5. Four Visitors
Two months left, until my release.
One day on the weekend. It was a rainy morning. I used a broom to do my daily routine.
After that, I did push-ups and read the study book.
After reading the book, I had a friendly conversation with the guard and the prisoner in the next room.
In the afternoon, I would train my Mana.
There was special training that could increase the amount of Mana.
And, the method changed depending on the color.
Red -> move your body. (Commonly known as: Muscle Training)
Green -> think, means use your head. (Commonly known as: Brain Training)
Blue -> use your Mana. (Commonly known as: Magic Training)
It seemed that the yellow color would increase by communicating with people, though I didn’t really feel it. (Commonly known as: Communication training)
In a sense, the amount of Mana was fixed, but it can be extended in this way. There were many methods to increase the amount of Mana, but the old man said that the method just mentioned was the common one.
So, it could be said that if you were living your life healthily, the amount of Mana, other than Blue Mana, would increase naturally.
The important point was that you couldn’t increase the amount of other Mana by leaving blue (Mana of Operation).
For example, if Blue Mana was 10 and Red Mana was 20 or Green Mana was 30, you wouldn’t be able to control your own Mana. In such cases, the human body would limit the increase in Mana other than Blue Mana as a defensive measure.
So, it meant that for normal humans who had never used Mana, the Blue Mana was never increased.
Therefore, non-magicians were also limited to some extent in other Mana.
“…”
I was working hard at training… and the old man was thinking while reading a book.
The cause was perhaps the customer who rushed in yesterday.
Four visitors asked to meet the old man.
Each one said as much as they wanted and left.
————————————
The first visitor appeared early in the morning.
“It’s been a long time, Venerable Bar…… “
“Niamh…!”
A woman with a dazzling bright blonde tied together… she seemed a little older than me.
A beautiful woman… no, she was probably the most beautiful woman I had ever met in my life up to this point. But her dull blue eyes and sharp eyes were minus points. Her skin was white, and no pores were visible.
Wearing an armor where you could see her navel and a cloak with a dragon pattern, in that erotic figure of her, there was a feeling of intimidation you could feel from her. A big sword about the same height as her on her back… That Large sword. maybe I couldn’t hold it without using Mana.
The woman was probably an official Knight as I saw the guard bowing deeply.
“I was surprised to hear that you are in such a countryside…”
“Sorry but I’m not so free. So, what is it?”
The old man was in a bad mood from beginning to end. Well, after I heard the woman’s response, I could understand his feelings somehow.
“Is that so…? But, it looks like you have some spare time though? Well, never mind… Now, I’ll just say it straightforwardly. Please teach me Sealing Technique.”
I was a little panicked at the remark of a woman named Niamh.
Perhaps it was a kind of monopoly desire. Without realizing it, I seemed to cherish the position of the old man’s only disciple.
I was surprised.
After all, I thought that I was more of a self-satisfied person.
“No.”
Straight to the point…
The old man shook his head without hesitation.
However, the woman seemed to have predicted the old man’s reply, and immediately spoke back.
“If you teach me Sealing Technique, I’ll erase your sins… I will also release you from here immediately and pay the appropriate tuition fee. Your imprisonment will last forever if you keep going like this and you will die in a dirty prison.”
Immediate release & money.
It was normal to give another reply under such favorable conditions, but…
“I refuse. You… are not qualified.”
There, the iron mask of the woman finally cracked.
Grabbed the bar and squeezed it.
Seriously, when I heard a creaking noise of steel, I panicked for a moment there.
“Why! Why keep it secret?!… That much power, why do you want to monopolize that?!… You.. are you not willing to save humanity?!”
“Sealing Technique is an evil technique if mishandled… My teacher and my fellow discipline (younger) were cursed by the Sealing Technique and dropped themself into the darkness. I won’t repeat that tragedy anymore… I will only pass over the Sealing Technique if I judge the person to be credible!… I will never give it to someone like you who is crazy about power!”
“……”
The old man said that he would only pass over the Sealing Technique to those who could be trusted.
I wanted to tell him not to lie. After all, he taught me Sealing Technique immediately after we met.
“Venerable Bar, you have a granddaughter, right? I’m sure she’ll be 16 this year.”
” ――!”
The old man’s expression became cloudy.
16 years old, huh… I should be about the same age as her.
At this time, was I 16? or 17? or 18?… I didn’t really know because there wasn’t anyone to tell me how old I was when I started to be aware of things around me, but I should be about that old.
Well, I would love to meet her someday. I was genuinely interested in the old man’s granddaughter.
Next, the female knight spilled words that were not knight-like from her mouth.
“Your granddaughter seems to have lost her position at the Magic Academy… She was almost at the top, what a shame, really… but, you know why? Because you have sinned. “
“……that is…”
“It’s not just your granddaughter… Both your wife and your child are seen with white eyes. Everything is your fault… So, to save your family too, teach me Sealing Technique ―― “
When I saw the old man’s face turn even more gloomy, I decided to quit being just an outsider.
“Cut it out already! You’re so noisy.”
I literally pinched my mouth from the side, keeping my eyes on the book.
I knew without seeing the frosty gaze from the woman… that she might have a face like ‘Who the f*ck, are you?’
” ‘Dirty Rat’, Did you say something?… Now I’m talking about something in a higher dimension than what you could understand. So, would you please not get in the way? ” [TN: Btw, the rat species is ‘Rattus norvegicus’]
The woman was no longer trying to hide her arrogant attitude.
