The Strange

The city lord's manor was far more luxurious than the viscount's estate, Green thought to himself.

The hall was packed with people. Green eagerly peered inside and saw a wizard in a loose gray robe seated at the highest point of the hall. Just as Mary had described, the wizard's face seemed shrouded in mist, impossible to make out clearly.

A transparent crystal ball rested on the table before the wizard, giving off a gentle glow. The entire hall was steeped in an air of mystery. A red-eyed frog squatted beside the crystal ball, croaking endlessly.

So this is a wizard?

Green was somewhat excited. This was his first time seeing a wizard who wielded such mysterious and powerful magic. Before the wizard's crystal ball, a chubby brown-haired girl stood with her eyes closed, nervously touching the crystal ball.

Everyone in the hall held their breath. After a long while without a sound, Green looked behind the wizard and saw three children about his own age.

Is that her?

The first girl Green saw was pouting, her face full of unwillingness.

She was the girl who had discarded the magical book, Nose-Hunting Modification and Scent Atlas, at the viscount's estate during the winter. Over the past half year, Green had learned that she was the only daughter of Bissell City's city lord and possessed immense influence.

That fat-bellied nobleman from back then must have been the great lord of Bissel City.

The other two seemed to be siblings, perhaps a brother and sister, perhaps an older sister and younger brother. Green could not tell, but their nearly identical features made it clear they were blood relatives.

The boy looked arrogant, standing behind the wizard with his head held high. He wore a cold sneer as he watched the people coming one after another for wizard apprentice aptitude testing, much like the man collecting gold coins at the city lord's manor gate.

The girl, meanwhile, looked rather shy, probably unused to being watched by so many people at once.

"Could they be the ones found to have the potential to become wizard apprentices?"

Green guessed inwardly.

Green had guessed correctly. In the city before Bissell City, the wizard had discovered that this pair of siblings possessed wizard apprentice aptitude.

Being able to stand out among hundreds or even thousands of children, and having those normally high-and-mighty nobles fawn over them, truly gave them the exhilarating feeling of soaring to the heavens. It was only natural that they felt proud and smug.

The boy was named Yorkris, and the girl was named Yorklianna. They had originally come from an ordinary hunter's family.

After both were found to possess wizard potential, those nobles who had once seemed so lofty immediately began currying favor with them like tavern girls. It made Yorkris feel as if he were the center of the world, heaven's chosen son, the protagonist of fate.

Yorkris looked at the people scrambling to test their wizard potential, his eyes full of contempt.

If wizard apprentice aptitude were so easy to possess, then why had only he, his sister, and that fool outside followed Master Arowoz through the first three cities?

It would already be good enough if this city had one person like the city lord's daughter, and even she had obtained her place by bribing the wizard.

"Mental power 6. Unqualified. Next."

Just then, the mysterious wizard spoke.

At the same time, the chubby girl touching the crystal ball turned pale and was urged away from it by those behind her.

"Ah, another one who failed."

"Yeah. Looks like we don't have much hope here."

The people who had been holding their breath began sighing one after another. After an entire day of aptitude testing, aside from the city lord's daughter who had been tested first, no one else had shown wizard aptitude.

If they had not already paid one gold coin, most of those remaining would probably have given up long ago.

"Mental power 5. Unqualified. Next."

The boy before the crystal ball helplessly curled his lip and slunk away.

One person after another finished their wizard apprentice aptitude tests and left. As Green gradually moved closer to the front, a sense of despair slowly rose within him as well.

It seemed becoming a wizard was not so easy after all.

Green knew the boy in front of him. He was the son of the owner of Moon Bay Tavern, named Wade. Moon Bay Tavern was the most luxurious place in Bissell City, so this fellow surely had more gold coins than he could count.

Wade stood nervously before the crystal ball and reached out to touch it. As the crystal ball gradually emitted a soft glow, he closed his eyes.

"Mental power 9. Not... hm?"

Sharp-eyed Green saw Wade secretly hand the wizard a pouch. Inside were strange stones, one after another.

Quick-witted Green immediately thought of a possibility. A bribe?

"Mm. All right, stand behind me."

The wizard put away the pouch and changed his words.

Wade's face lit up with excitement. "Thank you, Master."

With that, he excitedly went to stand behind the wizard.

Green's expression darkened. He had nothing to bribe the man with. Surely this great wizard would not care about the one gold coin left in Green's home?

His thoughts in turmoil, Green walked to the crystal ball, unsure what to do.

"Place your hand on the crystal ball and close your eyes."

At the wizard's words, Green instinctively did as he was told. In that instant, the hall seemed to fall silent in his senses, as if the entire world had been covered by a giant dome.

"Hm? What's going on?"

Green opened his eyes and found that everyone in the hall seemed frozen in place, utterly motionless.

The city lord's daughter was still pouting and crying, but her tears hung suspended in midair. Yorkris was sneering, revealing two sharp canine teeth.

Turning around, Green saw the irritating fellow at the entrance who collected the appraisal fees casually tossing a gold coin behind him. Yet the coin was frozen in the air.

