Black Rain Hideout____
"Hahahahahaha! You guys must have had it rough! Hahahahaha!
There were quite a few injuries, but... you protected the villagers! You didn't let a single one of them die...!!
Hold your heads high! You did well, you idiots!"
"Yes, sir!"
"It was nothing."
"Hahahahaha!"
"What's that?"
Asta was curious about whatever it was Magna was doing.
"Idiot! Don't you even know the Magic Knights' salute?
Watch closely. These fingers represent a clover."
"Yes!"
"You're doing it pretty well!"
"Why does it feel like my daily life hasn't changed at all, whether I'm at the church or here...?"
As we reported the incident at Sossi Village to the captain, I sensed Finral's Mana behind us.
"We're back~"
"You all did an amazing job~~"
"Vanessa! Finral!"
"Yami, we went to the Magic Appraisal Division."
"Yeah? Find anything out?"
"Who was the culprit? I'll find their hideout and smash it to pieces!
I'll beat the crap out of the rest of them too!"
"They were just unidentified attackers, Magna."
"Well, you see~ The Appraisal Division tried to dispel the magic and obtain some information, but apparently they had a magic tool implanted inside their bodies."
"That means..."
"That's right. They committed suicide without leaving a trace. Or perhaps they did leave one?
We worked so hard to restrain and bring him in. Sorry, rookie~"
I'd suspected as much, but it really was the case... They probably couldn't get any useful information out of him.
"They appraised the culprit's belongings that fell off when he died, but...
Nothing has turned up yet~"
"Tch! That useless Appraisal Division!"
Bang!!
Like someone raging at a game that wasn't going their way, Magna hurled a spell at the wall.
"You idiots! I said don't break things!!"
Bang!!!!
To personally demonstrate what it meant to smash something, Yami put his fist through the wall.
"Sorry, sir!!"
"But that pocket watch was pretty valuable, right?"
"Yeah. And judging by what you told us about their words and actions, they must have held a fairly high status."
"Royalty... or perhaps nobility..."
"This might be a more troublesome matter than we thought, Magna..."
"Poot."
"Oh, that Anti-Bird..."
After securing the Magic Stone, Nero finally emerged. It seemed she had been perched in Asta's hair the entire time.
"Oh my! What is this? It's adorable~"
"What part of that thing is adorable?!"
"I-It is adorable!"
"Po-po-po-po-po-poot!"
"Ow, ow, ow, ow!! You little brat!"
"Come here, then! Ah..."
Perhaps sensing Asta's fierce anger, Nero flew up into the air. Noelle was ignored in the process, too.
"You ugly bird! I'll turn you into karaage!!!"
"I won't let you turn it into karaage!"
Asta drew his sword from his Grimoire while Noelle prepared to fire a spell.
"Prepare yourself!!!"
Crash!!!
"I told you not to!!!"
Bang!!!
"Aaaah! I'm getting soaked!!"
"Are you trying to bring down the whole building?!"
Boom!!!! Rumble...
Wait, rumble? The building was collapsing from one punch....
After just one mission, it was already like this. If this had been an ordinary building, it would have collapsed long ago.
"We're sorry!"
"All right, listen up again.
Whether the culprit is royalty or nobility, it doesn't matter right now. We'll leave the investigation to the Appraisal Division and wait for their report.
More importantly, I've got some good news for you."
"Good news?"
"Want to hear it?"
"Of course!"
"Your efforts have been recognized by the Wizard King, and..."
"The Wizard King?!"
The instant he heard the words Wizard King, Asta reacted.
"You've been awarded one star!"
"Woooah! Really?! Yes!"
"Hmph."
"We did it~!"
"Hee~"
"Congratulations."
"More importantly, do you even know what a star is, Asta?"
"You're right! What is a star?"
"Don't celebrate when you don't even know!"
"Stars are awarded by the Wizard King according to your accomplishments."
"What are they good for?"
"Do they help us become the Wizard King?!"
"Oh, right. Maybe they're like honor?"
"Honor?!"
"Honor sounds really cool!"
"That's right, Asta, Kadel. Honor! A man's badge of pride!"
"Women get them too."
"A man's and woman's badge of pride!!"
What was he even trying to say?
"I have no idea what he's talking about."
