Min-Maxing My TRPG Build in Another World - Volume 3 - Chapter 2

Midsummer of the Twelfth Year

Party

A band of adventurers, especially those controlled by the players. Party members in TRPGs generally do not change, but some scenarios add guest NPCs to guide the players along.

Party composition is a key factor in determining the fate of a tabletop campaign. Competent allies can turn the most challenging trials into a grand story for the history books, but the inverse holds just as true.

A servant’s day starts early. I know this sounds like the opening line to a documentary, but the truth is the truth. My internal clock had been finely tuned over years of farmwork, and the world beyond my cozy sheets was still dark.

The house Lady Agrippina had prepared for me was an old two-story building squeezed into the space between two other houses. It was a relic that had been maintained and renovated over the years, evidenced by how different its make was from the neighbors on both sides.

However, the interior was surprisingly nice. The previous tenants had all left their belongings; although this made cleaning a chore, I preferred it to the alternative of lacking basic necessities.

All that said, the being that had chased away the past inhabitants treated me with great care, so at times this new lodging was even more comfortable than my home in Konigstuhl. I remained sleepily curled up for a few minutes past my usual waking time, until I felt someone gently rock my shoulder and poke my cheek with a cold finger.

I let out an unflattering yawn and begrudgingly opened my eyes to see that the second-floor bedroom was completely uninhabited, save for me. Yet beside me were my morning change of clothes and a pail of water to rinse my face with. The bucket’s contents were neither too cold nor too warm, and came with a towel to boot.

“Thank you, Fraulein,” I said to my invisible caretaker.

Indulging in her kindness, I began splashing the water on my face. I doubt I need to explain that I hadn’t sprinkled fragrant herbs into a bucket before bed; no, this house was home to a silkie.

Silkies were household helpers that took the form of young maidens, but accounts varied as to whether they were alfar, general spirits, or weak and benevolent geists. By and large, these modest roommates haunted residential homes, either doing chores in place of stewards or playing pranks on the dweller. From their inclination to help diligent residents and chase off those that less suited their tastes, I found them to be incredibly alfish.

I’d caught a glimpse of her in a gray widow’s dress upon first arriving, and she had likely called this place home for a long time. Judging from the aesthetic mishmash of the furniture left in this house, she’d made herself quite busy chasing away anyone she found annoying.

Silkies were fairies of judgment: they blessed the earnest and punished the slothful or evil knaves that tried to nest in their domain. Make no mistake, much like the zashiki-warashi of the Far East, this Western house spirit was not a handy helper to be taken advantage of. The power needed to chase off the magia and mages that moved into this district without giving them a chance to recollect their beds or tableware—expensive items in this world—was terrifying to imagine.

At first, I’d been on the verge of exploding at my master for sending me to live in a haunted house. Luckily, the silkie had taken a liking to me, hustling and bustling around my new home every day. Her service was fit for a noble, and I had nothing but gratitude for her work. Finally, my hair and eyes had served a purpose other than getting me into trouble.

However, unlike the nameless fairies that merrily swung by to play with me, the silkie turned out to be rather shy. Other than my first sighting, I’d only ever seen her skirt the edge of my vision. I hadn’t heard her voice, and naturally I didn’t know her name.

Having no name to refer to her by had been inconvenient, so I’d begun calling her the Ashen Fraulein. Considering that she had yet to air any grievances, I took it that she didn’t mind the moniker.

Wanting to get changed so I could go eat breakfast, I reached for my shirt only to find its frayed sleeve completely mended. I looked over the work clothes and hand-me-downs I’d brought from home and saw that she’d repaired them all, even in parts that wouldn’t show during regular wear.

The Ashen Fraulein’s benevolence was admirable, but I did have one complaint... Embroidered flowers weren’t exactly in vogue for menswear. I wasn’t quite sure whether or not this counted as an act of mischief.

But, well, I supposed it was better than the cutesy kitten she’d sewn the other day. Of course, I wouldn’t dare complain about a small stitched ornament that was out of sight. I offered a brief nod of thanks and changed into my newly fixed clothes.

I carefully shifted my weight with each step to descend the creaky stairs without a sound and was greeted by the smell of a smoldering stove. Breakfast was already served on the table in my small kitchen.

Thin slices of rye bread were nothing new, but the sunny-side up egg and cannellini beans accompanying them were a rare sight in Rhine. In the remote islands of the far north, where the people were said to have more pronounced cheekbones than us in the Empire, this was a dish that regularly came up in their taverns. Both the plated food and the mug of red tea were piping hot, as if they’d only just finished cooking.

“Mm...yum. This is great.”

Sharing my opinion of the meal was crucial. While the Fraulein may have started doing this out of goodwill, there was no telling how quickly her mood would sour if I began acting like this was a right and not a privilege. Lady Agrippina’s teachings and my own personal experience with alfar led me to believe that blundering my relationship with this silkie was the last thing I should ever do.

“Thank you, Ashen Fraulein, for your kindness and the wonderful meal.”

Once I’d finished expressing my gratitude, I quietly prepared my offering to the protector of the house. While I had no idea how long our relationship would last, goodwill is best met with goodwill—but not too much. Overdoing it would send me straight to a dimly lit hill to join an eternal folk dance.

I’d purchased cream the night prior to make sure I wouldn’t forget in the morning; I poured out one cup’s worth and left it beside the stove. While I felt guilty repaying work fit for an aristocrat with this pitiful offering, Ursula had given me very specific instructions about how this was to be done.

This was a vivid example of yet another troublesome aspect to dealing with fairies: a mortal’s attempt to honor them could easily be taken as an offense. Extravagant gifts were out of the question. If tradition dictated that I was to say my thanks quickly and leave her a cup of fresh cream, then a tinge of guilt was my burden to bear.

However, I noted that the Fraulein had a sweet tooth—sweeter creams always disappeared more quickly—and thus occasionally “forgot” candy on the dining table. I didn’t know if she was just excusing my bad manners, but she always ate the forgotten candies as a prank, so to speak.

With breakfast happily concluded, I set off for the College. It was a ten minute run from home, making it the perfect warm-up to start my day. I jogged along, taking in the comfortable temperature of the summer morning and the bright rays of the rising sun.

As I did, I passed by a handful of students walking from building to building, casting spells and throwing pebbles at windows for their part-time jobs. In an era without alarm clocks, these knocker-uppers were vital in their role of waking the sleepy townspeople for a productive morning. The mildly pleasant sound of tapping glass echoed in my ears as I reached the College campus, where I weaved past enthusiastic students and bored professors to reach the stables.

The stables were home to all manner of beasts of burden owned by the magia, and the salaried stablehands were already hard at work. As an aside, these workers weren’t mages or anything, so dangerous demibeasts (primordial creatures that shared an organ with demonfolk) were not kept here.

That said, the place housed a massive unicorn, so the regulations were approximate at best. I didn’t know which professor kept that utter beast, but he always picked a fight with me. Every time I passed by, the fat brute tried to chomp on my hair. If I ever found out who the owner was, they were due for a strongly worded letter.

I said my hellos to the stablehands I’d begun getting along with and started caring for the two steeds who’d towed Lady Agrippina’s carriage. In a shocking twist, they were real thoroughbred warhorses, and not the product of the madam’s magic. According to her, what can be resolved with coinage ought to be. I had hardly been able to believe those were the words of a woman who tossed around disgustingly powerful spells for the most mundane tasks, but I’d known better than to put that into words.

I hauled in water and fodder, cast Clean on the inside of the stable, and changed out their bed of hay. Last but not least, I carefully brushed the tall stallions with my own two hands. They enjoyed this bit more than anything else, so I made it a point to only use my Hands as footholds to reach their backs.

We’d spent three months on the road together; how could I not get attached to them? A trusty steed was key to any good adventure, and my years of caring for Holter back home had left me with a deep affection for horses. In fact, I’d secretly given these two names—though only because Lady Agrippina’s insistence on referring to them as “the horses” was too sad for me to bear.

The two were brothers by blood, so I christened them after the twin heroes of Castor and Polydeukes. There were certainly some hiccups in the source material, but I thought the notion of eternal friendship through fraternity suited them well. Since both of them took a liking to their gallant names and happily responded when I called for them, the names seemed to work out.

“Oh, again?”

I tried to comb through their manes only to find that their hair had been transformed into a massive collection of perfect braids. The local alfar had recognized the pair as my horses, marking them as a target for this sort of mischief. As splendid as they looked, unraveling all the braids was a massive pain. Today’s prank would take me half an hour to undo, and that was with all my Hands working in tandem.

“Don’t just sit there with that satisfied face of yours. Can’t you shoo them off or something?”

The Dioscuri looked proud, eager to flaunt their stylish hairdos, so I didn’t get too upset. Using magic for complex tasks was a good way to accumulate experience, so I managed to convince myself that the hassle was worth it.

A while later, I finished my daily routine with Castor and Polydeukes and set up shop. Stablehands done with their work paid two assarii for me to Clean off the oils and feces that littered the stables. While the pay wasn’t much, my service was so popular that people had begun waiting in line as of late. Nobody wanted to head to their next job covered in sweat and smelling of dung. Paying a couple of pennies to feel fresh at work was an easy sell.

On my end, casting spells on a lot of customers was a good way of earning experience. Factoring in the goodwill I earned in the process, this business killed three birds with one stone. Building up a strong reputation was never a waste—outside of stealth missions, that is.

I took a sip of the chilled water one of my clients treated me to as I stepped into the elevator to Lady Agrippina’s laboratory. I entered and quickly changed into my doublet by the front door before stepping into the living room. Elisa reacted to my entrance with astounding speed, hurtling straight into my chest.

“Dear Brother!”

“Hey, now,” I said. “How many times have I told you that it’s dangerous to hug me while you’re flying?”

Elisa’s speech had significantly improved since the days we spent in Konigstuhl, but I was more worried about catching her. She jumped on my neck with a lot of momentum, so I had to hunker down and use supporting Hands to maintain my balance.

“But, but!” Elisa pouted.

“Aw, you’re so spoiled, you.” Although I pretended to be troubled, I still happily doted on her to the best of my ability.

The madam had happily announced that Elisa’s academic intake had sped up exponentially ever since the incident at the lakeside manor. This progress was likely the reason Lady Agrippina had refused to let me stay in the sizable apprentice’s chambers, going out of her way to purchase a lodging in the low quarter for me.

Elisa was my sister. She was also a changeling—that is, the fundamental pretext behind her existence as an organism was, in and of itself, something akin to conceptual magic. Thus, we were able to tell that her idea of being a “sister” and “daughter” was more important to her than anything else.

Somewhere at the crux of her soul, Elisa desired to be the cute princess that her family fawned on. For a being birthed from a fairy’s longing for human love, this was a matter of course. It followed that she’d learned slowly when I was by her side; weakness and immaturity were tickets to further protection. Her failures allowed her to better play the part of the baby sister, and the fey portion of her heart had been pulling her mental faculties back. While that was all well and good for a young child in a rural canton, she had been born to a great deal of arcane talent. That was why she and I were here in the first place.

I have no doubt that the madam knew exactly what she was doing. Once I’d been sent to the low quarter, Lady Agrippina had told Elisa that she’d need to become a first-rate magus to live with me again. According to our master, Elisa’s growth following this verbal prod was a thing to marvel. When revisiting an etiquette textbook that she’d completely failed to read in the past, Elisa had memorized the entire thing in one day, and now drank her soup gracefully without so much as a slurp. My sister didn’t cry at night anymore, and she could even go to the bathroom by herself.

If I were to translate Elisa’s ability into my own terms, her mastery of the palatial tongue was around Scale II. Lady Agrippina said it wouldn’t be too many years before she was ready to attend public lectures at the College.

Seeing my baby sister take her first step toward independence filled me with equal parts joy and loneliness. She still begged me to pamper her though, and I needed to address my bad habit of indulging her. I knew fawning on her was hindering her growth, but I just couldn’t help myself.

I played with Elisa for a short while before asking, “What have you been learning?” to prompt a review session. Just a week ago, her response had been slow and meandering, but now she could organize the ideas in her head and form sentences that were easy for the listener to comprehend. I knew it: our little angel had been a genius all along. Someday, she was going to leave her mark on history as one of the greatest professors the College had ever seen.

“And then I learned about the Founding Emperor, and his story is really amazing! Master says that he was the youngest prince from a really small kingdom. Can you believe that?”

