my sword already swinging down on her, but she rose her shield and blocked me.

It was the first time I saw that expression on her face. For a moment, she looked exactly like a child whose time had been stopped.

If she really was immortal… if her time had really stopped, she would’ve walked on the threshold of time forever, unable to grow like any of us.

“I’ve been waiting for you in that village… I’ve been keeping my promise and waiting where I taught you how to fight… and yet you…!”

A force field burst out of her shield and made me fly a short distance away.
That was another use of that shield.
I could come up with an anti-magic spell to nullify it if I had enough time to analyze it, but I didn’t.
I wasn’t quick enough… but I could be. Even if I had to see my teacher despair.

Spirit Release, Limit Burst.

I felt like my body was freed from its chains, and the world around me started to change.

My thought and body reached an impossible speed and I jumped again at my teacher, taking the force field head on.
In that brief moment, I managed to analyze and nullify her defence, then I swung my sword again and she blocked my assault with her shield.
Sparks flew around us.

“Why are you quicker than me…?! You shouldn’t be able to…!”
“Didn’t you want me to kill you? Why do you sound so whiny?”
“You’re mine…! Why…? WHYYY?!”

Her feelings were evident.
She never had interest in anything other than me since the day we met.

Cleaver after-image – Thousand-cut dance.

I mimicked one of Aileen’s secret hand-to-hand techniques which consisted in attacking the foe using the after-images of the sword as a decoy while attacking from other directions. It was usually used to unleash a flurry of slashes on multiple enemies and thanks to my spirits it was about eighty percent as strong as the original.

I combined that with Teleportation Magic and imbued each and every attack with Support Magic, trying to hit her as hard as I could.
She was reacting at a breath-taking speed, and sparks danced all around us to the beat of our clashing.
However, now that I nullified her force field, she was sustaining all the shocks on her sword and shield with her sheer strength, and after about one hundred of them, she got on the offensive and started to swing her sword around with deadly precision.

We kept that head to head fight up for a while, but Teacher slowly lost ground, and my last attack crashed on her shield with a thunderous roar, pushing her a little distance away.
She fell on her knees, blood staining her tattered clothes as it trailed out the countless cuts on her body. Her sword was in bad conditions as well: plenty of cracks covered it and its blade was chipped.

Her shield had taken several damage. It was now filled with scratches, cracks and dents, but it had the ability to slowly repair itself.

I could’ve damaged it if I reproduced Cody’s sword of light too, and maybe if we attacked it together, we could even be able to break it.

“Dick… that’s Aileen’s technique…!”
“Mine aren’t that strong, so it’s easier if I learn and use those of other people.”
“Your adventurer score can’t just be slightly over 100.000 points… the entire expedition might not be able to bring you down right now…”
“I don’t think so. My reproductions will never be as good as the originals, but being a jack of all trades comes in handy sometimes.”

Mylarka’s face was puzzled, and I couldn’t help but smile to her. I almost felt guilty to see her taken aback like that.
I thought she wouldn’t even be surprised to see me using the same magic as her at that point.

When our conversation ended, Yuma, who was on Aileen’s shoulder, Cody and Verlaine showed up from the ceiling door.
That was the first time they had seen me like that.
As soon as I saw them, I restrained my power again and had my sword disappear.

“Dick… I ran like crazy because I thought you were having a hard time, and yet here you are… victorious.”
“Y’know, I felt like a shiver running down my spine when I saw you a minute ago… later can you tell me what happened?”
“Dick, is that the head of White Capricorn…? O-Oh no, her clothes are in tatters…!”

Verlaine gave Yuma a sidelong glance and approached Teacher while untying her own apron, which then used to cover the woman as the best as she could.
My teacher wasn’t still on her knees due to the cuts on her body, which weren’t a big deal thanks to the defensive magic she was using, but due to her shortage of magic power. She had almost drained it all to keep up with our fight.

I was so focused on our fight that I hadn’t noticed that she was now half-naked: her clothes were in such bad condition that Verlaine’s apron was the only layer that blocked my eyes from seeing what I shouldn’t have.

Once by her side, the former Demon Lord crouched down nearby Teacher, her gaze stuck to the woman.

“I was not sure that my Master’s teacher was one of them. I never expected you to be real… and who could expect you to be defeated.”
“Them…? Verlaine, do you know something about my teacher?”

Ashen clown looked like an elf, but she wasn’t.
Verlaine looked up to me, a hint of hesitation in her eyes.
Then, she started explaining what my teacher—the SSS rank adventurer who wandered the lands and who was strangely affiliated to White Capricorn—was for real.

<Prev | Index | Next>

TL comment, feel free to skip this if you just want to read the chapter: hey there~! I’m late but merry Christmas, everyone! Hope you spent a great day.

Sorry for not updating for about two months, but lately it’s been hell for me. I had to meet a lot of deadlines and I’m always quite dead-tired, so I barely have the strength to work on light novels. Also, last time I managed to sleep more than three hours in a row has been in the first days of November, so my brain isn’t really happy right now.
Noisy places are noisy [quote].

I’m also ashamed that I couldn’t keep up a monthly release for Acan’s projects, since this is the 10th chapter I translated in 2020, so… yeah, I guess it’s not a great result… but I hope at least the chapters are worth the wait (I’ll try to complete New Game’s next chapter within the end of 2020).

This year has been a rollercoaster for me… and I’m sorta glad about it.
I got to collaborate with a lot of people and push myself through a lot of projects, so I’m happy about how it all turned out… although I could’ve done more. But well, I’ll just try harder in 2021 and see what I can do!

As always, thank you everyone for reading and supporting these series!
I wish all of you the best!

Reunion and the unkept promise

A lot of adventurers saw us trying to jump on the roof and fired all their spells and darts at us.

“She was right! We’re under attack! Take them down!”
“Fireball!”
“Icicle lance!”

The fireball and ice lance that flew toward us were cast by some S rank adventurers and taking those hits without any proper defense would surely hurt a bit.

I held Mylarka in my arms to shield her, but all it took to defend us was a gesture of her hand—all the attacks vanished in thin air before hitting us.

“Restricted area annihilation n°91 – Absolute domination field.”

I can protect us from anything I already know, but I can’t keep track of all these attacks. I have to write how to dispel them all inside the structure of the field. It’s expanding 0.3 seconds slower than the other defensive fields… but I can finally field-test it.