"Exactly._"
"The Magic Knights compete based on their number of stars."
Vanessa continued her explanation.
She explained things so cleanly that they were easy to follow.
"The more stars a squad has, the more proof there is that they're doing good work."
"Ohhh! So that's how it works!"
"For reference, the current leaders are the Golden Dawn, with seventy stars."
"What about us? How many does Black Rain have? We can't be losing to Golden Dawn!!"
"Don't get your hopes up, Asta."
"Huh? Why not? This is exactly the kind of thing you're supposed to get excited about!"
Back then, Black Rain had probably gone all the way into negative stars....
"We have..."
A gold star dropped from Yami's hand, erased one of the black stars on the board above, and vanished. The board was packed with black stars at a glance.
"With this, we're at a nice, clean negative thirty!"
"Negative?!"
"What?"
"See? I told you."
"Now we're only exactly one hundred stars behind Golden Dawn."
"One hundred?!"
"And one more thing."
"This month's pay!"
"Huh?
Woooah! Money! It's two hundred thousand yul!"
"Thank you!"
"Thanks, Captain! Now I can buy lots of delicious food~"
"Yeah, eat plenty."
"Captain, Captain! How much would I have to pay for you to fight me?"
"I'm not doing it."
"Aww, come on~"
"I'm planning to buy new clothes for my angelic little sister Marie. What do you think would suit her?"
"Don't ask me."
"Pshhhhhh."
"Whatever.
Tomorrow is a day off! Spend it however you want."
"I'm going on lots of dates with girls right away!"
"Do whatever you want."
"Thank you!!"
"Congratulations on your first paycheck~ What are you going to spend it on?"
"Nothing in particular?"
"I'm going to send half of mine home and keep the other half for emergencies."
"What about you, kid?"
"I-I'm going to send money for living expenses to Hage Village's church~"
"Oh, that'll do, Asta. You're a real man."
"Right?! Magna, do you send money home too?"
"Of course! But only after I increase my pay a hundredfold.
All or nothing! That's what it means to be a man!!"
"Asta, don't grow up to be like that, okay?"
"Don't treat me like a kid!!"
"Rather than a man, he's just an idiot."
"Living expenses are important, but don't send all of it away. Try spending a little on yourself, too."
"I-Is that so...? But I don't know what I'd spend it on..."
"Then let's go shopping in Kikka tomorrow. You two should come as well."
"Shopping?"
"I'll take you~"
The following morning.
"Have you ever been to Kikka?"
"No."
"Well, royalty and nobles hardly ever visit commoner towns, do they?"
"What about you, kid, and your friend?"
"We only passed through when we went to take the Magic Knights entrance exam!"
"Wasn't that where Asta ate some weird grilled snake and got sick?"
"Hey!! That's embarrassing!"
"Pfft! Then let's make sure you enjoy today!"
____Kikka, the Town Beneath the Castle______
"It's amazing after all!"
"It's lively."
"Aren't all commoner towns like this?"
More importantly, as I looked around, I could see everyone I knew.
Gauche, Charmy, Finral, Gray...
"Woooah!"
"Don't run too far ahead, kid~"
"Are you going to get lost again like when you went to the market with Sister Lily?"
"Who's going to get lost?!"
"Don't you guys need to buy anything?"
"There are so many different things that I'm interested in all of them~"
"Don't buy useless junk, Asta. You'll blow your entire paycheck."
"I don't really need anything..."
After that, we wandered around for quite a while and bought the things we needed.
Only in the brightly lit areas, of course.
"I bought medicinal herbs for restoring stamina and Sike ointment, an antidote.
This should be enough for now.
I've bought everything that caught my eye, so shall we go somewhere quieter?"
The place Vanessa was about to lead us to was an alleyway. In other words, the black market.
"Somewhere quieter?"
"It's my secret spot!"
"This way!"
"This way...?"
"It just looks like an ordinary alley..."
"Wait, that wall... Is it made of Mana?"
"You're quick to notice, black-haired friend."
"Welcome to the black market."
"The black market?"
"It can be a little dangerous, but they sometimes have magic tools with incredible effects."
We looked around for a while after that, but I couldn't find anything I wanted or found particularly interesting.
When I returned from looking around alone, I found them talking with Sekke, who had apparently joined them.