“Oi, oi, what do you mean by the higher dimension if you just did something so low like ‘intimidating someone’?… I could only see and hear that a scammer was bullying a bad old man.”
“You mean… me? You said that this, ‘I’… am a scammer???”
She was upset. I intended to give a very light provocation, but it seemed I perfectly hit her sore spot.
It was childish to get angry with such a red face. No, wait, she was a kid indeed.
A kid who tried to keep up her appearance with some ‘polite speech’ but didn’t know to hide her own emotions. I felt like I knew why the old man didn’t want to teach Sealing Technique to her.
“The world I live in is different from you. Choose your language.”
I closed the book, stood up, and walked in the front of the woman.
With a lazy footstep, I thrust my hand into my pocket.
I looked at the woman, our eyes met and….. I looked down at her a little from above.
“That’s right. You and I are inhabitants of a different world, separated by this bar…That’s why, your sword won’t reach me.”
I raised my chin and provoked the woman.
“What do you want to do now? Break the bar with your sword and slash my neck?”
“You piece of sh*t!!”
“If you kill a non-resisting prisoner, it means that you will live in the same world as me. So, what you will do, Lady Knight…”
The knight tried to put her hand on her back but stopped at the last minute and turned to the right.
In the end, the woman said, “You will regret this.”, to the old man behind me, and left with the guard.
Thus, the first visitor went away.
The second visitor was a middle-aged knight who called himself ‘Pearl’. He wore the same armor as a woman named Niamh. I was glad that he wore thick heavy equipment. The navel of a middle-aged man… No, thank you…
The mark of the knight and cloak were the same as the first visitor, so it seemed that they belong to the same Order.
I thought the old man would look unpleasant, but he was rather close to the middle-aged knight.
“Thank you for helping me out, Pearl. Thanks to you, I moved to a peaceful prison…That noisy and annoying little girl can’t come often now.”
The little girl that the old man meant was probably the first visitor.
When the old man bowed his head, the middle-aged man suddenly wept.
“I, I’m sorry… Venerable Bar. If I had a little more power ―― you wouldn’t be in a crappy prison that wouldn’t even have a meeting room like this … “
“Don’t worry. Thanks to that, I’ve got the chance to pick up something good.”
I felt that there were various emotions behind the words.
Pearl seemed to be attached to the old man.
“By the way, Pearl, let me introduce you. He’s my disciple, Seal.”
Suddenly my name was called, and I was surprised.
But there was a man who was more surprised than I was. It was Pearl.
“V-v-vene――rable Bar, your disciple you said?!!”
“… Well, nice to meet you.”
I said hello to the middle-aged knight, Pearl.
“Please keep this a secret.”
“I, I understand, but… you have a disciple? That You, who had rejected more than a thousand people…!”
“I changed my mind before death.”
Pearl looked at me with a promising look.
“I envy you… Do your best, boy.”
The words from the middle-aged knight were somehow heavy.
After apologizing to the old man, the second visitor went back home after noon.
The third visitor… I wasn’t particularly involved at that time.
A red-eyed woman dressed in a black robe. She had a nice body, and even though she didn’t show her skin at all, she could make a man lust for her with just her body line. She was a bewitching older sister.
The older sister talked with the old man in a small voice, spilled a drop of tears, and left.
The old man also had a sad face somehow.
And the fourth, the last visitor.
Hooded sand-colored jacket and tattered black long trousers. A rucksack that swelled up on the back.
He was a man who would fit the definition of ‘The Traveler’. I thought he was a lot older than me, but he was younger than I expected… Was he about 20 years old?
When the man found the old man, he matched the height of his eyes with the old man sitting on the ground and said something ridiculous like jailbreaking.
“Well, what should I do? Do you want me to break you free? All the guards here, I’ll deal with them.”
Upon hearing the statement, the guard wrinkled his eyebrows and tried to grab the man’s shoulders… But as soon as the man opened his eyes, the guard stepped back.
It might be only my imagination, but… I felt that I could see dragon-like scales and sharp yellow eyes through the gaps in the hood.
The next time I saw the man, he looked like a normal young man.
“Adolphos, Stop joking around.”
“It’s not a joke. I can take handle all the people who will chase you… Even the Knights, I will deal with them too.”
“Adol…”
“I’ll say it again. I’m not kidding… I still have a favor that I haven’t repaid yet… And to repay that, I won’t hesitate to do all of that for you…”
I stopped reading the book involuntarily.
Each one of the remarks was a mess. It wasn’t like a joke either… A man named Adolphos was serious about his words, and the old man was also seriously stopping him. So, it could be said that at least both of them thought that a man named Adolphos could defeat the entire Knights.
“I couldn’t fulfill my role properly.”
The old man said so.
“If so, who will take over that role?”
He said in a stunned voice.
The old man shook his head.
“No one needs to take over.”
“….. Really?… I see.”
A man named Adolfos bowed deeply and left the prison.
Four visitors.
Female Knight ‘Niamh’, Middle-aged Knight ‘Pearl’, Mysterious Witch, and Traveler ‘Adolphos’.
Somehow, I felt like I would meet these four people somewhere again.
TN: Join my discord channel if you want.
Thanks for translating it so far. I am really intrigued by the novel. There is a lot of setup that’s happening at the moment, but I am really looking forward to where this is going.
Pearl.. what a cute name for a middle aged knight 😁
I love how Seal dealt with that gross self centered Knight brat. Like, “You don’t intimidate me, bitch. Do something, I dare you.” I hope Seal humiliates her in the future.