[V11C13] Neck Scraping Shaman

Once Rutherford finished his report, there was a knock on the door.

Louis said, “Come in,” and the door cracked open, but only slightly. Gleaming pink eyes stared into the room from that tiny opening.

“…”

It was the Abyss Shaman, Ray Albright. He continued peering through the gap without saying a word. However, the faint sound of his heavy breathing made it all the more eerie.

“Oi, one of you say something! Anything!” Rutherford shouted in exasperation.

Monica and Silas snapped back to attention, addressing Ray in their own manner.

“Um, Abyss Shaman-sama… W-We just got back to the capital…”

“Abyss-niisan, take a seat inside instead of just standing there.”

Ray gave no reply, but his muttering was audible even through the door.

“They’re probably thinking, ‘Why does that shut-in who avoided all the meetings think he can show up all of a sudden… the slimy bastard should dive into a pile of salt and die…’ Ugh, dammit, I want to go home… No, hang in there, I need to do my best… Frieda’s and Grandmother’s lives are at stake…”

Still breathing heavily, Ray slithered through the gap in the door and took a step inside the room. Then, he extended his right hand, which held a set of earrings adorned with large gemstones.

“G-Grandmother left me this magical tool. The gem contains the analysis results on the mana arrangement of the shadows. By continuing the analysis, we might be able to find a countermeasure against them… I think…”

Ray’s words left everyone in the room wide-eyed.

Everyone had thought Ray was in complete shock, still grieving over his fiancé and grandmother. But apparently, he had been investigating the earrings left by Adeline for a while now.

Ray was never known for having a good complexion, but the dark circles under his eyes were even more prominent now. He had likely sacrificed sleep to perform this analysis.

“Finally, some good news for once,” Louis murmured.

“Not bad, Abyss-niisan,” Silas followed with a nod. “So will that let us wake everyone up from their coma?”

“N-No, not quite. Even if we have the analysis results, devising a countermeasure is a completely different story… That’s why I’m asking for manpower to research a countermeasure spell…”

“I-I’ll help…!” Monica immediately volunteered herself.

“Sounds good to me,” Louis nodded. “There are few who can compare to you when it comes to the field of magical research.”

“Count me in too,” Rutherford followed, raising his small hand. “My job as professor will be on hold for a while either way.”

Ray didn’t seem particularly surprised to see a young child in the meeting room, so apparently, he already knew about Rutherford’s situation.

“I-I heard about what happened… You must be the professor from Minerva, Smoke Mage Gideon Rutherford… So Gluttonous Zoe really did take your age… The mark on your neck… Is it the same mark as the comatose victims, or subtly different?”

Ray examined the marks on the back of Louis and Rutherford’s necks, then began rummaging through the pockets of his robe.

“Good timing… I wanted a sample of the shadow…”

Ray pulled his hands out of his pockets, revealing a small knife. He approached Louis with a strange fervor, his pink eyes gleaming.

“Let me scrape a bit of skin off your neck.”

Louis and Rutherford both went speechless.

Meanwhile, Ray clenched the knife and continued in a hesitant tone.

“I-I’d feel bad damaging the skin of a girl, but not for a guy… You might feel a little sting, but that’s okay, take it like a man…”

Louis quickly covered the back of his neck and glanced at Rutherford. A smile of exaggerated joy was pasted onto his face.

“Sacrificing oneself for the sake of the nation? What an honor. I will gladly yield the opportunity to my master.”

“Don’t be stupid. You young folks love doing that kinda thing.”

“Oh? But Master, aren’t you the youngest one here?”

As the master and disciple pair started shifting the responsibility on each other, Ray only chuckled.

“D-Don’t worry… I’ll make sure to scrape both of you…”

“A doctor. Please call a doctor. Such tasks should be left to the professionals,” Louis said rapidly.

Ray put on a faint smile. The dark circles under his eyes from lack of sleep only added to the creepiness of that expression.

“I-It’s fine… I’m good at this… Shamans are experts in scraping and peeling, after all…”

Ray mumbled something, apparently the incantation for a curse. Purple curse marks emerged from his fingertips, transforming into thin vines that sealed off the only exit to the room.

With his escape route blocked, Louis spoke with a strained expression.

“…By the way, what kind of curse is that?”

“A curse for immobilizing anyone it touches… because moving is dangerous… One wrong move… and your neck might go splat… Kukuku…”

Ray approached the frozen Louis in Rutherford with his knife in hand.

“Now… put your necks… let me scrape your skin…!”

This was followed by a rare scene in which the panicked Louis and Rutherford fled to the corner of the room. Monica was completely speechless, as Silas muttered, “Well that’s not very manly.”

Rutherford and Louis ran around for a while, exchanging insults like “You go first, brat!” “No you, geezer!” but eventually, they were caught by Ray’s curse marks, rendering them immobile and allowing Ray to scrape their skin.

The skin sample he collected was truly tiny, only about a quarter of the size of a pinky nail.

＊　＊　＊

Glenn Dudley finished his patrol of the capital and returned to the break room of the Magic Corps headquarters. He opened his bag and took out a book, a textbook on magecraft he had borrowed from his master.

He plopped himself down in a chair, staring at the book as he mentally prepared himself by saying, “I’m going to read it this time.” This was necessary because otherwise, he would run out of steam before getting through the table of contents.

Back when Glenn received the book, he had made sure to finish the table of contents. Then he stopped.

The table of contents was essential because it had a succinct outline of what he was about to learn——or so he convinced himself, yet he hadn’t progressed through the actual content at all. It took all of Glenn’s courage to turn the page.

“Uh… um… Multiple reinforcement spells are classified into two types: those that multiply the entire spell with a reinforcement formula, and those that extract individual parts of the spell to incorporate with the reinforcement formula… Argh, what does that even mean…?!”

