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Archmage (1)

Magic.

In the general public’s eyes, all the skills used by an Awakened person were close to miracles, and it wasn’t easy to distinguish the true Magic among them.

Hunters, on the other hand, distinguish Magic through the following characteristics.

One. Although it was not a unique skill, the elemental properties of fire, electricity, and water were applied.

Two. Because Mana consumption was very severe and took time to activate, it was essential to have an auxiliary item called ‘Rune Stone’ with the same properties as the skill.

Three. Skill power level varied greatly depending on the proficiency. At the onset of activation, it required a much more intricate Mana pattern than any other skills, so it was hard to increase the proficiency if you didn’t have the talent.

Because of the last characteristic, the Magic Skill Card was given to a Hunter in the guild who had already demonstrated the ability to control the Mana by quickly increasing other skill proficiencies.

Among those Magic skill users, the name of the person who remained in the top tier in my previous life was Amano Hibiki, also known as the Archmage.

There was a reason why she was called so. Was it because she could use all seven properties of Magic?

No. It was common for Hunters to open up additional skill slots in the future, and it wasn’t that there were no Awakened who had mastered all seven mastery skills.

Was it because she had excellent Mana control and a huge Mana capacity that distinguished her from other Hunters?

Certainly, Hibiki’s control was excellent, and her 50,000 active Mana was also the greatest in the human race at the time. However, even if she chose to use other skills, apart from Magic, it would have the same effect with that kind of specification.

The answer lay elsewhere.

The most crucial key to Hibiki achieving the pinnacle of humans by Magic was her unique skill.

[Multiple Cognition]

To simply explain, she could think of same time. It was multitasking beyond human limits.

This was impossible, even for me, now with [The Successor’s Eyes] and excellent Mana control.

If you were a novice Hunter who relied entirely on the system to activate skills, it was easy to activate a few skills one after the other, with little time difference. You just needed to think about it.

However, suppose you were a Hunter who had begun to care about proficiency and had gone to the stage of improving the performance of skill at will. In that case, you must recognize and intervene in complex Mana patterns every time you use a skill.

The human brain couldn’t do much at the same time.

Hibiki’s unique skills made it possible. The characteristic of Magic, that one just needed to arrange the Mana with no required physical movements, showed fantastic combination with [Multiple Cognition].

Her placing all the 7-properties Rune Stone on the [Ishard’s Staff] and turning the boss monster into dust by casting various Magic simultaneously still lingered in my memory.

“Let’s get off here.”

“Yes, sir! I mean, yes!”

We had arrived at Mito City, Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan.

Amano Hibiki was in this small city, with a population of just over 300,000 people. Nate and I just got here by train from the airport.

“Wow!”

Nate couldn’t shut his dropped jaw.

The few days he stayed in D.C. must have been an interesting experience, but now, he suddenly came to a foreign country. From the sight of countless Asians filling the streets to signs written in strange characters, everything around him was spectacular scenery that would certainly shock him.

I sent Nate into the hotel first.

“Keep what I said in mind.”

“Yes, I remember!”

It hadn’t been long since he was rescued from the institute, but Nate was already slowly regaining the personality I had seen in the future.

Despite such a terrible incident, his face was full of bright smiles and energy.

It was as if he couldn’t stand it because he was so happy every day. At that moment, he recited the cautionary tips I taught him.

“Don’t show my friends in front of ordinary people! Don’t break the cat’s crystals and keep them together! Don’t train until Mana runs out, but stop when I feel dizzy!”

“All right.”

I nodded and stepped out to the street to meet Hibiki.

*

I thought a lot about what would be needed to make Hibiki a colleague. She wasn’t kidnapped like Nate, instead, she was an ordinary adult who lived a normal life.

What did she need the most at this point?

‘That’s Hibiki.’

Where I found her was a bookstore downtown.

Having lost her parents when she was a child, she was released from childcare facilities two years ago and made a living by working several part-time jobs.

She had a face that was a little younger than I had seen in my past life. She would Awaken about three years from now.

If it went the way I remembered it, then she would.

“Thank you for your hard work. I’ll go home first.”

After finishing work, Hibiki changed her clothes, and I got ready to follow her. I could hear her co-workers whispering in the background.

“Ms. Amano is scary as well today. I can’t see her smiling except when she’s dealing with customers.”

“Don’t you feel offended? She needs to watch her emotionless face. There are no ups and downs, no emotions. It’s like looking at a dead person.”

I approached Hibiki as I let the murmurs flow. My face was disguised as an American Hunter.

