The magic training hall located beneath the Magic Tower.
“Tsk.”
Danil scratched his head.
The artifact Half-Dragon Heart certainly lived up to its name—and its price.
Just as expected, it had allowed him to use his main fighting force, the 108-Imp Legion, Soma’s host, one more time.
“This part just won’t work.”
The problem was precision.
He had spent two full days on it, yet his accuracy still hadn’t exceeded seventy percent.
Every time, he ended up summoning too few—sometimes five short, sometimes as many as eight.
He clicked his tongue.
“This is a problem.”
In the field, one small mistake could lead to an irreversible accident.
That was a truth he had engraved into his bones over ten years of running countless missions.
He had gotten a feel for the amount of mana needed to summon over a hundred, but it still wasn’t enough.
The exact amount of mana required to summon precisely 108 imps. He had to pin that down for certain.
“I feel like I’m almost there... No choice. Should I use some annual leave for the first time in a while?”
After thinking it over, Danil made up his mind to take a full month of leave.
Since he was going to train anyway, he intended to raise his proficiency in other spells as well.
In truth, using annual leave in the Foreign Legion was something people were cautious about.
The reason? Simple.
Indefinite-term contract workers usually only fulfilled the minimum required workload and then spent the rest of their time on themselves.
When they already had that much personal time, what? They were going to take annual leave too?
Even contract workers who hated working had some sense of shame.
They knew how to calculate that it was better not to use it at all than to receive looks from their superiors that said, “You barely work as it is, and now you’re taking annual leave too? Are you insane?”
But Danil was an exception.
That did not mean he lacked tact. He was simply confident enough to feel no hesitation about taking leave.
His confidence came from results that did not merely meet the minimum workload, but renewed the maximum workload every month.
There was no reason for him not to stand tall.
“Good. Then shall I go? To headquarters.”
*
The Foreign Legion Dispatch Headquarters he returned to after two days was as busy as ever.
The first thing that caught his eye was the reception desk.
“Yes. Confirmed. We will notify you of the Foreign Legion’s dispatch schedule at a later date.”
“Pardon? That case has been assigned to another unit, so... Could you please wait a moment?”
Only a very small number of clients came directly to the Magic Tower to submit requests.
Most registered them through communication crystal orbs like that.
The receptionists moved frantically between dozens of crystal orbs, organizing and sorting requests pouring in from all over the empire.
“Is this request in the west?”
“Let’s finish it quickly and come back so we can keep training.”
There were also members of the Foreign Legion checking requests and preparing for dispatch.
Those wearing cloaks similar in design to the regular employees’ were going through their final checks before departure.
As they left the Magic Tower while exchanging jokes, not a trace of tension could be felt from them.
All that showed was the unique annoyance of office workers going on a distant business trip.
“Aaaah! There’s a typo!”
“Fix it instead of talking!”
“Did you handle what I told you last time? You didn’t? Are you out of your mind?”
“Stop that and do this first! It has to be finished today!”
In one corner, the regular employees were handling the Foreign Legion’s paperwork and reports.
Aside from the fact that they were using magic to move and organize the mountains of documents that were exhausting just to look at, it was a scene Danil had often seen in his previous life.
‘They’re still suffering as always.’
Who would look at them and call them mages? Office workers crushed by society, perhaps, but not mages.
Just as he was passing them by with pitying eyes, he spotted a familiar face.
“Luna! Organize this first!”
“Send this to Team Three!”
“This one to Team One!”
“Yes! Just a moment!”
At the calls of her seniors, Luna moved frantically.
The sight of her carrying thick documents with telekinesis and using parallel thought to perform different tasks at the same time was that of a professional office worker itself.
Their eyes met midway, but there was no time to exchange greetings.
Watching her back as she ran off to search the archives at a senior’s instruction, Danil shrugged.
‘It’s not my problem, but I do feel a little sorry for her. As expected, being an indefinite-term contract worker is much easier on the mind.’
Danil started walking again.
The director’s office on the third floor.
The secretary seated at the desk in front of the door greeted Danil warmly when she saw him.
“Oh my. Welcome, Chief Danil.”
“Thank you for your hard work. The director is inside, isn’t she?”
“Yes. She happens to be having tea, so please go in.”
Normally, he would have been told to wait or schedule a separate appointment, but Danil was an exception.
Danil knocked and stepped inside.
Titania, who had been enjoying black tea with her back to the window, welcomed him gladly.
“Oh? Danil. What brings you here?”
“I came to get your signature on this.”
“Signature? What is it... An annual leave request?”
The delicate brows of the beauty, who possessed both talent and looks renowned even within the Magic Tower, furrowed.