"Did you find anything interesting, Asta?"
"Kadel, look! It talks too!"
"We are human."
"See?"
It looked like a doll with some kind of recording device in it.
"That man in that strange outfit is definitely the one from the entrance exam..."
"Fuhaha!"
"It's Sekke! Fuha!"
"I said it's Fuhaha! No, I'm Sekke!!"
Perhaps Asta had given him a complex by now, because Fuhaha seemed confused about his own identity.
"Who's that?"
"The guy I fought during the entrance exam."
"Hee~ So you're with the Green Praying Mantises?"
As we chatted like that...
"Ah!! A pickpocket! My loot! Wait!"
At the word pickpocket, Asta immediately took off running.
"A pickpocket, right in front of Magic Knights? They've got some nerve."
"Exactly~ It'll be fine if we leave it to that kid."
"Please..."
"Fuhaha! I won't let you be the only one who gets to look cool, Asta!
[Bronze Creation Magic: Sekke Shooting Star]!"
"Wow, that seems even worse than Magna's..."
"So tacky!"
"Disgusting!"
"Oh?"
Vanessa and Asta expressed their feelings without restraint.
And the old woman, or so she claimed, was interested in the magic.
"Leave this to me. You, young lady, and granny can wait here and relax."
"I'll go too, so please watch over the old lady!
[Time Acceleration Magic: Chrono Sileres]!"
"Ooooh?! That magic!"
The self-proclaimed old woman showed great interest in my magic.
"Wait here!"
By the time I got there, the thief had already been caught.
Though Sekke's expression was looking rather grim.
"What's wrong, Fuhaha?!"
"Poison... Poison is spreading through my entire body."
"Hang in there, Fuhaha!"
"You're the man who defeated me. Climb higher in my place. I entrust my dream to you."
"Fuhaha... fuhaha..."
"Um... Sorry to say this, but I think that's paralysis poison, not lethal poison...?"
"Honestly, our black-haired kid is right.
No one's going to die from something like this~"
"Fuhaha...?"
"It's only a temporary irritant. Apply this Sike ointment, and you'll be better in no time."
"Um... sorry, Fuhaha...
Maybe I said all that for nothing...?"
"Fuhaha! Train harder until we meet again, Asta!
Farewell! Fuhaha!"
"See you, Fuhaha!"
"I'll be more perceptive next time!!"
"Grandma, don't get robbed again."
"Heh heh heh, thank you, Magic Knights."
"We're going now, Grandma~"
"Be careful."
"Live a long life~"
"Stay healthy."
...I wondered whether there was any need to say such things, but...
That person was definitely not what she appeared to be.
That appearance was fake. There was another, true form beneath it.
Could I transform like that someday, too?
Lost in thought, I walked away.
"Magic nullification...
It's a kind of magic I've never seen before...
No, is that even magic to begin with?"
The old woman's voice overlapped with that of a middle-aged man, eventually changing completely into the latter.
"And Time Magic, along with that Grimoire....
Yami has taken in some very interesting children~
This is why I can't stop wandering around in disguise!"
Her... no, his true identity was...
The twenty-eighth Wizard King, the current Wizard King and the strongest of them all, Julius Novachrono.
At that moment, someone connected to Julius as if through a FaceTalk call.
"I finally found you!"
"Oh dear."
"What in the world are you doing, Wizard King!!"
"Ahahaha, what do you mean? I was wandering around Kikka in the hopes of encountering new magic."
"What? Do you even understand your position?"
"An encounter with magic only comes once in a lifetime."
"That's exactly what I'm saying!"
"You never know where or what kind of magic you'll encounter~"
"Will you please listen to what people are saying, you magic maniac!!!"
"There, there. Calm down, Marx."
The one who had called the Wizard King directly was Marx, the Wizard King's aide. Thanks to the Wizard King, his workload had piled up so severely that he could not even be sure he'd get to leave work properly.
At that moment, Julius spotted a new target.
"Oh! Isn't that one of William's newly recruited children?
Then shall I go seek another new encounter with magic?"
Julius was already preparing to make his escape again.
"I'll be right back~"
"Wait, you bastard!!!"
Driven to insult his superior by endless overtime, Marx shouted after him.
And Julius had already fled.
Perhaps these people were simply used to living like this.
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