There are two kinds of people in this world: the winners and the losers. In other words, people who are popular and people who are not. And then there are people who can use magic (spell power), and people who cannot.
I, Shutarou Hanaoka, fall into both of the second groups. I am a loser. I turned 40 today, yet I have never had a girlfriend, not even once. The last time I held a girl's hand was at my elementary school sports day, and that memory feels like a lifetime ago.
I know the reason. I looked old even as a small child, maybe even before that. By the time I first understood things, everyone already called me "Old Man." It hurt my young heart, but even I could see my face looked old. Kids said I looked 40 back then.
I went through junior high, high school, and university, but my old-looking face never helped me. I was never popular.
Still, maybe because my face already looked so old, it did not get any older as time passed. People kept calling me "Old Man" after I started working, but little by little my real age began to catch up. Now that I am almost a real old man, people call me that less. It's strange that once you truly become an old man, people stop calling you one.
Through my sad and lonely salaryman life, I had only one thing to hold on to: a family legend passed down in my home.
'If you maintain your purity until you are 30, you will gain the ability to use magic.'
It seems one of my ancestors also had an old-looking face and was unpopular. But when he turned 30, he became a magician, lived a popular life, and left many children. Thanks to him, I was born. Maybe it was a skip-generation thing, because his old face woke up again in me.
Ever since monsters and demons began to pour out of dungeons and the population dropped to less than one-third of the old world, early marriage became normal. Many students marry in their teens. If you are not married by twenty-five, you are considered late. If you reach 30 single, people call you a fossil. Some strong men and women even get special permission from the country to marry many partners.
So in this world, a 30-year-old pure man is super rare. As far as I knew, I was the only one.
Even a small-time salaryman like me could live an elite life if I became a magician and learned magic. I could join the World Defense Force, protect people, and maybe flip my life like my ancestor did. Members of that force are loved by everyone. Of course, they are popular.
I clung to the belief that I would join their ranks at 30, holding onto that dream until the very last day of my 29th year. But when my 30th birthday arrived, nothing changed.
I truly turned 30 that day. But the magic did not come.
'If you keep your purity until you are 30, you will become a magician.'
The legend proved false. No one I knew had ever encountered someone who gained magic through purity, leaving me with no way to verify its truth. But when I became the first true case, I fell into deep despair.
"It's over..."
My life did not end just because I could not use magic. I did not try to die or anything. The next 10 years passed with no hope, just empty days.
If I had no hope, I decided to have no expectations. On that day at 30, I gave up on being popular, on marriage, and on becoming a winner.
Still, my life did not stop. I had to live as a loser. I worked every day, without asking for too much. Maybe I wanted to feel that I was at least useful to society.
Those 10 years gradually eroded my desire to become a magic user. I worked hard, and the canned chuhai I drank at home almost every night helped wash away my dream. Alcohol kept me from acting like a middle-school dreamer.
And now, today, I have finally turned 40. The 10 years were long, but also not so long. Nothing will change just because I reach 40. It is just one more day in my 365-day year.
At my age, I do not feel like celebrating my birthday alone anymore.