Chapter 232: Invitation
Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav
When ntioning mages, most people would think about mage towers that reached the clouds, orderly libraries, wondrous automatic magical tools, elegant mage robes, long beards that represented wisdom, and, of course, eyeglasses.
Actually, I’ve never seen any mage that could do all of the above—no—I should say that I’ve seen incredibly few mages who could keep their places clean and tidy.
In fact, most mages’ laboratories were chaotically ssy, with books haphazardly stacked everywhere and unwashed experintal test tubes letting off a disgusting stink. If there were so that weren’t cleaned for far too long, then it was even considered normal to see so magical beasts or slis as well.
“Aren’t there self-moving brooms or puppets that can automatically clean the bookshelves?”
“If those devices are the rechargeable type, daily maintenance will require a great deal of mana, not to ntion they’re all really expensive. And if it’s a one-ti-use device, when you add in the cost for the materials, it’s even more expensive. Those toys are only things that the Mage Country shows off to others in public in order to improve their reputation, but anyone who’s ever used one knows the truth.”
“But since they’re wise mages, it shouldn’t be that difficult for them to clean their own rooms. If they’re really that bad at it, they could always hire a servant to clean it for them.”
“Many objects are very dangerous for those who lack magical knowledge, and the mages can’t rest assured having fellow mages touch them. Cleaning their own rooms? I’d love to use 26 hours per day instead of 24 to focus on research if I could; I have no free ti at all. That’s why I’m going to leave everything up to you—that’s right—rember to water the southern garden once every day; you don’t need to personally do the watering, you only need to go to the center and turn on the watering device... Oh, right—when you have ti, find another gardener for . He stopped showing up three days ago after entering my garden. I bet he ran off with the salary I paid him. I really should stop paying salaries in advance, he’s the twentieth already.”
From a certain standpoint, the mage school from back in the day was very similar to modern-day academic institutions. Apprentices would learn from their masters, as well as act as their masters’ personal servants. Since the mages found it inconvenient to hire outsiders to do their chores, it was the most normal thing of all to have their apprentices do the chores instead.
Long ago, when I first began researching under Senior Alia as an acolyte, I hadn’t had any contact with doing chores yet. The first task that she gave utterly turned my impression of mages upside-down.
“Mage robes? Those aren’t convenient to move around in, so I don’t use those at ho. Easy to retrieve and use magical ingredients in? Heh heh, when you reach my level, that’s not necessary.”
If the gentle-seeming Senior from back in the day had only upended my common sense despite appearing to be surprisingly nice, then the research laboratory cleaning task afterward had almost got killed.
Don’t even think about so nice scenes, like the beautiful teacher accidentally revealing so skin or asking to draw a picture of her; her personal clothing, which took up two full rooms was so tiring for to clean, but the task that gave the greatest “joyous surprise” was actually watering her garden.
That daily task made utterly abandon my beautiful fantasy about Alia and see her true nature.
Probably everyone understands by now.
Back then, Alia wasn’t so vicious to the point of planting her Seven Virtues in her own backyard. But I first “enjoyed” the attempts of Piranha Plants to hunt and the tangling of Black Forest Vines around , playing a stimulating biohazard survival ga in her garden. If it weren’t for the fact that I already had a decent power rank back then, I probably would have died off without even knowing it, just like all her previous gardeners.
And my studies under her afterwards were all similar experiences. I finally understood why this Senior with such a good reputation always needed new acolytes...
I angrily roared from the bottom of my soul as I swung my sword to slice through one of those familiar distorted Piranha Plants.
“Being an acolyte under her will be impossible to survive without at least a Sword Saint’s strength!”
“Why are you suddenly shouting! I’m going deaf!”
Alright then, I wasn’t careful and accidentally roared out loud to vent my accumulated anger. That chaotic ss back in the day wasn’t entirely my fault. Perhaps she didn’t have evil intentions back then, but even for who had a Sword Saint’s strength at that ti, I was on the brink of life and death in her garden. Who would I bla, if not her?
