The snake tattoo on their necks was proof that they belonged to the Viper Mercenary Corps.
They operated throughout the kingdom, and there were even rumors that a noble stood behind them.
When I silently stared at him, the man who had touched my cheek spoke harshly.
“Want me to gouge your fucking eyes out? Lower them.”
For a moment, I felt sorry for Loa.
How many pieces of trash like these had she dealt with over the years?
She died sometime after the North fell.
Until then, she must have endured countless threats like this.
And eventually, she broke.
“Hurting someone on purpose just to heal them afterward isn’t really my style......”
“What the hell are you babbling about?”
When he grew even more aggressive, Yulian drew his sword and leveled it at the man’s neck.
“May I kill him?”
“I’ll take this bastard. Deal with the ones behind him.”
This was a cramped room.
If I used magic here, the room itself would end up wrecked.
For situations like this, hand-to-hand combat was perfect.
Enraged by my words, the man swung his dagger.
I caught his wrist and twisted it.
CRACK.
With the sound of bone breaking, he dropped the dagger.
I snatched it out of the air as it fell and immediately drove it into his shoulder.
“Guh!”
At the same time, I kicked him in the shin and knocked him to the floor.
Every movement flowed seamlessly into the next.
I hadn’t survived my previous life as a wanderer using magic alone.
I met many companions and learned everything I could from them.
I was fairly accomplished in both hand-to-hand combat and swordsmanship.
The whole thing happened so quickly that the man’s companions near the door couldn’t even bring themselves to charge.
Yulian’s sword slipped through that brief opening and barred their path.
“He took down our boss that easily in close combat......”
“Wasn’t the leader a lower-tier Sword Expert?”
Swordsmen were divided into the ranks of User - Expert - Master - Grandmaster.
A lower-tier Sword Expert was roughly on par with the Knight Captain of our territory.
They could manipulate mana and, however faintly, even use sword aura.
That was exactly why I hadn’t hesitated to drive the dagger into his shoulder.
I had severed the flow of mana through his body so he couldn’t use it.
I crushed his other, uninjured hand beneath my foot so he couldn’t pull the dagger out, then opened one of the scrolls I had placed on the table.
Green waves of light settled over his body, and the wound began to heal.
Of course, the dagger was still embedded in his shoulder.
“That makes one success.”
Loa and Erina, who had been staring blankly at the scene, nodded.
After confirming that the healing had worked, I grabbed the dagger buried in his shoulder.
The wound had healed so thoroughly that the dagger had practically fused with his flesh.
I forcibly ripped it out.
“AAAAARGH―!”
Blood spurted out, and chunks of flesh tore free along with the blade.
The man screamed almost like a beast.
I met his eyes as drool spilled from his mouth in agony and asked coldly,“Feeling a little more clear-headed now?”
He had threatened my life first, so I could have cut off his head right here without issue.
The me from my previous life, when I wandered from place to place, probably would have.
Even if they wanted revenge, they wouldn’t have been able to find me afterward.
But now, frightening him badly enough that he would never dare come at me again seemed preferable.
“You’re not answering?”
“......Ghk.”
I stabbed the dagger into his shoulder again.
Then I opened another scroll and healed him.
Then I ripped the dagger back out.
The man trembled violently and nodded his head over and over.
His face was filthy with snot, tears, saliva, and blood.
“Get lost before I kill you.”
“Ugh......”
He crawled away, struggled to his feet, then sprinted out the door without looking back.
His subordinates fled with him.
“That makes two successes.”
My old personality came out for the first time in a while.
***
The rampage by the Viper Mercenary Corps had injured everyone from the gatekeeper to the guests.
Claiming they had been cheated, the mercenaries had even stabbed people through the backs of their hands with daggers.
Loa watched as Lumio opened the scrolls and treated the injured.
Just as he had claimed, every single scroll activated perfectly without failing.
“Didn’t you say this was impossible?”
She had once done business with Erina’s master.
Most of their dealings involved scrolls.
Back then, Loa had asked whether it was possible to make a scroll with a one hundred percent activation rate.
If such a thing were possible, it could sweep the entire market.
However, even a 7th Circle Archmage had flatly declared that a scroll with no chance of failure was impossible to create.
Loa had given up on the idea.
But judging from Erina’s expression now, even she seemed deeply shaken.
“Even setting aside the fact that all of them succeeded, their effectiveness makes no sense.”
Was that truly 3rd Circle healing magic?
The range was large, and both the speed and quality of the healing were nearly perfect.
A hand that had nearly been severed was restored cleanly.
As though it had never been injured in the first place.
Erina silently watched Lumio for some time before finally speaking.
“If they never fail, that means the scrolls are filled entirely with mana, without any impurities. Naturally, their effects would be stronger than the 3rd Circle scrolls we’ve seen before.”
“......Could he be tricking us?”
She meant pretending to use the scroll while secretly casting the magic himself.
Erina shook her head.
“I suspected the same thing, so I watched him carefully the entire time. There was no sign of anything like that.”
“Haha......”
A hollow laugh escaped Loa.
Lumio was the first person she had met who shattered her expectations every single time they saw each other.
Even the combat skills he had just displayed could have belonged to a veteran mercenary.
“He truly is an extraordinary person, Lord Lumio.”
