“Heck yeah! Not that I was worried!”
Zeonly’s results had arrived. He opened the letter immediately and saw he had been accepted into the magic school’s Advanced class.
“Did you pass?” asked the old lady who had given him the letter. She managed the inn where he was staying.
As if she needed to ask.
“Duh!” the boy boasted. “I’m Zeonly! I’m a prodigy whose name will be remembered forever in the magical world!”
He was way too cocky for his own good, but he was undeniably talented. Otherwise, the twelve-year-old Zeonly—who didn’t yet possess the name Finroll—was just an ordinary child.
“I have a question for you, Mr. ‘Prodigy.’ When are you gonna pay your bill?”
“You’ll have to wait a little longer for that.”
Zeonly was broke. He had been staying at a cheap, run-down inn—if you wanted to be nice, you could call it “modest”—for the whole summer, but even that was too expensive for a poor boy from a rural village like him.
He’d traveled to the magic city of Dirashik alone with only enough money for a one-way trip. Though he’d managed to reach the city, he’d arrived well before the entrance exam and had nowhere to live in the meantime.
He’d negotiated with the proprietress of this modest inn, and she’d agreed to let him pay his debt after he was admitted to the school and started making money. He promised to perform whatever chores she asked in the meantime—an offer she took frequent advantage of.
But now, at last, he’d been accepted by the school. That changed his situation completely.
“I’m gonna go find a dorm! Goodbye forever to this crappy inn!”
“Hey, where d’you think you’re going, you damned brat?”
He pretended not to hear the old woman as he dashed out of the inn.
Advanced class students had to earn their own living expenses.
However, household expenses were an exception. The school agreed to shoulder the cost of rent. All Zeonly needed was an address. After that, he should be able to handle food expenses for one person.
If he’d failed the exam and ended up in Second Level, he would be in a totally different situation…but that was never going to happen.
“Let me into the dorm!”
Zeonly approached the school’s female receptionist once again. He’d already tried to bargain with her multiple times, but now he thrusted his results certificate before her. The woman looked as bored as ever.
“I’m a student now!” cried Zeonly. “You have to listen to me!”
“Fine, fine.” The woman sighed with exasperation and flipped through some papers. “Ah, a dorm room is about to open up. I’ll reserve it for you.”
“Really?!”
“Yep. Looks like a kid is graduating.”
Finally, Zeonly would obtain a stable lifestyle. No more being worked to the bone at that shabby old inn. No more getting complained to by general store employees for standing around and reading books without buying them. No more having to put up with that female employee desperate for a husband saying things like, “If you spend any more time staring at our products without buying them, I’m going to make you marry me.” Now he’d be able to spend his every waking hour in the school library. And as for food… Well, he would figure out how to pay for that somehow.
He’d also be able to experiment and research all he wanted. And he’d never again have to listen to his neighbors argue on the other side of his paper-thin walls.
He was truly grateful to the old proprietress, but those inn rooms were way too cramped to live in any kind of comfort. He just needed a place to live and—
“…Hmm?”
Zeonly’s eyes flicked toward the entrance to the school. He hadn’t been through that gate since his exam, but now he spotted a tall girl with a hood over her face approaching. She looked like a shady sorcerer straight out of the olden days, which in this city actually made her fit right in.
Zeonly casually watched her as she walked toward him. Well, technically she was heading toward the receptionist, not him.
“Umm. I’m Aion from First Level… Can I have the paperwork to move out?” She was as quiet as a mouse.
“What?” The receptionist couldn’t hear her from the other side of the counter.
“She’s Aion from First Level and she wants to move out of the dorm,” Zeonly said casually.
“You got it,” the receptionist replied with a bored expression.
The girl looked down. “Umm, thanks…”
Zeonly glanced up without thinking and was shocked by what he saw. The girl had a flower pattern in her left eye—a curse crest. Zeonly could only vaguely make out the girl’s face under her hood, but her curse crest shone with a faint light.
“Are you a hexer?!” he asked.
He had once read about people with features like hers. He’d never seen one in person, but her appearance matched what he’d read exactly. She had to have been a hexer—a special kind of sorcerer that used Execration, a spell that had been lost long ago.
