How would parents feel if they saw the child they had raised like precious jade and gold nestled snugly in the arms of another acquaintance? And what if the parents hadn’t even entrusted the child to that acquaintance, but the child had suddenly left home on their own and declared, “I’m going to live here!”?
What parent in the world could laugh that off with a “Ha ha, then you raise them”?
“……Haa.”
Of course, to Ian, the value of the notebook wasn’t quite that great. It wasn’t low, but still, compared to a child he had given birth to himself, it fell short in many ways.
The enormous sum of four hundred million did weigh on his mind a little, but he hadn’t exactly grown attached to the notebook itself the way he had to the grimoires. They simply hadn’t spent enough time together for that.
So even after confirming the notebook’s existence, he didn’t recklessly beat Amelia down and retrieve it.
Instead, he dragged over a nearby chair and sat beside Eric’s bed.
“How’s your body?”
“Not bad. But not good, either.”
Eric answered Ian’s question. After chewing noisily on a slice of apple Amelia had peeled for him, he wiped the juice from his beard.
“I let too many attacks through. I used magic in succession, and I even got burned. My organs melted a little from abusing ether beyond the permissible limit, too.”
“……”
“No matter how much dirt I ate to reconstruct my flesh, I can’t surpass the vessel I was born with. Talent isn’t something to be ignored. Well, with bloody effort, a second-rate man can become first-rate.”
“Are you talking about yourself?”
“I won’t deny it.”
Eric gave a faint laugh, propped his pillow diagonally against the end of the bed, and leaned his waist against it as he sat up.
Through the blanket that slid down with a rustle, bloodstained bandages and clothes showed faintly. Smelling the faint scent of blood drifting over, Ian crossed his legs.
“Looks like the bleeding still hasn’t completely stopped.”
“They must have used some strange fetish. I expected as much when they chose machetes over that useful tool called a gun. The flesh torn from my wrist is recovering strangely slowly, too. Since I was hit by a supernatural ability, it’s not that odd.”
“I heard you were attacked by the Florence Mercenary Corps. I dealt with their boss a few days ago.”
“……You did? Why?”
“Because I was attacked too. Ah, mind if I smoke one? It’s not something harmful to the human body.”
“I don’t care. Amelia, what about you?”
Eric asked Amelia. She had been listening to their conversation with sparkling eyes, and she flinched in surprise, her cheeks reddening.
“M-Me? I’m f-fine! I don’t mind! Things made by the Clock Tower aren’t particularly bad for the body anyway……”
“Why are you so nervous? Are you uncomfortable?”
Ian asked with a gentle smile. Amelia avoided his gaze as though embarrassed.
“N-No. It’s just…… seeing mages talk to each other looks kind of cool……”
She looked like a pure child.
Ian glanced at the notebook she was hugging tightly, then patted Amelia’s head and took out a cigarette, placing it between his lips.
When he lit it, a faint, sweet candy-like fragrance spread through the air.
“I captured Laura and handed her over to an inquisitor. I killed all the other mercenaries on the spot except Victor and Pitcher.”
“……An inquisitor, huh. Not exactly beings friendly to mages.”
“I happen to know one personally. I left her disposal to them. They would have killed her anyway.”
“I suppose so. The Vatican tends to slaughter all subspecies like vampires, werewolves, and elves. More than that, the fact that you captured Laura feels even more impressive. How did you track her? It couldn’t have been easy because of the sniper on their side.”
“Confidential.”
“You damned bastard. Playing hard to get, are you?”
Eric let out a hollow laugh and picked up a potion from the shelf, gulping it down. The blue liquid vanished from the glass bottle in an instant.
It didn’t seem to taste very good, as Eric grimaced and wiped his mouth.
“Khh……”
“What medicine is that?”
“A drug with hemostatic ingredients and painkilling effects. It also helps natural healing a little.”
“Hmm…… Is there no such thing as a complete cure-all?”
“……Do you think reality is some kind of game? There’s no such thing. Alchemists spend their entire lives trying to make elixirs, but there haven’t been any successful cases.”
Eric answered with an expression of utter disbelief. Then he heaved a deep sigh and glanced sidelong at Ian.
“So, why did you suddenly come here? Surely you didn’t come to see me, so state your purpose.”
“……It’s nothing much. I just came to look for something I lost.”
Ian exhaled smoke into the air and turned to look at Amelia. She had been fidgeting with her fingers, and when she met Ian’s black eyes, her shoulders trembled.
“Amelia.”
“Y-Yes?”
“I hope you’ll answer honestly. If you tell a pointless lie and get caught, things will become troublesome for both you and me.”
He turned his body toward Amelia, leaned his upper body forward slightly, and looked down at the black notebook.
“Where did you get that notebook?”
