Archmage Aicolman had said so.
The grimoire's curse could be resolved.
Adam believed those words and went into the mountains.
He was the spitting image of a college student who believed the line that you'd get a girlfriend if you got into a good college.
But today, it had been resolved.
Three months since the magic circle had appeared on the back of his hand.
For the first time, he'd slept soundly for over seven hours.
The magic circle, which had spat out a sphere every three hours, had kept its mouth shut for the first time.
"What happened??"
Filled with bewilderment, Adam thought.
Did I understand the theory at some point?
It's a world where just reading a grimoire carves a magic circle on you, so is there some convenient system where the knowledge in your head alone automatically gets rid of the curse?
No, that's not it, is it?
Then there had to be some other reason.
Was it what happened yesterday?
Or the surrounding environment?
Countless possibilities were laid out.
Recalling his memories, he looked around.
The spoils by his pillow caught his eye.
"The Diamond Bear's mana stones?"
Adam immediately rummaged through the spoils.
They were mana stones, gleaming with a lustrous purple light.
"Wait a sec, doesn't this feel lighter?"
Setting aside his questions about the magic circle, Adam hurriedly dug through the mana stone pouch.
"Huh? Huh? Who was it?"
The mana stones had gone down.
And by quite a lot, too.
"No, after I saved your lives, you stab me in the back like this? That's crossing the line."
Mana stones were expensive.
A mage's experimental material.
The medium for magic tools.
A tool for enhancing weapons.
Their supply was unstable, yet they had so many uses that on the battlefield they were even used in place of gold.
It was no exaggeration to say that most of the pay for subjugating magic beasts came from selling mana stones.
And yet that pouch had gotten smaller than yesterday.
"You bastards are all dead."
Curses came out on their own.
To Adam, a lighter money pouch was a far more serious matter than the curse suddenly being resolved.
He immediately went outside and set about ferreting out the culprit.
"Yo, Adam, what's going on?"
"I think there's a thief here, so help me find him."
"A thief? What are you talking about?"
"I'm telling you, my mana stones went down while I was asleep!"
It was the escort captain who'd given him the mana stones.
When he picked up the pouch and felt that it had definitely gotten lighter, the escort captain bit his lip and flew into a rage too.
"Who the hell did this!"
All the guards, merchants included, were startled.
"Who was it? An ungrateful bastard! I can't work a job with someone like that!"
The escort captain's fury went on for a while.
The merchants and guards all emptied out their pouches.
Now that they'd finished getting ready to leave, the chances of it being hidden somewhere were low.
The Sundered Forest was far too dangerous a place to bury something in the ground and come back for it.
"Did anyone go into my camp?"
"That's right. The guy on night watch yesterday might've seen something!"
The escort captain called over the adventurer who'd done the night watch.
"Hey, did anyone go into Adam's camp yesterday?"
"No one did?"
"You can be sure of that!?"
The sentry spoke confidently.
"Yes, I can. Well, the area I stood watch in was right in front of Adam's tent. The fact is, Adam's got the most wealth of anyone here. With a sentry right out front, who'd steal from him?"
"Is th-that so......?"
Adam nodded as well, seemingly convinced.
It was a logical answer.
"Well, can't be helped."
I'll just have to give up.
It's infuriating that the money's gone, but if it hasn't turned up after all this searching, it's gone.
Adam, a prodigy of inborn resilience, accepted reality with a clean slate.
After returning to the tent, he packed his things again.
"There are mana stones on the floor, too. Who on earth was it?"
Adam grabbed the mana stones on the floor to tidy up.
And it was at that moment.
The magic circle on the back of his hand, the same as always, absorbed the mana stone he'd received as spoils.
"No way."
He fed the mana stones in his pouch to the magic circle.
Shhhk—!
With a sucking sound, the mana stone disappeared.
"This is the culprit?"
Come to think of it, after he fed it the mana stones, it felt like there was more mana in his body too.
The magic circle was connected to his body.
'Then if the magic circle eats mana stones, does it affect my body somehow?'
Just like supplying mana to the magic circle.
If the magic circle ate mana stones directly, wouldn't the mana stones it ate become his own mana too?
If so, everything could be explained.
Goosebumps rose on his back.
Now all the pieces of the puzzle fit together.
A magic circle that had stayed quiet for a whole 7 hours.
Mana stones that had vanished overnight.
His heart began pounding like crazy.
"No way......!"
Having reached the conclusion, Adam clapped a hand over his mouth.
He'd succeeded in resolving the grimoire's curse.
***
The three of them headed down, forming a carriage train.
They'd long since passed the dangerous areas.
So now, in the carriage, he continued his experiments at ease.
Shff.
Adam fed mana stones to the back of his hand.
The 4-hour-interval experiment was complete.
And the next day, he observed the changes from mana stone intake on an 8-hour cycle.
After the experiments, he realized several things.
The first was that if he fed it mana stones, his mana didn't get taken.
Thanks to the mana stones' mana replacing the mana his body produced.
Thanks to that, he was freed from endless lethargy.
The second was that the explosive spheres stopped coming out.
That also meant he no longer had to do the whole routine of periodically throwing bombs out the window.
He liked this part especially.
And the third was an unexpected discovery.
Believe it or not, if he fed mana stones to the magic circle, his mana got recharged.
The efficiency wasn't all that great, but like a portable battery, he could use mana stones as a charger when he needed mana.
'I'd better carry mana stones around with me all the time.'
Finishing his experiments, Adam hid the wooden tablet in his coat.
Closing the book, Adam's lips curled up to the heavens.
Mana stones.
As long as he had these, he was free now.
Now that he'd found the cause, he could go back to the mansion.
"That's too mean."
