Companion 2

“I was a late bloomer as a mage.”

The GM began with those words.

“Twenty years old. Honestly, joining the Magic Tower at my age was highly unusual. Needless to say, it was incredibly difficult to adjust.

Well, I bet it was.

After all, prodigies like Raven who entered the Tower when young tended to look down on latebloomers like him. Of course, the only ones they hated more than latebloomers were non-specialized mages like Dwalki.

Anyway, that wasn’t the important part…

A late bloomer, huh?

That didn’t add up.

Is he lying to me?

Because when I met him in the past, he mentioned that he’d reached rank 6 within a year of arriving.

[My rank’s just high because I got lucky. Honestly, I can barely use magic properly, so every day’s a struggle…]

He’d even said that, so I assumed it was a problem for him since he possessed a mage’s body. So that wasn’t the case?

‘Let me hear him out first…’

If it’s true, it’s a really strange case.

Later, when I got to know other players in Ghost Busters, I learned that most of those who started out as mages after crossing the Gate of the Abyss already knew how to use magic. Our clan’s Versil Gowland is one such example.

So why did the GM decide to become a mage so late?

If he hadn’t started out as a mage, it would have been much easier for him to grow by becoming an explorer and consuming essences.

“So… was there a particular reason you learned magic at that age?”

I asked him directly, but the reply I got was totally unexpected.

“Actually, I had no intention of becoming a mage. I only thought about becoming an explorer.”

“Huh…?”

“Of course, fighting monsters head-on in dangerous labyrinths didn’t really suit my temperament, so becoming a mage felt more fitting. But, as you said, it’s not common to start learning magic after turning twenty.”

“…That’s true.”

“I originally wanted to learn archery. I figured I could handle a crossbow decently enough.

So he wanted to be an archer…

That made me even more curious.

How did someone aiming to be an archer end up a mage instead?

“To buy even a single crossbow when you’re penniless, you first have to make money. I did every kind of job imaginable as soon as I became an adult. Once, I even found work at a blacksmith’s forge…”

Surprisingly, it was while he was hammering away at iron that his path as a mage opened up.

He met the head of a magical school almost as if by fate.

“My master took interest in a little toy I made in my spare time. He called me over, saying he wanted to talk, and we ended up chatting for hours.”

The master was fascinated by the precision of GM’s mechanical designs and his imagination.

Well, no wonder. The guy’s a modern human, after all.

Call it the “modern-engineer cheat.”

You know how in those stories, an engineer from Earth makes some contraption in another world, and everyone around him is stunned? That sort of thing.

“So that’s how you started learning magic?”

“Yes. The Myreta School specialized in wind-element magic, but my teacher—its master at the time—was also deeply interested in magi-engineering and magic circles. Thanks to that, I was lucky enough to catch his eye.”

As I nodded and kept listening, the GM continued.

‘I don’t mean to boast, but magic suited me perfectly. Under my master’s tuition, my skills improved incredibly quickly. Naturally, that earned me plenty of resentment.”

The GM’s growth rate was explosively unprecedented, even within the Magic Tower.

“Well, looking back over the Magic Tower’s long history, there’s never been a case of someone starting at age 20 and reaching Rank 6 in just one year.”

Huh… So he really reached rank 6 in just one year?

But waitt!, then what was that about being a ‘half-baked mage who can’t use magic’ back then?

Conveniently, the answer to that question soon came from GM himself.

“Even so, I was still only half a mage.”

“…What do you mean?”

“You see? The fields of magic are so vastly different that one can become a high-ranking mage without knowing a single offensive spell.”

GM was exactly that type.

He had shown outstanding talent in magic engineering and magic circle research, yet he couldn’t cast a single fireball.

And so—

‘Those who knew that fact constantly picked fights with me, and I had to live on my guard every day, avoiding trouble. Ah… the Tower was truly a jungle back then.”

“But even then, my master disapproved of me learning other kinds of magic. He said my talent lay in magi-engineering, and that I shouldn’t waste time elsewhere.”

“Despite my repeated requests, he only allowed me to study a few other spells, while my main focus remained on magi-engineering. During that period, I never slept for more than two hours a day.

Still, he persevered.

He found magi-engineering genuinely fun, and he was grateful to his teacher.

“It might sound strange, but… at times, I even thought of my master as a father. I… never had one, you see.”

“Despite my repeated requests, he only allowed me to study a few other spells, while my main focus remained on magi-engineering. During that period, I never slept for more than two hours a day.

Still, he persevered.

He found magi-engineering genuinely fun, and he was grateful to his teacher.

“It might sound strange, but… at times, I even thought of my master as a father. I… never had one, you see.”

After being gaslit for so long, it seemed as though he was moving further away from the path of an explorer. However, he persevered through that life.

“In the end, I couldn’t stand it anymore and ran away. I gathered my own allies, became an explorer, and never returned to the school again.”

During that period, even though he spent extra time learning useful magical skills for adventuring, the GM never abandoned his magical engineering studies.

And so time passed.

By the time the mage Yurben Havelion had gained fame as an explorer—

“That incident happened. You may have heard of it, too, Baron. My master experimented with forbidden magic.”

Forbidden magic is considered taboo among mages.

When it was discovered that the GM’s teacher had experimented with it, the Royal Guards stormed in and killed him on the spot.