I surmised from her recollection that Elisa had studied history the day before. While the subject didn’t sound that important for a magus at first glance, the advances of magecraft were interwoven with the social, political, and cultural details of the times.

Further, the College itself had been founded by the very statesman Elisa was now flapping her hands over in excitement: Richard, the Emperor of Creation. With all the bureaucratic work the magia partook in, a grasp of history was a must.

The questions of why a spell was devised and how the needs of its users shaped its advancements were a prerequisite for the magia’s quest to leave their knowledge for future generations. Reading through the development notes of useful spells and cantrips were part of the research that they so highly valued, and history was an absolute necessity for anyone even remotely close to engaging with high society.

When state documents were (for some ungodly reason) filled with historical allusions and some of the key figures still roamed the Empire to this day, it was imperative to avoid stepping on any verbal landmines. One misplaced historical citation and you could expect anything from “That man was my greatest political rival. You dare to praise his name before me?” to “I’ll have you know he is a distant relative of mine. Shall I take your disregard of his character as a personal slight?”

The most ridiculous of lies can lead to a war, so it only follows that the chronicles of history are a hotbed of strife. All in all, I was just glad to see my talented little sister building up the foundation for her life as a future noble.

Still dangling from my neck, Elisa merrily prattled on about the Founding Emperor Richard—I knew how the stories went, but being a good listener is one of a brother’s greatest joys—and I prepared breakfast while nodding along. I say that, but “prepared” is a strong word, considering that I simply readied the table with premade dishes.

I’m sure any indoorsman will understand that, at times, people will accidentally forgo food and sleep in favor of hobbies or work. Eccentric mensch already scrape by on the bare minimum calories, refuse to bathe, and trap their waste in bottles to save the precious travel time it would take to walk to the restroom. I’m sure you can already see what might happen with races that don’t require food and sleep, or can otherwise substitute them with mana.

Extreme magia cooping up in their laboratories was about as surprising as a snail carrying a shell on its back. Thus, the many personal studios built under Krahenschanze each contained a small elevator in the kitchen used exclusively for sending supplies to the resident.

Restaurant workers then went door to door, taking orders to be sent using this delivery unit so that the lazy magia wouldn’t starve themselves. Lady Agrippina would never cook, and I could only whip together simple campfire meals, so we’d been relying on this service ever since we arrived in Berylin.

After all, mealtime was an important opportunity for Elisa to learn the table manners of the upper class. Her mannerisms had to be effortless to get by in the real world, so these ready-made meals were a necessity for her education.

“Be good and sit still,” I said.

“Mmkaaay,” Elisa replied, clearly still wanting to talk.

I left my sister in the living room and knocked on the door to the workshop proper. No response. I knocked again, this time receiving the faintest of answers from within.

“Excuse me,” I said as I entered.

“Mm, good morning.”

Stepping into the greenhouse Lady Agrippina called a laboratory, I found the owner of the room rolled out on the hammock in the middle of the room, her thin nightgown sprawled out on the floor. I was almost certain that she’d flung it off in frustration at how it clung to her skin, but knowing how deplorable her character was didn’t make it any easier for my eyes to find a place to rest.

Actually, on closer inspection, literally nothing in the room had moved since I’d left yesterday, save the positions of a handful of books. She’d spent the day the exact same way as every other day of the past two weeks: in her hammock. Was there any other creature in this entire world as slothful as her? Even sleep-loving drakes would at least budge.

“Madam, breakfast is served.”

“Hmm,” she said in contemplation. “I’m not quite in the mood today. Just fetch me some red tea, would you?”

Like there’s ever a day you’re in the mood to eat. I kept my cynical thoughts to myself and bowed at her order, quickly readying her tea. Since she first holed up in her lab, Lady Agrippina only ate at lunchtime when the thought of consumption struck her fancy. Mostly, she subsisted on tea and tobacco. Her diet bore a striking resemblance to that of the college students of my bygone days, but the fact that hers was a deliberate choice spurred on by indolence made it all the worse.

I placed the brewed tea on the table next to the madam’s hammock. She didn’t so much as glance away from her book to cast the Unseen Hand that lifted the cup to her lips.

“...A tad bitter,” Lady Agrippina said. “It would seem you’ve let the leaves steep a spell too long.”

“My apologies. I will keep that in mind.”

My master gave me both a complaint and a means for improvement after a single sip. Hmm, maybe I should get a proper brewing skill instead of the simple seasoning skill I have now...

It had been less than half a year since I’d left the countryside to become a servant, and that was nowhere near enough for a farm boy to serve a cup capable of impressing a noble. Accordingly, Lady Agrippina seemed not to mind; on the brewer’s end, though, I wanted her to enjoy my work. After all, the value of my work was directly linked to how quickly I chipped away at Elisa’s tuition.

I spent a moment considering how I ought to use my experience points while organizing the madam’s books—recently, I could tell whether or not she’d read one just by how it was placed amongst the piles of its kind—and preparing Elisa’s desk for a round of study. Her lectures were conducted here, with her desk facing the hammock and her master lazing about in it.

Of note was the fact that Lady Agrippina continued reading completely unrelated books throughout each of her lessons. I suppose I should have expected nothing less.

“Oh,” the madam said as I finished up, “you may eat before you leave.”

I couldn’t decide whether I was grateful or not to receive her unwanted meal, but I accepted all the same. I slipped out of the workshop, and Elisa was positively thrilled that we were going to eat together. After refilling my mental gauge with my angelic sister, I readied myself for my next job.

Good food, a wonderful roommate, and a happy little sister were all I needed to give color to my days of servitude.

[Tips] The imperial capital is home to a restaurant whose target audience is the busy magia cooped up in the laboratories under Krahenschanze. Every day, the servers take their clients’ orders and deliver the food from their nearby establishment.

The restaurant supplies a greater variety of dishes than a noble could hope to eat—everything from simple dishes to be eaten while working to banquet dinners. Many of their customers order three meals a day, and it goes without saying that Agrippina is a power user.

With my morning duties finished, I sauntered down the main hall of the castle. Recently, the people here had begun to remember my name and face; receiving the occasional greeting put me in good spirits.

I took an open seat meant for visitors in an unpopulated corner of the hall. The morning rush of students was long gone, and I myself only had one reason for being here. A staff member began walking in my general direction holding a stack of papers. Her destination was none other than the quest board.

The sight of her magically posting dozens of papers onto the board was straight out of the fantasy tales I had once let take over my life. I recalled a memory of a scout dipping into thievery in the name of pilfering the best quests; some of my GMs had determined the difficulty of the session with a LUK check at bulletins like these. The joys and sorrows of seeing those dice fall swelled up once more within me. I’m sure the same was true for all of the people that gathered here in search of work.

The employee finished posting the last sheet and took a moment to look over her work. She walked away satisfied, and I immediately...continued to sit. There were official College students that had been patiently waiting, just like me.

My standing around here was rather dubious. I was the servant to some methuselah researcher that had been out on an expedition for over two decades, the brother to said methuselah’s formal disciple, and the favorite pet of my school’s dean. I had no trouble understanding that my public image was nothing but strange.

Any decent student would harbor some amount of distaste for a person like me who defied all rhyme and reason. The job bulletin was meant for enrolled students, and I would unquestionably draw even more ire if I went around snatching up all the best work.

My reservations were a show of good faith in order to preserve harmony and avoid being driven out by my peers. This whole program had been developed to help them pay the bills, and I knew acting the part of an overly zealous outsider would only lead to unsavory rumors.

Admittedly, it would be trivial to abuse my powerful connections or to shut up the competition with a flash of swordplay, but that was the work of a two-bit villain. Any moron who would do such things was the same kind of person that the PCs took advantage of midway through a campaign, or worse, the type to get killed off near the closing act just for fun. Knowing how the tropes played out, I wished to abstain from that sort of foolishness.

I’d acted out countless thugs and baddies in my time as a GM, but those characters had been made from the outset with the express purpose of being refreshing targets for my players to cut down. I didn’t enjoy annoying the PCs in and of itself.

Also, the thought of an annoying brat showing up like the son of a general store merchant and butting heads with a bunch of children who hadn’t done anything wrong was just stupid. I was an adult inside, and cheering the hardworking kids on from afar was the mature thing to do. That said, I had no qualms teaching them a life lesson if they tried to get involved with me.

“Heya, Erich. Wonderful morning, don’t you think?”

Of course, that offer only stood for the bad kind of involvement.

“Hey, Mika. Good morning to you too. No lecture today?” I said casually (he’d asked me to cut the stuffy language on our second meeting).

“The professor was apparently quite the star at yesterday’s banquet,” he said, smoothly sitting next to me with a smile.

Mika’s mannerisms and speech were so overwhelmingly cool that I’d started wondering lately whether he was this world’s protagonist. If not, then he might have been one of the romantic interests in a girl’s dating sim.

However, I hadn’t been able to bring myself to ask a question as crass as “So are you a boy or a girl?” We were on pretty good terms by this point, but I still wasn’t sure.

“I see,” I said. “So your lecturer had a flash of genius at yesterday’s dinner party?”

“Yep,” Mika replied. “I bet he’s gazing at a whole new horizon right about now. All while drowning in a sea of bedsheets.”

Being bureaucrats, magia attended many a banquet and feast, and having a flash of genius was a palatial euphemism implying Mika’s teacher was sick in bed with a terrible hangover. Someone must have jokingly said something to the effect of “A nobleman of the proud Trialist Empire, bedridden due to an excess of drink? Certainly not. Surely he must be preoccupied with an ingenious new theory...” I had to say, I loved this sort of sarcastic humor.

“All right, the crowd’s clearing out,” Mika said. “Shall we set off, Sir Erich?”

“But of course, Sir Mika. Onward, to earn another day’s keep.”

We exchanged overblown lines and both broke out into snickers as soon as we got up. I forgot which of us had started it, but this sort of banter had become our bread and butter.

We’d discovered that we shared a love for sagas, and spent one of our few rest days at the town square listening to the minstrels. If I remembered correctly, our little games of wordplay had begun in the conversation that followed; we’d gotten incredibly fired up about the tales we’d heard that day. It seemed that no matter the world, lovers of knowledge were also lovers of quotation; ever since that day, we’d worked the language of poetry into our small talk as a form of play.

Personally, I was having a blast. I could only hope that he’d be able to say the same in ten years or so. It would be a shame if he ended up beating the feathers out of a pillow in embarrassment when he looked back at our conversations.

“Oh,” I said. “There’s a request for herb gathering. I wonder why they went out of their way to specify that the herbs have to be wild?”

“Hmm... I’ve heard that some herbs have different effects when they’re cultivated in overfertilized soil. Hey Erich, how about this? This one shouldn’t be too tough.”

“Sorry, I can’t do anything that takes multiple days. I’ve got work in the morning and at night.”

“Ah, you’re right. It’s a bit far. Then let’s go with that herb job of yours. I’ve been meaning to sign up for a botany lecture sometime. I would be most honored to receive your instruction.”

The boy’s dramatic flair and equally stylish gesture sold me on the quest. This was another facet of our wordplay. Unlike Heinz, Mika had been strongly moved by the tale of a magician creating a mystical bridge for the hero to cross a violent river. Naturally, the lines he came up with tended to be extra pompous.

Frankly, I didn’t mind since he pulled it off so well. Still, I would need to warn him in the near future not to engage in our act around women. Lines like that delivered by a handsome young man were sure to cause all sorts of misunderstandings.

“Let me see,” I said. “Fennel, wormwood, dill, and honeysuckle?”

“That sounds more like a liquor than a potion,” Mika said. “Should we toss in some saffron while we’re at it?”

“That’d be hilarious, but... No, the delphinium listed here is a poison. Oh, and aconite too? Try fermenting something like that, and you’ll have something that’ll make a dvergar froth at the mouth.”

Flipping over the request sheet, we looked at the prices offered for cleanly picked herbs (with undamaged roots) and tried to guess what the client was going to use them for. They were all plants that could be found in the forests surrounding Berylin, but that wasn’t enough information to come up with a convincing theory. It was well within reason that the requester just wanted to stock up on useful herbs, but turning the possibilities over in our minds was both fun and edifying. We tossed the names of countless liquors and herbs back and forth as we walked, until we finally reached the stables.