Glenn groaned at the book, having hit a roadblock on the first few pages.

All Glenn wanted to know was the spell for casting a multiply-reinforced fireball. Unfortunately, the textbook was not going to conveniently provide him with exactly the information he was looking for.

Thus, Glenn had no choice but to learn the basics of multiple reinforcement, then incorporate them into a spell on his own.

“Uh… I’m good at casting fireballs, so I’ll just go to the fire attribute section… Ugh, why are there so many examples…? Condition-based spell expansion and convergence? I have no clue what that means either…”

Magecraft was more than just memorizing an incantation and reciting it; understanding the composite formulas was essential. If Glenn tried to recite one of the examples in the textbook without a good understanding, the spell would inevitably fall apart somewhere down the line.

Glenn resisted the urge to close the book and throw in the towel. He took a deep breath through his nose, exhaled slowly through his mouth, and focused his eyes on the letters in front of him.

After hearing Elianne’s desperate screams, Glenn knew he had to do something. That’s why he swore to retrieve Gluttonous Zoe with Monica.

(And for that, I need to do what I can.)

Glenn’s strength lay in his overwhelming mana capacity. Even as an apprentice mage, he had already surpassed his master when it came to mana.

That said, the power of a mage’s spells was not solely dependent on mana capacity.

Any mistakes or inefficiencies in the magical formula would result in wasting mana for minimal effect, resulting in a spell with low mana density.

His master Louis often said, “Your magic looks flashy, but it’s quite hollow on the inside.”

(I still remember that spell from the Artillery Mage… That was packed full of mana.)

The Abyss Shaman had once lost control of his curses in the Starseer Witch’s backyard, and the Artillery Mage used a multiple reinforcement spell to clean it up.

Simply landing the spell would result in certain victory, because it possessed the sheer destructive power to blast right through a dragon’s torso. That was the spell Glenn wanted to learn.

The shadows controlled by Gluttonous Zoe were based on dark attribute magic, and a powerful enough spell could negate them, despite the difference in attribute. Apparently, the Artillery Mage had already proved this by blowing away the shadows with a fireball.

Glenn lacked the ability to cast defensive barriers. Barriers involved a completely different system of formulas from elemental magecraft, so if he wanted to learn barriers, he would have to start from scratch.

Thus, Glenn believed he would be better off focusing on his forte of attack magic rather than learning something new.

“…Um, so first I break down the fourth section? Then incorporate the formula, I guess? What’s the order of calculations in that case? Wait, isn’t this turning into a completely different spell…?”

Glenn groaned as beads of sweat dripped down his forehead. Then, he saw a single sheet of paper fluttering in the corner of his vision.

He glanced over at the sheet to find… the formula for double and triple reinforcement applied to the fireball spell he used all the time. This was precisely what he had been looking for.

“Hmm-mmm-mmm… Want me to make you a quadruple and quintuple version too? If you somehow managed to pull those off, you’d be a shoe-in for the Seven Sages. Ahahaha!”

“Y-You…!?”

Glenn involuntarily widened his eyes in surprise.

Sitting across the table from Glenn was Hubert Dee, the man who had picked fights with him at both Serendia Academy and Minerva. He was waving a sheet of paper with magical formulas on it.

Hubert used his slender fingers to fold the paper and pocket it.

“How about it? Want me to teach you multiple reinforcement?”

“…I’d rather figure it out myself than learn from the likes of you.”

“Both your master and Monica are too busy to help. Who else has the time to teach a trainee like you?”

“I-I’m not a trainee anymore! I already passed the novice mage exam!”

Hubert lifted the corner of his mouth into a smirk. He was clearly mocking Glenn.

“You know that novice mages can’t handle multiple reinforcement, right? Even my uncle only started learning after he became an intermediate mage.”

Hubert’s uncle was the Artillery Mage, Bradford Firestone.

Even the Seven Sages waited until the intermediate level before learning multiple reinforcement. It was clearly too early for Glenn, who had just reached the novice level.

Several years ago, when Glenn had just enrolled in Minerva, he practiced magic in secret because he wanted to show off. This resulted in him losing control of his mana and causing trouble for many people.

(Come to think of it, that all started because I let this guy get to my head…)

The calm part of Glenn whispered that he should refrain from causing any more trouble.

But when Glenn tried to avert his eyes from Hubert and close the textbook, the agonizing screams of Elianne echoed again in his ears.

“So you’re saying you’ll teach me multiple reinforcement, even though it’s beyond the reach of a novice mage?”

“Whether you can do it or not depends on you, right?”

Glenn gulped and glared at Hubert.

(…This time, it’s not about showing off.)

He wanted to do something for that crying girl. He wanted to be the person extending a hand to someone who was crying. Right now, that was his reason for learning magic.

(I can’t let myself forget this feeling.)

After confirming his resolve, Glenn gave his answer.

“…I want you to teach me multiple reinforcement.”

“By the way, the most common cause of fatal accidents during magic training is multiple reinforcement formulas.”

Hubert decided to reveal this immediately after Glenn asked for his help. His malicious nature had not changed one bit.

However, Glenn had gotten used to dealing with people with nasty personalities, so he scoffed and retorted with confidence.

“If I screw up the mana control and die, I’ll make sure to take you down with me.”

“Ahahaha! Looks like you’ve gotten a lot better at witty comebacks.”

Glenn became the disciple of the Barrier Mage, Louis Miller, several years ago. In all honesty, those years had probably trained his mental toughness more than his skill at magecraft.

(My master is in a tight spot right now. I have to do my best too!)

Glenn had no means of knowing this, but at that moment, his master was entangled by curse marks in another room. In other words, quite literally in a tight spot.

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