Genius Prismatic Mage Chapter 43

#043. Old stories and links (5)

The clothes that were prepared outside the door were the perfect size.

It was a new outfit that seemed to have been bought outside, and Veronica seemed to have a good eye for it.

Ray used his magic to create a wind to dry his hair and went down the stairs.

“Ah, I washed it all─.”

Veronica, who had been getting up from the table after seeing Ray, froze in her seat, unable to continue speaking.

A nobleman appeared.

I originally thought that her facial line was graceful, but I never thought it would be this good.

But I didn’t think that simply saying he was handsome could fully express this feeling.

‘There was a word that fit this feeling.’

A word I’ve seen in the dictionary but have never experienced in real life.

The thought crossed my mind on and off.

‘That’s right. Class.’

A high and excellent aura displayed by a person or thing.

It wasn’t because of the clothes.

Because the clothes Ray was wearing now were just everyday clothes that could be commonly found on the streets.

The reason for the nobility was the aura given off by the boy named Ray, which had until now been obscured by dust and dirt.

Veronica came to her senses as if she had been released from the spell only when Ray came right up to the table and cried out.

“You look like a completely different person! Your hair was originally white?”

“I guess so.”

“It’s amazing and wonderful. If you told me now that you were the same person as before, no one would believe you.”

Veronica, who had been exclaiming in admiration, noticed the bundle of clothes Ray had changed into in one of his hands.

“Oh, and if you give me those clothes, I can wash them─”

More than half of the garment was torn or burned, effectively rendering it largely useless as clothing.

The clothes were screaming.

Stop it now… Kill me…

“─ seems like it would be difficult. Wouldn’t it be better to just let it go?”

Ray looked down at the bundle of clothes, went outside, and came back empty-handed.

“Did you throw it away?”

“I burned it down.”

“… You really make decisions quickly.”

“Then we can move on to the next thing. So can we start class now?”

“Yeah. Do you want to take a seat?”

A girl and a boy sat side by side.

Veronica opened the book and began to explain.

“First, this part… .”

It was his first time teaching someone, so he seemed a little nervous, but his explanation was basically smooth and to the point.

“… So the subject and predicate are connected in this order.”

It didn’t take long for Ray to become absorbed in class.

I’ve learned simple writing from Niles before, but I’ve never heard a proper explanation like this.

I was able to learn new things about things I hadn’t learned before, and I was able to solidify and move on to things I already knew.

“This is a difficult part. Can you explain it again?”

“No. I understand. You can skip it.”

Since I already had background knowledge and Ray’s comprehension skills were excellent, the progress went smoothly without any problems.

About an hour later.

widely!

Veronica, who had just finished the last chapter of her first textbook, wrote down some questions in her notebook and handed it to Ray.

Square, square.

The answers came back in less than a minute.

Veronica said in a surprised voice.

“There’s only one mistake! At this rate, it won’t even take a month to finish the textbook.”

“That’s great. What’s next?”

“huh?”

“Aren’t you going to make the next progress?”

“Uh… next step?”

Veronica was embarrassed.

He finished what other people would do in a week in an hour and then asked to move on to the next step without showing any sign of fatigue.

I had a strong feeling.

As the course progresses and the difficulty of the textbook increases, Ray’s desire and speed of learning will likely not decrease.

‘… Will I be able to teach Ray at his own pace in the future?’

I thought I knew how my grandfather felt, sometimes looking tired when asked if there was anything more to learn.

And then I realized something.

The act of teaching consumes twice as much energy as being taught.

I still haven’t fully recovered from the fatigue I felt when I tried to build the circle.

I felt like I was going to collapse if I didn’t immediately burrow into bed and start crying.

A sense of crisis washed over me.

But at the same time, I felt competitive.

‘I also had fun while taking the class.’

The act of teaching gave the girl greater satisfaction and pleasure than she had imagined.

I got greedy.

The desire to teach more systematically and professionally.

As soon as class ended, didn’t you naturally start thinking about how to prepare for the next class?

The little red-haired educator thought long and hard before making a decision.