When taking that into consideration, making her suffer right before I left was actually committing a good deed. At the very least, there would be a lot fewer victims in the future, such as all her missing gardeners and acolytes.
“Oh my, how exaggerated this all is.”
As for why I was bringing up those things from the past, it was because the scene before was all too familiar. I was witnessing an overgrown forest, and not only that, Piranha Plants and other similar vicious plants were just as common as weeds here. Toxic pollen spread throughout the air, and trendous mushrooms of thirty ters in radius actually inhaled this pollen. The most ridiculous part was that there were pumpkin carriages being pulled around everywhere by humongous rats. At any rate, this was a definite dangerous territory where various vicious plant species lived and acted as they pleased.
When I returned to Karo and heard that Alia actually hadn’t left with the others, I already guessed what was going on.
“This is the most perfect location to do as she pleases, after all. Back in our country, there are officers of the law and a board of regulators. She can do every type of rule-breaking experint she wants here.”
Should I say that everything before was expected? When I arrived at where she was temporarily residing in the Earth Elental Plane, I actually witnessed such a scene. It was obvious that unless she was intending to write a several-tens-of-thousands-of-words-long report, she had gone overboard playing around again.
“I think we should turn around and leave. Since Alia herself hasn’t co out yet, she’s probably gotten trapped inside. If even a single one of her ‘Virtues’ goes berserk, it’s a painful experience that nobody will enjoy.”
At the ti, I unhesitatingly turned around and began walking off.
What? Worry about Alia? If the standard for calamities was that they could live for a thousand years, then Alia could easily live for a minimum of ten thousand years. For her, no matter how overboard she had gone with playing around, it was still just playing for her—she could still take care of it afterwards.
“Didn’t you say that you were going to invite her to participate in your birthday party? No matter what, she recently helped you out so much. Isn’t this too cold of you?”
That silly cat—I suppose I should call her a silly loli now—was tugging at my clothes and not allowing to leave. It seed that she was dissatisfied.
I was getting a bit of a headache now. Ever since Harloys had regained her life, she had beco much more emotional than before. At least she was cuter when she was a cat, since at the very least she was mostly uninterested in anything that didn’t have to do with her. Now, she was basically like a curious child whose emotions changed quickly. Not to ntion that she was getting more and more skilled at transforming her teeth into sothing sharp. If I wasn’t careful, my head would end up getting injured.
“Would I bite you if you didn’t anger ? Stop guessing at how I knew even though you didn’t say it—anyone would understand from your expression. Right, why is it that you’re inviting so many guests to your birthday party? And why did you want to have one in the first place? You don’t seem like the type to celebrate sothing like a birthday at all.”
“In your eyes, am I soone who should have a serious expression all day while secretly plotting behind the scenes with a minimum of three backup plans? And then plan out a series of underhanded plots for every single thing I do?”
Alright then, this fake loli actually dared to energetically nod in response to my question. Just wait for my revenge upon you! Hmph! Starting from next week, there’s no breakfast, lunch, or dinner for you; either you can go outside together with to do that Food God series of achievents together, or you can go ahead and eat Alia’s experintal products... it seems that the latter can also do those damned Food God achievents.
“Lorci is dead now. Since one of the major figures on your list had died, you should be a bit happier.”
Harloys nodded lightly at hearing this. On her list of targets to take revenge on that she had given , True God Lorci of the Elven Gods had been ranked in the top three.
“Anyways, you’re among the living again...”
“If you want to convince to abandon my revenge, don’t even think about it. Even if I’m not alive, that will never cancel out my past grudges!”
“Don’t get so excited... I’m not foolish enough to attempt to convince you to let go of your grudges. I just want you to look forward to the future and live more for yourself. That doesn’t clash with seeking revenge at all.”
So words had been in the bottom of my heart for a long ti already, and I hesitated quite long about it, but I finally said them out loud.