Mylarka only created eighty fields, as far as I knew, and yet she cast the 91st.
Many of them were defensive, however it looked like this one blocked any long-ranged attack, no matter if it was a spell or a projectile.

She’s always so amazing… with that, not even an entire army is a big deal.

We didn’t have time to talk right now, so I made the piece of magic tool I had with me vibrate to call the others for help.

I could tell that Mylarka was thinking and monitoring the situation at inhuman speed. If she didn’t, she probably would’ve failed to isolate us from that storm of attacks.

“W-What the hell…?! Magic can’t reach them?!”
“No way! There’s no way a S rank has the better of us! There must be some trick!”

Keeping a low profile since forever was bearing its fruits now, since the thought of being attacked by SSS ranks didn’t even cross their minds.

Then, a thought flashed in my head.
They said that she was right a minute ago… so she had warned White Capricorn that we might’ve tried to attack them in this way.
But if she knew, then…!

Mylarka looked up at me with a puzzled expression—she had noticed what was going on and was about to say something when the air in front of us started vibrating.
Our enemy, three more casters on the roof, were casting something to prevent us from landing. We were about to face another wave of attacks, but this time it was on a totally different scale.

I understood what Mylarka was about to tell me: she couldn’t stop the next attack because she didn’t know it… but I did.
That was Spirit Actualize, the first spell that my teacher had taught me to bring out my true potential… and the spell that changed my life.

Now I didn’t need to see her face. I was sure that it was her.

I always caused a lot of troubles to people when I was a child who didn’t know how to use magic because I used it in rushed ways. Then, my teacher taught me how to control it—she had cast her spells on me so many times that my body just learned them.

Still, if a S-rank adventurer used SSS-rank magic, not only they would run out of magic power, but they’d risk the magic to respond with a counterphase and literally self-destruct.
When someone doesn’t have enough magic power, the operating magic will borrow the amount it needs from the nearby people even if it means sucking them completely dry… which leads to death, since everybody needs at least a tiny bit of magic power to live.

I focused all my senses and thought about what to do, then I noticed that the three casters wore a collar. They were probably forced to act that way.

Did you hate me so much for not coming back to you, Teacher…?

I couldn’t let her kill people, although indirectly, because of me.
I had to cut the magic threads that forced them to be her puppets before it was too late, but how could I do that? Landing and attacking them would take too much, and they looked about to fire.

Somehow, Mylarka understood what I was thinking and cast a spell so fast I barely noticed.

Restricted area annihilation n°66 – Disintegration field.

The field of her previous spell shattered in splinters that cut through the air and stuck to the casters’ collars, destroying them in an instant. The next moment, all three of them looked exhausted, and we finally landed on the roof, finally out of sight from the spells and arrows coming from down below.

I freed Mylarka from my embrace and sprung onward, my magic sword imbued with Silence rune in hand, slashing through the three casters, who fainted and fell on the ground. This way their magic power was sealed and nothing would’ve messed it up for some time.

“Thank you, Mylarka, you saved them. They would’ve been goners if they fired.”
“It was strange that I didn’t know what that spell was, so I acted on impulse. Your Silence blade comes in handy in times like this.”

She stared at me as if urging me to talk while I dragged the bodies to a save spot, then, not bearing her prying gaze anymore, I spoke.

“We’re going to face the woman who taught me magic.”
“What…? Why would she put up this mess with the guild?”
“She probably saw me or got to know about me. I mean, that I’m a Guild Master.”
“And she became the mastermind behind all of this because she didn’t want you to? This is a bit far from what I’d call ‘throwing a tantrum’.”

Yes, she was right. Mylarka always was.

However, we couldn’t apply common sense on my teacher. She was something that transcended it, as a ‘miracle’ born once in a thousand years… just like us.

“Mastermind? Please, don’t soil my reputation with your nonsense. I only had him come back to this guild.”

Her voice rang from behind us.
I turned around while scanning the roof, and the only way up to here from inside the building was literally on the other side… how did she appear from behind us without using Transfer Magic…?

I couldn’t think of anything. Maybe she didn’t use magic at all and just managed to recreate what only Transfer Magic could do with her sheer power.
She appeared out of thin air like that even the first time we met. That time, she let out a mischievous laugh.

She called herself ‘immortal’ in the past and seeing that she was exactly like I remembered was indeed unsettling.

Her silver hair reflected the light from the sky, spreading it around her body like a white aura, which clashed with her deep blue eyes, colored like the darkest sea.
The vibe she let off wasn’t divine like Yuma’s.
My teacher’s ‘light’ was cold and inorganic in a way that mere humans couldn’t possibly hope to grasp.
I never even grasped her name, that’s why I only called her ‘Teacher’.

“You brought Sweet disaster with you because you guessed I was here? You weren’t sure you could do it alone? I guess you’ve grown only on the outside. Your heart must be the same as the kid you were when you’ve left.”

Her seraphic smile clashed with her venomous words, proving once again that she was like the embodiment of duality.

I felt my chest tightening under the raging waves of nostalgia.

When I was a child, I thought she’d be forever out of reach. However, now I saw her as an adult I could even surpass… if only she allowed me to.
If she wanted, the distance between herself and the rest of the world would just become impossible to overcome.

“Unfortunately, I can’t let you keep calling me a kid.”
“Drop the grown-up act. You were nostalgic when you saw me, didn’t you? What, did you expect I’d be crooked and ruthless no matter what? Does that mean that you accepted me, Dee?”
“Grrr… you do sound quite the egoist, and I’ve already had enough. I don’t care if you’re Dick’s teacher, I can’t turn a blind eye to what you’ve done. Why on earth did you raise a dust in the capital?”

Teacher took a step toward us with her guard lowered, her smile still cloudless.

“Take another step and I’ll blast you away.”
“You should know how to use Transfer Magic if you use Space Expanding Magic. Should I teach you how to do it? Now Dee should be able to handle it too, so should we step back in time like in the good ol’ days? You don’t have what it takes to beat me.”

I was the only one she’d always been kind to.
No matter how immense her power and confidence were, she had seen something in me that drove her to always repeat me the same words as a curse—you’ll kill me when I’ll want you to.

“Why did your heart break? I couldn’t get it when I was younger, but now I can tell.”
“Oh, can you? Can you really tell that I’m changed when you don’t even know my name? You have yet to know anything.”

I hated those eyes.
I hated how they could see through everything like the world was made of glass, and I hated those words always filled with wickedness.

