[V10EX2] Memories of a Delinquent

The Barrier Mage, Louis Miller, was actually quite the bookworm.

However, his hometown had nothing close to a library, as books were considered luxury items.

──”If you wanna survive, then you had better learn everything you can, as if your life depends on it. Choosing what you learn is a luxury that you can’t afford.”

Those were the words of his foster father. As one might imagine, he was not given many luxuries in childhood.

Later, when Louis enrolled in Minerva, he was incredibly surprised by the existence of libraries, where books were available for free. He began devouring them whenever he had free time.

Even now that he joined the Seven Sages, he intended to stay up-to-date in all fields that were useful to a mage.

Thus, Louis always kept one or two books in his bag at all times. He could often be seen reading during his free time, or on the sofa when his wife and daughter were playing.

Honestly, he was hoping that his daughter would play with him rather than the dolls. However, he hesitated to approach her, considering the possibility that she might start crying.

＊　＊　＊

Louis came from a poor village in northern Ridill.

His mother had been a prostitute in that village, but she died before Louis was old enough to remember her. He had never seen his father.

The village brothel was much different from the glamorous ones in major cities, essentially a run-down building that also doubled as a tavern and inn. A shabby place, to be sure, but also the only source of entertainment in the boring village.

Louis was raised by the fellow prostitutes of his late mother, who took turns looking after him.

The owner of the establishment was a notorious miser who frequently threatened Louis with stuff like, “If you turn out to be useless, I’ll make you wear a dress and put you up for sale.”

This was why Louis got extremely uncomfortable (or bloodthirsty) whenever people called him feminine.

Fortunately, the owner was a pragmatist. As long as Louis proved himself useful, he would be praised and paid wages.

In particular, Louis had always been pretty strong, so his ability to stop troublesome drunks was very appreciated.

This owner was the person who told Louis to learn everything as if his life depended on it. He even taught Louis how to read, write, and handle money.


One day, when Louis was twelve, he got into a dispute with a customer.

There was a middle-aged man who had been staying at the inn for three days. He had bushy eyebrows and short, grizzled hair.

Apparently, he was staying here to wait out the ongoing blizzards, not realizing that the inn doubled as a brothel.

After paying for his stay, he asked for tobacco leaves rather than women, making him quite the peculiar customer.

Even more peculiar was his attire. The man was wearing mage robes. Mages were a rare sight this far out in the countryside.

More importantly, the trouble between Louis and the mage started because of the book Louis picked up two days earlier.

“Hey brat! Hand over my book!”

Louis had found a thick book two ago. After learning that it was a textbook on how to use magic, he immediately understood that it belonged to the mage. Regardless, he took it to his room instead of returning it.

“Shut your mouth, geezer! In this village, anything in your pockets is your property.”

“As if that logic holds any water, you little brat!”

“Hah! If you wanna blame someone, blame your own stupidity.”

“Or I could just blame you like normal, moron!”

Unexpectedly, the mage seemed pretty experienced in hand-to-hand combat. He didn’t even flinch when Louis tried to punch him, instead narrowly avoiding the blow and delivering a counterattack.

After stunning Louis by slapping him on the cheek, the mage took back the book, which was hidden under Louis’s clothes.

“Give that back! I’ve only read half of it!”

Upon hearing Louis’s response, the mage furrowed his bushy eyebrows.

“…What? You read half of it? This is a textbook on magic, you know. You ain’t fooling anyone.”

Apparently, the man had assumed that Louis was illiterate.

Indeed, the literacy rate in this village was not particularly high. Louis only knew how to read and write because the owner of the inn had threatened to kick him out if he couldn’t.

The mage with the bushy eyebrows was underestimating him. Looking down on him with a condescending stare.

Annoyed, Louis began reciting the incantation he had just learned from the textbook.

The mage widened his eyes as Louis pointed his finger at the man’s face and uttered the final verse of the incantation. This was followed by a sudden gust ruffling the mage’s short hair.

Louis would have preferred to conjure fire and scorch the man’s eyebrows, but wind was the easiest for him to use, due to elemental affinity.

The triumphant smirk on Louis’s face was the perfect expression of, “How about that, old man?”

“…Where did you learn that magic just now?” The mage asked in a stiff tone.

“In the book it was written in, obviously.”

The textbook had numerous annotations, so presumably, this mage had been instructing others on how to use magic. Either way, the presence of these annotations made it relatively easy for Louis to understand the contents.

“You memorized it? Just from reading?”

“And what if I did?”

“This is something Minerva students take half a year to learn.”

Minerva. Louis had heard of this name before. It was apparently the greatest school in the country for mages.

Magic was originally a privilege of the nobility, so Louis understood that attending mage schools was reserved for nobles or children from wealthy families. A world away from a kid like him, working at a brothel in a remote village.

Even so, it seemed incredibly lax to take half a year to learn something so basic.

Having lived in a world where you had to learn or die trying, Louis couldn’t help but sneer.

“Then I guess Minerva ain’t anything special. Your students are dumber than some brat from the boonies.”

Louis put on the best smirk he could manage. His intent was to provoke the mage to anger, then find an opening to punch him.

However, the mage refused to take the bait. On the contrary, he seemed lost in thought for a few seconds, before handing the confiscated textbook back to Louis for some reason.

“Hey, brat. I’ll be staying in this village for a week. If you manage to learn four of the basic spells written in this book before I leave, then I’ll give you something way better.”

Louis was conflicted. Why should he have to do that? But at the same time, he also wanted to show the guy up.

That said, it did not take very long for him to decide. After all, the exceptionally competitive Louis hated to lose more than anything else.

“If that ‘something way better’ is worthless, I’ll bury it in the snow, old man.”


One week later, after showcasing all the basic spells written in the textbook, Louis received a letter of recommendation for a Minerva scholarship. The name of his recommender was Gideon Rutherford the Smoke Mage, a professor from Minerva.

After reading through the recommendation, Louis had only one thing to say.

“So you’re planning to sell me to some slave trader?”

He received a punch to the face.

＊　＊　＊

Louis let out a contented sigh in the warmth of his room. Apparently, he had dozed off on the sofa while reading a book.

Warmth was a luxury. In his youth, Louis had to fill his empty stomach with cheap alcohol to ward off the cold and prevent himself from freezing to death during winter.

Once food became scarce, he would camouflage the taste of almost spoiled meat or fish by adding crushed berries he picked in the forest, dreaming of someday eating jam with plenty of sugar.

“…Huh?”

Feeling the weight and warmth of something beside him, Louis turned over with his blurred vision.

His daughter Leonora was there, curled up and sleeping next to him on the sofa. She held a ribbon and brush in her hands.

Louis noticed several ribbons haphazardly tied onto his braided hair, which was hanging off the sofa.

The young Leonora didn’t know the right way to tie ribbons yet, so she had been wrapping them around Louis’s braids or stuffing them in the gaps. Even so, this was more than enough to excite Louis, as he had never gotten such attention from his daughter.

“…!”

He wanted to put his emotions into words, but raising his voice would likely wake Leonora.

After a bit of silent hand-waving, Louis’s wife Rosalie entered the room with a blanket.

“Rosalie! Rosalie! Look, Leonora did this!” Louis whispered excitedly.

“She has been pretty fond of ribbons lately,” Rosalie replied in a hushed tone while covering Leonora with a blanket.

Louis clenched his fists in determination before continuing.

“I’ve decided to keep growing my hair for the rest of my life.”

“…I see.”

Louis was unaware that his wife actually preferred it back when his hair was short.

One possible interpretation is that Leonora didn’t like those particular ribbons, so she shoved them onto her father instead of using them herself.

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