Kreeeeeek.
“The inside’s cleaner than I expected?”
When the old wooden door opened, what greeted me was a room with two neatly arranged beds.
The gap between the beds was a bit narrow for a person to pass through, but it was neater than expected, and the mage smiled in satisfaction.
“I was secretly worried I’d see bugs or rats scurrying about nearby, you know? But at this level, we can get through a day just fine.”
“Are you scared of bugs or rats?”
“I should say I just hate them, shouldn’t I? It’s not that I’m scared, but if I see one, I’d call it rather repulsive.”
So even a mage isn’t that different from an ordinary person.
It feels like some illusion is being shattered.
“What’s with that look? Is that a disappointed look?”
“…It’s nothing. Let’s unpack first.”
“Hmm.”
I deliberately ignored the mage’s gaze and approached the bed on the left of the two.
The bed I chose had a crunchy feel, made of straw wrapped in cloth over a stiff wooden plank.
I sat on it with faint hope, and true to a straw bed, my hips sank in without any elasticity, thudding down.
“As I thought, it’s just an ordinary straw bed.”
“I wasn’t even expecting the luxury beds used in the Holy City. Still, since there aren’t any bugs or rats inside, I’d say it passes.”
When I sat on the bed and looked back at her, she too sat on the left bed and looked back at me.
“So? It seems we still have time before bed. What do you want to do?”
“Shall we at least have dinner? We left our territory in such a hurry that we barely ate breakfast.”
“Hmm, I think I saw a door to the dining hall on the first floor, but… it seems something I need to handle has come up.”
“What?”
Something she needs to handle?
I looked at her with a nervous expression, bracing myself, but contrary to my expectations, she looked back at me with a faint smile.
“I didn’t expect to encounter one so soon, but for a new student enrolling in Academia, this might be a rather valuable experience.”
“What do you mean?”
“Didn’t I tell you before at the clearing? Academia is an institution created to cultivate mages capable of responding to mysterious entities that attack the Empire.”
“You did.”
She had definitely said that in a small clearing in the forest where we’d stopped the carriage.
The world is composed of matter, soul, and ether, and the purpose for which mages gather—mages, the very reason Academia was founded—is to resonate with ether and oppose mysterious entities that ordinary people can hardly perceive.
“It tends to be a bit worse in the Holy City, but even outside, such rumors abound: a vengeful spirit of a wronged person appearing in a well, or the owners of a cursed stuffed specimen dying one after another, or a bright, handsome child being swapped by a fairy’s prank… strange rumors like that.”
“Ah, those baseless rumors like a shadow wolf running through a barley field, or cutting open a goose to find golden eggs?”
“Yes. Most of those ridiculous rumors are delusions or lies, but among them exist genuine ones that cannot be ignored on an imperial scale. Left alone, they don’t stop at just a few deaths—they grow into calamities capable of greatly affecting all of humanity.”
“Oho.”
As soon as she finished speaking, the mage plunged her hand deep into the bed she was sitting on.
The straw bed swallowed her hand without resistance, like pudding.
Then—
Reeeeeeeeeek!!
The anguished cry of a beast filled the room, ringing sharply in my ears.
“Ugh!”
“Ordinary inns have rats or bugs. Those tiny things are born from the void, so they’re unavoidable. Yet the moment we opened the door, wasn’t it too clean? As if someone invisible had been continuously devouring them.”
Her hand fumbled around as if grasping something, then pulled out with force.
Poof!
The straw that made up the bed scattered in pieces, flying everywhere.
It was a scene like a child tearing apart a bed and playing with the straw inside, but I didn’t even see the scattered straw.
Because there, clutched in her hand and struggling, was a creature both familiar and yet seen for the first time in my life.
Flail, flail!
With short legs, bumpy skin, and large eyes, it resembled a frog from a lake or puddle, but like a creature with a supernatural invisibility power, its body kept alternating between transparent and distinct.
A wondrous creature that looked as if it was trying to vanish into the void.
What should I call it?
Shadow frog? Or Transparent Frog?
“Hmm, so there was a Void Frog after all. A creature within my expectations.”
“…A Void Frog?”
“Yes. It’s not particularly dangerous, but these Void Frogs can teleport to nearby spots if there’s a narrow opening. That’s why they’re one of the trickier ones to catch.”
What did the mage just say?
That a frog can teleport?
“A frog can teleport? Can all beings that resonate with ether possess such absurd abilities?”
“Yes. Is there a problem?”
“Then if I become a mage, would I be able to teleport with magic like that frog…?”
I calmed my pounding heart and asked the mage, who was holding the struggling Void Frog.
Teleportation.
A word that set my heart racing with romantic longing after a long time.
“Pfft! Your eyes are hilarious, kid. You’re like a sword-loving boy seeing a steel blade for the first time.”
“…Is my gaze that strange?”
“No, it’s just so full of pure curiosity that it’s cute.”
The mage looked at me with eyes like an older sister doting on her adorable younger sibling, then wrapped both hands tightly around the frog in her grip.
Then, the frog that had been frantic to escape gradually lost strength in its body, its flailing short limbs slumping loosely.
Did it die?
“I knocked it out for a moment since it was too noisy. Void Frogs are hard to find normally, so they trade at high prices.”
The mage who said this brought the limp Void Frog to the mouth of a small pouch at her bosom.
Then—
Shoop!
Like dust being sucked into a vacuum cleaner, the frog near the pouch’s opening was drawn inside at a speed faster than the eye could see, leaving an afterimage.
“Hmm, as expected, it was worth the money. I think using up half a year’s wages to acquire this was a good choice.”
“…What is that?”
“Exactly what you see—a pouch that can store mysterious entities. Though if I try to put in something that resists too strongly, the pouch gets damaged, so I can’t store an unlimited number.”
The mage glanced at the pouch containing the Void Frog, nodded as if confirming it had gone in properly, and tucked it back into her bosom.
“Void Frogs are relatively docile, so leaving it alone wouldn’t have been a problem for a few years, but its body keeps growing. Once it grew large enough to eat people, mysterious disappearances would have kept happening in this territory.”
“…It eats people.”
“From the Void Frog’s perspective, bugs and people are both just food, aren’t they? Until now, its body was too small to eat humans, but if it grew large enough to swallow a person, there would be no easier prey than a human, right?”
Of course, part of it was that they couldn’t learn the concept that swallowing humans would invite certain retaliation, but Void Frogs simply weren’t that intelligent. Having finished speaking, the mage looked around the room, which had become a complete mess.
“I don’t think we’ll be sleeping here tonight.”
“Can’t you clean up this mess at once with magic? Like turning back time, for example.”
“Magic isn’t that all-powerful, you know. Of course, there are mages who can do such things, but I’m not that kind of mage.”
The mage, who had been shaking her head at my question, soon sighed and spoke with a resigned expression.
“It can’t be helped. We’ll just have to pay extra and ask them to clean the room. We can have dinner while they clean, so it’s fine.”
“Money… It’s quite different from the way of mages I had in mind.”
“Pfft! Sorry to shatter your romantic notions of magic, but anything magic can do can, for the most part, be done with money too. It just costs more and takes longer.”
Having said that, she led me to the counter on the first floor and explained the situation to the girl who had given us the key.
The girl grew angry at the mage’s words, but soon became docile at the substantial compensation offered, nodding and leaving to clean our room.
After finishing dinner and returning to our room, it was tidied up cleanly, as if by magic.
It seemed her words were true—what could be done with magic could also be done with money.