Chapter 2 - Become a Mage (2)

I slowly opened my eyes beneath the covers.

“Umm…….”

I didn't have some dream where a demon suddenly appeared and spoke to me, or where the brutally murdered corpse of a man was emphasized as though it were provoking the guilt buried in my subconscious.

I simply closed my eyes, opened them again, and it was morning, just like any other day.

It was such an ordinary morning that I picked up my smartphone and checked the news articles and such.

[Tragedy Strikes University District… Mysterious Phenomenon…]

A sigh escaped me on its own.

Last night's incident hadn't been a dream, after all.

For no particular reason, I muttered to myself.

“…Was I really that deeply asleep?”

I'd never considered myself particularly thick-skinned, but apparently I was a bigger man than I thought.

Of course, that was sarcastic bullshit.

If anything, I might have been so mentally overwhelmed that I'd simply passed out as soon as I went to sleep.

Perhaps it noticed that I had woken up.

“Grrrr~.”

The Invisible Vampire, which had been curled up beneath my bed, raised its body and let out a beast-like growl.

I knew it made no sense to describe an invisible being as though I could see it….

For now, perhaps because I was its ‘master,’ I could somehow sense its presence.

I could tell how it was behaving.

“Gyaa?”

Perhaps sensing my gaze, it tilted its head.

“………”

I desperately ignored it and went into the kitchen.

Though calling it a kitchen was a bit much since this was a small studio apartment, meaning it was practically right in front of the bed.

First things first.

Food.

I couldn't think properly on an empty stomach.

I'd come home last night and gone to sleep without even eating, as though I were running away, so I was starving.

I poured water into a pot, added a little salt, then took out some pasta I'd bought beforehand and started boiling it.

Bubble—bubble—

Pasta might have a reputation as an expensive food, but surprisingly, it's something you can make cheaply and eat quite a lot of as a home-alone meal.

Of course, that's only when you don't use expensive ingredients.

While the noodles were boiling, it would've been nice to add olive oil to the frying pan, but I didn't have any, so I poured in some cooking oil instead.

It tastes roughly the same with cooking oil anyway.

Then I put sliced garlic and peperoncino into the frying pan with the cooking oil.

I'd heard you could slice up dried chili peppers and use those instead of peperoncino, but in the long run, it was cheaper to just buy a jar of peperoncino from the supermarket and use that.

Sizzle—

It would've been nice to add bacon at this point, but I didn't have any, so I added a can of tuna with the oil drained out instead.

The downside was that canned food contained a lot of sodium, but it was good because I could get protein instead of meat.

Of course, unlike bacon, tuna left something lacking.

So I added oyster sauce and stir-fried it together with the pasta.

Sometimes I added more salt or oyster sauce depending on my mood and appetite, but this was enough for today.

Oyster Sauce Tuna Pasta, complete.

It looked more like stir-fried noodles than pasta, but I liked stir-fried noodles, so I didn't care.

It would've been fine to eat it like this, but for nutritional balance—

I took out some cabbage I'd sliced beforehand and three cherry tomatoes from the refrigerator and prepared a salad.

I didn't add any dressing.

I was eating it for my health in the first place, and although I wasn't the type to skimp on money when it came to food, that only went as far as my wallet allowed.

Even buying vegetables was difficult, so buying dressing on top of that would be a real luxury.

And finally, a glass of milk.

They say milk isn't exactly an essential source of nutrients, but what would an uneducated orphan bastard like me know?

I had this vague impression that it was a healthy food that was good for the body, so I made sure to drink a glass every day.

I placed the pasta, salad, and glass of milk on the tray.

It was originally a spare desk designed to be placed beside a regular desk and used for stacking things.

But when I used the bed as a chair, its height was just right to use as a dining table, so that's what I used it for.

Chomp, chomp—munch, munch—.

There was no “Thank you for the meal.”

I simply kept my mouth shut and concentrated on eating.

I chewed the food and swallowed it, filling my empty stomach.

“Ah… That was good.”

Once my stomach was full and my brain started working again, I became capable of objectively assessing the situation I was in.

Right now, I was desperately avoiding reality.

Is this really the time to be making delicious pasta…?

It was like a student who hadn't studied at all the day before an exam suddenly cleaning their room or finding something else to occupy themselves with.

I was deliberately looking away from the problem right in front of me.

“Haaaaaaah….”

To reduce my stress level and headache even a little, I covered my face with both hands, rubbed it, and massaged it.

No.

Eating was important.

I gave myself a little self-justification.

Either way, everything required energy, and sleep and food were how you replenished that energy.

I'd slept.

I'd filled my stomach.

My gaze naturally turned toward the strange book with the dark-colored iron cover sitting abandoned on my desk.

The grimoire called The Mysteries of the Worm.

“……Fuck.”

I really didn't want to do it now, but with my recovered energy, it was time to focus on the problem right in front of me.

I checked the clock.

There was still time before my first class.

It felt absurd to go to a university lecture in a situation like this, but the possibility of losing my scholarship by just a fraction because of attendance was frightening enough that I had to go.