Loa had intended to purchase the scrolls even if they had failed.
They weren’t completely unsellable, and she still felt indebted to him over what he had done regarding her father.
But now—
“We’re the ones who should be begging him to sell these to us. If these exist, they could change the kingdom’s military power itself.”
Erina only half agreed.
“They are extraordinary. However, making even one scroll of that quality must take a considerable amount of time. He won’t be able to produce enough to commercialize them.”
“......I suppose that’s true.”
“Being able to create something like that at all is already remarkable.”
Then Erina continued, saying there was one other thing bothering her.
“When I saw him last time, he was clearly only around the 1st Circle...... but now he’s at the 3rd Circle.”
“Is that high?”
“Considering Lord Lumio’s age, he’s already on par with the top students at the Magic Academy in the royal capital. His level alone is impressive, but when you consider that the North has no excellent teachers like the Academy does, and that he was only at the 1st Circle just a few weeks ago......”
Erina shrugged.
“He’s a monster. With proper instruction, he might even become an unprecedented Archmage.”
It was the first time she had ever evaluated another mage so highly.
After all, Erina herself had been praised as a genius in the royal capital.
That was why she had been taught by an Archmage and reached the 5th Circle while still in her late twenties.
“Even more talented than you?”
“We wouldn’t know until we actually tested that.”
“What about teaching him yourself?”
“What?”
There were countless students who wanted Erina to teach them.
She even gave special lectures at the Magic Academy.
That alone said enough.
But she had never taken a personal disciple.
Her determination to protect Loa was one reason.
Another was that she had never found a student who met her standards.
Yet now, Erina seriously considered it.
“I’ll think about it. Once a week should be possible.”
It wouldn’t take long for her to realize how pointless that consideration had been.
***
Treatment?
Once we finished checking the scrolls, we returned to the room and resumed negotiations.
“Shall we continue our discussion?”
I could tell from their eyes alone that the atmosphere around Loa and Erina had changed.
First, the two of them apologized.
“I’m sorry for doubting you. I’d never seen anything like that before......”
“My apologies.”
“It’s fine. I expected it.”
When I nodded, Loa immediately got to the point.
“How much do you want for each one?”
“One gold coin.”
The same price as one elixir.
Truthfully, I didn’t know much about the kingdom’s economy.
I had converted all my money into elixirs, and after shutting myself inside the Magic Tower, I barely bought anything at all.
Still, I had heard that five gold coins was roughly the average monthly wage of a knight.
“Isn’t that far too cheap considering the time it takes to make them?”
One gold coin for ten minutes of work was cheap?
Fifty minutes was a knight’s monthly wage.
‘And if a knight carries healing magic, it could save his life. They’d probably invest that much to buy at least one.’
It seemed like a reasonable price to me.
“That’s fine. If it costs much more, I think it’ll become too burdensome.”
I could simply sell a lot of them.
There were countless knights in the kingdom.
Even if each one bought only a single scroll, I could live comfortably for three generations.
“Understood. We normally take fifty percent when handling supplied goods. But for these scrolls, how does seventy-thirty sound?”
That meant I would receive seven silver coins each time one sold.
Loa wasn’t the sort of person who would cheat me in a deal.
She had also brought compensation to the North before.
I readily nodded.
“Sounds good. But I have conditions.”
“What are they?”
“First, you cannot sell them outside the Rostelzier Kingdom. You also need to prevent secondary distribution.”
If the enemy nation invaded later and they were carrying scrolls I had created, the entire thing would be pointless.
“Understood. If anyone buys them in large quantities, we’ll investigate them separately. Selling military goods to another country is already a crime anyway.”
“Second, you need to keep my identity as the supplier secret.”
As far as I knew, many of the kingdom’s nobles and Archmages tended to be greedy.
If they traced the scrolls back to me and discovered the Magic Tower, someone might attempt to take it.
I wasn’t strong enough to contend with such enemies yet, so I had to be careful.
“That goes without saying too. Only the four of us here know about this transaction, so you can rest easy.”
“I’m glad I chose the Loa Merchant Company.”
“How flattering.”
Loa smiled back at me.
After that, under Loa’s lead, we decided on a delivery schedule.
“And I have one proposal.”
Erina was the one who spoke this time.
“Would you like me to teach you magic? With my help, you could reach the 4th...... no, perhaps even the 5th Circle before you become an adult.”
“She really is skilled. Erina is good enough to lecture at the Magic Academy in the royal capital.”
It looked like pure goodwill.
But she clearly wanted to investigate the strange inconsistencies surrounding me.
Even if I told her I had regressed, she wouldn’t believe me.
“I’ll decline. I don’t need a teacher.”
Erina fidgeted with her fingers, apparently somewhat hurt.
Loa watched her with an awkward smile and quickly changed the subject.
“As expected, nothing ever goes the way I predict with you. This is your advance payment. Use it to purchase whatever you need to make the scrolls.”
Loa placed a pouch of money and the Black Magic Sword on the table.
“And this is from the bet earlier. Like I said, it’s cursed, so it’ll actually be worse than an ordinary sword. Still, it has some value as a collector’s item because it was once used by the Sword Ghost......”
As I listened to her explanation, I quietly muttered to myself.
That’s fine.
I have the Magic Tower.