Yes, challenge! I accept it!

“Is it okay if we stop here for today?”

But not right now!

“Instead, I will prepare the class for tomorrow so that we can look at several textbooks.”

“okay.”

Ray agreed with Veronica’s words more easily than he thought.

It was because I thought that I would have no problem reading the book, even if it was slow, with just what I had learned today.

“Oh, and Ray, can I ask you a favor?”

“which?”

“Can you watch me while I make a circle?”

Ray thought for a moment and then opened his mouth.

“I don’t think I could be of much help even if I were there. I’m not good at explaining things like you, and I just created a circle based on my feelings.”

“It’s okay. Just watch over me. If you think of anything, you can tell me.”

It wasn’t that difficult of a request.

I thought it might be a way to repay the class.

“Okay, I’ll do that.”

“thank you!”

While Veronica cleared the table, Ray quickly finished reviewing his textbook.

Then he got up from his seat, looked around the bookshelves, and asked.

“Here are some books, can I read them?”

“Huh? Yeah! Just look at it cleanly. Don’t crumple it up or scribble on it. But do you think you can read it by yourself?”

“I’ll try.”

“Then, look for the dictionary on that bookshelf first!”

“dictionary?”

“Yeah. It’s a book that organizes the meanings of almost every word in the world. It’ll be helpful when you come across a word you don’t know.”

All the words that exist in the world.

Ray’s thoughts immediately brought up one word.

“Does the meaning of rainbow come out too?”

“Uh… I didn’t look it up, but it’s a word related to magic, so I don’t think it’ll show up…?”

Ray nodded slightly.

Anyway, it was definitely a very useful book since it organized the meanings of words.

I thought as I walked towards the bookshelf in the direction Veronica pointed.

‘First, look up the dictionary. Then, look up the book… .’

It will be an auto mechanic.

Considering that the journey ahead will be mostly by car, maintenance was a category of knowledge that I absolutely had to acquire.

If the car suddenly stopped in the wilderness, it would be a big problem as you would be stuck and unable to go anywhere.

‘I’m just glad nothing happened to the car on the way here.’

The wasteland leading to Sector 49 was by no means short, boasting a long and rugged terrain.

Objectively speaking, it wasn’t all that strange that the car broke down in the middle of the road.

It was truly a stroke of luck.

At that time, the situation was so urgent that we had no choice but to set off without any preparation, but now that we had more time, it was a different story.

Before moving on to the next sector, I wanted to make thorough preparations in many areas.

‘Chrome… well… dictionary… . That’s what Veronica said.’

Ray stopped in front of the bookshelf and discovered a book that appeared to be a dictionary.

The cover is brown leather.

The thickness is almost a span.

At first glance, I could tell that it was something out of the ordinary, and as soon as I took it out, I felt an overwhelming sense of weight.

I thought that hitting a person’s head with this would be very effective.

‘Books are extremely useful items.’

Then suddenly I felt eyes on me.

I opened the dictionary and flipped through the pages, thinking calmly.

‘Stairs side. Not Veronica. She’s still sitting at the table.’

Since there were only four people living here, it was clear who the owner of the gaze was.

I turned my head slowly.

Halfway down the stairs, I saw Veronica’s two younger brothers looking this way.

Yulta and Morphine.

As soon as their eyes met, the two children were startled and ran away to the second floor.

A momentary but alertness was visible in the bowl.

But Ray was now paying attention to something else.

‘… Your face looks familiar. Where have I seen it before?’

Ray wasn’t very good at remembering people’s faces.

There was no problem with the memory itself.

Rather, in other areas, his memory was several times better than other people’s.

This was true only for human faces, and no matter how distinctive their features were, they all looked similar to Ray’s eyes.

To exaggerate a little, it feels like living in a world where everyone’s faces are all blank sheets of paper.

Because of this, Ray usually tended to remember and distinguish people by other intuitive indicators, such as hair color or height.

As time passed together, it became possible to picture that person’s face completely in my mind.

… if the time without seeing someone becomes even a little longer, their face begins to quickly evaporate from memory.

