TL/Editor: raei
Status: 5/week mon-fri
Illustrations: none
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'Been a while.'
Having just returned from a brief outing, Ian felt refreshed.
[How have you been?]
[...You're back.]
In the empty soul world, Maronius's soul listlessly greeted Ian.
Ian looked around curiously.
Last ti he'd seen a mini-world composed of various mories.
As if his will to live had been crushed, the soul world he returned to had beco quite desolate.
[Have you thought about it?]
[Yes... I've thought a great deal.]
He'd probably focused on whether it was right to change his past mories.
Ian had shown Maronius an altered version of his 'dark history'.
That experience had given Maronius's soul trendous shock.
Whether positive or negative, they'd have to hear about that now.
[I...]
Maronius's soul said.
[Will cooperate with you, Wizard Ian.]
Ian nodded.
As expected.
Maronius's soul readily promised cooperation.
[Show what you showed to my other selves too.]
[I will, Maronius.]
#
The research progressed smoothly.
Using the cooperative Maronius soul, Ian began uncovering the archwizard's mories one by one.
'Good thing Elia left lots of items.'
There were many objects that could extract Maronius's mories.
In the mory world, Ian slowly collected Maronius's mories.
[Wait! Who are you...]
[It's .]
[...? What? You're ?!]
As Ian intended, the cooperative Maronius soul acted as a key to open entrances to other soul worlds.
Working like a kind of key.
[Let's show our mories to this wizard.]
[Impossible. Have you forgotten already? Everything ahead is just painful mories.]
[I know. But that will change now.]
[What do you...]
Ian gestured.
The other Maronius soul froze in shock.
[Liria...]
Because a red-haired woman appeared gracefully.
[I am Wizard Kira.]
[...]
[I can show you what you wish to see.]
Maronius blankly stared at Kira.
He seed to think Kira might be the real key.
Ian nodded.
Maronius's secret: Has a red hair fetish.
Better write that down when I get back.
[...Very well. I'll show you my foolish past mories.]
[Thank you.]
Thanks to the other soul's persuasion and Kira's presence, Ian could examine Maronius's mories.
His young mories, well.
They flowed similarly to records left by other researchers.
'After fighting with Liria.'
After a huge fight with Liria, Maronius ran away in anger.
He actually left to enlist in the imperial army.
Though an impulsive decision, the army surprisingly liked Maronius's action.
They felt young man's spirit or sothing.
Though formal enlistnt was impossible, he could work as a helper doing odd jobs.
The first weapon Maronius got in the army... was a sickle.
He joined a labor unit clearing paths by cutting grass.
Usually slave work, but Maronius worked hard, grateful even for this.
'But got caught in combat.'
While making roads to advance on barbarian villages.
Maronius's unit was ambushed.
Maronius with his sickle... ran away without looking back.
He couldn't fight and wasn't properly ard, so it was natural.
But soon the enemies caught up.
To leave a warning ssage, they decided to execute all captured imperial soldiers.
[I really regretted it then.]
Ian glanced around.
Fragnts of Maronius's mories were gathering around Ian one by one.
Watching like this, it felt like seeing Inside Out[1].
That one's joy, that one's sadness...
The difference was characters split by mory period rather than emotion.
[What was your first thought?]
Thoughts right before death are usually predictable.
Like wanting to see your parents' faces?
[I wanted to see Liria.]
Ian marveled.
In a small Confucian country in the East, nine out of ten would say they wanted to see their parents.
The West really was different!
Having such a son, his mother must have been happy making seaweed soup...
'Well. She wouldn't have.'
No seaweed soup. Western indeed.
[I wanted... to apologize to Liria.]
Then Sad Maronius(...) sniffled.
He was young Maronius, the one Ian had created new mories for.
[Yes...! I should have apologized earlier...!]
Ian shrugged.
Whatever they said, it was already past.
Maronius was dragged to the barbarians' execution ground, full of regret.
Just then.
