Extracting information through the barbaric method of forced merging took three days.
About ten hours in, I had to stop and drag the bodies of the Dark Ones farther away from the cave.
The guys had started to smell.
Considering how hot it was, that wasn’t exactly surprising.
The cave was certainly cooler, but it wasn’t a refrigerator.
Yeah, the “mages” of the “Dark Blades” turned out to be completely useless.
I’d noticed a strange tendency: the more pompous and grandiose a guild’s name was, the weaker its fighters seemed to be.
No, there were exceptions, of course, but they were rare.
So if I were a raid boss and some people called themselves the “World Eaters,” I’d probably just laugh and send the idiots to the afterlife.
But the ones with seemingly ridiculous names, like “Blue Pegasus” or “Fairy Tail,” would definitely make me break out in a cold sweat.
In any case, these guys were D-rank by local standards.
Put in simpler terms, they had only just begun to distinguish themselves from ordinary street performers.
One of them could “control earth.” In practice, that meant throwing rocks.
He couldn’t lift particularly large boulders, nor could he give his projectiles any serious acceleration.
In fact, an ordinary teenager with a sling could probably cause far more damage than this “mage.”
His companions were roughly at the same level.
One could induce a little fear, while the last could weaken his opponents, but only at close range and, once again, to a very insignificant degree.
It got worse.
They knew no spells or rituals.
They simply used magic “by instinct.”
But then how was the so-called “rune circle” formed?
They hadn’t created or calculated it themselves.
It simply existed, and for some reason, nobody had ever asked the obvious question: where did it come from?
There was one other important detail I managed to learn.
Most local mages specialized in one or two schools.
And in terms of combat, they preferred close combat or, at most, medium range.
They could hit something from a hundred or two hundred meters away only by using “terrifying ancient artifacts and knowledge.”
At least, that’s what my prisoners believed, and the anime indirectly confirmed it.
That was the end of my prisoners’ usefulness.
At least in magical terms.
Their social status wasn’t particularly interesting either.
They had several contacts with merchants who weren’t very interested in where their goods came from, as well as information about the gang’s communal stash.
Yeah.
That was about it.
Documents were also extremely simple in this world.
If you’re a mage, register through a guild or the magistrate.
If you’re an ordinary person, live however you want and call yourself whatever you feel like.
If you start causing trouble, you’ll be branded a Dark One and a bounty will be placed on your head.
Though if your offenses are minor, you can simply pay a fine or work it off by compensating the city for its losses.
The only people they don’t forgive are murderers, rapists, sadists, and repeat offenders among thieves.
An interesting world.
A slightly strange one.
All right, a very strange one.
But incredibly fascinating…
That’s enough about information.
Now let’s move on to what always warms the heart of a true role-player and keeps the fighting spirit of his inner Beast, the Great and Terrible Hamster, burning without rest.
In other words, collecting loot.
I didn’t take the bandits’ weapons.
Their quality, to put it mildly, left much to be desired.
Though what else could you expect from such scum?
The only thing I took was one reasonably decent-looking knife.
I wasn’t going to cut sausage with a katana, after all.
Their finances were in much better shape.
The gang had managed to accumulate, rather than waste, for which I was sincerely grateful, around one hundred thousand jewels.
The amount sounded impressive, and for an ordinary peasant it really was a fortune.
But by mage standards, it wasn’t even funny.
As I learned, the most primitive artifact cost two or three thousand, while anything slightly more complicated already cost tens of thousands.
Thinking about how much Erza must have paid for her entire arsenal, I went into mild shock.
My Hamster did too.
Though in its case, it was more like religious awe.
The only comforting thing was that I would receive another one hundred and fifty thousand for the heads of these “mages.”
There had already been blood spilled over them, but apparently not enough for the Dark Blades to receive a separate request.
Someone had simply printed wanted posters with the leaders on them and called it a day.
And the most important item among all the loot was a book describing a ritual for determining magical affinity.
Anyone with at least D-rank could perform it.
The procedure could also be carried out in almost any city for a purely symbolic fee at the magistrate’s office: five hundred jewels.
About the price of one meal at a café, though a rather modest one.
In theory, only the person undergoing the ritual would learn the results.
But I had my doubts.
If the result showed an affinity for Ice, Water, Creation, or something similar, there would be nothing to worry about.
But I refused to believe that a potential Dark or Blood mage wouldn’t immediately be put on the local authorities’ radar.
And that was the minimum I’d expect.
After Zeref, the word “dark” inspired fear, hatred, and all sorts of other pleasant emotions.
And with my luck and my previous lifestyle, I’d be very surprised if this test didn’t show Dark.
I really didn’t want to think about the possibility that it might show I had no abilities at all.
Hmm.
I still had three D-rank mages, even if they weren’t exactly in the best condition.
Hopefully, they were enough for a ritual that wasn’t too complicated.
The ritual itself wasn’t difficult, but drawing the diagram correctly took me far more than one attempt.
Not even five.
But finally, everything was ready…
More or less.
For the sake of verification, I sent in the fellow who could control earth first.
The “Scarecrow” performed the ritual.
Yep.
Everything worked as expected.
Affinity: Earth.
Holding my breath, I stepped into the circle covered with dozens of school names.
Well then.
Let’s begin.
The ritual with me as the subject took unexpectedly long.
I was already beginning to worry that nothing had happened and that I was completely useless at magic when the names of the schools I possessed an affinity for finally began to glow in the Circle.
Yes.
Schools.
And not exactly the sort that would make me feel comfortable.
The kind that might justify calling myself a second Zeref.
Darkness and Absorption.
And even that might not be everything.
This ritual could only identify Schools that currently existed.
As for my relationship with the Ancients, I had no idea.
Holy crap…
Fine.
Affinities weren’t the same thing as actually possessing the Schools.
Mastering even one was incredibly difficult, and Absorption…
If my memory served me correctly, with enough skill, memory, and willpower, a mage could absorb an opponent’s School, thereby unlocking new abilities.
Not to mention increasing their magical power by “devouring” mana.
The problem was that there was a very good chance of either going insane or ceasing to be human altogether.
Elfman had nearly killed both of his sisters, after all.
And how he even returned to his senses was anyone’s guess.
On top of that, mastering Schools acquired this way would be extremely difficult.
But it was my only chance.
It was impossible to learn magic from books alone.
You could improve your knowledge, sure, but you couldn’t learn the basics that way.
At least not your first School.
I needed a teacher.
Preferably one who possessed the magic I wanted to learn.
So I’d have to find a Dark mage.
The only one I remembered was Hades, but there was no way I was going to him.
For ideological reasons, so to speak.
Which meant I had to learn Absorption first, and then everything else.
There was one bright side.
I could absorb not only magic, but knowledge as well.
Thanks, Simba.
Otherwise, things would have been truly depressing.
All that remained was the tiny little matter of finding some kind of teacher and earning enough money for bread and butter.
And preferably a layer of caviar on top.
Three layers would be even better.
But sitting around in such a cozy little cave wasn’t going to accomplish that.
So, forward!
Hold on, world.
I’m already on my way!