“Ah…… no, Sir Mage.”
Rakhoop had thought he could take advantage of the Imperial Mage who had visited his General Store for the first time in ages, only to have the customer snatched away before his very eyes.
Rakhoop stared at Keiras as though he had been treated terribly unfairly.
Keiras, however, no longer spared Rakhoop a glance.
His eyes remained fixed solely on Aiman, the boy who had aroused his curiosity.
“Lead the way.”
“Yes.”
Aiman and Keiras walked out of the General Store.
Left alone, Rakhoop’s face filled with rage.
He was so furious that he ground his teeth.
GRIND.
“A mere Serf’s brat dares ruin the great Rakhoop’s business? I swear I shall teach you a lesson.”
Rakhoop had always regarded Serfs with contempt.
That was also why he had answered Aiman when the boy had previously visited and asked about the value of paper.
He had wanted to force Aiman to face reality—that paper was not something a mere Serf such as him could ever dream of possessing.
Yet today, that very Serf had dealt him a severe blow.
It was impossible for Rakhoop not to feel vengeful.
Although he had declared that he would teach Aiman a lesson, Rakhoop did not yet know how he would accomplish it.
Then a thought suddenly occurred to him.
“If that brat made it himself, then he must have used the Lord’s property to make it, mustn’t he?”
Aiman was a Serf.
How did Serfs live?
They earned their keep by performing menial work throughout the territory that the Lord was responsible for managing.
In a sense, the relationship was like that between a crocodile and a crocodile bird.
After the enormous crocodile claimed and devoured large prey, the crocodile birds ate the remnants in exchange for cleaning its teeth.
However, they were only supposed to deal with the remnants.
If a crocodile bird openly coveted the crocodile’s prey, or touched the crocodile’s gums rather than the remnants, it became food that very day.
In other words, if a Serf pursued private profit using the Lord’s territory, he would be dragged directly before the Lord’s Tribunal.
Rakhoop thought,
‘There is no way he could make paper like this unless he secretly took something for himself.’
In truth, it was possible that Aiman had acted entirely within reasonable limits and appropriated nothing improperly.
Rakhoop had considered that possibility as well.
However, he had a plan for that too.
‘The Lord might not help, but the Tax Collector…… that Moneybird will help me.’
Just as the Lord employed Serfs because he could not personally manage the entire territory, he could not directly supervise every one of those Serfs either.
Naturally, there were subordinates responsible for doing so.
There was a Serf Overseer who managed the Serfs, and above him stood the Tax Collector, who collected taxes from both the Serfs and Commoners within the territory.
In a sense, the Tax Collector was the chief of the crocodile birds—the one who wielded the greatest influence beneath the crocodile that was the Lord.
Furthermore, the Tax Collector was ravenously obsessed with money.
He was so notorious for it that he had earned the nickname ‘Money-Mad Crocodile Bird,’ or ‘Moneybird’ for short.
‘That is right. How much have I already handed that Moneybird?’
Naturally, because he loved money so much, many of the shopkeepers in Jenkins Village regularly offered him bribes.
The Lord owned the territory, but the Tax Collector was the official who dealt with them directly and could actually offer assistance.
Rakhoop, too, had given the Tax Collector a considerable number of bribes.
Thinking of the Tax Collector, Rakhoop revealed a sinister smile.
“Heh heh, you damned Serf brat. No matter how much you struggle, you are still in the palm of my hand.”
@
“Do you happen to like birds?”
After leaving Rakhoop’s General Store, Aiman asked Keiras to wait near the place where he made Hanji. He then returned with five sheets and asked him the question.
Keiras looked puzzled when Aiman suddenly asked whether he liked birds.
“Birds?”
“Yes.”
“I do not dislike them.”
“Then I will show you a bird.”
“You will show me a bird?”
“Yes. Would you wait a moment?”
“Very well.”
Aiman had suddenly arrived carrying paper, asked him about birds, and then declared that he would show him one.
Keiras wondered what in the world the young boy intended to do.
It was nothing particularly complicated.
