Genius Mage

“Ah, money.”

Hamel answered without much enthusiasm.

“If that’s all it is, forget it.”

“…What do you mean.”

“I have money. Enough that any more wealth would be meaningless.”

“Ah.”

There was not a trace of swagger in his tone. He said it the way a man says that a tree is a tree and a stone is a stone, and that flatness was, paradoxically, the proof of his wealth.

Only… the Hamel in front of him did not look like ‘a man rich enough that any more wealth would be meaningless.’ He was wearing the rough work clothes of a day laborer. He had turned up at the temple in much the same thing, and by looks alone he might have been the son of a destitute miner.

“…”

Enri could never keep what he was feeling off his face, and when he stared openly, Hamel cleared his throat with a couple of small coughs.

“I look like this because right up until now I was doing labyrinth explo… no, that is, there were, ah, circumstances.”

“…”

“Ahem.”

Hamel snapped his fingers.

— Snap!

On the heels of that crisp sound a soft light closed around him, and when it scattered his clothes had changed into something neat.

A shirt starched stiff, dried in the sun, and pressed flat under the iron. Short trousers that left his round knees bare, and a pair of shoes. One snap of the fingers had turned him from a poor family’s child into the very picture of a boy out of some noble house.

“Eh-hem.”

“Whoaaa!”

Ardine marveled, flinging her plump arms and legs about wildly. The child’s chair rocked along with her, and Pai quickly caught hold of the back of it.

“Magic is cool. Cooler than swords!”

“Cooler than swords…”

Keith groaned. Honestly, weren’t swords cooler than magic?

“Say what you like, that’s not it. A swordsman is cooler than a mage.”

“…!”

For an instant he thought he had let his own inner voice slip out without meaning to.

“A mage has no sword of his own to share a whole lifetime’s hardship and joy with, and the most he has is a magic staff — and that’s a consumable.”

Pai’s rebuttal was right in every particular. And with her on the swordsman’s side, he felt somehow steadier, even a little elated.

“Quite right. A swordsman regards his sword as another self.”

“Hmph. Ridiculous. Magic, let me tell you, is dazzling and pretty.”

Hamel snorted and rapped his plate with his fork.

— Ting!

Green lights like fireflies popped into being one after another and went spinning in a ring around Ardine’s face.

“Ari wants to do it too. Ari wants to learn. Misteeer!”

Ardine knew exactly who held the authority over her education.

“Mmm.”

The child was enjoying herself. The violet eyes she had from her mother glittered as though they cradled stars, and her soft cheeks had flushed pink.

She was on the small side for a child her age. Keith had not worked that out for himself. Bishe had tipped him off: she ate heartily and well, with nothing she would not touch, but she was a fair bit short for her age. She certainly was small and… plump. She looked as though she might go rolling about like a softly risen lump of dough.

Keith wanted to make her happy. He wanted to feed her steaming bread and soup, wrap her up in a warm blanket, and settle her into a deep sleep.

“Magic isn’t something you can learn just because you want to learn it, peanut.”

“Teach Ari. Teach Ari!”

“Fundamentally, mana is… You— do you even know what mana is?”

“Isn’t that just common sense? Don’t look down on Ari. You’re not even a few years older.”

“What? A few years?! Bwahahat! Khahahahah!”

Hamel pounded the table and laughed, and the lights, in sympathy with their caster’s mood, swayed this way and that like a buoy on rough water.

For all the world it looked as though stars were pouring down over Ardine’s head…

It was Ardine’s first request. Even if it meant overreaching, he badly wanted to grant it. Keith watched her a while longer, then broached the subject.

“…If it isn’t money, what is it you want.”

“Quick on the uptake. I like that!”

“…”

“Entry rights to the Black Forest.”

Keith forced down a short breath.

“…”

“That’s what I want.”

Hamel drew the liquor bottle in front of Keith over to himself with magic. The cap pulled itself free with a little pop, the cup that still held a swallow of water emptied in an instant, and golden liquid with bubbles rising in it came gushing from the tilted mouth of the bottle.

“The Black Forest… For what reason.”

It was obvious enough why the Black Forest had stood closed for ages. The Great Labyrinth slept there. Several hundred years ago the North had been the fiercest battlefield of all; countless people lost their lives to the demons, and every year a communal funeral marked the day. The North carried that historical wound, and it was warier of the labyrinths than any other region.

Neither Elrod nor a single Duke before him had ever opened the Black Forest to the public. Hamel could hardly be unaware of that.

“The Black Forest has been isolated at least three hundred years.”

“It has.”

“Which means a perfectly self-contained ecosystem, undamaged by human hands.”

“True enough, but by the same token it will not be an environment friendly to humans.”

Who could guarantee that the forest had not been fouled by the demonic energy left behind in the Great Labyrinth? There was no telling what the plants, or the animals, had been turned into.

The mage only snorted, pleased with himself.

“For ordinary humans, no doubt. Feeble non-mages who can’t even fill a cup of water in front of them.”

“…”

Handing over the entry rights themselves was easy enough. As Hamel said, if something dangerous happened, the mage had only to protect himself. The problem came when the mage was hiding a scheme and plotting something dangerous.

What if this fellow’s interest was not the forest itself but the Great Labyrinth? What if he meant to loot it? A mage gone mad for demonology?

As though he had read Keith’s mind, Hamel wet his lips with the cider and went on.

“Needless worry.”

“…”

“What I’m interested in is medicinal herbs.”

Hamel said he was hunting for a way to make the ultimate potion, the Elixir. Merely retracing the existing experimental records was not enough for him; he burned to hit on a creative combination all his own.

In the course of explaining it he mentioned, quite unnecessarily, some five times over, that he was a genius. Then again, a powerful mage who was not a narcissist would be the harder thing to find.

“Understood, for now.”

Keith cut bluntly across Hamel’s talk, which had slid at some point into spit-flying self-praise.

“It is far too large a matter to settle here and now, so let us speak of it again tomorrow.”

“Fine.”

“Mister, mister!”

Ardine knew how to read a mood, too. She looked at Keith with eyes full of expectation.

Feeling a little wretched, he barely managed to meet the young lady’s eyes. Retaining a mage and being taught by one were two entirely separate matters.

“Listen carefully, Ari. As the mage said, there is something you absolutely need in order to learn magic, and not everyone is born with that condition.”

“So?”

“You know what mana is, don’t you?”

“Mm-hm.”

“You have to have it inside your body.”

Ardine spread her hand wide open and carefully wriggled her short, plump fingers.

“How do you know if you’ve got it in your body?”

“You can just test for it.”

Pai cut in. She ran her forefinger gently along the lines of Ardine’s palm and spoke slowly.

“For a mage it’s a very simple thing.”

“There’s no need to even try. Peanut here—”

“Her mana circuits could be blocked, couldn’t they?”

“At that age they’re usually open.”

“Usually, yes. And there are people who aren’t.”

“What are you getting at?”

Hamel folded his arms and asked sullenly.

Pai picked a stray golden hair off Ardine’s palm and tossed out the words.

“Let’s test her.”

“…”

“Because the young lady might actually be a genius mage.”