It’s been like that since birth.

It was something the boy had no control over, something like an innate physical condition that could not be changed through effort.

‘I don’t know. I don’t remember.’

I frowned slightly and thought about it, but nothing came to mind.

I stopped worrying about it being a waste of time and focused on the work I was doing.

Whirlyric──

The words appeared to be arranged in alphabetical order.

Ray stopped at the page he wanted and searched for a word by carefully tracing it with his finger.

As expected, there was no rainbow.

It was just as Veronica said.

Ray ignored him and started turning the pages again.

Before long, I reached another page, my finger moving down, skimming over several words.

Then it suddenly stopped.

The finger was pointing to the word sacrifice.

“Sacrificial offering – an animal or person offered to the target during a ritual or the like.”

The other interpretations that followed are all in a similar vein.

The meaning of the word sacrifice did not deviate much from Ray’s guess.

The contents of the letter from the man I had read in the basement came back to my mind clearly.

“The red bloodstones I received… I can still become stronger… .”

“Living on the streets… as sacrifices… orphans… even if they disappear, no one… cares… 66 people… That proves my boldness… my determination…”

The reason the man approached Cedric.

The outlines of the situation became clearer.

widely.

Ray closed the dictionary and put it in his bosom.

I continued to walk around the bookstore and took out additional books that I thought I needed or that piqued my interest.

Before I knew it, my arms were full of books.

“Small Vehicle Structure Manual”

“Automobile Maintenance Textbook”

“A Wasteland Geography Guide for Travelers”

“Dream Interpretation”

“What is a human being?”

All of these books are so thick that they are almost like dictionaries.

It’s a shame that there aren’t any magic-related books, but even without them, the list seems like it would provide useful knowledge.

It could also be used for other purposes in an emergency.

’78 survival tips for various environments. I want to read this too.’

There is not enough space in the chest, so stacking more is impossible.

Ray, who had been thinking for a moment, drew mana from the ring.

Woof─

Several colored mana traveled down the owner’s arms and into his palms.

It erupted through the narrow gap between the book and the palm, and they tangled together in a soft but quick gesture.

The completed mana is a transparent sky blue.

The pile of books began to float in the air, wrapped in mana that climbed up like vines.

Within seconds, Ray’s hands were empty.

‘If things were normal, I would have barely been able to get one volume up.’

Yeomdong was a magic that was not used often because it was difficult and required a lot of mental power.

… but when I used the mana of the ring, the difficulty level became ridiculously easy.

‘When I get back to the car, I’ll have to test out the other spells properly. And the mana most contained in the rings is red… pink… and white. It seems to be in that order.’

These were all colors that had a connection to the emotions of anger, sadness, and worry that left a big mark on our hearts.

For a moment, a question occurred to me.

As the number of emotions you can feel increases, does the ratio of mana contained in the ring also change?

And what kind of magic can you use with pink mana?

Pink mana was a color that was not commonly used in the past due to its unique stickiness, similar to white mana.

‘But not now.’

The pink mana contained in the ring was not sticky at all.

If you put in the effort and try out different things, you might discover a new magic.

But why is that?

I didn’t feel like doing that.

The reason was clear.

Although the boy didn’t realize it.

This was because the emotion associated with the pink mana was none other than sadness.

“Shoooo …

The moment when I held the dead Niles in my arms and cried beside the collapsed tent on a rainy night.

The boy felt sad at that time.

The face of sadness that he first encountered after being born was terribly horrible, and a fear took root deep in the boy’s heart.

“I never want to feel that way again.”

It was a kind of protective device.

A warning message planted deep in the subconscious by the boy’s brain to protect his master’s mind.

From then on, the boy began to feel aversion to anything that reminded him of sadness.

‘It’s clearly inefficient to waste this much mana.’

Although you may not be aware of it yourself.

‘But for now, red and white mana will suffice.’

I developed a very thorough and huge rejection.

The boy thought about it and started walking again.

Books as heavy as the wounds that had sunk deep into the boy’s heart followed him.