Aiman planned to fold a bird from the Hanji he had brought.
His objective was clear.
‘When Keiras formed a bird with magic back then, the folding was crude, but it was unmistakably a Paper Crane Fold.’
If magic somehow worked like Origami, perhaps Keiras would recognize it when Aiman folded a crane from Hanji.
Aiman took hold of the paper to begin folding the crane.
Was it because it had been so long since he had last practiced Origami?
For some reason, his heart began to pound.
‘I fold the paper.’
He recalled the technical terminology of Origami that he had not used in so long.
‘Valley Fold, Mountain Fold, Inside Reverse Fold, Outside Reverse Fold, Pleat Fold, Squash Fold, Sink Fold, Petal Fold, Rabbit Ear Fold…….’
There were techniques divided into even more detailed categories, but these constituted most of Origami’s fundamental techniques.
People who knew nothing about Origami often assumed that it was simply a matter of folding paper. However, to fold more quickly and produce a more polished result, it was equally important to lay down guide creases for the later stages of the model.
Aiman set the guide creases in advance so that he could fold the crane quickly and efficiently.
Once the guide creases were in place, he immediately applied the Origami techniques and completed the Paper Crane Fold.
“What do you think? It looks like a bird, does it not?”
“Hooh, it does. It looks like a bird.”
Keiras could not help but marvel at the sight of a bird folded from paper.
His admiration appeared entirely genuine.
However, that was not enough for Aiman.
He asked as though wondering whether Keiras had nothing more to say.
“……Is that all?”
“Hmm?”
Seeing Keiras’s reaction, Aiman could not help but feel disappointed.
‘It seems Mages approach magic differently from the way it appears to me.’
He had wondered whether they might cast magic by performing something resembling Origami.
However, judging from Keiras’s reaction, that did not appear to be the case.
Even so, the outcome was not entirely bad.
Aiman suddenly appeared disappointed.
Seeing that, Keiras thought,
‘Hmm. He must think he made it quite well. Was my reaction too restrained?’
That was not the case.
Viewed objectively, Keiras’s reaction had displayed more than enough admiration.
Aiman had simply failed to obtain the response he wanted.
However, after seeing Aiman’s expression, Keiras misunderstood.
He thought that his reaction had needlessly disappointed the child.
Keiras suddenly rolled up his sleeves.
“Very well. Since you have shown me something interesting, I shall show you a bird as well.”
Aiman understood exactly what those words meant.
Keiras was saying that he would show him magic.
Aiman had seen it from a distance before, but now he would be able to witness magic directly before his eyes.
The disappointment that had filled Aiman’s eyes moments ago vanished, and they immediately brightened.
Keiras gave a faint smile upon seeing him.
‘A child is still a child.’
At that moment, Keiras had no idea.
Aiman was no ordinary child.
HUM.
Keiras brought both hands together, and blue light began swirling around them.
He was casting magic.
Aiman observed the process with shining eyes.
‘A round sheet of blue paper about the size of a standard Origami sheet is emerging from his heart and folding itself?’
Ordinarily, Origami meant creating something from a square sheet of paper solely by hand, without using scissors, a knife, or any other cutting tool.
Yet the magic produced a round sheet of blue paper and folded it in the same manner one would fold a square sheet.
The magic Keiras was demonstrating was the same spell Aiman had seen before.
It was a spell shaped like a Paper Crane Fold.
As Aiman watched it, he thought,
‘As expected, it is a little crude.’
Its basic framework was identical to that of the Paper Crane Fold Aiman had just made from Hanji.
However, here and there, he saw what appeared to be mistakes caused by Keiras trying to complete it too quickly.
That did not mean the crane’s shape failed to form.
It simply resulted in a Paper Crane Fold whose hurried construction was obvious.
Once the blue paper resting between Keiras’s hands had fully taken the shape of a crane, light flashed.
FLASH!
Bird-shaped Blue Energy then rose from Keiras’s hands and soared into the sky.
“Oh.”
Seeing it up close felt entirely different from watching it at a distance.