“Actually, I’m the sa as well. I’m tangled up in things from the past. No, I should say that we can’t let go of the past. With all these years having passed, I can still rember the Mist Kingdom being destroyed in my nightmares. This is so not fun.”
I paused for a while. Since I had bottled things up within for too long, I didn’t even know how to express myself anymore.
“I won’t tell you to let go of the past, nor will I tell you so useless words like ‘revenge is aningless.’ After all, that would be nothing more than an insult to people like us who live for revenge. But just like how Lorci’s death will make you feel more relaxed, the Mist Kingdom’s revival is also a type of release for .”
By now, I was feeling rather awkward, but it seed like stopping here would be even more awkward, so I steeled myself and continued.
“If you can’t forget the past, then just look more at the future. Anyways, we’re no longer alone in our path of revenge, and we sort of count as family now. If there’s anything troubleso, then we can toss the burden to others to share. At the very least, I plan to use my ti to enjoy what I missed in the past before, even if I fail in the end.”
Alright, after saying all that, I could even feel my face turning red.
“So, finding a few friends to help throw a small birthday party is sothing quite normal. How was I supposed to know that they would make such a big deal out of the celebration?”
“Don’t Elisa and the others know that it’s your birthday?”
“Kelly probably forgot about it already as it’s been several hundred years; who could possibly rember? As for Elisa... we didn’t celebrate our birthdays in Sulfur Mountain City. We had our own celebratory holidays, one that I invented.”
“Then what did you celebrate?”
“Since we were undead, and the day we died was the new beginning, we all celebrated our ‘deathday,’ and I happened to have several deathdays, so I was too lazy to celebrate them. It’s normal that they don’t know.”
Harloys was rendered speechless upon hearing this. Roland dared to say that he didn’t know how to enjoy life before? When she was still in Xiluo, she had never even heard of the concept of undead celebrating their deathdays. Those Sulfur Mountain City undead really knew how to have fun.
“Wait a mont! Didn’t all those high-level undead in your army die on the sa day? Wouldn’t they all celebrate together, then?”
“Yep, which was why we called that day the ‘day of annihilation.’ We would have a grand celebration and parade through the entire city, causing a huge ruckus. And in order to not scare others, we would put funny makeup on ourselves, and sotis parade as a roaming circus. At other tis, we would act out an epic story’s play, and sotis we even went out naked. At that ti, we even had performances and floats for the whole city. Slowly, as ti went by, the living got accustod to it and viewed it as a strange undead festival, and it beca the main holiday tourist attraction of Sulfur Mountain City—the day of the dead.”
When talking about the past, it was unavoidable for people to beco nostalgic. As I was reminiscing about mories long past, Harloys also nodded in seeming realization.
“You do have a plot after all. Can’t you just say things directly out loud?”
“You saw through ?”
“I’ve been listening to you, and it’s so obvious! How could I not see through you? Perhaps those hunting hounds of yours have realized it as well.”
“Yep, even if I don’t say it, they’ll understand. In this generation, since the Mist Kingdom has already revived, celebrating sothing like the ‘day of the dead’ or the ‘day of annihilation’ on the day of the kingdom’s fall is too pitiful. In the future, there’s only going to be this ‘day of peace’ celebration that I’ve set up, which represents victory as well as peace. Since I myself intend to walk out from the shadows of my past and look towards the future, then I would obviously hope that they could be the sa as well.”
“...You are so willful and selfish.”
I shrugged without denying it, as I knew it to be true.
“Every year’s celebration is slightly different, but I believe that since my intention has been transmitted already, my knights definitely won’t disappoint . Bastian’s ball-rolling performance is always the main event of every celebration. Now, here’s the big question... Cough, my beautiful Princess Harloys, are you willing to accompany the selfish at this celebration party? It should be a joyous occasion.”
The loli blonde princess bent her knees slightly as she lifted her skirt and smiled a pure smile at . She gave an ancient ceremonial curtsy.
“Of course, my respected Prince Roland. It’s my honor to be able to beco your celebration’s companion.”
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