The equipment under her overcoat made her look no different from a being descended from heaven, and her dark blue eyes were mirrors of a gaze that could drag anyone down the darkest abyss.
When I managed to look away from them, I saw that there was a collar around her neck—it was the magic tool that commanded all the others’.

If I asked her why she had shaped it like a collar, she would’ve probably said that ‘ruling on someone means ruling on yourself as well’.

“Mphph… I see. Dee couldn’t forget about me because we’re related by magic, unlike you guys, huh? So you remember my words. What I gave you.”

She was trying to reopen a very old scar in front of Mylarka.

When I was a child, I believed I was the strongest and no one could beat me. Still, my teacher showed me how terribly wrong I was.
It was her who taught me about true power and the most beautiful side of humans… as well as their most cruel and wicked one.

I didn’t remember what she was referring to. Our time together was simply filled with terrible memories I didn’t want to recall.

I could feel Mylarka’s gaze on me. She was probably worried and that made me lose as a man… I had to stand for myself.

“I forgot all you said. I’m living as myself, not as something you’ve made.”
“You’re lying. I still remember it vividly and so you do. That’s what I taught you.”
“Dick, we don’t need to talk anymore. It doesn’t matter what she’s been for you in the past.”

Mylarka could craft devastating magic fields in a few moments, but Teacher didn’t look any worried about that. She wasn’t paying the genius girl any mind.

“Dick doesn’t belong to you. Do you want to command him? I’m sorry to inform you that he’s not so weak to listen to someone like you.”
“No one will ever stand between Dee and I. He’s still using the magic I taught him, after all.”
“So what? Pupils can overcome their teachers and get away from them.”
“Thank you, Mylarka, but you don’t have to worry. I’m okay.”

I grabbed my sword, casting Spirit Blade on it right away, and my teacher unsheathed the one she had tied to her hips. Her attacks were so powerful that she didn’t need a big weapon to crush her opponent, that’s why she used a thin sword.

It was called ‘fairy sword’, and it was made with extremely rare materials. It was the strongest weapon I knew for mages, since it had a very high affinity to magic, especially to Support Magic.

There was a time where I looked for one as well, but then I realized I didn’t need it. I mean, I could just try to reproduce one with a normal sword, although I didn’t know if it would turn out as much as powerful. Honestly, I had yet to try it out.

I learned how to use swords and magic from my teacher… that’s why I needed to overcome her now.

If I didn’t, her time will never restart flowing. I had to show her that I was changed and that she couldn’t control me anymore, otherwise everything would be the same forever.

I wasn’t a child anymore. The path I was walking on after I had left her was the product of my choices and I had no intention to go back to my teacher.

“I cut your body and healed it back so many times that you ended up learning Healing Magic, how to handle a fight to death and how to use a sword. Now come, Dee. Let’s step back in the past.”
“Yeah, let’s fight to death. Otherwise you’ll never understand.”
“You are the only one who doesn’t understand, Dee. Why… why do you not do as I say?”

I heard Mylarka gulping down and taking a step back. My teacher’s overwhelming bloodlust almost snatched the air from our lungs.
A SS rank’s mind would’ve gone completely blank from this. They’d probably cower in fear.

I did that too when I experienced it the first time.

But since I’ve been part of the expedition, I was grown.

Then, my teacher blinked away and reappeared right in front of me, her fairy sword strengthened with Spirit Blade already cutting through the air.
Our swords clashed together and she cast ‘Spirit blade – Attack rise’, multiplying abysmally the amount of magic power her sword stored, then slashed again.
I did the same and our swords clashed again, our magic power tearing and raging at each other’s until hers exploded and I was sent flying.
The next moment, she blinked away using Teleport and I felt her bloodlust crushing me from behind.

I heard Mylarka screaming something and my teacher whispering sweetly into my ears—bye bye, Dee.

I felt her sword piercing through the many layers of defensive spells I cast beforehand with ease. It was about to split my heart in two when I managed to use Teleport to shift behind my teacher who stood unmoving for a moment, then let her guard down.

“I never said I couldn’t do it. Aren’t you jumping to conclusions?”
“Dick…!”

Mylarka let out a voice so relieved and amazed I thanked this moment from the bottom of my almost-cut-in-two heart.

However, my teacher wouldn’t let the fight end with this, and if she was coming at me again in the same way, I believed we would just replay what had just happened.
Then, she blinked away, taking some distance between us.

“I’m glad you did that. I would’ve failed to rise you if you didn’t.”
“I’m glad I could meet your expectations, but stop holding yourself back, Teacher.”

I wasn’t the same as five years ago. I changed, and I needed to make her accept it with this fight… no matter what.

<Prev | Index | Next>

TL note: of course I got something wrong again. Yay. Ashen clown addresses “Dick” as “Dee”, as we see in this chapter. I didn’t get it at first, so I fixed it here and in the previous entry (chapter 50).

Goddess of wrath, Silent requiem and Sweet disaster

Green Cancer’s headquarter was located in the 8th Street. They were a guild of puppeteers who used golems.

They could implant spirits and wandering ghosts into unanimated objects and manipulate them, but Yuma could meddle with them thanks to her power, making them pretty much useless.

Green Cancer had huge grounds where they crafted their golems, but none of their creations moved an inch when the two Miracle children walked past them.
Aileen and Yuma reached the Guild Master so easily it looked like they were taking a stroll, and none of the other members in that guild stood a chance against Aileen, since their second best member was an A rank adventurer.

Once they reached the last floor of the building, the Guild Master, knowing that a few intruders were coming after her, tried to ambush them, but failed miserably and got counterattacked by Aileen, who left Yuma behind for a moment and punched their enemy so hard she fainted in one hit.

“We’ll talk when you wake up, okay? Now, the collar…”

Green Cancer’s Guild Master was a shaman woman wearing a national dress that revealed a lot of her skin. Aileen thought that it would’ve been bad if Dick saw her, so she freed her from her collar and then covered her with an overcoat she had found nearby.

“Aileen, are you okay? Oh… you look perfectly fine. Wow, there are so many dolls…”

Yuma entered the room a few moments later and looked amazed in front of the countless dolls lined up on the shelves and on the ground. Aileen guessed that they should’ve moved and could be manipulated, but all of them were motionless and just stood there tidily.