They said I could get a medical certificate from a hospital, but I wasn't actually sick, and I didn't want to waste money on something like that.

“……Then I guess I'll go.”

I muttered to myself to encourage myself, got up, washed, and prepared to leave.

First, I planned to stop by the old bookstore before class started.

I intended to find out more about this grimoire, The Mysteries of the Worm.

Where did they get it?

Who sold it?

…Considering the bookstore owner had sold it without seemingly thinking about it, I honestly didn't expect much help.

But still, I didn't want to deal with that monster all by myself.

“Gyaaah!? Gyaa!”

The Invisible Vampire seemed fascinated by the refrigerator, repeatedly opening and closing its door.

Bang—thud.

Bang—thud.

Bang—thud.

“Gyaa!”

I could make out the outline of its movements as it enjoyed the cold air coming from the refrigerator blowing against its face.

But if you only looked at the situation itself, a refrigerator door repeatedly opening and closing by itself was pretty damn horrifying.

I couldn't let it break the refrigerator, so I spoke carefully.

“Stop.”

Based on a little experimentation last night, the creature understood what I said and was relatively obedient.

“…Giiii.”

The Invisible Vampire closed the refrigerator door at its master's command.

I looked at the Invisible Vampire and thought.

Obviously, I would have to take it with me.

But how was I supposed to carry it around?

When it fully stood up, it was roughly three meters tall.

But considering how it had curled up and slept on the floor of this tiny studio apartment, it seemed capable of reducing its body size to some extent….

And that problem was solved much more easily than I'd expected.

Perhaps it had realized that I was preparing to leave.

The body of the Invisible Vampire scattered like mist and flowed into the grimoire I was holding.

“…Am I supposed to be happy about this?”

I looked down at the heavy iron grimoire with a wry smile and put it into my bag.

This is fucking awesome.

There's a monster sleeping inside the bag I'm carrying right now.

***

Fortunately, nothing happened while I was walking through the streets.

However, there was a problem with my plan to stop by the old bookstore and gather information about the grimoire.

“…………”

Clack, clack.

As workers loaded old books and various objects onto a truck and cleared out the old bookstore, I stared blankly for a moment before approaching them.

“Excuse me.

The old man who owned this place was running the store until yesterday.

Did something happen?”

“You know the old man?

Were you a regular?”

“Yes, I stopped by occasionally.”

I wasn't actually a regular, but I decided to go with that.

The worker made a clicking sound with his tongue and spoke bitterly.

“Apparently, the old man passed away in his sleep last night.”

“What?”

“He was already pretty old, so… if he went peacefully in his sleep, I suppose it was a good death.”

“……….”

“He did have children, but this was originally just a shop he ran as a hobby.

They asked us to clear everything out.”

As though the old man's role had finally come to an end, the two characters meaning “Closed” were attached to the bookstore as the workers cleared it away.

I stared blankly at the old bookstore for a moment before turning around.

There was no point wasting time worrying about something that had already happened.

Yeah.

Let's think positively.

Now that I thought about it again, going back to the old bookstore where I'd happened to obtain the grimoire and telling the owner, “The book I bought here was actually a real grimoire!?”, would've been a fucking idiotic plan.

…I normally wouldn't have thought that way.

Am I tired?

Even if I didn't reveal everything, in order to convince the owner to give me a detailed explanation, I'd have no choice but to tell him that this grimoire was unusual.

And while talking about it, I could have told him about the incident that I'd found strange.

[Tragedy Strikes University District… Mysterious Phenomenon…]

I looked toward the road near the university district, where the police had blocked it off.

The place where some unknown wannabe tough guy had been killed by the Invisible Vampire last night.

It wasn't my fault at all.

And it wasn't my responsibility either.

But regardless, someone had been killed in society.

Someone had to take responsibility for it, whoever they were, for the sake of maintaining social order.

And if the existence of the Invisible Vampire were revealed, the person most appropriate to bear that responsibility would be me.

If I had to think of a charge, would it be accidental death resulting in a fatality due to negligent pet management?

Depending on the circumstances, it could be roughly up to two years in prison and a fine of around seven million won.

Of course, there was no way it would end with just that.

“…This is driving me crazy.”

A quiet mutter escaped my lips.

Who could've expected that a monster would be sleeping inside a book I'd bought because it looked interesting, and that the monster would kill the bastard who'd shoved its master while walking down the street?

No matter how I thought about it, it wasn't my fault.

I was just unbelievably unlucky….

Just think of it as getting hit by a meteor while walking down the street.

If I'd at least known his name, I would've gone out for yukgaejang with him as a fleeting connection.

What a bitter thing.

I briefly mourned the wannabe tough guy.

I looked toward the spot where the corpse had been lying until yesterday, now under police control, then turned around and left to attend my university lecture.

The grimoire was a headache, but reality was an even bigger headache.

I had to attend classes to maintain my grades, work part-time, pay rent, and deal with a whole mountain of other things that gave me a headache.