Chapter 5

Part 3: Establishing a Knowledge Base

WE arrived at a town just as the sun started to set. I felt bad because I had probably wasted a ton of time just struggling through the unfamiliar forest paths. Normally, I wasn’t the exercising type, so if I’d been in my old body, I definitely would have grown exhausted halfway through the trek. But this young woman’s body didn’t know the meaning of the word “tired”—and honestly, it was a lifesaver. It would have been difficult for me to ask Ralf for breaks when he was already doing me such a huge favor by guiding me to the nearest settlement.

As soon as we reached the town, the first thing Ralf did was, kindly, buy me shoes. I’d already gotten used to walking barefoot, but he must have thought it would be unsightly to keep doing so in town.

And that wasn’t the only thing he did for me, either. Wonder of wonders, he also reserved a room at an inn where I could stay the night. In fact, I had the space all to myself—apparently, he wasn’t staying there himself. I wondered how much he’d spent and whether I could even pay him back. Constantly being on the receiving end of someone’s generosity was stressing me out.

I sat down on the bed, opened my notebook, and picked up a pen. I wanted to jot down everything the young man had taught me today while the knowledge was still fresh in my mind. Needless to say, he’d bought me these things too. My stomach dropped at the thought of being a kept man, which told me I probably wasn’t suited to the role.

First in my notes, my current location. Situated somewhat south of the Northern Continent, it was a municipality called the Independent Commercial City-State of Pleine. The streets on the way to the inn had been vibrant with activity, the hum of lively voices floating over from the marketplace. The jovial atmosphere had reminded me of Japan’s bustling shopping districts and street stalls during festivals. The growth of supermarkets and department stores had led to a decline in Japan’s traditional shopping districts, so what I’d seen so far of this town had given me a sense of nostalgia.

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Pleine was a city-state formed by a consensus between distinguished members of the Merchants’ Association and the Adventurers’ Guild. As a result, it was considered the freest country in the region, where ability was valued above all else.

Head a bit to the west and you’d find yourself in the Holy Nation of Lejion, apparently a theocracy. Not knowing left from right, I’d been fortunate not to wander there by accident. Religions usually had enough strict rules that if I’d ended up in Lejion, I would have been in danger of making some kind of fatal mistake simply because I didn’t know any better.

Further north was the massive Kingdom of Dicent and to the south was the military power of the Principality of Dothart. I planned to learn more about all these places at some point soon, in books and the like.

Anyway, back to the most important matter at hand: finding a job. After all, I had to make a living in this world somehow, and to my delight, there was a profession in this world that required nothing more than registering to do it. Your background and status were irrelevant. And that profession was “adventurer.” In Ralf’s opinion, if you could use magic, you’d never go hungry.

He also told me things could be difficult for me because my striking appearance would probably attract trouble from unsavory characters. So I had two options: become an adventurer, do my job well, and find a protector quickly; or use magic to the best of my ability and show people what I was capable of.

Lacking both an identity and confidence that I could survive in this chaotic, unconventional world, I asked Ralf to show me to the Adventurers’ Guild. He agreed without any protest and said he’d pick me up the next morning. Then I watched him leave, my hands pressed together in gratitude.

Before Ralf left, I’d also asked him about the system of ranking adventurers. It started at Rank 10, but that didn’t mean Rank 1 was the strongest, because there was also a Special Rank designation. People who fell into that category were monstrously powerful, apparently. And first-rank adventurers were strong enough to influence entire cities and countries, so I couldn’t even begin to imagine what the Special Rank were capable of.

All kinds of strange legends sprung up around those sorts of people. Like, one could destroy an entire nation’s army on their own. Another had defeated a dragon, or killed a king and took his place. It sounded like the smartest thing to do was not to get involved with them. Don’t poke the bear, as the saying goes.

The real point of the Special Rank designation seemed to be to give titles and privileges to such untouchable people in order to keep a tight rein on them. In other words, the highest an adventurer should actually aim for was Rank 1.

Ralf had been kind enough to give me the names and aliases of several Special Rank adventurers and I noted them down in my notebook so I wouldn’t forget. But I had promised myself that if I ever actually heard about one of them showing up in the flesh, I’d pretend I hadn’t and immediately sequester myself if their name rang a bell. I’d treat them no differently from wanted criminals.

As for magic, it turned out that Ralf himself couldn’t use it. Evidently, some people were suited for it while others just weren’t.

Personally, I would have been devastated if I’d ended up in another world and couldn’t use magic. So I was secretly pleased to learn I had a talent for it—emphasis on “secretly,” because I felt bad about Ralf’s lack of ability on that front. Still, he knew a lot about magic for someone who couldn’t use it. He said that he made a point of accumulating a lot of knowledge on the topic just in case he got into a fight with a mage.

In general, magic referred to the manipulation of the magical energy that filled the world (also known as mana) to cause some kind of phenomenon to occur. A lot of it was still shrouded in mystery, with very little known for sure, and although magic had been divided into different categories, it didn’t seem like one person was better than another at any given category. Each common spell had its own name, and after reciting an incantation, the magic activated when its name was spoken.

I couldn’t have asked for a clearer explanation. Incredible.

But it also raised the question of what exactly I had invoked earlier. I hadn’t used an incantation or said the proper name of a spell. Maybe that was why Ralf had assumed I was a powerful mage, because he’d just seen me perform an unknown spell. Maybe that was also why he was treating me so kindly. But in reality, I still didn’t know much about magic, so I decided that going forward, I would pretend to mumble an incantation, low enough that people couldn’t hear me, before casting.

A thought suddenly popped into my head as I wrote all I’d learned in my notebook. When was the last time I ever coveted knowledge this greedily? When was the last time I worked hard, driven by the desperate need to make ends meet?

I’d been a relatively well-off bachelor for a long time now. At some point over the years, I had given up on passionately seeking anything or striving after what I wanted. Instead, I just lived my life eating whatever I wanted and wasting my time on whatever pleasures were at hand.