Anya bowed her head with a gloomy face.
"What is?"
In the rattling carriage, Anya pouted.
"If you've broken the curse, can't you come to the Imperial Capital now?"
"No, I can't. Look at the state I'm in."
Adam flapped his trousers pointedly.
"Honestly, a beggar would ask to be my friend. Where am I supposed to go looking like this?"
"It is pretty serious."
Covered in dirt all over, his face tanned dark.
He really had lived more like a beggar than a vagrant, so it wasn't a misunderstanding.
"Country folk from the frontier rarely get a chance to enter the capital legally."
"That's true, but I have someone to see back at the mansion."
"By any chance, do you not like traveling with me?"
"No. I'm a man, too, so I like traveling with a beauty."
"Wh-what? What did you say? Y-you're joking, right?"
"Yes, I'm joking."
Anya scowled, displeased.
He'd figured out how to resolve the curse, but there was still plenty of homework left.
How to get a supply of mana stones.
The education he'd been promised after the curse was resolved.
He'd even been told he'd be set up with a job when he returned.
No matter how he looked at it, going back to the mansion was the better deal.
Adam had already made up his mind, but Anya kept throwing her sales pitch at him.
"The Imperial Palace is great. The facilities are great, and the officials are kind every time I go in. People even say there's no leadership in the world as well-off as ours."
"The Imperial Family must be honest and clean, then?"
"That's how it feels to me, at least. Everyone was a good person except for the Third Princess."
"The Third Princess?"
In that instant, Anya's expression twisted.
"Even if you do end up going, don't get involved with the Third Princess. Her nicknames are the Tyrant of the Imperial Palace and the Mad Dog."
"Is it okay to say that so openly?"
"She's already famous for it. Recently, she even kicked some young lady in the backside at a ball! I saw it with my own eyes!"
Anya spent the whole time chewing on jerky and the Third Princess at the same time.
In truth, it was going in one of Adam's ears and out the other.
I've never even seen this Third Princess, so what am I supposed to do about it?
Before he knew it, they'd passed the dense forest, and a clear autumn sky spread out beyond the window.
On the horizon of farmland far off, where a stream flowed, white castle walls appeared.
Huge, well-kept castle walls.
And a tall tower rising from the middle of the Imperial Capital.
It was the capital of the Empire.
***
They'd made it out of the Sundered Forest.
His job finished, Adam got down from the carriage and was seen off by them.
"Adam, I'm sorry I couldn't give you as much as I'd have liked."
"No. Thanks to you, I got something even better."
Anya rummaged through something in the carriage pocket.
"If you ever want to go to the underground archive, show them this."
"What's this?"
"An Imperial letter of recommendation."
The merchants and the escort captain all dropped their jaws.
Adam couldn't understand what was so great about it.
People tried to take the letter back, saying there was no need to just give it away.
"Is it that big a deal?"
"It sure is!"
Anya held the people back and handed the letter of recommendation to Adam.
"Now, now, everyone, quiet down. This is a ticket that lets you in as you please even if the Imperial guards stop you. It's the privilege of a merchant who supplies books to the Imperial Palace. The problem is it's single-use."
A free pass into the Imperial Palace.
He didn't know exactly what was so great about it, but it was a good thing, so Adam stuffed it in his pocket for now.
The escort captain, awkward off to the side, also took a piece of paper out of his coat.
It was an adventurer's letter of recommendation.
The line 'Recommender: Adventurer A-' was striking.
Because it was a grade neither too low nor too high.
If anything, that was why he couldn't understand why he was giving it to him.
"Why on earth are you giving me this?"
"It'd be awkward to give you nothing."
"......."
The escort captain laughed, "Heh heh!" and climbed into the carriage.
In any case, with this, the 3-month journey came to an end.
A connection with a merchant who supplied books to the Imperial Palace.
An Imperial letter of recommendation.
Thinking these might come in handy someday, Adam turned his steps toward the mansion.
***
Adam set foot in Aicolman's estate.
A marketplace spread out on a high hill.
Compared to other places where bandits and slave kidnappings were frequent every month, the estate run by the Archmage was a relatively peaceful place.
Every bandit who'd disturbed the peace had been found as a cold corpse, so it was a no-go zone even within the Empire.
But not today.
No children, no adults.
No one was out in the marketplace either.
Just then, Adam approached a woman who was packing up her stall.
"Why is it so empty today."
"Oh my, it's Adam."
"Was there a mass funeral or something?"
"Adam, good thing you're here."
"What is it?"
"Imperial troops headed for the lord's mansion."
"......."
"The Imperial Palace, I'm telling you! The Imperial Palace! Not just some bandits! The lord even let them into the mansion, you know?"
"The lord's cranky, but he doesn't just go around killing anyone."
"Still, the Imperial Palace showing up out of the blue must mean something's going on, right? Hurry and go see!"
"Thank you."
Adam bowed his head and headed up the hill.
A splendid exterior that didn't suit the backwater countryside.
The entrance that servants cleaned every day until it sparkled.
But not today.
"They've totally trashed it."
His bad feeling hadn't missed its mark.
The entrance was smashed, and half the mansion was gone.
Beneath it, a blond servant was trembling.
"Adam!"
When Elise met Adam's eyes, she grabbed his trouser leg and wiped her nose on it.
"You're back!"
The surroundings had nearly become ruins, with no one around.
The building was about half destroyed.
None of the other servants were in sight.
"Help me!"
Realizing it was Elise who'd lunged at him, Adam spoke coldly.
"You spread made-up rumors again, didn't you? I knew it'd come to this someday."
"No, I didn't!"
"Consider it your punishment."
Elise, snot running from her nose, threw herself at Adam.