“……”
The girl turned away silently.
“…Wait a second, did you just say you were in First Level?!”
Hexers were sorcerers just as special as heroes and saints. They possessed unique magic no one else could imitate. No matter how much of a genius Zeonly was, he couldn’t perform Execration.
Technically, all hexers were blessed with natural talent. And yet this one was in First Level, the one that taught the fundamentals of magic for sorcerers who needed to start from the very beginning.
A hexer was in First Level. Not only that, but she was moving out of the dorm. That almost certainly meant she was leaving the magic school.
“You’re graduating? From First Level? As a hexer?”
He would understand if she was in Second Level. That was what most sorcerers graduated from.
The Advanced class was for the elite. A graduate from that level could pursue a career as a Royal Sorcerer in their home country.
He had heard that even for beginners, the common path was to start in First Level, move up to Second Level, and then graduate. So what was this girl doing?
“Everyone has their own circumstances. Don’t give her a hard time when you know nothing about her,” the receptionist said in a low voice, clearly upset.
“Oh, gimme a break,” Zeonly said, sounding even more disgruntled. “What’re you doing lettin’ such an obvious talent go to waste? Do you care about your job at all? Doesn’t the magic school exist to help students like her grow into elite sorcerers?”
“I’m just a receptionist, bud.”
“She has unique magic. Isn’t that fascinating? You should help her develop it.”
“You’re barking up the wrong tree.”
She was telling him to direct his complaints to a teacher.
“Oh, forget it. You’re clearly not gonna help,” Zeonly said, completely missing the receptionist’s point. “Hey, your name’s Aion, right?”
He tugged on the girl’s sleeves and spun her toward him, then looked up into the curse crest shining beneath her hood.
“Tell me why you’re leaving the dorm. Are you going back home? If you are, teach me about curses first. If you’re graduating from First Level, it must mean you’re giving up on being a sorcerer. Am I right? If that’s the case, give your magic to me.” Execration was a form of magic unique to hexers. Zeonly was well aware of that, but he didn’t let it stop him. “I’m a genius. Reproducing unique magic will be a walk in the park for me.”
Zeonly didn’t know anything about Execration, so he couldn’t help but be curious about it. He was also confident enough in himself to believe he could do what he said. He believed in his own talent.
“Let me go,” Aion protested weakly, but Zeonly didn’t listen.
“No way. Any sorcerer abandoning magic should at least pass on their knowledge and skill first. If you don’t, your presence at this school will have been pointless. I’ll inherit your magic. That’ll give your time here meaning. Stay a little longer and help my genius gro— OW!”
The receptionist hit his head with a clipboard hard enough to produce a loud thump.
“Can you not waste my time with your crappy attempt to pick up a girl?”
Zeonly released Aion’s sleeves and held his head in pain.
“Also, Aion has already graduated, so she literally can’t stay here any longer. She’s moving out regardless of whether or not we do this paperwork.”
That meant Aion wouldn’t have a place to stay. And that gave Zeonly an idea.
“Then I won’t move into this dorm! I’ll look for a house this girl and I can live in together!”
““Huh?””
The other two were taken aback.
“I’m in the Advanced class. The school pays rent for Advanced students. I’ll look for a house for us, so…” Zeonly grabbed Aion’s sleeves again. “Live with me and teach me how to perform curses. After we’re done, you can go home.”
“Huh? Th-this is really sudden…”
“I don’t know anything about your circumstances, but do you really want to leave school so soon? Will a hexer like you truly be satisfied with graduating from First Level? That’s a sure sign you’ve given up on magic. And if you’re giving up, at least lend me a little of your time first. Think of it as your final job as a sorcerer. Surely you can handle that.”
Her final job as a sorcerer.
Aion felt her heart stir just a little at those words.
“…Umm… I-I can’t do magic…”
“…Huh?”
Aion looked down as Zeonly looked up.
The girl’s eyes trembled with fear, while the boy’s radiated confidence.
That was the day Zeonly, a sorcerer who would later be known as a genius, met Aion, the Hexer of Doom.