“You’re like the natural enemy of this guild, aren’t you, Yuma? Thinking about it, I don’t remember golems attacking us on our expedition…”
“The Demon Lord’s army is mainly composed by demons, people and beasts’ ghosts, not spirits. I knew they could be used to make golems, so when we were surrounded by enemies or when we were fighting a bunch of them, I made sure to purify whatever was near us.”
“Wow, it’s amazing that you don’t even break a sweat doing that. Whenever we were together, it was like I could see that purifying power of yours getting stronger, and… it was relaxing to stand so close to you. It still is.”
“I let the expedition party see my power, but it is just natural for me…”

Yuma was surely the strongest member of the expedition party in terms of latent magic power, but she used it all only to make souls ascend to heaven, so it didn’t add to her adventurer score.

Aileen believed that being acknowledged as a SSS rank adventurer only thanks to her purification abilities was crazy. Yuma focused all her power only on that, putting aside any other magical or physical ability. Being a versatile support for the party had never even crossed her mind, so little she cared.
However, Dick always cheered for her, saying that she was perfect in her own way.

“I’m very glad you’ve been our healer, Yuma. We went through a lot of deadly battles and you were always there after the worst, warming our heart and helping us feel better.”
“I am very glad you think that. It means that I have been doing my job right. A priest should ease people’s heart. Then, one day we will take each other’s hand and depart for the Land of Gods…”
“Why don’t you start with Dick? That guy’s super curious, you know?”
“I-I should refrain to do that… I would love to, but if I take his soul too far from his body, it would be impossible to bring it back to earth… it would be like… forcing him to ascend… forever…”

Aileen worried a bit seeing Yuma fidgeting so much behind her mask. Like, did she really consider giving it a try in the past?

The Charming goddess of wrath didn’t care about the normal relationship between sexes when she was younger. The only important thing in her life was learning her father’s techniques and honing her skills as much as she could, but since she moved to the capital, she heard of a lot of ‘noteworthy’ stories between boys and girls.

Yuma doesn’t get it since she’s always a natural airhead when it comes to that topic… but Dick sure has got nerves of steel. The girls in the red-light district say that guys hide their horniness when they’d actually bang whatever crosses their way…

“Aileen, you look strange. Is there something troubling you?”
“W-What?! N-Nope, not at all?! I-I was just thinkin’ that Dick sure has nerves of steel, or like… you know, just some random thinking…”
“I can see your soul pulsing with pinkish waves… is your demonic side mixing up with your human one? Oh… no, it looks like some desire is welling up in your soul…”
“N-No, stop it! Don’t peek at my soul, I don’t wanna ascend yet!”

Aileen rushed over and lightly pressed her hand on Yuma’s mouth to make her stop talking, but the young priest kept talking anyway with a smile on her face, not minding her own muffled voice.

“Do not worry, Aileen, your feelings reached my heart. It is not time to ascend for us yet.”
“Aaah… hahaha… yeah… what’s with us, indeed. Whenever we act on our own like now, Dick is always the one at the center of it all! How much do we depend on him?”
“I do not, honestly.”
“I-Is that so? Yuma, did you grow independent from him?”

Aileen mouthed a strange question while Yuma took Green Cancer’s Guild Master’s collar from her hand. She then squeezed and cleansed it with her power, dissipating the remaining magic left into it. The runes carved on it slowly disappeared.

“I could not meet him for months, but I felt that he was doing well in the capital. However, that did not prove a real hardship, so I have the proof that I can stand on my own.”
“I see… what if he left the capital, then?”
“That… would be fine too. We are the masked saviors, so he would probably meet us every now and then…”
“What?! It would be a hassle not to have him around, you know?! He’s very handy and helpful, he’s good at cooking and he’s very trustworthy…”
“It is exactly because he is that kind of person that he would promise us to meet again every now and then. I am glad I can drop by his bar now and my parents do not mind it anymore.”

Aileen felt that Yuma wanted to keep Dick close to herself as well.
Maybe she wasn’t aware of it, but the Forgotten Fifth had a special place in her heart too.
In the end, nothing had changed since the expedition party formed, and Aileen’s heart warmed when she realized it.

“He always preferred Mylarka over us, but we’re young ladies too, so why waste this precious time for nothing…?”
“What do you mean with that…? And who are you referring to, Aileen?”
“Oh, nothing, forget it…”

She shrugged the matter off with that and heard the magic tool that Dick had lent them vibrating. He was calling out to them.

“No way… Dick is calling for help…? We had guessed right, then. He is facing someone as strong as us…”
“Yeah, let’s hurry over there. Do we have anything else to do here?”
“We should leave Dick’s guild handle Green Cancer from now. We need to haste and reach the 1st Street.”
“Yuma, can I give you a piggyback? Or should I take you like a princess?”
“P-Please… take me on your shoulders.”

Aileen adjusted Yuma on her shoulders, then opened the window and jumped out of it. She kicked the window’s frame so hard that she could’ve aimed for the roof of the nearby building, but she chose to jump far and dash instead.

“Dick, let me handle something as well…!”
“Y-You are amazing, Aileen…”

Yuma noticed that she didn’t have to hold Aileen so tight—her back felt even more stable than the average mount.

The Martial Artist dashed through the night, leaving a trail of wind behind her.

◆◇◆

White Capricorn had extended their control over eight guilds but was on a different level compared to them.
Their headquarter was located in the 1st Street, and their grounds could be easily compared to a magic university.

The spell Hiding could affect multiple targets, so we just entered the site without passing through the main gate and kept walking even when someone looked in our direction. Mylarka was right after me and deeply trusted my spells, so she didn’t look bothered at all.

There were a lot of bushes and trees scattered around the place, so we could just walk around them to reach the main building.

“Hiding makes our voice inaudible to people, right…? Modifying skills is always been a great thing of you.”
“I hardly hear you praise anyone, Mylarka.”
“I praise what deserves to be praised. There’s no point in keeping it to myself.”

Their students loved her also because she was very direct. I believe that it’s a good thing to study with a teacher that praises their students when they’re doing good.

“Can I count on your magic if we have to deal with the entire guild? It would be obvious who attacked at that point, but we can’t really help it.”
“I’d feel guilty to destroy this much of the capital even if no one found us. I want to hold my head high more than anyone else as long as I’m alive.”
“We do share the same feeling about it… wait.”

Our enemies found us. It was hard to believe but not impossible.