The imperial capital had been carved out of a politically convenient patch of land. Outside of a small farming zone and a few kilometers’ worth of open space, all of the land surrounding its outer walls was covered in trees. Apparently, this was a strategic barrier to prevent enemy armies from setting up large camps to lay siege. As a result, logging was banned in most of the conservancy.

However, the only thing that one couldn’t harvest was trees. The College used this to its advantage, and the story went that early mages of the College planted all sorts of useful herbs from every corner of the world in the woods. Back in those days, they had yet to develop the means to cheaply and efficiently construct herb gardens, and the mages had given it their all to ensure their plants would flourish despite being far removed from their natural habitat.

In the present day, the work of our predecessors lived on in the abundance of herbs in the forest. The great magia of yore had tinkered with the environment, and their innumerable spells continued to offer a safe haven for any and every type of plant to bloom.

Or at least, that was what Mika had told me when he’d first introduced me to the forest. His passion for the joy of learning had come through in spades during his speech, and I vividly remembered all the details to this day.

With a place like that nearby, any sort of herbal quest sent us straight here. Most of the conservancy was totally unsupervised, so anyone was free to pick without cost, within reason. Plus, the close proximity to the capital meant the area was incredibly safe. The fact that I could make a round trip within a single day made the location a wonderful spot for both work and personal needs.

However, it was still a bit of a walk. Not wanting to waste too much time, we usually rode either Castor or Polydeukes to the forest—Lady Agrippina had given me free rein over them, seeing as she had no interest in putting them to work.

In my early youth, I’d leveled a Jockeying skill all the way to V: Adept in order to effectively steer Holter. I could’ve made do with the cheaper Beast Leading skill, since he was a cart horse, but...if they served the same purpose, I wanted to take the one with more future potential.

Looking back, I’d made the right call, if I do say so myself. The bonuses applied when I’d been manning the coachbox, and now I didn’t need to worry about a means of travel.

Besides, the Dioscuri were hearty warhorses. If I didn’t let them run around every now and again, they’d get stressed out and lose their edge. Only a select few homebodies could spend all day lazing around in bed without any damage to their psyche.

The two brothers vied for my attention in the hopes that I would choose them for our journey, and their infectious excitement caused a handful of other steeds to giddily try and swoop in for a trot. I calmed down the crowd and saddled up Castor, since I’d let Polydeukes accompany me on a training session the day before.

“Hey, wait, stop! Quit it!” Mika shouted. “You again?! I said stop! Ah, whoa, gross! Erich, lend me a hand!”

I stopped adjusting the saddle cinch and turned to see Mika being harassed by the same unicorn that always gave me grief. He wasn’t being stabbed with a horn or anything, but the beast was chewing on his somewhat wavy hair, licking him across the face, and at the end of it all, the stupid thing was trying to topple him over.

What’s your deal? I don’t know what we did, but can you stop bothering us every time we pass by? I wonder if there’s a skill out there in the Faith category or something that’ll let me get a Horse Speak spell as a mensch... Oh, I guess unicorns are technically demibeasts.

Hurrying over to help my friend did little good, and I ended up getting nibbled on too. We were absolutely filthy by the time a stablehand finally came over to help us. She had my sincerest thanks; it would be downright embarrassing to get a lasting wound on my face from a dumb horse.

“How’d that guy get his scar?” one person would ask. “Some stupid unicorn bit him,” another would answer. Having a scar from a fierce battle was one thing; if I got laughed at after an exchange like that, I would die of indignation on the spot.

Mika and I cast Clean on each other, climbed onto Castor, and set off. Once Mika got good enough at handling horses to ride one on his own, it would be fun to head out on a longer journey with him.

For now, we loaded up on the same horse and made our way through town at a leisurely pace. Thankfully, pedestrians were used to dealing with horses amongst the foot traffic thanks to the messengers and forerunners the nobility employed. The citizens of Berylin dodged us with all the nonchalance of a modern Earth dweller sidestepping a cyclist.

“Oh,” Mika said, pointing at an open-air stall. “Wanna buy lunch before we go, Erich?”

There were plenty of shops selling hot meals at this time of day. One could eat on a simple chair placed in front of the establishment or take the food home to enjoy elsewhere. My friend seemed rather keen on a freshly grilled skewer, and he proudly told me that his recently learned heat preservation magic would keep anything we bought warm until it was time to eat.

“Heh,” I chuckled. “Today’s a special day, old chum.”

Alas, I pointed at my bag looking even prouder than he did. In it was a basket of food I’d brought from Lady Agrippina’s atelier and turned into a sack lunch.

What? The Ashen Fraulein had made me breakfast. The madam could offer me her portion, but I wasn’t going to eat if I was full. Aristocratic meals were too excessive to finish alone anyway. I’d figured treating a friend to lunch was a justifiable move.

“I’ve got my employer’s leftovers with me. White bread, freshly cooked sausages, a tasty-looking pottage, fancy dairy products, and a whole mountain of fruit. And after all that, it comes with a tiny bottle of wine too.”

“That’s incredible,” Mika said. “How did you earn such a kingly reward?”

“Thing is, I serve a methuselah. A lot of the time, she doesn’t eat just because she doesn’t feel like it.”

“Oh, so that’s how it is... I guess I’ll be looking forward to lunch then!”

We continued making small talk about our upcoming meal as we passed through the city gates and sped up to a light trot. Although our speed was comparable to a leisurely bicycle, the bounce of a horse’s gait was a death sentence for the hips and butt of any inexperienced rider. Exhibit A: Mika was clinging onto my waist for dear life...and the pleasant smell I noticed as he did was a secret I would take to the grave.

The perimeter of the capital was a grassy field, and it was kept nicely level for the sake of the military exercises they held here every so often. Apparently, the people in charge of the landscaping were oikodomurges—the magus officers that handled large scale repairs and public infrastructure projects—that Mika one day hoped to join. For all his admiration for these arcane architects, though, my travel buddy was in no place to appreciate their work.

I noticed that Castor had been glancing my way over and over again. Oh, I thought. You’re begging, aren’t you? Now that the warm-up was over, he wanted to run at full speed.

“Mika, are you all right?” I asked.

“Y-Yeah!” he said. “Just fine, other than my aching back!”

“I thought I told you to use your hips to absorb the shock?”

“Don’t make it sound so easy!”

Ignoring his terrified shouting, I readied a Hand just in case and kicked Castor’s sides. A whinny echoed across the open grass, and the bold claps of his gallop melted together with a piercing wail.

[Tips] There is a one-libra fine for any horseback rider who travels the streets of the imperial capital at a speed greater than a walk.

“You get really pushy sometimes,” Mika said. “You know that?”

“Uh, well... Sorry.”

Castor was brimming with satisfaction, but in contrast, my friend was stuck on Castor’s back glaring down at me. I wanted to go on ahead to avoid his angry gaze, but Castor nibbled at the hand I was using to lead him.

Stop it. We’re done running for the day. We just got scolded, remember? ...Okay, fine, it’s my fault. I’m sorry.

I couldn’t help it; venturing out with a friend made me lose myself. Much like how I’d picked up skills and traits for the sake of foxes-and-geese, there was nothing I could do with my mind to overcome the childish wonder of my body.

This feeling of anything and everything being fun was not a new one: I’d felt it countless times when sitting at new tables and drafting up new parties. Explaining one’s own character while getting to know the PCs everyone else came up with was a treat like no other. The thought that this was the band of heroes that the ensuing adventure would revolve around was more exciting than anything I could imagine. This held especially true when my companion felt like a breath of fresh air no matter what we did—after all, Mika was archetypally different from everybody else around me.

I made my amends by promising him an extra portion of butter for lunch (at my expense), and we began scouting out the area to accomplish our task. Herbs were a staple for many magia, and broadly, there were two use cases for them: potions and catalysts.

As one might expect, potions stabilized the temporally challenged phenomenon we called “magic” in a physical form. This concoction could be made of anything from herbs and minerals to chunks of flesh or fungus. Whatever the ingredients, they then went through a filtration process and were melted together with a spell to purify mana and create a potion.

The benefit to doing this was that the mana necessary for the spell to activate was not used instantaneously, unlike a normal casting. Further, potions seemed to warp the world less than magic, and thus their effects did not revert as quickly; in practice, this meant most concoctions held for ten to twenty years if well stored.

Perhaps the easiest illustration would be that of restorative potions. It went without saying that there were spells dedicated to the art of healing the body. The most fundamental restoration magic involved triggering the target’s immune system while stimulating surplus cell production, or increasing the patient’s ability to effectively metabolize medicine. These also happened to be the easiest medicinal spells to trap in a potion.

By infusing herbs with magic and then reducing the plants to an extract, mages magnified the effects of their spells and stabilized them in the form of a drug. In essence, these mystic apothecaries expended mana up front to prepare a spell for future use.

Since the magic of a potion was technically active from the time of creation, they were crafted with a “use” trigger built into the equations dictating how the spell activated. This led to the greatest boon of creating potions: a layman without any arcane knowledge could conjure up the effects of a spell, and it would be no different from a mage doing so. Whether the potion took the form of an ointment or a powder, all they had to do was use it in its intended way.

Additionally, potions were not only made with healing magic. With a bit of wit and the right ingredients on the creator’s end, any spell or cantrip could be theoretically fixed into a mystic concoction.

There was a potion for everything. Refined oils could harbor massive fireballs. Finely dusted ore could be imbued with an aspect of drying to speed up the construction of concrete and mortar. A flask of liquid could be made to vaporize upon contact with air at thousands of times its usual rate of evaporation.

Magia with little faith in their mana capacity thus mass-produced potions while they were full of vigor and stockpiled them for a rainy day. However, this was a massive drain on both time and money, so this style of combat was only a step removed from beating down enemies with sacks of gold. Alchemists were doomed to an expensive path in every system, it seemed.

Going back, the second use case was to use an herb as a catalyst. Much like the old magus who’d given me his ring many years ago, many mages chose to use expendable items to bolster their spells and cantrips.

For example, lighting a match was far easier than lighting a random twig, and a dried log would undoubtedly burn better than a damp one. In the same vein, catalysts were used to create more favorable conditions for a mage to work their magic.

Morphing a pinch of gunpowder into a firework was a simple task. Of course, an experienced mage could summon flashing lights out of thin air through sheer mastery, but they had no incentive to waste the extra mana and concentration to do so. Between a simple and easy method and a difficult and tiring one, few would ever go out of their way to choose the latter.

Therefore, mages carried about their business making great use of their crutches so they could more easily convince the world that their wondrous displays of incomprehensible power were consistent with the laws of reality. While I’m sure many mages had tried to replicate their own work without the training wheels of catalysts out of boredom at one point or another, the dozens of fireworks lords and magistrates wished to fire would quickly become backbreaking work without the tools of the trade.

Of course, some folks—my employer included—chose to brute force everything with their bottomless supplies of mana.

At any rate, today’s task was to gather the materials needed for a potion. I followed the written instructions to a tee and dug up each plant with all the care of a scientist recovering a research specimen, making sure not to damage the roots. I didn’t know what the requester was going to use these for, but one thing was certain: we were cheaper than the salesmen and herbalists that peddled their wares at the College.

Still, gathering normal herbs was easy work. Sometimes, these sorts of quests involved gathering really obnoxious plants, like one that lost all its mystic meaning if it didn’t remain in the dirt it had grown in, or the flower that withered in two minutes if not kept in a flask full of a completely unrelated potion. Those sorts of missions paid out gold pieces, but nothing of the sort grew where a pair of children could wander off to pick herbs.

Riding atop Castor and Polydeukes was fun and all, but...man, I wanted space-bending magic. The power in being able to teleport long distances was hard to overstate. It was the type of ability to make the GM groan and complain that the whole session wouldn’t work if one of the PCs had it.

Mika and I worked at it until a bit past noon, calling off our search for lunch around the time we’d each gathered a few silvers’ worth of herbs. He was quick to learn and had swiftly picked up on the distinguishing features of each species and how to discern the quality of each plant. I suppose he was what one would usually imagine a model student to be like, but I couldn’t help but feel like it wasn’t very rewarding to teach him... My time with Elisa was getting to me.

“Hey, Mr. I-stopped-picking-herbs-in-favor-of-plums,” he said.

“What was that? I couldn’t hear you over the sound of all the strawberries you picked,” I returned.

