Cana's Friend

Afterward, Makarov hauled Aibo over by the neck to apologize to the mayor, and the guild master covered the cost of repairing the riverbank.

That only made things worse for Aibo, who was already buried in debt. At the tender age of six, he now owed hundreds of thousands of J, a truly heartbreaking situation.

In the end, the guild master also ordered him to write an apology letter and a letter of remorse, strictly forbidding Aibo from using Crush Magic within the town.

As a result, Aibo failed to gain even a single Inspiration Point for the entire day. What a loss.

Oddly enough, though, Aibo's reputation among the guild members soared.

A group of middle-aged men drunkenly shouted things like, "The path is not walked alone!" and "There are successors to carry on our legacy!" leaving Aibo completely baffled.

Still, it was not like he had gained nothing.

That single use of Crush Magic by the riverbank had consumed around 100 magic power and earned him 2 experience points, allowing Aibo to determine that his mana recovered at roughly 1 point per minute.

Well, he had never had the chance to expend so much mana before. Thought-Link Magic and short-range Requip Magic consumed very little.

At the same time, the terrifying power of Crush Magic gave Aibo a little more confidence. He was no longer a wizard incapable of even tying up a chicken.

However, Aibo also knew that he had not truly mastered Crush Magic. Was that perhaps a flaw of the system?

Magic whose level had been forcibly raised was difficult to control. Requip Magic, which Aibo had learned himself, did not have that problem and was extremely stable.

That discovery made Aibo abandon the idea of continuing to use Inspiration Points for forced empowerment. Ordinary magic was not all that difficult to learn anyway, so he might as well study it slowly on his own.

Besides, Aibo's most urgent problem was no longer learning magic. He needed to make money!

Not to repay his debt—the guild's money could wait. What mattered was that he needed to move out!

Aibo could no longer stand living in the guild's boys' dormitory.

It was not that the dorm itself was poor quality. The environment there was simply terrible.

The guild's boys' dormitory was packed with a bunch of lawless little demons. Not only were they unbearably noisy at night, they fought every day. Fighting would have been one thing, but they used magic too, so the dorm was either suffering a minor earthquake or issuing a fire warning.

Fine, those things were manageable. The guild was the same way during the day anyway. No matter how often they got scolded, they never changed, and Aibo had mostly grown used to it.

The worst part was that these sexually frustrated assholes went into heat every night, flooding Aibo's mind with all kinds of bizarre thoughts. And he couldn't even block them out.

What made it even more painful was that Aibo had to swallow his bitterness in silence. He suffered, yet had no way to blame them.

Aibo would never tell anyone that he could not turn off his Thought-Link Magic. No one would want someone beside them constantly eavesdropping on their inner thoughts.

So Aibo had always claimed that he could control his magic perfectly. Given his genius-like performance, no one had ever doubted him.

He could only endure this suffering alone.

At first, Aibo had thought living in the dormitory counted as training. Under enough pressure, perhaps he would quickly figure out how to shut off his Thought-Link Magic. But reality had not lived up to his hopes.

More than ten days had passed, yet he remained helpless against his out-of-control Thought-Link Magic. Every night was torture, like having more than a dozen burly men snoring beside his ears. It was pure hell on earth.

A terrible living environment affected his mood. A bad mood meant he could not be happy. If he could not be happy, his progress would slow down. And if he could not grow stronger quickly, how was he supposed to build a harem in another world!?

This was a matter of life and death!

Therefore, making money and moving out had become Aibo's top priority.

"Oh, Little Gildarts~ Are you taking on a request too?"

Macao, one of the guild's core members and a skilled Fire Magic user, threw an arm around Aibo as he stood before the request board and laughed.

"...Uncle Macao, if you call me that stupid nickname again, I'm really going to get mad!"

"Hey, hey, hey! What do you mean, uncle? I'm only twenty-eight! I'm still young!"

Aibo slapped away the large hand rubbing his head and sighed helplessly.

Ever since the guild learned that Aibo had somehow mastered Gildarts's Crush Magic, some busybody had given him the nickname "Little Gildarts." It disgusted him to no end.

Sadly, he was not strong enough to do anything about these drunkard uncles for now. All he could do was write their names down in his little notebook.

"Since I got fined more than a hundred thousand J, I've been thinking about how to make money lately. But after looking around, none of the requests I can take pays much..."

"Haha, you don't need to rush to pay that money back. With your potential, it'll be easy for you to repay it later!"

"It's not that I'm in a hurry to repay it..."

The wizard guilds in this world were somewhat different from the otherworldly adventurer guilds Aibo remembered.

Although wizard guilds had a unified governing body, they basically operated independently, and the requests they handled were highly regional.

Most of the guild's requests came from residents of Magnolia and the surrounding villages.

Generally, only S-Class requests required traveling far from home, and only a handful of guild members could accept those.

There were plenty of dangerous requests, but there were also many simple ones without much difficulty, such as delivering letters or finding cats. Even Aibo could complete those by himself, and the guild master would not stop him from taking them.

But... they did not pay much.

Even after completing those requests, the reward was only a few thousand J, perhaps ten thousand at most. Renting a place outside the dormitory started at sixty or seventy thousand J a month, while buying a house was still a distant dream.

And even if he moved somewhere else and rented a room, that probably would not solve the problem of being disturbed by other people's thoughts at night. At the very least, he would need to buy a large house.

Sigh, what a headache.

"Little Aibo~ C'mon, big sis is taking you out to have some fun!"

Cana came bouncing over, grabbed Aibo's hand, and tried to drag him outside.

I'm taking little brother to meet new friends~ So exciting~

"Huh? Wait, Cana, mmph..."

A peeled orange segment was stuffed into his mouth, and amid Cana's giggles, he was dragged out of the guild.

This was probably another aftereffect of the river explosion incident. Cana had grown increasingly close to Aibo and completely treated him like her own little brother.

No, judging from Cana's thoughts, she had completely decided that Aibo was another one of Gildarts's illegitimate sons.

Aibo had similar cherry-colored hair, had used Gildarts's signature Crush Magic at only six years old, and the guild's shameless uncles kept making ridiculous jokes.

Cana was now utterly convinced that Aibo was her younger half-brother from the same father.

Even... from the thoughts Aibo occasionally overheard by accident, her feelings toward Gildarts had undergone subtle changes as well.

It made Aibo afraid to call Cana "big sister" now. Originally, he had only wanted to become closer to the other children, but now their intimacy seemed in danger of overflowing. Too much was as bad as too little.

Sigh, what a headache.

"Cana, where are you taking me?"

"Honestly, you should call me big sister!"

Cana pinched Aibo's cheek and said with a smile, "Big sister is taking you to meet a new friend. She's one of my best friends. Don't you want to learn more magic, Aibo? Learning all kinds of magical writing is essential, and that big sister can help you."

Although Aibo was currently preoccupied with figuring out how to make money and had pushed magic studies down his list of priorities, he could not reject Cana's kindness...

Cana led Aibo through the town's winding streets to an old bookstore with some years behind it. Before they even entered, she began calling out enthusiastically, "Levy~ Levy~ I brought my adorable little brother over to play!"