“Annual leave? Why all of a sudden?”
“Well.”
Danil explained the situation.
“Since I’m doing it anyway, I thought I’d train my other magic as well. A month should be enough.”
“A month...”
Titania pondered for a moment, then shook her head.
“Sorry, Danil. Could you postpone this leave?”
“Pardon?”
Danil was flustered.
Since she had never once rejected him before, he was quite taken aback.
She set down her teacup and explained the situation.
“I’d like to approve it if I could, but the timing is bad. As of yesterday, a job came in that I’d like to entrust to you.”
“What is it?”
“We received word from the north. They’ve detected movement from the Steel Scale Tribe.”
“It’s already that time?”
Danil frowned.
The Steel Scale Tribe. Barbarians who hid in the northern highlands, then descended to plunder food and supplies when the season of high skies and fat horses arrived, just like now.
The reason they were called Steel Scales was simple. Unlike other barbarians, they did not raid on horseback, but on wyverns.
That was why, around this time every year, the Grand Duke of the North would request support from the Magic Tower.
When dealing with wyverns, sending in one mage was more efficient than deploying a hundred knights, so it was only natural.
“Can’t you send another legion member instead of me? It’s a chance to meet the Grand Duke of the North, so I doubt anyone would refuse.”
Titania shook her head.
“The circumstances are different this time. His Grace attached conditions.”
“Conditions?”
“At minimum, a mage of the 5th Circle or higher.”
“In that case—”
“And excluding anyone who has been to the north before.”
“What? Why?”
“Simple. Because there were no results.”
Danil understood at once.
Plenty of Foreign Legion mages had been dispatched to the north until now, but not a single one had produced any noteworthy achievements.
“With those conditions... it really is only me.”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
Any mage in the Foreign Legion who was at least a 4th Circle Master had been to the north at least once.
The reason was simple. If they caught the Grand Duke of the North’s eye, they could enter the Magic Tower as a regular employee.
In addition to regular recruitment, the Magic Tower also operated a special recruitment system. One part of that was the recommendation system.
Of course, not just any noble could make a recommendation.
Only nobles from families with renown, power, and long histories—families whose names everyone in the empire knew—were qualified to recommend mages to the Magic Tower.
Across the entire empire, only thirty families satisfied those conditions.
And the Grand Duke of the North was one of the nobles among those thirty.
In other words, if one made a good impression on the Grand Duke of the North, the path to becoming a regular employee opened.
The problem was that the Foreign Legion mages dispatched with only that in mind failed to produce the results the Grand Duke actually wanted, and fell out of favor.
“On top of that, the Grand Duke of the North requested at least four mages.”
“Wow. That’ll cost a fortune, yet he actually went for it.”
Naturally, the cost of dispatching mages varied wildly depending on skill.
If they were 5th Circle mages, their grade was, of course, the highest.
One or two would be one thing, but four? Even for the Grand Duke of the North, that would be a burdensome expense.
Still, the fact that he requested four meant he intended to respond in earnest this time.
“Originally, the Foreign Legion should be in charge, but the conditions are strict. So we reached a final agreement for one person from our department and three from other departments to be sent.”
“So you intend to send me.”
“You’re the only person who fits the conditions and whom I can trust. Besides, there’s the most important reason.”
“What is it?”
“It’s simple. You’re the strongest, aren’t you?”
“Oh, my. I’m honored by your praise.”
Danil took it as a polite compliment, but she was sincere.
Among all mages, black mages were the most specialized in offensive magic.
Danil was such a black mage, and at the same time, a high-ranking mage who had reached 5th Circle Expert.
And that was not all. Having handled ten years of hard-work assignments, Danil possessed practical experience incomparable to any other Foreign Legion mage.
He was a veteran on a level where even knights who had rolled through countless battlefields would not dare present their credentials before him.
Even if there were another mage who fit the conditions, she would have chosen Danil.
After staring down at the leave documents for a long while, Danil sighed.
“If those are the circumstances, then it can’t be helped. Understood. I’ll train later.”
“No. You don’t have to do that.”
“Pardon?”
“I’ll help you. With your training, Danil.”
“Pardooon?!”
Danil was startled.
“No, is that really all right?”
“It’s fine. The point is that you want to train to raise your skill, right? What’s so difficult about helping with that?”
‘No, that wasn’t what I meant.’
Danil was flustered. That was how surprising her offer was.
The mages of the Magic Tower were a collection of geniuses and hidden gems gathered from across the empire.
Among the more than one thousand mages gathered there, how many 5th Circle Masters were there? Surprisingly, fewer than thirty.
A mere three percent.