The two of us had finished lunch and were now leaning on a massive tree, snacking on the fruits of our labor for dessert. The shade and fruits were a welcome escape from the heat of midsummer, and the cool sensation of the air wicking away my sweat was one of the season’s greatest pleasures. There was nothing better after a good bout of play.

“These are great,” I said.

“Yup,” he agreed.

Our eyes met and we burst out into a fit of laughter. This sort of pointless chitchat was just so unapologetically fun.

Suddenly, my Presence Detection skill kicked in. My brow twitched and I reached for the fey karambit stashed ever-ready in my sleeve, but the gentle presence gliding our way from the sky didn’t seem hostile. In fact, what I’d detected wasn’t even alive.

“Whoa,” Mika said. “It’s a messaging bird. Haven’t seen one of those in a while.”

Our tiny visitor was a slip of paper that had been folded into the shape of a small bird, perfectly mimicking the movements of the real deal. I was intimately familiar with the artificial sparrow: another of its kind had come my way a week ago during my first “fashion show.”

As expected, the origami bird landed atop my lap and unfolded itself to reveal a message. Stamped with Lady Leizniz’s seal, the letter included a request for me to return to the runway and an offer to schedule my long-awaited library visit.

That’s right, I still hadn’t gone. Lady Leizniz had lost track of time so badly during my debut as a model that we had to push back our trip to the College’s book vault. She must have realized that I’d been sulking over that, because this second solicitation offered to let me spend the whole of our time together in the library, with the only caveat being that I was to stop by that clothier’s shop to change into an outfit of her choosing. In the letter, she asked if I was free in two days’ time. Putting aside the disreputable nature of what she was inviting me to, her courtesy in asking a mere servant for permission to schedule reflected her high birth.

As I read through the message with a furrowed brow, Mika scanned me over—but didn’t so much as glance at my private mail—and then sighed.

“The School of Daybreak is so...flashy,” he said.

“Is the School of First Light not?” I asked.

“Well... At the very least, we’re not supposed to use magic in any way that might catch the attention of laypeople.”

All at once, I realized that I knew little to nothing about the different factions that made up the College. Since I wasn’t going to become a magus myself, Lady Agrippina had cut her explanation short by saying all I needed to know was that the cadres were “not on the best of terms.” However, at this point, my best friend in the imperial capital was an official student of another cadre, and my curiosity took hold.

“Hey, ol’ buddy ol’ pal,” I said. “I know it’s a bit late to be asking this, but what are the differences between the cadres, anyway?”

“Huh?” Mika said. “No one told you about them?”

“I’m just an indentured servant. The madam I serve doesn’t plan to make me handle any political stuff, so she only taught me the bare minimum. Each faction has a different stance on magic or something, right?”

Mika put his hand on his chin with a contemplative groan. After a moment, he decided to give me a proper lecture and raised a finger as he began explaining.

“First, the original seven magia each founded a school of thought, and those are what we call the Major Seven. There are a bunch of offshoots for each, but you don’t have to worry about those. They just argue about minutiae anyway.”

With his index finger still outstretched, Mika started his rundown of the major factions with the School of First Light.

They posited that knowledge was a sin worse than ignorance when wielded by an imbecile, and accordingly wished to limit the spread of magic to the few. The great wealth of knowledge known as magecraft was a treasure to be shared with only those intellectuals that could use its powers for good: they dedicated every synapse of their sharpened minds to the gravely important process of selecting a successor, and only made their findings public after a careful screening to make sure any new spell was fit for the world to see.

Although the other factions laughed at the First Light hermits, their contributions to the field of magic rivaled that of the School of Daybreak. They publicized any breakthroughs that they thought would be to the benefit of all and believed in bettering quality of life, so they weren’t as introverted as some made them out to be.

Personally, I could sort of see where they were coming from. Morons were ever prone to misusing spectacular technology to cause hideous disaster. Even the best of inventions could cause catastrophe in the wrong hands, so the prudence to not show off every one of their findings struck a chord with me.

I’d seen a timeline in which brilliant minds converged to create a bomb so powerful that even they urged for it not to be used, only for a politician without their expertise to go off and use it anyway. Having come from a world so overrun with idiocy, the words of First Light were rather compelling.

Mika’s second finger was accompanied by the School of Daybreak. This was the rogue’s den my employer and that terrible wardrobe coordinator belonged to.

My cadre was one that idealized prosperity through reason. The members of Daybreak championed the idea that if the next step on their path was off a steep cliff, all they needed to do was throw themselves into their research with the conviction that they could fly. These hyperrationalists were a crossbreed between scientists and wizards who bled on the cutting edge of discovery in the quest for the most beautiful and efficient discoveries. They published any finding that had a remote chance of marginally bettering the world in the name of their radically progressive love of innovation.

Naturally, they were a major contributor to the Empire’s arcane superiority and enjoyed high status as a result. However, they simultaneously allotted vast swaths of their budget to the exploration of new ideas that would be—to put it lightly—utterly inexcusable for the world to see. Thus, despite their great prowess, they were a regular troublemaker in the Emperor’s court.

“And that sort of makes them our biggest rival...” Mika mumbled.

While unfortunate, that was unavoidable. The two factions were practically destined to be mortal enemies. I could gather the three most genocidal dictators of Earth’s history in a room, and they still wouldn’t reach the same level of mutual animosity.

Next, Mika raised a third finger and spoke of the School of Midheaven. Their teachings dictated that what could be done with magic ought to be done with magic; what could not be done with magic ought not to be done with magic.

These centrists embodied the principle of “less is more” and believed best practice varied depending on the situation, whether that be the adoption of new magics or the appointment of new magia. Although some chided them as mere opportunists, they alone of all the Major Seven had no pronounced enemies. This earned them popularity with the conservative nobles of the Empire, who faithfully offered financial support to what they saw as the only voice of conscience in the College.

With my friend’s fourth finger came the School of Setting Sun, whose motto was “glory lies buried in the depths of the unrevealed.” To them, magic was not a means to an end, but an end in and of itself. They valued deep understanding and placed great stock in the idea of the evolution of mankind.

Instead of developing new spells in the name of utility, they derived meaning directly from the act of study. By delving into the deepest secrets magecraft had to offer, the members of their collective sought to attain apotheosis. Where the Schools of Daybreak and First Light were a collection of mad scientists, the believers of the Setting Sun were essentially cultists.

You might think the Empire would be wise to chase out a band of lunatics congregating on its doorstep, but unfortunately these cuckoos were too valuable to let go. Amidst the sea of forbidden terrors that they dragged up during their studies, they also discovered legitimately useful spells. Things like limb regeneration and organ restoration had been developed off the backs of their progress—as well as the mangled corpses of convicted felons—and they wielded a great many patents that had to do with sanitation and hygiene. Taking them out of the picture was more trouble than it was worth.

The Setting Sun cultists were basically evil necromancers trying to attain immortality by playing with corpses all day. Tossing them out into the world would be a disaster for the innocent civilians going about their lives.

Noticing my revulsion, Mika added one more fact that only worsened the crinkle in my brow. Apparently, the School of Setting Sun was somewhat—nay, very concerned with efficiency. Their passion for discovery made them relatively close with the School of Daybreak.

Moving on to a totally opened hand, Mika introduced the School of Shimmering Dawn. Their beliefs revolved around the notion that magic could affect things beyond the realm of base reality—what they called the observable universe. Thus, they took magehood to be a path to enlightenment. While different in practice from the methods of the Setting Sun, this school of thought similarly placed great emphasis on betterment via scholarship.

Historically, they’d been famed for their practice of concentrating on the flow of mana to peer into the past or future. As incredible as this prophetic ability sounded, the results of their clinical trials left something to be desired. Nowadays, they were seen as a group that had gotten a little too spiritual for their own good. While they retained some acclaim in niche circles for the major prophecies they foretold, opinion on the Shimmering Dawn oracles was divisive.

However, they also carried a tradition of writing philosophical treatises on the nature of people, magic, and the relation between them. In this realm, they were considered the sublime peak of thought; no faction could write them off as being mere screwballs.

“And these five are the basis for the Five Great Pillars that control the College today. The other two are the School of Scorching Sun and the School of Polar Night, but their cadres are tiny in comparison. I hear that they haven’t been real players for the past century or so.”

Still, Mika bent down his index finger and explained the inner workings of the School of Scorching Sun. They were nerds of the truest sense, fixated on the idea that mastering magic alone would translate to mastery of everything else the universe had to offer.

Addicted to their notion of arcane preeminence, these fools had created a strange hodgepodge of guiding tenets. Despite showing signs of interest in research and development, they maintained more than any other faction that the peak of the craft was a view only the chosen few need gaze upon. In essence, these lovers of novelty were also staunch secret keepers.

However, their secrecy had gone too far, and their lack of verifiable contributions had been the key factor in their decline. The College was not philanthropic enough to fund an organization that failed to produce results, no matter how much authority it held. With no money to lure in new talent, they were stuck in a spiral of compounding failure. To add insult to injury, they were the Tendai Buddhists of this world: they’d made enemies of every other major faction, leaving them on a stranded island of political power.

At this point, I felt as though I’d peeked past a facade to see the ugly reality of the mystical castle where I worked.

“Finally, the School of Polar Night is the last of the Major Seven,” Mika said, pausing for a moment. “It’s kinda weird for me to say this, but these guys are really out there. This school is full of magia that don’t like magic.”

The last and perhaps most befuddling faction was said to have been founded on the concern that magic could leave irreversible scars on the very world itself. Poorly restrained spells and arcane tools overcharged with mana could run wildly out of control. Destruction of life and property was obviously a potential issue, and there was even a worry that lingering mana-based residue could continue to harm a region for long after an incident was resolved.

Scholars of Polar Night turned their attention to the dark side of what others considered an all-powerful tool. These magia thus came to the remarkably peculiar conclusion that the world would be better off without magic.

Their logic went like this: “There are already people living out their lives without magic. Meddling with something that could kill hundreds of thousands of people for our own gain is wrong! Yet seeing as there are already people who use magic as they please, it is our duty to use our knowledge of the art’s dangers to safeguard the world against its evils.”

Driven by this remarkably virtuous goal, the School of Polar Night specialized in purifying locations with residual mana and creating barriers that deflected other forms of magic. These anti-mage specialists’ existential pessimism led them to avoid social events within the magus sphere. While this caused their modern cadre to be smaller than its competitors, the imperial crown prized their talents as a tool of the state, and they enjoyed relatively high status for their size.

The rest of Collegiate society saw them as a group of thorny people lashing out in self-loathing. Apparently, most magia watched over them with endearment, like a main character smiling at a pouty love interest.

“And that’s the last of the Major Seven. What do you think?” After delivering a long spiel, Mika asked me for my opinion. Unfortunately, I was stuck on one thing.

“Why is every faction so extreme?”

“Ah, man... I figured you’d go there,” he said, slapping his forehead with an awkward chuckle.

I knew from studying history that associations of people with the explicit goal of furthering some field of study were bound to have a screw or two loose, but the people running the College were so obsessive that I couldn’t even laugh.

I was unbelievably grateful that my friend here had managed to stay on the path of a sincere gentleman despite spending his days surrounded by reprobates. I could only pray that he remained a refreshing beacon of normalcy amidst the sea of magical kooks.

“By the way,” Mika said, “aren’t you going to reply? It looks like it wants you to.”

“Oh, whoops.”

I’d let my curiosity get the better of me and had completely forgotten about Lady Leizniz’s letter. The white sheet on my lap was slapping me with its flimsy corner, as if to say, “Hurry up! Write your reply already!”

Not having any plans in particular, I took the chunk of charcoal that came with the paper bird and wrote a reply saying that I was free. As soon as I finished, the origami creature refolded itself and flew off into the sky.

“I still think it’s kinda showy,” Mika said, “but I guess being invited out with a letter like that would steal any lady’s or gentleman’s heart.”

“Ha ha, then I guess I’m the lone exception. I really don’t want to go.”

As we watched the paper familiar fly away, I was struck by a sudden revelation: no matter what the future held, I needed to keep this handsome young man away from my benefactor at all costs.

[Tips] The Schools of Daybreak and First Light are each other’s greatest rivals.

As we finished up our lunch, we prepared to head home so as not to return too late. This time, Mika took Castor’s reins to prevent me from letting him run wild again. My experience on the way here made me hesitate before I grabbed hold of his waist, but the classic “You were a girl this whole time?!” trope was nowhere to be found.

