Budding Mages

The moment the principal and vice principal saw me, they bolted back toward the castle as if they’d lost their minds.

Stunned by the sudden, incomprehensible scene, I could only gape.

“They were talking about leveling up and certificates… what on earth was that?”

But more than that, something else was bothering me.

In the classes I could choose with Dexterous Job Change, Ninja had been added.

A Ninja was a type of Assassin, originating in the eastern lands.

The techniques produced through a trained body and spiritual discipline were called Ninjutsu, and they were feared.

Even at this Royal Pioneer Academy, Ninjas existed—Shinobuko from Class 1-02 was one of them.

“But Ninja is supposed to be an advanced class… Can an unemployed guy like me really become one?”

Up until now, the classes I could change into had all been basic ones.

“For now, I’ll go back home and check.”

With Monaka’s house completed, I left the residential area.

After returning to my forest house, I tried changing classes immediately.

“When you think Ninja, you think shuriken.”

I whittled some leftover Gisu lumber with my knife and made shuriken by imitation.

With my homemade shuriken, I decided to enjoy the ninja mood right away.

I threw the star-shaped piece of wood I had readied at a tree branch about ten meters away.

…SHUP!

A leaf dropped cleanly.

“Oh, it’s stronger than I expected. All right—next I’ll aim for a leaf even farther away.”

Feeling like a kid again, I threw shuriken nonstop.

All fifteen I threw hit dead center.

“That time I threw the arrow back too… with Focus as a stat, it really does fly exactly where you aim.”

As I admired myself, a rustling sound came from behind—bushes being pushed aside.

When I turned, a group of male students in mage robes was approaching my house.

“What do you want?”

When I addressed the boy at the front, he spoke with obnoxious familiarity.

“Hey there, hey there. You’re Leopin-kun, right? I thought I’d generously give you fire.”

From behind him, the others immediately protested.

“Hey, Nasuo-kun, what the heck is this!?”

“We came with you because you said you’d give us fire—so why give it to a loser like Leopin first!?”

The boy called Nasuo soothed them with a “Now, now.”

“Don’t panic. I’ll give fire to you all too—properly.”

In survival, fire was said to be the next most important thing after drinking water.

Judging by his outfit, Nasuo was a Mage, so he had probably succeeded in making fire with the starter spell Ignition.

He seemed to be using that power to dangle bait in front of the others and keep them following him.

Nasuo turned back to me and ostentatiously performed the Ignition spell.

After failing a few times, he finally set the branch in his hand ablaze.

Then he waved the burning branch as if to say, Want it?

“If you want it, get on your knees and say you want it, Leopin-kun. Say, ‘Great Mage Nasuo-sama, please grant me the mercy of fire!’”

“You show up out of nowhere and start this? If it’s fire, I can make it myself, so I don’t need yours.”

With Ranger Survival, starting a fire was easy.

When I refused, Nasuo became visibly irritated.

Apparently, it wasn’t the reaction he’d been hoping for.

“C-come on now, don’t be stubborn! Here—take it!”

He tossed the flaming branch through my house window.

Then he laughed loudly all by himself.

“Ahahahaha! Everyone! This house is going to burn, so you can take that fire home!”

The hanger-on students laughed too.

“Ohhh, so that’s what this was!”

“The trash guy knocked down our houses and acted like nothing happened—so we came to teach him a lesson!”

“As expected of Nasuo-kun! They say he’ll be a Great Mage someday for a reason!”

I hadn’t done anything, but the students banded together and blocked me from entering my house.

“Whoa there, Leopin-kun! You’re not going in to put it out!”

“Yeah, yeah! You’re the one who knocked down our houses!”

“Stand there crying and watch your house burn! Learn at least one-tenth of the sorrow we felt!”

But no matter how long we waited, the house never started burning.

A student who had been peering inside through the window shouted in anguish.

“W-what!? Why!? The fire went out!?”

“No way! How!? There isn’t even a single scorch mark on the floor…!”

“That’s impossible! There’s no way my fire could lose to a trash guy’s house!”

“You really do think of nothing but dragging people down, huh. My house has fire resistance, so it won’t burn that easily. And if you want fire so badly, I’ll give it to you.”

Sighing in exasperation, I gathered a fallen branch and some plant vines from the ground.

I wrapped the vines around the branch and set it upright on a stump to act as a base.

Then I just had to grip both ends of the vine and pull alternately—

…SHUGOOOOOO!

The branch spun at high speed, and a fire ember formed instantly.

I ignited some dry leaves I had prepared and made a campfire.

The students around me stared, dumbstruck, like they had just seen a magic trick.

“Huh!? W-what was that just now…!?”

“He made fire in an instant! Don’t tell me he was a Mage too!?”

“No—there was no chanting. That wasn’t magic!”

When they snapped back to themselves, their attitudes suddenly became meek.

“H-hey, Leopin-kun… could you share a little of that fire?”

“Yeah, yeah. It’s almost lunchtime, right? We have to bring fire back to our class so we can cook.”

“Nasuo kept acting all stingy and never gave us any… but you’re different, right?”

I looked the opportunists over through the roaring flames.

“Yeah. I’m completely different from you lot.”

…SHUP!

I threw shuriken in all directions.

The shuriken cut through the campfire and became fiery buckshot, lodging into the hems of the opportunists’ robes.

“Whaaa!? What are you doing!? It’ll burn! It’ll burrrrrn!!”

They immediately tried to slap the flames out, but one of them shouted.

“W-wait! Don’t put out the precious fire! Before you do, transfer it to a branch—then we can take it home!”

“Oh, right! Then we’ll be heroes! Ow ow ow!? Endure it! Endure it!!”

The budding mages flailed their feet like they were standing barefoot on a scorching hot iron plate.

They grabbed my stacked Gisu lumber without permission and tried to transfer the flames to it.

“No, that lumber has fire resistance, so no matter what you do—”

But nobody listened.

Right in front of me, it looked like a self-inflicted execution by fire.

They screamed and fought the flames, on the verge of becoming human torches.

After a while, the fire burned out, and the hems of their robes had been shortened to something like ultra-mini skirts.

They didn’t seem to have any burns, but they still collapsed in tears—having gained no fire at all.

“Ugh… sob… I was going to burn the trash guy’s house and become a hero…”

“I can’t believe it… I can’t believe our robes got burned…”

“Waaaaah! Moooommmmmmm!!”