Hiding prevented any A or below rank adventurer to notice us, making us visible only after we attacked them.
Still, a S rank might have some tricks up their sleeve to perceive us, and so would a SS rank. We wouldn’t have been able to sneak in these grounds from the start if our foe taught all their underlings how to detect us, but luckily that hadn’t been the case.

“Did you really think we wouldn’t know you were walking around the woods?! Idiots!”

Four adventurers, two men and two women – the former as the vanguard – approached us. They were patrolling the area and all of them were at least S rank.
Luckily, their strength wasn’t boosted with Support Magic as much as Claive’s and I was glad about that. We had a lot less headaches than expected now.

However, the range of boost we granted people was very different: I could add around 3000 additional points to an adventurer’s score, bringing them to S rank, but our real opponent could do much more than that.

It must be her… I don’t want to believe that there’s someone else that strong…

However, I couldn’t just discard that possibility.
A part of me hoped we had to face an unknown danger so long we hadn’t to face Ashen clown. Accepting that reality would’ve been easier than fighting her.

“Did you think you could do whatever you wanted in our grounds?! You won’t get away with this!”

One of the men charged at us. He had a very muscular body, and given the huge war hammer he was holding, I guessed he was a ‘breaker’.

He’s using a magic weapon…? Dismantling it will take me some time, so…!

The man swung his weapon without a precise pattern, so I guessed he was starting his assault with ‘bone breaker’, an attack that simply aimed to the bones of the foe to shatter them in one hit. That was the basic of the breakers’ fighting style, but I always found it extremely nasty.

Putting my personal tastes aside, I couldn’t just take that kind of attack head-on, so I decided to avoid it.
The bad side of heavy weapons was that swinging them around meant leaving a lot of openings to the foe, so exposing oneself too much without thinking that they had to recover from the swing could possibly settle their loss in one move.

I put some distance between us and grabbed my spirit sword.

“Nice bait, man… oof!”
“You shouldn’t show me your everything from the start. Don’t rely so much on her power.”

Support Magic can defy the law of nature only in one way: Spirit Reflect—it allows the caster to duplicate or overlap additional layers of effects on the target.
I had smashed the Support Magic that boosted the man by throwing a coin infused with magic power at him, then caught it again when it bounced back to me.

Teacher, are you really behind all of this…? You’ve never been obsessed with me, so why are you doing this…?

“What’s wrong with relying on her power?! I won’t allow you to mess with her!”

My teacher could simply grasp the heart of people and control it. She did the same with me the first time we met.

However, her whimsical nature brought her to reject sticking to good or evil deeds only, so she always did whatever she wanted.

“Dee, I respect your kindness, but I also want to crush it. I love it to death, but I also hate it so much I want to destroy it.”

Her words rang again in my mind.

Maybe I should’ve met her at least once since I got back from the expedition.
Would I have lost myself like the guys I was looking at in that moment if I did so?

“Dick, you’re losing it. Get yourself together while I handle them.”

Wide area annihilation n°10 – Smashing topography.

Our foes were about to attack us – the man who had already attacked me was about to swing his war hammer again, the other one had sneaked away and was trying to attack us from behind with a short sword, one of the women had her spell ready to fire and the last one was a healer who was ready to cast some healing on her comrades – but they suddenly panicked when the magic field below Mylarka’s feet covered the entire area around us all in a moment and the ground started to quake, rise and crumble into pits at a frightening speed.

They all screamed in dread.
The man who was trying to attack me froze in place when the ground in front of him cleaved and crumbled into a dark, seemingly endless cliff.

I chose to use the coin to defeat them, although any long-ranged weapon would’ve worked. I cast ‘Spirit homing’ and flicked the coin to the closest enemy’s forehead who fainted as soon as he got sent flying by the impact.
His three other comrades understood that my attack had some magic involved, so they managed to avoid my first attack, but none of them avoided the second.

“We won’t need to sneak in if we can make such a mess. Dick, I’ll just wipe out anyone standing in our way. Escort me.”

In that moment, as I saw Mylarka puffing out her chest, I understood that what I wanted to follow right now wasn’t my teacher.
I silently thanked Mylarka in my mind, as she embodied the very concept of reliance.

“Sorry for giving you headaches, young lady. I won’t hesitate anymore… let’s go!”

Then, as if we were controlled by the same will, we climbed a near tree and jumped from its top toward the headquarter in unison.

I wasn’t afraid to face my teacher, I was only unsure about what to tell her after so much time.
She had ‘only’ taken control over White Capricorn, but I wanted her to stop doing this… and I didn’t want to kill her to achieve it.

I knew she was furious, and I was probably too weak to stop her, but I had to calm her down and do whatever I could about this matter.
I was ready to bend to her strength, but I would’ve never broke under her will.

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Note: I got something wrong again. Fml.
Do you remember that White Goat became White Aries? Okay, do you remember that there are two sheep-like zodiac signs? I know you already guessed what I’m about to say. “White Aries” is actually “White Capricorn” and I’m a damn moron not to have noticed it for the last 50 chapters (which took me around 3 years to translate).
Okay google, how to grow a few brain cells.
Jeez, they’re even written differently in Japanese (牡羊 = male sheep = Aries; 山羊 = mountain sheep = Capricorn). Stupid me.
The other error was in chapter 30: the “ghost blade” was actually a “spirit blade” (like the one that Dick uses), and it didn’t grant Cody only one single power, as we can see from this chapter.
I’ll try to be more careful and avoid this kind of stupid slip-ups again in the future, sorry.

Purple Scorpio and the hero wielding the light sword

Cody headed to Purple Scorpio’s headquarter after parting ways with the other Miracle children. She soon stepped into the 5th Street.

As far as she knew, there weren’t as many public order issues as the 12th Street, so Silver Aquarius had it rougher.
Cody doubted Purple Scorpio’s wickedness.

Still, once she asked for their headquarter, her opinion changed drastically.
The building she was looking for apparently wasn’t in that street, as endless rows of private houses stretched all through the block.
Purple Scorpio had camouflaged their headquarter to make it look exactly like any other building of the street, and located their base underground.

Only someone with a guilty conscience would place their base underground… I guess their Guild Master always had a wicked personality.

Cody’s mission was to free Purple Scorpio’s Guild Master from the collar that controlled him.

The strongest adventurer in that guild was a S rank, so not even an army of them would have posed a threat to her. She could fight them all and probably win unscathed.