His waistline and the set of his hips were markedly unfeminine. No matter how tomboyish a girl might be, this wasn’t the sort of thing someone could fake. I could dress up in my best drag, but one look at my collar, waist, or knees would get me clocked. Greatly relieved, I made some small talk about how obnoxious sweat became as the weather warmed.

“By the way, Erich, do you plan on growing out your hair?” Mika asked, looking at the relatively long strands clinging to my damp skin.

I’d stopped cutting it for extra brownie points with my alfish companions, and I was still powering through despite how obnoxious it was. It was growing extremely fast—though I wasn’t sure if that was natural or the product of fey interference—and the short cut I’d left Konigstuhl with now flowed down past my shoulders. I’d once heard that hair growth rates correlated with sexual perversion, but...I wanted to believe otherwise. I mean, I’d never even let my campaigns dip into that sort of thing. Seriously!

“Yeah,” I answered. “There’s some kinda mystic thing to it too, right?”

“Yup,” Mika said. “Long hair is second only to mana stones when it comes to catalyzing spells and storing magical power. Apparently it’s not as effective for men, but that’s why you see female mages walking around with really long hair.”

Come to think of it, all of the busted characters I knew of had grown out their hair. Lady Agrippina needed magic just to keep hers in order; although Lady Leizniz’s appearance was frozen at her time of death, her impressive brunette locks went down past her hips.

Does that mean I have to grow mine out that long? Seems like a pain...

Unseen Hands made braiding trivial, but a hairstyle like that would be a bit much in a bathhouse. Letting it all float freely atop the water was out of the question, and bundling it all up on my head would be heavy.

“How long are you thinking?” Mika asked.

“Maybe halfway down my back at most,” I said.

“That sounds great. I’m sure it’ll suit you with how smooth your hair is. In fact, you already looked like a heartthrob when you worked up a sweat today.”

...This might be an unwarranted concern, but I was beginning to worry about this young man’s future. What was buttering me up going to accomplish? And why did he have to go out of his way to use such romantic language? Had I been a girl, I would’ve been on track to be the leading lady of his story.

Man, that’s scary... It’s just not fair how good hot people’ve got it.

“Your hair is pretty remarkable too,” I said, hoping to deflect embarrassment back at my handsome friend. “Hardly anyone can boast a shade of black as lustrous as yours. How do you take care of it?”

“I wash up in the bath like anyone else.” I could tell from the faint blush on the back of his neck that I’d managed to turn the tables. “I can’t afford hair oils, but I do put down a bit of cash for some soap. And what about you?”

“Me?” I said. “All I do is rinse my hair at public bathhouses and let it air dry.”

“...You better not say that in front of a woman.” Mika’s final, strangely genuine warning made me realize that we’d never gone to bathe together before.

Berylin was home to seven whole public bathhouses! Of them, two were totally free to enter on account of being a gift to the populace from the imperial crown. Another charged a mere five assarii for entry to a large and relaxing bath. I could even splurge twenty assarii to enjoy a whole array of different tubs; the city certainly catered to my bath-loving tendencies.

The remaining three establishments served members of the upper crust, so the closest I’d gotten to experiencing what they offered was gazing at the buildings from afar. Two were closer to high-end spa resorts than bathhouses, requiring large silver pieces just to get in, and I swore that I’d knock on their gates to experience their epicurean luxury firsthand should I ever make it big. The last enterprise was a tad specialized, so it was far too early for me to go. But, well, I couldn’t deny having any interest in it.

“Hey, Mika,” I said. “Want to head to the baths when we get back? We worked up a good sweat, and it just isn’t the same to clean ourselves off with magic alone.”

“Huh?” he said. “Oh, a bath? Sorry...I’m not really a fan of bathing in groups.”

Unfortunately, my invitation to naked brotherhood spurred on by brilliant epiphany was shot down. According to Mika, he liked to spend his time alone, steeping in the hot water with outstretched legs and a meditative mind. Much like the lonely old men who preferred to sample gourmet dishes solo, this dashing young boy preferred to partake in his hot springs in the comfort of privacy.

Frankly, that sounded like a perfectly relaxing time, and I wasn’t in the business of gatekeeping another’s tastes. Further, if we went in separately and only conversed after leaving the bath, there wasn’t any point to going together to begin with.

Knowing that overstepping my bounds would do me no good, I dropped the conversation and moved on to getting Mika used to handling a horse. We sped up to a brisk trot, and the lurching sun was finally at our backs by the time Castor’s hooves touched down on the streets of Berylin.

Our steed was content after a full day of exercise, and we dropped him off at the stables before heading to Krahenschanze with the plants we’d fetched. We found the College halls filled with a chattering crowd of students who were there to turn in their work for the day, just like us.

“Nice and lively,” I said. “What do you think our herbs are going to be used for?”

“Well,” Mika mused, “I’d prefer they further our understanding of the depths of magic, instead of setting off some brewer’s flash of genius.”

We killed time in line joking around until it was our turn to hand over our request sheet and the corresponding goods to the receptionist. The clerk collected our bounty with a smile and went so far as to give us each a piece of candy filled with honey. These small drops were surely a vital part of the receptionists’ preparations to keep their voices from dying on the job, and having finished a long day of work myself, the sweet flavor soaked into my tired body.

Getting back on track, one began a quest by bringing a request to this counter and ended it much in the same way. The appraisal of our goods and subsequent payment were also handled by the receptionists to dissuade senior students from coercing young kids to run around as their gofers. This preventative means was no theoretical countermeasure: a past incident had gotten to the brink of dean-on-dean combat before the then-emperor stepped in to mediate. Not even the Kamakura samurai had been honor bound enough for the leaders of factions to prepare for war over a literal children’s squabble.

Further evidence for the natural barbarism of all thinking beings aside, the clerk handed us a wooden check; our haul’s appraisal was pending and we were to come back to receive our reward in a day or so. Still rolling our honey drops on our tongues, we thanked the receptionist and made our leave.

“All right,” I said, “I’m off to take a bath before my nightly duties.”

“Sounds good,” Mika said. “I’m going to hit the books to review all the stuff you taught me today. See you again.”

Thus, Mika and I went our separate ways in front of the College. It was already evening, though the lateness of the summer sunset made it difficult to believe. My night shift was approaching, and cleaning up before work was more than manners: it was a mark of civility as a human being.

What was more, two weeks of life here had given me insight into what Lady Agrippina had meant when she’d called Krahenschanze a vain castle in the capital of vanity. Knowing what I knew now, I was neither stupid nor self-defeating enough to turn a blind eye to the important task of playing along.

I stopped by home to grab a towel, bucket, and scrubber (basically a metal stick) and headed for the bathhouse. My walk there was more than illustrative as to why this city had been built: Berylin was just too clean.

Of course, the smaller urban centers we’d visited on the trek here had been plenty sanitary. The Trialist Empire enforced nationwide mandates for the creation of sewer systems and aqueducts in its cities. On top of this, there were even imperially maintained public restrooms (though admittedly their upkeep consisted of shovelers who manually cleaned out the things). Rhine was a far cry from what I’d imagined a city of Dark Ages Europe to look like.

Yet all that could not hold a candle to the capital. No other city could boast of wells and drinking fountains at every turn, and only metropolises with more than twenty thousand citizens were granted a public bath that ran on the emperor’s dime. Smaller cities had plenty of smelly residents who refused to cough up the pennies it took to regularly wash up.

However, Berylin had none of these problems. The streets were kept clean by magia for whom city sanitation was their full-time job, and there were two public baths that the crown offered free of charge. The message was as clear as it was entirely founded on vanity: those who refused to bathe were not worthy of dwelling in the capital.

Lady Agrippina had explained that this metroplex had been built for diplomatic purposes. Naturally, it followed that the airs weaponized in the battlefield of social etiquette would be used to their fullest. To flaunt its ability to indulge in luxuries was a state’s greatest show of power.

Who could ever bow down to a small ruler in a pathetic palace overlooking a filthy capital? What looked to be an excess of embellishment, an overly shaggy carpet, or grossly overdone hospitality at first glance were all calculated political plays. The capital burned the glory of its leader into the minds of its subjects and asked all those beyond its realm, “Do you dare make an enemy of a nation that can afford this?”

Ostentation was a splendid weapon on the world stage, and Rhine knew this well. A country that could no longer keep up its image was easy pickings, and today’s Berylin reflected this principle by putting its absurd level of sanitation on full display just as it always did.

I was more than happy to take advantage of it. The closest bathhouse to the Mages’ Corridor was on a low street and catered to local manual laborers. Had I come a bit later, the place would have been flooded with people clocking out for the day, so I’d come just in time to enjoy a near-empty bath without any time limits for how long I could soak. Even the most soothing water couldn’t heal the soul if I were to be packed into the bath like a sacked potato.

I flashed a wooden slate to the guard to prove my Berylinian citizenship—the perpetual jangle in my pocket from all the slabs they gave out for every little thing was this city’s one downfall—and he handed me a key to a locker. Being an unpaid establishment, the expectation was for one to guard their own valuables.

Tossing my things into a flimsy container that was one easy Strength check from busting open, I quickly slipped out of my clothes. The cheap make of the security made me think these lockers were meant to gauge capacity more than they were to protect our property.

To be fair, a thief prying open the gate to my things would, at most, win a few copper pieces I’d brought to buy dinner. One look at the sort of clientele this establishment served was enough to know any possible return wasn’t worth the risk of being chained up (the exemplary punishment for this kind of theft was to live one’s life with bound hands and feet).

I ducked through the narrow doorway into a dimly lit world of steam. The imperial crown’s bathhouse was simpler than its magnificent size would lead you to believe. Countless windows cut up to the towering ceiling to flood the space with summer sun, which filtered through the vapors billowing up from the water. Below, the baths themselves were inhabited by a handful of men who had evidently come to let the comfortable pools melt their fatigue and troubles away.

Three separate basins sprawled out before me: cold, lukewarm, and hot water filled each one, respectively. This was an extravagance I could’ve never imagined back in the canton. After scrubbing down my body, I first hopped into the hot bath to loosen up my muscles and skin.

“Hnnng... Ahh.”

Vain purposes aside, the bath was good. In truth, we commoners cared little for the conniving reasons behind the lengths the powers that be went to in order to indulge us. More importantly, I had something on my mind that I’d meant to think about since noon.

I let the warm water envelop me. Any more relaxation and I would inadvertently begin floating. I gazed up at the faraway ceiling and opened up my character sheet to see the day’s progress.

“Now then...what shall I do?”

Three months prior, the end of the winter storm that accompanied my mistake had given me more experience than I’d dared dream of. Serious training begot serious results, but this incident hammered home the notion that life-and-death battles were even bigger paydays.

With my current stock, I was at the precipice of a true peak... I could bring my Dexterity from VII: Exceptional to IX: Divine Favor with change to spare. But on the other hand, I could dump everything into Hybrid Sword Arts to go from VI: Expert to IX: Divine in one fell swoop, and the choice was killing me.

I’d been stunned to the point of falling out of bed when I’d first checked my stats. The numbers I’d likened to a hellish mobile game grind had fallen within reach. I could only guess that my unbreakable resolve to push through countless wounds stacked with bonuses stemming from Helga’s innate difficulty as an encounter, only to filter through Child Prodigy’s disgusting magnification. My gains this time around were clearly too much for me to hope for an encore.

In the past, I would’ve racked my brain over my two Scale IX options...but now my array of choices was wider.

One: I could continue polishing my strengths.

Two: I could shore up my weaknesses.

Three: I could reach out for something new.

Among these, the second and third choices would resolve themselves in two days’ time. I hadn’t been able to focus on my work with Mika since I’d received Lady Leizniz’s letter. Call me a bad friend if you’d like, but only those who had never refused an invitation in the name of playing a newly purchased game have the right to look down on me.

How can a power gamer with a fully loaded bank of experience points ever hope to resist the temptation to throw life to the wayside? With my blood flowing from the hot bath, I could feel my brain kick into gear. I was ready to shrivel into a living prune on my mission to enjoy a delightful bout of planning.

[Tips] Berylinian citizens who emit pungent body odors due to a lack of bathing can be fined for disrupting public morals.

For a munchkin, time spent imagining the ungodly power of a broken character using a near-perfect database of information is time to be celebrated.