“Uh. Umm……”
“Should I speak honestly first? That notebook is Faust’s Note, which I purchased a few days ago from the general store in Pleas. I bought it for four hundred million, and on the day I purchased it, I recorded the general magic and common magic I knew in it. But the day after I recorded them, the notebook disappeared.”
Ian continued, trying as much as possible not to make Amelia feel pressured.
“That notebook is now in your arms.”
“……Ah.”
“Could you explain?”
“Th-That……! This is……!”
Amelia couldn’t keep her fingers still as she hugged the notebook, her eyes trembling as she glanced sideways at Eric. Eric let out a long sigh.
Normally, few mages went around telling others what grimoires they possessed. Perhaps it was different for a natural-born mage who had coincidentally picked up a grimoire, but mages like Amelia, who had received a basic education, knew better than anyone that if they carelessly blabbered about grimoires, they could be assassinated without a trace.
Of course, there were times when one had no choice but to use a grimoire, but when asked so openly like this, most people did not answer. Even Amelia, who had not yet become a mage, knew that fact.
But the current situation was rather special. Even for Eric, this was the first time he had seen a mage who didn’t even know he had created a grimoire mistake it for a notebook and claim ownership over it.
‘It’s not impossible that this man is lying…… but a mage of that level would go so far as to lie and claim ownership of a grimoire? Especially when he already possesses one?’
In ordinary cases, a mage could only handle a single grimoire. The moment that number went beyond two, the burden on the body and mind made it impossible to use magic freely.
The saying “the more, the better” was not an idiom that applied to grimoires, at least. On the contrary, having many was poison.
Talent for grimoires and talent for magic were separate things. No matter how outstanding a mage might be, if his compatibility with grimoires was not high, he would become half-crippled the moment he handled two or more. One had to be at the level of the master of the Clock Tower to handle two.
A mage of that caliber would not be an idiot who did not even know such common sense and merely indulged his greed, so Eric decided to take his words as truth. Thus, instead of embellishing this and that, he conveyed only the plain truth to Ian.
“That notebook is the grimoire that came to Amelia on the day of the attack. It said its name was the Archive of Knowledge.”
“……What? A grimoire?”
Ian turned his head toward Eric and frowned. Amelia hugged the notebook tightly, and Eric sighed.
“Yes, a grimoire. Most likely, because you wrote magic into it, an ordinary notebook awakened as a grimoire. It’s not common, but for a mage with abnormally outstanding aptitude for grimoires, it’s entirely possible. There are precedents.”
“……”
“The Key of Solomon. Originally, that wasn’t a grimoire, but just an ordinary book of magic that Solomon wrote for his son. But once the book was completed, it was suddenly elevated in rank to a grimoire. It seems you went through something similar.”
“……Huh.”
Ian let out a hollow laugh. With a look of disbelief, he stared down at the grimoire in Amelia’s arms.
“……Is there proof that it’s a grimoire? To me, it just feels like an ordinary notebook.”
“That’s because you’re the author who wrote the grimoire. If you touch it, you’ll feel it.”
Eric gestured to Amelia with his eyes. Quick to understand, she quietly held out the grimoire she had been hugging.
“……”
On the cover of the notebook, which had definitely had nothing written on it, the title [Archive of Knowledge] was clearly engraved in Korean.
Ian placed a finger lightly on the cover, then sensed the natural ether flowing from within the notebook and squeezed his eyes shut.
“……It’s real. It’s a grimoire.”
“There’s only one precedent, so it’s hard to be certain, but Solomon did possess ownership of the grimoire he wrote. He transferred it to his son, and his son became the owner of the grimoire. That’s why, in classes dealing with Solomon’s history, they tend to teach that ‘the owner of a grimoire created without even the mage himself knowing naturally becomes the mage who wrote the grimoire.’”
“……”
“But looking at you, that doesn’t seem to be the case either. The grimoire left you and chose another master on its own.”
Eric murmured as if intrigued, rubbing his chin. A sentence to refute his words naturally came to Ian’s mind.
‘It must have given up staying by my side because I possess the grimoire of an Outer God. It would explode and die the moment it tried to read it.’
Just because it was a grimoire Ian had written did not mean it possessed the same rank as the grimoire of an Outer God.
Since the master who possessed the grimoire of an Outer God was treated among grimoires as no different from an Outer God, it might be superior to ordinary grimoires, but it could not help being vastly inferior in rank to something belonging to an Outer God.
Because Ian was not an actual Outer God. No matter how grimoires regarded him, he was still human, and merely a mage.
‘Still, since the treatment is the same, that grimoire must at least feel like something frightening among grimoires.’
Ian let out a deep sigh and leaned back against the chair. Then he merely rolled his eyes toward Amelia.