However, she thought it was better not to attract unwanted attention until she completed her mission. She suppressed her urge to break into the front door of what was supposed to be Purple Scorpio’s headquarter and slipped behind the building looking for a rear door.

As she walked, a couple of beasts detected her and readied to jump on their prey.
Purple Scorpio wasn’t a guild that could be taken too lightly—they left tamed wolves to guard their places.

I like dogs, and wolves are so cute…! No, wait, they’re a bit scary.

Two huge wolves charged at her from different directions, growling like hungry beasts. Their mouth was wide open and their sharp teeth were ready to sink in the girl’s flesh.
She reacted in a moment, bringing her hand over her head and summoning the sword of light.

Flash veil.

A blinding light exploded in front of the wolves. They fell on the ground writhing in pain and Cody chose not to kill them. Turning them powerless was enough.

Magic sword release—Harmonics.

Her light sword turned into a tuning-fork-shaped sword in her hand and started vibrating, putting the two beasts to sleep in a few moments.
She knew that she still had a long way to go compared to Dick, but she still wanted to catch up to him when it came to magic swords and spirits, that’s why she made a lot of researches about them.

The wolves rolled over and lied down with their bellies in plain sight, peacefully asleep.
Looking at their beautiful fur, Cody smiled while letting her magic sword disappear.

“You’re so cute when you sleep… everything is…!”

The woman stood still in front of the door, keeping an ear out for people, but she could hear nothing coming from behind it. It looked like it was soundproof.
She made sure that the door hadn’t traps of any kind, then summoned her light sword again and slipped it in the crevice of the door, cutting the lock.

She could project the light spirits of her sword within the building to grasp its structure by feeling how they reflected on the surfaces.

It would’ve been dangerous if I never used this trick on our expedition…

Dick had never seen Cody change her clothes exactly thanks to that—she used this trick to detect his position within the places they slept in. She was sorry about it, but she didn’t want to let him know about her.

She remembered clearly how surly he was at first and how she never understood what was crossing his mind. She had never got in contact with a boy almost as strong as her, so she never let her guard down, and she now came to regret it.

During their expedition, Cody saw that Dick was the kindest person in the world with girls. No matter how unreasonable or egoistic the other three were: even when they said they wanted to quit and forget about it, he just accepted their words.
She believed that men weren’t trustworthy, and she soon came to hate herself for that.

Maybe I’m just fickle… does he feel more at ease now that he knows about me and I don’t have to hide anymore? Am I the only one who’s stressing over it and thinking that it might’ve been better if he never knew?

She asked Dick to train together because they were friends, but it wasn’t like he had to keep his ‘promise’ at all costs.
However, if she really believed that, why had she reminded him about it?

The more she thought about all of that, the more she believed that she had made another mistake.
He shouldn’t have found out about her.
Her mind kept clinging to the same thought—when did he come to know about me?
Was it right for her to ask him directly?

Cody stepped into her destination, brushing those thoughts away, and walked into a room.
It was a kitchen, but there weren’t food or ingredients stocked in there. It looked uninhabited.
A stingy smell of mold pricked at her nostrils.
She guessed that it was just a set up place to deal with intruders or visitors. Still, somewhere in that house was the path to Purple Scorpio’s underground headquarter.

Cody was envious of Dick’s full mask in that moment and pulled out an handkerchief to cover her nose and mouth, fastening it around her head. Thinking that she now looked like a robber made her smile.
She readied herself to secure the man that was tailing her and pretended to let her guard down to let him get closer, then she turned around in the blink of an eye and twisted one of his arms behind his back, pushing him to the wall.
The man let out a groan of pain.

“Trust me, you don’t want to move. Were you checking on the wolves? I already put them to sleep.”

The man didn’t answer and soon gave up on freeing himself from her grasp.
She was holding him with only one hand, so she used the other to extract his poisoned short sword from his belt, throw it away and then destroy it with her sword of light.

The man looked extremely surprised, but he kept silent as a lightning-speed attack, impossible to be seen by his eyes, made his short sword melt.
Cody could control the ray lights of her sword and turn them incandescent. She called it ‘light eraser’ and it allowed her to cut through metal like it was butter. It could also set things ablaze if she concentrated enough light on one thing.

The short sword fell on the ground completely melted, and the man, who should’ve been used to violence and insane situations, was now trembling in fear.

“The law allows people to use poisoned weapons only to hunt beasts outside the capital. Can you explain why were you carrying one around here?”

Losing his cool, the man started to scream and struggle to run, but she pinned him to the wall with too much strength, and then decided to silence him by hitting him behind his neck, like Dick did in the past when he saved her.
The man limply fell on the ground the next moment and silence filled the air again.

I guess I’m not suited to these kind of operations… I’m not smart like Dick, I don’t really know how to move…

“Hey, why’re you screami—!”

She wanted to end it all in silence, but the enemy had been alerted.
After she ‘put the enemies to sleep’, she turned her light blade into the tuning-fork-shaped one again and used its sound to make them powerless like she did with the wolves.

Cody slapped one of the fainted men awake and had him tell her what she needed to do to reach the basement, then she hit him again to sleep.
She had to look for the scorpion statue on the first floor and unlock a secret passage with it.

Cody confirmed that the poisoned short swords of her fainted enemies looked slightly worn out, which meant that Purple Scorpio wasn’t different from a guild of killers, then she hurriedly destroyed them.

She didn’t want to exploit her own power to crush them all like powerless ants, but that was exactly the urge that was slowly welling in her heart.

Maybe trying to suppress this impulse is another reason why Dick wanted to join a guild…

Cody was now a leader, so she didn’t have many occasions to fight alone. She always found it boring, but she had slowly understood that she was blessed.

She thoroughly searched the floor and finally found the scorpion statue and the contrivance in the hallway wall—a lock-like crevice where she could insert the statue’s sting. After doing so and turning it, a section of the wall slid away, leaving an opening behind that revealed the stairs to the basement.

Cody thought that she was going to face a lot of enemies from that moment, so she set her spirit sword to ‘auto-counter’, forcing it to shoot down every projectile that flew her way with its ray lights, and unsheathed her duty sword, which was just a normal sword unlike her spirit one.
There were a lot of enemies lurking in the shadows. They held sickle and chains, woodman’s hatchets, crossbows, blow guns; but none of them could harm Cody as she advanced by mowing them down.

They never talk… I guess assassins never spell a word in fight.