“Excuse me…”

Hibiki turned her head, and our eyes met.

‘No emotion… huh.‘

Hibiki’s face looking at me truly showed not even a faint color of emotion. No surprise or bafflement can be felt after meeting a foreigner who suddenly spoke in Japanese.

She just had an ice-like expression.

“I’m sorry all of a sudden. This is who I am.”

I stuck out a calling card, which was a U.S.-based Hunter Agency company created by Danton at my request. Although he had made it impossible to trace the stake structure easily, the major stakeholder was me, Seo Jin-wook.

Hibiki’s eyes leaped between my disguised face and the business card, one after another.

“Can I talk to you for a minute?”

I even thought about what I would say if she denied it without hesitation, but fortunately, Hibiki nodded. She still had an unknown expression, one that made it impossible to tell what she was thinking.

*

We sat face to face in a cafe. After making a simple barrier to prevent the sound from leaking out, I spoke to her.

“I’m scouting promising people from all over the world who have the talent to become a Hunter. I visited Ms. Amano this time because I think you had that talent.”

“What is the basis of saying that I have a talent?”

Hibiki answered back for the first time. I replied with the utmost care not to provoke her.

“First of all, I have to inform you that I’m also a Hunter.”

I concentrated the Mana to lift the teacup in the air, but Hibiki was still unmoved, looking at her expression.

“I hope you don’t misunderstand. Our way of finding those who are promising is still a bit primitive. It is to select and approach people who have had many unidentified… uncontrollable events around them.”

The original Seo Jin-wook caused a psychokinesis storm under extreme agitation even before his Awakening. At that time, his potential Mana was about 70,000.

And Hibiki’s potential Mana was about 50,000. It was well above the SS-Class standard of 30,000.

A person with this level of Mana had no choice but to reveal oneself like an awl in one’s pocket in the process of growing up. While listening to my story, Amano’s eyes did not look lost at all.

“Did you hear about my childhood accident?”

“Yes, I did.”

“But that was only once.”

I lied.

I couldn’t tell her right now that it was the story she had told me herself in the future. The accident she was referring to was about her parents’ loss at an amusement park when she was five years old.

At that time, I concluded that it had been due to outdated facilities.

“If you look at the CCTV at the time of the accident, the Ferris wheel that your whole family was riding suddenly snaps and collapses. That was the only big news in the media. But what we noticed was a photograph of the broken piece of debris.”

It was all a lie.

“Because I found some kind of trace in the picture. In the eyes of detectives who are not exposed to specific knowledge, it might be mistaken for the damage caused by ground collision… Still, as I saw it, it was definitely the damage caused by psychokinesis.”

Hibiki wouldn’t remember. She must not have been herself to confirm and see how the Ferris wheel was torn.

“I suspect that Ms. Amano, then five years old, created a psychokinesis storm in the Ferris wheel.”

It was the cause of the accident.

“I’m not here to blame you for the incident. I know that there has never been a similar accident since then. Nevertheless, we would like to help Ms. Amano. A psychokinesis rampage occurs when you can’t control your huge Mana. When there is emotional agitation, it goes wild regardless of your will. Putting it in that state is like living with a bomb in your body.”

Originally, it was right for a promising person with this kind of potential Mana to and be Awakened as soon as she turned 19.

However, Amano Hibiki had never been in such contact before and was living a normal life.

Hibiki remained silent even after listening to me. Her mouth opened again only after the green tea on the table had completely cooled down.

“Mana was the cause?”

“Yes, it’s a rare occurrence for a non-Awakened.”

“The accident was due to the Mana inside me?”

It was all unknown knowledge unless one was a Hunter.

Hibiki closed her eyes when she heard something still unfamiliar to the public. Very small wrinkles formed between her eyes.

Although very minuscule, it was the first expression I’ve seen so far after I met her today.

“I didn’t know what it was at that time.”

Hibiki’s voice, which I heard in my previous life, overlapped with her words now, recited in an emotionless voice in front of me. “I was young. I don’t remember why, but I was very angry.”

The beginning was a common whine by a five-year-old child who didn’t even remember what started it.

“My father, who was in the Ferris wheel with me, got annoyed. My mother sitting next to me tried to calm me down. I kept crying. I cried and got angry. I just couldn’t calm down. My face turned red, and I got mad to the point that I couldn’t breathe.”

When young children were under extreme stress, they went through something called explosive aggression. They could not control the torrent of emotions that adults would have suppressed and poured it out as a result.