That was how much of a realm the 5th Circle Master was—one that even geniuses with guaranteed talent and ability could not easily reach.
If compared to a martial arts novel, it would be like a peerless expert who ranked within the top ten even inside a prestigious orthodox sect, while being rare enough that there were not even three of them.
And such an expert had offered to personally instruct him?
For a mage, it was a fortuitous encounter among fortuitous encounters, something one would want even if one had to pay a fortune.
If this were put up for auction?
It was obvious that a warlike competition would break out, like bidding for a “lunch with Warren Buffett.”
“You’re serious, right?”
“Would you prefer it if I were joking?”
“Not at all.”
Anyone who answered “yes” in this situation would be an idiot unqualified to be a mage, and Danil was not that kind of idiot.
At that moment, a question flashed through his mind.
—What did I do so well that she’s giving me an opportunity like this?
After thinking for a moment, he reached a conclusion.
‘Aha. This is a message telling me to learn this, go there, and handle the job properly.’
The client was the Grand Duke of the North. A colossal figure among colossal figures, one of the top five powerhouses in the empire.
A serious request from someone like that? Even Danil, who had no interest in promotion, felt tense, so there was no need to say how Titania felt.
If she could, she probably wanted to go herself.
‘Either way, this is an opportunity. I’ll learn properly and do the job properly! If I do it half-heartedly and end up marked by the Grand Duke of the North, things will get troublesome in all sorts of ways.’
Danil felt grateful for the unexpected fortune that had come to him through a combination of coincidence and circumstance, and at the same time, steeled his resolve to carry out the mission perfectly.
Never dreaming that he was laboring under a grand misunderstanding.
*
‘I’m lucky. I was looking for a pretext anyway. I’ll be able to earn some points with this.’
Titania smiled inwardly.
To think such an opportunity would arise only a few days after she had resolved to make Danil one of her own.
Skill, character, and task performance.
A top-class, A-rank talent who possessed all three.
Having just begun the process of stamping her mark on such a talent, her eyes gleamed.
‘First, I start by drawing this man in. Step by step, one stair at a time. Until I reach the very top of the Magic Tower, where everyone looks up in awe.’
Her goal was to become the Master of the Magic Tower.
If one wanted to rise in the world, connections with the empire’s upper echelons were not merely essential—they were basic necessities.
In that sense, this matter was an excellent opportunity.
A chance to turn the thin thread connecting her to the Grand Duke of the North, formed through operating the Foreign Legion, into a firm cord.
To seize that opportunity, the power of the man before her was absolutely necessary.
‘With Danil’s skill, he’ll be more than capable of going north and establishing conspicuous achievements. To a degree that can’t even be compared with the fools the other departments will dispatch.’
No sooner had the story come in that the Grand Duke of the North wanted four 5th Circle mages than requests poured in from other departments.
What they wanted to say was one thing.
It would be worrying to leave this matter solely to the Foreign Legion, so in the name of fairness, each department should dispatch one person.
Titania accepted this.
‘They bit the bait on their own. I’m grateful, if anything.’
She laughed inwardly at the competitors who were likely rejoicing right about now, thinking only that they had gained an opportunity to grow closer to the Grand Duke of the North.
They would never dream of it.
Why she had yielded such a precious opportunity to them.
She had confidence.
Confidence that her competitors would make mistakes.
The reason was simple.
Unlike her, the other departments were certain to choose the mages to dispatch based not on skill, but on political reasons.
‘Someone from their own faction, perhaps, or someone who gave them an appropriate bribe. With skill treated as a secondary issue.’
They were mistaken.
Why had the Foreign Legion failed to produce any noteworthy results in the north until now? Because they were non-regular workers.
That was the foolish misconception they had.
‘They’re probably thinking this. We’re regular employees. We, who have properly acquired the Magic Tower’s knowledge, are different from indefinite-term contract workers.’
Because they looked down on indefinite-term contract workers.
Because they disdained indefinite-term contract workers.
It was a misunderstanding and illusion born from prejudice against indefinite-term contract workers.
She intended to personally show them, through this opportunity, just how absurd that illusion was.
Through the dagger named Danil standing before her.
‘On the northern front, where they fight barbarians who ride wyverns, field-bred mages will be going up against research-lab mages steeped in the smell of ink.’
She could already see what kind of picture would unfold.
‘Do your best to make fools of yourselves. My decorative friends, who will make Danil’s name and mine shine.’
The beauty, who had dug a trap like an ankle mine that would blow apart her competitors’ footing two and three times over, smiled quietly.
The eyes of the mage, who had finished preparing to seize the greatest political gain with the minimum means, burned fiercely with calculations and ambition for the future.