At the time of creation, all characters are more or less equal. There are, of course, some exceptions: one can sometimes run a unique subrace to take on debilitating demerits that make it almost impossible to interact with the setting in exchange for unbelievable stats.

However, this sort of localized peak did not suit my ideals. The absolute power afforded by a build backed with completed data sets never risked being turned away at foreign doors; in battle, I refused to be reduced to a mere spectator when the dungeon crawling began. Of course, these sorts of builds were sometimes bailed out by the release of new supplements, but that’s beside the point.

The steamy bath warmed both my body and mind, and as I introduced the lubricant of excitement, my thoughts began to race to the point that my inner monologue was chasing its own tail. Still, I didn’t mind so long as I was having fun.

Regardless, I lived by a certain min-maxing philosophy: a truly broken character ought to be strong in any and every situation—or at least, as many as possible.

Understand that this isn’t to say I didn’t appreciate a frontline warrior whose only weakness was being kited by a maneuverable ranged enemy, and I would never disparage the mages who could dish out immense burst damage and fizzled out immediately after. Even noncombatant characters who shone in the explorative and deductive parts of a campaign could be considered strong in their own right, despite being reduced to reactive rolls in combat.

Furthermore, tabletop games were meant to be a team endeavor. I loved seeing a whole party synergize into a singular entity to dish out stupidly high damage numbers with a combo. To that effect, I’d played the role of a supportive unit that could only contribute to a battle by buffing my allies more times than I could count.

Yet my favorite kind of strength was the kind without flaws—the kind where we could say, “Just throw him in and it’ll probably sort itself out.” Obviously, this style of play required me to choose my tables carefully, but I saw no reason to hold myself back in this world.

With all that said, my major physical stats had changed little from the time I’d left the canton. Dexterity and Endurance were the highest at Scale VII, only two tiers away from the top. Following them, Stamina, Agility, and Memory were at VI: Superb. The remaining Strength, Immunity, Intelligence, Mana Capacity, and Mana Output all hovered at V: Good, for an excellent basis to work off of.

When you considered that even my lowest physical attributes all trumped the average mensch in every way, my spread was impressive. This satisfying setup was five straight years of diligent effort—sans my propensity for poorly planned purchases—given numerical form.

What lay ahead in this respect hardly needed any consideration. I’d long hoped to attain IX: Divine Favor in one or two of these stats, and I had a chance to achieve that with my Dexterity. Combined with Enchanting Artistry, I could refine my fixed damage build to cut down anything in my path.

On the other hand, I could invest in my main attacking skill by bringing Hybrid Sword Arts to IX: Divine to solidify my strength specifically in combat. Weaponry represented my main mode of damage, and heightening my precision and power would translate to more reliable hits—a persuasive proposition, seeing as I professed faith in the almighty fixed value. Perhaps this was a tad arrogant of me, but I could only wonder if the “Divine” title meant mastery would let me point my blade toward the heavens.

The second choice I mentioned earlier was to shore up my weaknesses. That begged the question, what were my weaknesses? I believed the answer lay in how squishy I was.

Despite my commitment to Endurance, I couldn’t overcome my mensch frame: no amount of leveling could give me the tenacity of a dragon. An overwhelming mass swung with force could reduce me to a red stain, and even the hooves of a horse were enough to trample me. It was harder to find an attack that wouldn’t hurt a mensch like myself. The fragility necessary to burn skin from just being in the sunlight was a cut above the other races.

Some might say that comparing mensch to beings with alloyed bones, metallic skin, boiling blood, or magic-deflecting scales was a fool’s errand. While not an unfair criticism, the fact that I could kick the bucket from a single hit was terrifying. Nobody enjoyed being one mistake away from death at all times.

I could realistically blow all my savings to mix and match a number of defensive traits to become an impenetrable fortress that rivaled the sturdier races. However, my frequent solo missions meant that too little firepower carried the legitimate risk that I couldn’t take down an enemy.

In an extreme case, someone who truly wanted me dead could hit me with something physically unavoidable. A few attacks without opportunity for a saving throw, and I was sure to be down for the count. I might even croak after one blow, depending on where it hit me.

There were probably dozens of ways this could happen to me—in fact, having seen someone like Lady Agrippina, I knew there were. Frankly, someone of her level would be overkill in my current state; a band of trained warriors would suffice to do me in. Facing off with a line of spears at the ready and winning was a herculean task. I would need to have an extending blade, be able to cut the very space we inhabited, or otherwise attack in every direction at once.

So what was the answer to overwhelming violence by numbers?

I could forgo evasion in favor of raw defense. With high-enough damage resistance I could soak the better part of each hit, but no amount of skill would let me overcome the inherent weakness of my physical form—I clearly wasn’t surviving a meteor strike, for example—so the most realistic way to pursue this idea would be with spells.

Magic had all sorts of variations on this idea. My physical makeshift shield of Unseen Hands was one example, but one could even erect force fields that overwrote physical phenomena, or barriers that were the very notion of protection given form (though at present I was far from being able to comprehend how these worked).

I suspected that Lady Leizniz would be happy to teach me if I asked, and Lady Agrippina usually offered helpful advice in this field. Dipping my toes into defensive magic was certainly an attainable goal.

However, there existed another possible solution: kill everyone with AoE before they could kill me. This didn’t fundamentally solve anything, as sneak attacks would still spell doom, but this was easy to wrap my mind around as an arcane power move... The problem was that my Mana Output couldn’t keep up.

Helga’s gemstone had bolstered my lunar ring to performance on par with a mediocre staff, but that wasn’t nearly enough to line up with a true mystic powerhouse. If I ignored the karmic and legal consequences of my actions, I could develop a mutation spell to fill a battlefield with toxic gas for an easy wipe, but unfortunately this sort of war crime was prone to friendly fire, so I shelved the idea. Dragging in innocent bystanders was more than a little iffy, and I wasn’t so immoral as to claim that it was every man for himself.

“And that is where we come in, o Beloved One.”

“...This is the men’s bath, you know.”

Amidst my contemplation of ethics and efficiency, I felt a gentle presence float onto my forehead. I didn’t even bother glancing up to confirm that Ursula had come to meddle in my business again.

What kind of slob parks their fat ass on someone else’s head?

“Is that of any concern to an alf?” Ursula asked. “I’m sure you can see the little alfar hovering about to enjoy the warm air, and the water spirits here in the bath, can’t you?”

I couldn’t refute her casual comment; it was completely true. Alfar playing meaningless pranks—like turning a bucket of hot water cold, which I might add is not something they ought to be doing to the elderly—were a common sight here. Despite understanding that it was fey nature to do as they pleased where they pleased, I couldn’t help but wish they’d be a smidge more considerate of those around them.

“I stopped by to share a tidbit of advice, seeing as you seem so muddled,” Ursula went on. “Share a dance with me, and I shall grant you a wondrous spell. I have an oh-so-terrific alfish charm that can prevent any and all physical interference from outsiders.”

Physical immunity was a trait that transcended the realm of tabletops to tickle the hearts of gamers as a whole. While it was often surprisingly counterable, the ability was one of the highest heights of defensive play. However, I knew that even the simplest of fairy favors were laced with their fatal love of trickery.

I was sure her offer was something like “I’ll turn you into an alf!” and I’d be whisked away to the twilight hill as payment.

“I’m not too keen on waking up only to realize a century passed me by,” I said.

“A shame. It isn’t any fun if you already know the punchline.” I was even less keen on the svartalf’s reaction.

Give me a break... Slipping into another era had its own allure, but I wasn’t so power hungry that I’d abandon my family and friends just to grow stronger.

“Don’t you have anything milder?” I asked her with the faintest of whispers using Voice Transfer.

“I’ll get in trouble if I give you something for nothing in return.” Perhaps even these eternal fey dancers had their share of bureaucratic troubles. “Let me think... Well, I suppose you don’t have to come to the hill with me. If you’re willing to do me a little favor, I shall teach you a wonderful way of strolling around that all of us svartalfar enjoy.”

This piqued my interest. I figured Ursula was referring to her peculiar footwork that prevented me from truly registering her movement. While I hadn’t a clue as to how it worked, it felt perfectly natural that a fairy presiding over the ambiguous hours of the dark night could move that way, and in my hands it would be a stellar defensive tool. You may remember that I’d once chided mid-combat stealth as ineffective, but it was perfectly passable as a temporary means of dodging a hit.

So long as an enemy’s attack didn’t encompass the whole field, it needed to be aimed at a person or place. Even homing magic that covered a large area wouldn’t land if its caster didn’t recognize the target as being present. The spell wouldn’t bother to follow a “nonexistent” enemy.

Thus, utilizing mid-combat stealth as an unorthodox evasive maneuver was far from weak. That said, it also forced one’s allies to become the target of aggression, so not being weak was as far as it went. Most of the time, other party members would complain that the resources needed for such stealth would be better allocated to damage. An assassin’s first job was to deal a massive burst of damage, after all...

Of course, I wasn’t an assassin, so Ursula’s invitation was worth considering.

“So,” I asked, “what would I need to do?”

“Well,” she said, “I’d like the head of an obnoxious magus who keeps meddling with my sistren.”

Everything that came out of the mouth of this tiny figurine of dusk was horrific. My dear childhood friend had been rather extreme herself, but at least Margit had the modesty to be roundabout with her speech. Er, the oxymoron of modest extremism notwithstanding.

“I’d prefer it if you refrained from making bloodcurdling requests while the sun is still high,” I said.

“Huh? The sun?” Ursula gingerly floated off and hovered just above my floating head. As always, her privates were covered only by locks of hair—though only from certain angles—and she peered at me like she was observing a strange creature. “The sun has set long ago.”

“What?!”

I leapt to my feet and realized the once-empty bathhouse was slowly filling up with customers. The men squinting at me for suddenly shouting were not old men or young boys with time to spare; they were laborers who’d come to wash up after a long day of work.

Crap! I got so lost in thought that I didn’t even realize I was pruning up, let alone that it’s already night!

“Oh shoot!”

“Come now,” Ursula said, “at least cover yourself.”

I’d come to bathe explicitly for my nightly duties, but my bath was now the reason I was going to be late to my job. The irony was not lost on me, and I wouldn’t have anything to say in my defense if Lady Agrippina pointed it out!

Cutting off the challenging yet enjoyable question of how I would further refine the essence of my character, I bolted for the changing room.

[Tips] Some mensch are endowed with miraculous physique and particular traits that allow them to surpass the usual defensive limitations of their kind.

“Magic is magical precisely because it refuses to expose its root until the bitter end.”

Agrippina loathed the reclusive hermits of First Light, but these words had come from the sole practitioner that she respected from their flock. Now more than ever, she knew this axiom to be true.

A multitude of items whizzed about her: plates, candles, miscellaneous goods, and her beloved books. Though their trajectories seemed chaotic at first glance, each and every arc of travel painted a picture that proved there was method to this madness.

The cup of tea Agrippina had finished just moments ago zoomed toward the main door to her lab, only to take a sharp turn to the side and disappear into the kitchen. Earlier in the day, her apprentice had knocked the books off of her shelves in an arcane tantrum after misinterpreting a historical story; these tomes, too, whirled back to their proper places with equal parts speed and care.

An outsider would guess a geist was toying with the methuselah’s belongings, but the truth was far simpler.

“I’ll need to teach that boy the meaning of confidentiality,” Agrippina sighed to herself. “So artless, in spite of his brain...”

The magus was in the same spot she always was; if she could grow roots, they would have curled around her hammock as she puffed out a cloud of smoke. Her servant Erich had rushed to her side in a panic at his gross tardiness and was now tidying her workshop to the absolute best of his ability.

Agrippina knew where the boy’s bounds lay. She’d seen him do plenty on their journey from the boonies to the capital, starting with their encountering a broken alf on what she had meant to be a short daemon hunt (as an aside, she remained modestly bitter about his refusal to sell her the gemstone). Once, she’d been ready to show off her power when a band of thugs had seriously soured her mood, and Erich’s quick work in dispatching them had earned him a small modicum of her respect.

However, his movements now were incomparably refined compared to what he’d shown up to this point. The methuselah eyes Agrippina had trained throughout her life showed her all that she needed to see: the boy’s Hands were more numerous and more precise than before. Just where on earth did he find the mental processing power to control each one?

