He fell asleep calculating how long it would take to reach the capital.
Two weeks round trip. Three with some luck, but messengers were no peddlers.
A letter from the duke was important enough to hasten.
How long did it take to learn magic? He had no money and had not met the Green Mage yet.
"Do not let Gabrielle meddle with your fate," Lu even boomed in his dreams.
This, too, and not a hint of why. Reasons should have been important.
"Why did you help?" the boy asked Vargas first thing in the morning, too.
"Lord Halstadt thought kindness was an investment. People he helped would help him later."
"Nope." Konrad shook his head. "You could've told your men to let me go. Instead, you lied."
"Did I?" The captain smiled. "Nobles gain and lose titles. While most inherit, it's not rare to earn them through loyalty, heroic deeds, or impressing the king."
Early forties, greying hair, wearing his uniform without frills. And he loved talking.
For some reason, he reminded him of when Konrad tried to check his stats as a child.
He couldn't—he wasn't in a game. But the most telltale sign of this was that he could not skip dialogues, either. Whatever point Vargas was trying to make, he took a while to get there.
"Merchants pleaded to stop the guards—" Did the topic change? He zoned out. "Three recognized you as the Prodigy of Haiten, swearing on Maou Midori—"
Uh, that stupid name. Why did he drag this out?
"So you say peddlers I helped came to my rescue?" He tried to speed things along.
"Like the tribes saved by the Halstadts, safe under his banners—" Wow, okay. He figured it out. He preached about selfless acts on the surface, but the captain was an opportunist.
"You want 'my' house to return and reward your services," Konrad summed it up.
"Traders call it high-risk, high-return investments. I call it loyalty."
Nope. More like suicide.
"If that letter reaches the king, he will execute us both," the boy scoffed.
"You mean this?" Vargas waved a parchment with the duke's seal. "I'll hold onto it for now."
Konrad's eyes widened. "Burn it," he pleaded, but the captain had other plans.
"No. But magic is rare and powerful. Every wielder holds high ranks." There he was again, monologuing. "Bishops are precious subjects, and mages are even more special."
Of course, it was powerful. Konrad put his life on the line for it.
"How fast do you think I could learn it?" He rushed him.
"Nobody knows. Saints' blessings are instant. For most, even a lifetime is too short to learn a single spell. Kasserlane still only has three mages to this day."
"What?! How long do you plan to hold that letter, then?"
"A month, give or take," Vargas smirked. "Since merchants call you Prodigy—"
This nightmare was real. The captain didn't help; he kicked him off a cliff. Now, he either learned to levitate or crash and burn. Very motivating—in a sadistic way.
"I haven't even met the Mage." Konrad's chest constricted. "And I lost my—"
"Yes, that's your luck," Vargas grinned. "Given you're a noble, and we have a warrant—"
"I can force him to teach me as compensation," the boy finished, to cut him short.
Would that work? Vargas burned all the bridges behind him, so it had to.
A perfume cloud announced Gabrielle's arrival while he thought about it that afternoon.
"Ser Konrad, how are you feeling?" she asked, her voice low and soft.
"Better, My Lady, thank you." Konrad forced a smile. Why did he have to avoid her again?
And did she actually smell of incense?
"To think that Haiten's Prodigy was the lost Halstadt heir—" She couldn't finish without a cough. The boy offered water, but her guards almost beheaded him for approaching.
Right. Distance.
"Still, you met Lilith—ana," she said once her coughing eased. "What's she like in this world?"
Did she say 'this world'? What did the ginger have to do with anything?
"Um, she has red hair, and uh, cat ears," Konrad mumbled. Was this an interrogation? It felt strange to describe one beauty to another. "Oh, and she has freckles for days."
The duke's daughter pondered.
"Please, beware of her. She's—" Another cough. And Lu said the same about this girl. This was getting ridiculous. "Sorry. Have you also met Eyna?"
"Who?"
Konrad never heard that name, but with Lu's warning, he'd deny it even if he did.
Gabrielle didn't press for more. She finally left, but he couldn't laze around, either.
Once he could walk, he set out for Ejtyangard.
In a petty revenge, he took Vargas with him. "I ran into monsters before," he told the twitching guard. "It'd be a shame if they attacked me after how your men treated me."
The man obeyed, but he wasn't happy. Too bad.
Konrad decided to abuse him as much as possible in the next month.
He was no prodigy. His memories helped, but that was it. He even dropped out of school, and hated programming the most. At least it seemed unlikely to run into that subject here.
"So, how can you dispel illusions?" Konrad probed the captain on the way.
Vargas flashed him a golden amulet.
"A cardinal gifted this to my predecessor. A rune that disrupts light spells with my mana."
"You have mana?!"
"Every living thing has." He shrugged. "Well, most of them. But only a few can bend it to their will. Artifacts do that for us, but this costs more than our yearly budget."
He could hoard them to become a pretend-mage and impress the king—
Except he was broke. The captain kept droning until they reached Ejtyangard.
Konrad felt an overwhelming pressure as a monolithic tower stood over the village.
Vargas shutting up also felt like a bad sign.
It was a hundred feet tall, smooth as marble, screaming 'magic' from a mile away.
The air vibrated from certain angles as if it were a mirage.
"Well, here we are," Vargas said, stepping back. Was he shaking? "The rest is up to you, kid."
"Don't be ridiculous, Captain. You're here to protect me."
"Not if he thinks you're a bother, no," he whispered. "He turned someone into a toad, and—"
Konrad doubted that was a thing, but still jumped when the oak doors flew open without a sound. In the frame stood a hooded figure, smelling of vinegar and regrets.
The captain was about to piss himself, but—something felt off.
"W-what do you want? I don't accept visitors from Aset," the figure stuttered, voice thin.
He was nowhere near as scary as he expected. Konrad even struggled to suppress a laugh.
And they said the mage's apprentice was an expert illusionist?
What was with the vinegar anyway?
"I'm here for the stolen crystal," the boy stared him down, feeling more confident now. "And if you tell me where the real mage is, you might avoid the gallows."
"What?!" The captain's head snapped up. "I'm sorry, My Lord, he's—"
Konrad had enough of this farce. He reached for his amulet, and—
Everything happened in an instant, a blast wave washing over them as it burned his fingers.
The illusion shattered, and the once-imposing tower disappeared.
Only decayed ruins remained, and in the Green Mage's place stood Zoltan Sudberg.
His clothes tattered, the captain's jaw almost on the ground.
And so was Konrad, too, dizzy from the effects as he let go of the artifact.