All their attacks were aimed to vital and sensible parts, but none of them ever reached her body as they were one-sidedly crushed.
After she had defeated around twenty of them, she finally reached the last door.

The air changed in there—miasma wafted and stagnated in the motionless hallway. She wondered if she was going to face the Guild Master in that room as she relaxed ever so slightly while solving the mechanism to open the door.

Then, as gears started to turn and the iron door slid open, someone jumped down the ceiling and stabbed her with a talon knife.

“Die.”

The tone of that male voice conveyed an evident bloodlust as the poisoned blade pierced through Cody’s back, which distorted and vanished.
The man was confused.
The next moment, he clearly heard footsteps coming from the dark room that had just opened in front of him—three more copies of Cody emerged from the darkness.

Those were highly detailed illusions born not by mere Illusion Magic.
Cody could control light, which meant that she could manipulate the light that entered her foe’s vision to create perfect copies of herself.

The assassin in front of her wore a battered deep purple overcoat and his entire body was covered with bandages—that was Purple Scorpio’s Guild Master. He had yet to recover from the fight he had with Clave Garland.
Cody looked at the contraption that circled around his neck with pity, as she tried to recall the chronological order that brought everything to this point.

“You had it though, but there’s no need to push yourself so hard anymore. You don’t have to fight in that state.”

The man shrieked and charged the Cody he heard speaking: he bent his body forward to be faster and readied his talon knife to slice the intruder, but the head of knights’ Light Mirage ability wasn’t that simple to overcome.

Manipulating the light that someone sees means that she could mess and destroy her foe’s sense of orientation: even if he tried to attack the source of the sound, he would only slice through thin air.

Exactly at the same time that his weapon cut through what he believed was his target, his collar had been severed and he fell unconscious.
Cody had completed her mission with a single slash of her light sword. She decided to use her strongest weapon to pay her respects to the pitiful man collapsed at her feet.

“Sleep tight. I’ll force you to make up for your wrongdoings when you wake up.”

Then, Cody turned her light blade into the tuning-fork-shaped one and rang it.
Purple Scorpio’s Guild Master should’ve had protective equipment against sound attacks, but she guessed that being controlled by the collar made him act only by instinct and not by logic.

She noticed that she had cut through his guild tag’s chain along with his collar, so she picked it up and read it—his job was ‘Master thief’. It meant that he had been a proper adventurer who finished all his duties and achieved all the criteria to become a master.

Thieves were usually called bandits, but adventurer thieves weren’t like that. Still, many ended up becoming assassins and bandits thanks to their lock-picking abilities, the tricks up their sleeves and their sly nature.

Cody, looking with even more pity at the collapsed man, thought that people shouldn’t ‘buy’ one another’s strength only for egoistic means. Adventurer guilds should’ve kept adventuring, just like their name suggested, not limiting themselves to only accept requests.

She wondered if Dick thought the same. She was sure he would listen to her if she talked to him about it.
Then, Cody picked up the broken collar and left the building.

A great idea was floating in her mind.

Since their expedition against Verlaine hadn’t been a real adventure, she wanted to try the real deal with the other Miracle children. They never did anything like that so far, and as the general of the army, she would’ve taken quite the long holiday to go…!

Then, the flow of her thoughts was interrupted.

The magic tool that Dick handed her, the magic stone piece, started vibrating, signaling that Dick and Mylarka were having a hard time in their fight.

It was hard to believe, but Cody guessed that they were facing someone at least as strong as them.
She had to hurry.

She left Purple Scorpio to the members of Silver Aquarius and the knight’s order, then she headed to the 1st Street.

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The hero’s teacher and the plan to normalize the guilds

I stood around until Claive was brought in one of Red Gemini’s confinement rooms, then I left.

I contacted Leeza with a magic tool, which I had crafted myself, capable of keeping us in touch from long distances and asked her to stand-by until I got there. She was currently at Black Leo’s and I planned ahead to hurry over if it was under attack, but she reassured me saying that nothing of the sort had happened. Leonid was sound asleep, snoring loudly in his own house.

All the members of my intelligence team had that magic tool. It allowed us to communicate instantaneously as long as we were within the capital.

A magic tool can be crafted as long as someone who can use magic has the knowledge to do so. There is a way to make the magic affecting them last forever, otherwise it would weaken by the day and eventually disappear.

The guy who controlled Claive is a third party unaffiliated with anyone… Controlling a SS rank adventurer like that means that they are very strong…

I would’ve never defeated Verlaine, who was a SSS rank foe, without all the others Miracle children, which were said to be born once every thousand years. So far, I had met only another person I knew who was as much strong—if not abysmally stronger—than us…

The woman who taught me magic—my teacher.

I was thirteen last time I had seen her. It was right before I joined the expedition party.

She was a free spirit who wandered around the world.
I bet she had already forgotten about me and picked another pupil on a whim…
She was the kind of person who always did whatever she wanted.

If I had to figure out who had buffed Claive so much and crafted those collars… she was the only one I could think of.

She was the moodiest mystery wandering the lands: her actions swayed from the kindest to the most aberrant.
She was called ‘Ashen clown’.

I didn’t want to think that she was now in the capital to pick a fight with me and I didn’t wish it either. However, it was totally possible given her personality.

“Dee, I so want you to kill me, that’s why I’ll raise you.”

Her words rang clearly in my mind.
She always smiled and laughed like a child, and yet was always out of reach like the best of adults.

I didn’t come back to her when the expedition against Verlaine was over.
I never understood her and I could never tell what passed through her mind.

Did she pick another pupil and got involved with White Capricorn on a whim? Was all this part of her plan…?

The more I racked my brain, the more I was convinced that it was her.
I never knew someone else who could use Support Magic other than the two of us.

However, controlling one of the Miracle children or Verlaine would be way harder than subduing a SS rank adventurer.

I hoped my guess was wrong… but I couldn’t just discard the possibility that we were going to face my teacher.
I felt like this matter’s showdown was drawing near… and I had to do whatever I could to end it quickly.

◆◇◆

I stopped thinking too hard about it when I reached Leeza, who had her eyes wide open as she looked at the ruins of a gate.

“W-What the heck happened? It looks like a tornado destroyed only this part…!”
“White Capricorn’s leader did this… it’s kinda amazing. I’m glad that Black Leo is fine, anyway.”
“Y-Yes, I have nothing relevant to report… only that Black Leo’s security guard saw a suspicious guy wandering around.”