“As soon as the anger rose to the top of my head, a sharp wind or something like the wind suddenly came out of my body. My mother screamed. My father kept shouting with a pale face. ‘Stop! Stop it!’ Mother reached out. There was a shrill sound of metal… and I felt my body falling. We kept falling. Until I was unconscious.”

The people on the Ferris wheel at that time were only the three family members. It was never a coincidence that both parents died and Hibiki lived, and it was not a miracle, as the media said. Hibiki was unconsciously protecting her body amid a loss of consciousness.

“In the end, I’m the only one who survived. I didn’t know what it was until now. I just remembered… one thing. I was very angry at that time. That’s how my uncontrollable feelings drove me to that point.”

The real miracle is that there was only one such accident in the process of growth of someone with 50,000 potential Mana.

Everyone went through a whirlpool of emotions. Sometimes it was sad enough to freeze your heart, it was annoying enough to create a headache, it was exciting enough not to be able to fall asleep, and it was compelling enough to heat the blood in your entire body.

Seo Jin-wook’s outbursts were unusually frequent due to the curse, but even if he wasn’t cursed, it was normal that he would usually go through similar events several times if there were so much Mana. It was evidence of promising talent.

However, there was only one incident in Hibiki’s life.

“Since then, you’ve been living with all your emotions suppressed.”

It was a wound-like memory that could never be forgotten.

“Yes, I tried not to feel anything. I knew people around me would get hurt if I were deeply immersed in my emotions.”

One accident was enough for everything around her to fall apart. After the accident, Hibiki had suppressed her feelings because she was afraid of being lost in them.

Then, she lived a life completely suppressed by the joys and sorrows.

“You don’t have to do that anymore. Again, Mana’s rampage happens when one can’t control it properly. It’s called activation to bring Mana into control.”

I explained slowly from the basics. Hibiki, who heard the entire explanation, then asked.

“Well, if I do something called Awakening… You mean I don’t have to worry about that happening anymore?”

“The possibility of a rampage is reduced, close to zero. And then through training, complete control is possible.”

The contemplation didn’t take long.

“I’ll do it.”

It meant the end of a long fear that she had embraced in her heart.

*

The city of Mito would go through a dungeon break three years later. Hibiki’s Awakening was due to the threat of her life then.

Then, Angelica came to the shelter and met Hibiki, sitting by, who almost lost her sanity.

Although Angelica foretold many incidents, not all dungeon breaks were told in advance. She explained that her [Prophecy] skills were never perfect at the time, and she could never know everything she wanted.

It made me question another thing now.

‘Was Angelica really not aware of Mito City’s dungeon break?‘

What if she had waited for her to be persuaded to join her as Hibiki had Awakened due to that incident and let her develop hatred towards dungeon monsters?

That was if she really had a way to know the future. The reason why I thought so was that Hibiki’s method of Awakening would be different in this life.

After I moved to her house, I took out the contract form and the Awakening Stone.

“The contract lasts three years and is free to extend or scrap, depending on the will of both parties.”

For now, I was signing with my Hunter Agency, but I had written the contents so that she could naturally transfer to the Celestial Dragon Guild after the arrangement was completed. Nate also signed a contract under the same conditions.

“However, you cannot stay in Japan during the contract period.”

I then explained. “You will register as a Hunter in Korea. Although both countries are sensitive to export their Hunters, they are flexible another way around.”

I thought deeply.

‘Although I’m keeping her in the dark, it is actually illegal in both countries to Awaken this way. When she officially fills out the document and registers as a Hunter later, she has to process it as an accidental Awakening.‘

I tried to quantify the degree of freedom each country granted to Hunters.

Except for national emergencies, the U.S., which had left the Hunter industry to capitalist logic, could be described as 10, China, which forcibly conscripted all people whose Awakening had been confirmed, and could be described as zero.

Korea and Japan were similar to each other, so they ranged from 7 to 8. Hunter’s Awakening through the Awakening Stone must be carried out under the state’s control, originally.

Hibiki then nodded.

“Okay.”

It was time to check out what I was worried about. In this life, I Awakened on the same day and almost the same time as Seo Jin-wook in my previous life.

Nate would also have the same timing and method of Awakening from my previous life. However, now, Hibiki had a different timing and strategy.

‘When she Awakens like this, will she be able to get her unique skill just like in my past life?’

After she finished writing the contract, I lifted the barrier on the Awakening Stone.

“You need to put your hand here.”

With a nod, she put her hand on the transparent jewel. At that moment, her image disappeared from my sight.