“All the mages at the school were detained and interrogated for months. Among them, I was questioned the most, since I’d spent the longest time researching with him.”

After being locked in an interrogation room and questioned day after day, the GM discovered what kind of forbidden magic his teacher had studied.

“It was a shock. I couldn’t believe it.”

“…What was it?”

“He’d been researching magic related to soul transplantation.”

It was magical research conducted with the goal of imbuing a human soul into an object to turn it into a magical artifact.

He believed that if a consciousness could escape biological limits and learn indefinitely, it would lead to unimaginable progress.

That’s basically artificial intelligence and deep learning…

I was thinking that when—

“The most important thing in this plan was “talent”. My master believed that the learning speed would be determined by the intelligence of the soul to be implanted, and he had accordingly shortlisted several candidates.”

Only then did I understand. Why the GM had been reluctant to share this story.

“The interrogator showed me the project notes. My name was listed first among the candidates. There was even a number next to it, higher than anyone else’s.”

The betrayal of a teacher he’d once seen as a father.

 

“After that… well, the school was dissolved.
Eventually, I founded my own school. As it grew, I became increasingly busy and stopped exploring labyrinths myself.”

After that, I can roughly guess how he lived.

Raising his school while managing the community, and probably having secret political communications with the Royal Family too.

All the while, he clung to his one goal: to leave this cursed world and go home.

“So… How was it? My story.”

The GM asked me in a somewhat relieved voice, and after
a brief moment of thought, I gave a short answer.

“It certainly was a boring story.”

“…Ahaha, is that so?”

A laugh that clearly sounded forced.

But just empathizing and being sad together would only make the atmosphere weird.

I don’t believe that would help the other person.

“But still, it turned out well, didn’t it?”

“Huh?”

“The guy who betrayed you didn’t get a happy ending, did he? He died a miserable death.”

At those words, the GM made a dumbfounded expression for a moment, then suddenly burst out laughing loudly.

At that, GM froze for a second, then burst out laughing.

And after a while—

“Haha… yes. That’s one way to look at it, isn’t it?”

He laughed aloud, but soon his smile faded into a bitter expression.

“…If only I could think that simply too, I’d be truly happy.”
***

The day after my heartfelt talk with the GM.

We woke early and headed for the cave that connected to the underground passage.

By nightfall, we had reached our destination.

But then—

“It’s been a while since I’ve had a day like this. Feels like my explorer days again. Thank you… uh, why do you look like that?”

Tch, you should say that kind of thing after returning safely to the city.

Saying it now practically guarantees something’s about to happen—

“…Stop.”

Out of anxious habit, I swept my eyes around and suddenly stopped dead in my tracks.

“Why are you…?”

“Quiet.”

Sensing that something was wrong, he tightened his grip on his staff.

 

Why are all the mages like Dwalki?

The thought crossed through my mind, but I pushed it aside and focused on the cave entrance.

[Came and went.]
[Strong Son of Korea, Lee Baek-ho.]

I’d seen this graffiti from Lee Baek-ho earlier when we passed this way.

Only this time, there was a new line beneath it.

[Raphdonia’s king, Motherfucker.]

A meme-phrase that every veteran Ghost Busters player would recognise instantly.

It’s obvious who wrote it.

Lee Baek-ho, that guy probably wrote it out of boredom on his way back.

“Th-, that is…!”

“Do you know what those characters mean?”

“…I believe it’s a script used by evil spirits. Now that I see it, the characters written above seem to be one of their scripts too.”

Unable to reveal the truth, the GM stammered out an excuse.

Normally, I would have teased him by pretending to be ignorant, but there wasn’t time for that.

“Whatever the case, someone’s been here recently. Let’s get away from this spot.”

“…Huh?”

“No good will come from meeting whoever left those marks. And it’d be bad if word got out that I was outside the city.”

“Ah, I see…”

Of course, the real reason was that I didn’t want to run into Baek-ho’s group again.

And so—

Step.

The moment our conversation ended, we began retreating the way we’d come, away from the cave.

One step, two steps, three steps.

We’d just started turning around when—

“Gyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!”

A man’s scream came from inside the cave.

But it wasn’t a scream born of fear.

No, if anything—

“Son of a bitch!!!”

—it was a roar of pure frustration.

Surprisingly, the echoing scream was getting closer at a rapid speed.

“Can you hear me?! You’re close, aren’t you?! I said, can you hear me?!”

Then a man shot out of the cave so fast that my eyes could barely take it in.

…Lee Baek-ho?

Sure enough, it was him.

Except there was one more problem—

“Just wait till I catch you! You hear me? If I catch you, I’ll—!!”

Baek-ho, still sprinting at full speed, suddenly leapt high into the air—

And —

His Eyes met ours

With that, Baek-ho went from seeming ready to shoot into the sky to crashing down and hitting the ground with a thud.

“…Uh, why are you with this guy, Baron?”

Lee Baek-ho’s face showed an uncharacteristically flustered expression.

But it didn’t take long for that expression to transform into rage.

“Don’t tell me… you two did this together…?”

Did what together…?

When I made a face showing I didn’t understand, Baek-ho shouted in an extremely irritated voice.

“Stop playing dumb! Who else would’ve broken the return magic circle? Was it you two?!”

Wait, what is he talking about now?

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