Everyone in the hall seemed to have been immobilized, frozen in a single moment of time.

Hm?

Something was wrong!

Green noticed a table in the corner of the hall. Plates rested atop it, each embossed with delicate patterns. Ordinary commoners could never afford such extravagant plates.

The plates held exquisite pastries and fruit, placed there by the city lord for those undergoing wizard aptitude testing. Yet no one would actually come eat them, so they were more decoration than anything useful.

But at that moment, two creatures with colorful, soft tentacles floated above the fruit platter. Their bodies were covered in countless densely packed eyes, and they drifted through the air like jellyfish, swaying as they played.

This... this was simply unbelievable!

What were those things?

Green could feel his body trembling, and his face must have looked awful. He had once longed countless times for the mysterious Wizard World, but now that the Wizard World had only opened a tiny crack of its door to him, he felt endless unknowns and terror.

This was a world different from the reality he knew.

Summoning his courage, Green carefully approached the two strange unknown creatures. Yet the moment he neared the table, they seemed startled and swam toward the wall.

The wall was actually rippling like water. The two strange creatures easily merged into the wall and disappeared.

Green froze for a moment, stunned by the fact that the two strange creatures had vanished into the wall.

But as he neared the dining table, Green suddenly noticed that aside from four normal candleholders, one of them was clearly abnormal.

Although a burning candle stood atop it, the candleholder itself was not an exquisitely crafted noble ornament. It was a roasted, bright-red pig's head.

Green found it strange. Why had he seen this candleholder at first and thought it was perfectly normal, only to suddenly feel that it defied reality after approaching it?

Eerily, the pig-head candleholder's two eyes slowly moved and fixed themselves on Green, locking gazes with him.

A horrifyingly strange atmosphere spread through the air.

"Hahaha! I've finally broken through to the supreme realm! Sky! Earth! Evil dragons! None of you can stop me anymore!"

Suddenly, an arrogant burst of laughter rang out in this frighteningly silent world. Perhaps Green's mental reactions had slowed, because although he found it abrupt, he was not frightened. He turned toward the source of the voice.

It was a bard biography novel that nobles read when they were bored.

The story was probably about a poor boy falling in love with a noble young lady, only to be obstructed by her family. The poor boy then worked hard step by step, encountered countless opportunities, and finally defeated the world's most powerful evil dragon, proving himself and marrying the woman he loved.

Overall, it was a cliché and boring story. The novel also contained several illustrations depicting the protagonist defeating one evil enemy after another.

"G-good heavens."

Green stared at the biography novel and stammered.

A little paper man was tearing free from the book and slowly rising to his feet. The little man possessed all the features of a human, and his expression was lifelike. He wore an exaggerated look of astonishment as he stared blankly around himself.

This little paper man was the protagonist from one of the biography novel's illustrations.

But although he was no longer as crude and simple as the original illustration, and now possessed detailed human expressions, that was only his front!

In essence, he was merely a thin sheet of paper standing upright, while his back was a book page covered in printed text.

"Damn it, where is this? Wasn't I supposed to become a god?"

The paper man shouted in panic, blankly looking around.

Suddenly, the little man seemed to spot Green. His small face immediately turned serious as he drew a paper sword and pointed it at Green.

"Who are you? A god from the God Realm?"

"Who are you? A god from the God Realm? Who are you? A god from the God Realm? Who are you..."

The cracks between the floor tiles of the hall joined together into a long fissure. It opened and closed like a talking mouth. Although Green and the motionless nobles in the hall stood atop the fissure, none of them fell in.

It was as if the fissure-mouth were merely an illusion, yet it kept repeating the paper man's words like a parrot.

A scarlet tongue suddenly emerged from the endless darkness within the fissure. It rose from directly beneath Green's feet, and Green could clearly see that it was made of countless tiny snakes writhing together. It abruptly wrapped around the little man standing on the book, who had already been scared senseless.

Amid a string of screams, the little man vanished into the depths of the floor crack.

"This can't be real..."

Green stood rooted to the spot, trembling in shock.

Suddenly, the crystal ball on the table seemed to emit a dazzling light. At the same time, Green felt dazed and was pulled back beside it. The instant both his hands touched the crystal ball, the world no longer appeared frozen, and the murmuring voices of the people once again entered his ears.

"Mental power 12. Not bad. Stand behind me."

Green raised his pale face, then numbly and instinctively got to his feet and stood behind the wizard.

He looked around. All the strange things had disappeared. Even the noble who had been reading the biography novel showed nothing unusual. There was no pig-head candleholder on the table, and the floor was perfectly intact. It seemed everything that had just happened had been an illusion, or a dream.

"Damn it! What kind of luck did this guy have to possess wizard aptitude?"

"We're finished, we're finished! My child bullied him before. He won't come back to take revenge later, will he?"

The hall erupted for a moment before falling quiet again at the wizard's cold snort. The city lord's daughter beside Green and Wade, the son of the Moon Bay Tavern owner, both looked at Green in surprise.

But seeing Green dressed like a servant, they disdainfully curled their lips and lost any desire to speak with him.