Claive must’ve thought that he could use Sherry’s ability to control men and decided to ‘subdue’ Red Gemini first.

He only took a look at Black Leo, then thought it was better to gain full control over their affiliated guilds before destroying an unaffiliated one.

“By the way, Master, can I ask you something? We have a rule that forbids us to get involved and meddle with other guilds, right? Why are we breaking it?”
“Because we need to, this is an exception. In this specific case we need to investigate and understand what’s going on in the other guilds.”
“Okay, if you say so… Here, Sakuya and the others wrote down what they’ve found.”

Only three of the seven guilds affiliated to White Capricorn had changed lately: Purple Scorpio, Blue Sagittarius and Green Cancer.
I had already stopped Blue Sagittarius with the demi-humans’ matter, so this time I had to face the others two.

White Capricorn kept their requests accessible only to their affiliated guilds and stopped accepting general ones. I heard that many of their adventurers had left their guilds lately, which was weird, but I couldn’t tell what had happened and I didn’t receive any more information about that.

“The rule not to accept general requests shouldn’t apply to people who make a living out of it… but White Capricorn doesn’t care about it. Maybe their Guild Master and leaders forced them all into this… in that case, it wouldn’t be strange for the people most far from them to leak information, but they are keeping their guard up. Maybe they’re forbidden to say anything about it… I think they’re keeping their information under control.”
“I see… so those guilds are White Capricorn’s puppets in every way.”
“Yes. Sakuya said that getting carelessly close to that guild would lead to deadly fights. That’s probably the reason behind Purple Scorpio’s silence. They kept leaking some information until a little while ago, but then they stopped altogether.”

When Aileen faced those guys from Purple Scorpio, I thought they might’ve just accepted a request.

But what if that wasn’t it?
What if Purple Scorpio and Green Cancer gave up their decency and kept dirtying their hands due to White Capricorn’s control?
What if all this started way before this mess?

“This situation is very abnormal. I think that prying in this matter any further might lead our guild and all of its members to face some serious danger. Master, what should we do next?”
“You’ve done enough, leave the rest to me.”
“A-Are you serious…? Do you want to face White Capricorn and those crazy guilds at once? I mean, I firmly believe that you can do it, okay? Sorry for putting it like this, but—this isn’t like you, Master.”
“Yeah, I feel the same way. I minded my own business so far to create a proper environment for our guild. We needed it.”

Leeza stared at me absent-mindedly for a few seconds, then giggled.

“Got it. I guess that’s more like you. I’m glad to see that you’re the same old Master.”
“Leeza, join Sakuya for a while if you can. I’m afraid that our enemy might try to attack you singularly.”
“Okay, I’ll leave everything to the fighting teams. Wish you the best.”

She nodded to me before disappearing in the night. I felt better now: if I ordered her to stay safe, I had no need to worry about her or the other members of the intelligence team. They were all very careful and dutiful.

Now, taking over three guilds at the same time meant to split my men and choose the right ones for the specific mission I was going to assign them.

My duty was to find the third party affiliated to White Capricorn, which might be stronger than Verlaine and tough enough to give the Miracle children a headache, and handle them myself.

I didn’t care who I was going to face: we all wanted and needed to end this quickly. I didn’t want to see someone suffer like Red Gemini again.

◆◇◆

The next morning, I gathered the expedition party in the Magic Academy’s training fields.
Aileen looked in high spirits as she started to talk.

“Dick, where should I go? Can I face Purple Scorpio? They look like the most dangerous of the three.”
“Sure, but a lot of them use poison. I think it would be better to send a long-ranged fighter against them.”
“Then let me go. They made a target of the knights too, so I should drop them a visit.”

Purple Scorpio was like the guild of darkness: they abducted people and had a lot of assassins among their members. They accepted any kind of awful requests, so it was probably fate that Cody—the Holy sword of light—was going to face them.

“Yuma, can I leave Green Cancer to you? They use a lot of golems, but you should be able to dispel and nullify them. If Aileen is with you, nothing should pose a threat.”
“Yes. I am honored to help you. Golems are mere vessels for human souls and spirits, after all…!”
“Great! No worries, Yuma, I’ll protect you! I can use my other form as well since you can cleanse me! Sorry for bothering you so much last time~!”

Her strength multiplied several folds along with the impulse she felt to destroy everything every time she ‘transformed’, and later she had to face a lot of side-effects. She never said much about it, so I had yet to know them in detail.

Mylarka, who stood in silence until that moment, locked eyes with me.

“I guess we’re against White Capricorn, then… they should be the hardest to bring down, but I doubt they’ll be a problem for us.”
“I really hope so. As far as I can tell, they might have a SSS rank guy helping them.”

Cody, Aileen and Mylarka looked at me, tension wafting in the air—deep within their gazes burned the will to fight.

“Dick, I’ll be right there as soon as I finish my job.”
“We brought down Verlaine together. It might be coward to fight as a team, but the expedition party cannot lose against anything.”
“I’m curious ’bout what they can do, honestly… I hope it won’t end in a second.”

Shoot, there was no one I could trust more than these three. Claive would learn so much from these guys that all my teachings would pale in comparison.

“By the way, I’d love to spar with you again once it’s all over, Dick. I honestly thought we were going to train together today, since you called me.”
“S-Sorry. I’ll try to save up some time for you as soon as possible, Cody.”
“Alright, I won’t push the matter any further. I just wanted to make sure you remembered. It would hurt if you didn’t.”

Cody had a change of mind and brought her long sword instead of a sparring one. She barely had any occasion to use her light sword, but this time was one of them.

Then, we all took out our masks and everyone stared at mine.

“Dick, that mask has a great design. I want it too.”
“Aww~! Look at you, Dick! No one knew you crafted a new mask only for yourself~!”
“I agree. You can cover all your face with that… can I ask one too?”
“My, it looks wonderful on you~♪ You truly look like a hero now.”
“G-Girls… it’s the same old mask you have, I only changed it a little…”

I always felt very close to these three, but for some reason, I felt our relationships deepening by the day.

Nothing had changed between us since the expedition: creating the masked saviors only confirmed it. Now we had lots of chances to feel it on our skin. I didn’t know if they enjoyed it as much as I did, but I was really glad that we could push forward together.

White Capricorn was losing to insanity?
We were ready to beat some common sense in their skulls.
The next moment, we started carrying on our duties.

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