“……Is everything he said true, Amelia?”
“Y-Yes!”
Amelia answered immediately. Hugging the Archive of Knowledge back to her chest, she continued with a serious expression.
“I-I’m sorry that I ended up having something that originally belonged to you. If y-you ask me to return it, I’m willing to give it back. But…… but…… with this, I can become a proper mage too. So, um……”
Toward the end, her voice trailed off as if she were about to cry. Ian stared silently at Amelia for a moment, then smiled bitterly and waved his hand.
“It’s fine. Amelia, you can just use it.”
“Y-Yes? Is that really okay……?”
“Yes. It’s a bit awkward for me to use anyway.”
Now that the notebook had become a grimoire, Ian could no longer read it.
The moment he opened the cover, it would go boom and explode, so how on earth was he supposed to read its contents? Even if he forcibly took it back, it would be useless for anything but a pot stand.
So he gave up ownership.
Instead, he demanded compensation with confidence.
“Whatever the reason, my possession ended up in your hands, so I should be compensated. I don’t think you’re shameless enough to shut your mouth and pretend otherwise, Eric.”
“Hmm, this is also my first time buying a grimoire from the creator of the grimoire. In the modern era, there are hardly any people overflowing with aptitude, talent, and ability enough to create a grimoire.”
Eric gave a faint laugh and took out his cell phone.
“I’ll pay compensation. You said the price of the notebook was four hundred million? Then I’ll generously deposit ten times that amount. Will that satisfy you?”
“……Four billion?”
At the staggering sum that made his mouth fall open, Ian widened his eyes. Eric nodded.
“If I use not only my personal money but also the family’s funds, I should be able to pay it sufficiently. We’ll have to endure some bleeding, but if we can bring an outstanding grimoire into the family’s possession, it isn’t a bad deal.”
“……I’m surprised in a different sense. Four billion is such a large sum to you that your family has to endure bleeding?”
"Did you think we're the heads of some major conglomerate? Just because we're a mage family doesn't mean we have money rotting and overflowing. As much as we earn, what goes out is just as staggering. Don't think of us like some corporation. A family is a family, not a business. And it's not a major hemorrhage—it's a minor one. Minor."
Eric furrowed his brow slightly and made excuses. Ian grunted in acknowledgment and nodded.
Come to think of it, a family was merely a group of people with the same surname living together. In the old days, they were revered as nobles or whatnot, but now that the caste system had been abolished, it didn't hold much meaning.
Of course, they had built up considerable assets over their long history, but as was the nature of magic as an academic discipline, their expenditures were inevitably high. Wasn't the society of mages one where just buying a few materials made hundreds of millions vanish in an instant? Even a family couldn't be free from that rule.
Well, he had no real interest in Eric's family financial situation. The only thing that mattered was that 4 billion was coming into his hands.
It was a proposal without any reason to refuse. He had come all this way for 400 million in the first place; there was no reason to turn down an opportunity to earn ten times that amount.
Ian smirked and nodded.
"When can you deposit it?"
"Right away is possible. I have the authority to use the family funds as well. A 'minor' hemorrhage of about 4 billion is manageable."
Eric emphasized the word "minor" as he waved his smartphone. Ian crossed his arms.
"All right, then. That minor amount. I'd appreciate it if you deposited it right away."
"Understood. Since it's a minor amount, I'll send it immediately."
Tap, tap.
Eric fiddled with his phone and made a call somewhere. After spouting off in French for a while, he finally sent the money to Ian's account. Ian frowned when he saw the deposited amount.
"...It's 3.6 billion?"
"It's because I used a Cartel account. They took 10 percent as a fee."
"What."
"When money exceeding 1 billion moves, substantial fees are attached. It's one of the Cartel's means of fund procurement. It's a brazen racket they run because they know most of those who dwell in the arcane use their bank, and since there's no alternative aside from this, it can't be helped. Just accept it."
"...Hah."
Ian looked at the transfer record where it stated a 10 percent fee and let out a sigh.
He decided to think positively since it was no different from having earned 3.2 billion. He put his phone in his pocket and slowly rose to his feet.
"Well then, since I've accomplished my goal, I'll be on my way. You take care of yourself, too."
"Wait, there's one proposal I have before you go. If you were the one who used Amelia's grimoire, then you would be the most suitable person for that child."
"...?"
Ian looked down at Eric with a gaze that seemed to ask what kind of nonsense he was spouting. Amelia intuited what would follow and flushed red, while Eric spoke with a serious expression:
"Do you have any intention of taking my granddaughter as your fiancée?"
"Oh, for fuck's sake, you crazy old bastard."
Caught completely off guard by those words, Ian kicked him in the side.
"Kuaaaack!!"
Eric let out a scream.