Right before death, Maronius heard a strange whisper.
A primitive, life-filled whisper hard to refine into human language.
It was the power of magic.
[How dramatic.]
A mory flavored with so MSG.
You know how mories get beautified?
Whether Maronius really awakened in crisis or not was unclear, but anyway he escaped the barbarians' execution ground with magical power.
[Halt! Who are you! State your unit!]
[I-I'm Demius from the Sickle Unit!]
[Sickle Unit? Why's an imperial in the Sickle Unit?]
The man Maronius miraculously t.
He was a soldier nad 'Lupus'.
[What a lucky fellow.]
[Th-thank you...]
[If you've nowhere to go, why not fight in our unit?]
In that mont, the na 'Liria' flashed through Maronius's mind.
Never thinking of his parents' nas even facing death, he must have really hated them.
'Well. They did force work on him...'
If Maronius returned ho, it would be to et Liria.
But...
[Thank you! General!]
Maronius refused to return ho.
The reason was simple.
Pride.
Having a huge fight with his girlfriend and enlisting boasting he'd return successful.
How pathetic would he look returning as a defeated soldier?
[Stupid fool.]
Maronius harshly criticized himself.
He could curse like that since it was about himself.
[This decision, he'll regret his whole life.]
Maronius decided to stay with Lupus's unit.
He road distant foreign jungles, fighting barbarians with Lupus.
His sword skills never improved, but he gained strange minor abilities instead.
[You're at it again there?]
[General.]
Maronius smiled awkwardly at Lupus.
[So. Can you still hear the 'voices'?]
[Not still.]
Maronius looked up at the great prival forest and said.
[Always, General.]
[Good thing I can't hear them. I can't sleep when it's noisy.]
Lupus dismissed the 'voices' Maronius heard as hallucinations.
But to Maronius they were anything but.
The 'voices' had saved him from death.
Maronius thought the 'voices' must be guardian angels sent by heaven.
[The shamans knew about the voices.]
[Shamans? Did you talk with barbarians?]
Maronius answered clearly.
[Yes, General. I've been learning barbarian language lately because I had questions.]
Lupus marveled.
[Incredible. You learned a new language in just weeks?]
That's right.
Unknown to himself until now, Maronius had exceptional language sense.
An incredible linguistic talent beyond just genius.
That talent.
Would later elevate Maronius to [archwizard] status.
[The barbarians call the voices I hear 'Mana'.]
[Mana?]
[Yes. Mana is a force sleeping equally in all things, responding to human will and able to communicate.]
Lupus scoffed.
[I know you're an odd one, but don't take barbarian legends too seriously.]
The empire had such people spouting nonsense too.
Frauds calling themselves occultists, claiming to study mysteries like digging up hidden roots.
Mysteries?
How could you study sothing inherently incomprehensible?
Lupus's thinking represented the average imperial mindset of the ti.
The Golden Empire people who pursued rationality and reason despised irrational thinking about mysteries and occult.
Maronius was the sa.
['Mana' isn't an unknowable force.]
Like a proper imperial, Maronius started organizing the barbarians' arbitrary theories.
['Mana' moves according to world principles.]
[Though I can't explain those principles yet, they clearly exist.]
[From now on, I'll call it 'mystery'.]
Maronius talked with barbarian shamans, studying the principles behind their magic.
Based on the 101 characters barbarians used-
Water, fire, sky, earth, light, darkness.
He nad each principle shamans experienced and struggled to express how they moved.
Thus Maronius created the first [Maronius language].
...Letters that even Ian could read.
[Carl.]
[Haha. You know it!]
Carl. Carl of the sky.
One of the 'thousand magic characters' (really 1000) Ian first learned when starting Maronius language.
From that day, Maronius began researching how to convey his will to 'mysteries'.
The first wizard-
Had begun pioneering the path of wizardry through his own power.
---
[1. raei: Inside Out is a disney movie! Pretty good one.]
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