The magus had long since known him to be an impressive child, but this was simply abnormal. An average mensch could not handle feats so methuselah in nature. While these lowly humanfolk were prone to producing geniuses that far exceeded the natural talents of their peers, the prodigies capable of truly impressing Agrippina and her kind were few and far between.

There was little wonder why: the difference between the two races’ capacity to multitask was simply too great. All sentient life came with the gift of juggling several concurrent undertakings. Talking while walking or letting one’s mind drift during a repetitive chore were common sights.

However, the hurdle of parallel spellcasting could not be overcome with cheap muscle memory. To do so literally required more than one strand of consciousness—a tall task for the brains of mensch.

There were many tales of great mensch who’d overcome their physical limitations to handle simultaneous spells. However, Erich was dedicating each iteration of his magic to a separate task as he hammered away at his own business. Agrippina thought this to be worthy of great praise; his actions were almost like that of a methuselah.

Alas, she had to deduct points for the boy’s willingness to show his hand, even if only to his master and sister. After all, mages and magia were at their best when they settled things at first sight.

Spells and cantrips were difficult to counter in combat. To face a mage without knowledge of their capabilities was a death sentence. Trained warriors being reduced to lifeless corpses by novice spellcasters whose eyes had just opened was not too uncommon a sight.

That wasn’t to say that magic couldn’t be countered. Just as good and evil were never absolute among mortals, no magus could ever claim to be flawless.

Take an extraordinary wizard who had grazed the deepest secrets of the craft. Say this mage had attained mastery over the very concept of “flame,” and could burn anything, even if it was physically impossible to do so.

A competent polemurge attempting to kill such a mage would first attempt to solve the issue on a greater strategic scale. “How do we even kill this guy?” they’d ask themselves. “Maybe a sneak attack?”

However, once information on the enemy mage’s general style of combat and hidden tricks were unveiled, they would move on to direct countermeasures. If it turned out to be a bluff, cantrips could be put out by dispelling oxygen from the air, and true magic could be erased with a spell of antithetical nature. Even if the target genuinely had mastery over the secrets of fire, a finely tuned barrier could reasonably disarm any threat.

In each of these cases, a handful of average magia weaving their spells in tandem had a real chance at besting the prodigal flame user. What remained was a muddy contest of attrition to see whose body would give out first, and at that point, individual skill was a bygone issue.

In short, a magus whose tricks were public knowledge was weak relative to the rest of the field. On the other end of the spectrum, those who kept their secrets well guarded struck fear in enemy hearts by presence alone; the terror caused by the threat of instant death for a single mistake was difficult to put to words.

Thus, Agrippina refused to show her hand in battle. She elected to keep her specialized knowledge to herself, going so far as to muddy the language of her treatises with untruths to throw the reader off her trail.

She was far from the only magus to do so. Their flock were cautious: each and every one stashed away a crafty trick that could kill a man before he knew his own cause of death. The road of research was long, and the most vital ingredient to protect was always one’s own self.

Not a single researcher or professor at the College dared to reveal themselves in any actual sense. In fact, Agrippina could even be considered pure of heart among them. Most magia would sooner see their parents buried than expose their hidden abilities, and the sight of her servant frantically running about doing just that was comically absurd to the seasoned magus. She would have lazily told him to try not to be late again had he not immediately pulled out all the stops.

Erich’s Hands weren’t bad. They were more than enough to kill at first sight. With a little more tweaking, he’d be able to intimidate with a brief glimpse of his powers and back it up with incomprehensible violence in a pinch. Wasting his fundamental talents by laying everything bare was such a shame.

Of course, Agrippina could expect nothing more, considering that the boy hadn’t received a magus’s education. For better or for worse, he was ultimately just a child with a penchant for spellcasting.

Now then, what kind of ace shall I put up his sleeve? It had been quite some time since Agrippina had pondered a question so amusing. She had a hunch that bordered on premonition that if she taught the boy to fight like a magus, he would transform into something untouchable.

[Tips] To read a magus’s essay and fully grasp its meaning is an endeavor that often takes the better part of a lifetime. Penned to conceal intent, these convoluted documents substitute explicit falsehoods with esoteric turns of phrase. Some consider the magia art of sesquipedalian obfuscation an exercise in vanity.

The College’s great library lay deep below the surface, carved into the bedrock. Its imposing majesty was almost too much to marvel at, and my first emotion upon seeing the baffling scale of its halls was a godly reverence.

How they built a structure of this size underground was beyond me. I felt undiluted awe as I looked up at the bookshelves, each towering like a mountain. The collective sierra of shelves was delightfully colored with papers, wood, and metal. Staring for too long would certainly corrupt my sense of scale.

Tomes as large as mensch sat stored in house-sized racks and tiny books smaller than my palm kept in miniature shelves lay haphazardly strewn about, further weakening my grasp on what my eyes were telling me. I’d heard urban legends about lost readers turning up withered and mummified, and it terrified me to realize I might have joined their ranks without an experienced librarian to guide me.

Each section of the mountain range was covered in a blue tapestry to protect the books within from the open air, and the gentle sway of their sheets evoked an image of the sleeping giant of knowledge, twitching and turning in its sheets.

The library was sure to enchant anyone who appreciated the written word or fantastical dreamscapes. In my case...I probably would have been more moved had I not been dressed like a total moron.

Two days had passed since I’d run late to work for the worst reason I could possibly imagine, and I’d arrived at the College library as requested. Today’s outfit was a deep blue pourpoint embellished with extravagant embroidery in blinding gold. Below the belt I wore a style of shorts that had been popular in noble spheres some time ago; the rest of my legs were covered with snow-white silk tights. My shoes were knee-high deerskin boots. The finishing touch was a wide-brimmed hat complete with a fowl plume that made me want to ask what kind of deranged costume parade I was dressing for.

I’d spent more time than I cared to admit despairing at my reflection in the mirror.

How could this woman bring herself to so thoroughly trample my dignity? The least she could do was order a smaller headpiece and take off the infuriating feather that adorned it. What was more, I would have appreciated it if the pointless stuffing used to fluff up my shoulders were to be removed. Not only was it hard to move, but the hat made me look like the titular princess knight a certain god of manga had created.

The capital’s nickname was less for show than the city itself, and the northern districts were crawling with highborn women on the forefront of fashion. These ladies and the gentlemen that escorted them had an eye for style...and yet they’d all stopped to stare. Did I do something to deserve this kind of abuse?

I wasn’t opposed to standing out, but not like this. If I was destined to attract attention, I wanted it to be for something I could be proud of. I was on the verge of tears... The other day I’d considered my squishy body to be my greatest fault, but perhaps my mental weakness was just as problematic.

I’d hurried to lose the gawkers by fleeing to the College, but my torture continued here. It was only after I’d reached the middle layer of the book vault (which students could only access with the permission of a professor) that I finally escaped my misery. Knowing that I was probably going to be the subject of gossip, I resolved myself to steer clear of this area for the near future.

“My, you’re very cute.” Such was the librarian’s evaluation of me—wait. I recognized the lady manning the front desk as a receptionist for the main Krahenschanze hall. I did not have the mental fortitude to keep my cool after receiving a compliment like this from someone I would have to see again in the future.

“Wh-Where may I find the second reading room?” I croaked, pulling down my hat to hide my beet red face. The librarian got up and began leading me with a smile.

Just kill me.

“Ahh! Wonderful! This is fantastic! You’re just so—ah, both sides are incredible! I love both parts! Keeping your waist and collar hidden to snuff out your masculine features, only to reveal your boyish legs with shorts was such a brilliant idea! The ambiguity is so perfect!”

In contrast, Lady Leizniz’s initial response triggered a different response: Shut up and prepare to die.

This thought was probably something that my TRPG-addled mind involuntarily churned out because part of my psyche had classified her as an enemy. My tabletop instincts whispered in my ear that I was to kill her—now or later, whenever the opportunity might arise—in an attempt to hoist up my shriveled spirit.

The pervert before me was definitely classed as an undead enemy; I refused to consider her a connection. Regardless, she floated around me for a while, having the utter gall to ask me to strike a pose.

And you know what? I did. With my best smile, to boot.

While still not a small price to pay for mystic knowledge, the expense was worth it. Munchkins are beasts that will trade in self-respect for raw strength every day of the week. Go on, take my honor. Pride is cheap—especially mine.

I wasn’t kidding: tabletop players were detestable human beings that never hesitated to stray off the moral path when the going got tough. At their best, they poisoned foods, took hostages, and begged for forgiveness only to get in a sneak attack once the enemy turned away. At worst, they lit whole buildings ablaze, drowned encampments by diverting water from nearby tributaries, and tossed infected corpses into enemy territory to bring down their foes with plague.

Thinking that the sort of lowlifes who’d stoop to tactics like these after a few minutes of discussion for a handful of extra experience points had pride was folly. Currying favor with a bicentenarian degenerate was a piece of cake with the right smile.

After concluding an episode that I would bury deeper in my heart than my flamboyant poetry session, I finally had a chance to win what I’d been seeking: knowledge. To that end, I made great use of my company, who’d unbelievably managed to defend her position as dean for two hundred years.

“Combat magic?” Lady Leizniz asked quizzically.

“Yes, ma’am. I hope to become an adventurer one day.”

“Huh? I think you’d be better off aiming to become an attendant or steward. Erich, you’re a very impressive young mage, and you have a grasp of social etiquette as well. Above all else, that pointy-eared creature is more than fit to secure a place for you in society, as thoughtless as she may be.”

Lady Leizniz’s surprisingly respectable response reminded me that she was a professional teacher. If she was going to go around acting like a deviant with more loose screws than not, I wished she’d keep her character consistent.

I explained that adventuring was a longtime dream of mine, and she gave up with a small sigh (ignore the fact that wraiths didn’t breathe) as she produced a handful of textbooks.

“In that case,” she said, “I think it may be better to teach you a magus’s notion of battle rather than mere battle magics.”

A shiver ran down my spine—not the sweet kind Margit’s whispers offered, but a flavor of fear that I’d experienced on the night I first met Ursula. It was the terror I’d tasted when I first crossed swords with daemons. And how could I forget this sensation when I’d sampled the same dread as razored hailstones chipped my ogre shield to bits? This was the fright that came in the face of something at once in plain view and yet utterly ineffable.

“Well,” she went on, “this is less of a personal doctrine and more one shared by the magia in the School of Daybreak, particularly the polemurges of our faction.”

Lady Leizniz placed a worn book that had clearly gone through countless repairs in front of her. Her expression stiffened and she straightened her posture; that alone was enough to dispel the image of a vitality-glorifying wraith and solidify her presence as an esteemed professor.

Maybe the eccentricity of all these powerful people is some kind of twisted joke meant to spite me...

“Erich,” she asked, “what would you need to do to have a living thing die?”

The question was simplicity itself. When stripped of all details, the pursuit of combat magic came back to this idea...and I knew the answer.

“They’ll die if I kill them,” I said. To some, this may sound like a tautology. However, I was confident that this was the ideal answer for a Daybreak thinker.

“That’s right. Living beings will die if you kill them. What’s more, there are even ways to kill undead entities like me.”

Lady Leizniz nodded with a soft smile. Her fair, slender finger glided across her neck.

“And anything that can be killed has a weakness. For humanfolk, that entails the neck and brain. Demonfolk and daemons add mana stones to the same list. And those who inhabit a reality unbound by physical flesh like myself are still bound to some crucial existential core...and you can say the same of magic. Should you learn how to gouge that nucleus out, a simple tablespoon would be more than enough to end any affair.”

Lady—no, Professor Leizniz flashed a bewitching smile.

“Now then, this is a shade morally gray, but we’re all alone here. Shall we begin our little lecture, future adventurer?”

The professor raised a single finger and merrily readied herself for a lesson. In that moment, I finally realized the nature of the emotions I’d felt for the School of Daybreak ever since I had first heard their general philosophy.

“Allow me to show you the difference between fighting with magic and fighting as a magus. Feast your eyes on the secrets of a Daybreak polemurge!”

The School of Daybreak sought to bring bounty unto the world; they wanted to bathe society in the radiant light of progress. They had dogmatic faith in efficiency on their quest to achieve peak performance—they, too, were min-maxers.