To think something like this was possible.
Magic?
Stage magic had existed in Yeongman’s former world, but to Yeongman, who now inhabited Aiman’s body, true magic had only ever existed in games and films.
Now that he was seeing it in reality, he could not help but marvel.
Keiras smiled brightly as he watched Aiman’s reaction.
“Is it amazing?”
“Yes.”
“Heh heh. This is magic.”
Keiras felt proud.
Was it because he had shown off his magic?
No.
What pleased him was seeing this kind of reaction whenever he showed magic to a young boy.
He had reacted in exactly the same way as a child.
Seeing magic for the first time was mesmerizing.
It was a truly wondrous power.
However, his pride lasted only for a moment.
The words that next emerged from Aiman’s mouth left him unable to conceal his bewilderment.
“But, Sir Mage.”
“What is it?”
“Is that spell perfect?”
“What?”
Aiman had asked whether the magic he had just demonstrated was perfect.
To give only the answer, it was ‘no.’
Magic had a standard method.
Naturally, if a standard method existed, nonstandard methods also existed.
To become a Mage, one first had to create a Mana Circle within one’s heart. Magic could then be manifested by using the energy stored within that Mana Circle to perform the necessary calculations.
Through extensive research, Mages had devised nonstandard methods.
They omitted several calculations from each spell so that it could be cast more quickly.
The spell Keiras had just demonstrated could also be considered a nonstandard version.
The spell was named ‘Mana Bird.’
It was the most basic spell within the discipline of Summoning Magic.
When a Summoned Creature was called forth through magic, the caster’s five senses resonated with its own. That allowed such creatures to be used for reconnaissance, searching, surveillance, and eavesdropping.
However, Summoning Magic was rarely used because the Mana consumption and calculations required to complete its spells were inefficient.
Even Keiras only used Mana Bird when giving children their first glimpse of magic.
Since all he needed to do was show them magic, he naturally omitted many of the formulas from the calculations and focused on manifesting it as quickly as possible.
Yet the boy standing before him had noticed that.
Keiras wondered whether Aiman had truly asked because he had recognized the spell’s imperfections.
Keiras was bewildered.
After observing his reaction, Aiman became certain.
‘So there was a reason he folded it so crudely.’
It was crude by Aiman’s standards.
That did not mean Keiras had done an abysmal job.
The finished product was still recognizable.
It merely resembled the method Origami practitioners used when they needed to fold something quickly.
In any case, Aiman’s guess appeared to have been correct, so he spoke.
“I simply thought its form might be made more complete.”
Keiras stared at Aiman with his eyes wide open.
How had this young boy looked at his magic and realized that it was imperfect?
He could not understand it.
However, thinking about the question alone would not produce an answer.
Keiras asked Aiman directly.
“Why do you think that?”
Aiman did not answer immediately.
He sank into thought.
‘It is true that I tried to arouse Keiras’s interest with a situation like this in mind, but…….’
He did not know how to explain it.
Even after seeing the crane Aiman had folded from Hanji, Keiras had failed to realize that the Blue Energy forming Mana Bird had been folded in exactly the same manner.
However, Aiman could not think of anything suitable to say.
He considered giving a vague answer and testing Keiras’s reaction, but no satisfactory explanation came to him.
Aiman thought,
‘If I am only going to evade the question ambiguously, a direct approach would be better.’
It had been the same during his working life.
Whether he was speaking to a superior or making a sales pitch to a client, the principle remained unchanged.
If he could skillfully circle around the subject before delving deeper, he could resolve the matter more completely.
However, if he was not confident that he could accomplish that properly, then a direct approach was more effective.
After deliberating, Aiman made his decision.
“I can see it.”
“Hmm?”
Keiras looked at him as though he had no idea what that abrupt declaration meant.
Aiman explained in greater detail.
“I can see it when you use magic, Sir Mage.”
“What can you see?”
“The Blue Energy emerging from your heart and manifesting the spell.”
Keiras stared at Aiman with an expression of disbelief.
“……You can see Mana?”