[Tips] The great library of the College is divided into three layers. The top layer is safe for students and lay bureaucrats to enter freely; the middle layer is dangerous for all but the studied and those accompanied by mentors; and the deepest reaches are home to forbidden tomes that can, at worst, kill visitors upon entry. Five hundred years of steady collection has caused Rhine’s slumbering giant of knowledge to grow enormously. According to the master librarian, the books kept within could reduce the Empire to rubble not dozens, but grosses of times.

Psychosorcery, otherwise known as sympathetic magic, was one of the few branches of magecraft that the innovation-loving rulers of the Empire forbade. Its study intruded on the sacrosanct temple of the mind, mangling the memories that formed the building blocks of self. Not even the free thinkers of Rhine could tread such grounds lightly.

That said, the imperial understanding of the word “forbidden” carried a nuanced clause: the spells were off-limits to the uneducated masses, but figures of sufficient authority permitted their use when they saw no other option. Rhinians were not the type to hold the mere mention of these terrifying secrets as taboo.

Put simply, the abominable magic was banned from general use. To wholly ignore it out of fear was unthinkable—what would we do when a threat equally as sinister knocked on our door? Furthermore, people were forgetful beings, sure to lose sight of the reasons why any given thing had been prohibited to begin with. The succession of knowledge was the only precaution against thoughtless fools who reached out for unmentionable means of attaining power.

It then followed that knowledge ought not to gather dust; imperial opinion suggested that the nation make use of its advancements in the name of all that was just. The nation’s ideal of enacting good whenever possible highlighted both the magnanimity and impudence of its people.

Naturally, psychosorcerous tomes were extremely limited in number. All I knew about the field were the basics: it brushed up against the core of what defined life, and was said to be the most intricate and delicate branch of magic... I wouldn’t have guessed I’d get a chance to experience its profound secrets just by cosplaying.

My vision was not my own—I was likely being shown another person’s memories. Whoever I’d borrowed these eyes from, they were facing a truly desperate situation.

I overlooked a dreary field from atop a massive boulder. My foothold stood alone in the vast plains, as if someone had dropped it in from a faraway land. The open range was buried under a giant wave of black dots.

Each figure was a jenkin. Where stuarts were demihumans with ratlike features, these were demonfolk that took on similar form. Smaller than even goblins and frailer than even mensch, jenkins amounted to little more than bipedal rats, widely thought to be deficient beings whose high fertility rates were their only saving grace. In a discussion of the weakest amongst the sentient races, their individual metrics put them in contention for the throne.

Jenkins did not have their own nation-state, failed to establish proper tribes despite social activity, and had yet to produce a single aristocrat in the broad-minded Trialist Empire. They were thought of as totally insignificant all throughout the Central Continent.

However, the same could not be said of a mob of this size. Ah, I thought to myself, so this is a stampede.

I’d once heard that a select few demonfolk with outstanding reproductive capabilities retained their urge to mate post-daemonization. Surrendering themselves to base carnal desires, they multiplied quickly, and their offspring were obviously equally as touched with madness. To make matters worse, they invariably inherited the daemonic trait that allowed them to forgo the need for sustenance.

Every now and again, these creatures found opportunities to breed undisturbed. Oftentimes they simply originated in an enclosed area where all they could do was add to their own numbers. Inevitably, the lid on their nest would burst or otherwise be opened from the outside in a streak of good—or arguably bad—fortune. Claustrophobia from overcrowding and the feral desires sealed away in the depths of their souls then compelled them to march out in search of two things: more bountiful land to breed in and an end to their insatiable hunger.

The pack burying the land was comprised of so many rats that it would be futile to attempt a count. In the skies above the other end of the plain, I could see something flying toward me. I wondered what it was. It soared high, leaving a trail of steam behind it. For a moment I imagined it was a fighter jet, but no fantasy setting can have airplanes without showing at least a bit of steampunk flair. Yet the silhouette was undeniably sailing through the sky.

Something broke away from the distant airborne dot. It was one size smaller than the main unit, which continued to sputter out its smoky trail. The small package fell freely at incredulous speeds, and the definition of its outline became more and more pronounced as it drew closer: it was the unmistakable shape of a person.

“AAAHHH!”

The man’s scream lingered in my ears as he flailed his limbs about in a desperate attempt to form some kind of spell. He gently decelerated, landing directly in the ocean of jenkins waiting for him below.

By all accounts, this ought to have been the end. He would be swarmed by an army of rats, and the GM would wish him better luck next time as he handed him a new character sheet, which he’d fill out in between bitter grumbles.

“Is that bitch insane?! Don’t screw with me!”

Yet, for whatever reason, the man was alive in spite of all the horrific gore he generated on impact. He screamed at the dot disappearing beyond the sky with animated vigor before peeling off the giblets clinging to his expensive armor—or so I thought.

The man swung his arm down with great force, and a longsword appeared in his empty hand. Simple as the blade was, the abundance of mana contained within froze everything around him as he swung, causing the air to let out an icy crackle of agony.

“Just you wait! I’ll make you pay when I get back!” The man gave one last booming shout before diving into the sea of daemons.

His fighting was spectacular. He slashed, dodged, and parried, repeating this cycle ad nauseum to swiftly chip away at the mass of enemies. When faced with a line of spears pointed his way—judging from the lunacy these daemons exhibited, their coordination was a stroke of pure luck—or a dangerous individual that had some control of magic, the man employed the cheapest of spells to clean them up.

The first spell was a flash of light. He merely snapped his fingers to produce a ray of light from the ring on his left hand. Shining it in the spearmens’ eyes gave him just enough leeway to slice right past them.

The second spell was an unembellished barrier. All it did was deflect any spell cast with less mana than itself; yet this standard barrier bought enough time for the man to close in on any jenkin mage. A shallow cut of the throat was enough for him to prevail.

The third spell was a defensive measure when all other options were exhausted: he shouted, creating a wide-arcing shock wave that disrupted his enemies’ formation, buying him time to reposition.

His actions were more than simple—they were downright elementary. He swung his sword, cast his spells, and killed his enemies. Foe after foe fell to earth from his perfected fundamentals.

The man was polished. He’d fine-tuned himself and the spells he used to an optimal state for battle. In the end, mortal beings could only activate so many spells at once. Knowing a hundred spells was wonderful, studying a thousand exemplary, and discovering the depths of a million was cause for praise; yet a mind could only truly bring about one at a time.

I saw now: to efficiently employ the most apt spell in any given moment without any excess on the path to murder was the underpinning of all magia combat.

How long had this gone on? The bodies of those the man had butchered were packed under his feet like a layer of flooring, and the gaps in the sea of entrails were invariably pooled with blood. The lone magus who’d crafted this grisly scene reinvigorated his exhausted body with a spell and pushed himself to his feet.

On the other hand, the daemonic horde remained numerous, as if to say total slaughter was an impossibility. Deranged as any other ichor-drunk horror, seeing their fallen allies did nothing to dissuade them.

“There are a whole damn lot of you, I’ll give you that. You just keep coming...”

Splashback alone painted the magus with enough blood to make him look like a man on his last legs. He spat out a mouthful with disgust and shouldered his sword. The blade glowed a faint white and began trembling with a high-pitched whir. I was sure that he was preparing to take out the rabble in one fell swoop.

But then three lines of smoke appeared on the horizon, accompanied by the ear-piercing sound of whistling arrows to announce the arrival of an army. The projectiles had been enchanted to leave behind a red trail in their wake, drawing three orderly lines toward the heavens.

The small platoon trotting onto the field was hopelessly outnumbered. Despite their numerical disadvantage, each soldier boasted ornate armor and a marvelous steed; these men were no doubt ordained knights and their retainers. I could tell at a glance that their impenetrable equipment reflected their pride as warriors.

“Why? What do you think I left you behind for, you fools? There isn’t any reason for you to put yourselves in danger...”

The magus’s features twisted into a sardonic frown. I only now realized that the man was quite the handsome figure. Even as a man myself, I couldn’t deny his beauty. He was somewhere in the ballpark of fifteen or sixteen, and although his face retained a hint of boyishness, the resolute glimmer in his eyes belonged, by my estimation, to an older man. I couldn’t get a read on him: he looked at once like an innocent child and a disciplined adult.

The magus groped at his waist and produced a folded cloth from his pocket. Picking up a nearby spear, he tied the corners to one end and opened up the fabric.

“Huh?”

Having been so thoroughly bathed in blood, the contents of the man’s pockets were similarly drenched. Although there was evidence of lavish embroidery dotting the surface, the whole banner had been dyed a deep black, erasing whatever symbol that had once adorned it.

“Whoops, no one can see the flag like this... Ah well, whatever. I’ll just say this is my emblem.”

The man had furrowed his brow upon first seeing the cloth, but now chuckled to himself at his ingenious idea. With an amused smile, he hoisted the flag up high.

“I’m always covered in blood anyway. Ordering a new one every time is such a waste—a sheet of pure dark crimson suits me fine.”

Still whirring, the magus’s sword grew brighter until its radiance blotted out my entire vision. Just as the light converged for a final burst...someone grabbed me by the neck, ripping my psyche out of the memory and back into the real world.

[Tips] Stampedes are calamities that occur when the stars align to create the perfect storm of misfortune. These swaths of daemons devour any land they set foot in, swallowing cantons whole. If left unchecked, they can bring down entire nations.

Our “little lecture” was eye opening. In fact, I’d practically been handed an answer to my questions on a silver platter.

The handsome magus had attained the peak of combat in his own way. He’d taken an old adage to its logical extreme: you can’t lose if you never fail a stat check. With a hidden ace up his sleeve to clean up annoying crowds, all that was left for him was to take down the boss—if there was one—in single combat. The man was a living example of a fully built character.

Nothing about him was wasteful. By limiting his active skill investments to the bare minimum, he could crank up all of his passives to ludicrous heights. So long as he avoided those dreaded snake eyes, all that remained was to ask the world, “Dice? What are those?” and truck through everything in his path. Having been abandoned by luck long ago, his variant on strength was right up my alley.

Taking his style into consideration, what I lacked was a defensive barrier and an AoE attack; once I had those in hand, I could consider myself complete, in a sense. In which case, I would simply spend my current stock now to round out this plan and slowly polish my abilities in the coming months.

After our lesson, Lady Leizniz had expressly forbidden me from asking any questions pertaining to the memory and its origins, before moving on to teach me basic spells. The arcane shield that scaled with mana output—I’d need to retune it for better efficiency in the future—and the blinding light the magus had used fit in nicely with my extant style of combat.

All that remained was to perfect my strengths, and...

“Hm? Who’s there?”

I suppressed the giddiness in my step—both at my ongoing optimization plans and the warm bed waiting for me in my immediate future—on my way home, when I detected a faint presence. The fluttering butterfly demanding my attention was, as always, folded from pristine white paper.

It hovered in place, not attempting to lead me anywhere. I extended a hand and it unfolded under the moonlight like a night-blooming flower. The paper was typical in every way, save for the handful of arcane equations written on it. I recognized the handwriting behind the concise formulas as that of my liege’s.

I wondered what triggered the sudden letter. Skirting to the side of the road to stand under a magic streetlight (and to get out of the way of my fellow working men on their way home), I took a moment to look through it carefully.

Fundamental principles, spell assembly, laws of reality that either helped or hindered the spell’s function, and effective means of tricking the latter were scattered about on the sheet. All things considered, the note felt chaotic: even with the prerequisite knowledge to understand its contents, I needed to expend serious mental effort to decipher its meaning. While I was certain it listed the formula to some spell or another, the utter disorganization of it all was akin to being given the parts to a plastic model without the corresponding manual. Figuring out what it would do or how it would do it was going to take some time.

Uh... Huh?

Oh, I see, this axiom depends on this other part. So this giant midsection that looks like the main topic is actually a tangential idea, but I have to understand it before moving on to the thesis. On the other hand, trying to get the big picture from just this fundamental bit is a waste of time... Why would you ever write a paper this way?!

Wait a second. Hm? Um, that means, uh, it should be...

Two seconds later, I failed to contain myself and shouted, “What the hell are you sending me?!” drawing the attention of all the passersby. Realizing that I’d caused a scene while still dressed like a buffoon, I quickly fled for home.

[Tips] Some things ought not to be done unless the situation is grave enough to warrant their doing. Reasons such as “I’m sure this will be terribly amusing,” and “I want a cute boy to like me!” do not suffice to justify such actions; anyone incapable of understanding such things cannot be called a mature adult.